kaaronwarren

This is not a happy Christmas story at all, but it needs to be shared. My friend, Lauren Beukes, the South African writer, has posted the story of a girl who took four months to die after being attacked by her boyfriend. Please, read the story.

I am Day 10 of the Angry Robot Twelve Days of Christmas. It's been all hilarity and some fairly scary photos so far; go see what I have to say!

We have own internet and own computer so life feels a bit more settled. A pretty amazing homecoming. After the dead mouse/carrion crow exhibition, we had the catching possum incident, the massive smashed mirror surprise and the unfortunate delay in our shipment with all my darn Christmas presents aboard. But apart from that it's been wonderful. People are very kind, lending us cars, computers and TVs. The kids have had a couple of sleepovers each already, we've eaten delicious meals with fascinating people and we are well into the bottle of butterscotch schnapps we bought on the way home. Tonight I'm making my mushroom soup. I make double quantities and fill my bowl so often I have to roll around the house. Also I bought some malt to make malted milks. But life is not all about food. Last thing today: I interviewed Gillian Polack, Simon Brown, Yaritji Green and Tessa Kum over at WorldSF. Four writers with four very different perspectives; I like it!

Day Two: The big truck carrying our stuff from storage arrived only an hour late, so that's not a bad start. However, the ship arrived five days late, thus scuttling any chance of us receiving our Fiji stuff before Christmas. Silly me for buying all those goodies!

I'm sorting out my clothes like a crazy clothes-chucking out person. All the stuff I haven't seen for three years and thought I had an affection for; gone. I'm keeping the nightie I wore when I was nine, and the school dress all my school mates signed in Year 11. I'm keeping the last jumper J's mother knitted and the first one I knitted.

But gone is the green jumpsuit I always thought would look nice one day. It doesn't. Gone is the once-fabulous brown overalls with matching shirt I bought in Melbourne 25 years ago for so much money I never wanted to throw it out. It's gone. Gone are the pants and skirts now too big. Gone are the pilly jumpers and the stretched cardies. Gone are the boring shirts I kept just in case. There is no just in case to justify a boring shirt!

Kids have fantastic new cupboards so their old crappy furniture is sitting in the carport. What a satisfying sight!

Our kitchen may well be up and running by the end of the week. That will really be nice. When you come to visit I'll show you my German shelving system.

We're home. I'm now Australian Writer living in Australia.

We were wonderfully surprised at the airport. Were expecting one dear friend and instead there were about 8!

Less pleasantly surprised when we found a fat dead mouse in our backyard. Luckily, 5 huge carrion crows ripped the corpse to shreds, so that cleaned it up.

More soon!

Last night in Fiji spent with much laughter. Good friends, our last two bottles of wine, lots of stories.

Heading off before the sun tomorrow. Hopefully access to internet soon after.

Last night I ate one mouthful of kokoda (the marinated fish salad) and it tasted off, so I left the rest. We don't want to get sick now, do we!

My daughter went of proudly with J to a work function yesterday. All dressed up with her nice dress and hair ribbons. I told her, "You know everyone will think you're very cute," and she shrugged and gave me this little, "And that's a problem how?" smile. Of course she was hugged and spoiled and given cakes and had a lovely time. I meanwhile got to finish two interviews and decide what will appear at the back of 'Walking the Tree'.

We've had a Ghanaian farewell and a Japanese farewell, where I was dressed up in a kimono. Pictures once we get our plugs back! Silly me sent them home on the boat, which we hope is at the docks by now. The kimono-dressing took about half an hour. Heavy as anything with three layers of silk and cotton, but I felt very graceful wearing it.

Today our Korean friends will come for morning tea. I'm making afghan cookies with bits and pieces of leftovers from the cupboard. Then lunch in town with a bunch of people, then the movies, then our official farewell. In between is panicking about all the things we need to do!

Aurealis Awards Shortlist is out. Slights is up for best horror novel! I really wanna win!

The whole list is here. Congratulations to all on the list.

We are having cheesecake for breakfast today. A friend is coming over to say goodbye, and bringing cheesecake! Yay for cream cheese in the shops at the moment!

One of the interesting groups of people living in Fiji is the long-term expat, mostly Brits who've lived here more than 40 years.

I love meeting them. They're without fail informed, intelligent and truly eccentric.

Last night, at the Japanese Emperor's birthday (the party of the year, J and I always say. The food! Oh, the food!) there was a wonderful old woman I hadn't met before.

When we walked in, she was sitting regally on a couch, observing. She was dressed in what I would call a little girl's dress; frills, pale blue, puffy shoulders. Very large fake eyelashes. Very bright and shiny blue eyeshadow.

Later, as we jostled for food (it really is very good. The first year we were too polite and waited till the end, and most of the food was gone) I found myself next to her. She said, "Oh, you try to take just a little bit of everything and you end up with a plateful."
She held up her plate to me. It was fully 10 or 15cm piled with food. Everything stacked on there. A dozen prawns at least.
I looked at my very restrained plate and smiled at her. "It's such lovely food," I said. You see what a diplomat I've become.
"I hope I can eat it all," she said, and she gave me a wonderful conspiratorial wink. Damn right she was going to eat it all, and come back for seconds!
I didn't end up talking to her (was distracted by a new professor who kept saying, "Oh Vancouver! I'm from there! Oh, London! I'm from there! Oh, Prague, I'm from there!") so I don't know who she is or what she was doing there.

I'm going to miss these odd, short connections.

We are quickly moving into the realm of Last Things. The kids headed off to school today, for their last week. We've had last meals, last visits, last shopping trips.

Friday night saw James' work farewell. I felt so proud; this was one of those real farewells, nothing token about it. Everybody there loved working with him and was genuinely sorry to see him go. They commissioned his farewell gift, and when I get thingy for my camera I'll take a photo of it. It's made of old car parts, just in case we ever forget the disaster of our damn car! I started crying when they sang the Fijian farewell song Isa Lei. I've heard it many times and sung it myself, but when they sing it to you...oi lei.

On Saturday night, we enjoyed International Farewells: American. With a Thanksgiving Dinner that Couldn't Be Beat. I'm quoting of course from Alice's Restaurant. We listened to that song a lot when I was child, because the tape was in the car. I'm sure I understood very little of it, but I loved it nonetheless.

It was a Southern Style Meal, including lime and chili roasted pecans and sweet potato cooked in maple syrup and bourbon and topped with marshmallows. Very sweet! Then a taste of the very expensive coffee which was delicious. It was nice to be able to verbalise thanks for our three years here and the people we've met.

Today I'm donating books to the public library and mailing off a small gift for Jay Lake, whose progress we've been watching on twitter. Jay is a generous, brilliant man. Wish me luck at the post office.

International Food Farewells: France.

Well, the one and only French restaurant in Suva, with Australian friends. Walking into Scott's is like stepping into another era. I took my Mum there and she felt it was 1979 and she was 30 years younger. Wouldn't that be a nice short story? Go to a restaurant and you're younger?

The owner of Scott's is an Englishman who has lived in Fiji for 30 or more years. He'll tell you as much history as you're willing to hear! They cook pepper steak, chocolate mousse, garlic prawns, apple tarte tatin, all of it delicious. The best lobster bisque I've ever had, not that I've had many. But it is very good.

Very interesting article by Nicholas Seeley at Strange Horizons. He interviewed a lot of the writers in the Apex Book of World SF and put this story together.

Also, I've just discovered that Danielle has put together a playlist of the "Stephanie Says" soundtrack James Batley made for me at the 'Slights' launch in Fiji!

Having your things packed by the removalists is certainly a lot easier, but a tad intimate at the same time. They can't help looking at your stuff; I'd be looking at people's stuff. And they make assessments of you. They always think I'm a teacher because of all my books.

Most of our stuff is on the dock now, waiting for the boat. House is still furnished, and we've borrowed a TV, but I'm down to only ten dresses to choose from.

I shouted the removalists pizza on Thursday. I wanted delivery, so called Pizza Hut. Here's another in the series of 'typical Fijian conversations':

"Hello, this is Pizza Hut."
"Hello, do you do home delivery?"
"No, madam." Said in a very sorry voice.
"But...I saw a sign out the front of your shop saying you do home delivery."
Giggles.
"Why do you have a sign if you don't do home delivery?"
Giggles.
"So you really don't do home delivery?" It sounds as if I'm nagging, but sometimes you really have to keep asking.
"Not yet."
"Not yet? Tomorrow? Next week?"
"No, 1pm today."

! It was close to 12. I said, "So, can I order home delivery for 1pm?"
"Yes, you can."

There you go. You just need to keep asking!

Last night our International Farewell Dinners continued, with an Aussie and Kiwi party. We ate smoked salmon on pumpernickel circles (nobody asked where the smoked salmon came from. We know it comes from CostUseless where the fridges don't work half the time, but sometimes it's best not to think about these things), meatballs in a fantastically juicy and salty sauce, eggplant, tomato and coriander salad, slow-cooked chook and haloumi salad. We ate pavlova (with the requisite argument about who invented the sweet) and homemade pistachio and praline icecream (no arguments about that one).

We drank Cosmopolitans in an attempt to use up our Cointreau.

One taxi driver got lost and took our guests down into a village where he said, "Oh,I'm scared here. We should turn back."

We talked about the motel in Nelson, NZ, where they provide free adult movies on Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays.

We discussed the taste of Kona coffee, which costs $360 Fijian for a kilo. It doesn't come out of cat's bottoms, but apparently it tastes very good.

J tried on a kilt at 2am and it looked rather good.

We are embarking on an International series of farewell dinners. Last week was the Dutch 'chuck the prawns on the table' meal, last night we went to our Korean friends' Japanese restaurant, Zen.

We became friends with this family because our kids are at school together and we love the food at Zen. My son has a special dish named just for him; small fried fish and pork fillets with sauce. The fish sauce is my friend's variation on tartare sauce and is perfection. She uses sweet pickles. They made Korean sushi, the best miso soup in Suva, her fantastic sliced salad, and sashimi.

We drank a lot of soju, Korean sake. Our friend said we needed to drink a bottle each, but that was a bit too much on a school night! He told us that you always serve someone else, not yourself, and you hold the bottle with two hands to show respect. If the person you are serving is further across the table, you can use one hand but the other hand you place on your chest.

He also told us that if the first sip of soju tastes bitter rather than sweet, you shouldn't drink any more, because it means that soju is bad for your body.

It tasted sweet to me.

I will miss these friends very much. We talk about differences and similarities and the way the world is changing. We talk about the future, the past, about history and about mythology.

M had a sore stomach after eating so much of his special dish and even more of the sushi.

We are in the stage of last things.

Yesterday, my friend P and I went out to Nausori Value City. Nausori is where the airport is, and visitors will know it's about a 30 minute drive. You pass through villages and rainforest to get there via the scenic route. You pass Colo-i-Suva, the setting for my vampire dog story "The Gaze Dogs of Nine Waterfall". You drive along the beautiful Rewa river which rises to flood so easily.

P is very tall and I'm pretty short. I'd hold up a dress and she'd say, "Too short", then I'd hold it against myself and it would go past my knees. Luckily we didn't fight over too many dresses. We found (new) shoulder tie bath robes. These must have been very expensive at one time. The label says they are handwoven by artisans in Southern India. They are a pale aqua colour. We tried them on in the shop and somehow started bopping to the music. We wondered how our husbands would feel to see us dressed in our huge thick aqua shoulder tie robes.

We listened to The Cruel Sea's "Honeymoon is Over"on the way home with our carload of books (including The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought, which we nearly did fight over) and shoulder tie robes and fab dresses. J and I danced to this song on Saturday night and my friend P fell in love with the song, and with Tex Perkins, just hearing it. Who wouldn't! Watch him on YouTube. "Then I'm gonna get this tattoo changed to another girl's name." Love it! I saw him live once, at Tilley's in Canberra. I told P that all the men in the room disappear when Tex sings.

She dropped me off. And that's it for P; I won't see her again for a long time. Perhaps when she comes to Australia to visit, or I return to Fiji for a visit, but no more jumping in the car for secondhand clothes adventures.

Lots more excellent interviews of contributors to the Apex Book of World SF up at SF Signal I'm really enjoying this series of Q and A.

Today there's Han Song from China. Scroll down for Anil Menon from India, Tunku Halim from Malaysia, and Dean Francis Alfar from the Philipines.

We're having a rather busy time. Friday night we had a feast to celebrate a friend's birthday. They boiled a huge pot of water, threw in fresh prawns, a bouqet garni of herbs and spices, baby potatoes and corn. Cooked it a while. They layered paper on a huge outdoor table, layered banana leaves on top, strained the water off the pot and tipped the lot onto the table. We all greedily ate our way through this wondrous pile.

Saturday we had a farewell party jointly with our next door neighbours. It was lots of fun and involved dancing and drinking a variety of shots in an attempt to clear the two bars. We made a variation of the Japanese Slipper which the 13 year old dubbed "Suva River" and we filled a water cooler with it. Most impressive!

My novel, 'Slights' has scored a couple of recommendations for "Best First Novel" in the Stoker Awards, and there are a few other Aussies on the list, too. Sinister Reads will profile all those recommended over the next few weeks.

This is such a Fijian conversation.

I called my friend Thomas yesterday to make some arrangements. He answered sleepily.
"Hello, Thomas!" I said brightly.
"Hello."
"It's Kaaron."
"Hello."
Usually Thomas is very happy to hear from me but he sounded underwhelmed. He sounded quite different, in fact.
"Are you okay, Thomas?"
"Yes, thank you."
"Are you tired, Thomas?"
"No, I am not tired."
I then asked to speak to his wife.
"Who?"
The truth finally dawned.
"Is this Thomas?"
"No, not Thomas."
"So I have the wrong number?"
"Yes."

I apologised and hung up. The man was so polite he didn't want to tell me I'd dialled the wrong number!

My fascination with marginalia meant there was no way I could leave behind "Who Did What an illustrated biographical dictionary". Apart from the fact I think there should be a question mark in the title, a previous owner has written their additions in the front cover:

John Newton (sailor then clergyman) wrote the poem "Amazing Grace" then mayed into song.
Silent Night translanted 300 languages, written by Catholic priest, first perform in 1817 Oberndorf Austria. German soldiers sang 1914 on the Western Front.

and others.

We spent a while the other night looking up surnames of people we know. I can't claim any famous Warrens because that's an adopted name. There were no Hansons and no Farrers.

We also tried to find Australians and New Zealanders in the book but they were few and far between. Not one Pacific Islander, I don't think.

Anyone want me to look up their surname? Anyone got any suggestions of Aussies or Kiwis who might have made the cut?