My friend Lezanne alerted me to this most fabulous website where you can simultaneously enhance your vocabulary and feed hungry people all over the world. For each word you guess correctly, you help donate 20 grains of rice to help combat world hunger.
I just wasted a good couple of minutes feeding Filemon back in Namibia’s eight children…or so I hope. Check it out at www.freerice.com
The tough thing about living far away from friends and family is how much of their lives you end up missing, simply because you’re too far to be a part of it. My frail old grandmother died on Sunday morning after being sick for a very long time and, while I’m so relieved that for her the suffering has ended, it just made me realize once again how far New York is from the sunny shores of SA and Namibia. My godchild Mieke turned two last month – missed that. Julie and Gavin, two very close friends, are getting married in August – going to miss that. My baby sister Christa is turning 21 in a week – not able to wish her happy birthday in person. Anina and Andrew are taking their brand new baby Alexandra and moving to Australia at the end of August, so who knows when we’ll see them again – missed. Nicola has redecorated her house and I’m not there to see it. Donoven has launched his own successful company and I haven’t been able to give one bit of advice!
The list goes on and it simply doesn’t become easier. In fact, while life here becomes more steady and more permanent, the loss and longing to be a part of the lives of those I so dearly love becomes worse.
But I guess that’s the choice you make when you live this far away. And the positive experiences I am gathering here can never be replaced.
Having never really thought of myself as a techno-fundi before, being married to one has had its moments. And this weekend marked a momentous moment in the world of the geek – the NEW AND IMPROVED 3G Apple iphone was released. Newspapers featured this news on the front page, CNN announcers discussed the iphone phenomenon and geeks the world over got their software ready for instant access and immediate gratification. As with the launch of the original phone a year ago, people camped outside the 24-hour Apple store to ensure that they’d be first in line to get their hands on the coveted piece of geek-heaven.
After meticulous research, John decided that this was the version where he’d succumb and get himself an iphone. He left home yesterday morning around 7.30 (an hour earlier than normal) to pop into his local AT&T store to check lines and stock availability. (AT&T is the only cellular provider in the US that provides the network required for the iphone to work and a year ago we swore never to use them again after a horrible customer service experience…I guess for some pieces of technology it’s worth going back on those ‘in principle’ decisions.) He went at lunch time. At 3pm he met Marcel (he’s geek alter-ego) at the Apple store downtown in SOHO and again couldn’t get near one as the lines were just too long.
So when we met at 5pm yesterday afternoon, John was calm, contemplative and patient, but only on the outside. Iphone victory would be his! Justin had organized a boat trip on the East River for us to watch the waterfalls and after a glorious sunset cruise we went to dinner at Rosa Mexicana, a fabulous Mexican spot. After dinner John and I jumped in a cab and headed uptown to the ultimate 24-hour Apple store on 5th Avenue. Surely by 11pm the lines would have dissapated and we’d be able to just walk in, activate an AT&T account and leave, right? No sirreeeeee! The line stretched in a zigzag outside the store and right down the huge city block – they assured us that there would be no iphone purchasing for those at the back of the line before they shut the system down for maintenance at 2.30am. ‘Come back at 5.30 when the system restarts,’ the Apple guy told us.
So John, the guy who wouldn’t get up for love of money before snoozing his alarm at least 6 times every single morning, jumped out of bed at 4.30 this morning, got dressed and grabbed a cab to the Apple store where he stood in line and returned home 6 hours later, victorious.
Needless to say that my husband now has a piece of technology permanently attached to at least one hand. Me? I’m the calm, contemplative iphone widow, just waiting for the fever to pass.
My grandmother, also called Susan, used to sit us down behind her sewing machines and try to teach us the basics. Sometimes these attempts were less successful – we still laugh about what my parents thought when I stepped off the plane after a visit to my gran wearing super-short leopard-print shorts and an apliqued t-shirt (incorporating the same leopard-print fabric). My gran (or Ouma, as we call our grannies in South Africa) still just shakes her head and laughs about the fact that my long bony legs were absolutely emphasised by the wide legs on the hotpants we’d sewn together during my holiday.
Other times, these sewing lessons have proven to be ultimately life-changing. As is the case with my cousin Karin who won a South African fashion award earlier this year (I think it’s called a Vukani) and just had her first big fashion show at Durban Fashion Week this year. I’m so super proud of her and, as far as I can tell, shorts have been kept to a respectable length and there’s no leopard-print fabric anywhere. Congrats niggie! (…which is Afrikaans for cousin, by the way!)
On a weekend such as this – the celebration of the independence of the USA – I feel it’s kind of appropriate to give homage to the man with the biggest Harley, John’s dad Per who is looking truly suave in his leathers, straddling a whole lot of horsepower back in Sweden. I’m so sad not to be able to head out there this summer for the promised ride, but am definitely taking a ‘rain check’ on this one!
In the land of ‘supersize’, we’ve grown to appreciate the real meaning of large (the 4th of July fireworks? Large!) and the meaning of small (you’ve never felt quite as small as you will next to a 102-storey building!) and everything in between. We’ve just spent the most glorious ‘staycation’, celebrating this national public holiday by doing as little as possible. That said, we managed to pack a trip to ikea (I know!…again!), an afternoon at the Museum of Natural History (slightly disappointing, I’ll admit) and a whole lot of curtain-ironing into this 3-day holiday. It was fabulous. And I finished it in true style, by going to see the Broadway show ‘Spamalot’ with Justin and Andy. Naturally, I had to take the subway after dinner – heading for Uptown and ‘Queens’, which struck me as kind of funny. The fireworks on Friday night was again wonderful – and Justin and I compensated for all the American patriotism by singing ‘Nkosi Sikeleli and Namibia Land of the Brave while watching millions of dollars being shot up in a spectacular display of fire. (I tried to convince everyone in our party that the money should rather have been spent on building houses for the poor in Africa, which didn’t go down too well…)
Our apartment is finally beginning to look and feel like home. I promise to post some (non-brown-papered pics soon). Happy Independence day to ya’ll!
My new boss and I recently went on a business trip to Atlanta where he did a talk to other interior designers and a book-signing for his second published book. This is the result of one of the media interviews we’d organized for him:
Now despite the fact that I was only in Atlanta for 24 hours (including a 6-hour delayed flight: got to love flying domestic in the US) I experienced the full Southern hospitality and even got to see some dropped-suspension-super-shiny-chrome-rimmed wheels through the window of my hotel room. I never had to leave the airconditioning, except for when we ran from the conference center into our limo that took us back to the airport, but for those couple of seconds I realized that Hot-lanta was indeed HOT – in so many ways!
In New York there’s a thing called a ‘Super’. (Now forgive me if this notion extends beyond the realms of NY apartment life – I’ve only ever heard of this term on certain episodes of Friends back in the pre-NY days!) The Super lives in your building and takes care of the building’s maintenance. He puts out the garbage, manages the contractors that come in to do renovations and pretty much is responsible for all things related to the smooth management of ‘his’ building. (Supers are also sometimes called ‘Sup’, like soup, but not quite the same.)
In our new building we have a great Super from Russia. He speaks a fabulous English dialect and, like most other Supers, prefers to do less rather than going the extra mile. That said, he’s always been Super (pun intended!) friendly to us and has offered his help to put up our curtain rails. (Didn’t pitch to do the actual drilling, but hey…he had offered to help and that counts for something, right?)
The chief complaint we’ve had with our new apartment has been the fact that it has one of those yucky bathtubs. You know the one I mean. It’s so old and the porcelain layer is so worn away that you’d look at it and leave a stain or put a foot in it and leave your footprint…literally. We had spent countless hours over the past month scrubbing the tub and never had a bath, opting rather for the relative safety of our feet over the bum-alternative.
When I ran into the Super last week, I decided to take a chance and mention my bath-gripe to him. “Is there anything you could do to help?” I said, batting my eyelashes. “Nou” he said in his rough Russian accent. “Are you suuuuuurrrrrreeee? I’m desperate!” (Insert more batting of eyelids and a slight pout of the lip here). “I’ll see vot I ken dou”, he replied before storming off. “Maybe next week.” our Super yelled over his shoulder.
Now John and I are always ones to stay positive, even when the odds seem to be stacked against us. We didn’t hound him. We didn’t even threaten to kill his dog. No! We were Super nice to our Super. And when we got home after a gruelling spinning class on Monday, this is what the Super-strong smell that hit us as we walked in led us to…
No showers for us for 48 hours (we’ve been walking down a couple of blocks to Annie & Sam’s!) but presto! Our tub’s as good as new. And I think I might have a loooong soak in the newly coated tub tonight. It’s bound to be Super!