The Tardy Tigress

Argh, I’m late...

Not like possibly pregnant type of late, just I should have had this published yesterday....but in my defence...I have a man.

While I can imagine all the women nodding right now without need for further explanation, this is no ride on the gendered: “Men are just like extra kids” bandwagon. Instead, it’s more to do with the fact that mine is only here one week out of three...and he is currently home...and a distraction (albeit an adorable one).

Just to clear things up, the Kevman would love be home 7 days a week but works FIFO, a common practice with Australian mining companies involving a ‘Fly In Fly Out’ roster to his place of work. While it pays handsomely it can be hard on relationships with some workers being away from their families for around four weeks and only home for nine days.

For us, the Kevman’s roster means 15 days away and six at home. We are luckier than most and like to appreciate every moment together.

Which brings me back to my original dilemma...

That of tearing myself away from joint activities to work on my individual writing pursuits.

You see, the Kevman and I love playing games together, going shopping together, going out to dinner and/or a movie together, sitting around having a drink and chatting together, visiting friends together...

In short, we’re enough to make even a diehard romantic puke, but when the alternative is 14 nights of Skype and 15 days of Facebook Messenger, you kinda dig the real life stuff that bit more.

But a Tigress has gotta do, what a Tigress has gotta do! 

The show must go on!

The...

Oooh, I think he’s waking up...

*Smiles deviously*

Look, there’s other stuff we like doing together as well ok.

See you next week! ;-)

Well it seemed like a good idea at the time.....

Now one of the perks of growing up way the hell down the bottom of the planet, is that New Zealand has some wonderful and unique native flora and fauna. Tracks and trails world renowned for their beauty and splendour....(and ability to make the occasional hiker disappear without a trace) are the stuff of legend the world over. It's rather a pretty place.

Don't get me wrong, my new home of Australia is chock full of wildlife treats as well, but unfortunately some of them try to kill you.....and very efficiently at that. This has made me a tad wary of exploring even the local park here let alone a hiking trail and does lend to me pining at times for the lush shrubbery and reassuring snakelessness of my native land.

At this point I would like to say that I have blissful memories of happily bouncing about in the bush, bonding with nature and being a prime example of fitness and health.

I would like to say this...but I can't

The most recent memory I do have is loosely summarized in the following and if you're looking for a motivational health piece, I can assure you, this isn't it.

Once upon a hiking trail....

My friend and I decided one morning, in the interests of health and well-being, to go and have a wee stroll through some of the local native wildlife (well the flora part of it - it's a bit hard to stroll through a New Zealand wood pigeon).

So we set off with a great deal of gusto to the local hiking track. Drink bottle in hand and sensible shoes afoot, we commenced our journey along the trail and felt right proud to be active and social and all that other shit we get told we should be on a regular basis.

This track, being a popular one, had several options available including going the whole nine kilometres, or settling for the more respectable three and a half kilometre loop track.

In the interests of still being able to walk the next day, we chose the latter.

Which turned out to be a very smart idea because while New Zealand forest is quite breathtaking, very little of it is parked anywhere bloody flat. About 10 minutes into the venture I was rudely reminded of how much my fitness has deteriorated in the last year.

My friend, also not the fittest, was faring little better. "Time for a stop I feel" she huffed, as we neared the first lookout. I thought this was a sterling idea and promptly took to briskly leaning against a tree.

Once our breath had stopped exiting our bodies at quite such a frantic rate of knots, and we had analysed the surrounding greenery and creatures therein for way longer than was necessary, we continued.

After what seemed like hours, but was possibly only another 10 minutes we reached the path to the first lookout point. This was where I encountered something that had been all but a foreign concept up until that point: downhill. This would have been just peachy if my legs wanted to cooperate. I think they had the climbing wobbles....sort of like speed wobbles but...slower. "Tell you what..." I said to my mate, "...how about you pop down and have a little looksee and I'll supervise from up here"  I kinda figured that this was a better option than risking snowballing my unfit ass down a set of very pointy steps.

Now supervising is hard work, so I sat down. I sat down again too when we hauled ourselves back to the track proper. And I had never appreciated sitting down quite so much in my life.

Another thing I appreciated was the apple I brought. Only this was no ordinary apple; by the time I got my hands it, it had morphed into ambrosia. I savoured every bite of it and probably took twice as long as necessary to eat it due to putting off the heavy duty act that would need to follow it, that of standing up.

But it was while we were lunching on the fruit of the heavens that we saw the most interesting creatures of the day. Now I am not talking about our furred or feathered friends here...no no no; these creatures were of the humanoid persuasion. Not only were they long and lean, but they had an unusual gait. I think it's called 'running'

My friend and I looked at each other: "They were running!" we spluttered in unison. 

I wasn't impressed. Here I was struggling to get enough oxygen when completing the most basic of human forward motion, while these clowns were leaping up the slopes like a herd of demented gazelle. 

Pfft, that'll be enough of that sort of carry on, I thought. It was time to complete this journey so we could both go home and die quietly.

The second half of the quest, at least, involved mostly gentle downhill slopes and a fluttering of birdlife...or maybe that was the angels coming to take me away because I'd died back at the previous corner...I wasn't entirely sure.

Either way we made it safely back to my friend's mercifully air-conditioned vehicle. I finally concluded that I must not have departed this mortal coil due to the fact that my arse was starting to hurt like a bitch and there was foreign matter in my hair...possibly from the aforementioned fluttering entities.

"Well that was a success" my friend chirped happily "Didn't we do well?"

I wanted to strike her with my drink bottle

"To still be breathing? Yes."

"Oh it wasn't that bad once we got into it...I reckon we could make the whole distance next time...the nine kilometres!"

......

Such a shame I moved to Australia before that could happen....I'm truly devastated

So who ordered the double dose of Monday?

Another Monday has come and gone in the Tigress household and I feel I have taken the Mondayitis concept to a whole new level.

Previously I have heard people whinge and bitch on regular occasion about the requirement to rise early and return to work at the start of the week. But for the most part this fails to impress me as a reason for abject misery.

My recent Monday however....well that’s a different story.

Now in this particular weekday’s defence, it is not its fault that my beloved Kevman (he’s like a Navman but with waaaay more features :D) flies out to work every third Monday, and to be fair, he does fly back in on one two weeks later....

But to add to my cause for snuffling on this particular Monday, I kinda bent the car.

I have my darling’s Holden SV6 at my disposal while he is away and thus it was what I was driving home from the airport on this particular Monday. But, it was wet...there was a roundabout....I had to change lanes mid turn.....

It did not end well.

In fact, after careening into a curb, then up and over it (ultimately entering the road I actually required) I was somewhat rattled...though extremely grateful that it was a public holiday and no other traffic was on the road at that time of the morning. 

I briefly entertained the thought of stopping, but after noticing the car was driving like a hairy goat I just wanted to get it, and me, home to assess the damage.

Miraculously it was only the wheels that copped it: two comprehensively flat tires and a nifty new wheel alignment. I knew I needed help....then the text came:

“Did you make it home ok honey?”

Crap.

“Ummm, sort of...”

He took it well really considering the bond most guys have with their vehicle. His only concern was for my welfare and within an hour or so his Dad was at my door to investigate the state of me and the slightly injured vehicle

Now the Kevman’s Dad is a lovely man but comes equipped with a rapier wit when the mood takes him, which is frequently. On this occasion, however, he behaved in a most concerned fashion and didn't even stop to tell me what a daft tart I was for launching one and a half a ton of motor vehicle up a curb

Instead of the acidic backchat I felt I deserved, he simply grasped my shoulders and asked if I was ok.

I detected possible overtones of: “Jesus Christ lass, my boy has finally found a woman he likes, quit trying to damage yourself.”

But I could have been mistaken. He may have just been incredulous at the efficiency with which I break things.

After reassuring him I was merely feeling somewhat shaky, he went about the process of changing the tyres and generally making sure the car was drivable to get said tyres replaced....there would be no fixing these babies, they were munted.

He also informed me that I probably had a slow leak in the left rear tyre which is what would have caused me to lose traction.

In other words, it wasn't really my fault.

Alrighty then...I'll take that. And you sir, are welcome here any time you like.

Overall, it wasn’t too traumatic an experience and things could have been much worse, but Monday? Really? Sometimes you just ask to be hated.

Doesn't time fly when you're.....old

My daughter, Miss 18, and I had wee discussion via Facebook ‘tother day about her elderly overlocker (that’s ‘serger’ in North American). She inherited the machine from my mother but of late it had been misbehaving and she wasn’t too impressed with it (though to be honest if I was trying to organize four cotton threads at that speed, I’d probably collapse into a snivelling heap occasionally too.)

“I’ve tried looking it up on the Internet but it’s so old there’s nothing on there!”

“Honey, I was 13 when Grandma bought that thing....the Internet wasn’t even invented yet.”

After what must have been a bemused cyber silence my child replied: “Holy shit, at first it sounds like you're joking but it just literally wasn’t lol”

Not in 1987....hell, New Zealand only just got its first mobile network that year....but the Internet as we know it did officially ‘materialize’ (well as much as thin air can materialize) two years later in November of 1989 when Tim Berners-Lee got all technical with his  Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and the World Wide Web was born. It all became very handy dandy....just not when I was a kid.

This got me to thinking about all the other things that are the norm in my offspring’s life but were mere fantasy in my childhood.

(This is the peril of being a writer you know....your brain never just stops at the end of a conversation and moves onto the next thing like normal people...it keeps nagging at you for hours: “Can we stop and write about that stuff we were talking about earlier? Please? Can we? Like now?.....OK after the dishes. What about now? Stop doing that, just stop....STOP EATING AND WRITE DAMN YOU!)

And here I am....

Now take the Compact Disc for example (a strand of technology already becoming obsolete); it, and CD players, may well have become commercially available in 1982 but nothing much reached New Zealand shelves till several years later. I remember Miss 18, just exiting her own tweenhood, being enthralled to discover that I never owned my first CD until I was 18, by which time we could afford something to play the damn thing on. “That was only three years before I was born!” She gasped. “So what did you play music on before that? “On tapes dear child and prior to that, records.”

“Wow, you mean like those shiny round black things??”

I sent her to clean her room before I was tempted to beat her within an inch of her life with a flaccid album cover.

But other similar discussions have been had at various points along her developmental span, usually provoked by random events: I would be mid account of a childhood adventure when she would ask: “Why didn’t you just text?”

“Because I didn’t have a cell phone.”

“You di....oh wow....so did you like actually ring people and stuff.”

“Well normal people did, I had a pathological fear of phones so avoided them wherever possible...but yes, telephoning was the norm.”

“So did you have email?”

“No”

“A computer??”

“When I was a teenager we got one; we had a Commodore 64 that played arcade type games and stuff.”

“So like Granddad’s Wolfenstein?”

“No those games needed Windows or something similar and that (as you would recognize it) didn’t come out until the 90,s....these games were DOS based.”

“Huh?”

“Disc Operating Sys.....you know the black screen you sometimes see when a computer is booting up? We used to play in there.”

“I didn’t even know you could DO that!!”

“Live and learn, Ducky”

It was even more entertaining listening to her discuss these matters of generational difference with my father:

“Your Grandmother...”he would extol, waggling an earnest finger “you’re grandmother will tell ya clear as anything...there was none of this being driven to school in shit weather carry on in her day, no no, she used to have to walk to school, even in the snow and sleet and rain and hail, and it was uphill, she’ll tell ya! Uphill both ways!!”

At which point my mother would bellow from the kitchen: “I do bloody not say that you lying old git!” or words to that effect.

You should have seen when he got to the bit about the dinosaurs!

Anywho...

I’ve discovered that ultimately one does have to accept the transition of life as you know it. It happens to us all; little tell-tale events will regularly remind you that your time of being ‘current’ has indeed come and gone, or is at least slipping ominously from your grasp....all those things you found so super important in your youth are now a foreign language to the next generation.

And if you’re lucky it looks a little something like this...

I found Miss 18 and her eight year old sister rummaging around in the garage one day hunting for God knows what when I heard the eldest exclaim: “OH...MYGOD...look, look at this!!

“What is it?” Lil Blondie’s face crinkled into nonchalant curiosity.

“It’s my Tamagochi!” my teenager squeaked, her face aglow with memories of her deep amusement with the tiny toy. “I use to play on this thing for hours when I was your age!”

“You seriously used to play on THAT!” the Blonde one snorted. “Didn't you have an iPad or anything?”

It was almost poetic...

I print, therefore I....must've finally installed the damn thing

It looked so innocent, sitting there in its cardboard kennel, peeking out from behind polystyrene with only a tiny black glint from its shiny bits. Printers can seem that way, innocuous, but so full of promise....

Until you actually try and use them.

Now electronic devices in general are not to be trifled with, but printers are just a law unto themselves; you show nary a moment’s weakness and you’re gone (probably insane). Should you ever need to install one of these devices, my advice is to approach the situation in a calm fashion, with stable blood sugar levels and possibly some vodka.

 With this in mind, and supervised by Max, the resident cat, I removed the box

And the polystyrene

And the plastic bag

And the instruction manuals and disc taped to the plastic bag

And the twenty seven pieces of padding and blue tape that held everything to every other goddamn thing.

I’ve seen fewer layers on riot police.

But the naked beast looked impressive, resplendent in its gleaming plasticity and when I plugged it in, little lights came on so I figured things were definitely looking promising....how could it go wrong?

I figured, since it could be a wireless type printer that I would test the theory and have it in the office while my laptop remained in the dining room. Thus I sat determinedly in front of my computer with the installation disc in one hand and various sheets of instructions in the other.

Step One: “Install ink cartridges into the printer”

Right, yes...I knew that....

Back to the office I went.

With only slight drama and furrowing of brow I managed to get four cartridges installed into the correct spaces

I returned to my computer prior to reading the next bit which involved knowing what the screen was displaying after said cartridges were in place.

I returned once again to the office and checked that the screen did indeed show the required fields; so far, so good. And pre-empting further shenanigans, I chose to continue reading whilst still standing in the office.

“You may now insert the installation disc into your computer”(Had I returned to the dining room prior to reading this I swear to God it would have said something else....the writing would have morphed like a Harry Potter newspaper into: “Please ensure your printer’s doodah switch is set to neutral” or something)

I returned, once again, to the laptop and inserted the disc into the drive. The disc congratulated me on purchasing the product and then asked me if I would like to install it.

What else do you think I want to do with it?

I click “Install”

“Please ensure you computer is close to the printer during the installation.”

“Oh for f..........fine, just fine”

I detach my laptop from its auxiliary speakers, power cable, mouse and USB hard drive and move it into a snugly position with the prima donna printer.  

“You have 10 minutes to complete the installation before the process will auto-cancel”

Yeah, yeah, all right, don’t get your megabytes in a twist.

Miraculously, also supervised by the cat, the installation goes smoothly. While waiting, I get shown various pleasant pictures including one of a row of five smiling little kiddie faces; no Asian kid or any child with a serious amount of pigmentation, but hey the little pink and coffee coloured cherubs were adorable. It's a nice start I guess.

But I digress.

“Installation complete!”

Oooh look, an exclamation mark, they’re as excited as I am.

Now lemme print something...

“Would you like to print a test sheet”

“Why yes, yes I would” I audibly reply. There is nothing quite like interacting with home computers I've discovered, to get you talking to inanimate objects. Well that and using a self service kiosk at the supermarket.

The printer roared into life with a set of random staccato noises that sounded something akin to a typewriter having an orgasm. I waited with childlike anticipation for the paper to exit out the correct orifice; which, I astutely noted, could only happen if I put some in in the first place. Fortunately, I achieved this prior to the process reaching the good bit.

I needn't have panicked, however, all I got was three dotted, coloured boxes in the top left hand corner of the page. Well at least the yellow, cyan and magenta were playing the game. What the hell the black was up to was anyone’s guess.

After unsuccessfully printing two more test sheets, in a fashion similar to how one repeatedly clicks on a frozen computer screen to get it to work, I decided to check the ink cartridges again; which was a very good idea, but will only work if you can get the carriage to sit anywhere sensible; i.e. not under the side of the printer where it currently was.

With the reluctance of a man, I consulted the manual.

“How to change a printer cartridge”

I got this.

“Once the carriage moves to the central position....”

I don’t got this.

Eventually I find the bit in the bowels of the manual (you know, where they put all the really useful shit) that explains what to do when you need to change a cartridge prior to being prompted. And it is about this time that I discover that the little yellow taggy thing hadn't been removed from the black cartridge....which of course was the cat’s fault, he was supervising.

But at long last I could print.

And I did, apparently a little much.

“Your ink levels are critically low”

Sooooo, about that vodka.

Queen For A Day

I just turned forty.

I’m not sure how I feel about this.

Indeed, how is one ‘supposed’ to feel at such a supposedly pivotal point in life? Overjoyed? Disgruntled? Or just relieved that you can still pee in the right place and the dementia hasn’t set in yet?

Maybe I should be more into it, maybe I should try harder, but this whole transition to middle age has left me rather nonplussed if I’m honest. I didn’t even bother with a party. No cake, no candles, no otherworldly amount of alcohol that would make even Keith Richards raise an eyebrow. Although, to be fair, most of my friends are still happily ensconced in the Shaky Aisles of New Zealand and at NZ$1200 a pop, I doubt, short of tickets in the post, that any of them would have accepted the invite anyway.

I opted instead for a cocktail or two and sushi with my significant other - a man who it must be said did an exceptional job on the gift front with Queen + Adam Lambert tickets, jewellery and my pride and joy, a singing stubbie holder for the Aussie AFL team the Fremantle Dockers. The former elicited squeals of delight, the latter also elicited squeals of delight and, well, the ring was a damn fine effort too. I mean what more does a girl need? With this I was truly content.

But I can’t help thinking I should have wanted to do something more: Scale Everest perhaps, run a marathon, or at the very least have gotten another tattoo.

But no. I settled, instead, for the annual Facebook celebrity status where birthday wishes come flying at you from people you haven’t heard from since probably last birthday and a rigorous game of Rummiking. Which I won by the way.

I wonder if Adam Lambert felt any of this upon entering his thirties. I bet he had a party; gold lame and glitter flying around, hor dourves in the shape of little microphones, Chianti for all and Jameson’s Irish Whiskey for the inside few.

Really, I surreptitiously slid rather than boldly stampeded from my dirty thirties into my naughty forties; stealthily ambushed the next decade like it was a rogue elephant, albeit a quite one, in the corner of my room. This is not necessarily a bad thing. But. Shouldn't I feel something more momentous about all of this, more exhilarating even? Shouldn't I feel more appreciative of the moment? With all the diseases, natural disasters, political and religious unrest and idiot drivers in the world today, it’s quite the achievement just to have made it this far! Shouldn't I be smelling a new sweetness in the air? Smiling at small children more? Or be bursting to donate time to the elderly and take an interest in politics?

I'm just not feeling it eh.

No, I think I will just have to accept the fact that I simply don’t give a toss about the aging process, or marking particular increments thereof. Don’t get me wrong, I am a jolly grateful type of lass, but all this contemplation and analysis has hardly triggered the endorphin response. Ultimately, I doubt I will remember my fortieth birthday as an epiphany generating day of wonder. Instead, I feel, it will be fondly looked back upon for its Japanese cuisine, exquisite company and a sequinned guy wearing heels that would have me on my ass in five seconds.

And another one bites the dust.

Cheers!

  

What? When? Huh...o.0?

My child just turned 17.

I don't recall giving my permission for this.

Last thing I remember, she was still getting her shoes on the wrong feet and discovering the joys Play Doh. Sometimes both at once.

What the hell happened in the 13 odd years since then!

Mind you, there was that bit where she went to school...that took up some time. Then there was that bit where she stopped going to school....that took one day.

Then there was the bit where she discovered boys. Her father and I were kinda hoping she would hold off till about 25 for that one, but, it was not too be.

And there was also the bit where she discovered every hair modification product known to humankind. Along with tattoos, piercings, spiky shoes and the stretching of ears.

Yeah, ok, that's starting to jog the memory.

But it's been mostly fun all up. The advantage of co-parenting from different houses, I have found, is that when one's adolescent becomes.....challenging, you can always say: "sod off and visit your father". I figure I can't have been too revolting to live with though...she always came back!

Now I'm not going to say we are out of the woods yet, but so far she is not pregnant, addicted to any substance, or affiliated with any criminal organisation. This, I think, is worth celebrating. As is the fact she is fervently studying hairdressing at the moment and doing a damn fine job of it I must say....well on her way to qualified employment

I reckon that's a fair trade for letting the kid have earlobes she could now poke ping pong balls through.

Happy Birthday my baby girl :) xoxo