It was a blue moon on Tuesday. My parents and I went out to dinner then to the 6:40 PM showing of Memoirs of a Geisha. My mum was enthralled by how visually beautiful it was. I ended up with tears that I couldn’t wipe away because I was wearing eye liner.
I am very sad to think of parents having to sell their children.
While I was walking yesterday morning, I spotted a small scrap of white in a garden bed beside the footpath. I was in a hurry so I bent down and scooped it up. As I continued walking, I looked at it. It was a bunny rabbit toy, covered in loose soil and twigs. I brushed the twigs away and it revealed a cute, clean, soft Mashimaro (aka “half-eaten marshmallow”).
Now usually, I’m not at all inspired by Japanese/Korean toons but Korean Rabbit is just soooo cute! If it was any less cute, I’d give him away but I’m going to keep him. I like patting his head and pushing his ears back. He fits nicely in my hand when I wrap my palm around its head.
My brother and I grew up with soft toys. Our ‘Cutie Family’ includes seven smurfs, Tweety and Sylvester Junior. There are some distant relatives in the form of Kiwi toys (the fruit, not the bird or human variety). All our toys have back stories, personalities and voices. Jason and I don’t like getting new toys because it’s a lot of effort integrating them into the family. We have to invent personalities and introduce them to the others with appropriate histories. The last addition to the family was Liddle Smurf, who turned out to be a cunning, nasty piece of work. He’s always picking on Big Smurf (who is unfortunately a bit slow), bouncing on his tummy.
I don’t think Korean Rabbit will be joining the Cutie Family. I’ll just keep him separate and use him as a sort of stress ball. Sorry KR, no personality for you.
I’m entertaining friends in the rumpus room when I hear mum’s call.
“Joan!”
“What, mum?”
Dad rushes down the stairs, holding the phone before him. “It’s Jason,” he says grimly. “He says it’s an emergency.”
I put the phone to my ear.
“Joan!” comes Jason’s frantic voice. “You need to do some emergency programming!”
“Huh?!”
“There’s a problem in Western Australia. Go up to my room and turn on my laptop.”
Confused, I run upstairs.
“What’s going on, Jason?”
“Is the laptop on? You need to open up muvision. It’s a black and yellow icon. Now find the file called ‘main.c’. Go up to the top and scroll down until you reach the function called ‘main’.”
“Function?” I reach back into my hazy past and recall ‘Engineering Programming’ (ie. Java for Dummies).
“Find the ‘while’ loop… It’ll have the word ‘while’ in it.”
“Jason, I have a bunch of computer scientists, mathematicians and electrical engineers downstairs. Do you want to talk to them?”
“No, Joan. You can do it.” He believes in me.
“There’s a line with 2000 or 20000 in it. Do you see it?”
“Yes.”
“Read it to me, every character.”
I hear the intense concentration of silence as I read each letter, square bracket and space. After my litany, he instructs me to make changes.
“Now compile it, Joan.”
“Compile,” I murmur. I look for the ‘compile’ button.
“It’s in the top left. It looks like a pile of paper.”
I click it cautiously. Suddenly, a stream of sentences fills the window at the bottom of the screen. Thankfully, there are none of these “bugs” of which Jason tells me. Jason then leads me through finding the file on the hard disk, renaming it, then compressing it.
As I do this, I think of my guests downstairs, who are probably wondering where their host has disappeared to.
“Now put it on a USB disk and email it from the main computer.”
I fumble with my USB disk (which I normally use to transfer Microsoft Word files), then finally email it to Western Australia.
“Thanks, Joan. I hope that works. Bye.” The dial tone tells me it is over.
Jana showed me the frog pyjamas her mum had bought her.
“Wow,” I said.
“Yeah,” she agreed.
“Did she think they was cute or something?”
“Yeah.”
“I guess you can wear them at home…”
“This is why I can’t wear anything that mum ever buys me.”
“That’s a shame,” I said. “Mum buys all my clothes. Mum bought all this…” I pointed out my new mohair jumper, my form-fitting black pants, my cute black Mary Jane shoes, my sparkly blue headband. “This is my favourite coat,” I continued. I modelled my hooded black woollen winter coat. “The other day, a random girl ran up to me at Melbourne Central. She said, “Excuse me! Could I ask where you bought your coat from?” and I had to say, “Sorry, my mum bought it for me.” “
“So, your mum dresses you?” Jana asked, fascinated and skeptical.
“No,” I corrected her. “She puts a department store in my wardrobe then I dress me.”
Yesterday, the whole family was helping my brother finalise his packing. Three months of supplies had to fit into two suitcases.
“I think that’s it,” Jason said finally as we zipped up the big bag.
“Let’s see how much it weighs.” Dad went to the bathroom to get the scales. We watched as the dial swung wildly, then slowly oscillated to a stop.
“27 kilograms,” I reported. “Jason, what’s the weight limit?”
“30 kilograms,” he said, his eyes still on the dial. He had an odd look on his face. Abruptly, he left the room. I looked at dad. Where was he going?
Jason came back carrying his little blanket. “I’m taking Blankie,” he announced.
Mum gasped. “Don’t be silly! Everyone will laugh at you!” He shrugged, unzipped the bag again and carefully folded the well-worn blanket on top of his suit.
“Jason, it’s more dangerous to take Blankie overseas than to leave it here,” I warned.
“I know,” he said patiently. “But I want it there when I’m in San Francisco.” He sounded quite determined. This was the little blanket that I had used when I was a baby. Jason inherited it when he was born and it has been with him almost every night since.
When the bag was secured, only the barest bulge at the side hinted at its precious cargo. We all stood back and nodded in satisfaction. It was done.