Life + Times of Fenton et al.

  • Micah Reads ‘Big Little’

    Micah loves books and puzzles. Here he is with one of his favourite books that he can ‘read’ himself. The funny, sort of scrunched up face he pulls is his deliberate smiling face. 🙂

  • Celia Lashlie: The World of Boys and Men

    Recently, I had the opportunity to listen to Celia Lashlie give a public lecture at ANU entitled The World of Boys and Men. Though I have lived in this world for a while, I thought it would be useful to get an outsider’s point-of-view, to be reminded of how my own boys sometimes see things and pick up any insights she might have gained. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to give a full account of the talk and so, instead, for those interested in helping to raise successful men, I offer below an unedited copy of my own notes taken.

    • ‘I get annoyed when …’ puts it on yourself rather than ‘You should …’ which puts it on him.
    • Boys tend to ignore women’s voices because they have heard many negative comments throughout their lives since there were small — often from others who do not need to pass judgements — that they aren’t okay being who they are. a-la 2 year old misbeaving in public.
    • Once they are 12 — 13 they turn off until ~24.
    • Note:
      • women think and talk at the same time, thinking out loud
      • men think and then talk — note the gap — and women prefer to fill the gap.
    • Often the thinking on the part of men in response to an ‘uh oh’ question[1] is to pick the words that get him out of trouble.[2]
    • Women consider externally and men consider internally. Wait for them to consider! In both cases!
    • Boys make 30 second decisions.
    • Men have intuition — just use it differently.
    • Take in information from 2 years old -> 12 — 13 and then process.
    • 12 — 13 slow down; the laziness is wanting to slow the world down and is aware of the end of adolescence, the world is changing.
    • Slow down means getting through with “Don’t know” or “No” and will wait for a woman to answer her own question.
    • Boys know through observation how things are. Example!
    • Relationships — the essence of life — will keep boys safe.
    • In communicating, learn to wait for answers, don’t fill the gap nor provide answers or options. Let them think and talk and don’t let them off the hook by doing those earlier things. Look directly at them.
    • They already know right from wrong so need to prod their intuition — simply need to remind them without your own emotional insecurities.
    • Parents (mothers?) have checklist of things to talk about during adolescence and avoid segueing to it.
    • Ask them by stating own views and giving them time to think abou it and then being prepared for their answers.
    • Nothing if not pragmatic!
    • Pragmatism drives many actions and communications
    • They must experience consequences to learn.
    • Set the line and let him find it.
    • Link action and consequences — his pragmatic nature will drive the results.

    [1] She explained that an ‘uh oh’ question is typically one of deeper significance that usually has the man mentally responding with an ‘uh oh’.

    [2] It reminded me of one of my favourite illustrative stories, The Difference Between Men and Women.

  • Control Room Envy

    I know it’s something straight out of the 70s but Nuclear Physics Control Room seems so much cooler than the Heliac’s.

  • In this house …

    I’m not much one for interior design — and the world is generally very grateful — but when I see something like this I want to have it in my own house[1].

    [1] And we’d like to have our own house.

  • 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!