My Absolute Favorite

This is New Zealand that we never experienced and I absolutely love this ad. L&P is a soda/pop made on the North Island, in the town of Paeroa; ergo the name, Lemon & Paeroa: World Famous in New Zealand.

The reason why I've been posting commercials is because I went looking for a particular, new-ish commercial, for Myron & Bill. I haven't found it, but never mind, it's not that interesting anyway. It has a bunch of people sitting around the table discussing dating, and one woman says, "When you ask a man what he's thinking, and he says 'nothing', he really means it!" Women around the table laugh.

Have a good weekend, everybody.

Everybody's Stealing our Stuff

TV Commercial

On of my current favorites. I can't wait for my nephews to come visit in Jan so they can maybe catch this one.

In NZ, TV production is very expensive, so a lot of talented people work in jingles. We have much too much commercials, but some are more interesting than the programmes.

Brutal

The tree may be dead, but she dragged it by its "hair" for more than two blocks. Ouch!

If not Costello, You Have Abbot

This just goes to show politics is silly the world over.

In Australia, John Howard's Liberal Coalition lost to Labour on Saturday. Howard is out, and the long-suffering Peter Costello, instead of finally taking the helm, resigned from politics. So among others, they have a Mr Abbot standing as the leader of the leader of the new opposition. Seriously.

Boys and Girls, Tying Up and Using Hot Wax

I was going on about the shibori dye of one Carter Smith over on my weaving blog, and mentioned I learned shibori and wax resist in Home Ec in elementary school, not art class, in Japan way back in the 60's/70's. I went to an all-girls school, but I wondered how segregation works in that land in the new century.

Back then, and in my sister's time (70's) and brother's (80's), I believe kids in co-ed schools had home economics (or under a different label) together in elementary school (up to 6th grade); I remember my brother coming home excited after learning how to make Miso soup, salad and boiled potato. (There were few other things on the menu, but these were what he made in the group.) From memory, in junior high school, girls continued with home ec, while boys had shop, including growing chrysanthemums from a small seedling to have a flower competition in early November; little bro's died over the summer because he never once watered it, but I could be wrong on this one.

There were laws put in the bubbling 80's that want ads could not dictate the gender of the applicant, and there might even have been an attempt to make the pays a bit more equal, but I know employees and the society in general just laughed them off and went on doing what they always did, and there were not particularly stringent efforts to enforce this/these laws. And then, of course, the recession in the 90's came and the equality of any kind went back about 100 years.

On a personal level, Japanese people try to live within laws and regulations very diligently, I think; at least the people around me did. It's the institutions and the collective society that ignore things that feel "just wrong."

OK, I'm blathering now.

Kiwi Wisdom

Just heard on the local television channel; "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you can get rid of him for the whole weekend."

It's that season - we had a lovely Kiwi weekend - hot and sunny. Glad Ben's not too into fishing.

Is this for Real?

I've been looking for a recipe for Oreo Cookies - just the cookie part - for a while and haven't found one that I want to try. So far all recipes I've checked contain choc cake mixes, and I don't want to do this for two reasons, 1) I want to make it from scratch, and b) cake mixes downunder are slightly different, even the trusty Betty Crocker brand. I think our BC brand mixes are made in Australia, and I can't describe it, but it's ever so slightly different. NZ cake mixes are... more different, more moist and less fluffy to start with.

And I do love the dry, crunchiness of the cookie part of an Oreo, but I often scrape the cream and discard it. I'm not exactly experienced in cookie baking, as I usually stick to the 2 or 3 tried-and-true recipes, and still have a hard time coming up with the same texture I loved back in Minnesota. The flour, for one thing, and the various oils, for another, are quite different, I think. Anyway, I'm guessing, it's the shortening that makes Oreo so nice and dry?

So this morning, I've been Googling again to see if I might find something I hadn't seen before, and I found this.... Fried Oreo Cookie.... Tell me how it was for you, and I'll tell you about the deep-fried haggis in Orkney.

Missing Body Parts....

This is going back a while. In Japanese, there were lots of expressions that were banned in print and on the TV/Radio in, I believe, the 70's because it may offend people with seriously physical disabilities. I see the intention, but there were vivid, useful expressions.

One literally was "being blind in one eye", and it meant a person or an action so narrowly focused it has serious flaws, especially something in progress or pertaining to the future, like not seeing the forest for the tree, or not having long-term vision, particularly useful in criticizing government policies. Dad's been blind in one eye for three or four years now, and he says the expression is so apt he can't stop using it.

The other was "missing/loosing one arm" and it described same kind of action, but usually pertaining to the past. This one was useful in apologies also, to apologize for a vision that was not all-rounded or action which was done in haste and not taking everybody into consideration.

Like I say, I'm always open to a degree of PC and I think at times it works, (and deity knows there are sexism, among other things, deeply rooted in the Japanese language/culture), but at the same time, I do lament the loss of the colorfulness/nuances that some of these expressions bring. It's the same thing when loose dialect and/or regional differences.

And I'm lukewarm about Oprah the show, but I sure appreciate her spreading "Y'all", a term that, to me, has so much warmth.

What the......

Has this made news in the US yet? Santa can't say "Ho ho ho" because it might offend women in Australia. I dreaded this coming over here, as so many retail outlets are owned by Australian companies, but phew.

Ben has a Womb; I have an Inner Boy

Take cover, Myron, this is serious girl-talk!! Where's Rita?

Photowannabe Sue made me realize I see part of Ben's personality as womb-like, as in Dr Phil's "soft place to fall". Bill's known this all along, though he's never met either of us.

In "conversing" with Bill, I now know also that I see Ben as a bit of a liberator. I have a not-so-lady-like, but superbly-athletic Mom, and a little (??) effeminate Dad. I had 10 years of strict Catholic Convent school, and all kinds of lady-like manners were pounded into us daily, and these were deemed far more important than academic achievement. And here, I'm talking exaggerated, old-fashioned, unreal feminine behavior. I also had loads of girl cousins and aunts, but only one effeminate boy cousin on my Mom's side, the side of the family with which we did lots of family things.

Ben's not effeminate. And he's been able to liberate the inner boy in me, and this is most probably why I feel overwhelming freedom to be myself when I'm around him. And good on me for picking the right boy.

Grandpa on Mom's side was no girly either, and I wonder if Mom went the other way; I think I have a happier, more cooperative marriage, but you never know with these things, because I'm still looking in on them from the outside, and her times were so different from mine.

PS. Found over at Myron's.

Men Talking with Friends

It's Friday night, over here, you know. Ben had a busy day and I was very tired, too, and after 5, we were too tired to come home and cook dinner, so we went to the cinema to see what was on. I was delighted to find out "Conversation with my Gardner" was starting at 5:50 as I missed it at the Wellington Film Festival and the Nelson Film Festival earlier in the year, so I asked Ben if we could see it.

I usually see subtitled/foreign films or chick flicks or art films on my own during the day, and save Ben from having to go to anything but the pyrotechnics and the car chases. When we sat down, he asked what this one was about, and I told him it's French, and it's about two blokes talking to each other.

Ben said, "Oh, that's so wrong.... " in a serious tone. "Blokes don't talk to each other, oh no...."

I burst out laughing because he was more than half-serious and looked almost concerned. Anyway, I had to remind him that not all men were grunters, like him.

I'm please to report that Ben did enjoy the film, it wasn't overly effeminate, but I think he would have enjoyed the other Auteuil flick I did see in Wellington, "My Best Friend". Maybe not. He would have liked "The Valet".

How Dumb Do You Think I Am?

I so hate any kind of "dumbing down" and indiscriminately/automatically seeing people as idiotic consumers. I sure hope I don't on any of my blogs, or my web site.

So, it's Toastmasters again. I recently got an email telling me someone sat and analyzed questions received by local Toastmaster websites, and were directed to make sure ours contained all six points below. I think the sender of the email, probably not the one who analyzed the inquiries, was shocked at my response, he being of a mild and analytical disposition. I think the person who analyzed was probably following an idiotic/formulaic manual or an even higher directive. I'm sure the executive crowd at my club was shocked at my comments. Anyway, here's the list and what I think.

(1) When and where is the next meeting? "Every Wednesday, from 12PM to 1PM, address," and a photo of the street frontage on the home page good enough for you?

(2) Can I just come along or do I need to be invited ? "Come visit us" mean anything to you?

(3) How do I join, what are the fees, how do I pay ? The cost, and what's cover in the cost, is stated. Method of payment is not, and I really don't want that, because we're recruiting/inviting, not selling. Granted, you'd have to click on to Membership Information, but I don't believe in cluttered, chocker home page; bad style.

(4) Do I have to do a course first or can I join anytime ? OK, I see your point. I didn't say you don't need a course, though personally "Come visit us" covered it. I did add:

No appointment or invitation is necessary.
Please come when you can;
and if you feel we are the right group for you,
you can sign up on your first visit;
otherwise, come as a guest three times so we can convince you."

(5) What do Toastmasters actually do at a meeting I concede this is a good point, so I added:

During a typical meeting, we have two prepared speeches,
several short, impromptu speeches on a given theme,
and friendly evaluations of these speeches.
We have resources, printed, on-line, or in person,
all designed to help you get started, or move forward.

But now brace yourselves, this is where my plus started to quicken: how will this help me meet my needs and goals ? I hate this is Marketing talk - you're supposed to advertise goods and services in terms of "you will (state benefit of goods or services)". Have you noticed lately that even educational material includes the "expected outcome" in terms of how you will benefit as a result of a course? I commented to our exec crowd: "If you need the web site to tell you, you probably need a different kind of help." Why can't we leave people to assess themselves how this can or won't work for them?

(6) What is the club culture and will it suit me ? This was it for me, wasn't it. My comment to the Execs was: "Stop me from being abusive, but clearly you haven’t read “The Triumph of the Airheads and the Retreat of Commonsense” by Shelly Gare – best book published in 2007."

The email was sent to all webmasters in our area/region/turf, so I know it was meant as a reminder of sorts. But why entrust someone who can't cover basics to create your web site? Doesn't he/she, or didn't he/she initiate discussion in the club or execs to assess and decide on the requirements/specs the web site in the first instance? Or is it because everything at Toastmasters is supposed to be a learning experience, we must never be trusted to know what we're doing without Big Toastmaster? OK, I hear myself getting a bit hypersensitive, but it's really 5) and 6) that got me going.

I hate that as a result of some additional stuff, our web site looks cluttered than before, and reads semi-retarded. (Can I use that word?) But I'm probably wrong and the website is probably more friendly/appropriate and I'll live to regret yet another outburst, but seriously, how low do we have to go to comply with what marketers and accountants drip-feed/bombard us? If we keep depriving each other of the time and space to think for ourselves, how are we ever going to enhance that ability, and how do we teach our children to think for themselves?

If you're interested, we're here

I'm Also Easily Influenced

A few incidents lately made me realize I am a) utterly, too easily influenced, especially when it's best not to be influenced, and b) I am competitive at being bad.

Drama Queens, Divas, or my favorite term, Crazy Makers - we've all known them, right? Well, I've been exposed to a rather heavy dose of it for the few months, and I noticed every time it happened, I find myself not only copying, but bettering the bad behavior.

I grew up in a somewhat emotionally volatile home, so I'm sensitive to mood swings, and I start to feel physically sick. It should make me run for the hills, but instead, I sit mesmerized and immobile and just take it; then I rehash and relive it for a few nights and days. And then, bang, I hear myself doing it to someone else, never to the original trouble maker, except I can do it louder and better.

Only once I had enough sense to walk away instead.

I think, if I look back calmly, there was a part of me that sensed this was going on for a while, but it's really this week I was so bothered I started making plans to eliminate the situation, and while assessing whether I was overreacting and what I was trying to do made sense, I saw a clear picture.

And, lordy, it was clear but not pretty, I tell you. When do I get to finish learning all the lessons and start enjoying life, anyways?

Help, I'm Becoming Conservative

When I was 10, I wanted to march and rally against everything - that was in the beautiful late 60's. My grandpa, Dad and uncle worked in this private university 15 minutes walk from our home, so student movement was a constant dinner-time conversation. And I so wanted to be on the opposing side of the establishment that was the men folk in my family.

Then when I reached the age when I could have become more involved, it was all "Me Generation", dress for success, and Yuppies. My college had two very active organizations, the Young Republicans and Christian Fellowship. To this day, I wonder why on earth my high school counselor recommended me this college. Boy, I envied those who were born 10 years before me, and had FBI files.

So it pains me to observe that I am definitely becoming a bit more conservative than I used to be. I hate sitting on the fence on issues, but I do see both sides now, or often more than two. I am never entirely and clearly convinced about anything as I used to be. My world now contains so many shades of gray, and so little is in black and white. I can even select allies based on issues, rather than all-or-nothing fundamental philosophy.

The reason I'm going on is there's been a bit of dust being kicked around by the new (to us) show "Californication", and a family-oriented conservative group whose name escapes me (but also known for their anti-gay stance) called to all sponsors to pull their ad out of the show, and surprisingly some did, including Burger King. And that got me thinking.

I am absolutely no prude, but I do get sick of the nudity and sex on the television, of any persuasions. I don't know if that's the way the world is, or maybe it's just I'm getting old, but I'm just not interested.

I've always been squeamish, so I've never sat through the entire showing of The Godfather, but initially I liked the CSI shows, as once in my youth I was very interested in things like paper, ink, type face, and such. But lately, not only the shows are predictable, but there is just so much of the red, gooey stuff and I'm just not interested. And by golly, those "real" crime shows show photographs of really dead people. So I turn to less graphic shows like Medium, Numbers, or Dead Like Me.

And reality or make-believe, there is just too much medical footage on the telly, including those makeover/plastic surgery stuff, not to mention war, car chases and explosion, and I'm not interested at all.

When we came to New Zealand in 1994, I remember being utterly disturbed with an episode of Prime Suspect, and having taken almost a decade to warm to Helen Mirren; at that time, the show had terribly graphic dead bodies. I wonder, if I saw that exact episode today, if I would be as disturbed as I was back then.

I'm turning into a seriously grumpy old woman, folks. I sound just like my Dad.

New Profile

Well, newer than the corrupted old one. I'm still too lazy to look into ... that other thing you recommend, Myron, but might have to at this rate.

This first brush with the possible, all-out disappearance of my blog made me think a bit. For someone who's never been good at persevering at anything, for someone who loves to buy diaries and start on Page 1 on 1 Jan but never reached, say, mid-Jan, I've been relaxed about blogging and have been able to stick with it with some degree of regularity. And they have become my treasures, especially Not a Woman, and Unravelling. I've always kept backup of Unravelling so I can check what I said previously, but I'm toying around with the idea of making some king of a hand-bound book of selected posts.

Well, I'm just thinking. It'd have to go towards the bottom of my To Do lists. But you all have had a big part in my sticking with it, you know. Thanks!

Google is no fun...

I'm happy to report that thus far I had relatively little problems with Blogger/Google in general. But lately I've noticed spam mails (mostly viagra) originating from my email address in my inbox, and I'm wondering if others are receiving them.

Then there's the vid that we could see until a couple of days ago.

Now I noticed that my profile photo of blue cones of yarns is corrupted as well.

Hummm... HUMMMMM!!!! A HEM!!!

Myron has all the right to say, "I told you so," so before he does, I declare, "Yes, I've been told so, about a year ago!"

Tui (Bellbird)

I know it's a strange vid. I haven't been able to photograph the bird well as it's all over the place, but between lunch and dinner time, you can hear him practicing his call. Ben saw a great big nest in our liquid amber tree, so no doubt he lives with us now. Divine.

With the video, tilt your head 90 degrees to the right, and you'll see that the liquid amber is right outside our bedroom. And yes, we still have the 60's yellow glass outside our living room, too!

The purple arrow in the pic points to his head - his body is hidden behind the leaves, but you kind of get the idea?



UPDATE: I saw the vid successfully yesterday, but it's not available this morning, and Google tells me there's an error and this vid may not be available. And I didn't save it, so I'll just have to record him once again!! Sorry folks.

Love this Quote

Like many, I collect nice quotes, but in the last few years, the ones I like have become more down-to-earth/matter-of -fact and less sentimental; maybe it reflects my Kiwi-fying process.

My favorite for the last forever was spoken by a man who was a troubled youth, possibly a gang member, who become a really effective youth worker. His economy of words is inimitable; what he says all the more poignant. Like... "Get off the cross; we haven't got enough wood."

PS. I've been thinking there's something wrong with the way I retold the quote, so I went back to my scribble notebooks, and there it was, he IS economical with words. The quote, as I heard on the radio, is, "Get off the cross, we need the wood." Smashing.

Car Hire

We got a car, finally, yesterday, after Ben searching the websites of about a dozen companies, and me ringing up a few. It's a 6-8 seater like we requested, not a 5-seater, because they just sold the car for which they had penciled in Ben's name. Sp I slpet last night. Yay!

When the last company sent us a confirmation, I had to ring and ask to make sure, and of course he answered the phone but wasn't in the office, so I had to ring him back.... Twice... But who cares any more... I can't fight it, and we got a car.

Phew.