Author: charlestess

sunday BLOODY sunday

sunday morning got off to an abrupt start when at 3.30am charles and i woke up simultaneously screaming at each other, "why did you turn on the light?"

outside the sky was white, as lightning bold after lightning bolt flashed across the sky. not good. suddenly, there was a streak of lightening, and then SMACK. loud lightning.

and voices.

FLASH  – CLAP

the kids weren’t so much scared, but intrigued.  (jasper was a little weepy.) something loud had woken them up, what was it? they were desperate to get back to sleep, but it took them a good hour to get back to sleep. doors were banging all over the house, and it was a very loud time. thankfully, by 4.30am, instead of thunder clapping, it was rumbling, which as i have learned, means it is going away.

so they woke up again. charles went to the early service. and then it was the 11am, and i was teaching sunday school. a pretty good lesson, say so myself. the kids were very cute. we play this cuthroat game called find the Bible, which they love.

charles then left for singapore (bye bye honey, bring me back some noodles), which meant i had four kids to entertain all by myself (to quote eric carmen…which i shouldnt do). odila, joel, "tewwi" (also sans husband) and olivia and christopher invited us to lunch so we went to dan ryans.

people can be so kind, we have some friends at church who saw odila and i trying to herd the kids into a taxi (joel was helping terri with her herd) and they held umbrellas over our heads as we clamboured in…it’s the little things.

the kids were good at dan ryans, until jasper, who was sitting next to odila said, "odila, i want to go right now." immediately terri and i looked at him and said, "are you going to vomit?" and he said no. i then asked if he had done a poo, or was going to. no and no. he climbed on to my lap and two minutes later was asleep.

after lunch i woke up a vile jasper who no longer wanted a helium balloon. problem? it was yellow. "the others" went in one direction, we went in another, as we got on to an escalator, jasper let go of my hand to pick up some money, and fell. you can imagine the gasp from the crowd. i instructed the other kids to stay at the top and dashed back the steps to pick up jj. all these women outside louis vuitton, "oh look at that little baby."

please.

my day discentegrated like newsprint in the rain after that. the taxi ride started with sebastian yanking carys by the hood of her jacket because she was getting in first and i had told him to. oh ho, the tears.

and then the fighting as helium balloons became entangled, people cried (me almost) because there wasn’t enough room on mummy’s lap for everyone.

and then at home, adam, chad, ashleigh and ella (1 year old!) came up for pizza dinner. and the kids were repulsive. sebastian was so cheeky.

chad and i decided to blame it on the bad weather and after seeing how foul my four were, he beat a hasty retreat.

i had enough. the triplets were in bed at 6.45 and asleep at 6.56. sebastian and i had a talk, and i explained why he hadn’t been given dessert and why we wouldn’t be reading "the lion, the witch and the wardrobe". we had a cuddle and then he went to bed. i read my Bible for a bit, had a cup of tea, and then watched csi.

and then it was pretty much over.

the ultimate addend-mum

so now you have officially met sandi. i don’t blog about sandi often, which is odd considering that she is a huge part of my life, and has been since we met 10 years ago at a fetzer press wine tasting dinner. we were both press, and therefore we were meant to be sitting next to pr acolytes during the meal so with every course they could explain to us why the wine pairing was essential, and the vintage divine, etc — and of course this was a huge farce because, epilepsy and alcohol are not the best of friends. i don’t drink alcohol, (but if i do, i like vodka. finlandia.)

we got to chatting during the cocktail hour which was really a wine hour, and had such fun laughing that when the poor young helpless pr girl brought out the  placement for the evening, sandi announced, "forget it! i want to sit near tess and charles!". the aforementioned p.y. h.p.r.girl nearly expired, but what was she going to do? sandi was writing for the local wine magazine…she was the top dog at the event and they had to be nice to her. some hasty table changes were made and we cosily sat together, with every five minutes the pr team descending upon us to explain why the chardonnay ( this was 1997, pre-ABC days) was perfect with the asparagus soup.

after that evening, despite a two decade age difference, our friendship started in earnest. our "men" got along, and so did we. she enchanted me, and still does. she has some of the best stories, and her outlook on life is truly unique. every time a relative of mine comes to hong kong, she embraces them as her own, and offers to take them out for a day or week or….???

sandi attended our wedding, all the way from hong kong, and after sebastian was conceived, i announced my pregnancy to her in her kitchen. she looked at me for a long minute and said, "is this what you want?" and when i said, "oh yes" she smiled and said, "mazel tov! well this is fantastic news then!"

she was the first person to come and see sebastian in the hospital, arriving at 7.30am the day after he was born. "all kids get better looking and at least he has nice ears." she informed me definitely.

we didn’t see each other as much after i quit my journalism job, but we only live a four minute walk away, which is nice. i can see her living room from my back room.

when i announced that i was pregnant with triplets, sandi looked at me, and among other things, said, "well, that’s what you get for *^%&$&@( with mother nature."

that comment hurt me for a long time. it didn’t alter the friendship, because i know it wasn’t said as a judgement, nor did she wish me ill. it was her opinion. what did alter the friendship was the lack of time we had to spend together. i mentioned that comment to her 18 months or so ago, and we talked a bit about it. she was worried about me. that with my health i could handle it. i understand. as a friend who loves me, her first concern is going to be tess. or to quote the lady herself, "i’m jewish, i’m not the catholic church."

sandi comes over to me now, and my kids love her. the other day she cut jasper’s hair. she laughs at how well behaved they are, and how nicely they eat. she, of all people, wouldn’t say she liked my kids if she did not. believe me. sandi is the ultimate litmus test.

the other day, as she waiting for the lift, she said, "your kids, they’re really great." the doors opened, she stepped in, and she backed into it and said, "i take back what i said three years ago."

"i know" i replied, "but thank you". the doors had closed by the time i had finished speaking, but she knows too. we’re friends. we know.

and i smiled and went back inside to my kingdom.

rent a mum

i just love it when people discipline my kids for me.

usually it is lita and de who end up doing it. sometimes, on the playground, a mum will step in if she sees my kids being particularly horrendous and hideous.

but today, was brilliant.

my girlfriend sandi, fresh back from a motoring trip down through capri and other italian locales came over to tell me about her trip. for all you who were planning an italian viaggio, here are her tips:

"20 years ago you couldn’t go to italy in july and august.  10 years ago that extended to june. why? because of the tourists! what did you think i meant, the weather? no! well, now, it is may through september…every five feet, i kid you not, there were a couple of meatballs standing there with a map. and at locations, you couldn’t see the sky what with all the weenies with silly caps holding flags and their zombie bus people following them."

sandi is a very discerning traveller.

after telling me a bit more about the trip, we concentrated on the kids, who were desperate to show off for "sand-i". songs were sung, toys were pulled out, hopping on one leg was demonstrated. sandi said that sela with her exuberance, was turning into a little doris day and asked if she could waterski without getting her hair wet.

probably?

on the sly, sandi, who has known sebastian since he had three hairs on his head and was 20 hours old, (she was his first hospital visitor), slipped sebastian some marbles to play with. sebastian was thrilled. "don’t play with them around the other kids" said sandi. "they’re not grown up like you."

sebastian was told to put the marbles back in the bag, a command which he ignored.

eventually, he showed the marbles to jasper, who was very excited and screamed, "thebbie put ithe cubeth on the floor! naughty thebbie!"

put the marbles in the bag and away, dictated parental tess, to no avail. the triplets went to bed.

sebastian then said that he would store the marbles under the table. i was lying on the sofa wondering the best way to handle this, when sandi said, "are they in the bag? no? how old are you sebastian?"

"five," my little man answered, promptly.

"when will you be six?"

"at my next birthday."

sandi laughed, "well when is that?"

"november."

"all right sebastian. i am taking these marbles back and i will bring them to you when you are six. you didn’t act responsibly."

sebastian apologised, and predictaibly, as per page 1 of "sorry i got caught not sorry that i committed the crime," promised that from now on he would listen and obey and be responsible. but sandi stood firm.

and i lay back in the sofa.

stepping by the snakes of tiredness

snippet of conversation with father:

"you must be very busy"

"actually i am, dad. how did you know?"

"you haven’t blogged in ages. i think you should blog. soon"

so here i am.

i was a lazy parent in some respects last week. (will parent ever cease to sound wayyyy more grown up than i see myself?)

on friday sebastian’s class put on a snake presentation. sebastian stood up and recited his line (quite dramatically i might add with a touch of pride) : "snakes stay quiet and still in order to catch their food." and then there was a bit of a party. parents were meant to contribute something snake shaped to the food table. and there was a gloriously decorated cake, a snake shaped sausage roll, and oh yes, the jelly snakes that tess bought the night before.

three days earlier i had been in sebastian’s class sewing snakes. every child had cut out a real life sized snake and they asked some mums to come in and help the children sew the snakes and help stuff them with batting. that was a long day, but a fun one. sebastian made a cobra. we sewed elastic around the mouth so he can tie it around his waist. it is five feet long. i will throw it away this summer.

i was in jasper’s class making gingergbread men with his class yesterday. i premade the cookie dough and brought in three gingerbread cookie cutters. jasper was in fathoms of delight and kept saying, "mummy, you come to my clathroom today?". when we got to school, i needed to take the girls upstairs to their classroom before heading off to little jude’s. i asked him to go with his teacher to his classroom, and reassured him i would be there soon.

well.

his little face turned red, his mouth turned down and his eyes began to shimmer as tears filled them. and of course there were other people watching all making "awwww" sounds.

"but!" (hiccup)"mummy! you promithed" (sob)"you make cookieth with my clath today."

i promised him i would be back, took the girls up, stopped by sebastian’s classroom to give him a smooch, and then made and decorated cookies with 20, three year olds. jasper was surprisingly thrilled to have me there, his little chest puffed out when the kids called me "jj’s mummy" as in , "thank you jj’s mummy!".

but possibly the highlight was watching someone say to jasper, "i like your mummy" and him saying, "yes, my mummy."

so that’s why i buy jelly snakes for parties, so i have the energy to get in there, roll up my sleeves and make cookies with kids. and still have a life. my life.

does it matter?

i passed on the closeup picture of missing four year old madeleine mccann to people on my mailing list last week.

slowly, the replies began filing back, with many people stating the obvious.

4. the case would not be receiving so much publicity if madeleine were not a photogenic, blonde beauty

3. many children go disappearing each year, and no celebrities contribute to their "FIND THEM" or "fight" campaigns.

2. the 2 million pounds (or whatever, this is a figure given to me) donated to the family for the purpose of finding ONE child is more than many missing children’s organisations have in their bank accounts.

1. the parents left her alone in her room, unsupervised.

does it matter? best case scenario, a poor child is frightened, and needing to be returned to her family. you don’t need to agree with the papal visits, the media hypocrisy and overplay…fight about it later.

but since i am thinking about it….and based on conversations with oprah and andrea…

4. yes, the media pays more attention to this case than to minorities disappearing. in no way is this madeleine mc cann’s fault.

2 & 3 yes it is sad that the money and jet, etc is donated to just one family when there are so many missing children each year, yet what are the mc cann’s supposed to do? stop looking for their child because no other family going through this horror and tragedy has these funds at their disposal? i wouldn’t stop if it were my child. and when madeleine is found, i am pretty certain the mccann’s would revert the money to a general fund.

1. this one was tough. no, charles and i have never left the kids alone when we went out to dine. at the end of our phuket trip we had pretty much memorised the room service menu. but then again, for me, a club sandwich or a random house curry isn’t a hardship. it’s a good thing. but i have done things that could have gone so, so badly. i just don’t know it because they never have gone badly.

like leaving them unpsupervised in the bathtub to play.

like leaving them alone in a shopping cart while i dart two aisles over to pick up sweeties that i dont want them to see me grabbing.

like living in a city that doesn’t require kids to sit in car seats.

like shrugging when mum asked me about carys’s hamburger, "are you sure that’s done?"

there’s more. it’s a long list. the stuff that could have gone disaterously wrong is massive.

PEOPLE magazine mentioned that originally the British press made much of the fact that the mccann’s had left the kids alone while they went out to dinner. do you think the mccann’s aren’t tortured over that fact? cannot imagine how they are carrying that extra burden. and then the press dropped that angle of the story. was it because the family is blonde and well off, one email suggested?

i don’t think so, i think it is because all parents, one time or another, without knowing it, endanger the lives of our children. thankfully, the kids usually live to tell the tale. hopefully, madeleine mccann and all the other nameless missing children that the press don’t pick up on, will too.

suspicious minds

since you all must be keeping track, you know magnificent and i have been married seven years. and yes, while the itch is definitely less for me than it was a few years ago, oh, do i need to keep an eye on mc these days.

when i come home from a trip, out of my suitcase comes extremely interesting and essential items like noxema, egyptian cotton sheets, dramamine pills (LOTS), bowls that have straws built into them (very cool), placemats featuring canada, you know STUFF like that. household misc. the kids might get new socks, or possibly some new triamenic chewables.

lo and behold, when young chuck bounced off the plane the other morning, WHAT do you think he unpacked and merrily produced ALPHABITS for their breakfast.

ALPHABITS.

he thought ALPHABITS were worth toting across the ocean? did he NOT read my blog on twinkies?

i was stunned and of course called him on it. (admittedly my mouth was full of red licorice, an essential item that he very kindly did bring back with him.)

"well, why not."

then i saw him remove a packet of fruit loops from his suitcase. FRUIT LOOPS. i am stunned. isn’t the crap count coco’s that is made in malaysia good enough for my kids? apparently not, because my man has to haul FRUIT LOOPS as well.

i have to watch this guy every minute.

of course he did bring back a kick a$$ biography of mary queen of scots complete with some good maps and family trees, so am i a leetle grateful, but still, stunned. i think he might get an earring next.

3650 days

ten years ago this month i arrived in hong kong.

each time i sat squirming in my seat, throwing my book and papers into my bag, thrilled at the thought of being with and near magnificent charles, i never failed to appreciate the stunning landing at kai tak airport. it was like being dropped out of a sky, turning a very quick corner and landing on a very thin strip of concrete. it was amazing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQqAxp6qtxs a short blurb but a good one, taken from the street.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIbZqXqiQoI the bbc look at the kai tak phenomenon…it does sound like they’re playing a video game though!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McNU5b2-7bc longer, but shows a bit more of the city

even if you don’t click on attachments, please click on the first link…this is why hong kong kai tak airport was so internationally known!

kai tak closed in 1998. and although everyone agrees that hong kong international airport is a great efficient airport (except for the taxi drivers, who miss the fares to the airport and hate the airport express trains), it lacks kai tak’s statement. the plane dropped you in kai tak, and somehow had room for you. sort of like hong kong. even today, 10 years later, people still talk fondly about kai tak, and the views into people’s living rooms, and the angles it provided.

the views into people’s living rooms…for me it provided me the opportunity to view my own living room, and to make my own living..the one i had always wanted with the person i had always wanted…i just hadn’t known it (and really, over the years it would take me several times to realise this).

so as i sit back and celebrate a decade of life in hong kong and becoming the tess i always wanted to be, i look back on kai tak, where tess entered, and stayed.

“i just want to play”

sebastian begins primary one in a few months.

next week we head over to his primary school to meet his teacher and find out a few more pertinent details. but i admit to being concerned.

sebastian, my lovely, sweet, compassionate boy, wants to quit swimming and soccer, because it is too hard.

he stopped learning to ride a bike without stablisers because it was too hard.

he doesn’t want to read anymore because it is too hard.

yesterday at swimming when i was talking to him about how at primary one he was going to be learning more, he turned to me and said, "but mummy, i just want to play".

at five years old, do i have to tell my child that that dream is unreasonable? that his playing days are over? i am having tough times with this concept, to be honest with you. i know there is a balance, but i had to end yesterday’s conversation because i didn’t want to frighten him. it just seemed too sad to say it. at five.

but still, the learning curve is going to be pretty steep, and the school’s don’t have time for the kids who aren’t really picking up the concepts, especially those who aren’t interested in picking up the concepts.

sebastian.

a tisket a tasket, a brown and yellow basket

there have been some stellar quotes floating around our home these past few days.

jasper informed me last night, "maybe my piece of broccoli (that he was refusing to eat) should go on a plane to canada"

sela, lamenting the fact that i have run out of cherry chapstick (after which is liberally applied to their lips, they make little smacking noises)…."will i ever kiss ‘gain, mummy?" (hopefully not).

on the way home from swimming today, we were in the taxi and i asked sebastian if swimming lessons were as fun as swimming in phuket. and he said, "no mummy, we were mermaids in the water. but not when i was throwing up or had to do a poo."

poo. a topic that is getting way too much air time, and hence odor in our home. from carys, of all people. sunday, i discovered that while her siblings had done a wee in the corner, she had chosen to do a poo in her flip flop. a POO!

monday, her siblings kept their wees to themselves, but carys planted a poo in her toy basket, and did a wee as well. she was devastated when i found out. and of course, i punished her with a not so warm shower, which was awful for her and me. but it was a good consequence for her action. and she had to help clean it up, of course.

WHERE IS CHARLES? HE IS IN TORONTO!

but she told me that she doesn’t want to do poos in the toilet.

but you did poos in the toilet in phuket? i questioned her.

yes, but apparently that is different. carys offered to go back to phuket every time she needed to do a poo. she was quite eager in this offer. i wish. our conversation pretty much ended there…her voice drops down past a whisper when she gets upset or thinks people are upset with her. so i don’t know what she is thinking. or doing. i am not sure if carys did her movement at school today (certainly not at home) so our negotiations are at a detente.

my frazzled nerves. i feel sore, and black and brown all over.

in our younger years, (the 1970’s as opposed to before the cancellation of arrested development) my brother graeme and i read a lot of archie comics. we bought them, at frugal blake’s instructions, not at the corner stores, but at garage sales.

"who cares that it’s not the most recent edition?" he’s demand "they keep reusing the same comics over and over again. save your money." so we did, and instead of buying one for 50c, we would buy 5 for 50c at a garage sale, six or seven if the covers were ripped, as they often were. blake also taught us not to buy the large comics, rather save the money for the digests. the large comics only contained three stories, but were larger sized, and half the price, whereas the digests, contained at least four times the stories, and were about one third the size as the large comics, for twice the price. frugal blake heaven. it’s a miracle that neither of us need wearing glasses now, for all in the dark comic reading we did.

the back page of the comic books was always devoted to twinkies or joes louis. they looked so delicious to graeme and i, and we spent years discussing how fantastic these items would taste. and archie and veronica and betty were fans as well! how wonderful! how chocolately the chocolate would be. how mouthwateringly complimentary the entire concoction would be. of course, twinkies weren’t available in edmonton and yellowknife back then, they were an american deal, so we just fuelled the fantasy by talking about them for several more years.

at some point in our development, i think around 13 and 11, we laid hands on twinkies. i think frugal had gone on a business trip to the states or something, or he and mum had gone on a trip to hawaii and to compensate for not taking us, they had brought us back twinkies. (to be fair, that is probably what we asked for.)

graeme and i sat down across from each other and savoured the packets infront of us. at last. as carefully as any groom on his wedding night we revealed the cellophane wrapper and felt sorry that the poor class of cellophane had surrounded this poor twinkie with it’s sad scent. we each picked up our twinkie, stroked it a couple of times, and on the count of three, bit in.

now normally, graeme and i would psych each other out, take a bite before three, not bite at all..you get the picture. but this was too important. we had waited too long for our twinkies.

so we bit, and chewed. and tried to pretend that we liked it. nodded for mum and dad’s benefit, as they loomed over us, a satisfied smile on their faces. the twinkie was absolute crap. tasted like nothing and dissolved instantly. massive let down.  so much for our dreams of growing up and living on twinkies.

i think we finished the box of twinkies…can you imagine frugal blake not letting us? but i sure wasn’t in a hurry to taste a joes louis or whatever they were called.

a pretty pointless blog, but there we go. soon i can write about WIG WAGS, the lost (and best) canadian chocolate bar. and graeme, i miss you.