Sock Wrestling

When I was a missionary in New England, I used to encounter the craziest misconceptions about Latter-day Saints. Many of these seemed to centre on the notion that we were too busy being pious to have any fun. 'Aren't you the people who don't dance?' we would be asked quite regularly. To which I liked to point out that the pioneers who walked to the Salt Lake Valley danced six nights a week (Brigham Young having told them, 'I want you to sing and dance and forget your troubles...') and that the first public building erected in Salt Lake City was not a church but a social hall.

No one ever questioned our willingness to wrestle, thankfully, but, if they had, I could also have pointed out that we Latter-day Saints have been wrestling at least as long as we've been dancing, the Prophet Joseph Smith having been famous (possibly infamous to some) for his eagerness to engage in a good wrestle with just about anyone.

On this point, I love an anecdote from Jedediah M Grant: 'I am aware that a great many have so much piety in them, that they are like the Baptist priest who came to see Joseph Smith.... and folding his arms said, "Is it possible that I now flash my optics upon a man who has conversed with my Savior?" "Yes," says the Prophet, "I don't know but you do; would not you like to wrestle with me?"'

Wrestling of one kind or another is a pretty frequent pastime in our house, despite the fact that our carpet isn't much different to fine-grade sandpaper, but it's always fun to find a new variation—something that happened last month. A bunch of us were at a birthday party for one of our friends when a bloke who is currently investigating the Church (and who shares the Prophet's zest for life) introduced us to sock wrestling.

Instead of throwing one's opponent (as in stick wrestling and leg wrestling) or pinning his shoulders (as in Greco-Roman wrestling), the goal of sock wrestling is simply to take the other guy's sock off. To this end, a single pair of socks is shared between the competitors, each one wearing one on his preferred foot. This changes the entire nature of the tussle because, in using one's legs, one now has to be careful not to get de-socked.

The pandemonium which ensues is such good fun that this has become our household's current favourite mode of wrestling. As we have found out, a single match can easily last 20 minutes, but it's worth all the exertion and sweat when one manages finally to get the dastardly sock off—a feat more easily accomplished, as the photo above will attest, if one can get his opponent's head in a scissor lock first.

Earlier this week someone mentioned to us the concept of sleeping-bag wrestling. This also sounds like it holds promise....

Stake Cultural Night

Saturday night the Canberra Stake held what I hope will be its first-annual Cultural Night, and it was great! One of the things I’ve always loved about our stake is its cultural diversity—in my ward alone we have members whose first languages include English, Portuguese, Russian, Samoan, Spanish, Tagalog, and Tongan—and this event was a perfect showcase for that diversity.

When I arrived at Lyneham Chapel, I had to park in the street because the car park was completely packed out. This was an exciting foretaste of the atmosphere in the hall, which was equally packed out—a good thing to see. Around the perimeter of the hall stalls from various nationalities represented in the stake were set up. Most of these were decorated simply, with things like flags or traditional fabrics, but the Samoan Saints had gone all out, erecting a thatch roof over their tables.

The following nationalities each had a stall: American, Australian, Greek, English, Samoan, New Zealander, Chinese, Tongan, Japanese, Filipino, Tahitian, and Scots. And each stall was serving up food specific to its nation. For example, the Americans had pumpkin pie, corn on the cob, and root beer, and the Scots had haggis and shortbread.

We’d been told that this was to be a ‘tasting’ experience only, but, in good Mormon fashion, it turned out to be a veritable feast. People—including me—were walking around for an hour or more with small plates heaped full of food, and yet not a single stall ran out of a single dish from what I could see. I personally ate wasabi-coated peas, Maori fish chowder, English pork pie, Greek spinach and feta triangles, baklava, eggplant dip, Filipino noodles and gingered chicken wings, boiled Chinese dumplings, Samoan chop suey, raw fish in coconut cream, and octopus stewed in coconut milk and its own ink. To drink I had Koko Samoa, a dark, bitter chocolate drink. I loved it all except for the pork pie. I had no idea anyone could ruin pork, that most versatile of all meats, but leave it to the English. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to try everything, but the stomach does have its limits.

After we’d all feasted, it was time for the programme, which matched the food in both diversity and quality. We enjoyed bagpiping, highland dances, dances from every major pacific island, Maori war chants, Scots ballads, Chilean dances, Chinese love songs, and American bluegrass. I think the performances ran on for about two hours, but no one seemed to want them to end, and the clapping and cheering never died down the whole night.

I think the thing I liked best about the night, though, was the thread of unity which tied all of this diversity together. Despite our various points of origin, we were all there together because the gospel has opened our eyes to our universal sameness as children of God, literally each other’s brothers and sisters—a fact reinforced when, at the end of the programme, we all bowed our heads together and thanked Heavenly Father for such a pleasant time together.

Ben Boyd National Park




Last Friday, Jeremy, Adrian, Chris and I all headed down to Ben Boyd National Park, located on the extreme south coast of New South Wales, for what we hoped would be a beautiful end-of-summer excursion to a remote beach. We had a really nice time, though it didn’t all turn out exactly as planned.

That afternoon we made our camp at the mouth of Saltwater Creek, just up from a small crescent of beach flanked on either side by rocky cliffs. The weather was perfect—about 25 degrees and mildly humid. After pitching our tents (a small one for Adrian and another one for the rest of us) and rolling out our sleeping bags, we amassed a giant pile of firewood with the expectation of a cool evening spent around the warmth of the fire.

I then got a small fire going in preparation for cooking dinner, which was my responsibility. Whilst the fire was burning down to a nice bed of coals, I buttered potatoes and desilked ears of corn, all of which I wrapped in alfoil and laid on the by-then glowing embers. The potatoes went on first and then, after a while, the corn. Lastly, I swung a grill over a bit of open fire which I’d maintained and tossed on some lamb chops, glazing them at the very end with a mango-chilli sauce. When the chops were charred and smoky, the veg came out of the fire, and then we feasted, adding butter, sour cream, and shredded cheese liberally to the crisped potatoes.

We’d planned on building the fire back up after the food was cooked, but it didn’t turn out to be a campfire night; it was just too warm. At 9:00 at night, it was still about 25 degrees. Consequently, we let the fire die down and then headed down to the beach instead. The moon hadn’t risen yet, and we had to navigate our way over a small row of dunes by torchlight, but, once there, we switched the lights off and sat in silence just up from where great waves were roaring onto the sand. It was a warm enough night that we’d considered going for a bit of a swim, but, when we’d gotten a bit closer to the water, we’d spotted a few blue bottles (called Portuguese men-of-war in the US) that the tide had brought in; therefore, we didn’t want to risk the water in the dark.

It was beautiful just to sit in the warm, salty night air, though. The stars were out in their far-from-civilisation brilliance, and we lay on our backs and watched for any meteorites, enjoyed the sea breeze, and talked about deep and meaningful things til about 11:00.

We went to bed at 11:30, after some tooth brushing, praying, and scripture reading. It was an absolutely perfect night. It had cooled off some, but it was still around 20 degrees all night. We’d sited our tent so that the sea breeze blew straight through one window and out the other, so we had beautiful ventilation as we slept. For a lullaby we had the regular roar of the surf punctuated at random intervals by wind gusts which whistled through the tops of the gum trees overhead.

When we went to bed, we all supposed that we’d be up again bright and early the next morning—which is usually what happens on a camp—but the night was especially enchanting, and none of us actually woke up til 9:40. That was the best sleep-in I’ve had in ages.

Jeremy was in charge of cooking breakfast, but for some reason he offered to pack up all my gear and take the tent down if I’d do it, which seemed like a fair trade to me, so I once again put on my chef hat. We had another lovely meal—thick rashers of bacon, eggs, hash browns, and slices of bread toasted over the open fire. Actually, it would have been a lovely meal—if we’d been allowed to eat it in peace. This, however, was not to be.

When I’d first stepped out of the tent that morning, I’d discovered that we were not alone. Several kangaroos had moved into our camp during the night and were placidly feeding around us. Amazingly, they seemed to have no fear of humans whatsoever, and we were able to approach them easily. They weren’t the cause of the trouble, however.

The troublemaker was a four-and-a-half-foot-long goanna who, upon smelling the bacon I was cooking, decided to invite himself to breakfast. For those who may not know, goannas are the world’s second-largest living lizards, smaller cousins of nearby Indonesia’s komodo dragons.

And this goanna, like the kangaroos, seemed to have no fear of humans. This was a problem because he was also determined to have some—perhaps all—of our breakfast. At first he tried the subtle approach, slowly sauntering into camp, stopping, moving a bit closer to the fire, moving, etc. When we tried to spook him away by beating on the ground with sticks, he would move away for a few minutes, but then he’d circle the camp and invade again from a different direction. After our best attempts at getting him to well and truly move on, he got a bit more agro. Several times he ran at us, rearing up and lunging at us with his three-inch-long claws.

More than once we had to pick up the plates of cooked food and retreat away from our own fire. This really slowed down the cooking process. It also slowed down the eating process because he was still determined to get a bit of our food, and he even attacked Chris whilst he was sitting down trying to eat at one point. Nothing we could do worked, either. At one point I actually got a long tree branch and poked him in the neck and stomach with it, but he simply ignored me and kept at the bacon. Needless to say, we only ate in spurts, mostly standing up.

Thankfully, however, we did get our food eaten—and just in time, too. Just as we finished packing the esky into the boot of Jeremy’s car, two of our interloper’s mates showed up, and I quickly realised that the four of us would never have been able to fend off a pack of three greedy goannas.

We’d planned to spend the rest of the day on the beach, but it was a bit overcast, so we decided instead to hike down the coast about five kilometres to where there was a hidden bay, our hope being that the day would have warmed up some by then. In this we were disappointed. It was a beautiful hike with great views of the seaside cliffs we were traversing, but, by the time we’d reached the other bay, it had started to rain. The drops were light at first, so we tried to outwait them, the forecast having warned us that there might be ‘scattered light showers’ that day, but there was nothing scattered or light about this rain as it settled into a steady, icy-cold downpour. Consequently, we simply gave up, hiking back to the car, where we arrived soaked to the bone and a bit chilled.

As there was no alternative, we then cut our day short and headed home several hours earlier than planned. We had a constant downpour of rain throughout almost the entire trip. I couldn’t complain, though; we’ve been bone-dry here for too long, and the recent rain, though not good for a beach day, has been a tremendous blessing, turning the entire landscape into something which currently looks a bit more like Ireland than this ‘sunburnt country’ which I love so intensely.

New Washing Machine—Again

Back in January Bro Smith informed us that his daughter, whose washing machine he’d lent us shortly after we moved, would need it back in about three weeks. He’d forewarned us that this would be the case at some point; still, it came as something of a shock. All of a sudden, we were again facing the spectre of an expensive and inconvenient Canberra Laundromat or time-consuming hand washing.

Thankfully, once again everything turned out great. I immediately started looking at the online classifieds (which I’d done in October), but this time, within days, I found the perfect washing machine to buy. Only four years old, it was being sold by a family who’d bought a larger machine, and, being keen to get it out of their garage, they were asking for only $100.

I drove up to Ngunnawal on the Friday to check it out, came home to discuss it with Troy (who’s cluey when it comes to household appliances), and then drove back up with the trailer Saturday morning to buy it. I’m now the proud owner of my first washing machine, and I love it.

This is not just because it allows me to do my wash conveniently at home, either, though I do appreciate that immensely. No, this is more than just a household appliance; this is a washing machine for blokes. It has cool lights and an even cooler motor. It’s so fun to use that I actually find myself looking around for things to wash—a phenomenon I’ve never experienced before.

My favourite features: The SmartDrive DC motor has no brakes, pulleys, or gears, allowing it an infinite range of wash speeds depending on how much ‘resistance’ it detects in the drum. This ability to detect resistance also lets the machine know if it needs to add more water. It also means that it can spin at 1000rpm, about double the spin speed of a standard washing machine, resulting in wash that is already half dry when it comes out. In addition, the small load setting really is for small loads. Yesterday I tried washing three T-shirts, a pair of shorts, and two pairs of socks on this setting, and the machine actually had to add a bit more water to handle these few items. Lastly, the spin cycle (courtesy of the direct-drive motor and its super-fast speed) sounds like a jet engine taking off.

Now if I could just find something to making ironing more enjoyable….

Food Fest

Every year in February Canberra hosts the National Multicultural Festival, and the highlight of the festival is the food fair. In fact, in my opinion the food fair may be the highlight of the entire year in Canberra (a fact that likely reveals way too much about me). This much-anticipated event took place this weekend.

Consequently, I spent nearly three hours there yesterday eating lunch. Most of that time wasn’t spent in eating, however, but in negotiating my way past the 140 (!) ethnic food stalls which had been set up along City Walk and also across London Circuit in the courtyard of the Legislative Assembly. I of course had to inspect every single offering before making a selection, threading my way through the teeming throngs to do so. For someone who finds it hard to make a selection from even a limited menu, it’s tough to have to choose amongst Tibetan, Ghanaian, Argentine, and Danish, to name just a few of the 140 offerings.

To make matters worse, I knew I only had one shot at eating yesterday. Usually, I’d get both lunch and dinner at the food fair, but yesterday I had a wedding to attend in the afternoon with a reception taking up the entire evening, so lunch was it for me. In addition, I knew the reception was going to be a ‘multicultural feast’ in its own right (Samoan and Aussie), so I couldn’t even have a big lunch.

I ended up getting a ‘completo’—a Chilean hot dog smothered with guacamole, sauerkraut, mayonnaise, crushed green chillies, diced tomatoes, hot mustard, and red onions. I’d hoped this would provide enough of a flavour explosion without filling me up too much (like a platter of various Nepalese vegetarian curries would have done) to enjoy the food at the reception. It turned out to be a very good choice. I enjoyed every messy bite.

And I was glad I wasn’t too full for the reception since it was truly amazing. The rugby club catered a feast in itself: roast chicken quarters, roast lamb, oven-roasted potatoes and pumpkin, gravy, steamed veg, crusty bread rolls with butter, pasta salad, potato salad, cole slaw, and a fresh green-bean and tomato salad with balsamic vinaigrette. In addition to this, the Samoan families provided their own additions to the buffet: two whole fire-roasted pigs, roast taro, corned beef, fried chicken, Samoan chop suey, raw fish in coconut cream, a crab and prawn salad, curried chicken wings, and some kind of pink potato salad. On top of all of this, at the end of the night, we cut and ate the wedding cake.

Needless to say, I think I may have eaten a bit too much. But it sure was good. And, if today had not been the Sabbath, I think I would have been back at the food festival this afternoon.

Rain!

It’s been over a month since we last had any precipitation here in Canberra. It’s been hard. Water restrictions have allowed us to water the plants (not the grass) in our gardens by hand only once a week during a three-hour window on Sunday evening, and this has not been enough to counteract all the moisture which the summer sun has sucked out of them most days. I’ve watched the trees and shrubs in our back garden basically start to die. Their leaves have folded up and drooped lifelessly, and one tree’s leaves have already turned yellow and started to fall.

Imagine how pleased I was then to be woken about 6:00 yesterday morning by booming thunder accompanied by pouring rain. It didn’t last long, but I was literally grateful for every drop that fell. Thankfully, those drops from the morning weren’t the last. It clouded up again yesterday afternoon, and by 6:30 it was raining again. I’m not sure how hard or how long it rained since I was inside a rugby club attending a wedding reception all night, but things seemed quite wet when I walked outside at 10:30. Again I was very grateful.

This morning we woke up to more puddles, so it must have rained at least a little bit during the night. At church, of course, we expressed our thanks for the rain and plead fervently for more. Then, during priesthood meeting opening exercises, we heard the pounding of rain on the chapel roof. That was about six hours ago, and it’s pretty much been raining since, mostly lightly though sometimes heavily. I’ll gladly take whatever God in His mercy will allow us. I just looked at the shrub outside my window, and already it is looking perkier.

Yabbying

For Mutual last night the bishop taught the Young Men and me how to catch yabbies. To do this, we drove out to Bro Laney's farm, across the border in New South Wales, where he has a small dam for watering his cattle which his sons have introduced yabbies into. (They usually live in rivers.)

A yabby, by the way, is an Australian freshwater lobster, similar to a North American crawdad. And one 'fishes' for them in a similar manner. We each took a length of string, tied a chunk of fresh kidney to the end, and tossed it out into the water. Since the water, in good Australian fashion, was the colour of milk chocolate, we couldn't see when a yabby had taken the bait, but it usually only took two or three minutes. Once there was a bit of resistance at the end of the string, it could be drawn in slowly, luring the yabby close to the shore. A quick swoop with a triangular net then completed the catch.

All that remained was to extricate the entrapped crustacean from the net—a none-too-easy task due to rather vicious and rapidly snapping claws—and toss it into a bucket of water. We caught about 40 of them but kept only about 20, throwing the smaller ones back for a later catch.

Whilst fishing, we got a pot of fresh water boiling on a gas ring next to the dam, and, after rinsing a bit more mud off of our catch, we tossed them in. Once they’d turned orange, it was time to pour the water off and feast. As with lobsters, we ate the tails and claws. The meat was white and sweet and fresh, similar to that of a lobster or prawn. I liked it.

And I liked the simple pleasure of standing on the banks of a muddy dam, surrounded by lowing cattle, breathing in the eucalyptus-scented air, and watching the sun set behind the red hills whilst waiting for some ‘bush tucker’ to take the bait.

Suburb versus Neighbourhood

For the sake of American readers, I’ve been using the term ‘neighbourhood’ in my posts, but I realised that I’d unconsciously switched to the Australian term ‘suburb’ in my post last night. Consequently, a bit of explanation may be in order.

I live in the suburb of Evatt. This doesn’t mean that I live in an entity outside of or separate to Canberra. The term ‘suburb’—which literally means ‘under-city’—typically refers to a part of a city in Australia. Consequently, Evatt is what most Americans would call a ‘neighbourhood,’ akin to Sugar House in Salt Lake City or Back Bay in Boston.

Named suburbs aren’t just for certain historic or quirky quarters, however. Canberra consists entirely of dozens of these suburbs, and everyone lives in one. Even the commercial centre of the city (as much as Canberra has a centre) occupies its own suburb: Civic. And ANU has its own suburb as well: Acton.

Because Canberra is a planned city, each suburb has been carefully planned too. A typical suburb houses about 2,500-4,000 people, is bounded by major roads, and has public green space running through its centre. This green space always includes the suburb’s primary school and local shops and contains an integrated network of footpaths, making it possible for most people to shop or go to school by foot or pushbike without ever touching a road.

Things are considerably less neat in Sydney, but even this teeming city of 4,000,000 people is really just a series of named suburbs, each with its own individual character.

This distinction, however, is of lesser importance in Australia in large part because there’s no such thing as city government anyway. Thus, though Sydney has a ceremonial lord-mayor (to cut ribbons and wave in parades), the city is actually governed by the New South Wales state government. And Canberra is similarly managed by our territorial government.

Happy New Year!

Fireworks are traditional on New Year’s Eve, but last night we here in Canberra rang in the New Year with a rather-more-exciting-than-usual fireworks show courtesy of Mother Nature. Several hours of blinding lightning and rumbling thunder were accompanied in large parts of the city by nearly 40mm of rain—and, in some southern suburbs, almost a metre of hail! To get an idea of what this looked like, check out the photo below, taken from this morning’s Canberra Times.


I was watching the storm cell tracking north on the Bureau of Meteorology’s radar site, hoping that it would maintain its path since it was headed straight for our drought-parched garden, but it took a sharp turn west just a few kilometres south of our suburb. This disappointed me—until I learnt later how severe the storm had been.

I found this out firsthand from my good mate, Michael, whose car actually stalled out in waist-deep water on his way up to our New Year’s Eve get-together last night. He had to be rescued by a big truck with a bulbar, and even then he and his brother arrived just a few minutes before midnight. At least they made it safely.

And, considering how severe the drought has been this year, one can’t really complain about such a generous outpouring of water.