Mind over matter

Posted on November 19, 2012 by Learning the hard way

For the past week my brain has felt like cold spaghetti. I have been having trouble separating thought streams and no matter how anxious or overloaded it becomes I simply cannot clear my chatty mind.   

My internal dialogue is on hyper drive.  I’ve tried reasoning with myself quietly and then refusing to buy into my conversations when the chatter continues. Talking aloud – yes I do and yes, I answer myself as well…often in accents – has just made it more palpable.

Some form of relaxation therapy is warranted but I don’t have a great track record.

Miss Malcolm was my high school drama teacher. She had mad, woolly seventies hair and wore batik wrap skirts with roman sandals. Her attempts to calm a class of fifteen year olds with creative visualisation were ambitious at best.

Lying on the floor we would be instructed to close our eyes and breathe while Miss Malcolm wafted around us emitting the unmistakable aroma of patchouli.

“You are a tree. Tall, strong and rooted to the ground”

“Rooted! *snort” 

Warren Armstrong; the boy sent to drama class after being chucked out of every other elective the school had to offer, could be relied on to offer a counter commentary to Miss Malcolm’s.

“The sun is shining down on you – warm beams of light caressing your leaves, the bark on your trunk – a light breeze rustles your foliage.”

“Russell’s. Your. Foliage!”

Punctuating each word with a punch, Miss Malcolm and her jangly silver bracelets would calmly disengage hapless Russell from Warren’s sudden headlock.

Warren, Russell and my high school crush Darren Albrechtson would never allow my self conscious fifteen year old mind to empty sufficiently enough to ‘be the tree’. I spent the entire session adjusting the hem of my school dress and willing my stomach not to rumble.

A dear friend convinced me to give yoga and meditation a shot at her local community centre. I was introduced to the teacher whose less than lithe frame suggested patchwork class rather than asanas. She cautioned me to sit out any parts of the class I felt were too difficult and then invited everyone to begin.

Barking out yoga positions from a folding chair at the front of the room, everyone seemed to know exactly what she expected them to do. I followed the lead of my slightly more experienced friend and managed to keep up reasonably well until someone farted during the eagle pose and I fell over laughing. 

My friend admonished me to behave and I lay down in preparation for the guided meditation.

“So today we are going to stimulate our chakra centres through meditation and visualization. I’m going to ask each of you to imagine you are buying a flower specific to each of the seven chakras. I want you to think about your choice of flower, remembering that the colour, shape and size will add power to your chakra’s vibration.”

“HUH?????”

“So let’s start with the Muladhara – the root or base chakra. Located at the base of the spine, it is red and relates to issues of standing up for yourself; of security. Imagine you are walking into the florist and choosing your flower…”

I imagine the local florist.

Good, I know the layout inside, this shouldn’t take too long. Actually, the last time I was there the owner was kind of short with me. I wasn’t going to go back there. Her flowers aren’t all that great if I’m honest –

“Lovely. So now that you have chosen your base chakra flower. Let’s move on to the svadisthana – the spleen chakra. It’s orange and its located just below the naval.”

Wait! I haven’t bought the first one yet. Alright, I’m here now, I’ll just grab that red rose. It’s red. She said the chakra was red, right?

I look around at everyone. They all seemed peaceful and engaged in the business of bestowing metaphoric blooms on body parts. I saw no confusion on their faces.

Orange. What flower is orange? Those lilies are kind of orangey. Hang on, did she say it had to be the colour of the chakra itself or just something that relates to it. The Spleen was something about feelings –

“Good job everyone, now that we’ve done our yellow solar plexus we can move onto the anahata, or heart chakra”

No, no I missed one! Wait, she’s too quick. I’ll just pretend I bought something for the solar plexus. She won’t know. Well duh…of course she won’t know – it’s my visualization. Here, I’ll chuck a daffodil on there.  

“The heart chakra is green and is located right in the centre of the chest. I’m sure you are all buying something very specific here. Remember it represents love, forgiveness and compassion.”

So maybe the heart one should get the rose. I wonder if I can swap them around? I’m just buying right into some Interflora cliché now. What says forgiveness then?

“…the vissudha or throat chakra is blue and represents expressing oneself and ones beliefs.’

AAAHHHH! So I’ll just go with the rose on the chest now and forget about the…who says ‘ones’? Seriously, why is she sounding like the Queen all of a sudden? Bluebells. Do we even have bluebells here? No, I reckon I’ll go with a hyacinth here – they smell wonderful. I think I forgot to put on deodorant.

“Right in the middle of the forehead, your anja. The brow chakra is indigo coloured and responsible for intuition and insight. Many of you are unaware of your psychic potential. Choose your flower mindfully.”

By the time we got to the top of my violet crown chakra I had exchanged three flowers, planned my own funeral and developed a splitting headache.

Over the ensuing years I have passed out at Bikram yoga, and strained a groin muscle at Ashtanga. I failed to synchronise my chanting at a kundalini class and lasted three sessions at shadow yoga where the bare chested instructor wore skintight leggings and distracted the entire class with regular pelvic rotations. Yoga is patently not for me.

I’m giving brain training with Lumosity.com a red-hot shot now – wish me luck.

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Food inglorious food

Posted on November 10, 2012 by Learning the hard way

I don’t know why I thought a vegan lemon curd doughnut was a healthy breakfast option, but I did. It was singularly the most sugary thing I have ever eaten in my life. As I walked away from the shop brushing away at great clumps of sugar crystals adhered to my lipstick, I recalled a woman I’d worked with some years ago and her rampant veganism.

Hardly a walking testimony to the health giving properties of this lifestyle choice, she was a grey complexioned, overweight research assistant with chronic fatigue syndrome.  Her heft can be attributed to the vast quantity of deep fried cauliflower she regularly consumed along with a couple of daily mangoes and avocado mooshed on everything. At a staff afternoon tea I watched her avoid the plates of lamingtons and cream cakes vainly searching for some food item not containing an animal by-product. I remember offering her a bowl of honey-covered cashews and being genuinely puzzled at her refusal.

“Really, even honey? I don’t think the bees are exploited…I mean, they’re making the stuff anyway. It’s not like they’re being held up at gun point with demands to give us all your honey.” Here I mimed a Queen bee backed up against the hive with all her legs kind of waving around and some gun-toting apiarist. What can I say? It was a very dull job. My vegan colleague did not see the humour either. 

These days I seem to have accumulated a growing band of friends with a plethora of dietary intolerances – the three main offenders being lactose, gluten and fructose, and often all three. Eating out with them can bring out the best or worst in me – depending on how hungry I am at the time.

I recently lunched with a friend whose limited food choices seem more arbitrary than common allergies would necessarily dictate. The inevitable forensic discussion with the waitress was set to monopolise the majority of my lunch hour, so while she was cross referencing the menu with a sheaf of naturopathic notes, I asked about the specials.

The little hipster waitress extended a tiny tattooed arm toward the chalkboard and looking supremely bored, intoned, ” The soup is watercress and lentil with a spelt pumpkin damper. Our ciabatta is Indo-Moroccan spicy lamb kofta with mango chutney and pine nut raita. The flan of the day is beetroot – it’s sold out.”

Well naturally.

I settled on a BLT while my friend declared there was nothing on the menu she could eat. I suggested the feta with a side of spinach to which she replied, in a voice reserved for the elderly and recently migrated, “The feta has been marinated in preserved lemon and garlic.”

Cue raised eyebrow –

“Fructose, Jane, fructose!”

She had an organic green tea and a handful of goji berries from her bag while I ate a BLT the size of my head.

Cooking for these people is a nightmare. My gluten and dairy free lemon poppy seed muffins literally bounced off the cooling rack when I turned them out. Rubbery doesn’t even come close to describing the texture as they pinged across the bench top; I was still finding them under furniture days later.

And it’s kind of expensive stocking your pantry with alternatives to flour and sugar too – by the time you’ve equipped yourself with sorghum flour, millet, tapioca starch, xanthum gum, agave  and grade A maple syrup there is no money for the rest of the family to eat real food.

Beans again?!

I  have a cupboard full of miracle foods suggested by frail looking health advocates and designed to keep me alive well past 100 – if only I would take them. Seriously, have you tasted Vital Greens? *blech* Similarly Miracle Red, Maca powder (the Inca’s thrived on the stuff) and chia seeds which I end up having to suck out of the gingival erosion of my incisors all day, giving me a vaguely unhinged appearance.

Pregnancy comes with it’s own host of (fortunately ) temporary dietary no-no’s also. A darling first time mummy-to-be recently informed me that along with soft cheese, pate, sushi, salami and bean sprouts, runny egg yolks are also verboten.

“Dammit, I told you to over cook my eggs!”

I have no idea how either of my progeny survived their gestation as I happily gorged on Brie, smoked salmon and alfalfa. There is photographic evidence of me sipping from glasses of champagne in Reims and getting my oom pah pah on with a gewaltig stein of kolsch, blissfully unaware that I was  brewing the first born.

Look, she seems fine…

It’s a tough gig being a parent with small children these days too. When my offspring were little, kindergarten birthdays were a riot of cupcakes, honey joys and chocolate frogs – we weren’t haunted by the spectre of products that may contain traces of peanut and an EpiPen was not on standby. 

One of the saddest things I have seen in a while was the photo of a lovely young friends son’s birthday ‘cake’ prepared for his childcare group. Instead of a sponge covered in violent coloured icing and jellied lollies, it was a meticulously carved watermelon skewered with antennae of blueberries and strawberries. It reminded me of one of those cakes they make for gorillas out of ice with vegetables and fruit frozen inside.  

But hey, the vegans would go NUTS for it.

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The Homecoming

Posted on November 6, 2012 by Learning the hard way

We hovered about the gate lounge waiting for her to appear. I was unaccountably nervous wondering how things would be now, while my ex-husband remarked for the umpteenth time on the arduous nature of travelling from New York to LA and then LA to Melbourne.

I have had time to reflect on a few things while she has been away; such as realising that while my approach to parenting was always unsentimental, I also spent a vast portion of both daughter’s younger lives wishing them older.

I was never a “career mum”; cottoning on that every session of my first mothers group was going to involve the same conversational topics about infant development, I quickly resigned. When all the other mothers were sobbing luxuriantly over a consolatory morning tea on the first day of primary school, I was organising coffee catch ups with childless friends and wishing 3.15pm didn’t come around so quickly.

My mother, who deserves a complete blog entry if not an entire mini-series, once remarked that she had never wanted babies, she just wanted little friends. Fortunately, I was spared her particular blueprint for parenting as she disappeared when I was six, however this attitude goes some way to explaining my initial lack of maternal gooeyness

and her lifelong attachment to cats.

Art works from kindergarten upwards were judged display worthy on the basis of aesthetic appeal and design. A pasting, for example, bearing a wonky cardboard toilet roll, pipe cleaner and a Dencorub box would be summarily dismissed as substandard and consigned to the recycle box for the rubbish man alone to appreciate. Any paintings of amorphous blobs without an adequate explanation for their creative impetus would be similarly rejected.

I was like a very stern Russian gym instructor.

“Not good enough (Godunov?!) AGAIN!!”  

All the pieces that eventually made it on to the National Gallery of Westinghouse were colourful, quirky and had reasonable back stories attached to them. Many have been archived for a time when the artists may possibly wish to make comparisons with their own offsprings works; or consult a therapist.

Writing projects received a similar treatment.

“Wuns pon a time ther woz a luverley rebit. it ated a carit. The end.”

Not cute. Dopey. Can do better. Here, let me do it.

Fast forward to now-ish and both children seem to like me – which might surprise many of you given the no frills approach to their early childhood.  The relationship with each is different but the three of us share an often disconcertingly forthright honesty and lunatic sense of humour. Both girls contributed to my wedding earlier in the year in word and song. It was variously funny and moving and I confess to a massive rush of maternal pride and gratitude.

Organising my youngest child to leave the country some five months ago, it occurred to me that an era of parenting was potentially over. She was being launched into the world and never was there a child so anxious to start her adult life. I was excited and fearful for her in equal measure. At the concourse leading to doors that would swallow her up in the International terminal, we embraced. I swear I felt the teeniest ping in my heart and the unbidden tears genuinely surprised me.

A Skype conversation from New York revealed  that she had accepted a ride with an unlicensed Dominican taxi driver from the airport to the hotel (“Taken” anyone?). She went on to assure me that as he had a business card AND pens with his name on them, he must be legitimate. He also invited her to experience some Dominican hospitality  at his home in Harlem should she be at a loose end. AAAAGGGGHHHHHHH !!!!!

Life went on and contact with her was sporadic at best. Facebook remained our most reliable indicator that she was alive and apparently happy. Somewhere at around the four month mark I realised that for the first time in many years, I had absolutely no idea what was going on in her head. She was absorbed in new people, new experiences and was already planning her return there in the first quarter of 2013.

What if she doesn’t need me anymore?

The day she was due to depart New York Hurricane Sandy hit. She had remained in Massachusetts carving pumpkins and was utterly unfazed by the potential disaster, remarking via text message that she was disappointed there had been no flying cows.

I stood shifting my weight from one foot to the other, scanning the faces of all the exiting passengers. How big IS this plane? Maybe she went through with the threat to ‘miss’ the flight and stayed with her new friends after all. Why am I so anxious, what am I worried about?

Then she was there with a goofy look on her face. I smiled so hard my face hurt. She snuffled into my neck, “Sorry I stink mum, I’ve been on that plane FOREVAH!”

And for now at any rate, things are just exactly the same.

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What dreams may come?

Posted on October 30, 2012 by Learning the hard way

“You’d better find the vision board and buy a lotto ticket”, declares the man who finds these invocations to the Universe about as credible as ouija boards.

My first attempt at a vision board was assembled at a team bonding session with fellow lingerie  purveyors. Apparently it’s not enough to sell oodles of foundation garments to ensure health, wealth and happiness; one must have an aspirational poster to stay on track. So there we were, women of varying age and circumstance, ranged about a large boardroom table piled high with magazines, scissors, felt tip markers and glue sticks. Unfortunately, I was a  late arrival and the division of quality resource material had already occurred. Grabbing the remaining magazines, I retrieved my sheet of cardboard and retreated to a quiet corner for inspiration to strike.

Perhaps a coffee will help.

I might just pop into the bathroom.

Is anyone else hungry?

Maybe I’ll take a little wander around the room and see how everyone is travelling.

Oh that’s nice. Picture of a smily handsome young husband and impossibly attractive children in a 4WD…I am sure he IS just around the corner. A gorgeous blonde woman jogging along the beach with her golden retriever after a nutritious Special K breakfast…good for you, those weight loss goals are darn achievable  and one day you’ll have a back yard for the dog too. A maxi yacht moored at Portofino…why the heck not? LOVE, INSPIRE, JOY, FAMILY, SUCCESS freshly sheared from the pages of the Australian Women’s Weekly and Marie Claire – Ok good, that’s what I need to do then; just find the key words, match them to the images and let the universe take care of the rest – got it.

Back to Fly Fishing Monthly, Architechtural Digest and Classic Cars – The Lamborghini edition. Ooh yay, Take Five magazine…surely I’m guaranteed riches along with a fool proof cheesy mac recipe into the bargain. I return home with my craft work leaving a trail of glitter behind me – images of a tudorbethan cottage in Guildford, a large trout and  words of inspiration with the look of a ransom note ; CATCHING yOUR dream WINner $75,000. My message to the gods of fate seemed confused so I hid it behind the bookshelf.

My second attempt was much more calculated. It included a photographic before shot of myself sans portly abdominal rolls, images of a perfectly restored ’65 Alfa Romeo Guilia,  Lake Como at twilight, a dog and various other motifs that a psychiatrist may or may not find useful.

There was also a dodgy photocopied image of a house that my beloved had, on several occasions, professed to be his dream abode. A solid brick warehouse built in the 1920’s, it had orginally been used as a storage facility for a motor company and had subsequently been developed into a two level residence with city views. Advertised as having room for 20 or so cars, this property was officially my beloved’s fantasy man cave and a space for his imagined future  vehicular restoration. For the purposes of this wishful thinking exercise, I had forced the poor man to stand at the front door of said house and assume a look of propriety.  Ignoring his mutterings that he was fully visible to the actual occupants of the home, I continued to  photograph him from various angles until the desired appearance of ownership was obtained.

This board spent a bit of time on a dresser opposite our bed before it slipped down the back of it- possibly as a result of the last earth tremor and  not because I was cleaning around it (the next VB will definitely feature a Jims Cleaning Services advertisement ). Life went on; we got married, went to Lake Como, the car restoration suddenly gained some real momentum and then all of a sudden last weekend THE HOUSE, the one that had not been on the market for donkey’s years, was for sale. Get out of town!

Priced just shy of 3 million a serious windfall looks to be the only option if we are to be lord and lady of the local manor.  With no affluent but failing aged relatives to speak of, or quickly acquired shares in thoroughbred’s Gatewood or Mount Athos, Tatts- Oz- Mega- Super- draw- Powerball- super 66-  lotto  looks to be our only viable  solution.

I’ve written WINNER in chunky fluorescent texta all over BOTH  VB’s.

Plan B is the country retreat. An idea that has gained traction over the past year or so as our immunity to the hipster wears off. Damn it if their little bare ankled, op shop attired, tattooed, bearded, waist coat wearing, single origin bean worshipping, fixed gear bike riding shenanigans aren’t just annoying me a little too much these days. The lifestyle change looks more appealing as access to car parking in my own street decreases and the wait for a sunday breakfast table increases.

Unlike the urban mansion, a decent whack of land somewhere within cooee of Hanging Rock, will not bankrupt us but will involve a significant mental departure from all we are accustomed .  I have pictured myself clamboring over rocky outcrofts,  picking wildflowers with our rescue shelter dog while spouse muses over the blueprints of some classic car that he is joyfully restoring. I will, at some predetermined juncture, bear a  tray piled high with slices of homemade cinnamon cake and mugs of tea and invite him to join me outside. We will sit on a piece of derelict farm equipment observing the faint outline of the city skyline and rejoice in our distance to it. Night times will be illuminated by the warm glow of an open fire and on the weekends, friends will descend on us for a jolly nights of charades and red wine.

There is every possibility of course, that I am severely deluded…

…the shelter dog is neurotic and has mange. I am allergic to wildflowers. We run out of milk and the closest IGA is an annoyingly long drive away. One of us slips on the derelict farm equipment and develops tetanus. Our friends are busy.

Just heard the super lotto draw didn’t go off. This means we are in the running for an Uber draw next week. We can build our own village.

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Cruising with George

Posted on October 23, 2012 by Learning the hard way

I ‘m no fan of cruise ships. The Poseidon Adventure, Gilligan’s Island and The Love Boat all seemed to me to be perfectly valid reasons to avoid a floating holiday.

Many of the contemporaries of my youth  disagreed, however and booked Fairstar (the fun ship) en masse. Let’s be honest, it was the seagoing equivalent of a Contiki tour and the only horizons it broadened were probably alcoholic and sexual in nature – and in that order.

A brief punt down the Rhine in the late 80’s hardly constituted cruise status, and given the median age of my fellow travellers was around seventy, it was as far removed from my friends’ experiences as possible. No amount of mediaeval castles and snow capped peaks made up for three nights enforced dining with an elderly Maltese couple called Lourdes and Beppe. Clearly moved by my mid-twenties appetite and obvious girth, Lourdes felt compelled to share the secret to her whippet slim form. Leaning across the table she confided that her breakfast for the past fifty years consisted of “only the coffee.” This went some way to explaining not only her resemblance to Wallis Simpson, but her unfortunate beige coloured smile.

We encountered cruise ship season at its zenith recently; arriving in Venice on the same day as a flotilla of mega liners. Fording across the Ponte Rialto we were faced with a tsunami of recently disgorged tourists approaching as one behind a flag toting tour guide. It appeared that most cruise itineraries allowed for mere hours in port and our seagoing travellers descended like locusts on every shop, cafe and museum frantically trying to absorb as much of the ‘authentic’ Venetian experience as possible. After a coffee, gelato and possible pizza slice, Hank and Nancy would return to the mother ship clutching their Murano glass beads and painted carnival masks ready to delight Ted and Carol (who remained on board for the Tex-Mex lunch) with the delights of Venice, Italy.

“It’s just like the pictures! Only smellier.”

So it was with a fair degree of trepidation that I approached the seven night cruise I had, in a mercurial (or amnesiac) moment, booked some eight months previous. Our Adriatic odyssey was aboard the MV Harmony G and apparently we could expect a ‘harmonious balance between conventional cruising and private yachting’. I refer your attention back to paragraph one – Captain Merill Stubing meet Skipper Jonas Grumby! (there’s one for your next trivia night)

Arriving a fraction before the scheduled 1500 hours embarkation, we were greeted by a perky young cruise director called Ninna and a glass of scurvy preventing orange concentrate. A bit of paperwork and banter about the raucous nature of previous Aussie guests (oi, oi, oi) and we were escorted to our cabin with instructions to rendezvous in the upper deck lounge for a welcome cocktail and bonus safely drill in an hours time.

Clutching our life vests we made our way up to the lounge to meet the crew and our fellow voyagers. Ninna began by introducing us all to Captain George – a disturbingly young Greek man with more than a passing resemblance to John Stamos (Full house days), and George,his First Officer.  Both George’s lacked the gravitas I personally required with the Costa Concordia still foregrounded in recent memory and so my attention to the safety drill was more than usually vigilant.

Stefanos, the ships concierge, was responsible for staff coordination and getting up close and personal with all the ladies on board.

“If there is anything I can help you with…anything at all, just ask me…day or night.”

Then it was our turn to introduce ourselves.

Yay.

Luckily for you, I took notes…

George and Margaret, an excessively pale couple  from Scotland who chain smoked and never left the boat. They could be found sheltering from the Balkan sunlight nursing a glass each of the house white wine (I tried it once and lost the enamel off my front teeth).

George and Sandy – elderly Texan newly weds born and raised in Midland County “where First Lady Laura Bush was born, doncha know?”…okay, good…They ran a water ski hire shop a mere four and half hours from the closest body of water. Seriously – that’s like opening a ski shop in Kalgoorlie. (Yes! Well spotted all you playing at home ;  Kalgoorlie WAS mentioned in the blog before last). Sandy also confided mid-way through our introductory cocktail that she will be voting Republican and not just because Obama is…well, you know. A paid up member of the choom gang?

George and Diane (pronounced Dee-Ann), were high energy Floridians who experienced the entire cruise through very expensive viewfinders. George sold bar ware and flew his private plane to their little place in the Bahamas. Dianne was in sales and had bought the Ferrari with her commission – “Paid for in cash, ” she whispered. They were self confessed mountain goats who wore Cabela’s hiking shoes. I derived quiet satisfaction from beating them to the top of the fortress in Kotor wearing good old Aussie thongs* and a bad attitude.

Jorge and Maria de Carmen, (Is anyone counting? How many Georges’s are we up to now?) were a Mexican couple on a Diplomatic posting  in Basle – he was professionally amiable with an excellent watch. She wore white crotched dresses with teeny bikinis and sulked. They fascinated me.

The French – whom we dubbed Les Miserables. Eugenie, a 30 something woman who defiantly chain smoked endless packs of Gitane blondes and spent the entire trip complaining for an elderly couple called Georges (I’m not making this up) and Celeste who refused to speak a single word of English. Georges bore an uncanny resemblance to Parker from the Thunderbirds and Celeste had the  air of a travel worn Catherine Deneuve. When Stefanos enquired as to why they were eschewing most of the food on board,

“The fis, why you no eat the fis? It fresh today!”

Eugenie gave a small gallic shrug and declared “Ze food is not good. We are French, we know good food.”

The Canadians. A blonde apple cheeked family from Vancouver who were too darn wholesome to be true.  David and Carrie were so sweet my teeth hurt. Son Jonothan, in his first year at Harvard, had just returned from some volunteer work in Brazil and daughter, Claire was finishing senior high. Carrie was one of those uber mom’s who fully participated in every aspect of her children’s lives. I was feeling negligent by contrast as my youngest daughter swans around The States posting occasional ‘I am alive’ Facebook updates – I imagine Carrie would have microchipped her. Jonothan, however, privately reported that his mother skypes him with such frequency that the lap top in his dorm room might just as well be an omnipresent portrait of her. They probably had a dog called George.

Lisbeth a New York Jew who dated beat poets in the 60’s and runs a feminist writing circle and her husband, Miles, an entertainment lawyer from LA. Miles was an enormous florid faced man whose upper lip was permanently studded with large droplets of sweat. He would pile multiple plates with everything from the buffet so as not to make a return trip. He celebrity name dropped with embarrassing frequency and although we were initially impressed that Ryan Gosling was a client, it soon became apparent that Miles has never actually met him. They would know someone called George.

and us – ever so slightly misanthropic Melbournians who escaped the boat at every opportunity to find the nearest bar. There are no Georges in our life.

*Lest there be confusion about my walking attire to  an international audience; Flip flop in America, Jandal in NZ, hawai chappal in India, zori in Japan, sayonares in Greece and my favourite onomatopoeic version, schlapfen in Austria.

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Wrestling with Mediocrity

Posted on October 17, 2012 by Learning the hard way

‘Why don’t you have a go at writing something positive?’ – I was asked this late last week by someone who was posing it less as a question than suggestion.

Positive you say?

So I’m fairly confident I don’t have a self help book in me. A book on self sabotage? Maybe. Nor do I see myself producing a tome of inspirational quotes illustrated with pleasing photos of sunsets, Himalayan nonagenarians with gummy beatific smiles and dolphins.

I would have thought that ‘Learning the hard way’ gave a decent clue as to the general tenor of my world and therefore, my blog. I’m quite looking forward, however,  to retitling it “Learnt the hard way, got my shit together, am at one with the universe and the tax man is no longer garnishing my bank account’ I mean, that will be a very Zen day.

My point is that this conversation left me in familiar and recurring territory. How many of us like to dabble in something that we wish was the better part of us? Writing, acting, directing, cooking, designing jewellery, singing, dancing, restoring cars, renovating houses, topiary… you get the idea. Ok, now how many of us are disconcertingly aware that we may just be a teeny weeny bit mediocre?

There you are riding high on the idea that a couple of folk in Sardinia and Azerbaijan seem to be amused/bemused by something you bashed out on your laptop, when someone dashes you about the head with a metaphoric foam baton and suddenly you’re back staring into the sardonic black eyes of the self doubt gremlin.

The difficulty is not so much what to say but how to say it – because frankly, there are very few actual new ideas out there. The challenge is making your voice as accessible as you want your audience broad or esoteric enough to excite the coterie of like minded intellectuals you quite fancy yourself being. I prefer to muddle somewhere around the middle. I daresay I should spend less time preoccupied with deciding who is or isn’t going to like what I do on my *bi-polar computer (*the aging HP may require an exorcism – it has taken to shutting itself down for no apparent reason and sending scores of impotence cure emails to random strangers. It has yet to vomit on me) and more time pleasing myself.

My favourite people, of course, are the ones that are totally sold on their own genius. They know that but for a number of unavoidable road blocks, they would have hosted their own home renovation/cooking/gardening reality show, recorded a Grammy award winning album of country songs composed in the suburbs or written the definitive 21st century novel (which, by the way, had better not turn out to be 50 shades of anything!) They are blithely indifferent to the fact that the march of time is bringing them no closer to the realisation of their creative goals and remain supremely confident that their time will indeed come.

Personally, I take great solace in the fact that Mary Wesley, the late English  author whose writing style could be reasonably described as Jane Austen with sex, published her first novel at age 70. I’m happy that my potential future royalty payments will cover the cost of a wonderful maximum security twilight home sometime in the late 2040’s.

Perhaps the secret to success lies in resisting being consumed by an ambition that may or may not be realised and instead enjoy whatever it is we really like doing? The attainment of happiness and personal fulfilment is a floaty amorphous goal (even on industrial level psychotropics) and life is merely a series of moments punctuated by a whole gamut of  worthy emotions all colliding together in a riot of  experiences.

I’ve got 20 years to get it together –

And you thought I couldn’t write a self help book…pppffft!

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My brilliant career?

Posted on October 8, 2012 by Learning the hard way

What do you want to be when you grow up? I always imagined the answer would appear as a lightning bolt of understanding sometime between finishing high school and death.

Still waiting.

On the upside I have a list of things I shouldn’t be after years of entirely inappropriate employment.

Finishing school at the beginning of the 80’s I was convinced by my stepmother, AKA the Dream Crusher, that there was very little point in my accepting a tertiary placement in an Arts course as no-one got jobs out of something so flaky. No, best get yourself straight out into the workforce, young lady and give back to society.  You have very little going for you but you DO have great teeth…you should probably become a dental nurse. I would have preferred to become an Osmond, but Utah was so far away.

So there I am, the world’s most reluctant dental assistant – refusing to see the inherent value in aspirating and resenting the required workplace silence over the din of drills, suction and screaming. It didn’t help that the dentist I worked for was quite mad and convinced that, but for the loss of several key marks in first year medicine, he would have been the next Victor Chang. Instead he was relegated to teeth, gums and amateur psychology – clearly there was some confusion about working IN the head. I’m actually surprised he didn’t attempt the odd lobotomy; I know he thought about it.

My tenure here expired some years later after a particularly fraught appointment that culminated in my pitching a tray of acrylic filling materials at the wall and storming out – I had a tendency towards the dramatic. Suffice to say my letter of subsequent reference was light on positives.

Aware that being a glorified hat check girl in a bowls outfit was not my life’s calling, I responded to an ad from a now defunct airline and applied to their reservations department.  My love of the gay man was well and truly cemented here as over 90% of the chaps in Res were as camp as a row of tents. They all had nicknames like ‘Dolly’, ‘Joan’ and ‘Audrey’. You knew you looked amazing when one of them told you so. Conversely you spent the whole day worrying about how to repair the damage when they stopped; head tilted to one side and said “This! What’s going on here?” while flapping their hands in front of you.

It took a year to hopscotch through the department from general reservations to corporate bookings and across to the Holiday package area. Eventually even the thrill of rush education trips to the Whitsundays wore off and I looked for something else to do. The marketing department was looking for someone to help out in their domestic brochure production area. Having nothing more than a shared love of Judy Garland films with the office manager to recommend me, I beat a number of highly eligible marketing graduates to the punch and got the job.

Writing holiday brochures required thesauric knowledge of descriptors – how many words can you use to describe the colour of the Indian, Pacific and Southern Oceans? Let me tell you, ‘Azure’, ‘Sapphire’ and ‘limpid blue’ got quite a thrashing. I wrote brochures for places almost wholly sight unseen – the jury’s out on whether that was good or bad when I was asked to make Kalgoorlie as appealing as the Gold Coast – let’s just say there were a number of really bewildered tourists wandering up Hay street in the mid-80’s.

Several years later and the biological clock chimed.  With no facility to return to the job in a part time capacity, I gave birth and settled in for mother’s groups, coffee mornings and quality bonding. That was until Paul Keating alerted us to ‘The recession we had to have’ and I was job hunting again.

Myer had just launched Myer Direct – catalogue shopping that was especially helpful for rural areas and was modelled on the longstanding success of America’s Sears catalogue. A friend of a friend recommended me for part time work in their call centre. Great, no one will see me, I can wear stretch pants. I spoke to hundreds of people, many of whom I suspect just rang for a chat. It was a retail life line for women living out at Fitzroy Crossing or Biloela. Occasionally I was required to help with sizing.

“I’m not sure, madam…what size is the one you’re wearing now?”

“Dunno, it’s washed off.”

“Oh-kay, so which of the following best describes the support you need? Crop top, contour bra, support bra, minimiser or… tarp and ocky straps?”

Another child and a detour to secure an Arts degree later, I was separated from my husband and needed to supplement my welfare payments while I finished university. Someone suggested a job in the Higher Degree by Research Department working for the secretary of Human Ethics – and let’s face it, why wouldn’t you think of me for that? In a blink of an eye I was wandering the labyrinthine corridors of an unused corner of the university looking for my new boss. Veronica was an overweight academic with hair that had never seen scissors pulled back into a heavy ponytail. I inherited a musty office full of archive boxes, was given a computer password and told it was great to have me there.

To this day, I have no idea what my job actually was. I recall sending emails to various professors and Associate professors requesting completed forms known by complicated acronyms. I also ‘tidied’ the office and may or may not have thrown away the life works of several scholars away on sabbatical. I left before anyone noticed.

Next up was a brief stint at the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. This was another support role recommended by a friend of a friend (pattern?) I assisted a psychotic Englishwoman with a blonde bob and startlingly neon coloured dresses in the area of corporate development. The job involved spreadsheets by day and accompanying groups of corporate sponsors to performances at night. Given my knowledge of Orchestras and classical music was rudimentary at best, a great deal of bluffing was once again required.

I think it was Stravinsky who said that ‘too many pieces of music finish too long after the end’ – I can’t tell you how many times I leapt to my feet to applaud in between movements because, mein Gott im Himmel, I wanted it to be over at that point –Mahler, anyone?

Needless to say this ended before it could even vaguely resemble a career.

Flushed with notions of female empowerment after divorce, I sunk my entire settlement into the purchase of a franchised business. Why not buy the next job?

My brother, disillusioned with the trajectory of corporate life, joined me in this venture and together we opened a women’s fitness studio in the Bayside area. At this point, I refer you to my previous blog on gyms and you will understand how optimistic this was.

Nevertheless, we fearlessly launched ourselves into the cult of Middle American sales training and prepared for guaranteed success. The charismatic moustachioed founder of the company, accompanied by his alarmingly thin big haired wife, would jet in twice a year to keep the faith alive. Sharing the story of po’ white trash beginnings in Brownsville, Texas, he would, mistily recount the death of his morbidly obese momma.

“As God is my witness, I swore to make a difference in the life of women all across America and sweet Jesus,” turning to his wife and clasping hands, “We have.”

“Amen, honey, Amen!”

“Now ladies and gentlemen down under, it’s your turn.”

My brother and I exchanged horrified glances. This isn’t going to work.

After three years and over 1,000 women we exited with our souls still reasonably intact – even if our bank balances weren’t.

Muddling my way through a year of direct lingerie sales, and currently floundering in a sales role for a watch group, the search continues –

All offers and suggestions considered.

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The long road to svelte.

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Learning the hard way

My quads hurt. So, for that matter, do my glutes. It is a ritual on PT night for my beloved to dig his prehensile toes right into the muscle and palpate as we slump on the couch.  Hurts so good. Our Personal Torturers are on a rotating basis. Tuesdays with Alana; a woman fixated by superior upper body musculature who sniffs at ladies antsy about weights. Jordis, an attractive Latino man whose thick accent renders him completely incomprehensible; and whose penchant for ‘lornjas’ (lunges) every Thursday ensure slow starts on Friday. On Saturdays we might see     Xavier-the-abdominator, whose svelte form belies ant like strength or chipper Chris, a diminutive man with preternaturally white teeth and indeterminate sexuality.

I have joined many gyms and trialled numerous exercise fads over the past three and a half decades, failing miserably every time. The last attempt was at one attached to the North Melbourne Football Club. A young chappie happily took me through my assessment promising attentive instruction and ongoing support in the quest for moderate fitness. The first visit on my own tested both motivation and memory as I battled to recall each of the equipment based exercises. Rope attaches where? Do I use both arms at the same time? Am I standing or squatting for this one? Failing to catch the eye of the same young trainer who had, just three days previous, promised to support and encourage me, I wandered over to where he was instructing a new staff member. Excellent, he can use assisting me, the client, as a valuable teaching exercise for a rookie trainer.

“Hi, Nick?” I say, having hovered around them for a couple of minutes being studiously ignored. “Look, sorry to interrupt you (I’m NOT actually sorry at all…why am I saying sorry?) but you said if I needed help…” my voice trailed off as Nick, without displaying a flicker of recognition, asked impatiently what I wanted.

‘I can’t remember what I do on that one” I said lamely, showing him the workout programme. Without looking at me, he waved at a piece of equipment rigged up with ropes, pulleys and weights, “just put that on there and alternate arms, ok?’

No Nick, not ok. Rather than standing my ground and insisting he temporarily abandon the pretty blonde 20-something trainer-in-training and show me how to do it, I just skulked off to work on something I could actually recall the use of – the treadmill. That was it. Even the elliptical trainer had me stumped. So I spent 35 minutes mentally rehearsing all the sarcastic things I wouldn’t ever say to him whilst stomping loudly on a medium incline at medium speed.

I cancelled.

I’m not sure which of us decided a smaller personal training studio might work, but my beloved and I tried out a local place down a side street nearby and have remained miraculously motivated some four months later. It’s a long slow battle to anything vaguely resembling adequate fitness however and we are yet to attend a session where one of us does not have ‘an area of concern’. Currently, spouse is dictating the tenor of our routines, given a relapse in an old wrist injury that was operated on earlier in the year. Subsequently he is limited to legs and abs – which means more ‘lornjas’ than you can poke a stick at and planking until I crumble.  I’m a little concerned that come summer we will have formidable six packs and wee atrophied arms.

But let’s face it; exercise is just a small part of the overarching story as I cannonball toward the next milestone birthday. It is painfully apparent that if I am to attain any resemblance to a former shape, I must eliminate entire food groups from my diet – and from entire food groups, I mean wine. This attachment to the grape is deep seated and abiding. My support for the local industry is unfailing as I say hell NO to the glut of substandard NZ sauvignon blanc flooding across the Tasman favouring, for example, the flinty dryness of our own Pyrenees version. Our local non conglomerate owned bottle shop stocks all my favourites – Eden Valley Riesling, Yarra Valley Chardonnay, Mornington peninsula Pinot Noir, Margaret River Cabernet Sauvignon…and beer for spouse.  This rather appears to be morphing into an article for Winestate…but you get my point.

The other dietary consideration in my quest to become svelte is an unhealthy attachment to Nutella, borne, it may be argued, from the assurances of advertisers that along with milk and fruit it makes a healthy breakfast choice when slathered on whole grain toast. “Less fat than peanut butter and less sugar than most jams” – a fact that was possibly contested in court at some point– it remains however, outrageously delicious and I’m leaving the keyboard to have some right now…

Back again and I’m guessing that switching to soy milk does not make a nightly mug of warm milo with seven marshmallows a low fat diet option either – although I am kind of less bloated. I’m reading – alright, skimming, a book called “This is why you’re FAT” by Jackie Warner, celebrity trainer – naturally. Jackie will reveal the shocking truth about what is making me fat – I’m right ahead of you here Jackie, refer to the above. She appears on the cover of her book, an androgynous woman with a six pack, no discernible bust and Madonna-esque arms standing hips thrust slightly forward in tiny red shorts– she could be tucking.

From what I can gather she hails from the school of  no carbs in the evening (or you become a fat Gremlin), prescribes whey protein powder  consumed in water (YUK!),  warns us to avoid fluoridated water and increase egg consumption to  two each day – which seems a lot to me. She also, disturbingly, thinks Tom Cruise makes some solid sense…possibly more for his stance on antidepressants than her regard for his Operating Thetan status, but I can’t be sure. She did invent some life changing program called SkyLab which might very well borrow from Dianetics and could be some form of auditing. Hmmm….

Jackie promises big – like a failure proof condensed workout routine PLUS all the emotional support and encouragement I need to get to the finish line and beyond. Beyond where? And unless Jackie appears as a Princess Leia type hologram each time I eat pasta at night or when I flag mid way through my 30 donkey kick crossovers and sumo squats, I fail to see exactly how encouraged by her I can possibly be.

I am prepared to up my H2o consumption and add lemon juice to it as she suggests. I am happy to eat ‘oatmeal’ most mornings, but I will struggle with consuming it a-la-natural as Jackie prescribes. I’m quite sure Uncle Toby intended us to liberally drizzle honey or scatter brown sugar over his oaty goodness otherwise even he realises it’s like eating wall paper glue. I will continue to down a good multi vitamin, add a chewable C to the mix and maintain my Krill drill, but any more than that and I’ll rattle. I can eliminate obvious fats in the guise of burgers and fries but cannot guarantee some of your more underground fat like cheese and nuts won’t infiltrate.

As for working with the hormones that burn fat, I’m quite sure peri-menopause has its own ideas about that!

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Turning of the stone

Posted on September 24, 2012 by Learning the hard way

Our honeymoon surpassed all my expectations.  It was extraordinarily enjoyable and we shared many wonderful experiences. But it’s me we’re talking about – it was never going to be entirely without incident now, was it?

You may recall the unfortunate timing of my beloved’s kidney stone a week before we were due to leave. Despite assurances from the medical professionals that the offending particle of calcium oxalate was on the brink of evacuation, it remained stubbornly lodged inside my spouse from take off to landing. So now we are in Rome. We are drinking our body weight in water because it’s 38 degrees and there’s not a lot of shade amongst all those ruins. I must look like the world’s most invasive wife as I interrogate him each time there is a bathroom stop. Despite my best efforts, that perverse little crystal is just getting on my nerves now.  

In the meantime, it occurs to me that I am not really having fun yet. Here we are in one of the great cities of the world and I am stressed. We have hit the ground running and I am conscious that my husband has not been here before – there are sights he must see. He is tired. The effort required to leave his business for a month have reduced him to a state of lethargy. He’s not sure if he’s having a good time or not either. It’s safe to say here that neither of us is feeling too confident about actually surviving the honeymoon at this stage, let alone the marriage.

Day two and we are out and about early. Whizzing through the Piazza Barberini we jog trot across to the Trevi fountain where we jostle for our brief metre of photo space. I forget to throw coins. That’s ok, we are briefly back at the end of the trip. Grab some water bottles and onto the Victor Emmanuel monument. Great view of all the other places we have to see from the top terrace. Race back down to the Roman forum to peer at the many roped off archaeological ruins slated for eventual recovery and/or restoration. The colosseum! Quickly, we have to see the colosseum…yes, it looked better in Gladiator. We join a tour group here, which is infinitely helpful and dispels many myths…largely due to Gladiator.  On to the Palatine Hill, Domicians Palace and Farnisee Gardens. Arch of Septimus Severus – check! Round about schlep back to Hotel  via Ponte S Angelo and an outrageously generous donation to local recovering heroin addicts who say, “gidday mate”.  We are clearly heat affected.

Day three – The Vatican Museum – Early. We set off with spouse confident that his superior map reading skills will have us there to collect our pre-booked tickets at the appointed time well before the serious crowds. Ok, the map is confusing. After a bit of doubling back we eventually arrive and make our way through the various security checkpoints. Long story short – we are at the basilica and not the actual museum – a fact I should probably have realised having been there before. Tension levels are high as we duck and weave past all the hat and parasol vendors,  hip and shouldering our way through groups of nuns. More security checkpoints and then another queue for headphones with English commentary. We are both a little testy and frankly, we’re not behaving in a very Christian manner toward each other at all. We decide on a bathroom stop before rendezvousing at the cafe to buy more water.

I’m back first. My beloved rejoins me with an odd look on his face – I would pay more attention to this if I wasn’t so ill tempered. We buy water and set off to commence the tour. He stops at the bottom of the staircase and announces that after nine days the STONE HAS PASSED. Behind him, as he is making this momentous proclamation, a large screen is filled with an image of Pope John Paul 2 holding a koala – yes (cue music), hallelujah, a bloody Aussie miracle!  We review our rampant atheism.  

Day three and we are off on a day tour to Naples and Pompeii . Let me be very clear here – these are fascinating places and Pompeii in particular, is a must see. My stress levels should have passed with the kidney stone, but unfortunately a combination of heat, age and an apparent inability to acclimatise results in my legs ballooning out grotesquely like Violet Beauregarde. I develop a hot rash and cankles – my lower half resembles Steinway piano legs. I’m not having a good time.    

Day four – my shoes don’t fit and I’m in tears. New husband is not having a good time. I know it’s not DVT – I’ve googled. We make our way to the termini to catch our train to Florence. I buy large white Nike thongs – they look like flippers. We miss our train.

The next train gets us into Florence 40 minutes later and we make our way to the hotel. We have booked a stunning place right near the Duomo in the heart of the city. I am heartened to learn that the hotel provides a doctor service and we make a time for him to come by our room later that day. The swelling is already subsiding and I suspect now that he is probably going to suggest an antihistamine, elevation and more water. A handsome young Dottori arrives and prods my unfortunate legs. The theatre of examination goes on much longer than it needs to before he writes down the name of an antihistamine, encourages elevation and water and gives us a bill for 140euro. His wife probably isn’t going to be cooking tonight.

Fortunately the day and, truth be told, the holiday, is saved by the concierge handing us honeymoon drink vouchers to be used at their roof top bar. We wander up just before sunset and marvel at the beauty of the city. We agree to slow down and only see the things we want to see, not the things we think we have to see. It might be the champagne or the fire streaked sky but I remember I’m a bride on her honeymoon with the most forgiving, tolerant and loving husband I could ever wish for – and I am finally very happy.

 

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The Spa Treatment

Posted on September 24, 2012 by Learning the hard way

I’m a sucker for a day spa. Give me a gift voucher with a spa menu to choose from and I’m one happy lady. I’m getting my Zen on from the moment I enter and some softly spoken, smiley young woman called Natalie or Jade asks me to fill in one of those client profile forms. I must have completed dozens of these over the years detailing my sex, age, preferred massage pressure, areas of concern and general aversion to lemon grass oil. There is always some divine aroma of neroli, lavender and sandalwood wafting about from artfully placed oil burners as I sit in my fluffy robe and ill fitting towelling scuffs, waiting for the therapist to appear and commence my ‘treatment’. Eventually a professionally dressed young woman leads me into a warm, dimly lit room. Instructed on the specifics of disrobing and lying on the massage table, she will leave me to navigate my face in the cavity that appears to have been designed around the physiognomy of a greyhound muzzle and then silently return just as I am stealing across the room to turn off my mobile phone. Eventually to the strains of Enya or sounds of the rainforest meets whale song, an hour of gentle tendering ensues – ah, bliss.    

Now, let me tell you about my most recent spa experience…

…in Dubrovnik.

My beloved and I had booked three nights at a hotel built into a cliff face along the clear waters of the Adriatic in this popular Croatian town.  Hotel More, with its vaguely euro trash decor, promised all manner of relaxation; from the unintentionally creative restaurant menu to their renown limestone cave bar, discovered during excavations, and complete with stalactites above and corresponding stalagmites below the glass floor. Cool in every sense of the word. A salty section of the sea had been roped off for guest use and any of the sun lounges not commandeered at sunrise by the Germans, were arranged to avoid as much exertion as possible.  

We had both decided that a relaxation massage in the advertised “Wellness room” was warranted after the rigours of touring through Italy. Ruefully regarding my travel calloused feet I decided a pedicure would be a natural adjunct to this and set about arranging a time with the in-house therapist.

Leaving new spouse to guard our prime position sun lounges, I arrived five minutes before the appointment time and hovered about an empty reception desk. The place was silent. No sounds of the rainforest, no whale song – I coughed and a voice from above yelled out,

‘Here! I hem up here!’

I was met half way by a flustered young blonde woman wearing grey marle track pants and a grubby white tee-shirt. She pointed at a chair in the corner of the room and told me to sit.

‘I hem not raredy yet. You are too soon. Sit! Relex!’

Eventually after a great deal of heavy sighing and mumbling, Nica (for that was her name), hefted an electric foot spa across the room and ordered me to immerse my feet. The water was scalding hot and I was anything but ‘relexed’ as I perched on the edge of the tub chair and tried not to wince. Nica squatted before me rocking backwards and forwards on her heels and occasionally scattering red powder into the bubbling water.

“Where you from?” she regarded me with narrowed eyes

“Australia” I replied

“Pfft! Too far! You fly for what, five hours?”

“It’s a little longer than that actually.”

“Too far, I nefer fly further than Zagreb and I need drugs to do it!”

Clearly we were not to have the pleasure of Nica’s company on our fair shores any time soon. While we chatted she was pulling my feet out and roughly drying them on her lap. It was uncomfortably personal now. She inspected one foot closely and announced with great conviction that I had “mushroom toe”.

‘Sorry?”

“Is ok, probably not your fault. You hef mushroom toe. Go to Chemist and buy crem.”

 

 

‘No, no, it’s just that I have been wearing red nail polish for ages and it stains the nail if you don’t use a base’

Nica waved her hands at me impatiently and mutinously reiterated her diagnosis. Sighing heavily she proceeded to cut my toe nails at right angles to each other and down to the quick.

‘Um, you don’t need to make them super short…I’m happy with a bit of a trim and…”

‘I hem vary good,’ she asserted confidently and then added kindly, “is ok, will grow again.”

She left me to organise some mood music. A compilation disc burned for her by a tech savvy cousin in Split blared out. Nica hummed along sporadically bellowing out a heavily accented line or two of Adele or Pink like some refugee from the Eurovision song contest with Tourettes. Returning to crouch before me she produced a scalpel handle and proceeded to unwrap and attach a new blade.

“whatcha doing?”

“Must cut off old skin. I tell you before, I hem vary good. Now just relex.” She shoved my shoulder back into the tub chair and gripped my foot firmly. “But don’t moof!”

Sweeping the blade across my foot I watched as sheaves of skin littered her lap.

All I could do was grit my teeth and remind myself this would be an amusing anecdote one day. When the skinning was complete, she applied a thick grey coloured paste and told me she’d be back soon.

I had enough time to read an entire UK fashion magazine from cover to cover and do half the crossword by the time she remembered I was still there. Unable to find her special slippers -“someone has stolen them”, she forced my feet into the thongs I had worn in and made me shuffle downstairs to the sauna room where she hosed the foot masque off my feet and legs.

“I put parlish on toes now and then hef vary nice relexing messarge, ok?’

I was fairly confident the nice relaxing massage would be as special as the pedicure and was debating whether or not to cut my losses and make a run for it, when Nica began telling me how difficult it is to get work in Dubrovnik and how much she liked her job.

So how bad can it be?

She finished daubing the scant remains of my toe nails with three or four coats of calamine pink polish and then told me to go into the ‘messarge’ room. An enormous over stuffed white vinyl table covered in butcher’s paper dominated the space and the overhead lights were bright enough to perform neurosurgery.

‘Take off clothes but leave on the underwears”, she barked. I stood uncertainly before her as she made no move to leave. An eternity later she left, but not before punching a hole through the paper over the face cavity and ordering me to “lie down on face side. I come back.”

I was officially nervous now. What was the paper all about? Better to soak up the blood, sweat and tears? Burning the evidence?  Nica stomped back in and flicked off the lights. Squirting a bottle of oil on my legs like lighter fluid on a barbie, she proceeded to knead her way up from my ankles to thighs in a desultory fashion, pausing every now and then to belt out a bit of Florence and the Machine.

I’d wager that Nica had never received any formal training on the therapeutic art of massage given her haphazard technique.  A squeeze here, sweeping arc there, an elbow dig, karate chop occasionally-let’s just say nothing conformed to any specific style of massage I had experienced before. All of this was punctuated by a great deal of sighing and grunting – again, I prefer my spa soundscape to be artfully atmospheric and much less phlegmy.

It was time to flip over. There was no towel held up on one side to preserve my modesty. Instead, Nica ripped off a section of paper at the end of the table and clapped it across my chest. Beginning once more at my feet, she noticed paper had stuck to the thick still tacky polish on my mutilated toenails. Displaying disproportionate rage at this beauty disaster, she flicked on the interrogatory overhead lights and arranged the table so my head and legs were both raised and I was bent like a banana. She angrily removed the offending varnish all the while muttering that my toe nails could not take polish. Nothing I said assuaged her annoyance and it was clear my Teflon toes were very much to blame.

Once more the lights were off and the massage resumed. Nica was becoming more and more agitated with my inability to relax; I was apparently making her work extremely difficult and perhaps unsurprisingly, her frequent slapping wasn’t helping. Suddenly she grabbed both my wrists and pinned my arms over my head shaking them, “Relex! Like dead person!” My uncontrollable laughter had a faintly hysterical edge to it.

The treatment was over when Nica announced, “This is enough. I stop now. You stay there for ten minutes.” I remained bent awkwardly and waited until I was sure she was back downstairs. Springing up from the table I skidded on oily feet across the tiles and flung my clothes back on. My thongs were still encrusted with dried foot masque as I padded quietly out of the room. After a suitable pause, I made my way down to the desk. Nica sniffed at me, “You should not hef messarge, can not relex. You stick with water and bubbles.”

I wondered how best to prepare my beloved for the treat that lay in store for him? Should I manage his expectations or allow him the thrill of discovery?

I lay on the sun bed and took a sip of water. ‘It won’t be the best massage you’ve ever had.’

And it wasn’t.

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