This gives me the ............

I am an enormous fan of getting older.
Because lets face it, the alternative is so very, very quiet and still.
However there are some 'fringe benefits' that come with aging that at times we could all do without.
For example, medical check-ups that require more than a light shone in your ears and a look at your tongue.
I'm talking about those little one day procedures that involve tubing and wiring and a far-too- young-looking nurse who hands you small containers with screw caps and asks you to fill them with various fluids.
THIS I did not sign on for.
As a woman I am more than familiar with the term " Just try to relax".
And a straw pole taken over the years has revealed the unkind truth that no doctor on the planet- and I mean nowhere- has mastered the art of the dignified pap-smear.
By choice, I try to attend female physicians for this annual delight, however in my experience not even the best trained, most compassionate health care worker has ever come up with a fun loving and enthralling way of sticking an ice-cold speculum inside your girlie bits and scratching off the inner layer of a cervix with a paddle pop stick.
Only nerve endings inside the first inch my arse.
And before anyone starts jumping up and down and telling me that things have improved, and that there are alternatives to cold steal on soft tissue, let me just point out that no matter what instrumentation is being used, the truth is that if men had to have this done every year, they would have invented a way to do it while you were at the pub or eating a pizza in front of the telly.
No woman- no woman- looks at her calender and says " Oh Great, I get to have my snatch examined for cancer today !!!"
No female asks for this for Christmas.
Thankfully, most women now under the age of 16 will never have to face this disquieting event.
Due to the marvels of medical science, a vaccine has been invented and handed out to the majority of teenage women in the western and wealthy world.
I have no words to speak when I think of my sisters in poorer places. Here is where my heart breaks.
But back to my rant.
As well as THAT procedure, which is not age related, and the occasional peeing into a cup ( 'Honeymooners disease you say Dr Dipshit? Yes, that's hilarious, yes, I get the reference, yes, it is just as funny hear it a second time"), I have been lucky enough to get away with the average amount of pokes and prods as time has gone by.
I did once have the indignity of having the words 'HIV NEGATIVE' written in BOLD RED TEXTA across my file by my Muslim obstetrician in Malaysia, in spite of the fact that this was my third child, and I had slept with the same man since I was 17.
I remember the nurse took 10 minutes to read those 2 words, and then walked around the office with my file under her arm, and the affirmation of my lack of 'uncleanliness and disease' facing the outside.
Perhaps she thought she was doing me a favour.
After all, you can't tell with these so called' liberated white women'.
But I'll get over the implication. Eventually.
So thus far, thus good- as they say- but recently a very dear friend of mine, whom I shall not name as I would very much like her to remain a friend of mine, fell into the catchment area of requiring more than a once over by a GP.
She was told it was time for a colonoscopy. A check up only.Just to sure.
See, now this is where I start getting 'thing'.
Because there are certain bits of my body - namely my anus-I like to treat as mine, and mine alone.
I am not a baby, I know the saying ' If you don't eat, you don't shit, and if you don't shit you die'- but when it comes to sharing my shit, the dying option looks like a genuine alternative.
I have many friends - gay,straight,bi,the big fella who lives near the beach- who assure me that the anus is a hole much maligned by the media and the popular press. They say, I should embrace the dark passage and be at one with my effluent.
Honestly? I am not.
I try, but it makes me giggle, and then I get all 'thing', and there the conversation ends. And words that are otherwise innocuous seem rude and funny. Like 'ends'.
I am giggling even now.
And I know it's embarrassment, and that I should get over it, and I know that it's probably Freudian and related to my childhood, but God forbid, when the day comes that MY trusted medical practitioner says "Wendy, It's time we checked out your rectum" guaranteed I'll be up out of that chair and out the door faster than Tiger Woods can fill a hole.
So what's a girl to do?
My friend handled it with the energy and decorum she is noted for.
"TODAY I AM GOING IN FOR MY COLONOSCOPY" she proudly typed " and in other news....blah blah blah etc". And that is cool. Way cool.
Because the fear of something gives it more magic and power than it deserves, and by naming it and normalizing it, she took away the mystique and shadow that surrounded it, at least for me. And for that, my dear one, I applaud you.
I shall face this aging prospect with the same vigor I always have, but now I shall also be armed with the weapon of adopted courage in the face of collecting bodily fluids in a jar.
"Ha ha!!" I shall laugh when they hand me a paper bag with the words 'stool sample' on the front "I WAS thinking of a bowl of Carbanara and a salad for dinner tonight, but seeings as I'm now eating for two....how about a Curry and a plate of fresh figs?".
( love you J.)

Come fly with me, lets fly, lets fly away......

.........12.....13......14.....15........16..........17.......take a guess at what we are doing this morning.......18......19........and if you guessed counting wrinkles you can go round the back and smack yourself.
Today, we are counting blessings.
I know it's cliched but as I have pointed out to anyone silly enough to question cliche, the reason they exist is because they are true.
And the truth will out, as I used to say, and still do.
(I know that when doling out hokey wisdom it makes more sense to quote others- usually our mothers- but I can tell you right now I seriously struggle to remember two sensible words that came out of my mothers mouth within the same conversation, let alone the same sentence, so there it is. When doling out Hokey wisdom, I quote myself. It's safer and at least I know where I've been.)
But back to blessings.
Last week was Chinese New Year, and we are now within the Year of Tiger. 4 days of enforced public holidays, which for an avowed workaholic is like torture. It was also the coldest week in Hong Kong in about 40 years. Cold and Grey, and as luck would have it, it was a week where I felt it would be prudent to watch my pennies, as I had just enjoyed a couple of months of family time with my Kinder, and that always empties the coffers. So there I was, cold and alone- violin music starts here- in my little flat, with only a demanding ex-tomcat for company, wondering what my future held- remember it was New Years- and what it all meant anyway.
I watched a lot of TV and made a lot of soup.
OK, in truth I caught up with a whole bunch of people on 2 of the four days, but for the other hours I wallowed.
Wallowed in a way that only a divorced woman who owns a cat and who is entering her 40's with her children having flown the nest- yes, yes, pushed out- can.
Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeep wallowing. Drowning in it.
Watching all 900 of the National Geographic channels did not help.
I had thought that if I stuck to real life TV, and saw what the rest of the world was doing it might help.
In my mind the logic ran that if I couldn't travel to exotic climes that weekend, then at least I could watch people who could.
Major Mistake.
There is nothing more depressing than watching enthusiastic mid lifers, or worse, babies in their twenties run about trying new cuisine on the back of motorbikes while chasing elephants under 30 degree heat while you are eating water crackers with peanut butter, wrapped up in a blanket, sitting on the sofa fighting for leg room with a cat.
NOT exotic, by any stretch.
But also not that bad.
You see, for all my moaning, the truth was, my life - even at that point- was just not that bad.
I had a blanket, and a plentiful supply of peanut butter, and an animal for company, and a TV to watch and a phone to speak with my loved ones.....are you counting ? That's 5........and many other comforts that, although relatively small, are actually real.
I call these little mini moments of self indulgent sadness my 'eccentric depressions'.
I have suffered at the hands of full blown depression, and am ever vigilant for the signs that lead to that dark path.
Once was enough thank you, never again.
But my 'eccentric depressions' are like tiny emotional tantrums that blow in for anywhere from 2 minutes to 2 days, and are marked by the irreverent sense of humour that accompanies them.
"Of course you are out of loo paper" they say " It's part of the shitty day you are having"
You see what I mean.
I happened to catch a documentary, whilst I was wallowing, on something called 'The Missing White Woman Syndrome'.
" Here I am !!! " I shouted at the television, even though the syndrome relates to the coverage by the media of the abduction and deaths of attractive white women as opposed to the abduction and deaths of ugly non-white women.
The irony here of course being that a) after 2 days at home, unwashed and not caring, I was not only not missing, I was also lookin' ugly and non-white and b) the TV can not hear me.
But talk to the TV I did, and ate bad-for-me things, and drank coffee even at night time, and read my horoscope just in case it revealed anything I didn't already know, and went to a bio-rhythm web site and typed in my birth date, and looked up ' 40 year old women' in google images and compared myself, and did all of the wacky and stupid pointless things that one does when one is feeling directionless.
I know I am not the only one to have days like these.
John Lennon- RIP- wrote a song that said exactly that.
" Nobody told me there'd be days like these, strange days indeed, most peculiar Mumma- Woah"
I couldn't have said it better myself.
And they pass.
Wouldn't you know it, the day after the holiday, when I needed to get back to work, it all lifted- except the weather- but that was OK.
It's amazing what power exists in a warm shower and clean clothes.
Chinese New Year also means Lai See- lucky money- and a number of my clients whom I am certain view me as a slightly odd version of their own families mentally adrift spinster sister, handed me pretty red packets filled with cash, and told me to " buy myself something nice".
Perhaps they had picked up on my desire to melt into my own pity puddle, or perhaps they noticed that my hair needs a bit of a trim , or they just wanted to ensure that fate would not be unkind to them this year ( I know, I know) but what ever the reason, their generosity humbled and affirmed me, and I thank them for that.
The kindness of others is a blessing indeed.
The Year of the Tiger is known amongst the Chinese to be a year of challenge and change, but MY horoscope- that of the Rooster- says it is a year to take risks and be brave. The Tiger will have my back- as they say- and my bravery will be rewarded.
So here is to that, away from my eccentric depressions of last week, and with the weather improving, and at least a thousand blessings at my disposal, may I take the time to wish you and yours Kung Hei Fat Choi , and I hope you will join me this year in a bit of sky diving, sky larking and staying up late.
W.

They Burn Witches, Don't They ?

Do you ever stop and wonder about what it would be like to live in another time?
I do a lot.
As an inveterate day dreamer I am prone to mental wanderings.
But my day dreams never involve winning lotteries, or accolades or sporting events.
Likewise my brain never ventures into the murky waters of revenge killings or trap setting for those who 'done me wrong',
luckily for some.
I do, on occasion, consider what it would be like to discover myself sitting next to Mr 'Lets just leave this place and make some noise in private', but experience has taught me that THESE imaginings are best left for the privacy of the bedroom.
I blush too easily, and my lung capacity is such that my heavy breathing causes a discernible draught.
This draws the kind of attention not always found delightful OF a lady IN the street.
Oddly that type of behaviour is found desirable IN a lady OF the street, however this lady is not of our concern today.
No, my mental vacations take the part of what it would be like to be me in Victorian England, or perhaps the time of the Tudors.
It is a reflection of my education that my dreams take place in a country I have only briefly visited, and not of some small fishing village in Portugal or newly industrialised Germany, which would be just more appropriate to my ancestry.
I imagine myself clad in floor length linen and ribbon dresses surrounded by gardens filled with flocks and topiary trees, not dressed neck to knee in black velvet lined with fur trudging through the snow in search of wild boar, or standing on the shores wishing my father safe return from his whaling trip.
Seriously, my ancestors were whale hunters- the old fashioned 'kill them by hand kind' which is how they ended up in New Zealand. It's true.
As a mad keen lover of Whales and all things ocean, the irony of this fact is not lost on me.
But back to mind-only-time-travel.
I sometimes look around my life and try to imagine what kinds of things would translate to another century.
My fixation is with jobs.
For example, a person working in a pub in 2010 does almost exactly the same job that a person working in a pub in 1020 would have done. If there were pubs then, which I think there were.
Unless they only came into existence after 1066 and all that, which I doubt.
A beautician who removes the unwanted hair from a woman in 2010 would no doubt recognise at least some of the job specs specified in an ad placed in the Pharaoh Daily in Egypt circa 21AD.

Wanted Beautician Must be good with women and be prepared to listen to endless bitching about how stupid men are, and how said clients friends swear they haven't had any work done when it is clear that they have.Ability to tune out an advantage.
Men may not apply - unless they are gay. Doctors(of a fashion), priests, bakers, jewelry makers, carpenters, tax collectors, mayors, seamstresses, wig makers- all these things are real jobs.They have history, they have tenure. They existed before, and when I imagine myself living in a world hundreds of years ago, I imagine these people around me.
I imagine a castle where textile weavers and fishmongers surround the walls, and where daily life and industry co-exist.
I try to place myself in that miasma and then for shits and giggles, I try to place others.
Airline Pilot.
Hack driver? Chariot racer?
TV News reader.
Oracle? Court jester ? Town Crier?
Electrician.
Magician ? Necromancer? Conjurer ?
Computer programmer........I draw a blank.
There are very few medieval equivalencies for jobs of this nature, and before you get your wind up and point out that most of these jobs involve an element that had yet to be harnessed in 1800 or before, let me draw your attention to The Stock Market, and all who dwell within.
I live - by choice- in a city whose 2 main concerns are food, and money.
And not always in that order.
The food part is dealt with nicely by our friends in the north, and the billions of others around the world who hand feed cows and organically raise apples.
The money part is dealt with almost as nicely by a group of men all called Michael or Mike or Mikey who drive around in flash cars they loaned from the bank and sharp suits they have made by men called Mr Halamantomanti. (Actually that's just a made up name, all tailors in HK are named Mr Lee- even the Indian ones).
Mike- or The Big Mr M to his mates- has a job title that befits his exulted status as a mover and shaker in the worlds monetary stage.
He has, of course, been to Uni where he studied Finance, or at least Geography, and at the age of 25 he is a fully fledged card carrying Futures Trader.
That is, he tries to predict what the costs of things will be later on, and bets other peoples money on whether or not he will be correct.
Like a Soothsayer, or a prophet, a prognosticator, an auger.
Or a Witch.
Most people would never think of handing their money over to a man with the title 'Seer' or 'Tea-leaf reader' on their card.
But give that man an office with a window, and suddenly he can see into the future.
I'm not picking on Futures Traders. There are hundreds of jobs in the finance industry that are equally circumspect.
You will recall there were money lenders mentioned in the bible, but they are what is known these days as 'Loan sharks'- and so they don't count.
It's the ones who do nothing, make nothing, create nothing and then sell it for a commission that come in for special attention here today.
Last year, The Year of the Ox, saw enormous swings and downward shifts in currencies and finance. People lost their jobs, their homes and, in some tragic cases, their lives due to the ramifications of bad decisions made by people- mostly men- in blue suits who had 'buck passer' and 'arse licker' invisibly printed on their name cards.
This year, The Year of the Tiger, we hope for better.
We hope that the people with real jobs survive the crystal-ball gazing forecasting of our clairvoyant overlords.
So take a hint people.
If you find yourself day dreaming as I do, wondering what your life would be like in 1455, and suddenly see yourself on a chair at the end of a long pole being dunked into a duckpond, consider a career change, or at least learn to juggle and fiddle more than the numbers.

Stupid Is as Stupid Does ( What DOES that mean?)

I think I may have just Cyber bullied someone.
This shocking disclosure may land me in a lot of hot water, but the trouble is, it kind of happened before I realised what I had done.
And once it was out there, it was too late.
It would be fair to say that I do have a reputation for speaking my mind.
I have worked VERY hard to get that reputation, and I hold onto it with a death grip that would impress a Boa Constrictor.
Speaking the truth is a dangerous business, and only those armed with the heart of a Dragon and gigantic gonads made of granite can carry it off.
Thankfully I was born with both.
The gonads are undescended for those of you with a medical degree,the Dragons Heart can be seen with a squirt of Luminol and those orange plastic glasses you see on CSI.
But here's the thing, because although I do believe in calling it as you see it, I was also born with a conscience- damn shit to hell- and it's that little bastardy voice of reason that has me confessing my crime.
You see, as well as my 'outspokenness', my other endearing quality is that I HATE stupidity.
Loathe it to a gut wrenchingly visceral level.
Unremarkably perhaps, pointing out stupidity to stupid people is like explaining dinosaurs to creationists, or trying to understand Sarah Palin's daughters take on birth control.
You can not help people who do not want to know what they do not know they do not know.
And the person I Cyber Bullied said something VERY stupid on facebook, but instead of just ignoring it- which is what that little voice told me to do- I made a comment.
A witty, biting, honest, mocking, slightly sarcastic comment that made me giggle.
"Yes", I thought to my Dragon Hearted self " THAT was funny. That was the right thing to say. That was an appropriate response"
And then I went on my merry way.
I walked away from my notebook convinced that I had done not just a service to the community, but to mankind itself.
And here is where it gets tricky.
Because when I returned to my beloved newsfeed on my beloved facebook some hours later, I discovered that others- people like myself- had commented in the same manner.
I had opened the door and invited in a gang of 'Stupidity Snobs' to look around and trash the place.
We truth speakers are a funny lot.
Individually we can get along within society quite well.
We may inadvertently and unattractively snort every now and then in order to keep our words from coming out and hurting others, but we know when to keep ourselves in check.
True, there have been times where I have stood quietly listening to irritating twats at parties as they empty their 10 precious brain cells into the air.
I have nodded silently whilst the inside of my mouth filled with blood from biting my lip.
But I swallow that blood, baby, I suck it up Vampire style in order to stay 'nice' in public.
However, get a group of truth speakers together in a mob, and the gloves come off.
And that was what was happening online.
The beagles had caught scent of the fox, and the chase to draw first blood was on.
As the horn blower, I felt responsible.
But worse was yet to come, dear reader, because just as the venom grew more bitter- or was it sweeter, Christ I am so torn- the Fox itself spoke.
Words of defense and worse- reasons and explanations.
"What I meant was" "It was supposed to sound like" "It's because...."
And others stepped in- other stupid people- " That's right, and I understand where you are coming from because blah blah blah" and other helpful affirmations.
Hey, stupid people have posses too ya know. Look at Chris Browne and Kanye West.
Hang on.
Suddenly I don't feel so bad.
Perhaps rather than thinking of myself as a total bitch, which is where I was at the start of this diatribe, I am beginning to feel like a liberator.
An uncoverer of the truth.
Which is all that this is about anyway.
Calling a spade a spade, and NOT a shovel used to heap platitudes on cerebrally challenged morons masquerading as valuable members of society.
And why should I keep those secrets to myself?
If you are so unself-aware as to publicly humiliate yourself on a networking site, be prepared to be skewered by the sword you so recklessly wave about.
Because there are three things I know for sure:
1-Even people who really shouldn't can/and will breed.
2-Life is not fair, get over it ( Thank You Bill Gates for that one)
3-Accepting and repeating the idea that an Omnipotent God placed dinosaur bones into the earths crust to be found by hairless apes, rather than accepting that such creatures existed simply because ancient texts make no reference to them is like publicly slagging off at your domestic staff.
Oops, I've done it again.

A way to a cats heart is through his stomach.....

I am a foodie, there is no doubt.
In fact over the past couple of months, what with my house being filled with my offspring- at least two of whom are hollow legged 6 foot plus lads- I have been SUCH a foodie that the minute everyone gets on the plane I am off to a Weight Watches meeting.
But I am quite forgiving of myself regarding this issue. Weight- fat- comes and goes with me, and for the most part I am healthy and happy, so that seems sufficient.
However fat is not the issue today.
Food labelling is.
And not just any food labelling, namely Cat Food labelling.
Because as well as having birthed 900 children, I have also acquired a rather large, rather bossy feline named Guinness who has a thing for being fed 6 times a day.
I do not blame the cat, by the way.
My apartment is not huge, and he does not have a garden to play in, so essentially the only entertainment poor old Guinness has to to sneak into hiding spaces involving black clothing and shed white hair and eat.
He does, of course, attack peoples legs in their sleep, scratch the walls and see demons in the night time like any self respecting house cat, but in the day it's all about being fed.
So feed him we do.
All of us.
Continuously.
And because there have been hordes of devoted cat lovers in the house for the past 2 months, and no one has the where with all to ask around, Guinny the nagger has managed to eat his way through several hundreds of tins of pussy-cat delicacies, which brings me to my point.
I have in my hand- I lie not- two small cans of something called 'Fancy Feast Elegant Medleys'.
The colour of the tins alone drew them off the shelves and into my shopping basket.
They are a kind of jewel like turquoise-blue/green.
If they made earrings this colour, I would wear them. If men had eyes this colour, you would marry them.
Princess Diana herself never wore a colour this delicious.
The colour of these tins of cat food make my kitchen look expensive, like an interiors special in Vogue Magazine.
Then there is the label.
Fonts that scream 'quality' in colours that offset the pressed metal replete with a picture of fluffy white prize winning pussy-cat. The kind of cat you KNOW doesn't shed on your black clothes.
The kind of cat that would rescue you from a burning house, and then sit patiently crying tears of love into your parched throat until the paramedics arrived.
The type of cat that talks.
Actually talks.
Words.
But none of this means a jot when it comes to what's inside.
You see, pet food is no longer just Pet Food.
I am holding two cans as mentioned.
The contents of one are 'Wild Salmon and Egg Souffle and Garden Greens'.
The other?
'Yellowfin Tuna Tuscany in a Savory Sauce with Long Grain Rice and Garden Greens'.
That's right.
My cat eats better than I do.
He eats better than you.
He eats better than 99 percent of the human population, which is why, right under the name of the brand is a sticker that in 2 languages reminds us that this is 'Pet Food Only'.
NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION !!!!
You are simply not good enough to eat this food.
You are lower down on the food chain than your cat.
It's official.
Oh, I have eaten such delicacies, I have.
In restaurants, where I have paid a pretty penny.
Chefs have made me meals that sound like 'Tuscan' and 'Souffle'.
But not EVERY DAY.
Not available from a can.......
A pretty can that is nicer than my clothes.
Somehow I feel that we may have skipped a few steps when it comes to feeding our pets.
They are there for companionship, and to be useful right?
In theory, cats are in our homes to catch rodents, although the sight of a mosquito sends Guinness to his hiding spot under the bed, and forces me to call his therapist for a 'talk down session'.
Souffle vegetables and hint of Yellowfin have made our pets soft and given them an inflated sense of self.
Most cats these days could not identify a mouse from 5 inches away, but can recognise the ingredients in a 'Duck Mousse' from 500 feet.
And will reject same if they suspect the duck is not organic.
As they should, and I would too. If I had the palette.
Or the opportunity.
So there-in lays the rub.
I am a sad poor cousin in the foodie department to an animal whose sole purpose is to eat and sleep and attack fantasy feathers in his dreams.
I need a better owner.