Australianisms; more illness; March’s poem

I’ve begun another Peter Temple novel, The Broken Shore. It has a glossary of Australian terms.

Abo. Abbreviation for “Aboriginal.” The usage is derogatory or racist except in Aboriginal English.

Aggro. “Aggression” or “aggressive.” (Just takes two or three drinks, then he gets aggro.)

Ambo. An ambulance or an ambulance worker. (The following sentence is possible: Mate, the last thing I needed was an ambo with an aggro ambo.)

Bickie. A cookie. Abbreviation of biscuit.

Bloodhouse. A hotel known for its fights.

Blow-in. A term of scorn for a newcomer, particularly one who voices an opinion about local affairs or tries to change anything. (Bloody blow-in, what does she know about this town?) [Is Temple a blow-in? He immigrated from South Africa.]

Bludger. Once, a man living off a prostitute’s earnings; now applied to anyone who shirks work, duty or obligation. A dole bludger is someone who would rather live on unemployment benefits than take a job.

Bluey. A workman’s hard-wearing cotton jacket. It can also be a blanket, a cattle dog, or a red-haired person. [Also, a children’s cartoon series on Disney Plus (in the U.S.), and a character therein – a talking dog.]

And so on. A few more:

Hoon. Once a procurer of prostitutes, but now any badly behaved person, usually a young male. Irresponsible young drivers are hoons who go for a hoon in their cars. Mark Twain uses the expression as drunk as hoons in Sketches Old and New, where it presumably derives from “Huns.”

Macca’s. The popular name for McDonald’s. It is also used for anything eaten at McDonald’s. (We had Macca’s for lunch.)

Pommy. Someone from England. The English are often known as Pommy bastards. This has been known to be said affectionately. The term derives from “pomegranate” as rhyming slang for “immigrant.”

Salvo. A member of the Salvation Army. [“Sally” or, less commonly, “Sally Ann” in Britain, Canada, or the U.S.]

Spaggy bol. Spaghetti bolognese. Also called spag bol. Italian immigrants to Australia were once called spags.

Suckhole. A vulgar term for one who curries favor with others, an obsequious person. A future leader of the Australian Labor Party once described those in the Liberal Party who looked to America for leadership as a conga line of suckholes.

Swaggie. An itinerant, a person of no fixed address who carries all his belongings in a swag. (A celebrated note passed to a speaker in the Australian Federal Parliament advising him to change the subject read: Pull out, digger, the dogs are pissing on your swag [other terms not in glossary].) A distinction was formerly made between swaggies and travellers, the latter being people looking for work. The expression Nice day for travelling means: You’re fired.

Temple’s protagonist wasn’t much of a reader until a period of convalescence. Then he read In Cold Blood in a day and a night and The Executioner’s Song in the same amount of time. I don’t believe the part about reading The Executioner’s Song so quickly.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

The boys are on the up (but Daniel sleeps more than usual); Karin, having caught the bug and missed one workday, is on the up; I now am the sickest person in the house. This will be a Mucinex-and-water day for me. I shall try to do some productive coughs.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Dear March – Come in –

How glad I am –

I hoped for you before –

Put down your Hat –

You must have walked –

How out of Breath you are –

Dear March, how are you, and the Rest –

Did you leave Nature well –

Oh March, Come right upstairs with me –

I have so much to tell –

I got your Letter, and the Birds –

The Maples never knew that you were coming –

I declare – how Red their Faces grew –

But March, forgive me –

And all those Hills you left for me to Hue –

There was no Purple suitable –

You took it all with you –

Who knocks? That April –

Lock the Door –

I will not be pursued –

He stayed away a Year to call

When I am occupied –

But trifles look so trivial

As soon as you have come

That blame is just as dear as Praise

And Praise as mere as Blame –

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

(Emily Dickinson)

Four sickies; a recipe

We’re all sick this afternoon. So far, our COVID tests have been negative.

Daniel stayed healthy the longest, but today he’s been snorting and coughing. His mood is good. This might be the very first uninduced illness of his life. (He’s had a few brief fevers, brought on by inoculations.)

Today I’ve had clogged sinuses, a sore throat, aching joints, pain behind the eyes, and lethargy (the earth’s pull has felt stronger than usual). And, unlike Daniel, I’ve been dreading the symptoms that are still to come. And I’ve been thinking about death.

Samuel has got a runny nose and lots of energy for climbing upon his parents. His elbows and knees are especially sharp today.

Karin wavers between feeling well-ish and feeling flattened. She’s missed two days of work.

At such times, it’s good to eat a warm meal that slides comfortably down the throat. Here is my own trusty recipe.

Machines:

• Rice cooker
• Can opener

Ingredients:

• Grits (1.5 cups)
• Butter (1 tablespoon)
• Water A (6 cups)
• Green beans (2 cans)
• Tuna (2 cans)
• Herdez salsa cremosa (especially, one of the cilantro-based flavors; 4 tablespoons)
• Water B (1 glass per person)
• Mucinex (1 tablet per person)

Combine grits, butter, and water A in rice cooker.

Plug in rice cooker.

Close lid over rice cooker.

Place rice cooker on “cook” setting.

Open cans.

Drain liquid from cans. Give tuna water to cats.

When rice cooker switches to “warm” setting, pour mixture into large bowl.

Add green beans, tuna, and salsa cremosa to bowl.

Stir.

Serve warm.

Swallow Mucinex and water B.

Makes two meals. Each has approx. 650 kcals: a little less than a Burger King Whopper, and more filling.

By all means, vary the ingredients however you like; but one-to-four is a good grits-to-water ratio for the rice cooker. The cooked mixture will firm up a bit when you stir it.

Howards End (the book)

Emelec beat Delfín to win the Ecuadorian championship. Barcelona failed to qualify for next year’s Copa Libertadores.

The Oakland Raiders, whom I’ve been casually following this season, came within inches of scoring the touchdown that would’ve kept their playoff hopes alive. Rather than score, they did this.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

The good news is that my health is much restored. My cold lingers but no longer pains me. I’ve been resting at home, drinking water and tea and dosing myself with Mucinex.

Karin, who’s been tending to me, is a little sicker now.

Last Friday night, we went to a birthday party for my dear grandpa (his ninetieth).

Today, the air was rather warm, and I walked for half an hour by the river. I wore a coat that one of my fellow tutors gave to me on the last day of the term.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My newest reading project is Howards End by E.M. Forster. This is the book of the Wilcoxes vs. the Schlegels: the materialistic English vs. the romantic “German” English. The book also depicts a few representatives of the hapless English poor, whose role is to be the grass trampled upon by the two warring upper-class factions.

In limbo

I stayed at home every morning of this week. At bedtime each night, there was no dreading the next day (good). I met my daily writing quota in one attempt of four (not good). (Not terrible, either. My plan is to consistently meet the quota by the end of January.)

Ziva and Jasper are glad to have me more at home. They also are rather wearying in their demands.

Though my priority is to finish the dissertation, I’ve been looking for other jobs. I found a posting for an attractive job at a Purdue campus in the tiny town of Westville, Indiana, between LaPorte and Valparaiso. Karin & I looked at Westville on Google Maps as much as we could. Then, last weekend, we visited in person. It’s a nice-looking little town – as much of it, that is, as we could see (we were there in the dead of night). To the north of the town is the university (mostly parking lots); to the south, a prison. The town also has a Dairy Queen, a Subway, and a McDonald’s. I’m still unsure whether to apply for this job.

We stayed up late that night. Since then, I’ve had a cold. What little relief I’ve enjoyed is due to Mucinex. … Yesterday, Karin & I ate supper with a family from our church, but, due to my cold, I wasn’t my usual bouncy, bubbly self. I soldiered through it, though. The husband works as a graphic designer. I talked to him about fonts for several hours.

I, Claudius, pt. 3

Using Mucinex. Sick since Wednesday. On Thursday, as the temperature was climbing into the forties, Martin and I enjoyed an unexpected snow day. I slept all morning, on the couch.

Tomorrow it will be truly cold, and I expect to be Snowed In again.

Shoppers have been crowding the grocery stores, buying food for this snowstorm and for tonight’s Super Bowl parties. (Ah, yes, the Super Bowl. My policy is to boycott football, but I’ll watch this game.)

Edoarda wants to read I, Claudius — Stephen and I have persuaded her. Our enthusiasm for the book is undiminished, though we haven’t read much more of it. Last night I did get through two other chapters. There were a few more poisonings, and some suicides and banishments (for variety). But not everything was awful. There was a lovely account of little Claudius’s education (in particular, of his earliest forays into historiography). Claudius’s tutors were shrewdly described.

My first Kindle purchase, for my smartphone: Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete ($0.00). Let’s see how much I read of that book.

Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

An awful period of sniffling and coughing and taking Mucinex and walking around with a spittoon, all from having deprived myself of sleep.