Christmas is here

I love Christmas and I love my birthday – both are great days to celebrate and spend time with family and friends.

But these events are coming around faster and faster and Christmas this year seems to have arrived 2 months after the start of the year – if that makes sense! This year has whooshed by and I don’t believe I am the only one to think so.

Chris Smith of The Naked Scientist fame had this to say when asked if time is actually going faster, if 24 hours isn’t 24 hours anymore (and I take a great deal of liberty paraphrasing what he said): Nope…it isn’t going faster but we think it is…and why? Maybe because we just do things faster these days; we have email – instant letters whereas before they took a week to get to us and a week to reply – now we reply within minutes or at least within 24 hours. We have cell phones – always in touch and communicating…voice, text and so on. We can fly all over the world and get to our destination quickly and relatively easily. Our cars are faster (and better roads), trains are faster…we have 24 hour TV and radio; we get news of what is happening around the world almost as soon as it happens. We don’t wait for anything anymore – we order books on line and now we can also just down load them off the internet, if we want to look up anything (research, find out) we just Google it. The shops are always open; we have easy credit (no saving for anything)……..everything is instant.

This means that we can actually do a lot more – and this give us the feeling that time is flying…everything goes really fast.

Is this good for us – well who knows. I for one, like/love all the benefits of the stuff listed above and am not quite sure how I (and all of us I guess) would manage without it…imagine no cell phones – yikes?

But it is tiring, and this year has left me shaking my head and wondering how I got to another Christmas so quickly – I can intellectualise all of Chris Smiths reasons but emotionally I cant….it has all happened too quickly.

I haven’t done an E card yet, I haven’t written a Christmas letter of my goings on this year, I haven’t even put up decorations yet – all I have is a little stylised ceramic statue of Mary & Josef holding baby Jesus (Baby Jesus looking remarkably like a pea-pod) and when I light the little candle inside, black smoke comes out of the star cut-out on Josef’s head – it is quite alarming! But tonight I am putting up all the lights and tinsel and glass balls…..Santa must be tempted to visit our household.

And so everyone, I take this time to wish you all a wonderful and love-filled Christmas-time….

Blessings to you all.

Liz

PS. If you want to see the very best Christmas wish ever go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzxkNRvujiw&feature=share

Beginning of the Month Snippets

Good reads:

I have been catching up on my reading since getting back from Spain….

Ape House by Sara Gruen (she wrote Water for Elephants) – interesting and based on real research done in the US on teaching apes to use sign language.

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein: Written in a dog’s voice….and a clever one at that who doesn’t try to be cute by referring to a car as a kennel on wheels or stupid stuff like that. There are lots of feel good messages in the book...but not rammed down your throat. Although I haven’t quite finished the book I kinda know that I am going to shed a few tears at the end…a really enjoyable read.

Recessional for Grace by Marguerite Poland: One of the little reviews on the back page says of this book…’an achingly beautiful exploration of biography, folklore and lost love.’ And I so whole heartedly agree…this is an exquisite book, a story that unfolds that you never want to end. The author is a local lass who co-authored The Abundant Herds: A celebration of Nguni Cattle. And you can almost smell and feel the beautiful Ngunis in Recessional for Grace…and you can see the landscapes. Her descriptions are so well written and economically written – she doesn’t waste a word…. Thanks to Stella in my book-club for this one.

Vanilla Velvet:

I found this on the shelf in Pick ‘n Pay where they have the Ultramel custard. Vanilla Velvet is made by First Choice (the long life milk people) and I have a feeling they might also make Chocolate Velvet. This stuff is sinful, decadent and you will never use plain old cream or custard again…..exceptionally yummy and fortunately doesn’t have too much fat..or at least not as much as cream. You would still have to do 3 laps round the block if you over indulge.

The Tax Season:

Now that this is over we can all rest easy and enjoy any refunds received…some luckier than others in this regard. I have to put SARS at the top of my list for good service…and especially as it has such good manners. Today I received an SMS thanking me for submitting my tax return in good time….isn’t that nice.

Getting More Awesome (from Lisa’s Blog) This is especially for those of you who live your lives a little differently to the norm:

As you know, FEAT Canada took place in Vancouver on 15 November. One of the speakers, Jen Olsen, is a mountain guide - one of only seven female internationally certified mountain guides in the World.
Her FEAT talk is online and in her talk she mentions facing her 40th birthday in a few weeks and she adds, "I've been feeling devastated about not having a husband, kids or a pension plan".
She then refers to a quote she saw on Facebook that goes: "Everyone I know if getting married or pregnant... I'm just getting more awesome."
Right on, Jen. I can relate (not about being devastated about not having a husband or children, but that there's a spate of marriages and pregnancies).

Here's to awesomeness!

Restaurants:

First: I have decided to boycott restaurants that don’t have tablecloths or little place mats (paper will do). I have watched in horror as the waiter wipes the tabletop with a grim looking cloth which leaves little greasy trails all over the surface – not just once but many times. In Europe, in the smallest, tiniest café or restaurant, they put a new, pristine paper cloth or mat on the table for each new patron…Why, oh why can’t they do this here…There has to be a business opportunity here for someone methinks.

Second: Why oh why do you get forgotten about in a restaurant…I went out to dins with my sister-in-law Marie-Jose, friend Judy and Lisa last night. We had taken the trouble to make a reservation because the webpage said it was an excellent restaurant and the various and recent reviews had given the place 5 stars. Liars! Anyway, after waiting for more than hour for our food – we were nearly eating the tablecloth and had even begged for a snack or something….…Judy leapt up and said she was throwing in the towel so we all followed her lead and charged off to the desk to pay for our drinks; the guys at the desk were really upset with us and they said they had been busy….been busy? Yes, but what about us? No, they were doing our food now but we said we didn’t want it anymore…..and left. Went to an Ocean Basket at the local mall and got a great fish and chip meal, great service and icy, icy cold wine, had a great deal of fun and the meal was very reasonable.

Senior Moment

Blog by Lisa

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Senior moment By: Lisa http://adventurelisa.blogspot.com/2011/11/senior-moment.html Posted: 28 Nov 2011 12:38 PM PST On Saturday night, my mom and I went to watch the most recent of the Twilight moves, Breaking Dawn (part 1). Our teenage cousin got us both into Twilight; we've read the books and have seen the previous movies. This one was sweet (they really could have put the whole book into one movie) but this isn't a movie review. With youth flooding the ticketing desk, we get directed to the popcorn counter - the lady can issue tickets from the one terminal. We tell her the movie we want to see. We select our seats. She says, "That's one adult and one senior". So I ask, "What's senior - 60?". "Yes," she says. My mom is not yet 60 - she's got eight months to go. But I just couldn't bring myself to correct the young lass; she would have been so embarrassed. Instead I give my mom a big hug. We watch the movie. Lots of smooching between Edward and Bella. Jacob is growing up and looking more dishy; I can see what my cousin sees in him (Team Jacob). Mom and I are Team Edward (although I'm way more into the most delightfully wicked vampire sheriff, Eric - Alexander Skardgard - from True Blood). I don't get what Edward sees in Bella - she reminds me of Frodo from Lord of the Rings. Snivelling. Anyhow... We walk out of the theatre and mom nudges me. "It's because of you". "Me what?" I ask. "She thought I was a senior because of you. It doesn't happen when Judy and I go to movies." Judy and mom are similar age. Indeed, having a daughter with a good dose of grey hair, despite my youthful complexion, would scoot mom right into the 60s classification. We both think it is helluva funny. As we walk she keeps poking me and saying again, "It's you". Two years ago I took the plunge to never colour my hair again. Turning grey at a young age runs in my dad's family. He was completely silver in his mid 30s. My aunt says she was the same. I found my first grey hairs at 21; more in my mid 20s and by 28 I was covering the grey with dyes close to my natural colour. Fed up with being a slave to colour (it's a pollutant, dries out your scalp and hair, my hair grows really fast and I think regrowth looks trashy), I decided to let the grey grow out. I chopped my hair short and it took a year to eliminate the colour residue. At the same time, mom took the plunge too. She reasoned that if her daughter is grey, she couldn't very well still be a brunette. It was the best decision that we both could have made. Grey is traditionally associated with aging. If someone has grey hair they couldn't possibly be young, could they? Of course they can. This is a nice article on MailOnline about "Why are today's women going grey at 25?". I remember a spread in Time Magazine about Hillary Clinton, when she was running in the elections. The article was Hillary and some other women and it discussed whether it was 'right' for them to let their hair go grey or does grey hair make them old and past their sell-by date and thus not credible to be in positions of responsibility - or so public perception goes. Grrr... But look at George Clooney or Richard Gere... grey is sexy then. Ja, just as the article I linked to above says, "While men get given the silver fox sobriquet when they start to show signs of salt and pepper, when it comes to women grey equals grandma. From society’s perspective, a woman with grey hair is over the hill and has reached the end of her reproductive life." In my book, grey is just a hair colour. It's my natural hair colour. Grey doesn't change my brain cells nor add another 20 years to the amount of time I've spent on the planet. But, it does get my mom into movies at R8.00 less for her ticket.