Generosity, Vanity and Dishes

I can’t lay claim to being generous all the time, I have a certain amount of self-interest running through the bones as most people do. But there was one time, a long time ago....

Vanity is no stranger, thinking of myself as the “Boss”, the king cheese, the leader, I’ve always been at the top of my popularity poll. I once managed a company for the owners who lived overseas. They visited about twice a year and left me to my own devises as long as my plans were achieved and no crocodiles started snapping at their collective butts. I was well paid but was expected to do a great deal of overseas travel on business. This was why, when my unused frequent flyer points reached the high side of half a million, I began thinking that my wife could do with a holiday.

Two young boys and a busy husband must have produced some stress and strain for her. It had been about four years since her parents had visited from Scotland, and at least ten since she and I had gone to Edinburgh to visit them. From this distance in time it doesn’t really matter if alcohol induced me to offer or not, the fact is I told her she could go back to visit her homeland using my points to pay for the trip. Generosity? It was my idea so there must have been something in it for me.

My vanity was massaged by being able to do this, the wife telling her friends about it would surely raise my status. Of course I would use the fact I made the offer, to increase my stature among the staff and customers... come on! I’m not that bad, after all I’m a man. My self interest could only have been related to the remote chance of the odd time during her holiday presenting a possibility of me putting my feet up and just relaxing.

Now this was all happening back in the early 90’s and memory does grow dim, but I’m pretty sure I was rewarded for the gesture, of course this could be that old man dreaming thing. We decided that two weeks away from home would be about all the fun she could stand, and plans went forward quickly. I don’t think she was hurrying in case I changed my mind, she just wanted to get going. Within five days she waved goodbye, leaving me with two kids and a list as long as my imagined intellect was formidable.

Our house was big, not fancy and a little old, but comfortable, perhaps huge would be a better word, even enormous I thought, as I stood in the street looking up at it when the kids and I arrived back from the Airport. My thoughts drifted to the possibility of a cleaning issue, all those rooms. The boys were 6 and 8 back then, those are years when any photo you took inspired “oh”, “ah” and “aren’t they darling” from relatives and the wife’s girl friends. Unfortunately those are also the years when “clean your room” seems to mean do whatever you like. As the boys wanted eggs and bacon I started up the hill. We hadn’t done the dishes in the rush to leave earlier that day, they could wait. The list my wife had left me took the better part of a hour to read through during the commercial breaks next day, I wasn’t worried, I had two weeks and no one to nag me.

Being the boss, I was able to take time off work to do the things that needed doing on a daily basis. I took the kids to meet the school bus, aired the clothes when they needed clean ones, shopped when absolutely necessary, or when the fast food grew boring, five outlets within five miles isn’t bad. We had a pool so baths weren’t a necessity, good thing it was warm as the towels quickly dried when thrown over the lawn chairs. The garbage was picked up on Mondays so the long walk up and down the hill from the street was only scheduled twice. I was organised, so really the list she’d left wasn’t necessary. Things were going well. Must add garbage bags and fly spray to the shopping list, those bins were beginning to whiff.

Only two weekends fell in the period she would be away, I could manage the kids outings with no problem. The younger would be taken to music lessons, something he enjoyed, while the older would miss sport and Scouts due to illness. A new Play Station was acceptable compensation. Over all, the kids had a good time, they had plenty to keep busy with around the house, computer games, TV, the pool, basketball in the backyard. I let them have friends over whenever they wanted, there was no homework sent from school, don’t know why the wife says they have too much. As for me, I was busy but happy, got a lot of reading done and the girl at the video store started calling me by my first name.

I had been careful to make sure we ate out as much as possible, but still, there seemed to be a lot of dishes used. We each had a glass for milk and another for water and soft drink, I made sure they knew which was which, you don’t mix milk and coke. As the dish cupboard became increasingly bare, the countertop became somewhat overcrowded with dirty dishes. The dining room table was just inside the next room so we placed everything but glasses there. The wife has this thing about rings on tables.

As the second week grew to a close I bought some paper plates and plastic utensils which would ease the dish shortage, the recycle bin was to go out that Sunday night so that was fine, I still hadn’t bought those garbage bags. Arriving back on Monday morning the wife would be exhausted so we decided that on Sunday we would spend a couple of hours tidying up and perhaps even have baths. We, meaning I, planned to do the tidy up just after dinner at McDonalds that night.

The kids insisted they take a day off school, we would leave home at 6:00am to be at the airport a couple of hours before the arrival, so an early night for all. It was only after putting them to bed Sunday night I realised I hadn’t changed the sheets. And then there was dusting and vacuuming, all those rooms! I sat thinking about that, and those dishes, they had started off collecting in the sink, then overran the countertop and now the dining room table and floor, I had put down towels.

The situation reminded me of a story I’d read as a kid, the man of the house was left to himself as the wife went off for a trip. As I thought about that book, the similarities to my situation struck me as an inspiration. To cut a long story short, at the last minute he decided the only way to overcome his dish problem by the time the wife arrived home, was to place the dishes on the back lawn and hose them down. Well, it was getting late but still daylight.

JAWhite
January 2010

"Oh and I think I hear some dishes calling out to you...wash me, dry me, put me away! You’d better tend to them or they might grow legs and run away!”, LAveryBrown.

This comment, sent to me by a writer, prompted the telling of the story. To this day I have an aversion to dish water which you might notice should you read my writings, there seems to be a common thread through some of them.  Thanks for reminding me LAB.

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Lingerie Football, Well Bless My Soul

Foxtel... what can I say. How I ever overlooked this little gem of a show I’ll never know. Normally organised and knowing what’s there to watch or not, I must have had a tear in my eye from the usual drama and documentaries I see. Anyway, I missed this show in the schedule but found it while looking for a Romance Historical Drama for the wife watch.

To me, team sports are a necessity during playoffs and finals, I admit to liking American football and baseball, cricket and rugby leave me a little cold. The new team sport seems to have been discovered by people who love contacts sports.... between women. Okay, every new idea deserves a chance. Based on American football with the uniforms consisting of helmet, shoulder pads and, a sport bikini, the right butt cheek is a good spot for the player number.

Without knowing all the details of the game, rules and such, I was able to watch and follow the action with the help of the very exuberant announcers. An indoor sport with the size of the playing area restricted as is indoor cricket, the action is easily followed by the numerous cameras placed to give the viewer all the angles. The close up shots of players tackling each other and ending in a mass of legs and arms is quite dramatic. The producers had to use the fuzzy spot one normally sees disguising a person’s face who can’t be identified. I’ve not seen fuzzy spots move so quickly before, there were sometimes quite a few on the field at once.

I do admire those sport announcers, they always seem to have a quick comment at just the right moment. “Someone came over the top of her from behind that time”, I agree, those girls were playing to win. “Look at that bruise on her thigh, that’s got to hurt”, “That turf burn is really going to sting in the shower” As I said they were out to get the other side. “She entered that slot on the left like a pro” I can’t go on.

These girls are tough, I saw one tackle where the two girls ran at each other full bore and smashed head and shoulder gear together with a bang. Both managed to get up afterward and, to my surprise there were no tears or a cat fight. There was some amount of pulling and shifting of cloth on body though.

I did notice that quite a few girls had large patches, like a giant band-aid on their lower backs. It was after one came loose that I realised they covered tattoos, or, as some unkind people call them, “tramp tags” I don’t hold with that term. Every girl needs to be able to express herself, covering them must have been so advertising could be sold for those positions. I don’t know what happens when the tattoo wanders down the back into the underwear, it must end somewhere down there.

I took a couple of photos of the game but wish I had a tape recorder, those announcers can really turn an appropriate phrase. This is a sport I might return to now and then, I can’t see why they won’t attract an audience.  If lower back advertising goes for say $500 a spot, I wonder what.......

JAWhite                                               Return To Main Page
January 2010

Images Copyright Foxtel and the Lingerie Football company, see your Foxtel guide for details.

A Boy and His Dog

My friend Steve and his wife moved to the coast, they bought a house only two blocks from the beach. It was in one of those little towns that exist somewhat out of the way like most of the truly beautiful places. We had been friends for a number of years; I met Steve when I started work. It was my first job and Steve was to be my first boss, although things didn’t start well between us,  they turned out okay. We became close friends, actually; the type of friend you never forget in spite of distance and time, we were mates, a very good word that.

The girls seemed to hit it off as well, perhaps at first because they knew Steve and I were good friends, but they did like each other. We became one of those small groups you might see around town, always together, laughing and having a good time. Dinner parties at each other’s homes were a frequent occurrence. Karen, Steve’s wife was a good cook, it turned out I wasn’t too bad either, Steve could eat, and my wife was a good dish washer. I always looked forward to those weekend meetings. When one of us had to be away and we didn’t get together, the time seemed to drag.

Laughter was easy in our little group; Steve couldn’t say anything without putting a comic spin on it. Both he and I enjoyed seeing the funny in life, it’s always there you just have to look from the right angle. You see, Steve always was and always will be a boy at heart. Not a clown, but more a “Tom Sawyer” character, if you don’t know what that means, you don’t know how much fun painting a fence with friends can be.

Steve married Karen, I married Sally and had things stayed as they were, it might have been one of those “Happily Ever After” stories. But things didn’t and to some extent, it wasn’t. We were friends who thought alike and enjoyed life in each other’s company, but life moves on, so do people and relationships.

There comes a time when mates, now also husbands with wives, start looking to the future. Thinking about buying houses and having children made us take work more seriously. Lifting our ambitions beyond tickets to the next rock concert, both Steve and I raised our gazes toward the promotional ladder in our respective careers.

Steve’s company needed a manager for one of their branches, Steve was qualified and promoted. This led to my friend Steve and his wife moving to the coast. It was a small town in the territory we both covered in our sales trips. The Bay, was beautiful, small enough for everyone who lived there to know each other, but big enough to cater for a summer tourist trade. They bought a new house, in fact they had it built and, within their budget the way they wanted it built. My wife and I visited a few times, especially when I managed to take her on a sales trip with me. It was always great to see them. During one visit Karen introduced me to vegetables au gratin, bless her. I might be overweight but I’m full of those vitamin Es’.

My wife and I missed the usual Friday night dinners with them but we still had other friends near us. For Steve and Karen it was harder, both their families, as well as all their friends were now five hours drive away. They made new friends though, and always had plenty of visitors, one of the blessings/curses of living in a coastal vacation area. For Steve, there was another friendship coming his way.

Rex was one of those dogs you have to look closely at to place ancestry, a little of this and that. I would guess a Setter and Labrador, maybe. Long red coat and slim build, with plenty of tail action, his energy was impressive. Only visiting occasionally, it appeared to me that Rex had arrived fully grown, but Steve had raised him from a pup and certainly loved him. They were inseparable when Steve was home. They liked walks, and played the usual human-dog games on the beach. I’m told Steve even took him to watch the game when playing rugby on the weekends.

One of Steve’s favourite rituals was the after work visit to the local pub, this was easy for him, it was just down the street. Rex would of course go as well, sitting at the masters feet, as Steve had a few with the other locals, discussing the football and fishing. All the locals knew Rex; during the day when Steve was working Rex would walk around town saying hello to everyone. I’m sure he had a habit of visiting each local in turn at the same time each day, I’ve read of dogs doing that. Karen mentioned that people would often tell her about Rex’s regular wanderings, “I saw Rex down at the Wharf earlier; he was chewing a bone”.

As in every town, The Bay had its share of local characters; one in particular played a part in the lives of Rex and Steve. Cob wasn’t his real name but that’s what everyone called him. He owned the Surf Board and Boat rental place on the beach. He always seemed to wear the same clothes every day. Straw hat, loose fitting cotton shirt, shorts and leather sandals, a beachwear enthusiast, I think he was dressing the part of beach bum, both a beard and pipe was a given.

Cob was on the beach every day, when it rained he could keep an eye on his boards from the pubs veranda. Even on a sunny day, if no one was renting, you could find him there. Feet up on the railing, he would leisurely look out over the ocean, the reason for his perpetual smile was obvious.

When Rex finished his daily rounds of the village, he would spend some time with Cob until Steve got home. They were pretty much alike, Rex and Cob, free, happy, contented, neither needed to go anywhere anytime soon. It was the fact that Cob was always there, not having to spend time “working” as Steve did, which caused the problem.

Gradually, Rex started spending more and more of his time with Cob. Steve would come home and, not finding Rex waiting, go to the pub by himself. In would walk Cob, Rex following. At first Steve laughed with the locals, when comments were made about Rex preferring Cob to himself, but all knew he was hurt by the situation. The day finally came when Rex didn’t come home at all, that night he went home with Cob.

Rex had made his choice. Steve and Cob did remain friends, at least on the surface. But Steve’s hurt look when they walked into the pub said it all; part of the boy in him had gone forever.

I’m not sure that all the “Lost Dog” signs we see in store windows tell the full story, you might want to read between the lines sometimes.

Over the years Sally and I lost touch with Steve and Karen, that’s sad. Friends moving away are one thing, but when your dog leaves you, well, that’s something else.

JAWhite                           “Chillin” Photo Courtesy Jim Simandi Flickr Photo
December 2009                    “Friends” Photo courtesy Issac Joo Chang Stock_xchng