Does Friendship Automatically Bring Forgiveness?

I have written before about friendship and how lucky I am to still have friends from a hundred years ago when we were pig-tailed girls in school but friendship can be a delicate construct. I started thinking about this after reading a recent post by a friend about how friendships are maintained and our expectations of them which is how I ended up writing about forgiveness – or not.  As I’m writing this on Good Friday, the topic is a timely one.  With all the hoo-ha surrounding it, non-believers probably think Christmas is the biggest event in the Christian calendar but it isn’t.  Easter is the big kahuna because without Christ’s Resurrection, there would be no reason to follow Jesus as he would have been just another dead rebel.  The whole point is that God sent his Son to forgive our sins and ensure our redemption so the whole concept of forgiveness is a ‘big thing’ and not only in Christianity. Buddhists believe that forgiveness is a critical step towards achieving a peaceful state of being and the Qur’an teaches that forgiveness is a superior moral trait.  “Turn the other cheek.” is the yellow brick road.  “Forgive and forget.”  But what if you can’t.  Forgive.  Or forget.

In 2010 I severed a friendship and even five years later I can still feel the disappointment and anger as though it were yesterday.  We don’t do things for our friends expecting to be repaid but I think it’s OK to consider any equal relationship a two-way street.  My friend’s life was always in turmoil.  When she discovered her husband cheating, I consoled her by phone from America, where I was living at the time.  Her next partner had a vengeful, bitter ex-wife so I was a sounding board for her frustrations and copywriter and editor for mountains of correspondence. Despite having a son together, that relationship ended and it was more commiserating and letter-writing as the miserable sod tried shirking his financial responsibilities in any way he could.  I suppose the rot started setting in when, as her son’s godmother, I was asked to be his sponsor at his Confirmation.  To reflect the importance of the occasion and because his mother had mentioned he was becoming interested in photography, I gave him a digital camera.  And this was years ago, before you could get them out of vending machines. I certainly wasn’t expecting a gilt-edged letter of gratitude but I thought I might at least get a phone call…. Nothing, nought, nada, zip, zilch, zero.  Am I belabouring the point?  Not even a bloody cup of tea after the ceremony.  Her choice in men was appalling and the next one was a certified narcissist.  More listening, more commiserating.  Then my father died.  And she sent me a text message.  Some of you will understand exactly why that was the straw that broke the camel’s back while others will wonder why it was such a big deal. It’s hard to put into words how totally let down I felt but there was now a trench in the sand that swallowed forgiveness whole and was never likely to throw it back up.

On the other hand, I have a girlfriend I have known since Kindergarten and I have forgiven her a myriad of transgressions, big and small.  When I became engaged, many moons ago, my American husband’s lawyer recommended that we get married as quickly as possible to start all the paperwork for my move to the U.S. and application for my Green Card so my first wedding was an intimate affair of only 10 people in a divine little stone church.  (We had the bigger, glitzier ceremony two months later so I have two wedding anniversaries – both of which I now manage to forget…..)  S. was supposed to be my bridesmaid and witness but not only was she late, thus missing the entire thing, she had the audacity to be upset because we didn’t wait.  My best gay friend ended up being my bridesman and I was as happy as a pig in mud.  But my husband was furious and where I laughed it off as a memorable part of the day, he did not forgive her for years after finally accepting that I really hadn’t cared and I wasn’t just saying that because we had been friends for so long.  And I think therein lies the difference.  By that time, S. and I had 29 years invested in our friendship.  That’s a lot of secrets and memories and laughter to lose.  It would be like excising great chunks of your past with nothing to fill the holes.

People suffer the most tremendous losses due to violence and yet extend forgiveness to the perpetrators.  They are obviously in some state of grace that I can’t begin to imagine.  The generally accepted position is that without forgiveness, you can’t truly “move on” but in my totally unprofessional yet totally eloquent opinion, I think that’s a load of horse manure.  I believe you can feel sadness, anger, disappointment and a kaleidoscope of other emotions and still lead a “whole” life. Sometimes not “letting it go” is fuel for a fire that changes everything.

It’s complicated.  I’m sure everyone has a story. Wait, is that the time?  Forgive me, I have to run.

 

 

 

Eulogy for a Mother.

Yesterday I went to a funeral.  A friend’s mother.  She was 88, frail, with dementia.  It’s a bitter pill we have to swallow, aging, but, as the cliché goes, it’s better than the alternative – although perhaps less so towards the end.  As is the way now, there was a slide show of her life.  She was gorgeous – model gorgeous and very fond of dancing – when Sydney still had dance halls.  So hard to pay tribute to a life in half an hour.  My own mother died at 85, frail, with dementia.  She was gorgeous – model gorgeous – with a gap between her front teeth like Lauren Hutton.  When she died I would fall asleep clutching her wedding ring and when my father died three years later, I had his wedding ring fused with hers so I have something visible to hold the invisible.

Most eulogies are a timeline of someone’s life – facts, figures – the skeleton of our years here.  It was a torment deciding what to write about my mother because those final words circle the universe forever and I didn’t want to talk about the skeleton, I wanted to talk about the flesh and bones.  So, once more for you mum because love never ends.

 

” The danger in writing a eulogy, especially for someone like mum who had such a long life and whom you so love, is that you feel you need to cover everything in their lives to somehow “do them justice” and it can’t be done – not even if you had hours to say what is supposed to be said in these 5 or 10 minutes so I thought to myself, how would I respond if a stranger asked me to describe my mother and only gave me one sentence in which to do it”.

And the amazing thing is, I didn’t even hesitate.  I would simply say, “She was a good woman”.  At face value, you might think it a rather old-fashioned, almost mediocre description but sometimes it is the small, common words that we use all the time – and not always with much thought – that carry the most meaning.

So, here are some definitions from the dictionary for that one seemingly simple word and when you hear them, you will appreciate why it is such a fitting tribute to my mum:

Of high or superior quality                  Worthy of respect, honourable, admirable

Attractive                                                  Competent, skilled

Reliable                                                     Genuine, true

Pleasant, agreeable                                Of moral excellence, upright

Loyal, sympathetic                                 Dependable

Warm-hearted, considerate                 Kind, gentle, gracious

Now before I make her sound too saintly, I must say, she did have a temper but children tend to bring that out in you.  I know this will come as a shock to some of you but I have been known to be a little stubborn and headstrong and for a few years of my life, I thought my name had been changed to “asina”.  For those of you without the benefit of Italian, it means “donkey” or “mule”.

My husband’s favourite memory of my mother is her rather brutally honest observation to him before we got married:  “Daniela’s wonderful as long as she gets her own way and when she doesn’t, she turns into a viper”.  I guess she thought that forewarned was forearmed.

She laughed, loudly and often. She had a dry, wicked sense of humour.  She sang as she did the housework.  She hated cooking.  She loved my father faithfully and unwaveringly for over 52 years and had that love returned.  She was, the most amazing mother, and in her honour, I would like to read a poem entitled, “A Mother’s Love”

A mother’s love determines how We love ourselves and others.

There is no sky we’ll ever see Not lit by that first love.

Stripped of love, the universe Would drive us mad with pain;

But we are born into a world That greets our cries with joy.

How much I owe you for the kiss That told me who I was!

The greatest gift–a love of life– Lay laughing in your eyes.

Because of you my world still has The soft grace of your smile;

And every wind of fortune bears The scent of your caress. ” 

 One day, someone will be talking like this about our lives – make sure you give them a wealth of material to work with.

 

Oy Vey and Oh My God! Just another Jewish, Catholic, Agnostic Family.

Religion is an interesting proposition in our house. I am – using a recently discovered and the most apt description of all time  – a “submarine Catholic“,  surfacing only at Christmas and Easter.  My dad was an “armchair Catholic“, arguing that God could hear him just as clearly from our house as from any Church and my mum, whose Italian accent was still thick despite all her years in Australia, would attend the local ‘Viet-manese’ Mass because she loved seeing all the children even though she couldn’t understand a word of the Service!

My American husband, Jewish by birth but agnostic by nature, believes that if there is a God, he is totally disgusted with what has become of His earthly paradise and has most certainly moved on to other projects.  His father, although not Orthodox, was quite devout while his mother was more inclined to social activism, marching with Atlanta’s African-Americans in their struggle for equal rights.

So, where does that leave our son?  Baptised Catholic, he went to a local Catholic Primary School before moving to an Anglican High School where he treated Christian Studies with the same resigned boredom reserved for any subject he wasn’t particularly thrilled with.  And then about 3 years ago something happened.  I sent him away to a school holiday Sailing Camp.  He was unusually keen to get home when I picked him up but assuming he was just tired, we threw his gear in the car, buckled up and just as I was about to ask for the week’s review, he stopped the question from even leaving my lips by not just beginning to cry but by sobbing uncontrollably which left me absolutely stunned and a little frightened.

What I hadn’t realised is that the organisation that runs these camps is a Fundamental Christian group, one of whose camp leaders had informed my son, quite seriously, that his father was going to hell because he was Jewish – which I managed to ascertain after several repetitions of “I don’t want daddy to go to hell.” – sob – “I don’t want daddy to go to hell.”  Shame on me for not doing my homework but who, in their wildest dreams (or nightmares), thinks someone is going to say that to an 11-year old on a bloody boating camp?

It took the entire trip of explaining why that couldn’t possibly be true, to calm him down but obviously it played on his mind because some time later he asked the question of someone at school and in another jaw-dropping response, was told that like cancer, no-one wants to hear the diagnosis but you have to accept that that’s the way it is. I’m sorry – I laughed. I just found the whole thing so ludicrous and fortunately, so did he because in the interim I had managed to reassure him that you could believe in a God without believing in ‘religion’.  We are attempting to raise a compassionate, tolerant, broad-minded child and the Church’s attitude to homosexuality, birth control, pre-marital sex and female clergy has no place in the world-view we are trying to give him.

You could try and condense every directive from every religion and still not surpass the simple exhortation of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” and if this is the only ‘religious’ path my son chooses to travel, well that’s a guide that will never let him down.

THE 10 COMMANDMENTS FOR THE NON-RELIGIOUS.

1. Thou shalt not have any false idols like that bum-baring Kim Kardashian although I might make an exception for really talented musicians.

2. Thous shalt not make any graven images unless it’s of Grumpy Cat because he’s almost as awesome as Me.

3. Thou shalt not take my name in vain when Justin Bieber’s works just as well as in, “Justin f….king Beiber, my head hurts.”

4. Remember to keep the Sabbath Day hol(e)y. Eat Swiss cheese.

5. Honour thy gym membership even when you’re tired and/or hung over.

6. Thou shalt not kill.  Applies to everybody. (Indonesia, are you listening?)

7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.  And don’t think not being “officially” married lets you off the hook.

8. Thou shalt not steal – unless it’s all those cute little toiletries in hotels. No bathrobes though.

9. Thou shalt not lie because you have to have a very good memory to stay out of trouble.

10. Thou shalt not want what others have unless it’s patience, kindness or maybe a winning Lotto ticket.

GO FORTH AND BE HAPPY.

Travelling & the Gypsy Heart.

I was 13 the first time I travelled internationally.  It was 1971, Alitalia still flew out of Sydney and smoking was still allowed on planes.  People would dress up to fly and it was still a big deal.  We winged our way to Rome via Bombay, as it was called then, in a smoke-filled metal tube with no personal entertainment — and it was fabulous.  It was my parents’ first visit back to the country of their birth in 14 years and my first encounter with my Italian extended family.  I was hooked.

Travel has been one of the great joys of my life and if I’m not re-incarnated as a Travel Writer, I shall be bitterly disappointed.  Could there be any greater bliss than being paid to visit the far-flung corners of this glorious, diverse planet?  People dream about becoming wealthy so they can afford prestige cars, luxury homes, jewellery and clothes whereas I wistfully think I could live in a shack if only I could jet off to some new location whenever I wanted…. (School term permitting of course. Your daydreams have to be somewhat modified when there are other people to consider.)

This nostalgia springs from my girlfriend’s daughter having upped stakes for 12 months of travelling, as I did at 24. And for those 12 months I roamed the world like a true gypsy.  For 12 months I answered to no-one but myself.  No restraints, no responsibilities – just complete freedom to come, go, stay, eat, drink, take risks, learn, marvel, do whatever I wanted to do and be whoever I wanted to be.  I wouldn’t exchange the life I have now but if a time machine were ever invented, I know where I’d be going.  Plus, I was skinny.

Mirror, Mirror…

Reflections of a face that is sometimes not your own…

I watch your eyes like twin chameleons    change with shades of other lives.

The aquamarine of Grecian seas    when indolence was all there was

     and farmers wearing hats of straw     worked the beaches selling fruit

     to bodies baked to nutmeg brown.

The cloudy grey of Paris skies     when baguettes and brie went hand in hand

     with lazy walks along the Seine     and an angry young man

     whose Irish blood     could not disguise the poet’s heart.

You turn your head to catch the time

     and curse the need

     to run your life to dull routines

     when neon digits take the place

     of sunlight through a shuttered door.

(C) Daniela Scalcon

 “I am not the same having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.”   ― Mary Anne Radmacher

Sons vs Daughters. Are you happy?

 

“Does every woman secretly crave a daughter?”  Well top marks for an attention-grabbing title for this recent opinion piece in one of our Sunday magazines.  My personal and very articulate response which may or may not have been uttered out loud was – “Ummmm, no, that would be a no”.  But as a mother to one son, I was not really the target market as the women about whom she was writing “had at least two boys but yearned for a daughter”.  You can’t seek gender-selection treatment in either Britain or Australia unless it’s for medical reasons so couples are apparently flocking to US fertility clinics to guarantee that female embryo.  The author cited a UK doctor working in one of America’s largest fertility clinics who admitted to treating 10 British IVF patients a month, all undergoing the procedure solely to select the sex of their baby with 80% opting for a girl.  Even if this were true for every State, I wouldn’t exactly call that “flocking” but with a stated increase of 20% per annum, it’s still a substantial number.

So, this is obviously a ‘thing’ but the more I read of the article, the more and more dismayed I became at the proffered explanations.  First and foremost was the idea that girls are more likely to look after us in our old age so, as the parents of a sole male child, my husband and I are utterly screwed…left starving and incontinent because “it’s the girls who will eventually bring around a lasagne and book your medical appointments”.  And you know what – on the whole, this may be true. But as a reason for wanting a daughter, is quite repugnant. It also involves an assumption about the future that’s hopeful, at best. What if she moves overseas? Interstate? What if you become totally estranged? I know a woman who didn’t even find out her mother had died until three years after the fact. Some women actively dislike their mothers and just the other day at a BBQ, one of my friends commented she wouldn’t lose a moment’s sleep if she never saw her mother again. Another friend, whose mother’s mental illness is being successfully managed with medication admits her brother visits their mother more often than she does. And as a mother of both an adult girl and teenage boy, it’s her son who’s always re-assuring her with “Don’t worry Mum. I’ll look after you.”  No-one relishes the prospect of getting old – and less so old and sick – but engineering a daughter on the premise of a guaranteed carer?  While you’re at it, why not try for another in case you ever need a kidney?

 

Moving on, it’s suggested that baby dolls on department store shelves with long hair and pink dresses (reminding us of the dolls we played with as children) are such a potent “cultural influence” that they may be “hardwiring us to crave a soft little girl to nurture”.  Is this woman on crack? The only two dolls I can remember from my childhood were a baby boy dressed in some shade of blue and bald as a badger and a girl  with short brown hair and a multi-coloured dress.  Her language makes me think of the little girls of the 50s with poufy dresses and bows and ribbons in their long, wavy hair.  It may be just me but “soft little girl” is just redolent with other adjectives like “demure, quiet, weak, malleable”.  All the things you don’t want your daughter to be. And what if she doesn’t want to be nurtured? What if she’s Miss Independent from her first vehement “No!!” or wants to be a tom-boy or refuses to wear anything with zippers or buttons for a year which is what happened to one of the mums from my son’s pre-school?  And obviously society has more than a little in common with the author because I remember all the tutt-tutting and disapproval when Angelina Jolie’s and Brad Pitt’s daughter Shiloh only wanted to wear boy’s clothes and have her hair cut short.

                  

And so we continue the downward spiral:  Girls are easier to reason with.  I laughed so hard I nearly choked on my muffin.  Meeting other new mothers for coffee, toddler boys destroy the Café whilst girls “crowd around a colouring book for a quiet half-hour”.  I know, right?  S-o-o-o inconvenient. Next time grab a take-away and let them all run riot in the nearest park so you don’t have to worry about your son up-ending “a shelf of neatly stacked bottled water”.  Mothers can relate to how girls play. I, surely, am not the only mother who would much rather have a Nerf battle than sit down for a tea-party with Barbie, Baby Boo-Boo  and Dorothy the Dinosaur.  My son was a “Star Wars” fan (legend) and our light sabre battles were EPIC!!  This gender distinction in play is so stifling.  I remember my son’s pre-school teacher telling me how much the boys loved the dress-up box, donning anything with a bit of bling.  My son was Ariel, the Little Mermaid for a good 6 months when he was 3 or 4 – even donning a mermaid tail although this vision of loveliness was never bestowed upon the general public! One of my friends has a young daughter obsessed with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; another a daughter who rotates her Spiderman costume and Batman cape and there must be thousands more “out there” like them.

  Just when you thought this paean to gender divide couldn’t get any worse, we get a paragraph that plays into every sitcom depiction of males as simple-minded,  clueless, distracted boofheads: “There can be an unspoken understanding that develops between a mother and daughter that manifests in eye-rolling each time their brother leaps into the house with a half-dead frog or Dad leaves the milk out to warm again.”  Us vs them.  That’s precisely why I would want a girl  – so I could share my supercilious attitude to the men in my life.

And finally, the kicker.  Girls are useful in the kitchen. They want to help, as opposed to their brother who just wants to kick a football around.  Well who could blame him – I’d rather be doing that than being in the kitchen too. The author describes her son as “funny, adventurous, brave, kind and insightful” – wonderful characteristics by anyone’s reckoning. But what is she thankful for? “…for daughters when you’re a harried mother just trying to get through each week with everyone fed, watered and alive.” because they set the table and help prepare dinner without being nagged.

 

            

I’ve come to the conclusion that it must be a generational thing.  I did a quick survey of my friends who are all in their 40s or 50s. Those with all boys (one with four, another with five), never ‘craved’ a girl; another said it would have been ‘nice’ but didn’t really care; those of us with sole boys actually wanted boys and had we had more children, would have wanted another boy; another said she wouldn’t know what to do with a girl – a common reaction and one that puts paid to the idea we want girls because we “understand” them.  The general consensus was that girls are much harder to raise than boys and that the relationship between a mother and son is much less fraught and complicated but just as deep and satisfying.

Even though I am an only child and had a wonderful, loving relationship with my mother, I never saw myself having a daughter.  My son has yet to “turn”.  At almost-15, he is garrulous, funny, smart, kind, lazy and occasionally, argumentative.  I am still an acceptable companion in public so we go to shows, museums and movies together.  Somehow we managed to avoid the “terrible twos” and yes, he was an active toddler but I never felt “clueless, furious or upset”, as the author would have us believe of mothers of a “male toddler”.  As though the “terrible twos” are restricted to boys.  Tantrums, whining, stubbornness and general envelope-pushing are just as much the preserve of girls and I have several friends who can send videos as proof.

I don’t doubt that a great many women have a deep-seated desire for a daughter but as for every woman craving a daughter? Nah.  Our sons will do us just fine, thanks.

   

 

 

 

Roses are Red, Poetry’s Cool, It’s Not Just Stuff You Did at School.

As we hurtle headlong towards St Valentine’s Day – named after the Patron Saint of florists and Hallmark cards – I was struck by a particular radio ad urging men to spend vast amounts of money on something (obviously not a very effective ad) because “flowers are boring and poetry is lame“.  Poetry is lame? Hello? Are you kidding me?  A young ‘suitor’ wrote me a poem in Year 12 and I still have it tucked away.  It didn’t do him any good but that didn’t mean I wasn’t impressed with the gesture!  Writing to and about the person you love has been a romantic staple from time immemorial and given a choice between a poem written especially for me or a stuffed teddy bear embroidered with “Be My Valentine” or a dinner shared with dozens of other couples staring soulfully into each other’s eyes,  I know which I would choose.  His dedication began, “You are a new colour in my rainbow, a different shade of me I have never seen before.”   A little schmaltzy, maybe but lame – never. (Unless it’s along the lines of “Roses are red, Violets are blue, Nobody loves you like I do”, in which case it had better be accompanied by some serious jewellery….) And obviously I am not alone in my thinking. Just out of interest, I googled “poetry sites” and was rewarded with 67,300,000 results.

Anyway, after hearing the ad, it occurred to me that over the past couple of weeks, poetry and its various incarnations had been bobbing up and down in my line of vision as if to say, “Talk about me! Talk about me!”.  So, to honour its persistence, I will.

Its push for attention started when I recently found an old exercise book of mine from 1972 when I was all of 14.  Not only was it full of my own brilliant, adolescent poetic creations (Please visit my last post at https://livinglifeat56.wordpress.com/2015/01/30/back-to-the-future-me-1972/ ) but also those of ‘real’ poets.  Obviously my teenage hormones had commandeered my brain as most of them, predictably,  involved love and longing except for one notable exception by the wonderful Dorothy Parker which showed the take-over hadn’t been complete.  I don’t know if it would be considered ‘proper’ poetry but it must have tickled my fancy at the time as it still does:

By the time you say you’re his, Shivering and sighing
And he vows his passion is Infinite, undying –
Lady, make a note of this, One of you is lying.

When I visited the sites of bloggers who had liked “Back to the Future”, I was surprised and delighted, in equal parts, to find poetry very much alive and kicking in the blogosphere which shouldn’t really have been a surprise as poetry has been around since those party animals, the Babylonians, when the Epic of Gilgamesh was written in about 2000BC. For some of us, our only contact with poetry would have been in High School or University and having breathed a sigh of relief when those were over, moved on without so much as a backward glance.  For others, it becomes a life-long companion.  Whilst easy to technically define, its attraction is less so but one of the best attempts I can offer is, “Poetry is like taking a blindfold off and starting a new world.”  Indeed — whether it be creating your own or immersing yourself in someone else’s.

     

I’m sure a great many of you have seen “Four Weddings and a Funeral”. It caused a frenzy, not over Hugh Grant (as if) but W.H. Auden, whose poem “Funeral Blues” was read during the eulogy. Read it and weep. From the first , the sorrowful imagery of each line compounds that of the one before until, in the span of four short stanzas,  you are left with a world decimated by grief. And its impact never diminishes, no matter how many times you read it.  http://allpoetry.com/Funeral-Blues

 The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Then I heard that Rod McKuen had died.  Poet, author, song-writer, he was a staple of my adolescence and his words took up most of the pages in that exercise book.  His poems were about love, nature and spirituality.  Some would label him a little “mass market” but his poems were uncomplicated and accessible but I imagine these are the very reasons he had such great appeal.

Love I wear
As open as a wound,
a mad mistake I know
but love, like Lent
only comes to those of us
who still believe.

On top of all this, my son is doing his poetry module in English so you can see how the universe was prodding me in a particular direction! And for those of you still not convinced of poetry’s value, I give you this.  And Happy Valentine’s day.  I hope you get a poem.

Back to the Future: Me, 1972

Oh—-my—-God.  I’m in the process of a MASSIVE clean-out of BIBLICAL proportions and I came across one of my English books from 1972.  So…. I’m 14 years old – the same age as my son is now – and have written a poem.  It’s a corker.  You will understand why when you read it but in its innocence, it also sadly underlines how far the world has come in these 40 years or so when sexting and oral sex by kids as young as 13 is neither uncommon nor infrequent.  With your indulgence, I present:

Beware of boys with wandering hands,

give them a good slap.

Beware of a boy with a long, dirty tongue,

he’s just a great big sap.

Beware of boys who take a mile

when all you’ve offered is but a smile.

You can put them in their place –

slow and steady wins the race.

Sure, go out and have some fun.

If it’s with a boy, there’s no harm done.

The nice ones brighten up your day.

They make you happy, content and gay.

But even so – be on your guard

’cause if you fall, you’ll fall hard.

But you know what?  At its core, it’s bloody good advice.  Have a great weekend everyone.

 

America on My Mind.

My ex-pat friend based in Los Angeles recently wrote a piece describing what she misses about Australian food and even though I’ve been back from Atlanta for 13 years, there are still things I miss about America; the things that always seem to come up in conversation with either my husband or other people and that make me quite nostalgic for the good ol’ U S of A. So, in no particular order:

SERVICE:  Great service.  All the time. Across the board.  Can you even imagine a land where …. service providers, repairmen, furniture deliverers and all others of their ilk give you a three-hour window and actually turn up IN THAT WINDOW?

…. Sales Assistants not only acknowledge you but ask “May I help you with something?” rather than “Are ya right?” which comes only after they’ve finished chatting to each other about what-evah,  then looking stunned to discover a customer actually in the store. (Is it so wrong to want to stab them in the eye with a coat hanger?)

…. whole cities have Department Stores that don’t consider staff an optional extra, unlike Sydney where they’re like the Yeti – lots of rumoured sightings but no confirmation of actual existence and

…. restaurants don’t mistake you for Linda Blair’s eye-bulging, head-swivelling possessed person because you’ve been trying for 20 futile minutes to catch a waiter’s eye for more water or the dessert menu or the bill.

BUFFALO WINGS & HASH BROWNS: Americans can’t make coffee and Australians can’t make hash browns. It seems the fewer the ingredients, the more unpalatable you can make something.  Yes, you can get good coffee in America but it’s made by Australians so chances are, there are Americans in Australia turning out delicious hash browns but I’ve yet to come across them.  Who knew there was so much room for error mixing potatoes, egg and flour? So far, I’ve only tasted the ones that are either crisp enough to pass as cornflakes or so stodgy you could mortar bricks with them. In America, even the diviest of dives will present you with a perfectly cooked, crispy on the outside, soft on the inside jagged serve of potato goodness.

Same goes for Buffalo Wings – which, if you don’t already know – are actually chicken wings and are called what they are  in the US because they were invented in Buffalo, New York.  Don’t say you never learn anything from my ramblings.  Anyway… it’s the paprika that gives them that disturbing orange colour but what I wouldn’t give for a little Trekkie technology to be able to beam myself into Atlanta’s ‘Three Dollar Café’ for a plateful. You have a choice of mild, medium or losing feeling in the lower part of your face. All good.

   

TURNING RIGHT (our LEFT) ON RED: Everywhere.  Yes, we can do it here but only on 17 random intersections (OK, I made that number up) in random suburbs on roads that cover an urban area of roughly 12,000 square kilometres.  If you don’t know why Sydney-siders would give up their first-borns to the Roads and Traffic Authority for making this a blanket practice then you obviously don’t drive in Sydney.  But wait, there’s more.  It also gives people less of a chance to fiddle with their phones – which is what everyone does at red lights…admit it.

                                                                                 

OUTLET MALLS: The Stepford Wives of retail.  (For those of you totally oblivious to the reference, you youngsters you, “The Stepford Wives” was a 1975 sci-fi movie in which all the wives living in a small town called Stepford, looked and behaved the same, you know, like the Eastern Suburbs here.   Ignore the Nicole Kidman 2004 re-make and watch the original.)  So what I’m saying is that every Outlet Mall looks almost the same.  You can probably pick them out from the air.  Rows and rows and rows of stores. But the savings are SERIOUS.  Even designer pieces can be slashed by 85%.  Sydney’s Birkenhead and DFO are less-than-pale imitations because when I see them touting HUGE SAVINGS because something has been reduced by 25%, I want to laugh hysterically and tell them to look up the word “clueless” in the dictionary.  I understand Australian retailers are working with a population of 23 million rather than 317,000 million, thus, incredibly less volume and competition but this won’t stop me from taking an empty suitcase to Honolulu in August when I hit the Waikele Premium Outlets running.

WHOLEFOODS & THE WAFFLE HOUSE: Wholefoods is a one-stop, pesticide and preservative-free nirvana for anyone organically inclined.  It aims to carry as many minimally processed foods as possible ranging over every food group but also stocks supermarket staples such as laundry supplies and cosmetics.  They have my undying love and gratitude because due to their range of organic baby food, I didn’t have to peel, puree or pulverise a single fruit or vegetable when my son was a baby. And when you’d finished your shopping, there was a pre-prepared food section with seating and a microwave for a quick bite before hauling everything home.  Again, the mitigating factor is population so it was only minimally more expensive than regular supermarkets.  Unfortunately that is far from the case here and I’m not that invested to pay the sometimes, exorbitant difference.

 

At the other end of the scale is The Waffle House which would be what most people think of as a Greasy spoon, a colloquial term coined in the USA  for a small, cheap restaurant or diner that typically specialises in fried foods and can I say, Amen to that!  They are the most basic of eateries – an open kitchen, a counter , seating and a jukebox and the one I really, really miss.  Open 24 hours, my husband and I would usually stop there late at night on the way home from somewhere and within minutes of ordering, I would have been served my plate of perfectly cooked eggs, sunny-side up, hash browns and toast.  The menu is quite extensive and if you ever visit and see that iconic yellow sign, don’t judge a book by its cover – it’s the quintessential short-order experience. 

Unfortunately, the fact America is bat-crap crazy about guns constantly garners all the attention but I’m sure many of you have either visited or lived there and have brought home your own favourites.  I would love to hear about them.

Ode to Facebook (and it rhymes).

Dear Mr Zuckerberg I can’t thank you enough
for giving us Facebook and its frivolous fluff.
From fabulous felines and marvellous memes
to pugnacious puppies and talented teens.

From all the lost animals and those that are saved
to children angelic and badly behaved.
Best friends and selfies
and women with tatts
to worldwide obsession with youtube and cats.

There are sunsets aplenty and landmarks galore
while too many hashtags make some posts a chore.
From talent show prodigies, pratfalls and pranks
to venomous views from various cranks.

 

From people in clothes they never should wear
with bits better covered, too often laid bare
to special occasions gone horribly wrong
and badly lit videos that last much too long.

There’s food in a restaurant and food cooked at home
food with the many or when you’re alone;
food in the morning, food late at night
It’s hardly surprising our belts are so tight.

From laugh-out-loud funny to “Eewww, that was gross”
For mass over-sharing, nothing comes close.
I love you oh, Facebook though some don’t agree
but I don’t really care ’cause it’s all about me.

                            The End

Sometimes the Universe Knows Better.

Well, as one alcoholic said to the other, “It’s been a long time between drinks.” Since my last post in August, I’ve had lots of ideas and done absolutely nothing about them so I thought I had better redeem myself and get scribbling … so before I get to the point of the whole exercise, a little background information.

I was a bit of a smart chicky-babe at school and earned a scholarship to University with a view to becoming a teacher but after completing my Bachelor’s Degree, I just couldn’t do it. The thought of another year of lectures, study, research and assignments made me ill whereas the thought of travelling the world did not. Serious money needed raising because although I have always been quite happy to go camping and poop in the woods, the idea of schlepping all the way to Europe with my own bed sheet and having to share a hostel room with assorted party animals and snorers was not quite the dream trip I had in mind. So, after three years of tertiary education at one of the State’s finest universities, I put my degree to good use and went off to learn how to be a secretary – or PA (Personal Assistant) if one wants to be PC (politically correct) – which nobody was back then. A little over nine months later I could take shorthand at 120 words a minute (how useful would THAT have been during lectures…) and type…umm…very fast! And that, my dear readers, is how I ended up at Grace Bros and the reunion that sparked this post because not only was it my first job, it was where I fell truly, madly, deeply, deliriously, fiercely in love for the first time.

To protect the not-so-innocent and for the sake of this post, let’s just call him Max. If someone had asked me to describe the complete opposite of what I found physically  attractive about a man, he would have been it – shortish, baldish and pretty ‘meh’ in the looks department but he would walk into my office and I would flush hot like a Bunsen burner turned too high. He was a Manager and I worked for his boss so we kept the relationship a secret until one of us left. People were dumbfounded when they found out. Hilarious really, considering we ‘worked back’ almost every night and the occasional Saturday morning so the chances of being caught not actually working, on my boss’s sofa, were reasonably high but it never happened. The secrecy drove me mad but I had to acknowledge the position he was in and his concern that telling our workmates might put our interactions under a scrutiny that neither of us would have welcomed. And my God – all the hedging and evading when people asked what you did over the weekend! “Ohh, you know, movies, seeing friends, usual stuff.” I had ‘vague’ down to an art form. Our subterfuge was so seamless, even when we both requested leave at the same time (to go to Queensland for Expo 88), no-one suspected anything. Honestly, I should have quite the secretarial scene then and there and become a spy. I would have put Mata Hari in the shade.

I’m ashamed to admit that I cannot remember the first time my husband told me he loved me (although I’m fairly certain it would have been over the phone as we were conducting a ‘geographically undesirable’ relationship between Australia and America when the ideas for Skype and FaceTime were, as my late Italian father would so colourfully explain, “ancora nelle palle di San Francesco”…. which delightfully translates to “still up in the balls of St Francis”.) but the scene of Max’s declaration is still as clear as the glorious Sydney summer day on which it was made. We had been lying by   the pool at his mother’s apartment. I was earning a little extra pocket-money by waitressing at a friend’s restaurant so needed to leave late afternoon to get home to shower and change. With the car in reverse, driver’s window down, he said goodbye with the usual “Drive carefully.” followed by the not-usual, “I love you”. To my credit, I did not lose control of the car or squeal or ask him to repeat himself and I have absolutely no recollection of how I responded but I can tell you my heart just about burst and we were heart-stoppingly happy. Three years later it was over and not because the relationship faltered or we stopped loving each other – but that is a post for another time.   

That was 25 years ago. Now, schedules permitting, we catch up at the annual Grace Bros reunion which is where I saw him last Friday night and it absolutely astounds me, as it has each time we have seen each other, how I can look into his eyes, listen to his voice…. and thank the gods of every nation on earth that we didn’t stay together. I believe it’s described in the vernacular as having “dodged a bullet”. And it’s not that he has changed – it’s just that now I see how incredibly unsuited we were for any long-term commitment. The things that drove me a little crazy when we were dating would have driven me completely demented over the long haul. Characteristics I glossed over when we were living apart would have turned into major obstacles when we were living together. Had we married, I seriously doubt it would have lasted. It does freak me out a little though to feel so dispassionate about this man that I loved so wholeheartedly, so intensely. How can you feel absolutely nothing but a little residual fondness for the person who was your first great, all-consuming love? Truth be told, part of me is a little sad that our encounters don’t have even the teensiest hint of the Mills and Boon about them – no catch of breath, no short, sharp pang of the heart. Not only are there no embers, the fire has been well and truly stomped on and covered over with several thousand kilos of earth.

Just goes to show that Soren Kierkegaard knew what he was talking about when he said   “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”