When we arrived at Currawinya everyone was already out on Mum and Dad’s new screened-in back deck. The horses next door were walking through their paddock. Drawn to them as if by a magnet, I purloined an apple and went down. The horses had no interest in the apple, had clearly never been given apples as treats before, but were happy to stand with me and breathe their warm breath into my hair. Thoroughbreds in beautiful condition, their muscles hard, their skin like silk, their trimmed hooves hitting the ground at precisely 45 degrees. Curious and friendly and respectful of personal space. Handled by people who understand horses and like them.

Ross and Julia came down to meet us and the horses and I walked over to the fence. “Their heads are big,” said Ross, as the horses inspected him and Jules. “Yup,” I said. “Make them go away,” he said. “They’re freaking me out.” I pushed their shoulders and they ambled off, then I piggybacked Julia up to the house where my Mum gave me a glass of champagne. The sun set, gloriously.

Dad made pappadums, bhajis, rice, dal, beef curry, tandoori chicken and his own potato curry. Everything was perfect, and there’s enough left for dinner tonight. Port wine trifle for pudding. As we got ready to leave I realized Mum and Dad don’t have a dishwasher, so I filled the sink and my brother Alain picked up a teatowel and we washed up together like two halves of a whole, as if we had done it a thousand times before, as if we had done it, in fact, with these exact plates and pans, all our lives.

“Mama!”

“What?”

“You can’t eat Julia.”

“Why not?”

“Don’t you love her?”

“Yes! And I love ducks, too. They’re delicious.”

“Don’t you love her to hug and kiss?”

“…you could hug and kiss a duck.”

“Mama you can NOT EAT JULIA.”

“I thought you said she was really annoying?”

“She is! But that doesn’t mean you can eat her!”

“I think the real question here is, Do you love your baby sister?”

“…yes.”

“To eat?”

“No!”

“To hug and kiss?”

“…yes.”

“Even when she is REALLY annoying?”

“…yes.”

Claire, as we prepare to get off the plane: What does feminist mean?

Me: Oh my god, Claire. Feminism is the belief that women are human.

C: …but women are human.

Me: *expressive shrug*

C, firmly: People who don’t think so are crazy.

Me, risking stinkeye from fellow passengers: We don’t use that word, honey. It’s not fair to people with mental illnesses to liken them to non-feminists.

In Sydney. It is, as everyone has already said, way too cold to be Christmas. Best moment so far: Ric saying “Lovely to see you too.”

The beautiful old house has been sold and we are staying in the flat, which is full of pleasingly familiar furniture and paintings, and also offers far less plummeting scope to (for example) five-year-olds with no sense of their own mortality and absent-minded people who just turned eight. (I find this lack of peril restful. Our family has a strict no-pummeting policy.)

Oh, that reminds me, new blog feature.

Q: How should I invest my retirement savings?

The eight year old replies: Why not just retire straight away?

Email your questions to yatima@gmail.com. Happy Doctor Who Christmas Special Day to all!

Today we will learn about feel. This is another important skill in riding that I have been wrong about all my life. Turns out it’s not about keeping your hands still relative to the horse’s withers. It’s about keeping your hands still relative to the horse’s mouth.

Play along at home! You will need:

• 1 seven-year-old girl with long hair, or similar

If you don’t have a seven-year-old girl, find your most over-scheduled and under-slept friend and borrow theirs.

Now, take your seven-year-old girl. Pick up a strand of hair from each side of her head. The strand should be about the thickness of a rein (that’s 15mm for civilized people, five-eighths of an inch for Americans.)

Ask your seven-year-old girl to throw her head about like a cantering pony.

You need to maintain the exact same gentle, consistent pressure on her hair. Too loose and the pony will run away with you. Too tight and the pony will get angry and buck you off (and your seven-year-old girl will speak sharply to you, or cry.)

You may notice that this is impossible, and requires precognition! Keep working on it. I am.

God-daddy G: “i don’t know why she needs a godfather when she already gets advice like “there has to be a way to overthrow the plutocracy without being a horrible rapey douchebag”. You HAVE TO LEAVE ME SOME WISDOM SPACE!”

Julia is emerging as a systems thinker.

“Daddy, how does [x] work?” she is wont to exclaim.

“Daddy, how do brains work?”

“Daddy, how do TVs work?”

“Daddy, how do nerves work?”

“Daddy, how does a computer work?”

“Daddy, how do eyes work?”

Me: “Eyes?”

Julia, scornful: “I ASKED DADDY.”

Work dinner with people Jeremy knows. You know how terrified I am of other chimpanzees – you may even have seen me bare my teeth at them in an abject signal of submission. But Konrad and Alyssa are extremely nice and funny. They have an excellent joke about a Rabbi Weasel, and they laughed when I described the Apple Newton: “Of course, this was years before you were born.” Alyssa took Claire and I took Julia and we had piggyback races down the hill. As Claire was falling asleep, she said: “I loved it when Alyssa gave me a piggyback.”

I skived a little this morning and took the Mister to the peerless Sandbox Bakery before work. That end of Cortland Street is a reliable source of street crazy.

Very Well Dressed Woman: Is that your boyfriend?

Me: This? Um.

VWDW: Is he your boyfriend?

Me: We’ve been married for eleven years.

VWDW: Do you have a family? Do you have children?

Jeremy: Yes.

Me: Two girls.

VWDW: Having any more?

Me and Jeremy, in unison: No.

VWDW: God came into this world as a child. God came into this world as a consuming fire.

Me: …there is that.

VWDW: I don’t know about families.

And then she walked away.

Me: You know, technically I think she’s right.

Jeremy: Yes, you do.

Last night before we went to sleep we piled all her presents on the end of her bed.

I am not a fan of mornings. But if you have to wake up, it might as well be to the sound of your big daughter saying, “Wow! Cool!” and your little daughter squealing: “This is the BEST BIRTHDAY EVER.”

Later there was dim sum, and later still cupcakes; but me, I am still grinning like fule over that squeal.

You can be
whatever you want to be
for Halloween!
Oh that’s just a zombie!
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
It’s just a kid, it’s just a kid,
A kid a kid a kid a kid a kid a kid
I know it is!
Let’s go and check.
Oops!
It’s just a kid.
It’s my little brother.
Let’s go away!

When will
the sun
shine through the year?
The bright sunny days
I love them
I love the sun
I love my mother
coming with me

The sun bright shining
The sun bright shine in the world

Do I sound miserable here? Someone asked me today if I was going through a hard time! I’m ashamed to say I laughed. Oh, my heart is breaking for the all kids who committed suicide this month, and I just sobbed my way through several relevant bits (ETA Milo’s is the best), but the reason the It Gets Better project slays me dead, every time, is precisely because I was bullied and it did get better, so much better, better than I could possibly have dreamed. Not only do I live in a city that, if it were human, I would have a helpless girlcrush on and want to make out with all the time, just look at this place, I mean, damn, I’ve had at least two occasions in the last twelve months – Jeremy’s last birthday party and the Labor Day picnic – where about five hours flowed past in real bliss. Didn’t even know that was possible. I’ve been worried my blog is getting too sappy, because I am just nauseatingly cheerful and fulfilled right now.

Anyway! Just felt I should clear that up. Today was really great. Claire, Julia and I Internationally Walked to School for cute keyrings and stickers. The webinar I gave in the morning went exceptionally well. I had a vat of Blue Bottle coffee and a very delicious bit of salmon at the reliably nommy Boulette’s Larder, right on the Bay, with several of my favourite people. In the afternoon I fooled around a little with amusing work, and then I came home to run the first math circle session for Fall. All the math parents just lovely, and even better, half of them already knew each other and were overjoyed to catch up. The new space is pretty much ideal, and it’s about sixty feet from my front door. I was able to sneak away during the third session, have a sit-down dinner with Jeremy and the kids at home, and be back in time to lock up. Now I am blogging with the MacBook on my left hip and the Beeblebooble curled up on my right. Oh look, and there’s a new MythBusters, and Jeremy just brought me tea and chocolate.

Riding lesson tomorrow! Oz Farm this weekend! Tickets to Zoe Keating next week!

Woke up hungover. Had a date night with the Mister last night. We went to Mission Beach and split a bottle of sangiovese. Mission Beach is really just an epically good place. I had a perfect arugula and peach salad, a fantastic bit of filet mignon on a bed of corn, English peas, black-eyed peas, mushrooms and garlic cloves with port jus (I wasn’t sure about the black-eyed peas but they gave the whole dish an incredibly rich earthiness and texture) (“Jus.” “Jus.” Jus.”) and a key lime pie. I ate too much, actually: I’ve been subsisting on salad and lean meats for a while, and can’t pack away three courses with my former aplomb. Then we went to see Exit Through the Gift Shop at the Roxie. It was funny.

This morning we had nothing in particular planned, so when Jeremy suggested that everyone come down and watch me ride I pointed out that we could swing by and see Robert and Gayu and Hari; so we did that, and had a yummy lunch (in Sunnyvale! I KNOW) and then I rode and Failed To Suck, and then there was a bouncy castle at Webb Ranch so of course we had to stop so the girls would bounce. I left my phone in the car where Jeremy was napping so I didn’t get a picture, but I looked at the bouncy castle which was unusually clean and bright rainbow colours, and the girls – Jules in her blue gingham dress, Claire in her leopardskin skirt and NYPL tee – and thought, I should remember this. A perfect moment in a perfect day. Let me keep it.

Now the chicken is roasting with yams and carrots and kale, and the girls are colouring, and it’s another pretty awesome moment actually.

Julia: “Mama, are rainbows really real?”

Me: “Yes, Julia, rainbows are real.”

Julia: “OH MY!”

Schoolgirls

Originally uploaded by yatima

Seven hours and 38 minutes until I get home.

On mornings when the timing works out – not all mornings, but definitely the best mornings – the whole family walks down Eugenia together, the girls in school uniforms and non-uniform tights and boots, their bright backpacks on their backs, and Jeremy and I in our serious grownup Linux hacker and industry analyst standard city equipment.

J and the girls take the bus south, I go north. The buses are frequent so there’s usually not enough time to wave, but one morning last week, Mission Street was empty for a while. I waved, the girls waved. I waved. They waved. I blew kisses, they blew kisses, I made heart shapes with my hands, they made strange squashy shapes with theirs.

Then we all paused. Still no bus. Awkward.

I made jazz hands. They made jazz hands.

All three of us started to dance.

We danced and danced. We boogied. We step-ball-changed. We twirled. Julia, especially, twirled.

For ten minutes, on two sides of Mission Street, we got our white girl funk on.

When my bus finally arrived I saw a woman on the other side of the street solemnly high-fiving Jeremy and the kids.