Book report 4

Cod: A Biography of the Fish by Mark Kurlansky
My sister, Piglet, read this as part of her Master's in Public History and bought it for me for Christmas.  While you might not expect a great book about a bottom-dwelling fish, it was an engrossing read.  I had no idea how many historical events or symbols in our culture have their origins in cod fishing.  As one of the first foods that could be preserved and shipped, it was instrumental in exploration of the globe, the colonies in North America developing the means for independence, and the modernisation of Iceland.

Sadly, cod, once thought inexhaustible in supply, are staring at extinction thanks to unsustainable fishing practices.  Throughout the book, I just kept being reminded of Eating Animals, the book I read by Jonathan Foer a little over a year ago that converted me to vegetarianism.  Because of artificially low prices achieved by "efficient" yet inhumane factory farming practices, developed countries are consuming astronomically more meat per capita than at any other time in history.  Of course, developing nations, looking to us as an example, see meat consumption as a sign of having made it and are quickly attempting to follow suit.

There are a number of other reasons not to eat meat produced this way, like the substitution of low-paid workers for skilled butchers and farmers (resulting in unhappy workers who abuse animals or make simple errors that result in unnecessary suffering for the animals), up to 20% of slaughtered animals that are inedible due to defects created by the drugs designed to speed their life cycle, the use of land that could produce more value through farming of other food products, and the actual waste products created by the production of so much meat that are difficult to dispose of.  All of this so that we can have meat that costs less than it should.  When I see that a 12-piece bucket of chicken costs $10 at KFC, I want to scream.  Meat produced in sensible, humane ways would cost more, but then we'd consume a reasonable amount and see fewer of the side effects that make eating animals so inefficient.  And maybe we'd see a drop in heart disease  and obesity, too.

A lot of people have asked whether I will remain a vegetarian during my pregnancy.  So far, I've had fish three times, but in fishing towns where I cross my fingers and hope it's local catch, and kangaroo once.  In most rural towns, the choices are chicken, steak, or fish, and salad is just seen as dressing for one of those options.  Kangaroo is about the most environmentally sustainable source of red meat available, so I don't mind indulging in that every once in a while.  Other than that, there are just too many reasons not to eat meat that outweigh the occasional craving for a big ol' cheeseburger.

The Spinoza Problem by Irvin Yalom
My friend, Anna, who is a psychiatrist and fellow non-fiction enthusiast recommended this author.  He is a psychiatrist who writes historical novels on the side; you know, one of those annoying people who manages to do two things well while I have trouble finding two matching socks.  To be fair, his attempts to incorporate the historical facts are sometimes a bit rough, usually through awkward dialogue or "memories", but that seems like a tough thing to do well, particularly with abstract concepts like philosophy.

This book alternates chapters about Spinoza, an excommunicated Jewish philosopher living in Amsterdam in the 1500s, with ones about Rosenberg, the anti-Semitic party philosopher for the Nazis.  Spinoza felt that the only higher power that existed was knowledge of how the natural world operated.  Given that he came along not long after Copernicus and Galileo were ostracised for discussing properties of the natural world, he was pretty ballsy to publish a book deriding religion as superstition and living openly as an atheist.  It was interesting to read about how virtually impossible it was to live as an atheist in a time when all of the laws and structures of society, even in the liberal Netherlands, required putting you into one religious bucket or another.

The tragic Rosenberg spent his life wringing his hands over why Hitler didn't pay more attention to his crazy ass and fretting over how Spinoza could have such genius ideas that had such a major impact on his hero, Goethe, when he was of inferior Jewish descent.  He's probably the only person chosen as a defendant in the Nuremberg Trials who was pleased, just because it meant he was taken seriously for once.  He must have been doubly pleased to be convicted and hanged.  

How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran
I can't remember where I read the review that said I had to buy this book right away, but I'm glad I did.  I had never heard of Caitlin Moran, but apparently she's a moderately famous music critic for the BBC.  This book begins with a heavy focus on amusing, but sometimes touching, anecdotes from her coming of age as one of seven siblings growing up very poor and home-schooled in English council housing.  It's like she's trying to hook you before wading in deeper to her feminist views.  I enjoyed both aspects of the book, but then again, I agreed with 90% of what she was saying.  Even when she was working through thoughts I've had myself, she did it in such an engaging way or presented some new facet that made them interesting.  When I finished reading the book, I immediately looked at what else was available by her, which has to be the best endorsement of all.

Eyre Peninsula

One of many sunsets

We've spent the last week working our way around the Eyre Peninsula wondering who owns the beach houses in the little "towns" we run across since this seems a long way from anywhere for regular holidays.  For my birthday, we stayed in Elliston, one of the bigger towns, where we were lucky it was Friday night since that meant the pub was serving dinner.  There were no other dining options, unless you count half-price donuts at the bakery before they closed at 3:30 pm.  It was parma night at the pub, although other options included steak and fish.  The rural folk just don't do vegetarian, so I opted for fish and hoped it was locally caught.  It's been a week since my birthday now, and I'm still stalking a piece of chocolate cake.

For the most part, the fact that this peninsula is largely uninhabited suits us just fine.  We take Turquey down roads not intended for vehicles built over 20 years ago and camp wherever we like.  It seems safe to disregard "no camping" signs when you're 50 km down a washboard road and haven't seen a human in three days.

Who says 4WD only?

The Mud Maps program Eric bought shows us lots of little places to visit along the way to break up the monotony of one gorgeous, deserted beach after another.

Sea cave

Lions of the sea

In our surfing atlas, this area is listed as "The Avoid Coast" due to the prevalence of great white sharks.  Eric has gone out twice as I anxiously watched from shore, ready to sound the alarm.  Of course, there are a lot of dolphins in the area, too, so I have to swallow my terror after seeing the first fin and wait to see if it has friends and comes up regularly for air.  We've see dolphins at least every other day; I just wish they were more willing to pose for pictures.

We seem to have left emu country, which is a relief.  They are fun to watch, but they tend to panic and run along the road right in front of your car for a ways instead of just exiting to the other side.

Emus are not very bright

Now we're just killing a few more days at the beach before hitting Ceduna for our 16-week baby checkup and then it's off across the Nullarbor.

Flinders Ranges

Abandoned sheep station

Flinders Ranges was my favourite spot we’ve visited so far, although I think I would have felt very differently if we’d visited in summer when it’s over 40 degrees most days.  In fact, the major walking track that runs through the entire park is only open from April-November as the remainder of the year the risk of snakebite, bushfire, and dehydration is just too high.

Instead, we had mild temperatures during the day, which we paid for with near-freezing temperatures at night.  I felt like a Mongolian steppe person huddled under all of our blankets, spooning in the foetal position for warmth.

The scenery was just so dramatic: red hills in which the lines of rock give clear evidence of the plate collisions and glaciers that shaped them, contrasted with green scrubs and gum trees.  I’m not particularly interested in geology, but even I take notice when told a rock formation is 610 million years old.  I guess not many Creationists make it out this way…

We did several nice walks, although Eric took the extended route on one for a 21 km death march that I opted out of.  On the last hike, we found some really interesting skeletons that Eric assured me no one wanted to see photos of.  One was a feral cat that looked like it died mid-chase, and another was a kangaroo that clearly got caught up in a flash flood and wrapped around a rock in the riverbed. 

Mary's wee Flinders Ranges hike

Eric's Flinders Ranges Expedition

Wilpena Pound, named because they used it as a massive sheep pen

We did see a live kitten running around one evening.  Even though I knew it was a nasty, feral killer of native wildlife, I still wandered around meowing for a while.  I made pad thai for dinner that night and asked Eric to dump the leftover sauce near the van in case the fishiness attracted the cat.  No luck.

The campground was overrun with emus.  I was laying in the hammock reading one afternoon, and a couple wandered by not realising I was there.  They make the weirdest sound, like an old deck of cards being shuffled.  Maybe they’re constantly resettling their wings?  They look awkward running, but the must be fast, because a chorus of dingos kept me from leaving the van for a wee at night.

Baby emu in our campsite

On our drive out of the park, we saw the largest mob of kangaroo we’ve ever seen.  There must have been several hundred of them moving east to west, jumping in front of cars willy nilly.  They just aren’t very smart animals.  We came very near to a collision as we rounded a corner and were tense for the next 30 km or so.  It would be a bummer to kill an animal, but it would be an even bigger bummer to clean it off the front of the van.

The first town we hit was having a community garage sale, which meant that they gave you a map to various houses with shit for sale in their lawns.  Although most of it should have been binned, I did get lucky and find an old bike my size for $50.  It needs a good clean, but it was nice to be on wheels again as I took it for a test drive up and down the main road.

This morning we got up early (for us, 7:30), to get into Whyalla for a tour of the steelworks.  Whyalla is the third largest town in South Australia, entirely due to the shipyard and then steelworks that have been in operation since the 1930s.  When you realise that you can see most of the town from the top of a small hill, it becomes apparent that Australia really is pretty empty.

Whyalla steelworks

As we drove down the road looking for breakfast (one place was open at 8 am), Eric noticed a small shopfront with the name of a company with which he worked very closely in Melbourne.  A quick investigation established that a friend, Abhay, has been here for the past six months.  We met up for lunch after the steelworks tour, and then he generously gave us his bed after a BBQ on his seaside deck. 

It was good to stretch our conversational limbs to chat with his two roommates, both mining engineers.  It’s an interesting industry that brings a bunch of single guys together in such a remote place.  Abhay recently got married, but his wife is finishing a Master’s degree in Melbourne.  Julian, his Colombian roommate, works in Whyalla for eight days, then rides his motorcycle four hours to Adelaide to catch a flight home to his girlfriend in Sydney for six days.  Only Matt, who is from northern New South Wales, doesn’t spend much time travelling “home” somewhere.

Despite having strong ties elsewhere, we were really impressed by how much Abhay has done to make a life here in the middle of nowhere.  He asked around and found a private art teacher to instruct him in painting.  From her, he learned about this retired trainer who runs a gym in his house. He and Matt work out there regularly now, and the guy took them fishing.  He also bought a keyboard and a drum set to learn some musical skills.

I've been sleeping with Willie Nelson

This is Willie Nelson.

Willie was for sale for $1 at a junk shop, which seemed like a bargain for what I think is an endangered species.  The slight odour of old ladies and their cigarettes was just a free bonus.  We’re a bit worried we’ll get stopped trying to get into national parks since they don’t allow dogs and cats, but so far there haven’t been any issues.  Eric is already displaying his tendency to be a protective father; we were discussing getting some fly nets so that we could leave the back door open, but Eric is concerned Willie will try to escape.

It’s been a week of nature encounters that people probably think happen every day in Australia.  Our last night on the Fleurieu Peninsula we camped at a beach with a flock of at least 200 galahs.  Galahs are my favourite bird, basically a pink cockatoo.  I probably only see a few a month most of the time, and I’ve never seen more than a few together.  Like cockatoos, they have such personality, and I just watched them chase and preen each other for ages.  I never got bird watchers in the US, but Australia has the most amazing, brightly coloured, exotic birds just hanging around. 

After a brief visit to the lovely beaches just south of Adelaide, we moved on to the Yorke Peninsula, where we are concerned there might have been a zombie invasion.  Most of the peninsula is just brown, barren farm land, and we kept driving through villages with absolutely no sign of life.  For two nights we camped on our own private beach infested with seals and dolphins.  I spent part of a day wandering up and down the beach in my bra and underwear – somehow my bikini doesn’t fit so well these days – confident only animal eyes could see me.  Anyway, the seals were engaged in some kind of orgy just off the beach, so I’m pretty sure they weren’t paying attention.

Next we stayed at Innes National Park for two nights, where we saw exactly one other couple and a handful of surfers.  Eric has been making me play frisbee with him every evening, and one night a small mob of kangaroo crept closer and closer throughout our game.  It was pretty clear they wanted to play but were trying to figure out why I kept throwing the thing into trees and bushes.  Before he hopped off, the big guy couldn’t have been more than 10 feet away from me.

The area is also full of emus.  You can't drive too quickly, because they loiter in the middle of the road and aren't alarmed at all at vans speeding toward them.  We were on a hike one afternoon and came upon two in the middle of the trail.  They're quite big and intimidating, so we gave them time to finish pecking at the ground and move along.  

The best, though, was when Eric was surfing one morning.  The biggest pod of dolphins I’ve ever seen, at least 50 or 60 of them, was cruising up and down the long beach, fishing, surfing, and just generally carrying on.  At one point, at least 30 of them caught a single wave together, and they looked like they were flying.  I watched from the beach as they worked their way slowly toward Eric, expecting that they’d avoid him by at least a few feet, but they didn’t seem to take any notice of him as they swam all around and under him.  It was amazing to watch, although I think I would have been at least a little bit nervous.  That’s just a lot of animal flesh.  Eric said he almost fell off his board and was worried he’d hit one and frighten it.

It’s tough watching from the sidelines.  We left the bikes in Melbourne since we figured my days on a road bike with tiny tires and clip in pedals were limited, and the pump, kit, shoes, etc. take up a lot of space.  We also left behind my surfboard and wetsuits, neither of which I could get into at this point anyway.  I’ve never been the girlie who watched from the beach; it’s a lame role, and I don’t even look good in a bikini while I’m doing it. 

Being jealous that I couldn’t be in the water molesting sea life lead to a general bout of feeling sorry for myself.  One of the things I worried about before falling pregnant was losing my identity, a lot of which is wrapped up in the things that I do.  I just don’t see that I’m going to fit in ten hours or more on the bike a week once I have an infant hanging off my boob.  If my boobs get much bigger than this while breastfeeding, I’ll fall off the damn bike anyway.

 It seems like after you have a baby you go from being “Mary” to “Sea Monkey’s Mum”.  I’m sure that is its own wonderful, fulfilling thing, but it’s a bit hard to imagine at the moment.  I know it sounds selfish, but I can’t imagine I’m the only expectant mother to have the occasional moment of panic about what life is like on the other side.

Of course, it’s not like I’d change anything either.  At the moment, we’re about an hour away from our 12 week ultrasound.  I’ve been counting the days since we made the appointment 2.5 weeks ago, and I tossed and turned all night.  Again, I can’t be the only crazy pregnant lady who lives in fear of finding out that the little guy has given up in there.  Of my five friends who have had babies in the last year or are currently pregnant, that’s happened to two of them.  Both of those amazing ladies rebounded and had healthy second pregnancies, but I’m not sure I can go through this whole thing again if this one doesn’t work out.  After my last post, I’ve had some pretty rough days again, and I have to say I really hate being pregnant.  Like, a lot.  I was walking back to the van from a campground pit toilet one rough evening last week and saw a jagged piece of glass lying in the grass.  I never would have done it, but I had a brief glimpse of why people cut themselves just to feel something else.

Well, that ended on a downer.  Sorry about that.  I’m really not mentally ill.  Well, not any more than usual.  I’m probably just missing Willie Nelson, who we left in the van since we’re staying in a hotel in Adelaide near the doctor’s office. 

***UPDATE***

The doctors' appointments went much better than expected and definitely gave me a little boost.  It's unbelievable how much detail they can show in an ultrasound for something that is only the size of a peach.  We saw arms, legs, a brain, the spine and ribs, a cute little button nose.  Sea Monkey had two fists trying to punch his/her way out, but I reckon that was a reaction to being constrained for over an hour by my very full bladder.  It's creepy to me that it's always in there, though, even when we're not peeking at it.  It's a good thing it's not very smart yet, or I'd have to swallow a book.

By the afternoon appointment, they had already combined the results from the blood tests and the ultrasound to give us a risk assessment for various chromosomal abnormalities, including Down's syndrome.  Typically, you're considered high risk if you're over 35, and since I turn 36 in 10 days, I'm right on the boundary.  If the  risk assessment at 12 weeks indicates a high likelihood of abnormalities, the next step is to have a giant needle stuck into the womb closer to 20 weeks.  Unfortunately, that carries a 1/200 risk of inducing a miscarriage, so you really only take that step if there are serious concerns.  

However, at a BBQ back in Melbourne, a doctor friend told us about this new blood test that extracts the baby's DNA from the mother's blood to safely test for abnormalities.  It's only been in use for about a year and is only available in the US, so it's not yet covered by Medicare, our national health insurance, and costs $1,250.  

We had lined up the referral to do that if our risk assessment was unfavourable, but the results looked really good.  For the three abnormalities assessed, the average risk of someone my age is about 1/300 babies born with an issue.  Mine was 1/3,000+.  I'd like to attribute that to years of getting up before sunrise to exercise, but it's probably just dumb luck.  Anyway, that's $1,250 we can spend on beer and blow now - hooray!

Our afternoon appointment was with the most thorough doctor we've seen yet.  We really appreciated all of the unsolicited information he provided and the additional time he spent talking with us, particularly as our appointment began 15 minutes before the office closed.  His wife had their first child a couple of years ago, so I think some things were fresh in his mind.  However, I reckon he had her encased in a giant bubble he pushed around.  He was not impressed at all with our plans and basically chastised us for being irresponsible.  We kind of expect that from every doctor, though, so we just had a good laugh after.  

The doctor would have been really unimpressed if he'd seen me last night trying to eat some dodgy cheese sauce that had been open without refrigeration for several days.  Eric jokingly said, "You need to start wanting to have this baby," which has been something of a constant line in the van today.

Since we are free of doctors for another month, we blew out Adelaide as quickly as we could and struck out into the Outback.  It's been a gorgeous two days of driving through open plains and red mountains up to Flinders Ranges.  I think it's the prettiest scenery we've seen so far, made even more dramatic by huge storms sweeping through.  Eric commented that this was what he expected Australia to look like, and then the little town where we stopped for coffee had a display listing all of the movies that were filmed nearby, including one of our favourites, Walkabout.  No wonder it looked familiar!  We're doing some hiking the next couple of days, so I'll have to post some photos then.

Coastal cruising

Having 2.5 weeks to kill between baby appointments, Eric and I backtracked to Mount Gambier and have been slowly making our way up the coast.  Very slowly.

When I visited Mount Gambier with my sister, Angela, four years ago, I hated to leave after only a few hours.  There's Blue Lake, which turns from grey to a bright blue over a few days each summer and then gradually returns to grey over the winter, and the sinkhole that the community have turned from a trashy used car lot into an actual dump into gorgeous hanging gardens.

Eric and I revisited those spots and also paid $4 to visit the local museum.  They're generally not worth more money than that, but we've found some of the local museums to be good value.

The next day I was drawn to what the tourist map labelled a "Cheese Factory Museum".  This turned out to be an abandoned cheese factory that locals had piled their old stuff into along with typed up stories about the good old days.  It was a random collection of stuff, unattended except for an honesty jar asking you to deposit $3.50.  We miss Tasmania where that's how we bought lots of fruit - out of someone's front yard by putting money in a tin.  My only disappointment was that there was no cheese...

Further up the coast Eric and I revisited another spot Angela and I liked, Robe.  It has miles of coastal walking tracks and the best caravan park ever, so we stuck around for a couple of days.  One night in the camp kitchen a nice old man who swore he'd only had two glasses (perhaps tumblers?) of wine started talking to (at?) us.  After a series of questions, we figured out we were all from Victoria; yes Melbourne; well, actually, a town near Melbourne called San Remo.  That's where Eric lived for the last nine months before we left on our trip!  I suppose it's not that amazing given that we were only about a 12-hour drive from there, but the town only had 1,019 residents at the last census, and we actually knew which house was his (the middle one of the three next to the police office, for you desalinators).

The conversation was ended when his wife came in and the bickering began.  It's funny, we keep talking to old men whose wives seem like they want to kill them.  Not sure what's happening there...

Next we spent two days at a beautiful beach in Newland Head Conservation Park followed by two days in Deep Creek National Park.  At Newland Head, Eric tested Turquey on a 4WD trail, and she failed.  She was going ok until the uphill in soft sand.  After about 45 minutes of digging, and concern from me that one of us (Eric) was going to have to hike about 20 km back out to town for a tow, we were free!

Finally dug out

We did a bushwalk each day, although it's strange for me to be scanning the descriptions for hikes under three hours instead of finding the longest one I can and then trying to do it in half the recommended time.  Still, we managed to do a couple of hikes that were straight down a cliff to a beach...and then back up it. I've sworn that won't be happening again. Eric was brave enough to go for a swim at the bottom of each hike, whilst I was mainly trying to get my heart rate to return to normal before the uphill slog.  It's amazing how the Sea Monkey affects my fitness.  While you have 40% more blood whilst pregnant, the greedy little monster seems to take that much and more.

Going for a swim in Antarctic cold waters

I'm happy to report that here in week 11, the Sea Monkey induced nausea seems to be abating.  Most days, it's more like early in the pregnancy when I just felt a bit shit for a few hours in the afternoon, but not so much that I needed to lie down or anything.  Except then it was kind of cute and exciting, because it was like, "Oooh, I really am pregnant."  Nothing cute about nausea anymore.

Now we're in Port Elliott for the night, going out for dinner and to hear a band at the local pub tonight.  Woo hoo!  It will be a nice change from having dinner and then snuggling in for a night of watching movies or reading from about 6:30 pm.  Maybe I'll be up past 9.  Then again, maybe not.

Turquey with Larry the Giant Lobster

Vineyards in autumn