Author: charlestess

i think i might give up on shopping altogether and let carys take over completely.

today carys' class had an outing to a local pizzeria, "pepperoni's". the kids of k2 made pizzas, tried flipping the dough in the air, smeared tomato sauce everywhere (and i do mean everywhere), did some crayoning and in general, had a wonderful. tasty time. at the end of the session, i decided instead of heading back to school, carys and i would head home ourselves, firstly taking care of 3 of the 5476 tasks i have to do before we leave next week.

first was the bank. i deposited a cheque. (YAY ME!).

then we went to the central wetmarket. we were looking for bananas, but firstly, flowers caught my eye. flowers were on my list of things to get, because at noon i had luncheon at susan's house and since she was preparing the entire meal, the least i could bring was flowers! we wandered through the stands under i smelt some ginger flowers. although they have a relatively short life expectancy, ginger flowers are beautiful to look at and smell, so i picked up some of those and a few lillies, which live forever. the lady at the stand was quite enchanted with carys, and gave her a pink rose FOR FREE. carys was thrilled.

quite encumbered, we continued our quest for bananas, going downhill now. we were pretty much out of the fish stalls, which was a good thing, carys saw bananas, and i saw limes, so we counted eight limes and i bought them. and promptly forgot the bananas. i took five steps away from the stall when carys said, "mummy, i want bananas, please!" the lady at the stall was so pleased to make another sale (6 bananas for app 1 usd) that she gave carys a free bunch of grapes.

we continued our march, me really carrying a lot of stuff now and carys not overly concerned about the fact as long as i could hold on to her hand. she wanted to buy speckled eggs but i refused. they were bigger than quail, im not sure what they were and i didn't want to stop and ask. we kept going and a few stalls later, when i stopped to shift bags and hands, a lady gave her to biscuits, freshly baked. they were flat dutch types. they were quite tasty.

do you know how much money i could save if i just taught carys to read and gave her a grocery list? we could be on to something.

you know my much loved path behind my house? where i jog, walk, pray, relax and try to stay in shape?

the path is gone.

i was behind there this morning, and although it was kind of silty, the clean up crews had done a fantastic job cleaning up from the rainstorm. 2/3 through the run, there was some red tape, and a notice attached to it which said, "land slip ahead". i looked and the area ahead looked pretty clear, and it hadn't rained yet, (do you hear me justifying?) so i ducked under the tape and kept running. about 100 metres along there was more tape, and i ducked again, figuring the tape indicated the warning was over, i ran along.

and two minutes later, stopped. absolutely stunned.

the path was gone.

i'm not talking about the concrete covered with mud type of gone, i'm talking it was mud, roots, trees, tumbling down a violent hillside that wasn't there before. it was shocking, and a bit painful. although it is ironic to see nature restoring itself, i have loved that path for seven years, four children and so many crises and celebrations. i hope it is restored soon. that path means a lot to me.

moving on…

i have five general attitudes towards taxis and their drivers…

1) when i don't need a taxi, i am disdainful of the taxi's that slow down the minute they see me, "yes, i am a caucasian woman walking…of course i must need a taxi."

2) when i do need a taxi…"of course, speed up when you see me. could you be any more callous? could you please slow down?"

3) when i am in the taxi "why is there no smoking allowed in taxis but all taxis reek like smoke?" and "why can't your taxi get a clear transmission to a radion station?"

4) gratitude: "thank you so much for stopping."

5) as we approach a light turning ambert: "SPEED UP SPEED UP SPEED UP…" and if they dont, i get quite cross. i mean really. this is a world city. any world city driver knows, amber lights mean speed up! i don't even have a driver's license and i still know that! )Even if MC doesn't.

sorry for the long absence…

last saturday i awoke from my sleep to hear yelping coming from the kids room.

in the back of my mind i was aware that there was a thunderstorm going on, but it wasn't enough to seriously wake me up. there have been so many late nights recently…i wanted to snooze until at least 8am. i am selfish that way.

but the yelping got me up. it was unlike the typical "you have something i want give it back" timbre yelp, and it was a bit disconcerting.

i turned on to my back, and became aware that underneath my eyelids was going white then immediately dark again, and that there were crashes and booms right alongside our flat. there was a rainstorm unlike anything i had ever seen before. and i have been here for 11 years.

turns out, it was a black rain storm, with 145mm (a metre and a half) of rain coming down on hong kong between 8 – 9am. it was the highest hourly rainfall since records began. from midnight until 6pm on june 7, 308 mm of rain fell, the fifth highest daily rainfall recorded in june. but the real kicker was between 8-9am.

539 flooding reports were recorded, and two deaths were recorded as well.

check out this youtube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on7PtuDghSs&feature=related

around 2.30 there shows a couple on their way to their traditional wedding…gorgeous footage!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfZsun3CW9s&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqPht9TCthY&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajr6bzxDs44&NR=1

the entire family went for a walk. the triplets made it as far as the front gates. then the thunder and lightening freaked them out to such an extent they wanted to head home, so i took them home and they consoled themselves spectacularly by wearing my high heels and walking up and down the carpet runner/catwalk.

sebastian and charles walked down the hospital drive and into the hospital, where they saw the ground floor of the hospital, which is against the mountain, was covered in water. the force of the water had broken down a set of doors, and there were seniors shuffling along the corridors, pushing their oxygen tanks, ankle deep in water. he took a few pictures. it was really incredible he said.

we went for a drive after the rain stopped (and it stopped very suddenly) and saw boulders in the road, branches and so much silt. and deep deep puddles. it was really amazing. the kids were overwhelmed.

then we started getting calls from friends telling us how they had been caught in traffic for three hours, and then we started getting calls from loved ones asking if we were all right. and thankfully, we were. my email isn't however, all my emails are sitting in my outbox instead of my "sent" box, and i can't figure out what is going on. oh well, that's a small problem when all is said and done.

Tess talx – Sex in the city

i have been to see SEX AND THE CITY.

i saw it with my husband and then again with my girlfriend andrea, who is having a birthday today. (happy birthday, andrea!)

while critics are bashing the movie, this girl is not. i roll my eyes at girls who say, "oh we're just like carrie, samantha, miranda and charlotte" because really, are you? wearing designer, vintage, pearls to bed, with no parents, stilettos around the house and able to afford a personal assistant …. all on a journalist's salary (and did we ever see her doing work?)

like with the series, i found myself liking carrie the least of all the four protagonists.

I think the writers did a good job of keeping the characters true, but there was little "new york love" except for samantha's declarations of it..one thing that struck me odd was that carrie had been gung ho to have children when she was with alexsander, and we were supposed to believe that desire just died? and they seem to have shaved years off the girls (carrie met big when she was 30? don't think so), although samantha is so toned she doesn't look anywhere near 50. and honest about the botox! makes me laugh.

i liked the emphasis on friendship. that was good.

jennifer hudson was BAD. not good at all. she needs acting lessons. she is a pretty girl with a great voice, but she is no actress, yet.

seeing SATC was like spending time with friends i have missed. not close friends, but friends i cared about. i was upset that charlotte only was there for comic relief, essentially. and that her fish tail dress was so tight that what could have been a powerful moment in the movie had us all unwillingly giggling instead.

what i liked best is that the girls have all grown up, one way or another. the series doesn't try to convince us that we can continue a way of life forever, but instead that we embrace change, make it part of us and our present.

not sure what to make of the charge that the movie is "racist" (a claim also made about the television show)…let me think on that one.

in the meantime, i would say, go see the movie. i was grateful for my marriage and lot in life, even if i don't have  walk in closet the size of carrie's. then again, she has more junk than i do.

review rating: 6.5 – 7/10

three things

update:

jasper's appointment – overall went well. he has to continue with the high dose chamber steroids, but the doctors could really hear an improvement in his lungs. so thank you Father GOD! i am really pleased about that. the bad news is, when jasper lifted up his shirt so they could check his lungs and breathing, the doctor lowered the stethoscope, looked at jasper's stomach and said, "does the stomach normally look like this?"

and darn it, whenever i get scared, i get defensive. i do i do i do. it is a bad thing but it is a me thing. it is also the doctor's fault for not approaching it in a better manner. and i mean really, what did they mean by that vague question?

possible defensive responses…you choose which one i went with.

"you mean with the belly button?"

"you mean pink? yes."

"round? like he just ate two packets of crisps and a banana and drank an ice tea because we were waiting for 45 minutes before we got in to see you?"

well, no need to go into detail which one i said, but i am sure you can figure it out. again, i was defensive. but why the sudden interest in how my child's belly is shaped? he is not with child, he is a child.

i have been googling to try and figure this one out, and i have not been successful. if jasper was a dog i would think the vet was suggesting he had worms.

anyway, it really was a good appointment, can't you tell? it was. have to continue with steroids. got some cream for the exema. stay away from heavily cross pollinated areas. the doctor was very impressed that i keep a nebuliser in canada.  so i gained some points back there.

confession: have you ever been overly emotional with someone that you don't know very well? today i was. background: last night i went to a mum's evening with the mums from sebastian's class. and i have to say, they are fantastic. a great group of mums, no one slags each other off, no division based on class, race, wealth. great ladies.  i did have to mention the word epilepsy seven or eight times as every time we moved places people would cry loudly BUT YOU"RE NOT DRINKING!

i am digressing more than they were drinking. this one really lovely mum said something really nice about sebastian. you know that sebastian is "different" from mainstream kids. there are "different okay" and there are "different not so okay" and sebastian is just "different, very okay". very creative. he has a high sense of justice,  fairness is so important to him. and he daydreams. but rarely, so very rarely do i get a mum who volunteers in the classroom who walks up and says, "your son is a pleasure". most times i get, "your son looks just like your husband".

 i understand, sebastian is different, but that is not wrong. but last night, a mum complimented me on sebastian, called him sparky. said a few more things that she really liked about him, and i could tell that she meant it. it brought tears to my eyes, as really, i had never heard anyone say these things about my child before. not someone who wasn't a friend of mine already. another mum, who was sitting with us, actually started to disagree. i don't blame her or didn't get upset. but this other mum kept talking him up.  she sees what i see! sometimes you think you are seeing illusions.

today i called her to say thank you, and i started to tear up. and yes, cry, as i was thanking her.  i think she was a bit embarrassed, and i know i was.

lastly, also about sebastian. a friend of mine, nicole, who is in our book club and also lives in our building, is the ea in the classroom next to sebastian.s she sent me this message about sebastian standing up for his faith and what he believes is right.

june already!

what a great time of year it is. the kids are racing around in their summer pajamas, all except jasper who clings to his dorothy the dinosaur pajamas, which now end several inches before his wrist begins. they are so short. he digs past all his summer short pajamas to his flannel dorothys and wears them, smiling happily and sweating muchly. little jasper.

tomorrow jasper is seeing a doctor about his lungs. last month the doctor was really concerned about the state of jasper's lungs and his harrison's sulcus, noting that jasper wheezes even after a short walk. he doubled up on his drugs and tomorrow we will see if the steroids have had any effect and if not, what he recommends.

last visit, i touched on the possibility of leaving hong kong. might that be best for jasper? and then the doctor asked me if jasper has ever needed his nebuliser anywhere else. and i said he had. interestingly, when we were in toronto and edmonton, of all places.

not for one moment do i believe it was pollution that caused that reaction, instead it was the cross pollination of trees. apparently it is a real problem. so the doctor didn't think an immediate exodus from hong kong was necessary, but then again, we never know what God has planned, do we.

hopefully tomorrow the doctor will say there is improvement in the wheezing. that would be really nice. as for the blonde man himself, right now he is curled up asleep, wearing his new (yes, i am trying to bribe him away from dorothy) power rangers pajamas. also a nice change, not to see him in sky blue and pink. do you think i should tell jasper i am about to throw away his favourite pajamas and let him say goodbye, or should they just not be here at the end of the summer when we return from vacation?

my parents have sold their house.

i am thrilled for them.

i am not so thrilled about the four boxes of books i need to sort through, but i can manage that. no big deal.

charles was very tender when he heard the house was sold.

"oh tess," followed by a big hug.

one eyebrow went up quite high.

"what's up, charles?" i am not nearly as sentimental as my lovely husband is, and i sometimes need to get my queues from him as to how normal people are reacting to a situation.

"your house, your childhood.,.your HOUSE!"

oh right.

it's funny, our old house in edmonton, thinking about that house makes me sentimental. i loved living in edmonton, and ideally, we left there when i was just 10, right before hormones and all that sort of stuff kicked in.

but our old house in yellowknife,..right now i don't get sentimental realising it is no longer my parents'. i am relieved that they no longer have to shovel the driveway, water the lawns and walk up those icy steps. this is all good news.

i have been gone for so many years. i don't see it as my home, although i remember so many of its details so well.

i remember memories, events that happened in that house, and those make me smile a bit widely and blink very carefully, i remember reunions, parties, lessons learned, hours standing at the window waiting for people to appear over the crest of the road, i remember many things of that home.

i don't miss the house. i did love the home, though.

the triumverate and i saw something very sad today.

we were driving to school, and became aware that traffic was stalling in an area of town (kennedy town) along the waterfront where there are no traffic jams normally. i looked around and saw a police car and a firetruck. without thinking anything ominous, i called the kids attention to it. as always, they were riveted by the police car and immediately began thinking of scenarios. a fire, baddies captured, treasures found…all options briefly discussed then discarded.

and then.

i saw an ambulance.

and a big boat in the water, and a bigger boat beside it. and crowds lined up along the waterfront, looking into the water.

the kids looked too.

and saw a man being hoisted out of the water. face down. definitely dead.

immediately the questions started. why did he fall, how did he get there is he cold why isn't he crying where is his mummy, mummy?

and did i get creative.

"well you know how when we walk along the side of the pool how slippery it is and how the lifeguard always says dont run and sometimes you do and you don't know why he gets so upset with you? because it is easy to fall in! and when you're balancing it is easy to lose your balance and fall, like when you are losing your balance on a log at small world."

they were skeptical. why wasn't he moving? thank goodness the car was and they couldn't see the body anymore. "well, after swimming he is probably quite tired!"

there have been times in my life when i have been horrified. dismayed. looked to escape. today when i saw that body i wondered how far away from that despair i have known this person was. and if he tried to reach out, and could only find what he thought were answers in the cold water.

matters american and political

i don't understand why people are getting their knickers in a twist about hillary clinton's comment regarding RFK's assassination.

she was listing primaries that lasted into june. rfk had just won the california primary when he was assassinated.

granted, she could have worded it better. "and the 1968 democratic primary wasn't over until july…" might have been a more diplomatic way of wording things.

but hillary, who definitely needs to borrow bill's silver tongue, is not wording things as carefully as she might these days. her comment likening the primaries to the elections in zimbabwe was lamentable.

i think i might be swinging over to obama. i was very iffy for many months. i thought hillary's health care plan might be better. however, then i listened to her speeches and how she is promoting herself and her experience in the white house. she believes her time in the white house makes her the more capable candidate. she had eight years in the white house to try and create a health care plan, and the one she came up with was so unachievable for the majority of americans it was quickly abandoned. it was obviously not a passion.

i was completely unimpressed when both democratic candidates started complaining about nato. give me a break. workers in canada taking american jobs? are you kidding? canadians aren;t the ones taking american jobs, kiddies. and please, nato benefitted the usa for many decades. just because the canadian economy is currently enjoying an upswing, does not mean you should be able to re-write it. seriously. share the toys in the sandbox, and the sand for that matter.

i would have liked for there to be a women president. but i don't believe you should vote for a person along gender lines. thankfully, if you look at the breakdown of hillary's supporters, she has a lot of men who recognise her intelligence and power, as well as women. that is important. just like it is good that she has black supporters. i don't like the idea of voting for someone just because you are both the same race.

despite admiring her mind and tenacity, although being disappointed with her campaign, i was  disappointed when hillary pulled that bosnia/sniper fire thingie. yes, obama did do that "parents met at a march snafu" showing he is not above re-writing history as well. but when i heard hillary's version of the events, and later, her justification .. it just reminded me that the clinton's have a problem with straight answers. and it was around that time that i said i was pro-o.

my vote on the first tuesday following the first monday of november won't happen. i am not american. but finally, i have a candidate. for now. hillary isn't dropping out anytime soon, apparently, so i have quite a bit of time to change my mind.

tasted familiar

i am loving the new typepad.

last week's impulsive trip to macau was good for me. it was also good for the kids.

but it reminded me of dormant tess – who travelled to nepal while barely pregnant and headed off to vietnam at 34 weeks pregnant.

there are times and seasons to everything, i know that Lord, but when travelling tess comes back, i will rejoice. of course, i will also be mourning a bit inside, because other aspects in my life will have altered – my nest might be empty – or the kids might be making their own lunches.

but travelling. i miss the smell of indian rupee, the wet smell of the dollars, i miss exiting an airport and leaving behind air conditioning and being greeted with faces offering you various modes of transportation, the scent of flowers, new pollution, and the feel of damp heat on my face. i miss seeing "coke" written in other languages. i miss hearing a beep of a horn in a different tone, and gasping as a traffic accident is mysteriously averted. i miss many things.

i love unpacking my suitcase and pulling out my sweater and knowing whenever i get a bit surprised that my life seems so mediocre, i can put on the jumper and be reminded that we were together somewhere fantastic.

macau was a good trip.