Learning The Hard Way

Like a Tiger…

Posted on February 11, 2013 by Learning the hard way

I am at that tiresome point in life where suddenly there is a compulsion to bemoan the dearth of quality made *insert item here * to all and sundry. It is entirely possible that we are chronologically predisposed to yearn for the durability, workmanship, quantity, service etc… from youthful days of yore and feel outraged by a new generations flagrant disregard of such.

Or maybe it is merely indicative of my continuing devolution into misanthropy.

But while I’m on it let me tell you that spouse and I flew to the Coathanger city recently with Tiger, which, if it were indeed a homegrown airline, could rightly be named Little Aussie Battler Air. For there you are in a shed to the extreme left of Melbourne Airport, herded amongst the other carry-on baggage toting passengers thinking to yourself, you bloody little ripper, how cheap’s this?

English: Tiger Airways Australia Airbus A320 VH-VND (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Let me tell you, you get exactly what you pay for.

“Any scissors, sharp objects, aerosols?” intones the Tiger security screener to a lumpen chap ahead of me.

“Arseholes? Nah”

Oh, how we all chortle.

There are two Tiger employees, characterized by a tellingly frazzled demeanour, frantically processing passengers trying to sneak through more than the requisite 7kg of carry on. The line to check-in is littered with crouching weekend travellers forced to discard excess Ugg boots

A pair of ugg boots (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

and cans of Lynx.

After a lot of milling around in the departure area, the flight is eventually called and a disorderly queue forms directly in front of the door. There is a tacit understanding amongst the more seasoned budget travellers that overhead luggage space is at a premium – it’s the quick or the dead.

The same two Tiger employee’s dash across from the check in desk to sight our boarding passes ahead of the long tarmac trek to the plane. It appears to be parked several kilometres from the airport and goes someway to explaining the rush on fried dim sims, doughnuts and chocolate bars – clearly sustenance is required for this arduous part of the journey.

Eventually we are all seated and space is found for every overnight bag, backpack, sleeping bag, rucksack, red, white and blue stripy shopping bag and chicken cage. Our knees are comfortably ensconced under our chins and we have all ignored the safety demonstration.

Our scheduled 3.30pm flight taxis out at 4.10pm. In that time I am privy to the relentless commentary of a five year old with the precocity of a young Macauley Culkin combined with Karen from Outnumbered. His incessant ADHD-esque observations are accompanied by the excitable and non-stop kicking of his lively little feet into the seat back.

Once we became airborne the chap in front of me clearly feels the immense strain of remaining upright for an entire hour and, in a bid to replicate his Jason recliner, forces the seat back as far as humanly possible. My magazine is crushed under his headrest.

It is a fairly long hour… what with the chest compression and the rear assault on my lower back.

Despite the brevity of our flight many people having eaten, digested and metabolized their departure lounge snacks, feel compelled to enjoy a packet of something salty with their Jim Beam and Coke’s – and why in the name of the Bathurst 1000 not?

Jim Beam (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

No sooner has the last can been crushed than we are instructed to make sure our seat belts are fastened, tray tables up and seat backs in the upright position. The tingling in my extremities gradually abates as we taxi along the runway and people begin flinging off their seatbelts. Those of us not in an aisle seat, assume that curious semi crouching stance wedged beneath the overhead lockers feeling unaccountably tense.

The rush to disembark suggests a deployed time bomb and one of the flight attendants looks genuinely aggrieved at our haste, which makes absolutely no sense given her total ambivalence to our combined presence for the entire preceding hour.

It’s not personal (check name badge) Sharelle. It’s not your fault this is the Black and Gold (orange) of airlines and your uniform looks like it came from Big W. Given a choice, I’m sure you would love to slip into the retro red polyester Virgin uniform and I’m sorry your reluctance to perform a Spice Girls song at the Virgin group interview eliminated you from the running, but there you go. This is your world, Gen Y…

Oh dear, I’m at it again, aren’t I?

Posted in humor, Travel | Tagged Aviation, children, Flight attendant, humor, Jim Beam, Melbourne Airport, travel | 4 Comments

Selling it.

Posted on January 19, 2013 by Learning the hard way

My job, the thing I do in between wishing I didn’t, is ostensibly a sales role with a visual merchandising component thrown in for good measure.

I recently spent a couple of days in Sydney at head office meeting the newly appointed National Sales Manager. Truthfully I thought, to coin a dated American idiom, the jig was up. Surely when this seasoned gent scratched the surface it was going to be screamingly apparent that I am technically…well, crap.

Spouse believes I have a gift – the gift to appear outrageously industrious whenever my boss calls me. I can turn an email, three phone calls and several runs to the outer Eastern suburbs into a weeks worth of damnably hard slog.

My paterfamilias pronounced early that ‘bulldust baffles brains (he shied away from the coarser word for excrement) – an axiom which has consistently characterised my entire working life.

We had a meeting with the young buyer for a chain store and while discussions about gross profit, mark-up and catalogue sales abounded, I was mentally fixated on how shiny her long dark hair was. For once they pull out the figures and percentages I’m gone – suddenly everyone is speaking Urdu.

But watch me go when opinion on brand suitability is solicited. I am an instant expert on demographics, consumer buying patterns and optimum display position. The ability to string a sentence together plus a vaguely theatrical delivery combine to create instant expert credibility.

My enthusiasm for selling had well and truly waned by the first half of last year. I found it increasingly difficult to secure appointments with owners and managers who generally took one look at my brief case and over-eager smile and shook their heads.

Sorry, we are not including any new brands in our range OR We are closing down, didn’t you see the dirty great ALL STOCK MUST GO sign on your way in?!

So, given I don’t thrive on rejection, I resigned myself to failure and spent the rest of the year being an overpaid visual merchandiser for three chain stores. The hand full of actual independent stockists were visited so often I knew their pets names, star signs, political views and what they would prefer to do if they weren’t trapped in a three year lease.

The first chain is a shiny ubiquitous jewellery store owned by a family in New Zealand and part of their own chain of three…

…oh look, why the secrecy? It’s Angus and Coote.

Anyway, they are a highly regulated group of stores where managers are constantly castigated for not reaching daily sales targets. I have seen staff in tears after being on the phone to their area managers. Is it at all possible in retail that you can be paid enough money to smile your way through a daily bollocking from some caffeine fuelled company hack who thrives on stress?

I am required to sign a visitor’s book when I arrive. Fair enough. The manager and I will then sign a separate logbook. I will be handed a key and left to my own devices. When I leave I sign out – twice. Recently they have been instructed to check the bags of all reps. I am unlikely to pilfer a 9ct elephant pendant or created ruby drop earrings and even less likely to make off with my own stock – I can steal that from myself. I am fully expecting sniffer dogs and finger printing by years end.

The second chain is Hoskings. A smaller group owned by a Victorian Peninsula dwelling family, they are less inclined to bawl out their staff for slow sales and I don’t sign anything when I pop by. Their stores were clearly designed in the 70’s and the heavy dark wood counters and chest height cabinets make merchandising particularly hazardous without a step ladder. Fortunately, our display invariably requires little intervention from me so the visits are usually characterised by an imperious wave of the hand accompanied by a patronizing declaration that they are all doing very well (thank you, young Mr. Grace).

The third one is Bevilles – Be-Vile’s. It is often difficult to distinguish the sales staff from bargain hunting punters. Recently at Chadstone-The-Fashion-Capital, two of the sales girls were in thongs and trackpants.

Our display always looks like the after effect of a violent earth tremor. Mostly they are located in the lower cabinets and I kneel on the floor to work my aesthetic magic – a magic that lasts two days before another apparent seismic shift occurs.

Last week I was at Broadmeadows Town Central shopping centre.

Broady, maaaaate!

A sales girl who was clearly irritated at being interrupted in her description of caviar nails flung a set of keys at me. I could have been anyone. Security? Not so much.

Crouching Golum like in front of the display window I began removing items to clean off the thick layer of dust. It was mid afternoon in the final weeks of the school holidays and a constant trail of shoppers with small children streamed in and out. After being run over by a pram, a shopping jeep and a zimmer frame I arranged my body at right angles and ground my teeth.

Renay, as her name tag revealed, was asked to show a watch. She flung open the sliding glass window two panes up from where I was working. This caused my window to ricochet shut crushing my stock and nearly decapitating me in the process. I waited until the young man finished photographing the watch on his phone (of course he’s not going to buy it on-line) and left the shop before mentioning my near death experience with the rogue window to Renay. She stared at me blankly before fuming ‘You think that’s bad, you should work in the fucking silver cabinet!’ – which I will assume was her way of apologizing.

Back in Sydney, I waited for the talk. I’d filed my report for the new National Sales Manager detailing the current state of play in Victoria. He seemed unphased by our distinct lack of market share and was looking forward to setting some achievable (ie hopelessly optimistic) goals for me.

It is possible he was heat affected though, as on the day in question it was 45.8 degrees or 114.44 for those who work in Fahrenheit, and forming an actual thought let alone comprehensible speech was nigh on impossible.

But look, I’ll take what I can get and it appears for now at any rate, I live to fake another day.

Posted in humor | Tagged Broadmeadows, Business, Chain store, Display window, humor, sales, Sydney, Visual merchandising, work | 3 Comments

Free Styler

Posted on January 7, 2013 by Learning the hard way

The thing about hand me downs is that you often find yourself wearing something you wouldn’t have actually contemplated purchasing in the first instance. I recently became the recipient of several summer frocks. I use the word ‘frock’ advisedly in that any dress composed of poplin and spattered in peony roses from Laura Ashley cannot be termed otherwise. I slipped it on and immediately craved a Pimms.

I was grateful for the largesse of my wardrobe culling friend, who was dispensing a batch of largely corporate clothing due to retirement from the workforce.

Grateful and envious.

I recall an annual delivery of hand me downs from a mysterious benefactor in Western Australia that began when I was about twelve. It is one of the many great mysteries of my childhood that to this day I have no idea who they were and why they felt compelled to send (I’m assuming at great expense), their daughter’(s) cast offs to some perceived deprived southern stranger. The clothes were always several years out of date so while my contemporaries were mooching about in boob tubes, staggers and tie-dye t-shirts; I was running behind in an oversized cheesecloth kaftan.

Peace man.

I’m wondering whether wearing other people’s clothes in your formative years impacts any fledging notion of personal style. Would I have selected a lime green and mission brown floral maxi with burnt orange ruffles had I been given the choice at thirteen? Clearly, with the benefit of sartorial hindsight and the 80’s revelation that my colour ‘season’ was spring, the answer would have been a resounding NO WAY!

Would I also have considered a cream jumbo cord belted pants suit my ultimate teen fashion statement? Are you kidding? The inner thigh rub announced my arrival to the year eight disco a good three minutes before I was sighted. When I was fourteen I just wanted to look like everyone else, not a war correspondent.

With the exception of friends who developed quicker than me and were happy to biff across the odd pair of jeans, or the mother of a friend who was a whiz on the Bernina and would occasionally run up a second of whatever she was sewing for her daughter, these dated ensembles were the only choice beyond my pyjamas and school uniform.

Not a stellar style start.

Decades of trying to get it right followed. In my twenties I dressed like a forty year old, in my thirties it was all about floral leggings and wheaten coloured tops worn to disguise baby vomit, in my forties I alternated between a twenty year old university student and a gym junkie. While lifestyle and circumstances played a part here, it is quite clear I had no clue.

I’ve always loved the idea of having a distinct and notable personal style. One of those people whose wardrobes are variously described as effortlessly chic, classic, bohemian, tailored or monochromatic; someone who makes accessorizing look like an art form. I can tie a scarf two ways and necklaces look wrong on me. I never have the right pair of shoes – ever.

I have, however, an exceptionally stylish eldest daughter who, but for the occasional foray into dressing like a Russian prostitute, rarely puts a foot wrong. She is under the impression we are of a similar size and often suggests items from her vast wardrobe for me to try. I inevitably resemble an overstuffed bratwurst and abandon the exercise for a glass of wine in stretch pants.

My wardrobe culls are frequent and ruthless. The trouble is the giant bin bags full of ‘they-must-have-shrunk’ clothes remain ensconced in the crowded storage cupboard where I periodically forage and reinstate key pieces. I guess it’s less a cull and more a trial separation.

It would be marvelous to transcend fashion altogether, to dress entirely for size, temperature and modesty. Imagine ignoring the siren call of magazines, shop windows and celebrity red carpets?

I think it may be time to consider describing my personal style as haphazard, accidental and occasionally borrowed. The upside of getting older is I can also go with aging eccentric, which could prove enormously fun and probably quite comfortable.

Posted in humor | Tagged Clothing, fashion, hand me downs, Home, humor, Laura Ashley, personal style, Pimms, Shopping, Tie-dye, Western Australia | 2 Comments

Christmas wrap up

Posted on January 1, 2013 by Learning the hard way

I can say it now, as the fireworks haze has cleared and we are contemplating the blank page of a brand new year, I’m really not such a big wrap for Christmas.

It was Christmas Eve and we had suffered through the warmest December night on record. The thermometer hovered around the 30-degree mark for most of the night, dipping to 27.4 at 9am that morning.

Bleary-eyed last minute shoppers milled about the local shops looking dazed and confused. I watched a man contemplating a mango in each hand for the longest time before replacing them both with an avocado. Similar shape I suppose.

I was looking for something last minute to wrap my lovingly baked but violently iced gift of gingerbread cupcakes. The piping bag exploded along the seam and royal icing adorned my entire forearm to the elbow. Aided by the impetus of rapidly setting icing, I eventually settled on artfully scattered splodges scooped out of the ruined piping bag. A sprinkling of silver cachou balls completed the whimsical look I was quite clearly aiming for.

Back to the packaging of said baked goods and there was not a skerrick of Christmas hued cellophane to be found in my neighbourhood. The only paper plates left were those ridiculously flimsy jobs – one mince pie and it folds like a cheap suit.

Fortunately bio-mum had come through again with another of her re-giftable present ideas. Bless.

She had handed me the box several days before Christmas and insisted I open it before her. Perhaps it was something heartfelt and significant – something that finally reflected her unfathomable regret at having left her children and missed all those birthdays and Christmases.

Ah, excellent – an eight-piece bistro cheese set which, if I’m honest, only marginally surpassed the Lilliputian eight piece Japanese dining set from last year in terms of how little I coveted it. My daughters were equally underwhelmed with their scented candles. Mint and ginger or vanilla and green tea, they had the combined aroma therapeutic power of toilet freshener.

They both agreed the woman is quite shit at this.

Fortunately the eight piece bistro cheese set had, in amongst the weeny domed plates and microscopic cheese knives, a thin oval platter that turned out to be perfect for my gingerbread cupcakes. Glass half empty – glass half full.

Speaking of glasses, mine was permanently full later that night during Christmas Eve with my beloved Mr P’s family. Despite our newly minted relationship, it is obvious I occupy the role of family lush and quite frankly, it’s a position I take extremely seriously.

This festive affair is, I have surmised, characterised by enough food to cater for the entire population of Namibia.

Not content with the usual ham/turkey or turkey/pork combo, spouse’s family of ten (swollen to thirteen with the addition of visiting UK relatives and a family friend) can choose from gargantuan platters of turkey, ham, pork, beef and salmon. Along with vats of vegetables, massive mixed salads and a bushel of roast potatoes there is a nod to paternal heritage in the guise of a couple of dozen Yorkshire puddings.

Desserts are no less prolific and the whole celebratory shebang while undoubtedly well meaning, is nevertheless an exercise in gluttony and excess.

We leave clutching containers of left over protein that should see me googling thrifty recipe sites for the rest of the week.

Christmas Day and I managed to destroy the first gift I opened. Spouse had, along with the previously blogged requisite perfume, given me a pair of sandals. Anxious to wear them immediately I set about cutting the paper tie securing various straps – and sheared right through them.

After a civilized breakfast of Pol Roger with my ex husband, his partner and our daughters, it was off to feast with my family.

We began with enough prawns and oysters to fill a Japanese whaling ship. Several bin bags full of crustacean debris later it was onto the spit roasted pig and turkey. It was like being an extra at the court in Game of Thrones.

Once again ten average sized adults and three teenagers were being plied with the equivalent of our dietary requirement for the ensuing six months.

It’s like competition catering. Surely there is some kind of minimum/maximum serving formula that can be calculated before the serious investing in farmed and fattened festive fare?

Even if you score several containers of left overs, inevitably the four day old turkey gets turfed when it’s so dry you can’t swallow anymore and the mere sight of ham makes your stomach turn.

The pudding which generously serves thirty and has served six on the day because it lost to the pavlova, sits wrapped in foil slowly being pushed further and further to the back of your fridge. You will probably rediscover it when you are looking for the hoi sin in late August.

It will eventually be our turn to host this yuletide feeding frenzy again. Kith and kin should possibly prepare themselves for nouvelle Noel cuisine.

Their waistlines will thank me.

Really.

Posted in humor | Tagged Baking, Christmas, Cook, Game of Thrones, Gingerbread, Gingerbread cupcakes, Home, humor, Pol Roger | Leave a comment

How are you feeling about this?

Posted on December 31, 2012 by Learning the hard way

Her Facebook status reveals that in eight weeks she will be back in the USA. I don’t

It’s been a weird exercise in self awareness since my daughter popped back home. It was quickly obvious that she had returned too early. Emotionally she was connected to her new found independence and fledging sense of adulthood –

– and her girlfriend.

In the five months she was away there had been admissions of attraction and the worrying thought that she might be bisexual.

“Is that ok, mum?”

I had suggested that rather than focusing on labeling or categorizing herself at this juncture, she simply enjoyed whatever connections, meaningful or otherwise, came along.

It was easy to be sage from a distance. We joked about the preponderance of out and proud lesbians working at the camp,

“Did you know it was some kind of Sapphic haven before you arrived?”

She went out with a couple of girls to a play and realized belatedly that she was actually the third wheel on a date. Awkward.

There was some counter moments of flirtation with boys but I’m not sure if more was made of those to simply humour me.

I knew it was serious when she messaged me days before her return flight saying that leaving was too hard. She arrived back and in the flurry of reunion and jetlag I was able to ignore the lovebite on her neck and the misery in her eyes.

Her friends, a generation of Gen Y’s who view gay marriage as inevitable, were casually happy for her. Family members, eager to reassure her of their support and tolerance met for coffee. Her father just wanted her to be happy.

But the two people whose approbation and understanding meant more to her than anyone else were struggling. My older daughter didn’t want to know anything at first. She was suspicious of the motives of the older fully signed up American lesbian that had clearly manipulated her sister.

And me? Well I didn’t know how I felt. I was so happy to have her back home but aware she was there in body only. Her spirit was 9146.5 nautical miles away. She kept asking me to tell her what I was thinking. She accused me of behaving passively aggressively and finally of being homophobic.

I spent weeks walking around in metaphoric circles questioning my moral centre and beliefs. I didn’t think I was homophobic, I mean, I’d had gay male friends for as long as I could remember. Maybe I had an issue with gay women though? Was it possible I had latently bought into the short haired, Birkenstock wearing angry lesbian stereotype – Frankie from Prisoner meets Samantha Ronson – and didn’t want that for my Adele meets Lana del Rey daughter? Maybe.

I thought about all the things I wished for her which, if I’m honest, were really extensions of things I wished for myself. Given the fractured nature of my childhood and seemingly endless implosion of the family, I guess I’d pictured the successful nuclear version played out in my own daughter’s lives. I despised my banality.

Eventually I told her that there was never a point when I cradled her in my arms as a newborn and looked into those dark blue eyes, that I hoped she’d eventually become a honking great dyke. She laughed.

As the weeks went by I was able to flesh out the shadowy outline of my daughters girlfriend through recounted text messages and Skype conversations. Unsurprisingly she emerged as funny, sensitive and intelligent. Their friendship bond was clearly strong and while I quietly suspected the seven year age difference would eventually prove an issue, I no longer questioned her sphere of influence. After all, who wouldn’t adore my amazing child?

Notoriously camera shy, the few photos I have seen of her reveal a tousle haired and fresh faced young woman with no obvious facial piercings… Photos of the two of them just show two happy chicks with laughter crinkled eyes

I have always maintained that the greatest gift modern parents can bestow on their children is the concept of tolerance – racial, religious and sexual. While my borderline misanthropic intolerance of moronic people is widely understood (NRA, Neo Nazi’s, Christian Democratic party, My Family stickers …oh sorry, that’s another blog), I have striven to propagate a broader worldview for my children, which has made the past couple of months a personally testing time.

There has been an undeniable shift in the mother daughter relationship and while I imagine this to be a perfectly normal cleaving away from the maternal bond, it is nevertheless a wrench.

I’m sure, however, with the benefit of time and my certainty of her decision, I will become her most vocal advocate – I already adore Ellen and Jane Lynch is one of my favourite comic actresses (next to Tina Fey, who I would probably stalk ) – don’t ask me about Mardi Gras yet though…

…too soon.

Posted in Family, humor | Tagged Birkenstock, children, facebook, family, humour, Jane Lynch, Lesbian, Mardi Gras, Samantha Ronson, Tina Fey, United States | 4 Comments

Unbearable Arms

Posted on December 15, 2012 by Learning the hard way

Hi America,

This blog entry bears no resemblance to my usual fare, and I apologise for anyone expecting levity – today…not so much.

I grew up regarding you as kind of the cooler older brother – the guy that did things first and did them bigger and better. I always felt as though we were running along behind you, watching and eventually copying all the cool stuff you did.

Today, I’ve got to tell you, the news of yet another tragedy to befall your people – your children – makes me sick to my stomach. You don’t feel so much like the cool older sibling now, more the family failure.

Apparently less than 40% of you favours gun regulation. I really don’t want to believe that statistic. How is it possible that the god-fearing, middle American, moral majority can tacitly endorse a licence to kill?

What on earth has to happen for the clear majority of second amendment quoting, gun toting folk to join the dots?

Seriously, the entire civilized world is sitting back and shaking its head at yet another shooting. The same circular debate begins and we have to ask how have the lunatics ended up running the asylum?

There was a time where we were heading along the same path. Of course we were; we emulated everything you did. Then, after a disturbed young man with an IQ of 66 cold bloodedly dispatched of 35 innocent people and injured 21 more with a Colt AK-15 semi automatic in 1996, the Australian collective consciousness was fairly unanimous – guns do, in fact, kill people and people with assault weapons massacre.

This specific incident – the Port Arthur Massacre – followed by a mentally impaired student opening fire at Monash University in 2002, resulted in Australia having arguably some of the most restrictive gun legislation in the world. Granting a licence for a firearm here requires assiduous justification and self-defence is not amongst the potentially valid reasons for owning one.

Your vociferous gun lobby uses the second Amendment shamelessly.

Amendments

Article the second:

‘A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.’

Now I could be completely wrong here, but my understanding of the word militia was that it referred to a trained body of citizen soldiers defending your country from the English and any other subsequent threat to your independence or, according to the constitution, to enforce the law, suppress insurrection, and repel invaders.

Your gun culture seemed to gain real traction during the time of the Wild West where, just like our pioneering forebears, firearms were being used to hunt, protect livestock, commit crime and then fight it, contend with ‘hostile’ natives and generally prove your worth as a bloke.

The days of the Wild West are well and truly over. You are predominantly an urban people now who hunt and gather at Safeway. Your need for guns surely extends only to farmers and the military. Recreational shooters, of course, will make a claim for rifles used in the ‘sport’ of hunting unarmed quadrupeds and Clay pigeon shooters legitimately use a shotgun.

I’m pretty sure your founding fathers were talking about muskets and flintlock pistols not semi automatic shotguns when they were working on your Constitution.

I get that you are unlikely to relinquish your protective Ruger’s, Beretta’s and Sig handguns but wouldn’t an amnesty on AK47’s make sense? What does any law abiding, civic minded American need with an assault weapon? Just bite the bullet (pun intended) and get a penis enlargement, because surely that’s what it comes down to unless you’re the Unibomber– a goddam pissing competition!

I am so sad for your bereaved and wish someone could be brave enough to instigate the beginnings of change, but I fear they would just end up with a bullet in the head.

Yours, with empathy and impatience

Posted in Not so funny | Tagged American Old West, Gun control, Monash University, Port Arthur Massacre, Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, Twenty-seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution, United State, USS Sirius (AK-15) | 5 Comments

My diamond days are over.

Posted on December 14, 2012 by Learning the hard way

Turns out diamonds are not my best friend. I was recently charged with the task of merchandising a selection of diamond rings, bangles and earrings; a fiddly job that gave me new appreciation for my opposable thumbs. Surreptitiously slipping on various rings I was unmoved by their scintillation.

Diamonds, with their glittery hard brilliance and prescriptive classification system, are precious, covetable and utterly ubiquitous.

Surveying my time worn hands each ring mockingly highlighted the visible veins running from ring finger to wrist.

The tennis bangle looked garish and even though the combined value of the pieces I played with was many thousands of dollars, the overall effect looked cheap. They could quite easily have hailed from one of those chains dedicated to undetectably manufactured diamonds.

I turned to the pearl cabinet and was immediately struck by their discreet lustre. Having formerly regarded pearls as the sartorial domain of the mature woman or Coco Chanel, I never considered myself either old or wraith-like enough to pull them off.

As I draped various strands about display busts and suspended pearl drop earrings onto tiny stands, I regarded each piece with contradictory fresh yet seasoned eyes – apparently I have reached the age of pearl appreciation. Holding a necklace up to my throat I stole a look in the small counter mirror and was struck by how flattering the luminescent patina of each pearl was against my skin.

Now, if I could just find some dowager to bequeath me a triple strand of Mikimoto’s before my neck is too crepey to wear anything but an artfully wound scarf or a neck brace, I’d be very happy indeed.

I’ve just realized that my husband, upon reading this, may regard it as a thinly veiled attempt to secure something precious for Christmas. Let me make it abundantly clear that I will be extremely pleased to receive whatever he….

…whatever I end up buying for myself for him to give me. This year it’s perfume.

I digress –

I love the idea of inherited jewellery, of receiving something that was significant in a loved one’s own life. When I was a teenager my stepmother would occasionally allow me to borrow a simple ruby ring that she had been given at the same age. I was told that at some point in the not too distant future, this ring would be given to me, as it no longer fitted her. One day it appeared as a permanently fixture on the finger of my stepsister. It was her birthstone and had apparently been intended for her all along.

Didn’t want it anyway!

My ex mother-in-law had a host of precious gems in an overflowing jewellery box. She regularly wore a stunning square sapphire ring surrounded by tiny diamonds. I was particularly enamoured of it and despite the fact she had four daughters of her own, secretly harboured dreams of possession

Divorcing her son guaranteed this was not to be.

Bio-mum, as she will henceforth be known for blogging purposes, who reappeared some forty years after running off with the next door neighbor, hastily shared upon meeting me again that all her “really good” jewellery had been stolen ten years ago. This break in included the theft of the engagement ring from my father.

Interestingly, this same engagement ring reappeared on her hand several months on from our conversation.

Bio-mum possesses another older and eminently more sentimental engagement ring that belonged to her grandmother. I have quite clear memories of this quintessential nanna. A diminutive woman with a tightly permed crown of white hair, she wore a strand of Austrian crystals that settled in the soft folds of her neck.

The four diamond band set in rose gold filigree had been refurbished by a jeweler relative. The day it was delivered back to her I had called in to visit. The ring sat in a plush box on the kitchen bench.

“May I?’

I slipped the ring onto my finger easily. It fit perfectly.

“Oh look, we have the same size…”

Bio-mum inhaled audibly and promptly wrenched the ring from my finger, popped it back in the box and snapped the lid shut. Marching upstairs it disappeared into some shoebox or other at the back of her cupboard far away from my obviously grasping hands.

It is with this mindset I have striven to furnish my daughters with their own sentimental favourites to eventually bequeath as they see fit. A belcher locket bracelet and small but perfect diamond pendant have the eldest off to a discerning start. The youngest currently favours friendship bands, blue howlite and rose quartz, so I will hold off on bestowing any really valuable pieces until she can appreciate them.

I ended up wearing a square sapphire after all. My betrothed furnished me with a ring the colour of ultramarine. It is without question the most beautiful thing I will ever possess and I still get a little jolt of joy whenever I look at it.

Neither child has posed the question of inheritance as yet but just quietly I think it will come down to whomever is prepared to shell out for the motorized chair when the time comes. I think that’s fair.

Posted in Family, humor | Tagged Christmas, Coco Chanel, Diamond, Engagement ring, Gemstone, humor, inheritance, Jewellery, Jewelry, pearls, Shopping | 2 Comments

Naming right(s)

Posted on December 6, 2012 by Learning the hard way

Finally New Idea has it right. After a year and a half of monthly magazine covers exclusively announcing the royal bump, young Kate is finally with child. Rule bloody Brittania!

This is excellent timing for the whole world seems to be pregnant at the moment and there has been much discussion about names flying around my household.

According to Royal experts and pollsters alike, the child is going to have a fairly traditional name; which means we are unlikely to see the christening of Chardonnay Mercedes or Kyle Brooklyn Mountbatten-Windsor. Which is a bit of a shame.

I’m all for tradition however, and I think it’s high time we had another King Aethelstan or Queen Matilda. Failing inspiration from actual history they could look to J R Tolkein or George R R Martin perhaps? King Aragorn has a ring about it…but any kid unfortunate enough to be christened Joffrey would endure a lifetime of being beaten up.

Best stick to Liz, Chuck or Di.

Closer to home, one of my most longstanding friends is set to become a grandmother and quite frankly I’m just not ready.

Fortunately, said friend is remarkably sanguine about the idea and has settled on the appellation of ‘nanny’ (nannie?) for herself; all references to goats having fallen on deaf ears.

I for one will need to be called something utterly un-Grandmotherly but respectful, like Your Grace.

We know the baby is boy flavoured, currently in the breech position and will be delivered by caesarian section in a few weeks – the only real mystery is the name.

Over coffee my friend revealed with mild apprehension, that according to her daughter not one person has even come close to guessing the name nor has it been used by anyone they know or have ever known, to date. Just how left of centre could it be?

Enthusiastic new parents need to look beyond the unique bundle in a bunny rug and consider the future employment prospects their choices may afford. For instance, a baby called Jeeves can only become a butler.

Similarly, there was a weight of expectation for young Solomon King to secure membership to MENSA , or at the very least become a High Court judge. Of course there’s every chance he just became a dedicated polygamist instead.

The infant saddled with Diesel as a first name is unlikely to become a principal with the Australian ballet, but will make an excellent motor cross champion. Sha-a (Shadasha) will probably not become a gastroenterologist and while Tregan, Jaxxon, Karysma and Neveah may not run for federal parliament, they will most certainly run excellent Kick boxing studios, internet porn sites, nail bar’s and hair extension salon’s respectively.

Then there is odd pronunciation. I know a woman called Jeanne. Nice name, French. However she, or rather her mother, decided inexplicably that it was to be pronounced ‘Shanay’. Has anyone at any time in that poor woman’s entire life, ever pronounced her name as intended?

Young Xander will never actually have the ‘X’ pronounced, despite the best efforts of his deluded parents. It’s silent; everyone knows it’s silent – pronouncing the ‘X’ will not make your son a maverick it will just annoy the crap out of him at roll call.

My daughters were at school with sisters called Nivek and Phelia. Inquiring into the origins of these exotic monikers, their mother told me that the only name she and her husband could agree on for their firstborn was Kevin. Unable to move beyond this proudly Gaelic name, they felt that spelling it backward lent a distinctly female air.

Not misspelled from the Greek for friendship, Phelia was, they believed, the name of the actress who played Claire Huxtable on the Cosby show – I’m not sure if anyone ever did let on that her name was actually Phylicia.

Pity the twins whose parents gambled on flattering childless aged relatives of means into bequeathing huge chunks of their estate by naming them in their honour. Cyril and Merle eventually donated the lot to a cat shelter. And now you know what the middle name is for.

You can go nuts with the middle name. In fact, I encourage you to do so. Every dowager Aunt – Ethel, Great Grandfather – Obadiah, favourite animal – Fox, can be celebrated via the middle name. It makes people happy and is wonderful first date conversation stimulus…just don’t let it segue into how many children you want or there will be no second date.

Fortunately we are genetically programmed to forget how stupid we thought the name Abcd (Abseedee) was or how dumb the spelling of Elly-ette is when we actually bond with the child. But here’s a tip for you, any name that spell check decides to draw a squiggly red line under is generally worth rethinking.

Just saying…

http://gawker.com/among-the-baby-names-banned-in-new-zealand-justice-4r-486241983

Posted in humor | Tagged baby names, family, humor, Kate, Mountbatten-Windsor, names, New Idea, Prince William Duke of Cambridge | Leave a comment

But once a year…

Posted on December 4, 2012 by Learning the hard way

It’s official – I’ve lost my Christmas mojo.

This was the weekend to erect the tree and hang the wreath announcing to the world just how damn festive you are with your syncopated fairy lights flashing madly in the window.

I looked enviously at the multitude of instagram photos regularly popping up on Facebook. Happy snaps of champagne fuelled tree decorating parties, close up images of ‘His and Her’s’ glass baubles, cherubic children with antlers writing letters to Santa or looking up in wonderment at their Hallmark perfect tree.

Several times over this same weekend I stood ruefully looking at the boxes under the stairs wishing I had a dedicated cupboard where the tree could remain, fully blinged up, for the duration of the year before being wheeled out on December 1^st and plugged into the power point by the window – ta dah!!!

Every year I vow that I will carefully wind my strings of lights into tidy figure 8’s making it that much easier to unravel and re-festoon the following Christmas. Similarly the faux pine branches beg to be dismantled and packed away in size order.

A place for every ornament and every ornament in its place? Not so much.

For the reality is that come the epiphany summer is hitting its temperature straps and far from donning the protective attire required for wrangling Chinese plastic pine needles, I am dressed as the weather dictates. A combination of heat and unforgiving foliage raking the skin off my forearms results in precariously hanging ornaments being snatched off and shoved in a bag followed by tangles of tinsel and a bundle of lights. There, done. A whole year before I have to deal with this again!

I am picturing the dog’s dinner in the boxes before me. The poor battered Norway spruce that requires increasing amounts of reshaping as its branches become progressively wonky. Last year it looked like a pair of particularly aggressive squirrel’s had laid siege to it forcing the decision – street or lounge view? Do I really care what the neighbours think or I am happy to shove the crap decos in amongst the mangled section and just set the lights to strobe?

Given said lights will require three days of detangling and a couple of dozen or so bulbs will have blown, I will, once again, give up and head to Bunnings for yet another replacement strand. There is every possibility I will also shove an entire inextricably knotted section into the inevitable tree gaps and pray nothing melts.

Festooned in flying bits of glitter from balding ropes of tinsel my enjoyment level barely surpasses a visit to the dentist. No one wants to help and quite frankly that is entirely my own doing.

Yuletide’s past have seen me planning the house Christmasfication with military precision. The ubiquitous Christmas CD would be primed and ready to go. Festive snacks abounded, and the children were under the impression they were there to help.

Pausing uncertainly before the tree they would hold each ornament aloft and wait for me to bark out the coordinates – “Ok, what do you have there? The glass snowman, is it? Right, so we are looking at section C, quadrant four and we need to rotate…to the front, dammit! Seriously, how hard is it?”

I would dress my poor children in elf attire and photograph them with the dog for the annual Christmas card– in theory.

The reality saw me attempting to retrieve the pom pom he had ingested from the Santa hat I had forced his ears through while the youngest ate candy canes without unwrapping the plastic. It was never quite the Kodak moment I envisaged.

I always quietly like the idea of a theme. I know people who plan these months in advance. They meticulously scour department stores and the Internet for decoration ideas. The US and Canada are treasure troves for decoraphile’s (I’m pretty sure that’s a word I just made up – but I think it works). I have several extremely heavy ceramic and crystal ornaments clearly designed with a 10ft tree in mind that my brother sent over from Canada years ago. Along with a couple of large black iron candle holders dotted with glass ‘dew drops’, which are made to resemble trees (I think) – or at least, burnt logs. I’m sure it makes more sense if you live there…

Anyway, every year I haul them out and then remember I have no ancestral Castle to arrange them in.

I worked with a woman who collected mechanized Christmas toys. She managed to fill two entire rooms and spent much of the month changing batteries in between performances. Nothing delighted her more than to assemble the neighbours to watch all seventy Saint Nicks variously bell ringing, dancing and ho, ho, ho-ing about the house. A little bit of Christmas crazy going on there.

I realize I have to lift my game. If someone has managed to swathe our entire local town hall in red ribbon with a gigantic bow, then surely I can organize my sad spruce and intermittent fairy lights, right?

Next weekend.

Posted in humor | Tagged Canada, Christmas, Christmas ornament, Christmas tree, facebook, Holiday, humor, Santa Claus, tinsel, Tree | 2 Comments

Party On Down

Posted on November 26, 2012 by Learning the hard way

So I have been thinking about birthdays, in particular those ones that end in zero. My youngest turns twenty next year which means, given I had a zero birthday the year she was born, that I too will endure celebrate a milestone of my own.

Moving on.

So I was thinking about the irrelevance of the 21^st birthday celebration and wondering why it is that we don’t simply start the zero tradition from 20?

The very first birthday celebration is… well obviously it’s the first one. Not for the child of course, they are too busy eating wrapping paper and wondering why we holding them over an open flame.

It’s only marginally less surreal for them than being forced onto the lap of a fat guy in a seasonally inappropriate red suit with a fake beard – eventually they realize this is an elaborate photo op purely for their parent’s entertainment. As is the first birthday celebration.

The second born will have a first birthday too but it will be a low-key affair and the cake may be bought from Coles.

The next exciting birthday is the tenth – Woohoo, double digits! They start to cotton on to the import of money in a birthday card commencing the lifelong habit of shaking out the envelope.

Open your card from Aunty Glenda.

Oh man, come on…nothing?! Did it drop out maybe? MUUUM, it’s empty!

Thirteen is a big deal and often involves a slumber party. The secret for boys is to take them somewhere late afternoon/early evening and run them like dogs. Exhaust them with as much physical activity as you can manage, ply them with pizza and then set up computer games. Easy.

Girls require greater ingenuity and counseling skills. There will be tears and despite cutting off all sugar supplies from 9pm, there will be no slumber – at all.

Sixteen. I may have harboured a somewhat romantic notion about turning sixteen due in no small part, to the depiction of ‘Sweet Sixteenth’s’ in the diet of American teen movies and television shows I grew up with.

There is absolutely nothing sweet about sixteen year olds.

Despite cautionary tales from more experienced parents, my ex-husband and I decided to go ahead with a sixteenth birthday party for the first-born. Ok, so I’m officially experiencing flashbacks now and I must warn you this will not be pretty.

Thirty kids MAXIMUM ok?

But MUUUM, by the time I invite all the girls from school, the gang from primary school, the Mount boys and the De La boys…

Sixty kids were invited.

My youngest brother was the doorman. An impressively proportioned man who looked especially intimidating in his motorbike leathers, he was also renowned for a particularly impassive expression – one of those blank stares that gave away nothing. Armed with a guest list he greeted each approaching teenager and may have padded down the shiftier looking boys.

Interestingly, not one parent braved their children’s displeasure and actually came inside to make sure they were not depositing them at a den of iniquity. Instead, they drove half way up the street and slowed down sufficient for their embarrassed teens to tuck and roll out of the moving vehicle.

Once the guests had been checked off the list their stash of virulent coloured vodka cruisers or cans of UDL were confiscated and left in the study where the thirteen year old presided over them like some crusading member of the temperance league.

I can’t believe my ex-husband and I had seriously thought that we would spend the bulk of the evening enjoying a convivial glass of wine and reminiscing about the birthday girl as a toddler, occasionally pausing to check if another tray of sausage rolls was required.

No, despite the dedicated dance floor and groaning table of party snack goodness, the entire evening was spent collaring couples attempting to get upstairs, tracking and eliminating furtive marijuana smokers and administering water to dehydrated and wasted teenage girls who, despite the evangelistic efforts of my youngest child, were still managing to source and consume alcohol.

My brother the bouncer had stopped at least twenty kids who were not on the list and there was a growing band of disgruntled would-be partygoers milling about the front gate. Forced to evict several boys for acts of unsociability we eventually realised that they were leaving by the front door and then scaling our neighbor’s fences to get back in again.

Having registered the party with the local constabulary, a car was sent out to disperse the uninvited boys who had continued to lurk about the front of the house. Once the police car taillights disappeared however, the entertainment starved youth reconvened.

My ex husband reluctantly agreed to security reinforcements in the guise of my then partner, the Serbian. A short, muscular man with distinctly paranoiac tendencies, he always looked like he wanted to hurt someone. Which in this case was perfect. I don’t know what he said to them, but eventually the entire group moved as one to a park at the end of the street.

The backyard, lit by discreet ropes of bud lights, had taken on a vaguely Sodom and Gomorrah vibe as I was forced to flush out couples in various acts of lewdness and commandeer soft drink bottles full of goon. At the height of this Bacchanalian revelry the youngest child discovered a nice young school friend and some random stranger engaged in an intimate form of introduction on top of her rabbit hutch.

“Stop it! You’re traumatizing my rabbit!!!!!” she bellowed at the top of her lungs.

This and the approaching midnight hour mercifully signaled an end to the ghastly event. Switching off the music and switching on all the lights, bleary-eyed teens stumbled out to waiting cars where their parents pretended not to notice the smell of alcohol.

Never again. Sorry, number two.

A woman once told me that she worried about her children until they turned eighteen. She figured if she could help navigate each of her four children to the official age of adulthood in this country, and they managed to avoid unwanted pregnancy, hard drug addiction or membership to a cult then her work was done. Extra credit if they emerged free of excess body art and visible piercings.

I now feel compelled to congratulate all parents of children who achieve this teenage evolutionary milestone. Mind you, even though we recognize that these newly anointed adults can vote, legally drink and line up to be refused entry at nightclubs various, we also realize they are still, essentially, as silly as wheels.

Or perhaps that’s just my experience.

The youngest will be back in America for her twentieth and I’ll be running away somewhere for my –

Never mind.

Posted in Family, humor | Tagged Birthday, birthday party, cake, Child, humor, humour, Parent, sleepover, sweet sixteen, Teenagers, vodka cruisers | 6 Comments