not that heinlein

nearby, the park beckons. we can see the tip of it from our window. yonder lie running paths, biking trails, a river/lake with a 27 km path around it.

spring is bursting, and the many species of birds are busy with aerobatics competitions, song contests and other mating rituals. the brilliant australian sun, notorious for its skin-roasting properties, is warming the ground as the crust of winter evaporates, making way for the roasty-toasty season that will soon be upon us, elevating moods and thermometer readings all around. meanwhile, we’re confined to quarters behind the (rather tasteful) wrought iron gates.

ok, it’s not exactly hell. that was our life in the copenhagen suburbs. we lived in a district called hellerup. nice enough place, but with no apparent irony danes abbreviate the name as “hell”. our christmas missive our first year there was titled ‘life in hell’. in some respects it was. not here.

outside the gate, the embassy awaits. for now it’s just a single story brick building across the way, adorned by unsightly air conditioners and water tanks. soon it will be pernille’s workplace.

for now however, this (below) is her office.

the optimistic news is, we’re nearing the halfway point of our enforced isolation. it is splendid isolation to be sure, and chafing at the bit is like complaining that we can’t get our favorite flavor of ice cream. so shut up already!! most people would say.

we head into the weekend with taco shells and fixins to make a nice friday night mexican food feast. who knows, maybe washed down with a carlsberg or two.

the time difference between here and home has one rather cool side effect. my birthday is at least 40 hours long, effectively giving me a two day party zone. the local greetings began with pernille singing ‘happy birthday’ to me a few minutes after — some would say before — midnight. actually, singing might be an exaggeration; it was more like a gleeful cackle. she seems to take delight in rubbing in my birthdays, and the rehearsals for the song performance begin days in advance. then i’m usually treated to encore performances at intervals throughout the day. this time, however, the celebrations have carried on until late in the evening of the second day, all the way to the US west coast, which is 17 hours behind canberra, or seven hours ahead on the day before if that helps. so the greetings have just wrapped up as the clock struck midnight in california. long day, and boy do i feel older after all that.

ok, the magpies seemed pretty cool at first. but by day four of our stay in canberra they’re becoming a pest. this guy in particular (above). he’s sitting on my windowsill, practically nose to nose with me, and he wants attention. i took this picture from about 10 inches away from his beak, though separated by a pane of glass. he’s obviously used to being fed, and i’m resisting with all my might because once you give in, they’ll never leave you alone. he’s already gotten me into a whistling contest, and i can’t possibly win. and he seems to think he should be an indoor bird. i’m going to have to consult the locals to figure out how canberrans avoid being held captive by these rascals. i don’t know how long i can go on with this character constantly hectoring me.

a throwaway magazine left on our front step yesterday had a cover story about the magpies. swooping magpies have injured a few bikers and pedestrians. no serious injuries, but the strafing is frightening. the birds themselves seem mostly harmless. (though now that i think about the concept of ‘mostly harmless’, the news media in the US are portraying the looting and burning in portland and other american cities as ‘mostly peaceful’. one wag commented that, by that standard, ‘world war two was mostly peaceful, too.’

for the most part, bird life here is spectacular. some really colorful fellows, and quite a variety considering we haven’t been out of the compound since we got here. most of them keep to themselves. only these silly magpies seem to be our dependents.

and i need a bit of education on magpie family life. twice in these first four days i’ve seen what appears to be a young magpie lying on its back while an adult stands over it, screaming and pecking. in both instances i’ve thought i was doing a good deed by rescuing the youngster, but i’m not sure about protocol in such situations. are the little guys in danger, or is this standard parenting and i’m interfering with normal disciplinary practice?

this wasn’t intended to be a blog about magpies. but in these early days of quarantine, these encounters are close to being the daily highlights. life’s bound to get more exciting when the quarantine lifts. isn’t it?

we arrived canberra past midnight september 6th, 2020, had a bite to eat, a celebratory beer, then slept. woke to a brilliant late winter morning. wandered around the house and out into the garden of our divine prison where we’re being detained for two weeks of COVID quarantine. it’s going to be an exciting four years here once the virus is tamed.

pernille is the new danish ambassador in australia. for the first time in my life, i’m a diplomatic spouse, nothing more.

since we started doing this thing called life together in india 27 years ago, we’ve been a two-career family with kids. now i’m retired and the kids, 26 and 23, are on their own in the US.

the past eight years has been a time of separation. i’ve kept a residence in the northern virginia suburbs so the kids could have an answer to the question, “what is your home address?” it also allowed me to finish out my career with the voice of america at headquarters in washington. pernille has done diplomacy in places in exciting but out of the way capitals from cairo to kabul to beirut. now we’re reunited in a dream (though also slightly out of the way) spot, the australian capital region.

in many ways this is an auspicious moment to start a blog. so here goes.