A friend and I were pretending to power walk but were actually strolling and the topic of the power/stroll walk was .... I don't know how this happens and it does, so often .... the toilet.
Women's toilets and worse still, toilets at busy international airports have no place to put your hand bag. One would think that the centre of the door would be an ideal place for a hook or the left or the right side of the cubicle and what is with that space on the left and the right so you can see whose feet are peeing on either side of you? No, you have to strangle yourself with the strap of your hand bag while you perfect the not-quite-sitting-on-the-seat position which we, in a previous power/stroll walk, have called hovering. God forbid if you are an Indian woman and have to lift 6 yards/metres of saree or are wearing a catsuit .... you know, those things that abba used to wear or that your friend's mom bought from colpro or deacons in 3 different colours of beige, red and blue that you got as hand-me-downs and had to wear for most of the 70's .... what with you being the grunt of the pack ... and still being the same height as most 12 year olds in Europe or North America. Then you have to do a kung fu panda elbow 'chappa' to flush the loo as you naturally can't use your hand ... who knows how many other germy hands have been there before you and you do remind the 3 yr old. 'don't touch anything, i mean anything in this loo'. God help you if you were wearing a ball gown in Jeddah as you wait for a connection on Saudia ....one can't tell if the wet on the bottom of the gown is .... new picture, please .... hurry! Assam domestic airport ...... it gets worse, no?
I hear Zurich loos are fine ... the loo is, well, you sit and pee and then..... seriously, wait for this, a fine spray of disinfecting water sprays the seat and then dries it for the next bottom ..... and, here comes the piece de resistance, the flush is activated by your foot! BUT .... and there always is a but, even in Zurich, they do not have somewhere to hang your bag.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
jacaranda's in bloom
The rains should be here and to herald that, the jacaranda trees have brought forth their abundance of lilac ... or is it purple? What a beautiful sight, jacaranda's in full bloom .... just makes me happy .... you get that silly smile on your face that speaks of joy.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
at what price can you be bought?
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My son (who is almost two) and I were having a bit of a tussle of wills, to put it mildly, about tidying up. He, admittedly, by mistake, threw down a puzzle and I said “please pick it up or the pieces will get lost and Ilana loves that puzzle”. This led to a I-will-cry-till-your-head-explodes-from-the-noise episode that lasted probably 5 minutes but in my half-mad state, felt like an hour. I warned him, got annoyed, yelled, told him I would not let his sister play with him … and then whacked him one and that worked as he just stopped the crying like that, a switch turned off, and he put the stuff away! Uncanny. I consulted a fellow mom and teacher later on and her advice was to find his currency and then buy him off or take it away. I told her he has none, and she said, ‘everyone has a currency, everyone can be bought’. His currency is probably his sister and how do I take her away from him? Besides, I want for my kid to do it because it is the right thing to do, not because there will be no tv, or he will get chocolate!! Why must I buy him off? When will he have a currency and do I really want him to have one? When will it change and how much higher will it go? When he is 18 will I have to sell the family station wagon to buy him off with a new SUV? Is this what I would teach him as a value?
I tell you another story that makes me disappointed in the human race. A friend of mine’s work permit is being delayed. Turns out that her partner of x years threw her out of the joint business and has told immigration vicious lies about her so they investigate her and (the plan being) throw her out of the country! Just for greed, one ‘friend’ would get immigration to investigate someone? I wonder what the price was that ‘bought’ out friendship, that ‘sold’ this lie to some immigration officer in Nyayo house?
My toto and my friend’s story have a common thread. Tenuous thought it may seem.
I have a tendency to create a mountain out of a mole hill but do you not think that we are teaching our children the very ethos that we would have crushed? We are engendering it as a value, unconsciously or consciously. I just want to know where it ends and if it is true ’everyone has a currency, everyone can be bought’. And it need not necessarily be money. I personally can be bought with a box of ferrero kueschen … . Not something to be proud of but it IS that easy. My sister gets bought by a ‘friend’ with a sob story. I can see it is a scam but hey, I am the b@#$% of an older sister so no use me voicing my opinion! My husband is bought with a day of bungee jumping (and incidentally a day sans me …. Hmmm, light dawns on marble head). But think of it, what is your currency and can you be bought?
My son (who is almost two) and I were having a bit of a tussle of wills, to put it mildly, about tidying up. He, admittedly, by mistake, threw down a puzzle and I said “please pick it up or the pieces will get lost and Ilana loves that puzzle”. This led to a I-will-cry-till-your-head-explodes-from-the-noise episode that lasted probably 5 minutes but in my half-mad state, felt like an hour. I warned him, got annoyed, yelled, told him I would not let his sister play with him … and then whacked him one and that worked as he just stopped the crying like that, a switch turned off, and he put the stuff away! Uncanny. I consulted a fellow mom and teacher later on and her advice was to find his currency and then buy him off or take it away. I told her he has none, and she said, ‘everyone has a currency, everyone can be bought’. His currency is probably his sister and how do I take her away from him? Besides, I want for my kid to do it because it is the right thing to do, not because there will be no tv, or he will get chocolate!! Why must I buy him off? When will he have a currency and do I really want him to have one? When will it change and how much higher will it go? When he is 18 will I have to sell the family station wagon to buy him off with a new SUV? Is this what I would teach him as a value?
I tell you another story that makes me disappointed in the human race. A friend of mine’s work permit is being delayed. Turns out that her partner of x years threw her out of the joint business and has told immigration vicious lies about her so they investigate her and (the plan being) throw her out of the country! Just for greed, one ‘friend’ would get immigration to investigate someone? I wonder what the price was that ‘bought’ out friendship, that ‘sold’ this lie to some immigration officer in Nyayo house?
My toto and my friend’s story have a common thread. Tenuous thought it may seem.
I have a tendency to create a mountain out of a mole hill but do you not think that we are teaching our children the very ethos that we would have crushed? We are engendering it as a value, unconsciously or consciously. I just want to know where it ends and if it is true ’everyone has a currency, everyone can be bought’. And it need not necessarily be money. I personally can be bought with a box of ferrero kueschen … . Not something to be proud of but it IS that easy. My sister gets bought by a ‘friend’ with a sob story. I can see it is a scam but hey, I am the b@#$% of an older sister so no use me voicing my opinion! My husband is bought with a day of bungee jumping (and incidentally a day sans me …. Hmmm, light dawns on marble head). But think of it, what is your currency and can you be bought?
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
That blank page. Plain scary. To start it right. Crap that. To start it at all is what I would ascribe to!
Great. I started.
Is it really ever possible to over think something? Andreas keeps telling me to stop going into over-think mode - why can't it just be, just that, why must it be more than what it seems? Seriously, I am a simple person and would call a spade a spade. I attempt not to read more into the spoken word than what is spoken but then am a woman and invariably feel this thought creep into the side of my head, 'maybe he meant this when he said that?' but it that not just delving into infinite possibilities of over think?
In the end though, I always come back to that constant thought - Andreas is always right. Seriously, I can look at something I said, or thought up and it will turn out that he was right - and luckily he does not crow over it but truth be told, the sun does shine out of his £4@&!
Ergo, it is possible to over think something. To think it to death till it is out thunk. Sleepless nights out thinking a thought from different angles and different perspectives when it really could have been so simple. I could have just left it at that one thought and have done with.
Must try that out sometime.
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