Archives for January 2013

Some people are so clever

Some people are so clever. Not Lance Armstrong, not even Oprah Winfrey – but the people who made this video.

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I love it. With apologies to the Lance Armstrong fans – for being fans not for posting the video.

The one thing that tradesmen should always check

At the very same time that my hair experienced its dirtiest day ever I awoke to find that we had no hot water.  And it gets worse – I had just hosted a mammoth lunch (well we didn’t serve mammoth but you get the drift) and we had lots of washing to do – washing of platters that don’t fit in dishwashers. And to add insult to injury Little Pencil had a very sore tummy and it’s a known fact that nothing works better on a sore stomach than a hot bath.

But the taps were cold. Freezing in fact. Could it be possible that the cold water in the taps was colder than normal? Because it certainly felt that way.

It was raining and hideous outside and perhaps because of the weather or maybe because it was a public holiday, no one wanted to come over and tinker with our hot water system. We phoned plumbers, gas people, friends, family, people who knew plumbers, I even suggested we phone a friend who is an electrician “just in case”.  All of a sudden no one needed the money – the plumbing economy is obviously very good if you can just say “tomorrow” to a crying man. (Mr Pencil was hyperventilating at the thought of missing his VERY long shower).

I filled the kettle about 56 times to fill the bath. It was too rainy to go to a friend for a shower and it was quite an interesting experiment to see how many kettles it takes to fill the bath. It’s a lot in case you’re interested. I washed my hair in a puddle and the rest of the family went to bed dirty.  That would serve the plumber right when he came the next day and everybody stank.

I went to work and Mr Pencil arranged to meet the plumber. He called me after the deed was done and explained some very complex story about power points and outages and things that I didn’t care about. Bottom line – it was fixed, hot water was flowing in abundance from our taps.

That is until I got home from work and switched the tap on. Nothing. Not nothing really – but nothing hot, or even warm.

I called the plumbing company – they told me it was fixed. I told them it might have been fixed at some point but it wasn’t working now.  She said she’s get the plumber to call me back.
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15 minutes later I called her back. I am not very patient.  She told me she’d call me as soon as she had heard from the plumber, he’d come back tomorrow.  “oh no”, I said. “I’m not waiting till tomorrow – I’m cold and a little smelly”.  She said she’d call back later.

It was 5:30, I called her again.

I called her at 6:00 and then 6:15. At 6:30 I might have mentioned the Department of Fair Trading.

At around 6:45 Mr Pencil seethed into the house. He stomped off check the power point where the plumber had been working.

It was switched off.

NICE Mr Plumber. Very Nice. Do you know how hard it was for me to call back and eat humble pie? But surely you check the power before you leave?

A word of entertaining advice

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Allow me to give you some advice: If you insist on entertaining on the weekend do not do it on a Sunday afternoon for lunch.  The problem with Sunday lunch is that it literally takes the whole week.  Well it does for me.

Monday and Tuesday I spend worrying whether I have invited the right combination of  people. Whether they will talk, like each other, eat the food and go home before dinner.

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I am consumed with menu decisions – sometimes I have difficulty sleeping because I can’t decide on which salads to make. It’s quite a serious condition and I have been known to pore over recipe books in bed deliberating for hours and trying to recall past gatherings wondering which salad I made last and who has tasted what before. Do not even start me on dessert. That takes up all my daylight hours. All of them.

Some of Fridays hours are also spent worrying about the weather and alternating between WeatherZone and the BOM hoping for different and sunnier outcomes.

Saturday it starts in earnest – shopping to be done, cooking to be started and house to be cleaned. Although why I clean the house before I cook in it so that I have to clean it again after I have cooked I am not quite sure.  Call me crazy – remember I don’t sleep for worrying over salad.
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Saturday night plans need to be shelved for, I’m not quite sure what – but doing general cooking stuff always seems to take me way into Saturday night.

Oh and then there’s the actual day of the function. Sunday morning is a nightmare. Wake up early morning to clean the house AGAIN and try find a place for the golf clubs that your husband has decided he needs. Oh okay that’s just me and yes, I am a tiny bit bitter – who buys stuff when there is no where to store it and what the hell is wrong with the boot of the car for golf clubs?

Then just when you think you can relax the guests arrive and you have to entertain them and feed them. That takes up all of Sunday afternoon when you are left to clean AGAIN.

Cautionary extra piece of advice: If you have a big party on the Sunday afternoon before a public holiday you will also spend that public holiday cleaning up.  Somehow it just happens.

So my weekend was fun. How was yours?

I am learning to like South Africans (which is handy given I was born there)

I’ve often been quite dismissive and even a bit scathing of the very incestuous and extremely tight South African community I have around me.

When Little Pencil was in preschool there were 2 Australians in his class of 20 kids. That’s quite a huge (make that overwhelming) majority of South Africans. And they were pretty intense albeit very lovely – the mothers that is, not the kids. The kids were just lovely.

The very close-knit ex patriot community meant that the kids all had South African accents (did I mention most of the teaching staff were also South African?). My son learned that corn was mielies and mandarins were naartjies, that dinner was supper and that back home was South Africa although he was born in Australia and had spent only 2 weeks of his short life in “that home”.

I was excited to move Little Pencil out of mini South Africa to go to a primary school that was a little more, how do you say, diverse. Granted there’s a fair share of my birth countrymen there but it’s balanced and we’re back to saying mandarins and corn and we now eat dinner every night and giggle slightly when people say supper like its quaint and antiquated.

I still have a lot of South African friends who I love and of course my family will always be South African at heart although most of them live here now. But the distance from that very tight and insular community at pre-school made me a little more intolerant of the very closed South African circle.  There’s a saying that you can sneeze in Bondi and someone in St Ives will bless you – that’s how small the community is, but worse, that’s how much every body knows your business.

I found it stifling. Invasive. I backed away from it – found it loud, aggressive and constricting.
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A couple of weeks ago one of my closest friends suffered a terrible loss, the tragic and seemingly senseless death of her 38 year old sister-in-law in South Africa. She and her family went back to South Africa for the funeral and the customary days of Jewish mourning. When they returned they had a prayer service for their friends and family to express their condolences and pray for the peace of the departed, her family and her 3 very young children.

I didn’t want to go to the service. I had just stepped off a plane, I was in no hurry to face some of the people that I knew would be there and I wasn’t feeling particularly religious (in fact it was the same day I was toying with becoming a Buddhist.) But I love my friend dearly and nothing was going to stop me going to show her my support, to squeeze her hand and just be there if she needed me.

As I stepped into the synagogue where the service was taking place it hit me. This is what the community is all about.  The synagogue was packed, there were literally hundreds of people there. My friend and her husband have very few family members in Australia – maybe 6 people. But there was a synagogue full of people, people that genuinely cared and wanted to be there to do the very same thing I had – to squeeze their hands, to be there to support them and to show them that they are never going to be alone and that they are loved.

In good times and in bad their close-knit,  somewhat incestuous friends were there and it didn’t matter what accents they had or how they were South African more than Australian even though they had lived more of their lives here than there.  It made me feel very grateful to be part of such an amazing community.

I’m definitely going to try be less scathing.

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3 hours early and very mellow

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I always thought the point of holidays was to eat buffet breakfasts, scoff on ice cream at random and varied times and wear ridiculous tie dyed dresses that you invariably think you’ll wear back home but as soon as you hang them in your cupboard you also hang your head in shame. No one wears tie dye dresses to work. Or to pick up the kids from school. Or when they are not at the beach

Mr Pencil says that the point of holidays are to relax and unwind, to do things you normally don’t have the time for and to gain perspective.

If both of us are right I have had a really good holiday. I’ve eaten an inordinate amount of breakfast (in fact the only reason I haven’t put on 5kilos instead of 3 is because I have tooth ache AGAIN)*, I’ve eaten ice cream just because (not related to the tooth ache) and I have worn clothes that are strictly holiday gear.

I’ve relaxed, wound down and I most certainly have new perspective.   In fact I have briefly toyed with the idea of becoming a Buddhist which could be fun considering it’s my son’s Bar Mitzvah year and he’s already telling me he wants the party without the “Jewish stuff”.

And now I’m back.

And while there is nothing fantastic about coming home from holiday – so far I have finished four loads of washing, done the shopping, made a soup and read 87 emails – I am hoping that this time back will be different. I am going to be keeping a little bit of the holiday zen close to me.

In fact, as an act of holiday defiance, I have decided not to change my watch from Singapore time so expect me to be 3 hours early when you see me next.

3 hours early but very mellow.

 

*2013 is turning out to be a very bad year for my teeth but a very good year for my dentist

I flew! Without a plane. Or wings

I’m not what you would call an adventurous person.  I thrive on routine, I like to know what’s happening next, I need to know where things are and how they work, I am one of those people that goes to a restaurant and orders the same thing every time because I know I like it.

This behaviour has earned me the moniker of fun-phobic in my family.  A term coined by my sister and husband when we were holidaying in the Gold Coast one year and I refused to go into Infinity World (if I’m not sounding fun enough allow me to add claustrophobia to my list of characteristics).

I don’t understand the point of roller coasters, I like firm ground beneath me and I’m perfectly happy in the safety of my bed surfing the internet. Fun huh?

But recently I went to Mauritius on a media trip and in my efforts to make the most of my trip and not to appear a complete anti-social leper I joined in on every activity. I gobbled my fear and I walked UNDER the ocean (well I stumbled and was white with fear and I counted the seconds till it was over but I still did it), I rode a bike on the roads as if I were Lance Armstrong (without the drugs) and I even parasailed.  In short I dropped my fun phobic mantle and I donned a Super Woman cape. Just for a few days.

And now I am in Phuket and my husband has been talking about the number one tourist destination as if he is in fact the Trip Advisor app.  According to Mr Pencil, who studies Trip Advisor in his spare time and quotes it at any given opportunity, the Flying Hanuman is the one place that we HAD to visit while we were here. According to the pamphlets it is “an adventure like no other on Phuket. It shows that the island’s beauty goes far beyond the sea, sun and sand that it is famous for”.  According to me it is an absolutely mind boggling set of zip lines that thread through the trees like a spider web on crack.

And so we set off for the rain forests of Phuket to fly through the trees. The very, very, very high trees. And I had to act like I was still in Mauritius and I was no longer fun phobic.  Eek.

I have been told on occasion that I am good with words but I actually don’t have the words to describe the height of the trees in which these zip lines were set so again I will refer to the brochure – 40 metres!  Yes I was expected to jump off a platform 40 metres off the ground and “sail” to the next platform 100 metres away. Oh about 16 times.  Don’t forget I am the same person that loves to lie in my bed and surf the net.
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My sister, her husband and her son seemed to think that this was an every day experience. Not that they weren’t awed by the spectacle of the rain forest and exhilarated by the experience of soaring across the forest – because they were but they just jumped off the platforms and flew. My son, well he has no fear. None at all. He did a couple of the lines upside down and was all hands in the air and beaming with delight. I screamed a lot.  Not so much the excited screams of my son and my sister who were positively whooping with joy but the screams of a very frightened person who was thinking back to the safety of her fun phobic days.  My stomach may or may not be still in the forests.  But I have to tell you (from the safety of my bed where I am writing this post) that it was amazing. Exhilarating even.

And then there was my husband. Mr Pencil is scared of heights. Or rather he is petrified of heights in that very irrational way that some people are scared of clowns or my niece is scared of mandarins (interesting family?). He had decided to try the course because he loves Trip Advisor very deeply and also because he thought Little Pencil would absolutely love it and he is a very good father.

Fear is a very strong emotion. It can almost root you to a platform 40 metres above the ground and it can cause you to completely stop talking to the people around you. At least that’s what it did for Mr Pencil today. He became slightly catatonic – going through the motions VERY SLOWLY  (well as slowly as you can soar through the air) and refusing to engage in any conversation at all.  Grunts were produced at some points and at one stage he managed to shout that no one should try talk to him.  But he did it. He overcame his fear for the sake of Trip Advisor and Little Pencil. No that’s not true – he didn’t overcome his fear at all but he did manage to complete the course.*

And just like that – for one hour today I became the second most adventurous person in my little family of three. And it was awesome

Here’s Little Pencil just cruising

hunaman

*there is no way out of it – if you can’t do it you have to live the rest of your days out in the trees because there is no other way to get back down.

The problem with being right all the time

Image

In what will be news to no one that already knows me I have realised that I have an awful problem, I cannot switch off. I don’t even know where the switch is.

I am in what could well be regarded as paradise – an idyllic resort in a blissfully quiet part of Phuket.  Truly magnificent surroundings, a choice of 3 stunning pools plus my very own plunge pool mere metres away from what could be best described as the most comfortable bed in the world and surrounded by people that I love and that love me in return.

I have seen the hustle and bustle of tourist Phuket, I have swum in spectacular azure waters and I have eaten (way too much) of the most sumptuous food on offer.  I have spent hours reading on the beach, lying at the pool and floating in the sea, I have had massages and a fully body polish and if my body was any more relaxed I would be declared dead.

But my mind is far from dead. It’s been ticking over at it’s normal pace of knots and the thoughts racing around my head are in dire need of a holiday of their own.

That’s just one of the reasons that I am so lucky that I am on holiday with my husband. Aside from having someone to put suntan lotion on my back, pay for all my meals and take care of all the tedious parts of holidaying (he’s an excellent packer and makes plans with seamless precision) he is also my very own personal therapist. And while he doesn’t charge anything he works harder and better than any counselor I have paid in the past. And Lord knows I have paid a fair few therapists in the past. 

But most amazingly after 25 years together Mr Pencil still comes up with insights into my own character that I didn’t even know where part of me.

The other night while trying to still the noises in my head and resisting the huge and almost overwhelming urge to go online and see what was happening at work, correct a typo, give my 2 cents, send a work related tweet (or 40) check on Facebook, organise school stuff for next term, worry about child care next year, even spend a few minutes panicking about my son’s Bar Mitzvah (which is more than a year away) I looked at him with “that” face – the one that says “I will never be able to sleep, I just can’t get close.”

I don’t even know what he was thinking about or how his brilliant neural pathways made the connection but he pointed out to me that my problem that night, and MANY other times comes from the fact that I always “have to be right”.

I have to tell you – I was shocked. I thought that it was MEANT to be that way. It is our assumption that just intense men can have children! NO! You can in any case treat your ineptitude issue and acquisition de viagra and successful weakness drug. While treating low testosterone is a possibility today, knowing when exactly treatments should be taken is also important and therefore, we bring to you several ways this discount viagra the original source condition can impact your sexual function. purchase viagra uk Before 1998, erectile dysfunction did not have a cure. Cranial osteopathy embraces viagra online online all of these specialties and is available following many requests from our satisfied customers to enhance the quality of male hard-on. I thought that if you knew something other people didn’t; you had to tell them. 

Turns out you don’t.  I have always been too quick to respond, in too much of a hurry to make my point, too anxious to make people like me or believe me or maybe just believe IN me.

I have never been good at long term planning – more of a band aid girl rather than a watch and wait type of person. I want to solve everything now and deal with the fall out when it happens (and not a minute later). It’s not working and it’s exhausting me.

I know that sometimes people can see me as aggressive and I never really understood why, I am, in my own mind, the least aggressive human on the planet – I spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about the effect I have on people around me and a harrowing amount of time worrying about everyone else’s happiness.  But I do know that I like to make my point – sometimes way too quickly.

Most times I do it to make people think about me in the way I want them to. My husband’s newsflash assured me I was doing the opposite.

 So I am going to take more heed of what Mr Pencil has to say (except when it comes to shopping). I am going to blog more, try and switch off and relax more, think calmly before I respond rather than rushing into it and stop trying to prove to the world that I am right.

It might be uncannily quiet given that my neurosis and on the spot responses make a lot of noise but I am confident that Little Pencil and Mr Pencil will more than make up for that – it’s just that the noise that they make will be better for my head. And in return it will be better for everyone around me.