SCENE: Top of Milton Road, after the rain.
DURATION: Three minutes. (I checked and double-checked this.)

MY FATHER: Well, the cars aren’t moving at all.
ME: No, because we’re coming up to the Hale Street entrance.
MY MOTHER: “The hills are alive . . .”
ME: Mother.
MY FATHER: There must be some busy road feeding into this.
ME: Yes, Hale Street. It leads to the main road to the Sunshine Coast.
MY MOTHER: “Oh, the buzzing of the bees in the cigarette trees, and the soda-water fountains . . .”
ME: Mother, I know how to make it look like an accident.
MY FATHER: We’ve been stuck here for ages!
ME: It’s been three minutes, and we’re almost at the lights.
MY MOTHER: “Champion, the Wonder Horse!”
ME: Ack!

Notice Nick’s conspicuous silence throughout this.

My mother is an inveterate completer of other people’s crosswords and jigsaws:

MY MOTHER: Well, give me the clue.
ME: No.
MY MOTHER: Oh, go on. Go on!
ME: No.
MY MOTHER: But look what I’m using for a bookmark!
(Holds out a ticket for my graduation ceremony last December)
ME: So because you came to my Ph. D. graduation, I’m now obligated to let you finish my crossword?
MY MOTHER: Yes.
ME: Forever?
MY MOTHER: Yes. So I don’t feel (pause) inadequate and (pause)—I’ll think of another word in a moment. Useless! That’ll do.

As I pick up a newspaper from the back verandah:

MY MOTHER: That’s yesterday’s.
ME: I know. I was going to read the comics. And, anyway, I haven’t done yesterday’s crossword.
MY MOTHER: And then you can check if you got it right in today’s paper.
ME: I know! Immediate gratification.
MY MOTHER: How many letters?

And then the big lizard appeared, also fancying having his photograph taken.

Lizard couchant:

Lizard rampant (well, comparatively):

Looking pugnacious at the sight of the camera:

Sadness when he realises I’m not going away:

Stoic resignation:

Because my mother is turning out to be something of a hit on the blog, I thought I’d add my favourites among thirty-two years’ worth of conversations (well, slightly less than thirty two, practically speaking).

It’s not that my mother is daft, it’s just that she doesn’t always pay attention.

On a long car trip:

MY FATHER: This cassette’s getting very crackly, isn’t it?
MY MOTHER: Well, those trees we’re passing under are probably interfering with the reception.

When I coaxed her out of a dinner party to admire the blue moon (by the popular use of the term, meaning the second full moon in a month):

MY MOTHER (gazing up at the moon): That’s lovely, dear. Now. Where’s the other one?

On a trip to the Snowy Mountains:

MY FATHER: The Snowy River is very low, isn’t it?
MY MOTHER: Well, I imagine it’s low tide.

And my all-time favourite, during the 1996 Olympics:

MY MOTHER: Michael Bolton won the 200m sprint.
ME: I think that’s highly unlikely.
MY FATHER: I think you’ll find that was Michael Johnson.
MY MOTHER: Don’t be ridiculous. Michael Johnson plays basketball.

My mother has always been quite politically engaged (especially on issues such as unions), but less savvy on new technology. These two traits met spectacularly in a conversation last night that made Nick laugh and laugh:

MY MOTHER: And, of course, people are turning against Malcolm Turnbull these days, because they say he spends too much time Twattering.

Except for the Shakespeare-related strange conversation from Christmas, I rarely post the odd conversations I have with my mother, because, as I mentioned in the thread linked above, there’s something about her tone that I can’t get right on the page.

(This, of course, being the mother who used to refer to her Maltese terrier Polly as her “child substitute.” When we pointed out that she does, in fact, already have three children, she’d respond, “Yes, but Polly is the child I wanted.” I think I could make a pretty good case to DOCS on that conversation alone—if I didn’t tell them that Polly later accidentally drowned while my brother and I were taking the dogs for a walk.)

In this instance, we were talking about the fact that my sister, who believes that education is a lifelong process, is now taking French classes. She now tends to speak in French on the phone: Nick nearly hung up on her the other day, because he had no idea who she was.

My mother’s English-schoolgirl French, though, is a little rusty:

MY MOTHER: So, I want to respond in French. And I said to your father, “What would I use? Tu?” And he said, “No, vous. Tu is the familiar form.” So I said, “Well, she is our daughter. How familiar do we need to get?”

Or is there something a little colourless and depressed about frangipani in the rain?

Somehow, I don’t think a flower that expose itself so bravely to bright, fierce sunlight is ever going to look its best in the rain.

Ear infections are horrible. The cold, as well as settling on my chest and giving me a racking cough, has led to a secondary ear infection: a middle-ear infection, no less. Why? I have assessment to mark!

Plus, driving with a raging cold and a burgeoning ear infection is not fun. Driving with a raging cold and a burgeoning ear infection when it’s also pouring with rain is even less fun.

I also find it terribly difficult to concentrate when I’m ill.

When the woman in the chemist recommended that I take some kind of probiotic in conjunction with the antibiotics, to prevent all sorts of unfortunate side effects that I won’t go into here because they’re actually quite horrible, I paid no attention whatsoever.

Partly, it was because she was recommending Inner-health Plus, and I despise their advertising almost as much as I despise Lynx advertising.

(No, that’s not fair: I despise Inner-health Plus advertising in the same way in which I despise Dodo Internet advertising. Seriously, Inner-health Plus, if you’re going to use a seesaw to show how your product “restores balance,” your last shot probably shouldn’t show all the weight resting on one side of the seesaw, you know? And Dodo? The slogan “Internet that flies” is really stupid when your company is named after a famously flightless bird.)

Partly, this was because the illness and the increasing pain in my ear had made me spacey—and the increasing pressure of the infection meant I could only really hear out of one ear, anyway.

But mostly it was because I was suddenly gripped by a terrible fear that “probiotics” and “antibiotics” might just cancel each other out, and I’d be left with this ear infection forever.

See, having someone else take you to the doctor’s isn’t just to stop you from running over pedestrians.

ME: Right, I’m going to hide this copy of Secret Diary Of A Call Girl before my parents arrive.
NICK: Yeah. What would be worse: your parents being offended or your parents wanting to watch it?
ME: Um, my parents wanting to watch it? Obviously?

I mean, is that not a daft question?

I know. I know. And I don’t have anyone to blame but myself.

Well, myself and a combination of the following:

• my parents visiting this week, which necessitates scrubbing out the spare room: it hasn’t been slept in since they visited last December for my graduation, and the dust levels were fairly bad—as you’d expect from a largely unoccupied room containing some thousand-odd books. It also contained the entire contents of the office that I had to give up last semester, so cleaning it wasn’t just cleaning it, but also involved finding space for eight years’ worth of office clutter. But I succeeded! Mostly. I still need to dust and vacuum.

• a hideous cold, which I suspect I caught from either the wizard or the other ranger at last weekend’s Dungeons and Dragons session—I don’t know which, so shall mutter mild imprecations directed at both of them until I feel better. [Slight update: the wizard blames the halfling, but I have my suspicions about the veracity of that.] In the between-mutter spaces, I shall panic about how I’m going to lecture tomorrow, and what the chances of infecting my students are.

• technically, the weekend’s Dungeons and Dragons session was another interruption to ordinary blogging activity, but it was such excellent fun that it doesn’t count.

• interrupted sleep patterns. I think I know, largely, what’s causing them, but last night’s bad night (I didn’t get to sleep until well after three a.m.) was down to this hideous cold’s first symptom, a sore throat beyond any that I have previously experienced. After spending hours trying to beat it into submission with hot tea and my other favourite sore throat remedy (hot water and honey with a tablespoon or two of vinegar), I eventually had to take Panadol—Panadol! for a sore throat!—so I could snatch some sleep.

So now I’m snuffling, feeling sorry for myself, and drinking enormous quantities of tea, but the tidying of the spare room has at least turned up some odd stuff on the shelves.

I see a real post in the future . . .

ME: Friend was complaining (Note: playfully complaining, I hope) that I hadn’t updated the blog today.
NICK: Fair enough.
ME: I updated four times yesterday!
NICK: Well, you have an audience now. That makes a difference.
ME: Oh, god. You mean I have to update more often?
NICK: Treena . . .
ME: ‘Cause it’s a personal blog, and I thought . . .
NICK: Treena, put the bunny down.
(Pause)
ME: Pardon?
NICK: Had a bit of a Con Air moment there.
ME: I wouldn’t hurt a bunny.
NICK: No.
ME: Do you think of me as John Malkovich?
NICK: Yes.

ME: Why are you so wet?
NICK: Because it’s hot.
ME: No, but your hair. Why is your hair so wet?
NICK: Oh, that. Because I had a shave.
(Pause)
ME: Honey?
NICK (distracted by moving objects on the screen): Yep?
ME: Your beard’s on the front, you know.
NICK: Yep.
(Pause)
NICK: What?