Life + Times of Fenton et al.

Year: 2011

  • Wedding, Pregnancy and Wait, What??

    Just what is the cosmic message this magazine rack is trying to get across?

  • The Status Quo: June 2011

    While there hasn’t been anything major of note happening of late there are plenty of day-to-day events that make up our lives and I thought a post about some of them might be informative.

    The children have largely resumed their activities, some as before and others trying new things. Joshua is still working on his creative side, making videos, learning guitar and writing jokes. Elijah is playing another season of rugby with his former club and Mara is, surprisingly, dancing ballet again. Ariana has taken up learning tennis on Saturday mornings and Bryna has continued on with her ballet lessons as well. And Micah, well, he is just enjoying himself and hanging out with his siblings who, needless to say, adore him.

    We’ve slowly been reconnecting with old (I won’t say former!) friends in Canberra. It’s good to see them again and, in some cases, see how much they have grown in the time we have been away. Some, in the case of the children’s friends, have grown up and some, in the case of Fenton’s friends, have grown out. All of Gaynor’s friends remain as fabulous as the day she met them. Since we now have a place and with our belongings having returned from their own adventures we are gradually inviting friends over to reacquaint them with Gaynor’s cooking. And because she’s picked up all sorts of new recipes and ideas from her travels, the meals are more superb than ever.

    You’d think that a move back to your native country would mean that something like a driver’s licence would be a simpler process, right? However, if you are Joshua, and have your licence from California, you are generally back in the Awkward Basket for a bureaucrat. So, despite having passed his California’s driving test and driving there for a number of months with a few restrictions — essentially equivalent to a Provisional Licence in Australia — the Powers That Be decreed firstly, that he would need to start with a Learner’s Permit but could count his start date from his Californian licence. Then after we organised that, with it’s attendant classes and exams, they said he’d have to be on it for the full six months before he could take his driving test. We wrote a letter pointing out our case — we were fine for him to do a driving exam since it is the other side of the road and he’d mostly driven automatic transmission equipped cars in the US — but they stuck by their second assessment. (Why couldn’t it have been the first one that we were happy with?) Of course, his case wasn’t helped by the fact that the Californian DMV failed to issue anything other than a paper, temporary licence before we left the US. It did, after all, take them 18 months to renew Gaynor’s. : Anyway, he’s eligible to take the test in October.

    Finally, as previously mentioned, housing prices in Canberra are even higher than other major cities in Australia. Despite this, Gaynor and I believe now is as good a time as any to take the plunge into home ownership. Mostly this means we would prefer to put our money into our own home and not someone else’s pocket and this is the first opportunity that we’ve realistically been able to do that. We’ll be looking for a house we can fit into — though it may be a bit of a squeeze — that will require some renovation work. A single income in Canberra doesn’t make this an easy proposition but, then again, we’ve never really been big fans of ‘easy’ 🙂 So even though we may end up with a dump, at least it will be our dump.

  • Mara Expresses Herself via Interpretive Planking

    Actually, not so much planking as it is a lay-in protest against having to clean the kitchen.

  • The 60s Kombi Van of Microwave Ovens

    Gaynor’s children decorated her Mother’s Day gift as a tribute to her hippie tendencies.

  • First Few Days Back in Australia

    It always feels like a major logistical exercise to get the whole family and carefully chosen belongings from one continent to the next but it is such a great feeling to finally arrive and be met by good friends and family. Even tired and in a new time zone the relief is noticeable. Though the flights from Los Angeles to Canberra are not the longest trip we have taken — Brisbane to Singapore to Amsterdam to Jülich totalled 24 hours of actual travel time from airplane door to house door, not counting any layovers or stops — they are long enough to give one that awake-and-functioning-at-3am feeling. As we’ve said before, the children really are excellent travellers, handling the trip very well and now some are older getting fifteen suitcases through the various airports wasn’t as hard as it might have been.

    Micah Tows the BagThough (Because?) he is tired after the flight into Sydney, Micah insists on pulling his own bag through a busy terminal.

    Unlike previous moves, we had actually already purchased a suitable van before we arrived — many thanks to Gaynor’s father for his excellent car hunting and repairing skills. Because of it’s shape, family members had dubbed it the Fat Green Wombat. Consequently, we had an 8-seater to get us home from the airport, along with friends and families’ cars, and by ‘home’ here we mean Tamara and Troy’s recently completed lovely, new house. They had already generously agreed to a 160% increase in their household size while we found a place of our own. Considering the cousins had never really spent much time in each other’s company and being thrown in such close quarters for extended periods, they all got along as if they were old friends.

    Having the Fat Green Wombat also meant we were able to easily get out and about house hunting. We knew the rental market would be tough — we even made an application to rent before we left the US — but it still took us a solid month to have an application accepted[1]. Even though the house is the upper end of what we felt we could afford, it is in a pretty good location, easy walking distance to a good set of shops and bus stops, and is fairly large. At least it seemed large when we walked through it and didn’t have much furniture to put in it. We’ll see how long it feels that way 🙂

    Our plan (and hard work) to pack up, leave the house in California and ship our things before Christmas paid off with most[2] of our stuff arriving about two weeks after we moved into the new place. Again, it is like Christmas all over again but you are opening the old and familiar, the known and loved. And because these objects have survived (most of them) moving, now literally, around the world you know they are things we really want to keep. That makes it even more enjoyable. 🙂 So, once again, we have the essentials and will work on replacing a few more of the nicer, but less essential, items over the next several months. Oh, and double thumbs up to Tamara who did a great job of picking up or saving items like dining table and chairs, mattresses and beds, kitchen equipment and even a television to mean that we had many things from the start. Thanks also to some new friends who felt they could donate a no longer needed washing machine (front loader and large — perfect!) and a single bed.

    Finally, even though the Fat Green Wombat is great to get us all around, I decided another motorcycle would fit my daily commuting bill nicely. I mean, being the slave to financial rationalism that I am, it only makes economic sense![3]

    Back to the Future BikeBack on a bike — a 1985 GSX 750 S Katana — with a few minor things to do but she goes fine.

    [1] Technically, we were accepted to rent a house that was not in an area we really wanted to live and wasn’t available until March. We applied because we were feeling pressure to find something. In the end, Gaynor took a gamble that we would find something sooner and in our preferred area and she was right (though a bit more stressful at times).

    [2] Unfortunately, at least two boxes and half our chairs didn’t make it. The shipping company said we could fill out an insurance claim but the deductible is basically the replacement cost and the monetary value of some of the lost goods is much less than the sentimental value. Gaynor is not happy. Oh, and when I say ‘half our chairs’ I don’t mean ‘half the number of chair’ I mean, since the chairs were disassembled for shipping, the back half of the dining chairs didn’t make it. So now we have 8 seats and pairs of front legs. I guess I’ll make them into a dining bench or some such thing.

    [3] Yes, I already know how dangerous they are — I have clocked over eleven years as a daily rider, a number of them on the gnarly southern Californian freeways — but I do appreciate your concern. Seriously.

  • Last Few Days in California

    Having been officially homeless since a little before Christmas, we’ve relied on the generosity of family and friends to keep a roof over our heads. Though we discussed many possible exit strategies — having to balance such things as the actual departure date, remaining commitments at work, when to ship household items, what shouldn’t be shipped as it would be needed and when and how to sell four vehicles — it always turns out a bit crazy in the end.

    Since we had planned for some time to spend Christmas with family in Utah and, given that it would take two to three months for our household goods to be shipped to Australia, we thought it a good idea to move out before Christmas. And that’s about when it became a bit busy. Gaynor and the children drove up a few days before the closing date for the house, leaving myself and a number of volunteering friends to ship, sell, give-away, donate or discard what remained of our possessions, as well as to clean and make minor repairs to the house. I never would have made the deadline were it not for those very good friends who pitched in when it was needed the most and to them I extend my gratitude once again.

    Everything Must Go!After weeks of selling and giving away over half our worldy possessions, what remains is filed for future archeologists.

    I flew up to Utah on Christmas Eve to join the family and had a wonderful time over that break, especially since I didn’t have to get rid of anything else, enjoying time with Martin and his lovely family. Gaynor and the children, with the exception of Elijah, sojourned in sunny, snowy Utah for the month following while I returned to southern California in the New Year for the last few weeks of work. The children really got on very well with their cousins and Gaynor kept her sanity by crocheting and cooking. Stacie was pleased to have her own personal cook and highlights of the stay included ice skating with the Parkers, bowling with Erin and spending time again with Donovan. Meanwhile, Elijah had worked on convincing his parents that he desperately needed to spend more time with his friends in southern California before settling across the Pacific and, with plenty of good people willing to take him off our hands and some to drive him back down, we relented with a few specific instructions designed to ease the stay.

    After what seemed like ages but at the same time passed very quickly, Gaynor and the children, with Joshua doing most of the driving, travelled back down to California for a few more days before flying out from Los Angeles. We’re grateful to our close friends who not only provided places to stay for us and our belongings but also decided to throw us a farewell party. It was lovely to see good friends one more time, for what might be a while, and to receive and give well wishes. Of course, they may have also been looking forward to the even bigger party that was sure to be thrown just after we left. In these days of web logs, Facebook, email and Skype staying in touch is far, far easier that ever before — so no excuses people! — but we’ll still greatly miss the times spent in the company of fine friends.

    The About-to-be-Dearly DepartedA final photo with our good friends who came along to make sure we left the country — they even provided the required convoy of vehicles to the airport, just to be extra certain. Thanks!

  • Together for Gaynor's 40th

    After a time apart, we are reunited to celebrate Gaynor’s birthday at one of our preferred restaurants in California.

  • So, Where Are You From?

    During our trip up to Vancouver, we visited the excellent Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. There most of us joined a tour run by a volunteer with a group of a dozen or so. To break the ice a little the tour guide introduced herself and then asked where people were from. A couple from the UK, some from the US and then she got to Ariana who just went, ‘Errr …’ and looked up at me, a little lost. I said that we were Australian by way of California and that seemed sufficient. In discussing it with Ariana later, she confided that she thought about saying Australia, Germany and/or California — and while in some sense we are from each of those places — none of them were particularly accurate.

    That got me to thinking a little about cultural identity and, well, what exactly is ours? At the time we were in Vancouver I posted this status update on Facebook: “Fenton thinks that a family from California who has lived longest in Canberra — watching in their motel in Vancouver — supporting Queensland beat NSW can’t possibly be confused about their cultural identity.”

    I think that, for us, we are a little bit of each culture we have lived in and embraced, to the extent of those things we adopted. So, I know Gaynor[1] and I quite like lighting a candle on a Weihnachtskranz and singing a hymn each week in the four weeks leading up to Christmas. The children are fond of Halloween (though not quite as much as Karneval where the sweets come to you) and we all seem to enjoy Thanksgiving. I think these are traditions that we’ll bring back to Australia with us and enjoy for years to come.

    However, more subtle and powerful are the effects on our understanding, our world view and our character. I believe that the particular ways that different cultures perceive things alters your own point of view, however minutely, to the extent that you come to understand the people. Of course, not everything you find is worth picking up but just being exposed to an alternative is usually beneficial. Perhaps one of the main benefits for us has been an increase in tolerance for different ways of doing things. Having now lived in three education systems, three health care systems and three political systems, we occasionally remind the children that sometimes some ways are better, sometimes they are worse and sometimes they are just different.

    Recognising that your own eyes have been opened to an alternative way is not always apparent — can’t see the forest for the trees, I expect — but you can clearly see that recognition in someone else’s reaction when you expose them to something new, something they hadn’t previously known or considered. We’ve enjoyed doing that for people met in other cultures and I’ve enjoyed being on the receiving end, however difficult it might have been to adjust perceptions and thinking at the time.

    In the end, our family’s culture derives largely from the sum of our experiences — just as for everyone — though I guess our experiences have, perhaps, included exposure to more alternative ways of doing things than might otherwise have been the case if we had stayed put. I think we are better for it, even given some of the discomfort that came along with it. And to answer the original question, I think we are from a bit of lots of places now. Now the question, ‘Where do you belong?’, well … that’s a bit trickier.

    [1] Gaynor has her own whole range of culinary traditions and experiences that she has embraced, including picking up her very own raclette grill in Germany.

  • Ballet Life

    Hey, this is Mara. Dad told me to write a blog to update all people on my dancing. First of all, for those of you who don’t already know, I got my first pair of pointe shoes in February. Secondly, I was at the highest level at my ballet school in California. Also, that a month ago I was cast in BRAVA’s Nutcracker.

    Pointe shoes are a pretty simple concept. They are ballet shoes designed so you can stand, literally, on your toes. Or, in other words, alot of pain. When you first start dancing on pointe, all you really do is go up, and come down. As you advance the more complicated the steps on pointe become. After about four months in the beginning class, I moved to the next one. And a couple of months after that, I moved on to the last level. The ultimate goal of pointe work is to be able to do 32 fuete turns en pointe. (If you don’t know what those are, google it.)

    My ballet school had six levels, six being the most advanced. I started in level three and after two years, I was in level six. Mind, you that moving that quickly isn’t very common. I spent the first six months in level three, relearning the basics. After that, I was in level four for about four months. Level five is where a lot of dancers at the studio stay, or they quit. After only four months in that class, I was promoted to level 5/6. This meant that I took both classes for five and classes for six. After about four months I dropped level five, and I was on top of the world. That is where I left off.

    Nutcracker is a famous ballet with music composed by Tchaikovsky. 2010 was the second year I was in it, however, it was with a new company. And by new, I mean new. New costumes, dancers, stage, choreography, and director. I was cast as a Courtier Lady and as part of the corpse de ballet for Waltz of the Flowers. In the end I had very sore feet and I was very tired. I had a total of (I think) ten people come to see me dance. It all worked out great and I got to wear an amazing costume.

    All in all, my dancing experience in California has been great. I would like to thanks my parents for all the time and effort they put in to get me there, back, and fed. And I would like for all of you to have the opportunity to see me dance, sometime.

    Love Mara

    Got to dance, even (especially!) around the house, though not always in full gear.

  • Go Further West!

    If you haven’t heard already, we are planning on moving the family further west, back to Canberra. This will complete our first[1] round-the-world odyssey, begun in February 2005 with the move to Germany and continued in August 2007 with the shift to southern California. I’ve been offered a position within the Research School of Physics and Engineering at the Australian National University, working on plasma diagnostics in the same lab in which I performed my thesis work.

    In many ways it is a mixed bag of feelings. To be leaving the wonderful friends we have made here is, of course, difficult but we are excited to be moving closer to family and to renew old friendships. Naturally, we expect the culture to be very familiar but even if it hasn’t changed much, we have. It should make for an interesting mix of old and new.

    Sorting out the children’s formal education, especially that of the oldest four, will also add interest to the move. Since we are shifting hemispheres — and thus back to an academic year of February to December — some children who went back six months in the move to the northern hemisphere should be going forward and vice versa. So, Joshua should be starting Year 12, even though he has just finished the first half of Year 11 here. To complicate matters, we’d like Elijah to start Year 11 (six months ahead of where he is now and a year ahead of where he would be if we’d stayed in Australia) and Mara has been doing Year 10, same as Elijah, after skipping Year 9 here. I guess we’ll have her start Year 10 again and have Ariana start high school. I think this puts them both a year ahead of their same-aged Australian friends[2]. Of course, the actual schools they end up at largely depends on where we end up living exactly.

    And that brings me to the cost of housing in Canberra. Either to rent[3] or to buy[4], I mean, what the?! Gaynor is keen to buy a place and I expect we’ll look for something small and old to improve or some land to build our own. Of course, we’ll see how it goes and, at the very least, we are moving to a place where we mostly know the infrastructure, have good friends and family and will be back in a culture we (hopefully, possibly) understand.

    Essentially, it comes down to this: After eighteen years of marriage and six children we are feeling like settling down — for a little while at least.

    [1] Who knows if it will be our only?
    [2] Ariana has a friend who has also gone ahead a year so she’ll, at least, have someone familiar.
    [3] As at the March quarter of 2009 the median rent in Canberra was $420 per week, the third highest in the country.
    [4] The median house price in Canberra as of September 2009 was $511,820, lower than only Sydney among capital cities of more than 100,000 people.