Planning Australia

Diana is already planning our trip to Australia. That didn't take long. (Probably not actually going until March 2012 or so).

Thomas the Rhymer

I'm still not sure what to make of Ellen Kushner's Thomas the Rhymer. It's a retelling of the Childe Ballad story: Thomas meets the Queen of the Elves and asks for a kiss; she takes him to the Fairy Lands to be her lover; seven years later he returns to the mortal lands, with the gift of prophecy. He becomes known as True Thomas--he is unable to say anything except the truth.

It is not epic. No battles, not cast of thousands, no clever system of magic, no life or death decisions. Just a few people, interacting with each other, and one of them is the elf queen. It is definitely not a "buy multiple hardback copies", but then again, not many books get that rating. It is well written, lyrical; certainly the author deserves some support, so it comes in above "buy secondhand" or "check library". I'm going to call it "buy paperback" and expect some disagreement.

Across the Pacific

Josh had intended to fly from LA to Sydney on United, but the flight was overbooked and he didn't make it on. So here he is, solo in LAX, having been awake since 5:30am, and it's now 1:30am the following night (all times in US East Coast time, not local) and no plane. A lot of people would have taken a shuttle to the first available hotel and tried again the next day, but Josh is not willing to be stymied by a little detail like "there are no more planes until tomorrow." He checks other options with United--could he go from LAX to San Francisco and then to Sydney, or from LAX to Auckland to Sydney? United has flights but no spaces that he can use with his ticket. Meanwhile, while he deals with United, he has me check with Qantas; Qantas is excellent and they had a few seats but they don't take stand-bys, the cost of a ticket was $2500, and also he'd only have twenty minutes to get his luggage from United and haul it across terminals to Qantas. That won't do. He gets his gear back from United and marches over to Cathay Pacific. Yes, they'd be happy to book him for tomorrow night. "No", Josh says, "I have no interest in waiting till tomorrow night." Josh had the nickname "Bear" before he was large, bulky and furry; now that he is all of the above, he's even more ursine. He digs his fingers into the counter, leaving claw marks like a grizzly, and glowers with bloodshot eyes glowing red. Oh, well, sir, says Cathay Pacific, actually, we have a flight leaving in half an hour.

Josh got on it. Departed 4:30am Friday, arrived at Hong Kong at 7pm Friday night, changed planes and arrived in Sydney at 6:30am Saturday--I'm assuming that's what Gwen's text "THERE HE IS!" meant. :-)

When he got to Hong Kong he opened a chat to let me know he'd made it.

I replied "Yay! I'll alert the media."

Josh: "Make sure you mention how awesome Cathay Pacific is.

Me: "Will do. I'm proud of your determination on getting a flight."

Josh: "Bear. I just clawed at people until one of them handed me a boarding pass."

Me: "I was going to say you remind me of Mile Vorkosigan"--Miles is a character famous for "forward momentum", being totally focused on his mission and not stopping merely because it's impossible. One of Josh's favorite characters, by the way.

Josh: "Bear Miles. Miles Bearkosigan!"

Departed (or: Reasons to Move to Australia)

Took Josh to Fairfax yesterday, with a stop in Fredericksburg for lunch with his grandparents (who had driven five hours to get to Fredburg), then visiting with a couple of his friends--Caroline, the other Josh, and Richard. Richard came by the hotel and Josh and I may have persuaded him to move to Australia also, using arguments such as:

• "Hot babes, Richard. Hot. Babes."
• "You can play seven man Diplomacy and you won't lose any friends over it, because they won't be your friends yet." (Richard said "I'd say you're the only person in the world who would make this argument, but I'm sure your dad would make it too." Which I would).
• "Australia has a labor shortage."
• "You're in DC, Richard. Number one target in the world. You know how many terrorist plots have gotten foiled in Melbourne? None. Because there aren't any."
• "Kangaroo. Kangaroo. Tastes delicious and it's good for you."
• "No one will mistake you for your twin brother any more."
• "Close Action. With my brilliant tactics and your Kunkel Fail Field, we'll devastate the opposition. We can even tile the floor with blue hexagons to match the Close Action maps. Close Action, Richard. You know you want it."
• "Did I mention the hot babes?"
• "You like wine? You think the Australians export the good stuff?"
• "Snow? Yes, there's snow. Gwen goes skiing in the Alps. The Australian Alps. Yes, they have them."
• "Melbourne is one of the top three cities in the world to live in. In. The. World, Richard."
• "You have a cat? You can bring your cat, but you could also get a wombat. There is no cooler pet than a wombat, Richard. None. But bring your cat carrier if you must."
• "You can go scuba diving with me."
• "You don't have to go. Making a decision like this is not for everyone. In fact, millions of people have failed at life and been completely blotted out by the tide of history. No pressure."
• "You want to climb to the top of a bridge? You can do that. You want an opera house? Got one."
• "People are going to be lining up for the privilege of being my roommate. There will be fistfights. You know this. You need to get your name on the lease now."
• "The Great Barrier Reef. It's great. It's a reef. It's a barrier. It has glowing fish. Clams. Purple luminescent clams, Richard. How can you say no to purple glowing clams? And China is close by. You can pop over and see the Great Wall, which is like the Great Barrier Reef was before it got water and fish and was pretty."
• "Basically, I'm not hearing any reason you should stay, except you don't want your parents upset. But you'll be in Australia. Are they going to call you to fuss about it, at three dollars a minute for a phone call? They are not. Come to Australia, Richard. Coooome .... tooooo ..... Australiaaaa ...."

Richard escaped before actually signing anything but he looked like he was seriously considering it.

We got up at 5:30am, got an approximation of breakfast, and took Josh through the rain to Dulles. He was eager to go; Diana and I got a little misty-eyed but held it together.

Right now he's in Los Angeles, waiting for the plane to Sydney.

Packing

We took Josh to El Taco Loco for his last dinner before departure. The owner sat at our table with us for a few minutes, and paid for Joshua's dinner, and told him to look for a good restaurant location in Melbourne.

Three suitcases and the scuba bag are by the front door.

Bookstore

Josh and I went to the used book store on Great Neck at First Colonial. After hunting through the shelves for an hour, he had a stack and we went through them together. "I haven't read any of these. This was good. I know I read that one but I don't recall anything about it. That one was fun to read once, I don't know that it's worth reading twice. That one is a classic but I'm certain you can find it in Oz if you want it." Between the two of us, we got about $60 of books. And one more priceless hour together.

Aqua-Pathan

We went to lunch with Tom Paul and his grandmother at Bubba's, just east of the Lesner Bridge on the Lynnhaven Bay. I had the Bubba burger, which is a hamburger plus bacon, cheese and a lump of crabmeat. The crabmeat doesn't add anything that I can tell; the hamburger is cooked "well done" regardless of whether you wanted it medium or medium well. But it had bacon, so that was a good point.

The view out across Lynnhaven Bay is nice, and you get to see boats motoring right past the restaurant. Josh wants a rowboat with four jet engines, giving a nice healthy power-to-weight ratio. He also wants a sailing yacht, although he's willing to have a couple of propellers below the surface. It should be big enough that he can put his rocket-boat on it. And a helicopter, with should be able to carry a motorcycle. He's going for the triphibian approach. One of the vehicles was also supposed to be submersible but I'm not sure whether that was the yacht or the helicopter...

After that we went to the beach and Josh took half an hour on a jet ski. Zooming along, bounding over the waves like he was riding a horse at full gallop. The Aqua Pathan rides again! There were half a dozen other jet skis out there but it was always easy to tell which one was Josh's. "Which one is going fastest?--that's Josh".

There was a pod of dolphins in the Bay, which we couldn't see from the beach, but Josh did.

We played the Salamanca scenario from Command and Colors Napoleonics again, and Josh's Brits beat my French again.