Easy Reader

I'm enjoying this book.

It is easy to read. The language is not overly academic. It is not set at intellectuals. It is warmhearted. It is honest. Chapters are introduced with an interesting photograph. The writing varies from narratives to jottings.

A bit like a blog really.

Strangers in Paradise

I enjoyed dinner and an evening with friends this week including M who lives in what might be called a designer suburb of Sydney.

Breakfast Point

Breakfast Point has arisen from the metaphorical ashes of an old gas works site. A new suburb of perhaps 3,000 residents in just under twenty years. The residential complexes are built around a number of community facilities including a sports oval and its adjacent sparklingly clean and organised Country Club.

M took us on a tour of the club before we moved on to a restaurant in a nearby 'non-designed' suburb. Each Friday evening the Country Club hosts nibbles and drinks for residents and their guests. Without any reflection on our good friend M it all felt a bit like stepping into the cinematic town of Stepford.

The Country Club

There were about thirty others in little groupings. One couple joined us, glasses of red wine in hand. He was particularly vocal dominating the conversation over his wife who remained mute, not lifting the glass to her lips.

'We couldn't wait to downsize' he informed us. 'Push the kids out and get our lives back' he continued. The 'kids', now aged in their thirties, live respectively in Canberra and Darwin, he said. One has provided a grandchild. The couple is estranged from their children and don't get to see the grandchild. 'Good riddance to them' was the unmistakeable unspoken summary.

This and other tidbits of sensational insider information was imparted to us - complete strangers to the couple - within minutes of meeting. Putting a final stamp on the conversation, the wife finally joined in. Lifting her glass to take an earthy sip of her wine she informed me in confidential tones, 'If I'd known how much trouble children are, I would never have had any'.

'What's new?'

Now that is a question to strike minor terror in my heart. It is a common, seemingly inoffensive way to open a conversation. One of my friends will begin every telephone conversation with that question even if our previous conversation was only a day or two earlier. So why does my heart sink when I'm asked it?

I put my reaction down to my upbringing. Mine was a solitary upbringing. I was an only child. No siblings. My only two cousins arrived on this planet years after I did and so there was no childhood connection there. My parents, struggling to establish themselves financially, both worked full time in part to finance the very expensive private school in which they had placed me. They could not afford to repay the invitations that other parents made for me to spend time with their children. As a result those invitations, few in number anyway, dried up after a while.

Apart from school time, mostly spent regimented and disciplined in the classroom, I spent very little social time with anyone remotely similar in age to me. I never really learnt the skill of playful, casual chit chat.

So, nowadays when someone asks me, 'what's new?' I am in a dilemma. OK, if it happens that I have just purchased a new apartment or I have just returned from an overseas holiday or I have just been diagnosed with a terminal condition then I do have something new to report. But what about those long strings of weeks, week after week after week, when none of those things nor nothing remotely similar has occurred? What do I say then?

Perhaps I could model myself on another friend whose every telephone conversation includes a detailed run down of what he has done that day. He doesn't even require me to ask the question. In that event, my every (weekday) response to the question would be as follows. I got up and I shaved and showered and dressed. I ate two Weet-bix and some prunes for breakfast, drank orange juice and took my daily medication and then I drove to work etc, etc, etc.

In effect; everything old, is new again.

My lost timeline

A friend asked me recently why I hadn't acknowledged the birthday wishes she sent me.

'What birthday wishes?', I asked.

'The message I placed on your timeline', said she.

'My timeline? What timeline?', I asked.

'Your Facebook timeline' said she.

Facebook.

Ah yes.

I joined Facebook shortly after its launch. It seemed an interesting idea but it only took me a few months at best to tire of the countless friend requests from complete strangers around the world with whom I appeared to have little in common and what seemed like a mountain of emails pinging in my in tray all day long.

At the time it seemed there was no way to shut down an account so I took the next best steps and stopped using the service altogether not even as a curiosity for occasional enquiries or observation. That seemed to work. Apart from the occasional (annual?) email mentioning that I hadn't accessed my account in some time which offered help in restoring my password in case I had forgotten it, I was not bothered by the ubiquitous service again.

Until this week and the unrequited birthday wishes.

Fearing it was a dangerous thing to do, I accessed my account using a newly established password (for indeed I had forgotten my earlier password), found my timeline and the aforementioned wishes and I sent the desired acknowledgement.

Facebook is a more complex looking affair now. I have been conscious during my Facebook dormant era that others use it to keep loved ones informed of their travel and other celebrations and whilst I was never sorry about being inactive I did think occasionally how useful it could be in keeping those I want informed up to date about myself.

Inevitably I have been drawn back into the demon site. The effect has been immediate. Former work colleagues and friends have spotted me there and the friend requests are flowing. Someone I worked with in Beijing more than 35 years ago and with whom I have had not a single contact since and who now lives outside Washington DC spotted me after only two days.

I have tracked down some friends too, although without necessarily asking each of them to befriend me (again). Andrew is one I located on Facebook but as his site appears untouched since 2012 I decided to leave him be.

No doubt I will tire of Facebook yet again but for now, in the approximate dialogue from, I think, 'The Godfather' and with a New York criminal twang, I say that 'I keep trying to get myself out and they keep drawing me back in'.

Biting the bullet

For the past four years a friend has been vacillating over the sale and purchase of property. She desperately wants to move out of her home of the past thirty years or more which is in a prime location but badly in need of refreshment. She wants something equally well located but smaller and in good condition.

The problem is she is scared. The adventurous, carefree woman I knew when we were in our twenties is a cautious, frightened late 60s senior. Unfortunately she has fallen out with siblings who for decades were her closest and trusted confidantes.

I find myself walking a tightrope. I respond to her requests, almost pleas, for advice but as I am neither legally trained nor expert in real estate processes I want to avoid losing our friendship over some perceived catastrophic decision based on my assistance.

I hope it works out for.....and for me.

A development too personal

These smiling people may be graduates of a personal development program whose website this photograph adorns. Or they may be professional models.

I don't really care.

Jm, a friend of more than 45 years, is two thirds of his way through the program. It involves a considerable investment of time and (not surprisingly) money. It begins with thirty hours over one extended weekend spent in a classroom situation followed by three hour seminars per week for the following eleven weeks. Oh, and there is also a weekly hour long telephone conference with a group of fellow development 'undergraduates' during those eleven weeks.

Jm's three adult children and his wife have all undertaken the course at different times; indeed his wife is embarking on a second tier program of similar duration and (apparently) structure.

The program's advertised aim is to bring about positive, permanent shifts in the quality of (a participant's) life. 'Create power, freedom, full self expression, and peace of mind for your future' the program's website advertises. 'Peace of mind' is even marked as a registered trademark although it seems to me to be a very common saying.

The structure of the program has an in built strategy for identifying potential future suckers participants. On week seven of the eleven weeks of 'seminars' the participating undergraduates are asked to bring along a guest (or guests) who are given a taste of the program and its benefits and who are invited to sign up, 'no pressure', for future programs.

Jm invited me to be his guest and in a moment when friendship trumped intention, I accepted his invitation.

It was pretty well what I expected. Toothy, smiling, advocates of the program enthusiastically welcomed me to the gathering with the zeal and creepiness I associate with Hillsong and similar religions all the while invading my personal space with a leery manner.

There were about forty participants and their guests present for the evening. Current participants were called on to state their 'breakthrough moments' on the program to date; each dutifully confirming the life changing effects. Participants and guests alike were then taken through a series of exercises to identify and address one aspect of our lives that was 'not working' and that we would seek to change. The two session leaders both delivered personal revelations and as I expected one had a teary, heartwarming situation to relate to the group.

I found it curious that the evening served the dual role of being seminar seven for the existing participants and an information, preview session of the total program for the guests. Surely, I thought, the participants, by then effectively sixty-six hours into the program, would expect something more developed for their time and money invested.

Eventually the 'soft sell' of guest registration into a future program was introduced. Twice. 'Lift the burden from your shoulders by signing up tonight' was the leverage. It is true that this was delivered without pressure. Twice. However, when it was clear, after the second invitation, that I was not rushing to register, a 'graduated' person appeared by my side with the hard sell. This man had the appearance and build of Pacific Islander. He looks much like many of the bouncers we see around Sydney's troublesome night spots. He pressed for a while but then disappeared from my side when he realised I was firm in making no commitment that night.

The exercises we participated in on the night were quite useful as examples of applying organised thought to personal issues. The undergraduates I spoke to all appeared genuine about having benefitted from their participation.

I tend to approach these development programs with a cynical mind. Mostly, they are not for me. I know I have my faults. I also know that I have successfully addressed many of them from life experiences over the years; sometimes by painful learning from repeated mistakes.

Good luck to those who are enthused by this type of program. It is not my style.

Christmas Card Tango

I'm in the midst of a catch -up Christmas Card Tango.

You know the sort of thing. This year I'm not sending xyz a card because xyz did not send me one last year. But then with only days to go to Christmas I receive a card from xyz too late for me to respond to thereby revealing the fact I had dropped them from my list. No doubt xyz's timing is quite deliberate.

After decades of sending cards religiously - how apt - to everyone in my address book regardless that some never, ever, reciprocated I decided several years ago to whittle the number of my cards to the absolute essentials and where possible only those who returned the compliment. It seemed to work. For a while. But now I'm in this alternate year's catch-up routine.

What is galling about all this is that I met one of these xyzs at the funeral of a mutual former colleague recently. xyz and I worked side by side for several years more than 25 years ago but this was our first face to face encounter since that time. 'Hello', said I cheerfully to xyz. 'Er...hello' was the hesitant response to me. Clearly xyz had no idea who I was and worse he hazarded a guess as to my name and picked the name of someone else altogether. How could this be? We had exchanged cards every year without fail in the interim. He'd been sending cards to someone he no loner remembered.

Oh, how I dislike this annual tango.

On the other hand, here is a much more enjoyable tango. An all male version, in aid of charity, of the 'Cell Block Tango' from the musical 'Chicago'.

Siblings

I am an only child. At times of great happiness or distress I wonder how it would feel to share that experience with a sibling. Once when sitting alone in an Emergency Ward, doctors asked me do I want my mother resuscitated should the condition for which she had just been admitted deteriorate I keenly wished I had a sibling with whom to discuss the issue. But I don't have a sibling and never will so it is idle thought.

I have always assumed that if there had been a sibling that we would remain on good terms for life. I don't know why I am so certain about this given the example of my mother who became estranged from her only sibling for the last twenty or so years of her life.

I know three sisters with whom I have been close friends for over forty years. We have socialised together, travelled together, cried together and laughed together. Following the deaths of their parents they started to see me as a brother, the older brother they never had. Sadly after decades of close association two of the three sisters (middle and youngest) have fallen out with each other rather badly. Group socialising involving these two has become impossible. I continue to be on good terms with all three sisters but middle and youngest sister remain resolutely estranged.

Today at her invitation I met middle sister for lunch to see photos of her recent overseas trip. I mentioned my forthcoming overseas trip and she asked with whom I would be travelling. This I knew would be sensitive. Truthfully I told middle sister my travelling companion will be her estranged youngest sibling. Clearly neither oldest nor youngest sister had told middle sister of the travel plans.

Middle sister went very quiet, then whispered. 'I wish you hadn't told me this.' 'I'm having difficulty with this.' 'I wanted to do that trip.' And then she left. No further conversation, no lunch. Is our friendship over? I hope not.

I rang youngest sister and left a message informing her of what had happened.

I was left with a sick feeling in my stomach; quite upset. Is this the reality of what it is to have a sibling?

Postscript: within an hour of this exchange there has been a serious development possibly of a mental health nature which I won't go into at this time.

Social manners

A few weeks back I was asked by a friend to accompany her to a function celebrating two anniversaries for a gay couple of her acquaintance. I know of the gay couple and have attended several large picnics where they were present but I have never spoken to them and frankly wouldn't recognise them if they were standing in front of me. I wasn't invited to the function by them as such, my friend was going to take me as the 'plus one' in her invitation.

In the meantime I received directly an invitation to attend a 90th birthday tea for a very dear friend of my late parents. I know the 'birthday boy' personally and we have met for coffee conversations on numerous occasions since my parents' deaths.

The two parties were scheduled for the same time.

In most situations I would not think of reneging from a prior arrangement but in this instance I felt a greater responsibility to mark the milestone of a cherished friend of my parents than to accompany an admittedly long-standing friend to a party hosted by people I don't really know and who haven't specifically invited me anyway.

I told my friend I was going to break my promise to her and go to the birthday party instead. My friend said that was OK with her but I sensed she wasn't entirely happy with me.

I attended the birthday party and was warmly welcomed by the 'birthday boy' who was clearly touched by my attendance. This morning, only a week following the birthday party, his son rang to inform me that his father passed away yesterday.

I'm so pleased that I let my heart rule over 'social manners'.

Till choice do us part

'Celebrities' Katy Perry and Russell Brand are to divorce

The latest example in the growing portfolio of evidence of the natural superiority of heterosexual marriage over same sex unions.

During his marriage Mr Brand informed an interviewer....

"I can’t believe I used to have sex 20 times a week, especially now I’m married. But now I’m a bloody good gardener," Russ joked.

Sounds gay to me.

Husbands

Husbands is a web based mini 'mini-series'. The first series of eleven episodes (to date) lasts less than thirty five minutes in total. I think it is funny and clever and like all good comedy it contains within it's over the top surface a core of serious references.

The link takes you to all eleven episodes.

A Pergola With A View

Autumn hit Sydney yesterday with cold and showery weather, at least in my part of the city.

Duty called first as I visited my neighbourly polling centre to register my vote in the four yearly State election. As Andrew astutely observed, revealing an astonishing memory for the minutiae of my life, I didn't have far to travel. Just next door actually as my polling place is the Church Hall adjacent to my apartment building. Even so I had to scramble to locate my umbrella fearing that I would be caught outdoors queueing in the rain to register my vote. There is almost always a queue to enter the polling centre because I always vote early to get it over with (or more precisely so I don't forget to do so should I let the day go by first) but for the first time in my memory there was no queue whatsoever.

Nor were there many party volunteers offering how to vote slips for their preferred candidates. My seat is so blue ribbon conservative that the parties waste no resources on it at the best of times and certainly as it turned out not yesterday when a landslide change to the conservative opposition was expected and indeed later realised.

The vote itself should only have taken a matter of seconds given that in NSW we have optional preferential voting for state elections so that lazy people like me only need to mark '1' for our preferred candidate and not continue down to 636 or however many candidates are standing. That it took me nearly a minute to register my '1' can be put down entirely to the very attractive man voting in the adjoining booth. I simply had to stop and admire how beautifully his body profile filled out his khaki army style pants and the black torso hugging t-shirt he was wearing on such a cool nipple enhancing day. Now where was I? Ah yes, the third candidate from the top.

Having completed my civic duty my next task was to stop in at my local centre to purchase a gift. I was invited to a 'catch up and pergola viewing' at Mk and Rs' place. Mk is a theatre going acquaintance of mine. We met online some years back in a certain type of Internet chat room and eventually found the courage to meet in person for 'a date'. It didn't really work out 'datewise' although we gave it a go for a few more months as we pursued a shared interest in movie and theatre going. After a while Mk started to meet other men of a certain persuasion from Internet chat rooms and after numerous disastrous encounters he finally met Rs, fell in love, moved in and yes they now share a new pergola together that just has to viewed by their friends.

So back to the gift buying. I tend to bring bottles of wine to gatherings of this nature but buying one is a very stressful business for me as I am not a drinker and really have no inkling what constitutes a good red or white. I'm still scarred with embarrassment by the reaction to the wine I brought to Mk's 50th birthday dinner. The wine was served to other guests pre-dinner one of whom, assuming Mk had selected it, shrieked with laughter and ridiculed how 'bloody awful and unsuitable' it was. Turns out my gift was a dessert wine, sickly sweet, but I had not understood that from the label and Mk had not bothered to check before serving it. Anyway this time I purchased what I hoped was a safe white and a box of fancy chocolates just for insurance and off I went to the 'catch up and pergola viewing'.

Even though I arrived fifteen minutes after the invited time I was the first guest to arrive and stood around like the discarded boyfriend I actually was whilst the lovebirds flitted around putting the finishing touches on their hospitality. Stilted conversation filled the gaps until mercifully other guests started to arrive. The next dozen or so were all teachers at the same school where Mk teaches. I was more the outsider than ever as 'teacher talk' dominated for the next 45 minutes whilst incomprehensible references to lunch 1 and lunch 2, teaching periods and the like ping-ponged around the room. What's more one of those teachers was the very same guest who had ridiculed my wine gift years earlier and whether or not she recalled the event she ignored me completely not even acknowledging me during the guest introductions. I took refuge in repeated viewings of the pergola as each arriving guest in turn was taken on their inspection tour. Eventually some guests who I had met previously arrived but even that proved an embarrassment when a nice lady who had sat next to me through Mk's birthday dinner years earlier told me that I looked vaguely familiar but she could not recall who I was.

After a decent period had passed and I could no longer view the pergola without inviting ridicule that I must be experiencing pergola envy I thanked my hosts for their hospitality and made my departure.

Next stop was the cemetery; not as you might think to end it all but to visit my mother's grave as yesterday was the first anniversary of her death. It was a very quiet day for a Saturday at the cemetery and the gloomy atmosphere the weather provided was just like those funeral scenes in Hollywood movies.

And so to home for a quiet Saturday night in front of the telly. Not much on view except for the gloomy (or joyful, depending on your political viewpoint) election night count and reporting. Right on 8.30pm I remembered it was Earth Hour and so I turned off my lights and with that turned off my view, pergola and all.

Catfish

A New York photographer who specialises in photos of dancers in action is surprised to receive from an eight years old girl a painting she has done of one of his published works. This leads to the modern social network, an online friendship and relationship between the photographer, the young girl and members of her family.
When the photographer starts to sense that all is not as it seems this documentary turns into a contemporary cautionary tale.

Despite clever marketing that urges viewers not to reveal the ending to this documentary I have to say that the general outcome is not unexpected for any reasonable thinking person but the details that emerge are interesting. I found it amusing that the film's makers seem oblivious to the fact that they come across at times as being just as creepy as they intend their targets to appear.

A dog's life

I'm not an animal or pet person and rarely have I succumbed to the charms of friend's companion animals although there was the period about thirty years ago when my parents were befriended for several years by their neighbour's dog D and I found him to be lovable. Otherwise I am neutral and unemotional in the presence of these highly loved creatures.

It is probably best that way if my only instance of pet 'ownership' is any guide. It was around 1979 and I had been working in Hong Kong for more than two years. One of my colleagues and his family were returning to Australia on completion of their posting and in a moment of supreme optimism they bequeathed their pet budgerigar - oddly named 'Butch' - to my care. B lasted a full two days when I discovered the poor thing rigid with rigormortis in it's cage. I imagined it died of heartache having lost it's loving family of previous years but I fear it sensed my total absence of animal sensitivity and thought it would be best out of this world.

That brings me to these three dogs.

My good friend Ae has owned dogs for the past twenty five years or so. First there was N a black Labrador (I think) who was a lovely dog and who finally called it a life aged around 12 (maybe a year or two older). N was replaced by T, the Golden Retriever disdainfully refusing to face my camera in the photo above. She has also been a lovely dog, beautifully behaved but now at 15 years is a rather tired lady who has to be lifted around quite a lot and for whom going for a brisk walk is but a memory.

Poor T has developed a growth near her mouth and a very emotional Ae told me her fears that T has cancer. Everyone knows that T is nearing the end, not the least Ae herself as she bought P - the Golden Retriever standing next to T - to be T's successor last July. In fact Ae took me with her to choose P; one of two remaining available from a litter of eight. Ae is extremely fragile about T nearing her end, behaviour hard-hearted me finds a little over the top but I keep those thoughts to myself.

The other Golden Retriever in the photo - the one standing in the background - is K. P and K are sisters (is that what you call females from the same litter?) and in a situation of humans imitating their animals K is owned by Hn who just happens to be Ae's sister (but they are not from the same human litter). K and P are aged about eighteen months and their personalities are as different as...well...as chalk and cheese. K is the Duracell bunny endlessly jumping all over things, especially me, and generally outwrecking Whelan - a reference there for Andrew). P, on the other hand, is more restrained and less of a handful although lively enough. Oddly the two sister owners are similarly different...but in reverse.

In a further twist, eighteen months' old sisters K and P are related to fifteen years' old T through some doggy family tree that defies my capacity for explanation.

One day fairly soon...maybe too soon...T will bid us farewell. Ae's tears will be flowing.

Wisdom in the movies

Dinner, eye candy and an eye opener

Ce and I haven't seen Me for a long time and when they unexpectedly met during the week Me suggested a meal at Big Mama's where years before we used to eat prior to a casual night of bridge back home.

So it was dinner there last night. We worked out it was more than seven years since we had previously eaten there and although the management and the menu had changed some things remained the same. They have the same handwritten customer jottings on wall hangings and some of the previous management's popular dishes (including their Tiramasu, made in a style I always enjoyed).

I had a Rigatoni with Italian Sausage as the main before the Tiramasu. Ce ordered the Rabbit and Me the Veal Saltimbocca; both of them going for Berry Brulee for dessert.

The restaurant still is a good location for male eye candy with many gorgeous young men dining there after a day at the races and drinks at the Woollahra Hotel across the road. The restaurant is only a few blocks from my place and I really should eat there more often.

Afterwards Me took us back to her current house sit. In the nearly twenty years we have known Me she has scarcely lived at a home of her own, nearly always house sitting for friends whilst they are away.

This time her house sit was this gorgeous stone home which cunningly concealed a surprisingly large two storeys minimalist style open plan house behind the spruced up facade.


The house sit came with a placid cat which drank its water from a glass rather than a bowl. I'm not kidding. We watched, eyes wide open, as it drank from the glass without spilling a drop or knocking it over. As High Riser might say, that was one posh cat.

On The Beach

My workmate at the hospital, Ja, is going to Hawaii tomorrow and will be staying at Waikiki Beach. She was offered the trip, all expenses paid, just last Friday by an acquaintance who is going to compete in a triathlon there. The acquaintance is a man she has known for six months and who drinks at some of the clubs and bars she frequents.

Ja has been so excited about the trip she has been telling all our co-workers about it and yesterday one of the younger ones asked her whether she will have to stay in the same room as the acquaintance.

I hadn't really thought about it until hearing the question which initially I thought was an odd one and then realised that I probably had assumed that Ja would be sharing a room with this man. I don't know whether this reflects my thinking as a man, or as an older man or even as a dirty old man.

Ja did not miss a beat in answering the question. Interestingly, the answer was pretty non-committal and could have been code for anything from 'I don't care or know' through to 'mind your own business'.

Love birds

This pair was enjoying a long nuzzle and cuddle on my kitchen window sill this morning until they sensed me aiming my camera at them and then abruptly parted.

Yours, etc...

I was listening to an interesting program on Radio National which depicted correspondence exchanged between two people who met several times over four weeks in Melbourne sometime during the nineteenth century and who then maintained a long distance friendship by correspondence. Writing in long hand of course they exchanged news about their daily lives and opinions on all manner of issues.

Listening to the actors giving life to the letters I was struck by the thought that blogging is a modern day equivalent of the correspondence based lifestyle of more than a hundred years ago.

Not an original thought on my part no doubt, but a revelation for me anyway.

Floating down the Nile again...

It appears that the Premier is about to backdown on the issue of gay adoption to appease the Reverend Fred Nile and effectively purchase his support for other legislation.

Of course we all know that religious heterosexuals are the only ones suitable to be parents and are the best role models. Just ask Mel Gibson.