Craig and Ross in...............ISO

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Craig and Ross in ISO_2.0

Episode #2

Thursday July 23, 2020.

Last night, I spent the better part of 10 minutes trying to scrub some crud off a glass baking dish, only to realise the crud was on the other side. We need to buy a dishwasher! Such are the banalities of Melbourne ISO_2.0. We are now two weeks down. Theoretically, 4 weeks left of this six week lockdown. But.....well, who knows? It could be more, given recent COVID case numbers.

I never thought I’d say this, but seeing the football on TV in recent weeks has brought some sense of normality and comfort to me. I’ve never followed it, but it has always been there in the background. It is a constant, something you can depend upon, like the sun coming up each day, or Ross inserting a joke into polite conversation, or Kelly Osbourne’s next single being shit. Dad and my brothers watched footy teams thrash it out on TV in the late 1970’s. I recall the inevitable conflict on a Sunday night; I wanted to watch Countdown, of course, but they wanted the football, and in those days, we just had the one TV and no internet! Now, during this warped dystopian time, stuck at home, with an empty city and news reports screaming about daily case numbers, the footy is still there on TV. God knows when or where they are playing, if they are playing to a live audience or a crowd of bizarre cut-out figures. But there it is, on the TV. Ross follows the doggies in the AFL, and had it on TV last Friday night. There they were, kicking, running and chasing as normal, to an apparent cheering crowd. A sense of normality, like nothing was wrong in the world. It was oddly comforting to me. Though I did a double-take when the commentator said during the match:

“Crozier passes to Suckling – Suckling on to Fantasia.”

“Fantasia?” I asked. “did he just say “Fantasia?” Is that drag queen from The Exchange hotel in this?”

“I don’t know who you mean,” said Ross. “Anyway, shut up, I’m watching it.”

“Fantasia just passed the ball to Ida Slappda,” I said. “Who has sashayed down the field to pass it to Barbara Quicksand. Oh, Quicksand is tackled by Miss Candy. That was a wig-high tackle, the bitch. But look, Courtney Act and Sofonda Cox are having a cat fight under the goal posts. Feathers are flying.”

“Oh shut up,” said Ross.

To keep some sanity, I try to get out on my bike when the weather permits. Just near Chapel Street is an intersection that I regularly cycle along. There is a set of traffic lights that always makes me frown. Someone decided to place a traffic light directly behind a power pole. Or, conversely, some astute person decided to place a power pole directly in front of a traffic light. Either way, the traffic light cannot be seen to on-coming traffic. (See first photo above.) I guess you can always look at the light on the other side of the road, but it too is at least partly obscured by a telegraph pole! Why, Ross Stuart? Wires or pipes underground dictating placement?? Anyway, yesterday the gloomy clouds cleared and I went for an afternoon bike ride. My usual route, from Prahran, through the city to my former workplace, the Royal Children’s Hospital, is about 11km one way. The city was eerily deserted. Imposing Flinders Street train station, normally inhaling and exhaling vast hordes of people - workers, tourists, shoppers, - now stands dismally silent. There were a few people scurrying along, heads down, sporting face-masks. Even those arty statues of the three thin businessmen on the corner of Swanston and Bourke Streets are now wearing face-masks! (Check out the photo opposite.)

Cycling back home, I often pass through Fawkner Park, opposite The Alfred Hospital. Each afternoon, I see people with their dogs. The owners typically form a wide socially-distanced ring. Their hounds, without such restrictions, happily frolic and jump about with each other. The don't give a toss about no corona, they are happy and joyous and blissfully oblivious to the human angst. Yesterday, there was a mix of medium-sized labradors, spaniels and terriers – and one funny little black sausage dog, whose woosy little legs would not allow it to keep up with all the others. I believe sausage dogs (dachshunds) were initially bred in Germany to hunt badgers and rabbits out of holes. So, they have been selectively bred for long thin bodies - and short stout legs that would not hamper tunnelling and moving through burrows. Alas, today, they don’t find themselves in tunnels, but trying to keep up with everyone else! There are two guys who live a few doors down from us and they have two sausage dogs. True to that well-worn principle of “owner-matches-dog”, they are both short-arse men that scuttle along on stumpy legs. Anyway, back to Fawkner Park. Right now, in a quiet corner of the park, there is a lovely grove of yellow daffodils. A very pretty sight, except for when a lumbering golden retriever came along yesterday, dug some up and then did a big shit on top of them. Anyway, nearing home on my bike, a light rain started to fall. Then it stopped and the late afternoon sun shone brightly across the terrace houses of Prahran. Glancing up while deep in thought, I was completely taken by surprise - a magnificent rainbow arching across the sky. Not just a half-arsed attempt either. The whole shebang, all seven colours bursting from the sky. I reminded myself that if there is one thing on this Earth that never fails to cheer me up it is glorious, wondrous Nature. Nature, my saviour.

Cycling or Shanks’s pony is my preferred mode of transport these days. I rarely drive anywhere right now. I had to go into work at the university twice this past two weeks to do a critical experiment we had set up some weeks prior (when restrictions had briefly eased.) When driving in one day, there were police pulling people over near Monash. Odd, I thought, as everyone was wholly in the lockdown zone, not trying to leave the city of anything.

“Can I see your driver’s licence please” said the policeman, a young fetching fellow.

“Yep,” I said, as I passed it through the open window to him.

“Craig Smith!” he said. “You are a scientist and you study chickens.”

WTF.

“Ah – yes. But how do you know that?”

“It says so here on your driver’s licence.”

“What the - ”

“No, just kidding,” he said, handing it back. “I was one of your students back in 2016. I quit Uni and now I’m a police officer.”

We both laughed.

“Hope I never failed you,” I said (lest he give me a fine, I was thinking!)

“No. You still at Monash?”

“Yes, still there.”

He waved me on, “OK, have a nice day.”

I guess when you teach a couple of hundred students every year for several years, you are bound to encounter one or two down the track. Something similar happened to me several years prior, when a road-side cop recognised me. He was a former scientist at CSIRO, where I collaborate. Funny.

Ross continues to cook good food here in ISO_2.0. Either recipes he has found in the Coles or Woollies monthly mag, or sourced (sauced?) online. Some highlights include steak with maple-glazed roast carrots and sprouts. I don’t know about you, but I hated Brussels sprouts as a kid. The mood was sombre when word got round in our house that mum was cooking Brussels sprouts for dinner. I’ve been emotionally scarred ever since and have avoided them for over four decades. LOL. Well, the way Ross did them, roasted with pine nuts, cranberries and a glaze of maple syrup/balsamic vinegar – delicious ! He has also been adding to our waistlines with various cakes. Two of note are galette (a crunchy French cakey thing with berries) and blueberry and lemon friands (a light muffin-type thing). Both very nice indeed as desserts with ice-cream. My own cooking skills are not as well-developed. People often say to me that I should be a good cook, because cooking should be like doing a lab experiment, following a recipe and paying attention to detail. Well, I’m OK, just not as good as Ross or many of you reading this blog. You know who you are!!

We got home-delivered pizza a few nights ago. Ross ordered it and paid online. We learned that our delivery dude was named Sandeep. Apparently, Sandeep’s favourite pizza is “Spicy Veg Trio”, while his favourite musical artist is Bruno Mars, and his favourite sporting team is the Mumbai Under 30’s cricket team. His pseudonym is “Punjabi-Pizza-Purveyor.” This all according to the Domino’s Pizza website. Thank God they provided that information. We were wondering about that, and would not have been able to eat our food without that essential knowledge. Anyway, about 30 minutes later, the door-bell rang. I opened the door to find the pizzas and a bottle of Sprite sitting on the steps. I heard a motorbike zooming off down the street. Never laid eyes on Sandeep. In these COVID-times in Melbourne, it’s all hands-off, no contact!

There are a couple of positives about ISO_2.0 and working from home. I get to sleep in. I am more of a night owl that an early bird. My usual time of rising is 7:30am, which I do grudgingly, leaving home at 8am and arriving at work around 8.30am. But these days, I’m sleeping till 8 or even 8.30am, walking a few steps to my “office” by 9am. I can also stop what I am doing and go bike riding more or less whenever I feel like it, then just resume working at till 6 or 7pm as I see fit. That has, at least, been a blessing. No cold early mornings to deal with, dodging the worst of this year’s Winter. Other than that, its fuckteen hours a day spent in the dining room on the desktop computer. Speaking of which ,does anyone know what on Earth that little figure is that appears on the Mac computer when a webpage fails to load (shown opposite)? It looks like a three-week old potato draped in a torn condom. Whoever created it needs a holiday - and art lessons while on holiday. While not teaching much this second semester, I am meant to be doing lab work. But instead I’m mostly here at home writing review papers. (There will be a glut of those this year!) I pro-actively wrote e-mails to all sorts of journals, offering our services to write reviews on just about anything we could think of. Happily, three agreed! When I’m not doing that, I’m either cycling, eating, drinking, or watching animals attacking each other on You-Tube. (Someone said the other day that the “Tiger King era” of Lockdown Mark 1 seems like a lifetime ago!)

On a more serious note, there comes a point during this isolation business when it starts to play on your mental state. Well, for me anyway. I have been sitting here on this computer in the dining room, day in-day out, since mid-March. Easter came and went with no fanfare or any opportunity to see my family. It was a blur of working, just like every other day. The only highlight was a Zoom catch-up with Carol, Glenn, Alicia and Bryan in NSW. Weekends are also something of a blur these days. I am starting to get a little emotionally fatigued with the same dismal messages day after day. Those terrible case numbers each day. On top of that, Victoria is now a pariah state. Melbourne is firmly shut off from the rest of the country. Hell, even from the rest of the state. I am currently not allowed into my home state of NSW, where I was born and raised. And worse, I don’t know when I’ll get to see my parents again. Well, not unless they end up on their death bed, and even then I think I would have to quarantine for 14 days (At my expense, not sure if you two are worth it. LOL). This is starting to prod my usually sleeping anxiety, like a stick into a dozing bear’s rump. No wonder I’m tossing more and more empty wine bottles into our recycle bin. However, Ross has been reassuring me:

“Your parents have lived happily for 83 years,” he pointed out. “I’m sure they will still be around when this is all over."

I guess he is right. But you might forgive me for being just a little pissed off about the sheer selfishness with some people, and the frankly unforgivable hotel mismanagement by others, both of which caused this God awful mess for the rest of us down here.

If you are reading this, Mum and Dad, I love you both and I miss you very much. I look forward to seeing you again as soon as I possibly can.

OK, that’s it for now. Ross has swung into action and just made us cocktails, featuring blueberries, strawberries, the juice thereof, tonic and gin. Cheers.

Craig.

P.S. It was the first day of mandatory face masks here in Melbourne today, unfortunately coinciding with the one day I had to go into work for an experiment. The mask felt odd and annoying at first, but I got used to it. I can happily report that every single person I saw on campus was wearing a mask, as were 100% of people I saw on the street and at pedestrian lights when driving home. Maybe we might start making some progress…..

(More photos below. Click photo any to enlarge).

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Comments

[Dancing Dave]

And then there was curfew
Coming from Sydney I am appalled and also puzzled how Victoria could have bucked the happy minimal infection record of Australia in this Covid 19 Pandemic. The infection rate figures from Victoria are staggeringly high compared to the other States which only seem to have infections from the odd Victorian who has slipped through State cordons. But it proves one thing...you only need one infected person exercising apathy, denial or simply does not care to cause a spike and potential infection explosion. I can't understand the mask or no mask debate...of course wearing them makes a difference. Last night Victoria entered nighttime curfews for six weeks being some of the most stringent restrictions in the World. May this bring the scourge under control. Keep safe and sensible...and may everyone play their part and rid us of this pandemic thing.