v. v. un-gc

it has come to my attention that my previous posts are full of grammatical errors and poor quality sentences.

i am gramatically incorrect.

most of the people who have been good enough to inform me of this fact are from the united states. i find their commentary on my grammar, spelling errors, open ended brackets, undefined properties, etc extremely interesting, not just because they are correct, but because they hail from a country that SPECIALISES in continually mis-using grammar and syntax and then claiming the deviated version to be proper. in a country with rising unemployment numbers, you would think they would let the letters “u” and “s” hold on to their jobs, but noooo….

so i apologise. believe me, i am looking forward to a time when i can double check my posts.

until then, bare wtih me, please.

i have a confession to make:

i don’t like feeding my babies.

given that it is a miracle that these babies are alive at all, i feel guilty admitting this. but there is no point in hiding this apparently unmaternal, unsavoury truth.

feeding, or rather, futile-y attempting to feed the babies frustrates me immensely.

preemie babies like our triplets take a long time to feed. their swallowing is not strong, the breathe, suck swallow pattern is shallow and easily messed up. and they get tired quickly. it takes at least one hour to feed five ounces to a baby. three babies, five feeds per day…15 hours of feeding. thankfully our helpers are incredibly patient with the babies and their friends help out.

it is frustrating to hold a baby, and have them push away the nipple and or choke on the milk because they have forgotten to swallow.

you need this milk! i feel like saying. please drink it, you’re not gaining weight fast enough.

when sebastian was a baby, feeding wasn’t an issue because he was so efficient at it. burping took seconds and bottles were drained in minutes. then we were off somewhere, to the market, on a hike, to a friend’s house. but the times, they are a changin’ (just like nappies).

right now the triplets all have bronchialitis. did i mention that? they’re not even making the effort to feed it seems. jasper is crying constantly, and has to be fed every 90 minutes. of course, he is only taking two ounces per feed instead of his usual six. and he won’t eat rice cereal. either will sela.

and poor carys is barely eating at all. she has drippy nose and weepy eyes. poor pet.

oh, and they all have diahhrea. i know that is spelt wrong but i only have ten minutes to write this before someone needs feeding so you can forget spell check.

at their next appointment, the doctor isn’t going to look at them and chastize them for their insufficient weight gain, she will be looking to me. my one job these days (besides the part time tatler gig) is looking after babies. and i can’t even do that right? after i swore to them that i would look after them?? i am lying to my children! how low is that??

and magnificent charles (more on him later!!!) is leaving for india on sunday. he is gone a lot these days and i miss him a great deal already.

expect the next few days worth of blogs to follow on this rather emotional vein. wish me luck. if you care to drop by during jasper, sela and carys’ feeding times, we can discuss my feelings in person.

Face it, its a facelift

This weeks’ cover of people magazine sees hollywood babes denigrate plastic surgery. they all do. yet no one is getting older in that celluloid, cellulite free world. something doesn’t make sense.

catherine zeta jones…remember her in mask of zorro? she was breathtaking. today, though her body remains much the same, her face is totally different. sharon stone, (the same one who swore she wouldn’t have plastic surgery) looks 15 years younger than she did last year. halle berry doesn’t have the same nose she did a few years ago. either does benjamin bratt. yet everyone denies they had surgery and credit water, and a healthy lifestyle as the reason why they all look pinched and alike. (i never knew drinking water could change the shape of your nose…did you?)

sharon osbourne, patricia heaton and janice dickinson are open about their plastic surgeries. i respect that. while i do believe that celebrities have a right to privacy, i wish they wouldn’t deny it. mainly because millions of girls and women believe the celebs when they claim their implanted wrinkle free pouty lipped bodies are au natural. and so we have plastic surgery in girls under the age of 16 increasing by 200 per cent (or something like that) over the past decade.

likely i am so vehement about this because of my ivf experiences. when people ask me if i did ivf, i always answer yes. tonnes of celebrities have done ivf, and yet very few have been open about their experiences. joan lunden refuses to answer if her surrogate has her eggs. julia roberts, geena davis and other celeb mums won’t admit they have had ivf (and according to the rumour mills, they have, although i am in no way certain).

of course they have a right to privacy. but part of the reason celebs get paid the big bucks is because they have forfeited their right to privacy. let’s face it, they court publicity. (jodie foster, you are the exception and we love you for it). but again, dont they have a responsibility? what about the women out there who are putting having children on hold because geena davis and crew are having babies later in life? wouldn’t they want to prevent another couple from going through the hassle of infertility??? cast aside the shame society casts upon IVF (because its all about sex and “down there”) and create solidarity among other couples facing the same tribulations?

courteney cox, brooke shields, celine dion, the dixie chicks, jamie oliver…these folk have my respect for sharing their infertility stories. your fellow infertility fighters thank you!

did i feel ashamed because i needed ivf to have a child? yes, for a while, but then i got over it. a large reason for that was i realised just how many other couples were facing the same fight, and sharing similar stories rid charles and i of our feelings of shame.

do celebs feel they can’t admit to having plastic surgery because admitting they felt the need to improve themselves suggests they are less beautiful than they appear to be? are they ashamed of aging or their thin lips? maybe if they knew how many of their colleagues were in the same (manolo blahnik)shoes, the secret, and knives could come out of the closet.

it will be interesting to see which taboo institution crumbles first.. “natural” beauty or “natural” babies.

Water: essential or a loved luxury?

when i first moved to hong kong in may 1997, charles and i were had student loans and virtually no capital. his contract was ending at the end of june, and i did not have a job. we each had debts, and prior to the handover, hong kong was an extremely expensive city to live in.

despite having arrived in hong kong from the warmest city canada has to offer, vancouver, i was still overwhelmed with the heat and humidity. i was always thirsty. near poverty does that to a girl.

we ate a lot of pasta and chilli in those days. yes, they were those terrible “C” words…carbohydrates, but they were also another “c” word, which was higher on my hierarchy of needs in those days…CHEAP.
(if you want to know where the cheapness might come from, check out my earlier post…more precious than silver)

this was also at the second stage of my love affair with charles (the first conducted over the internet, the second when we lived in the same city) and was anxious to show him how well i could cook, clean and look after the man i loved. so i did the domestic chores and really, loved doing them. ah, young love, aint it grand.

fortunately, we lived near a park n’ shop, the equivalent of safeway or tesco. there was also a wellcome nearby, but it always had a funny smell and i didn’t like buying anything there. it was about a 10 minute walk to the shops, and 15 minutes home. i did try once taking a bus home, but lifting those bags of groceries on to the bus, fishing out my coins, and the impatient people pushing around me and not wanting to make room for the bags, turned me against the experience. so i walked home with my heavy purchases.

i remember the feeling of the bags digging into my hands. of pedestrians banging in to me and the bags scraping against my legs.

i remember the heat. sweat pushing into my eyes, dribbling down my neck. and me not being able to wipe it away because i was carrying those dreaded shopping bags.

i can remember when the bags got too heavy, leaving two on the ground, and walking 20 metres with the next two bags, then placing them on the ground and walking back to collect the last two. it did lighten the load, but i am so impatient that the concept of covering the same ground twice in that heat irritated me so much i couldn’t continue.

i can remember my throat being so dry and wishing that I had the extra money to buy myself a perrier water. normally i don’t drink fizzy water, but this one day, I had seen a frosted perrier in the grocer’s cooler, and Perrier seemed the height of decadence and refreshment. but i was fresh in love and trying to prove to my man how thrifty i could be, and decided it was a waste of money we couldn’t afford.

a couple of months later, we both had jobs, were beginning to pay off our debts and bought the groceries together after we got home from work. this particular day must have been right after a payday when i was feeling flush, because i asked charles if he figured our finances would allow for me to grab a drink for the walk home. he looked shocked that i had to ask him and said, “sure, could you please grab me a water too.” i bought the still type for him, and surprised us both when I headed right over the perrier. and i bought it with change from my pocket.

the perrier tasted salty and was too bubbly for me, but i drank it triumphantly. the feeling of the liquid drenching my throat was so decadent. i didn’t need the water, we had water at home, but i was drinking this expensive liquid anyway. that bottle symbolized a new level of our financial stability, the time when you can allow yourself little luxuries. for some people, little luxuries are vehicles or snazzy trips, and maybe for us it will be too. but in august 1997, it was a bottle of water.

ohhh…THAT blue dress girl

monica lewinsky was on the cover of a magazine the other day. she is a person i have a great deal of sympathy for.

bill clinton escaped pretty much unscathed and has made millions from his book deal, speaking engagements and probable return to the white house as the first first man.

monica hasn’t had such a happy and rich road.

i am not going to condone her behaviour. i do feel sorry for her. i think of all the mistakes i made in my twenties and how lucky i have been to move past those dumb judgements and fairy fantasy endings i created.

how awful would it be if the WORST mistake we ever made in our lives was known worldwide and would never be forgotten?

the Bible promises us that our sins are wiped away when we ask forgiveness. i have no doubt that God is capable of forgetting our sins. it’s people that can’t. particularly the person who committed the crime.

what are the chances that monica lewinsky could meet a nice boy, take her home and have his parents excited about their son’s new girlfriend? pretty close to nil. no wonder she had to start her own business, who would hire her?

so that is why i feel sorry for her.

More precious than silver

Love comes in many forms. It isn’t my dad’s birthday, and it certainly isn’t Father’s Day, but today I want to dedicate my blog to dear Blake. Blake is a pretty amazing guy, he recently shaved his hair off in support of Breast Cancer. He also recently shaved off 30 pounds in support of his desire to be as healthy as he can be.

Dad is frugal with money. No new wardrobe for dad despite his weight loss, no, he now looks like a rapper with crotch round the knee jeans and baggy shirts.

Dad is frugal with words. But I always knew he loved me. Even though he does giggle right before he tells me he loves me, I know he loves me.

Dad loves walking, and I don’t think just because it saves money on gas, taxi and bus fares. He loves walking and has a very distinctive walk.

Dad finds unusual ways to say “I LOVE YOU TESS AND YOU ARE IMPORTANT TO ME.”

When I was a little girl, we lived in Edmonton. I loved reading even then and two of my favourite books were “Mog the Forgetful Cat” and “How Now Brown Cow”. HOW was the coolest book, it was two stories in one. Neat concept, great book.

We moved to Yellowknife when I was 10. The school and public library did NOT contain either of those books. In 1984, when I was way too old for it, mum managed to procure Mog for me. What a great Christmas gift that was. But How Now Brown Cow was harder to come by. I occasionally referred to it, but as time passed, I mentioned it less. Thought we had all forgotten about it.

One day, dad called me. I was living in hong kong, Charles and I were dirt poor, and calls home (as i called it then) were once a month (twice the month that princess Diana died). And DAD called me. We quickly established that nothing was wrong, and then he said,

“Tessie, does this sound familiar?”
and he started to read.
“Susy got off the school bus…”
and I paused and then said, “no, not really…” (give me some credit, it had been 15 years since i read the book!!!)
and he kept reading. By the time he was halfway into the next sentence, I yelled
HOW NOW BROWN COW HOW NOW BROWN COW!!!!!
HOW DID YOU GET MY BOOK???

And I learned that for the past 15 years, if time allowed when my father was on a business trip, he would walk (surprise!!) to the nearest public library and head to the children’s section, in search of How. After 15 years he wasn’t holding out much luck, but he continued on his quest. I was worth it.

And one day the librarian found it for him. This is a book with three and two colour illustrations. This is not a glamorous book. It had not been signed out in a long time. The last time a child’s hands had touched this book, the librarian had been using stamp pads.

My dad asked if he could take out a membership, and also HNBC. He told them about his daughter who had been wanting this book for over a decade. He asked, “How much would the late charges be, if perhaps, this book was never returned?” They knew and he knew that the book would not be coming back if he managed to walk out the door with it. They were touched by the story (and probably by dad’s charming manner and sweet blue eyes that tend to get a wee bit liquid-y when he is talking about those he loves) and let him sign out the How. My Dad made a donation to the library to the amount the librarian approximated would be the late charges if the book were never returned, which coincidentally, or not, was close to the replacement value of the book. Dad came home to Yellowknife, picked up the phone and called ME ME ME.

Today, my children are too young to read them the story, but I pull How from the bookshelf often, to show friends, to see if they once read and loved the book with two stories inside. But as i tell them about my father and how he got the book for me, I realise the book is now even more special, because How, now tells three stories. And the greatest of these is love.

BREAD AND THE BAD BIT

Are sandwich letters a bad thing? You know sandwich letters, you’ve received one before, everyone has. They’re an impersonal form of rejection. Think back to that job you didn’t get an interview for, a break up, a scholarship you didn’t get. Did you receive any of this news via a letter? If so, that was a sandwich letter. Remember, three paragraphs and a signature.

The first paragraph thanks you for your interest, and states how impressive your qualities are. This makes you feel pretty good about yourself.

The second, which usually begins with however, unfortunately, regretfully, lets you know somebody was better. Let’s you know you are a loser.

The final paragraph thanks you again for your interest, possibly mentions that you will be kept on hold (your resume, or even worse…if it doesn’t work out with the person I am leaving you for, I will give you a call) and then signs off. Best regards. All best.

If this is not a personal rejection letter, I sometimes contemplate calling the person who sent the letter (usually an admin person who signs “FOR” their superior) and saying,

“Hi, its me. Tess”.

“Sorry? Do I know you?” they might reply. (Or if they are smarmy/polite/overambitious they might pretend to know me before admitting they don’t).

“Don’t you remember me?” I would say, hurt evident in my voice. “You sent me your best regards. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

Completely a stupid thing to do, but it might make me feel better to waste part of their day.

Adding insult to injury is that some smug companies are getting to the point where the first and second paragraph are combined. “Although we were impressed with your….the committee is pursuing applicants whose…”. What? There’s no bit where I can feel good about myself? We’re now an open faced sandwich letter society? My ego wasn’t even worth a paragraph on a form letter??

What is the point of sandwich letters? To make the sender look caring? WE KNOW YOU DON’T CARE. Those rejection letters are form letters. A data entry clerk enters your name and voila! Your letdown is now personalized. In the case of breakups, is it because your now ex wants a clean break, no stalking and the return of their Eagles Greatest Hits cd returned as soon as possible. So they can feel they handled the situation with dignity.

Firstly, in the case of a breakup, a sandwich or any form of breakup letter is an insult. The only case a letter can be justified is distance, when a snail mail Dear John is way preferable to an email (for those of you who are keeping track). Unthinkable is that the rejection letter is sent by mail because like the companies, the now ex is sending the letters out to several “formers”.

My suggestion to anyone sending a rejection letter: it saves time and, I might add, the environment for you to just send a blank envelope. Everyone knows the thin envelope is a PFO.

Then again, and sorry environment, crumpling up the offensive letter and tossing it into the bin, lighting it on fire, etc, is a good way of getting rid of aggression.

Do I dislike sandwich letters? Yes. Do I understand that they can’t hire everyone? Absolutely, I watched The Apprentice. Would I prefer a phone call? Actually, no.

But I am a carb addict, so let’s keep the three paragraphs in the sandwich letter, ok?