I've been meaning to write for ages, but things keep getting in the way, as they do. Maybe my commitment is lacking. Maybe I've other things to do. Whatever the reason, I haven't updated this for a while. This is neither the result of extreme excitement nor extreme boredom - the last couple of weeks have just been life, going out, getting on, stuff happening, how you expect life to be.
And then something happens that turns it all on its head. This morning was a normal monday morning, and just after 11am I was sitting having a slice of cake with some of my friends as is our want on monday mornings. And then the brunette gets a phone call with some dreadful news of an accident and the death of a colleague and a friend, except he's more than a friend to me. And as soon as I hear his name I know it's the worst of news. And the world stops. Shock is overwhelming. I can't take it in. My eyes prickle and fill with tears and other than repeating "I don't believe it", I can't speak. My mouth hangs slack, and I stare into space for the rest of the day which seems like an eternity of tightening throat, hot eyes, tears rolling down my cheeks and incomprehension.
How can this have happened to him? Why? Things like this don't happen to people I know. A man with his life ahead of him. The father of two young boys. A man who served his country. Things like this happen in the paper, to other people, something you skip over on page 5, thinking how very sad it is, and getting on with life. Except today, it's not just sad, it's devastating, and it feels like a heculean effort to get on with life.
We tried. I have the best friends and they all wanted to make sure I wasn't alone tonight and eventually, the brunette and I went for a bottle of wine and we toasted and talked of him and another who had died too young. It wasn't the normal MNC, but normal doesn't seem right today.
So, life isn't fair. There is no God. The good die young. Endless cliches. But they're cliches because they are true.
In the meantime, R.I.P Nick. A good guy.
Monday 23 November 2009
Tuesday 3 November 2009
Sat navs and SeaWorld
On more than one occasion today I have felt like crying. Not because I've seen a sad film, or a puppy being mistreated, or an old person shopping on their own (this used to break my heart when I was a checkout girl many moons ago), but through frustration caused by technology of the satellite navigation variety.
It all seemed so easy when the brother was driving over the weekend and the sat-nav told him with lots of advance warning that there was a turning coming up, which lane to be in and when we had "reached your destination". We managed to get to SeaWorld from the hotel, and then back to the state's west coast, found an IHop and then got home with no problems.
(BTW, SeaWorld was fabulous. We started off watching the dolphin show (are these shows cruel? I can't decide), then wandered around watching more dolphins, manatees, alligators, sea lions and seals, and sharks, then headed off to the Manta, a rollercoaster which starts by dragging us and the other riders face down staring at the ground up a massive hill before spinning and whipping us round all a twisty-turny track for a couple of minutes. I felt a bit sick. The afternoon was spent at the Shamu show - watching an enormous killer whale splash hundreds of surprised folk (despite them being sat in the "soak zone") - and getting drenched on the log flume. Just before leaving, i fed some sting-rays (raw prawns, fish-food-fans) which was fabulous, watching them flap and splash their way over to me, then gliding over my hand with a slight tickling and sucking sensation as they gobbled up the prawns out of my fingers.
After SeaWorld, it was back home, via an IHOP (International House of Pancakes), which has been on my wish-list since I arrived. Any place that sells itself on providing pancakes with all its meals is a winner to me. I had a spinach, mushroom and cheese omelette which arrived with three buttermilk pancakes, covered in syrup; the big brother had an all-day breakfast with a side order of pecan pie pancakes. It's just brilliant, like a pancake version of the Little Chef.)
Anyway, today the big brother went back to work and it was up to me to pick up the hire car I had booked to get around, see something of the city and, most importantly, do some shopping (clothes; I have managed to resist the lure of the supermarkets today), all in the company of the posh-lady-voiced sat nav, who insisted (I believe) on sending me off on to random highways, interstates, and other roads which turned 3 mile nip-down-the-shops into 28 mile round-trips across very long bridges. And so there were almost tears accompanying moans of "why? why have you sent me this way?? how do i get home?" All very distressing. And this was even before it took me ten minutes to realise that I had to have my foot on the brake to move the automatic gear stick into drive; I was on the verge of calling the big brother to ask him to come and get me from the shopping mall carpark.
So maybe I just don't get on with technology? Or roads? Or American cars (a chevvy by the way, i feel like an extra from a road movie)? Put all of the above together and it becomes a recipe for disaster. Tomorrow I'm heading for the beach, which is apparently "turn right out of the hotel and keep going until you get to the sea." My flight home is at 19.45. Hmmm...
It all seemed so easy when the brother was driving over the weekend and the sat-nav told him with lots of advance warning that there was a turning coming up, which lane to be in and when we had "reached your destination". We managed to get to SeaWorld from the hotel, and then back to the state's west coast, found an IHop and then got home with no problems.
(BTW, SeaWorld was fabulous. We started off watching the dolphin show (are these shows cruel? I can't decide), then wandered around watching more dolphins, manatees, alligators, sea lions and seals, and sharks, then headed off to the Manta, a rollercoaster which starts by dragging us and the other riders face down staring at the ground up a massive hill before spinning and whipping us round all a twisty-turny track for a couple of minutes. I felt a bit sick. The afternoon was spent at the Shamu show - watching an enormous killer whale splash hundreds of surprised folk (despite them being sat in the "soak zone") - and getting drenched on the log flume. Just before leaving, i fed some sting-rays (raw prawns, fish-food-fans) which was fabulous, watching them flap and splash their way over to me, then gliding over my hand with a slight tickling and sucking sensation as they gobbled up the prawns out of my fingers.
After SeaWorld, it was back home, via an IHOP (International House of Pancakes), which has been on my wish-list since I arrived. Any place that sells itself on providing pancakes with all its meals is a winner to me. I had a spinach, mushroom and cheese omelette which arrived with three buttermilk pancakes, covered in syrup; the big brother had an all-day breakfast with a side order of pecan pie pancakes. It's just brilliant, like a pancake version of the Little Chef.)
Anyway, today the big brother went back to work and it was up to me to pick up the hire car I had booked to get around, see something of the city and, most importantly, do some shopping (clothes; I have managed to resist the lure of the supermarkets today), all in the company of the posh-lady-voiced sat nav, who insisted (I believe) on sending me off on to random highways, interstates, and other roads which turned 3 mile nip-down-the-shops into 28 mile round-trips across very long bridges. And so there were almost tears accompanying moans of "why? why have you sent me this way?? how do i get home?" All very distressing. And this was even before it took me ten minutes to realise that I had to have my foot on the brake to move the automatic gear stick into drive; I was on the verge of calling the big brother to ask him to come and get me from the shopping mall carpark.
So maybe I just don't get on with technology? Or roads? Or American cars (a chevvy by the way, i feel like an extra from a road movie)? Put all of the above together and it becomes a recipe for disaster. Tomorrow I'm heading for the beach, which is apparently "turn right out of the hotel and keep going until you get to the sea." My flight home is at 19.45. Hmmm...
Sunday 1 November 2009
Supermarket sweep
I love food shopping and I can spend hours in supermarkets, wandering up and down the aisle, browsing the shelves, choosing and then returning packets or bottles or boxes. I can be there, looking at pickle and then glance at my watch and realise that I've been in the store for a couple of hours and haven't even managed half the aisles.
There's something comforting about supermarkets (I'm not quite sure what it is though), and I'm equally enamoured of ones overseas. When I lived in Sydney, I truly felt at home when I moved into a house, not because I particularly loved the house (although I continue to be amazed by the number of people you can fit into a backpackers house), but because I could start doing my weekly shop in Coles or Woolworths (R.I.P).
Since arriving stateside to meet the brother we've been to a supermarket everyday. I love this. I don't mind that it's perhaps not how people would wish to spend time on holiday, but to me, it's fantastic. It's not like we're in there for hours at a time, we just nip in to get something for breakfast or some beers, but it makes me feel like I know my way around; I'm already planning a trip when the big brother has gone back to work and I can go and get some sweets for the folk at work at home.
It hasn't only been a supermarket-shopping holiday though. Yesterday we went to the beach, saw an incredibly pointy high bridge and then headed to an ice-hockey game; I remain astounded by the patriotism I see around me and the singing of the national anthem at the most regional of events. I was a little disappointed in the hockey, both in the lack of fights during the match (we only witnessed one, and then the protagonists spent five minutes on the sidelines, which from what I could gather was only marginally more than the rest of the team, who seemed to hop on and off - over the barrier which i quite liked - whenever they felt like it) and the sorry state of the hotdog I had during one of the intervals. An hour or so drive later saw us in the theme park heaven that is Orlando, and more specifically saw me shopping in an outlet park until almost midnight.
Today we went further east to the coast, to the Kennedy Space Centre, a truly fantastic and inspiring place. We saw one of the shuttles on its stand at the launchpad ready to go up into space in the next couple of weeks, and the size of it was astounding, as was the Saturn 5 rocket. I've heard the rumours of the faked moon-landings, and having been there and seen the scale of the NASA organisation, it seems an insane conspiracy, although granted the lunar buggies and landing craft which can only be described as wrapped in tin-foil look incapable of weathering a small rain shower, let alone zero-gravity.
We finished off the day with dinner in downtown Disney, amongst the most excitable of Americans, who were describing this Yarmouth-in-Florida as awesome (had they even been up the road??), and then made a trip to the Publix supermarket close to our apartment to pick up some beer. Just perfect.
There's something comforting about supermarkets (I'm not quite sure what it is though), and I'm equally enamoured of ones overseas. When I lived in Sydney, I truly felt at home when I moved into a house, not because I particularly loved the house (although I continue to be amazed by the number of people you can fit into a backpackers house), but because I could start doing my weekly shop in Coles or Woolworths (R.I.P).
Since arriving stateside to meet the brother we've been to a supermarket everyday. I love this. I don't mind that it's perhaps not how people would wish to spend time on holiday, but to me, it's fantastic. It's not like we're in there for hours at a time, we just nip in to get something for breakfast or some beers, but it makes me feel like I know my way around; I'm already planning a trip when the big brother has gone back to work and I can go and get some sweets for the folk at work at home.
It hasn't only been a supermarket-shopping holiday though. Yesterday we went to the beach, saw an incredibly pointy high bridge and then headed to an ice-hockey game; I remain astounded by the patriotism I see around me and the singing of the national anthem at the most regional of events. I was a little disappointed in the hockey, both in the lack of fights during the match (we only witnessed one, and then the protagonists spent five minutes on the sidelines, which from what I could gather was only marginally more than the rest of the team, who seemed to hop on and off - over the barrier which i quite liked - whenever they felt like it) and the sorry state of the hotdog I had during one of the intervals. An hour or so drive later saw us in the theme park heaven that is Orlando, and more specifically saw me shopping in an outlet park until almost midnight.
Today we went further east to the coast, to the Kennedy Space Centre, a truly fantastic and inspiring place. We saw one of the shuttles on its stand at the launchpad ready to go up into space in the next couple of weeks, and the size of it was astounding, as was the Saturn 5 rocket. I've heard the rumours of the faked moon-landings, and having been there and seen the scale of the NASA organisation, it seems an insane conspiracy, although granted the lunar buggies and landing craft which can only be described as wrapped in tin-foil look incapable of weathering a small rain shower, let alone zero-gravity.
We finished off the day with dinner in downtown Disney, amongst the most excitable of Americans, who were describing this Yarmouth-in-Florida as awesome (had they even been up the road??), and then made a trip to the Publix supermarket close to our apartment to pick up some beer. Just perfect.
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