Rooms

Click. 

Click. 

And there it was. Spread across the screen. Brick and tiles holding its breath for the next family. 

Click.

The table. 

It was familiar. The same table, they’d sat and laughed, chasing peas around plates. She remembers her oldest, sitting heavily on her knee laughing. His grandmother walking tickling ducks up each of his arms. His father beaming. 

Giggles and glee raining over the table woven through sips of wine, and carefree talk. 

The meals, perfect in size and taste. Never enough, for fuller, greedier appetites.

Scattered accents around one table, sharing tales and familial anecdotes

The rum. Splashing with generosity. The boom of tales woven through past realities, threads of embellishment of memory lapse and some intended creativity. Never an empty glass.

The fleeting touch of a hand, a brushed kiss. Now gone, just as tears have now dried. 

Drifting through the empty rooms, memories wafting, hazy and light. Dark and distorted. A maze of real and reimaged. 

The warmth is lost through the distance of time at that table, all together. A family. 

And now, at life’s end, the memories are all that are left, to press against the walls and live in the minds of those who had their friendship, or bore the brunt of their tongues. All have different faces for different people. Facades to fall and change, the chameleon of any life lived.  

Closing the window. The screen again blank. 

Leaving. 

Two lives gone and only memories left to drift around in an empty house, and saddened hearts. 

Gone.

Spinning

Was listening to a woman lamenting the dating pond, I nodded in all the right places. Big deal, the pond's been full of paunchy, over-sized egotistical fish for a while.

However, I have a penchant for enjoying other folks misery who sidle up to the pond and dip their toes in, and totally rate all those who dive in without goggles.

The woman's body was as hard as her finely tuned nails. A well-shaped ironing board if you like - in fact, her forehead looked like it might have had a bit of heat on it. She decried the lack of honesty, the tall cyber profile miniaturising upon arrival in real time. Creativity should of course be applauded.

Anyway, it led me to a little meander down Cyber Dating Lane.

Profile ... doesn't look like a cat murderer. Bit follicularly challenged, so aren't we all!  Righty ho ... Click ... Click ... and so it began.  

Swapping witty cyber missives, the coupling sounded promising. We had so much in common:

1. we could both type
2. we could both spell
3. we could both spell (this is very important!). 

A match made in cyber-heaven!

Then the phone chat in real time.

Conversation flowed, and little bits of lives (or those of fabrication) learnt.

The conversation veered to the gym.

I noted I had gone to the gym, in fact the sticker is still on my car. The sticker has proved to have a great deal more exercise than I ever had.

He noted that he enjoyed spin classes.

Spin? The only spinning I did was after a couple of glasses of wine on an empty stomach.

The conversation spun out of control, spin this, spin that. Hello? Are you mad? Who wants to be surrounded by pert sweaty bottoms? Ummm ... don't answer that.

A pause.

I needed to interject something slim-full and gym-full.

"Well," I said. "Perhaps I should mention ..."

An anticipatory pause. 

"I'm more Moby Vick than Nemo."

And that was the end of that cyber coupling.

Time for a hot chocolate. And might peel off sticker, I'm obviously not a promising marketer and that might be seen as false advertising.

Cut

The power is off. Cut. Scissors to our cyber-umbilical cord.

It’s as if time has been poured into our hands, but we are not quite sure what to do with it. There is no internet to explore, no funny cat pictures to amuse us on screens or soap operas to delight us with their chaotic, unbelievable storylines. There are no gasps of delight by moments captured in time by snappers of our overpaid jesters. There are no pictures to be had of celebrities caught the nanosecond they step outdoors without makeup, or where a small piece of pixelated skin is deemed to be cellulite. And oh Lordy, let alone are we able to view those poor, wiry saps, where a pea consumed the night before, has shown them to now be harboring a baby bump.

What is to be done with this time, which suddenly seems much heavier a burden. It doesn’t feel as heavy as we fritter it away on Facebook, wondering why you’re reading that somebody is bored/itching/watching TV. Why on earth would you put up a picture where it looks like you’ve been constipated for a month? Where is the self-censor as the selfies populate our screens great and small. Those mouths, slightly agog, are not alluring, it’s as if the fish has missed the hook.

Perhaps I should move away from this screen, to see what can be done as the light fades. Time drifts by much more slowly with our attention not stolen by unexpected, electronic burglars of time.

The stealth of the banal, is lethal for a commodity which in our very own life-span realities is very limited.

 But when the switch is returned, I suspect this very precious thing will seep and creep away – sand on the wind, coins in a one-armed bandit.

Light! Cuppa and Corrie … what was I saying?

Climb every mountain

Yesterday, whilst tootling around the house, avoiding the vacuum cleaner, the phone bleeped. A text!

Holding out the phone as far as my arm would go - noticing that if it doesn't get telescopic soon I'm never going to be able to work out the calorie count on chocolate wrappings - I read it, slightly apprehensive.

"Kill me now." Hyperbole?

I nodded. Was the texter running a marathon over keen, hot sands? Wrestling with pitbulls in a pit of snakes?

"Keep calm and carry on." I cannot truncate nor abandon vowels.

"Nein." Came the response.

"Breathe." I suggested helpfully.

"Can't." Puffed back.

"Try." I advised.

"Made it." Surprisingly, not Everest or Kilimanjaro ... Rangitoto actually

Hope the views are worth it. Quick look out the window, to witness a bit of sun and blue sky, am assured they'd be spectacular.

Silence. Still no vacuum cleaner.

Bleep-bleep.

"Lost my money." A whole five dollars, not too worrying. No time to respond.

"Parched and tired." Oops can't buy refreshments, said cash lost.

"Found the moolah." Oh good, that should preclude dehydration then.

The bleep-bleeps stopped.

Texter's brother noted, "His heart rate needs to go above his age occasionally."

Sort of agree, but too tired to work out strategic plan to accomplish laid down task.

Didn't find vacuum cleaner. Suspect a good thing.

Cat drops hair, creating tiny kitty tumble weeds which really need that sucker to be found.

Cuppa, always does wonders.

Remotely interesting?

Slumped, two screens twinkling, one screen controlled by a keyboard, the other by remote. Was it so long ago, that we had to actually uproot from the couch patch to change the channel? To actually walk from the couch, to push the buttons in on the old Phillips? And let's not forget the walk back to the couch. Luckily TV was finished by about 10pm, which gave us enough of a good night's sleep to build up our strength to start this whole sordid process again the next day.  

I remember the first time I encountered the phenomenon that was the "remote control" - I was young, guillable - I still remember the excitement when I opened a birthday present to find a Hannimex calculator, with its blue ... or was it green? ...  flashing numbers ... I digress.

Anyway, there I sat on the couch snuggled up to my first boyfriend, in his parents' living room in the suburb now known as Te Atatu Peninsula - 'twas T'at North when I was on that couch. The lights were low, with the only light radiating from the TV screen - which like most TV sets in '80 New Zealand, sat pride of place in the middle of the room. Strangely, programmes flicked randomly, from one channel to the next. At first I didn't notice for whatever reason. Then slowly it dawned on me, that the channels were changing, and in 1982 Auckland, there were only two channels. This was unheard of in my own television watching sphere. The change of channel was usually precluded by a rather wide angled view of a familial bottom, and the clunkety-click either of the channel dial being turned or the very definite clunk of the pressing of channel buttons.

Slowly pushing myself up, my eyes attached to the ever changing, ghost like screen. My eyes widening with each switch. A ghost in the machine? A glitch? Someone hiding behind the set? The jiggery and pokery, perplexed and confused me.

Then after a half an hour or so of these magical shenanigans, my BATT (boyfriend at the time) disclosed the magic box. I don't recall its shape or colour, but I recall the realisation ... the world is changing.

And I suspected at that stage, one click at a time.

How wrong was I?

As an aside, and as attention spans have miniturised, this post was actually meant to be about obesity ... now where was I?

The Samsonite Incident

We left New York with many tears. Being a little more seasoned than a few days before,  I ensured I wouldn't be ensnared at security again because of an errant underwire. The boys were relieved that we made our way through rather fiesty security with only the removal of our boots and the retention of our dignities intactus.

The Air France plane was a double-decker, and we quickly sorted out me sitting downstairs whilst the boys were meant to fly solo on the deck above. My superb language skills didn't stretch beyond bonjour but luckily it didn't need to.

That was not until we got into Charles De Gaulle airport ... my French was all bundled into my two travelling companions. Who needs Berlitz? Staff were well dressed, and the queues were spectacular, as we shuffled towards customs. The young man who surveyed our passports had left his smile at home, and didn't appreciate my bonjour or merci.

Finding ourselves on the concourse of a bustling early morning Parisian airport, we were a little flummoxed at what to do next. Here we were, in Paris! Paris-Paris! What a feeling!

So we went in search of a taxi. Sacre bleu! The taxi driver didn't speak English but worse, much worse didn't take credit cards. But alas worse was yet to come ... when I handed the crumpled piece of paper which I scribbled our Parisian address, he shrugged and Jack translated that the driver had not heard of the suburb ... Sevres ... unfortunately he'd read my S as a P ... his Nav-homme was proving to be partiuclarly unhelpful.

That was the first little French bump in our journey. Next was ... ooops ... I'd written the name of our Parisian street address (Waffy's!) down incorrectly. Waffy lived at Rue Léon Bourgeois not Rue Bourgeois ... big, big ooops. Somehow, Jack with his untarnished memory, remembered a Skype conversation of long ago where Waffy mentioned her address. Saved again! This was getting embarrassing.

As we trudged through heavy traffic, on a grey Parisian day, we were delighted by the signs as we pushed through the heavy veil of rain. I was sitting on tenter hooks, worried that Pevres would never eventuate, let alone Nav-homme find us our lovely Waffy. 

Suddenly, we saw the sign for Sevres! My day brightened with relief. After winding up narrow roads, we found ourselves outside the apartment buildings. Square, sturdy buildings which once housed Renault workers for its nearby factory, were framed by a leafless, winter forest.

Paying the taxi driver, Harry and I practically fell out of the car, entangled in his headphone wires. Taking our cases from the driver, as we tried to disentangle ourselves, Harry took his hand from his case, as we continued to endeavour to avoid garroting ourselves. 

Suddenly, Harry's Samsonite took off with missile-like precision, its target a late model Renault, not quite in our sight. As we looked on, at first impressed at the speed of the inadvertent missile, I suddenly realised we might be at the beginning on an international incident. Harry and I were hapless as we struggled with the cords, Jack standing mouth open holding two other potential weapons. 

Faster than a very speedy thing, our middle-aged taxi driver flew after the missile, intercepting it just before it hit the car. 

Trundling the case back up the steep road, we were grateful to have a handle on the now stilled missile. Beads of sweat stood out on the driver's now pink forehead. We thanked him, and I tipped over and above the call of duty, not realising that we'd already been ripped off with the fare costing about twice as much as it should have.  

Standing waving the taxi driver good-bye, Jack noted pragmatically, "I told you Harry shouldn't have a four-wheeled suitcase." 

I think he may have been right.  

Other mothers

Mother's Day is, of course, a commercial construct, waiting for the guilt-ridden to unburden their gilt on confectionery, chocolates or gifts. Apparently rest homes around the country will find their usually empty visitors' car parks full, as mums are feted and visited. Just as dads are on Father's Day.

I've already tucked into my little heart-shaped cakes and placed my Mother's Day card at pride of place on the dresser.

But a certain sadness, is gathered in the dresser's dust; a tiny tea-cup, a gift from my God-mother, a ginger jar belonging to my mother's mother, and some of the dinner plates on which we chased peas at Sunday lunch at my paternal grandmother's. All these lovely women, who have helped to shape my life. All these lovely women, that I miss dearly.

When I was little, I used to stay with Nana Hall. She lived in a brick house, on Great North Road, not far from Waikumete Cemetery. If I close my eyes, I can find myself there in an instant. After mass each Sunday, we'd find ourselves around the old oak table, with places set for six. The dinner service featured a crowd of blue daisies dancing around the rim. Roast potatoes formed an island as they swum in a pond of gravy on the plate. Peas would float, and I'd chase these across the plate and try and tuck them into a serviette or under the table cloth. I wonder if the squashed peas stained the tablecloth? Nana never said anything. My brother and sister ate their peas.

Nana and I used to sing Rule Britannia as we waltzed around the house. Nana was born in the late 1800s, and had seen so much in her 88 years. But at 15, I'd never asked the right questions. And as I pore over faded and bent images, I wished I'd asked more; asked about her dreams, her loves, her passions. But these questions remain unasked, and the answers remain locked somewhere, far from here.

Nana Lynch, goodness where to start? She shared her flat with a herd of elephants, crowding shelves and doorways. Some were tiny, nestled into a bean. Charlie, the biggest watched over the bird bath in the garden. He was painted many colours over his life time, his last colour was yellow. I remember the toast and the "It's not an arm or a leg". I remember when my sister and I went to tidy Nana's flat, after her death, Dean Martin was on the record player, the arm still resting on the vinyl.

Aunty Margaret, my God-mother in every sense of the word. Imagine having an active God-mother, especially as you near the half-century. She was always on the end of the phone, and dished out helpful advice. It's between us, so I won't go into it. I remember when I was about 10, I was staying the night at her place. A dapper man came to afternoon tea. To the surprise, disbelief and eventual delight of family and friends, my spinster God-mother became unspinstered! Whatever next!

So what's this about, lovely women who have been big part of my life, and all who I love and miss dearly. I raise my glass to you all, with love, of course.

Bedazzled in the Big Apple

Boarding the train at Hicksville Station, we rumbled along to Penn Station. Bored commuters uncrumpled newspapers and tapped on Ipads, adjusted their glasses and rummaged around in their laptop cases. As we rattled over the tracks, the Manhattan skyline came into view, even on a sober grey day, we were all popping with excitement.We were clutching a map, drawn with Suzala style with arrows and odd shaped boxes depicting the must-sees on the Manhattan skyline. Central Park was a manic blob and the Empire State a tiny deranged polygon.


Whether real or imagined, Manhattan is tall, noisy and FABULOUS!

Tourists clamour for their postcard shots as harassed office workers negotiate paths around them (well ... ahem ... us). Tourists are easy to spot, walking in front of cabs and bikes as they take in the wonder of the tallness ... Chrysler Building ... Flatiron ... Empire State ... all big tall buildings. Sometimes, we had time to glimpse a gargoyle or some other delightful art deco artifice. But at full throttle, it was a little difficult to take in the bigness, the tallness, the fabulousness that is New York in a mere couple of days.

Reminders of the parts of the city that had fallen, are scattered throughout the city. Tiny plaques and memorials, for souls that were lost.  We were ill-prepared for the massive, sorrowful site that was where the buildings had actually fallen.The sense of loss is still palpable, but there was also a feeling of hope.

So we hot-dogged ... and walked ... and looked up ... and walked.

Eyes in the top of our head would have been invaluable. For starters, if we had invisible eyes in our scalps, we would not have to fend off the glare of real New Yorkers having to go about their day-to-day business, with huffs and puffs as we loitered or lingered in irritating spots, taking in all that was Manhattan while all the while getting under the feet of real-lifer New Yorkers. They were oblivious to our excitement and our very big adventure.It may have been because we were three out of thousands having their great big adventure in the Christmas city.

It's fair to say that we can't add to the many tombes and nifty guides which cram the internet and bookshop shelves. And we had one or two ourselves weighing down our bags.

However, one of the treats ... were the stuffed animals at the American Museum of Natural History. After walking through Central Park, and walking more big blocks with weary feet, we found ourselves in front of animals which had wandered cheerfully on faraway plains, over a century ago. Little did they know, that their eternal dignity was soon to be  at the mercy of a taxidermist who might be having a bad hair day. A perpetually perplexed leopard, and an purgatorially pointing jackal are testament to this. The Victorian cases which now entomb these once proud beasts, are really quite a treat.

My favourite resident at the museum, is a grinning turtle. I don't even think many New Yorkers could outshine this reptilian welcome.

And as we plodded around the city, bedazzled ... but alas, no smile was more dazzling than our favourite museum friend.

Blingle bells

New York suburbia is something to behold. Big Christmas house bling everywhere. Twinkling and sparkling, and most importantly, out doing the neighbours.Christmas is my favourite time of year, and to be in the Big Apple, in the run up to Christmas day is akin to be a fairy on top of the tree.


After a little while, we arrived in Plainview (I know the address by heart now), there was Suzala! The last time I clapped eyes on her in the real flesh, opposed Skype flesh, was in about 1994 ... last century! It was over 20 years since we'd played snow angels in Queens and been buffeted by Buster on the way to the bathroom. It could've been yesterday!

It's hard to explain the real joy, when you reunite with a good, good friend after too long and a lot of world in between. What to compare it to? I don't think I'll try to attempt a cheesy analogy ... no ... no ... no ... I will. It's the cheese on the pizza of life ... and I'm talking pizza supreme.

And here we were, the American family, and the New Zealand family ... and Smudge the cat. Hard to believe we were standing in the living room, with squirrels in the backyard, in our winter woolies - a warm sun left in another hemisphere. Suffice to say, lots of talking (three days solid), lots of hugging, and laughter.

Arriving on December 10, the city was gearing up for Christmas. On the first day, after a slumbersome morning, we found ourselves in a massive discount mall. An ice-skating rink, a perfectly pointy Christmas tree and toy soldiers fit for a giant's toybox. The only thing missing was shoppers ... we were it. There were puddles, and robotic albeit delightful good manners.

Our hostess with the mostess ferried us around the shops -we were swallowed by Nike and burped out into Reebok. As the shopping bags filled ... our eyes tired ... boy these folk do good Christmas!

Tomorrow,  our adventure was to take us into postcard New York, well Manhattan, where you need eyeballs on the top of your head. But there was a bit of sleep before that and some French toast, and some donuts ... and then a bit of sleep. 

Little bite of the Big Apple

 So we were finally on the plane ... Delta ... nicely dressed staff with snacks less so.

Squeezing into our seats - all next to each other, all on the same plane! What a treat! Only a few hours before we'd been booked on different flights. Although dignity was squashed into the overhead, thanks to zealous Delta security staff, all was well in the world. The sky was dark, the stars were sparkly and we were practically in New York!

Excitement was pounding away as we nipped through the night sky, faster than Santa. When the pilot announced we were approaching landing, I expected everyone to spring into song ... New York, New York ... the obvious choice but anything from a Broadway show would've been accepted with grace. Looking around, the faces were bored and just wanting the trip be over. There were yawns and stretches, putting away of books and snapping laptops shut. Disappointment sat squarely on my face, how could anybody not be excited?

I suspect it being about 4 in the morning may have crushed some of the excitement. Party poopers!

So we struggled down the aisle with our pillows and coats, out of the plane, to the a fantastic array of accents and polite-tities. I could've done without the "Mam" but the "thank yous" all hit the right spot.

Dragging ourselves out of the airport, the fresh, cool air hit us like a refrigerated pillow. The yellow taxis ... the accents ... the lateness, or more to the point early-ness ... but then out of the belly of a people mover ... Rick! We couldn't believe our luck ... Rick had staggered out of his lovely warm home, on a drizzly, cool night and come to JFK to pick us up.

Soon we were bundled into the car, and hurtling down an empty highway to the bosum of his sleepy family.


And as Hula Girl nodded and strummed on the dash, we were in wonder as we bumped along through the rainy night towards Long Island.

Our eyes widened at each signpost, each piece of the jigsaw that told us we were in New York. Long Island ... Brooklyn ... Queens ... Bronx ...

In a car, in New York ... the boys and me ... zipping along to a sleepy family in New York ... pinch ... pinch ... pinch!

Burglare

Well it had to happen, statistics would strongly suggest that some unsavoury character (s) is quite likely to pop into your home, hopefully unbeknown to you, rifle through your drawers and leave you with the headache of a clean up and worse, dealing with the insurance company.

When we had our visit, only last weekend, I didn't actually notice that we'd had uninvited guests. In fact, due to living at the lower end of the tidy-scale, I assumed the boys had been errant in their put-away ways. But alas, that was not the case.

The empty duvet cover was straddling the day bed, and windows ever so slightly ajar, with lids of jewellery boxes a little askew.Slightly odd but not alarming.

Arrival of the boys confirmed that they were not the culprits.

Open the sash window in the sitting room, past the Oleander (poisonous - apparently killed a couple of Gengis Khan's elephants - another one though, story and oleander) and out went Harry's laptop and an asortment of jewels and other bits and bobs. Some were left in a Hansel and Gretel like trail up the garden path before leaving by the open gate. 

Unfortunately, sentimentality is far more valuable than the preciously clawed stones. And the computer had a memory card embedded in it, that was the total of Harry's photographic efforts on our great big adventure.

So here I sit, grateful. Grateful we were not home. Grateful our burglars didn't trash the place. Could've been worse, modern day mantra.

But with the trinkets and stones, also went that very fragile and transient albeit precious peace-of-mind. No amount of finger-printing or insurance balm can magic that back.

Traveller trinketry

When adventuring (block your ears Sir Ed), the best bits be the souvenir and gift shops. There, encapsulated in a few square metres, is the whole museum or city, or sometimes, even country. It is a world where plastic meets fantastic, where Union Jacks are tortured into all manner of shapes or forms and where King Kong is larger than the Empire State Building. Ducks wear the crown jewels, Eiffel Towers are shrunk and twisted, posted and pasted. In New Zealand, the very beautiful paua shell is entombed in dollops of shiny, come-hither plastic.

All this travel trinkery to wrench the travel dollar from the unsuspecting tourist who may suffer delusions of grandeur, that these little trinkets will look quite magnificent on the mantelpiece back home.

But before you even lay your first coins on some far-away counter to claim that miniaturised prize, there is a little travel temple much closer to your doorstep. It is, I've no idea what it's called, the "traveller's column" perhaps. There, in a pharmacy or department store, is the rotating display unit, where travel "things" are balanced and jammed. This leads the unwary traveller to believe that everything on the stand is needed for the great big adventure yawning in the not too distant future.

We were ensnared.

A lovely orange, bean filled pillow, perfect for delayed travellers or when aero-snoozing. It could be just a little orange pillow, or just unzip and squidge the beans along and you have a neck-resty pillow. What genius thought of such a thing? (Time could probably be better invested in world peace but I digress). It quickly became a burden.

The travel wallet nearly garotted me (these things should really come with instructions). When the zip stuck, an emergency caesar was needed to birth the spare credit card. The Samsonite nearly caused an international incident but that's another story.

And so it goes on, with hand luggage weighted down with aero-potions and wipes, eye-drops and nasal sprays. Funny on the way home, these little must-haves have usually made it into a bin somewhere, often unopened, on now far-away soil.

But alas, although many tourists treats may end up in "that" kitchen drawer where things are put that might be useful post-armageddon, there is the post-holiday display.

Currently on a little sideboard, in a little villa in an Auckland suburb, a diamonte Eiffel Tower twinkles, King Kong hugs the Empire State and a tiny Sacré-Cœur is waiting to grow up. 

Alas, the world on the our doorstep. What a treat.

Security files

Travelling, how hard can it be?  It's just a matter of booking tickets, grabbing your passports and heading to the airport. In this day and age where the world can fit into the palm of your hand, travelling must be as easy as pie.

Now might be the opportune time to think of a pie, a great big pie filled with wiggling, worrying, niggling worms. And you don't even know what's in the pie till you've taken your first bite. And then it's too late as the worms are making their malignant way into your gullet.

But let's start at the beginning ...

I'd checked that we had our passports at least 17 times. The boys and I had wrestled with the suitcases and closed them with not a bubble of air left to exhale. The zips had been stretched and strained, the cases locked and tagged. We'd been picked up by our lovely "Trusties" (our two lovely friends), dropped off and waved goodbye to.

Auckland airport is a treasure. I was nearly chuffed when I was checked for explosives. I smiled widely and knowingly, only just noticing that I seemed to be the only one pulled out of the queue for this little travel-taster. Lost Mr Nearly-13 in Duty Free when engrossed in nostril pursuits. Mr 16 found him (this became a bit of a travel pattern but ... laters).

Oh well ... on board ... slept and sampled the alcoholic beverages on the tinny trolley. Well it's not as if I was going to have to drive was it?

Tahiti ... frisked ... oops left the laptop on the plane ... mild panic as boys clambered behind me as we tried to find the right uniform to talk to ... laptop retrieved ... another queue ... another wrestle with officialdom ... back on plane ... back in the air ... another trolley ... another sip ... zzzzz ... LA!

Well the excitement of landing is usually knocked on the head as soon as you join the immigration queue. LA offered a chaotic queue with the added help of folk directing the grumpy, human traffic ... that little bit of authority may have gone to head of some folk as we where herded and yelled out. Even using "ma'am" this and "sir" that, didn't remove the mini-dictator tone from the yeller.

After shuffling about and looking about apologetically ... we arrived at the customs desk. And what a nice, officious young man was there to meet us.

His smile was worn and tight. He reminded me of a young Erik Estrada ... some of you might not remember CHiPs but if you saw this bloke, you'd think CHiPs and not the blond one, the black-haired one, Ponch.

Anyway, it went like this. "Blah ... blah ... blah ... well ma'am?"

"Pardon?" me.

"Where are you staying?"

"At my girlfriend's," I said.

"Do you have an address or telephone number?"

"She lives in New York," me again.

"Do you have an address or telephone number?"

I thought. "No, not exactly."

"Blah ... blah ... blah ... you do realise that's the sort of thing a bad person would say."

"I expect a bad person would be more organised."

Pulled aside, we had to wait for an airline official to come along and help the wayward travellers out of a spot of forgetful bother. Mr 16 had pulled out a plausible address but I was thrown into mild panic.

We were in the US of A ... I'd forgotten to write down the address where we were staying ... we were going to get sent home before we'd even started our great adventure. Serious crappola!

Anyway, the airline official somehow untangled this web of forgettion and we found our way back in front of Ponch. Ponch rolled his eyes, stamped our passports and wished us well.

And that was that. We were in America. A-M-E-R-I-C-A!

But oddly, LA provided another little hiccough in our journey.

After finding our way to the Delta terminal. All very nice, a bit stark and of course I nearly got sucked in by a bag toting "traveller" ("Ma'am I just need $10 to make up my fare" ... well I nearly gave him one of the boys to sell so he could further his travels until a very tall, travel-wise, African-American man, stepped in and suggested I keep my son, as the "traveller" scarpered from the terminal no doubt clutching ill-gotten gains from other daft travellers).

Oops ... then it was time to go through to catch our flight to New York.  Goodness, there are more uniforms than travellers and there was even a Dr Whovian traveller-scanner. While I was oggling this machine I'd read about somewhere or other as I traversed the metal detector, the little bells went off.

"Come this way please ma'am,"

I'd set off the blooming alarm as I tootled through. I would've happily gone on the conveyer belt with my boots, dignity is over-rated.

More "Blah ... blah ... would you like a private room?"

"No." My thinking being, let's just get this over with, not wanting to be away from the boys.

Standing aside, on a lovely big rubber mat, the uniformed woman officer explained what she was about to do, in some detail. My contenance obviously looked as if I'd lost interest, I probably had.

"Are you listening ma'am?"

Nodding enthusiastically, "Yes, of course."

She proceeded the rather intimate search. It wasn't the fly-by pat-down we'd received in Tahiti. It was right up and down each leg. Then it was around each boob. They hadn't had so much attention since being wrestled by midwives when trying to show me how to breastfeed the boys (and can't remember it being so much fun then either).

So as I stood spreadeagled in a rather public area of LA International Airport, I felt the real burden of having bigger boobs and the curse of the underwire bra. The boys stood just to the side, trying to pretend they weren't with me.

And then that was it for travel glitches. Of course the lovely lady on the Delta Sky Lounge desk sorted out the little problem of the boys and I being booked on different flights to New York, who'd have thought it, eh? 

Travelling, what fun!

I think when they mean as easy as pie, they really mean "pi" ... and I've never really understood circles.

Pt Chev Team's great big adventure!

I'm not sure the exact day, the day that it was decided that instead of talking about taking the big trip with the boys; actually booking it. It's all of course thanks to a combination of happy couplings and stark realities. Time is not always a given, nor is health. The Pt Chev Team was in fine fettle, but others' bad news made me think.

So thanks to a golden bank and a sterling will (only becuase I thought it needed a bit of plating), tickets were booked and dreams dusted and polished.

In 2004, the year we became three, I wrote down in a long-forgotten notebook, some things that we would do within 10 years. One was to visit a very good friend, who lives in New York. The other things were things that needed to be done, and were written with a number of other lists that you think you should write when your world has turned purple and is gasping for air. Lists help to make a bit of sense when sense has donned its cloak of  invisibility and danced a merry dance off into the night.

So we were going, not just talking about it. The Pt Chev Team were going to climb into metal tubes (well a few really, as we do live on the bottom's bottom of a rotund globe) navigate the globe.  Except I wasn't navigating, I'm not sure if pilots need to flip their maps to see if they're going in the right direction, I sort of hope not.

As a grown-up, it was up to me to plan, and organise, and book and dive into the cyber sea to let it throw up all sorts of earthly delights.

I can see why folk get wedding planners.

Luckily, there was a grown-up in the travelling mix of three, and low and behold it wasn't me.

Pearla of a problem

I'm not sure if many folk suffer this particular dilemna. It's something I really haven't talked about before. It could be either embarrassment or because it's completely inconsequential. I suspect the later.

But here goes. What do you do with miscellaneous molars and gnashers that you've garnered over the years as you stole into darkened rooms as the Tooth Fairy, stumbling through Lego towns and embeding prized Matchbox toys into the soles of your feet, as you approach to do the "swap"? The swap entails, searching under a heavy-headed pillow, rootling around for the tooth, then secreting it out and popping a paltry monetary sum in its place.

Simple. Once you've got the enamel and swapped it for the gold, your job as the soft-footed Tooth Fairy is over until the next wiggler makes its way out one way or t'other.

But what of the teeth? What do you do with them? One made it into my purse, and when I was offering a beggar a few coins, out rolled the molar. Oops! Grappling with the molar, I retrieved it, much to the relief of the poor woman at the receiving end, and replaced it with a more useful coin. 

I was cleaning under my bed and among the dust, hairballs and dust muffs, a molar rolled out. By the time I'd figured out what it was, it had popped out of my hand, to be found on another day in Cleaning Future. Anyway, for some unknown reason I've stashed them in all manner of places, and I'm not sure why they haven't simply been binned. I mean, I have locks of hair from the boys' first cuts. I have a splendid collection of Harry's particular house of horrors. There's the piece of paper he folded into a tiny square and put into his ear (when the doctor got it out, she took it around to show her colleagues), there is the silly putty that required an emergency haircut and the straw which nearly popped his retina out when he fell over whilst holding it (I'd told him he'd choke on it, didn't realise it was a danger to his sight). But what of the teeth? I can't bring myself to toss them, I'm not sure why I have such an attachment to these rootless wonders. I'll think about it on another day.

Looking back, my last venture as the Tooth Fairy. Two eyes opened very widely, and looked the Tooth Fairy straight in the face.

"Phew! I thought the Tooth Fairy was Ben's mum."

What with Santa taking the credit for most things, it was more than a bit miffling to think Ben's mum was getting all the credit for my little monetary deposits.

Oh well, I wonder what would happen if I balanced my pillow on a little Everest of pearly whites. I'll let you know.

Smoke gets in your eyes

Dad is a good story-teller, the stories we have grown up with have been retold and embellished. Dad's past is as much a part of the fabric of our lives as any of the stories we've actually lived through ourselves.

So this is one I'd not heard before, which is unusual. Forgive me, Dad, if I've missed something ...

Take yourself back to the fifties. It might've even been before the harbour bridge, it was certainly before the Auckland motorways carved up the city properly. Elvis was banned on the airways and transistor radios were still a faraway dream for many.

It's hard to imagine Dad as a teenager (he might've actually been older than a teenager - in those days you were a  teenager until you were about 28). So he was tall, over six foot foot. He was skinny, skinny as. He was Catholic, which sends you one way or t'other - either rebel or saint. Dad veered towards the halo ... mostly.

A club in town, I think in Swanson Street, was reputed to be a veritable den of iniquity. It was called Heaven and Hell, apparently two separate bars in a Victorian building. You can guess the decor, one more virginal, the other screaming in hot, hot red. I doubt Heaven recceived much attention.

Dad, unlike most normal teenagers, both then and now, told his mother that he was going to the club. Hello? He also noted that on the night he was going to drive his mates in, there was to be adult entertainment in the form of a stripper.  I blanch at the thoughts, both telling my grandmother and my father at a strip joint.

'How could you!' Nana exclaimed. 'And your father a lawman. How could you! That place is full to the gunnels with criminals and law breakers.' I'm sure smelling salts and cushions would've had to be sought upon Dad's announcement.

My mother, sitting in the lounge during the recount, noted 'I wasn't allowed to go there.' Which is saying something, as Mum veered towards rebel, and still does today

Luckily for my Dad and his curiosity, my grandmother's companion, Aunty Mary, was also part of Dad's revelation. 'Syd, should go,' she said, I can imagine very matter of factly. 'It will do him good.' And I'm sure she was right.

And with that said, Dad took off into the night in his '36 Chevy with his friends steaming up the back windows. Hooning into town, Dad (a non-smoker) procured a packet of cigarettes somewhere along the way. Dutch courage? Rite of passage?

The old Chev was parked up and the boys made their way directly to Hell as any good Catholic boys would. The atmosphere. The music. Smoke. Booze. It was a teenage dream. Soon the lights were dimmed, the music setting a sexy tone. It was only a matter of moments before the lovely young woman would be on stage and slowly derobing.

I can practically feel the throb of anticipation, as the boys held their breaths and widened their eyes. 

At about that moment, Dad lit up one of his purchases. Somehow inhaling all the smoke with his eyeballs, he was blinded by smoke as Candi's clothes were peeled and dropped to the stage floor.

He missed it. Missed the whole tantalising show. Missed it completely.

When he regained his sight, he drove home, leaving his friends to find further fun in the Auckland night. Disappointment and itchy eyeballs were his only companions on his journey home.

Dad's cloak of morality remained inadvertently still intact. I wonder if he ever told his Mum? I somehow doubt it. I suspect Aunty Mary knows.

Telly Tubby tutorials

I think it's fair to say that the Telly Tubbies and Thomas were instrumental in my boys' education. But oh Po! It looks like little kids shouldn't be plonked in front of the telly and left to their own devices. I've dumbed them down and widened their waistbands. Uh-oh ... too late.

Thomas and some of his fractious friends were instrumental in the boys' early days of educational well-being. You can hardly imagine the pride I felt when my three-year old described a crack in the lawn as a ravine. Greatness was within reach! Of course I'm not sure if he pronounced ravine in the same way Ringo did, but a crack's a crack.

Of course the boys' weren't only bombarded with characters speaking in accents unlike their own, there was also the lovely Suzy. Suzy Cato that is.

The boys loved Suzy, she was bright and entertaining, and had a Kiwi accent (I'm sure it's Kiwi although she was born in Oz ... ok ... maybe I should cover my bases and say Australasian otherwise the Pavlova thing's sure to rise). I suspect she still does have one.

Anyway, I had the good luck to bump into her occasionally at our local gym, she was charming and polite in contrast to my bumbling inquisition as we cycled to nowhere next to each other. She was amazing, I'm sure she didn't even work up a sweat.

Fast forward a couple of weeks to a supermarket trolley with Mr 3-going-on-37 white knuckling it around the over packed aisles. He didn't say much as the trolley was being laden, except for the odd suggestion which usually involved a derivative from a sugar mountain.

There at the end of one of the aisles, was a golden glow. There stood Suzy Cato. The real, live, not on the telly at the moment Suzy.

I thought at first she might high-tail it out of there when she clapped her eyes on me, but no, she came up to us. I smiled and said hello, and she was polite and genuine in her greeting. I was of course suitably starstruck.

Suzy then turned her full attention to the trolley dweller. 

He eyed her suspiciously.

She then sung her "Suzy song" there in the aisle with only my son and the various cans of baked beans for an audience.

I was beside myself with excitement, Suzy Cato singing to my son! It was a lovely, genuine gesture.

Suzy completed her little set, then went on towards the pasta sauces.

Starstruck at first, I returned my attention to my son. He looked at me, his face puckered in consternation.

"That lady was like that lady on the telly."

"It was that lady on the telly," I said, wondering if those myths were true and his brain had been partially fried from the radiation emitted by the telly.

"No, she just looked like her."

Looking away his attention strolled along to some muesli bars.

Booby trap

Alas in a small tucked away Dominion, some once thought the pimple on the bottom of the Commonwealth's pink bottom, the nation (well, at least three people) is aghast that a royal bosom has been exposed to a worldwide audience.

Surprise! The future queen of England has boobs, and I believe after having a good squiz at the pixelated rack, that there are two of them. Why is this a surprise? In this day of oversized lens and over zealous paparazzi, why oh why would you get your kit off unless you were ensconced in the four poster with curtains pulled?

Many have seen the young man (Kiwi) at the London Olympics who was "snow angel'ing" on top of a building wearing just his jocks, seeking the camera in a very un-shy camera way. Many of us have been amazed at how Google maps can zoom in on our garden to see if the lawns were mowed on the day the pic was taken. So why if you had royal blood, or wedded to a royal body, would you get your kit off unless you were quite comfy having your bare, toned flesh surfing the cyber highways a few hours later?

Big deal. Perhaps it could be used for the greater good, and the PR spin could somehow spin this tardy straw into PR gold. Perhaps it could somehow help raise awareness of breast cancer. We live in a different world now, double standards abound; shock horror that the photos have been taken while also eager to have a look to see what all the fuss is about.

I reckon, the good Duchess should keep the pics as a reminder of her pert-ful youth, as boobs are not always quite majestic as in the throes of youth. And this might be the last photo opportunity.

Funnily enough, a recent royal exposure caused eyes to roll in the royal household. A couple of centuries ago, heads would've probably followed them.

Psy-chick

Fortune tellers gaze pointedly at their crystal balls. Looking for what, our secrets? our lies? We want to know, even the cynical, if they're honest.

We don't so much want to know about our pasts - we already know what lay in that retrospective journey. We want to know the future. Will he be handsome? Will he be rich? Will he make me happy? Doh Doris!

Tea leaves room for creativity and imagination, even more creative genius is required if a teabag has been used.

Our palm can peer into the direction of our souls. Not sure what the fortune teller would make of my latest line from a careless episode at pumpkin peeling with a new knife. The novelty of which quickly wore off as the skin parted and blood seeped. I've worried over my lifeline for many years now, since the time I thought 13 was old.

There's also the iris which can be gazed into and the contents of the soul packed into a small green, blue, brown or hazel bag. All very mystical, if not very believable.

And then there are the joys of the horoscope. I'm a sucker for a good, optimistic horoscope which promises love and good choices. I ignore the horrorscopes and put it down to the writer having PMT or something similar. Being the optimist, I find the horoscope of my choice when trawling through a range of online psychic portals, scoping the good ones which are probably regurgitated on some sort of cosmic rotor.

Anyway today, my timing is exquisite (which is brilliant because cleaning the loo needs exquisite [WT...] timing ...). A disciplined, regular routine will lead to more energy (well cleaning the loo is by its very nature, in a hygenic household, routine). I wonder if the spirits stick around when you're liberalig annointing the bathroom with bleach?

Well that must be proof in the pudding, with exquisite timing I executed an energetic going over the loo. 

Life ... life ... where are you?