why I might be the biggest loser....

I have a long list of annoyances in my life and my current one is this - I have had a personal trainer for seven weeks now and have gained 2 lbs. Bless her, she's everything a trainer is supposed to be, aggravatingly fit, perky, loves exercise, barks at me like a drill sergeant so whadup? And to add insult to injury, I have always been one of those bitter types who says things like, "oh yeah, it's easy to lose pregnancy weight when you are famous, have nothing better to do than obsess over eating and exercise and have a chef and a personal trainer". But now I have a personal trainer and pretty much my own chef and I am actually GETTING FATTER which can only mean one thing: celebrities may just be better than me...that's right, they may actually just have more self-discipline, be harder working and all round more committed. I think that may just be the worst news I have had in a long time.

the horror...

We hosted a birthday party today for the Precious Princess, which loosely translated means we attempted the parental equivalent of a Normandy Beach landing. First off, there was a bouncy castle involved so I should have known right away that my lawyerly tendency toward seeing the potential for traumatic and life threatening injuries would cause me untold amounts of anxiety demonstrating that not only was I in denial I was also in some crazed party planning state that made me think the impossible was possible. Clearly I have been in some sort of self-loathing, bananas head space from start to finish because I allowed the Precious Princess to turn the planning for her own four year old party into this huge, overwhelming, pressure-laden thing where the possibility for failure was very real and that is never a good thing when dealing with a three foot tall person who's tolerance for disappointment is like, well, let's just say it's not very good.

And before you think that I am some sort of post-toddler party planner extraordinare, I did what any self-respecting working mother would do and outsourced the whole thing, hired a space (they catered and provided the death-trap bouncy castle) had cake and balloons ordered and delivered, had amah do loot bags; in fact, it's a miracle I didn't just hire a look-a-like for the actual party (mental note, see if possible to get look-a-like to attend five year old party, October 2009).

It's over now, I did it, more or less, I think it was more a success than a failure and I hope that the other parents don't judge me too harshly for the uber-dramatic Precious Princess breakdowns; errrmmm, in no particular order, they were: failing to win a prize at pass the parcel....screaming, jumping up and down like a lunatic....balloon dog was lost...repeat screaming and jumping.....some jostling during the cake.....repeat screaming and carrying on....ok, enough, I need a valium and a drink STAT.

bad blogger, bad, bad, blogger

Well, I am chagrined to see that I haven't posted since 15 July - OMG! So much has happened, the Olympics have come and gone, I have returned to the homeland and then returned to Hong Kong and I am about to be the happiest girl in the world as I am mere hours away from being the proud new owner of a little something I like to call heaven, (or what the rest of the world calls a slingbox).

Before we get to all that excitement, let's talk about all the stuff that has pissed me off over these past few weeks.

First, I am prepared to suffer the wrath of the world for what I am about to say; I am over Michael Phelps, I have no interest in Michael Phelps and even more controversially, I don't really think that he is the greatest Olympian EVER. Put that in your pipe and smoke it MP. So big deal, he got seven gold medals, oh la la fancy pantsy. It's only because of the idiosyncracies of swimming, ie, you can swim in any of like 350 different versions of the same event, that someone like MP even has a shot at all seven medals. Don't you think that the amazing Kenyan runners are capable of winning seven medal? Of course, it's just that they aren't offered the option of running seven marathons. Let's just say, if I had to see MP strip his little aquaman suit down to pornographic effect one more time, I was going to lose my lunch. I gave up after medallion numero tres when he did the 50 metre freestyle or the 50 metre fly or the 4 metre dipsy doodle, who knows.

Moving on. Normally, I can't really abide watching the U.S. coverage of the Olympics due to all the patriotism, self-congratulation and the fact that you are forced to watch all the sports in which the U.S. dominate which means endless hours of beach volleyball and errrm, swimming. In fairness, I also can't abide watching Canadian coverage of the Olympics as it's just too depressing to listen to the one person in the entire country who managed to win a gold medal back when there was still an iron curtain and people boycotted resulting in mediocre athletes winning golden medals. If I had to hear one more person whinge about how we don't invest enough in sport to be competitive, I was going to have to take matters into my own hands. To be fair, the Chinese coverage was beyond partiotic and meant endless hours of watching sports I didn't even know were Olympic-worthy or at least, wasn't sure of like fencing, tae kwon do and ping pong.

Finally, the slingbox. If you don't know what this marvelous little invention is, well, your bad. All you need to know is that I have suffered the lowest television humiliation at the hands of Hong Kong cable tv. Never have I had to endure the indignity of watching such crapacious television, but I have done so for the past nine months because otherwise, I might have had to read a book, get some exercise or speak to my family. Just when I thought I didn't have the strength to watch another minute I found myself watching yet another commercial for some shiteous sci-fi show that I have never heard of (for good reason) because they don't really advertise here, they just advertise about all the other shiteous television you will be forced to watch in the future; it's like, "in case you haven't already been lobotomised by watching six year old episodes of "Raymond," we'll be offering more of the same lame, intelligence sucking programming over the coming days and weeks." Gracias. So, middle brother's fiancee, realising our plight, has taken it upon herself to save us from these dire circumstances and is getting a slingbox so that she can send us beautiful and perfect little tv rays that are full of beautiful and perfect television shows that will make me happy and not make me want to gouge out my own eyes with rusty forks.

And just in case you didn't think that Hong Kong was all that; whilst we were away in T.O. we saw a lovely little human interest story about a man in Hong Kong who attempted to have sexual relations with a park bench but became hopelessly stuck when his....ermmm....instrument became aroused. The good news is that after much catterwalling on the part of mr. mensa member and at least one failed attempt to remove einstein's blood to disengorge said instrument, he was free but not after they had to remove the bench with said brainiac attached and taken him to hospital where, after four hours, they freed the....errrmmm...instrument. Apparently, knobby claimed that his instrument became entangled in the bench whilst doing a sit-up. Nobody had the heart to point out to the professor that he was found face down on the bench making it one odd sit-up...but well, oh well....

I'm sorry...I think

I have three half finished posts, I am really, really over tired, I should be asleep but I am like a nine year old who's parents have gone out for the night and left them with a negligent babysitter. The truth is, I started working about ten days ago now and I am still dealing with or rather reeling from the shock that I am wearing proper, colour coordinated clothes before noon, showering once a day and eating at regular intervals (because we all know that work is really just an activity that fills the empty hours between mealtimes).

I would love to be all humorous and chirpy and rah rah, work rocks and baby am I stoked about going back to being a working girl who works hard for her money...that the clothes I'm wearing, I'VE GOT IT..the rock I'm rocking, I'VE GOT IT (this Beyonce moment was brought to you by a delirious mother of a three year old who, if she had a brain cell left after years of neglect and downright abuse, would know that sleep is the better option).

Bear with me, I plan to get my mojo back any day now.

Oh, and I have another thing to add to my Master List of shit to do before I bite the biscuit.

21. Commandeer a vehicle.

pottytalk

I started back to work today and I am feeling less than inspired; in fact, I feel downright uninspired, actually, I feel a bit grumpy. This has nothing to do with work per se, it has everything to do with the crushing realisation that I can't nap whenever I want whilst I am at work. This is a huge shortcoming of working that I hadn't really considered previously but it was brought into stark focus for me today when I found myself wanting to siesta.

All of this being said, I can share an interesting tidbit of toilet information because we all know that toilet information is what makes the world go round. Forget politics, human interest stories, world events and human achievement; when we want to be entertained, we want some good 'ole potty talk. So here goes.

For those of you who have never ventured outside of North America, there is in the rest of world something called a squat toilet. I could delve into the specifics but suffice it to say that it's basically a hole of one variety or another into which you must pee from great heights whilst attempting not to wee on your foot or cover your ankles in urinary backsplash. I am terrified of the squat toilet and I believe that I would prefer to raise my leg on a fire hydrant in broad daylight rather than use a squat I might even prefer to give birth than to use a squat and that's saying a lot. Even more terrifying than me having to use a squat, is having no choice but for Baby Girl to use a squat. I sort of half-heartedly tried it once and was met with stern, verging on hysterical resistance. We used a bush.

Now, before I offend anyone, I am not really suggesting there is anything wrong with the squat toilet. It's just that I wasn't brought up using one so I just don't get the physics of it all. It would be like waking up with a penis. I just wouldn't know the first thing about how one dresses, sits, runs or pees with such an appendage. I think you get my drift.

You may be surprised to learn that I have had a number of conversations about the squat toilets with others unfamiliar in the ways of the squat. Basically, they all boil down to horror stories of having no alternative and well...the ending is never pretty. Mine involves a concrete shack in Mumbai, some goats and a dude with a bucket of water. That's all I will say.

One story in particular that has stayed with me was relayed by a very professional friend. She said that at her rather professional workplace, she had, in the early days, noticed that the toilets were oddly dirty for such a professional environ. Moreover, she noted posted signs that appeared to depict a high heel on a toilet seat with a red slash through it that seemed to say, "hey, high heels and toilet seats are a big NO NO" Hmmmmm, high heels on toilet seats, surely you jest, surely you don't mean that professional women were hiking up their pencil skirts and leaping onto toilet seats with their Manolos to use your garden variety sit down toilet as a squat? The visual was too bizarre, the idea cuckoo n'est pas?

Fast forward to this weekend, we are out in the New Territories getting some fresh air and Baby Girl needs to go potty. Not a problem, into the loo we go and I quickly realise that it's a squat bathroom. In Hong Kong, this doesn't alarm me as there is generally at least one sit down toilet. I head for the one sit down toilet and push open the door and to my horror, I am staring at the exposed butt cheeks of a woman who forgot to lock the toilet door and yes, people, I am staring at her butt because she is standing ON THE TOILET SEAT and peeing from like three feet off the ground. It was like she was the Jackie Chan of urination; I half expected her to reward my bumblefoolery with a round house kick to the head, all accomplished whilst expertly perched on the top of the toilet seat. If I hadn't seen it with my own two eyes, I wouldn't have believed it, notwithstanding the whole story above about Manolos and toilet seats. It's the sort of thing that you have to see to really and truly appreciate. Normally, I would be mollified to find myself in such an embarrassing situation but it was like sighting the Sasquatch or getting BINGO.

It's not often that something happens that is odd and funny and queer and totally inconsequential but it did and it was the best thing that happened to me on Tuesday.

MASTER LIST II

It's funny, when I started this, I felt a bit stuck and became anxious that I wouldn't be able to finish something that I had started. However, once I started this list, the ideas have been rolling in and I am now concerned that I will have to revise this to "218 Things to Do before I leave this Earthly World".

Here are the next ten:

11. Jungle safari to see the Mountain Gorillas in Uganda;

12. (OK, blatantly copying my brilliant bud Steph but the truth is, I really, really, really want this) Own Vespa Scooter and have it pimped out with customised paint job;

13. Have Ami James (of Miami Ink fame) cover my current tattoo with something more mature, artistic and symbolic;

14. Give a person or a group a life changing gift;

15. Design, build and live in an eco-friendly house with a view of the sea;

16. See the sun rise over the dunes of the Sahara;

17. Design and have made a platinum ring set with my birthstone (Aquamarine);

18. Own a pony;

19. Have family sit for formal painted portrait; and

20. Order dessert for dinner.

THE MASTER LIST

I am a denialist. This means that if I don't think about things that upset me, they don't exist. This is how I avoid being heavily medicated and/or paying obscenely large therapy bills.

Aside from being a denialist, I am also a lover of lists. I do love, lurve, loooove lists, right up there with fine chocolate, beautiful linens and the smell of lavender and...well...I like lists, not because I am particularly organised but because I like the symmetry and beauty of everything being so prettily summarised on a page and of course, one needs innumerable and delightful books in which to write lists, so it's really like the whole , "coming full circle" thing.

So, when I saw that Mighty Girl had completed a list of the 100 things to do before, errrm, leaving the earthly world, it combined something I want to deny - mortality, with something that I love - lists. Who was I to refuse to participate in something that would simultaneously terrify and delight me.

My list is at once realistic and fantastical; I make no apologies. Here are the first ten:

1. Shoot skeet - preferably in Barbour jacket, dark green wellies and a tweed cap;

2. Complete a keepsake family tree complete with calligraphy and bound in leather. Pass it on to my daughter and hope that successive generations of women continue to add to it;

3. Drink a Bellini at Harry's Bar in Venice;

4. Kiss a Pope's ring;

5. Play baccarat at the Monte Carlo Casino dressed in a floor length lipstick red couture gown;

6. Walk on the Moors;

7. Watch my daughter be the third generation to marry at the church where I was married and where my mother was married;

8. Live in an ashram in India for a month and take a vow of silence for the full month;

9. Master the fabulous Bollywood dance by Madhuri Dixit in the film Aaja Nachle; and

10. Have a "last" completed by John Lobb shoemakers in London - get a pair of knee high, bespoke leather boots made.