A post that isn't about my mother

Okay, so now's the time where I try and take you up on the many kind offers I got to help me access papers while I'm stuck over here in Foreign Parts.

I've been pretty lucky so far: of the ten or so references I've needed to access over here so far, half of them were things that I brought with me, and the other half have been available in the Canterbury University library. But I've just struck one that isn't. So if anyone has access to an electronic version of the journal Studies in the Linguistic Sciences, I would be in your eternal debt if you could email me the following paper:

Kraska, Iwona. 1992. "From Verb to Clitic and Nominal Suffix: The Somali -e, -o Nouns". Studies in the Linguistic Sciences, 22(1), 89–106.

If you do email me this paper, please also note that you have done so in the comments here, so that everyone else can heave a sigh of relief, stop plumbing the dusty depths of their library databases, and go back to looking at photos of cats.

Charming

My mother had an extremely irritating visitor this morning. In the first twenty minutes this friend was there, I answered the door, found a vase for flowers, took two phone messages, brought up cups of tea, brought in the washing, hung out a second load of washing*, tidied the kitchen. Then I came back upstairs and sat down at the computer to work on my thesis.

Five minutes later, I overheard this from their conversation:

Mum: "This house is such a mess.** And I feel bad asking StyleyGeek to tidy it for me. She is doing her best."

Friend: "You shouldn't feel bad about getting her to do it. It's not like she's busy. She's just sitting there at the computer the whole time. You mustn't be afraid of asking for what you need. You are the one with cancer."

Mum: "Well... No, you're right. Really you are. I need to learn to voice my needs better."

Friend: "Quite right. You've given and given and given to your children while they are growing up. At some point they need to turn around and start giving something back."

Ten minutes after that, I was out watering the back garden when the friend came and tackled me. "I'm leaving now," she said. "I'll show myself out, shall I?"

"Oh, sorry, do you know the way? Let me walk you round to the front." I realised Mum must have sent her home because it was only half an hour before we needed to leave for her appointment at the hospital.

"Now, StyleyGeek, your mother is resting now. Don't go disturbing her, will you? Much as I'm sure you like to chat with her, she needs her sleep. And she says she has to go out soon and do some errand. Perhaps that might be something you could do for her, just to help her out?"

_________

* I have always wondered why my mother, living on her own, ends up doing washing every single day, while Geekman and I between the two of it, only do a load once a week or so. Helping out here has solved that mystery. First of all, she never wears anything a second time without washing it. She washes the towels and tea towels every day as well. Even pajamas don't get worn two nights running. She separates delicates, lights, darks, wools, etc, so often has several loads per day. Secondly, every morning she decides before she gets up what she is going to wear that day, and doesn't cope at all well if that item isn't available to be worn. Today, for example, she only had one shirt and a pair of socks in the washing basket (I didn't wash her whites yesterday, since there was only that), but she had decided she wanted to wear the shirt. When she found out it was still in the dirty washing basket, she realised she couldn't wear it today, but it had to be washed immediately so that her plans couldn't be thwarted in this way again.

I think this also explains why she owns so many clothes. (Like, four pairs of pajamas, eight nightgowns and three dressing gowns, just to mention her sleepwear.)

** The house is not a mess at all by anyone's definition. I vacuumed and cleaned the bathroom yesterday. I have tidied every day. The dishes are always done immediately after every meal. The only clutter is the flowers and cards on every surface, and admittedly there were two coffee cups I hadn't cleared away.

The smallest room and other important cultural matters

The sign for the toilets at the library* have the Maori translation of "toilet" as te whare iti (literally "the little house"). I have no idea if that's the usual word for toilet in Maori (most places just have doors labeled wahine "women" and tane "men") or if someone was getting creative.

In vaguely related news, I have become totally addicted to Ask Your Auntie, Maori TV's answer to Oprah. How can you not love a show that tackles these hard-hitting issues?

Is your kaumatua a tyrant? Is your best friend trying to cut in on your tāne? Are you hoha with your boss? Sick of whanau treating your home like a hotel?**

But sadly, not a programme likely to make it overseas.

______________

* New Zealand, how I love you and your bilingual public notices.
** kaumatua = tribal elder; tane = man; hoha = pissed off; whanau = (extended) family

One day I'll find something else to complain about besides my mother

(But not today.)

An excerpt from my email exchange today with Geekman:

Me:

> > I watched Stargate Atlantis tonight. It's not the same watching it without you, though. And it's extremely irritating having someone sitting there going, "Oh! Oh! A big blue thing! What's the big blue thing? Are they in Outer Space? What a silly program! Why are they going in the spaceship?"

Geekman:

> You do that so well :) You could always have fun making up answers. You could go on about how it's a postmodern allegory of the eviction from Eden. Or something. Pretend you're James Joyce. Or you could go for the irritating answer and say something like "You won't understand. It's too modern and you're too old."

*****

In other news, I cooked some pumpkin soup today (at my mother's request). As I was halfway through making it, she entered the room.

"What's that?"

"Pumpkin soup. Remember? You said you'd like me to use up the pumpkin in the cupboard by making soup."

"It looks funny. Would you like a recipe for it?"

"I'm just making it the way I usually do."

"Does it have chicken stock in it? My recipe has chicken stock."

"Yes, this one does too, Mum. The only thing that might be different is that I'm putting a little bit of curry powder in it. It won't be hot; it will just bring out the flavour a bit."

"I don't think curry powder goes in pumpkin soup. My recipe doesn't have it. I think you'd like my recipe. It's spicy too, you know. It has garlic in it."

When the soup was done, my mother tasted it, pronounced it unbearably hot*, and spent the rest of the day telling her friends the hilarious story of how I "screwed up the recipe" and made "completely inedible" soup.


No jury would convict, right?

_________

* I know, her attitude to garlic should have warned me.

Toitoi in the moonlight

I knew this visit was missing something

The where-are-my-grandchildren drive by:

"Did you know that [friend] is having trouble conceiving? She's worried she left it too late. Let that be a warning to you."

"Mum! I'm only 27! And I'm not even sure I want kids."

"That's what SHE said. And then she did want them after all, but it was Too Late."

***

Other things you should not say to your daughter no matter how close your relationship is:

"Have you finished your thesis yet? How many words have you written today? Isn't it taking an awfully long time? I wrote my last essay for [bible school by correspondence] in one afternoon."

"Since we have so many chickens that need eating, I've invited all my friends over for dinner. They'll be here in half an hour. So you just need to whip up some side dishes and dessert for eight."

"Sometimes I worry that I will never have sex again. I mean, my vibrator is fun and all, but it's just not the same."

LOLpilgrims

If you are a fan of LOLcats, you'll find these hilarious.

This one is my favourite:

Unnecessarily taunting

Day of the chickens

Today is a special holy day. It is the saints day belonging to St. Sanders of All Chickens, and is celebrated by visiting sick friends and giving them a chicken. You may not have been aware of this; I certainly wasn't. But it is the only explanation for what is going on.

We have received four chickens today. Two roast, one smoked and one casseroled. The smoked one will keep forever, but I have no idea how the two of us are going to eat all the rest.

Anyone have any bright ideas?

Memories

Today, for old times' sake, I dropped by the university campus where I did my undergraduate degree. It was a strange sensation, seeing it all again, seven years after I left. Before I got there, I wouldn't have been able to tell you where anything was, or what individual buildings looked like, but when I arrived it was all instantly familiar. Everywhere I stood, I would have a flash of memory telling me exactly what was around each corner, or in a few hundred metres in each direction. But I still didn't quite get the big picture back in my head until I'd walked around the whole campus.

Funnily, the sight of each building brought back a whole set of related memories that I had totally forgotten.

For example:

The cafe under the library where Geekman and I had our first date, followed by many 6 hour "study breaks" (while drinking endless cups of horrible, horrible 55 cent coffee).

The second hand clothes shop which sold me $1 items of clothing that I still wear today, nine years after I bought some of them, is sadly gone. But the sandwich places where I could never afford to eat are still there.

The Registry, which along with a few hundred other students, I once helped occupy for nearly a week in a protest against increased student fees. My job was to sit in the elevator and go up and down, up and down, to make sure the police couldn't use it to come up to the second floor and arrest us (we had barricaded the stairs). I had a major assignment due a few days later and it's amazing how difficult it is to concentrate on solving phonology problems when you have to interrupt your train of thought every two minutes to press the "close doors" button.

And I've saved the best of all until last: The cushions under the stairs in the physical sciences library. Is this not teh awesome? (Please to excuse the blurry: I had to take this picture without a flash so as not to wake the sleeping student.)


Since this library has heating, something no student houses ever do, my flatmates and I spent many happy winter evenings curled up here with a thermos flask of Milo and a good book. I think there used to be beanbags and giant sofa cushions rather than the neat mattresses and pillows they have there now.

My Mum (to the tune of My Guy/My Girl)

(Cross-posted in the comments at Phantom Scribbler's Wednesday Whining)

Nothing you could say
Could keep me sane
Around my mum (my mum)
Nothing you could do
Because I'm stuck here like glue
With my mum (my mum)

If there's two chocolates left, who would take them both?
It's my mum (my mum)
If there's noise in the street, who's certain it's a thief?
It's my mum (my mum)

Today I stuck 27 stamps to letters
Washed dishes, watered plants,
And tried not to hit her
She blames my cooking when she farts
But I haven't torn her apart (it's illegal) (illegal)

I've got laundry to do on a cloudy day
And it's cold inside
Heating's too much to pay (for)
I guess you say
What will make me feel this way?
My mum, talking bout my mum.

Public Service Announcement

If you drop melted chocolate on your pale blue shirt, and if your mouth is full of chocolate at the time, licking the chocolate "off" your shirt will only make matters much, much worse.

Tactful

My aunt, who lives three hours' drive away, to my mother:

"If our car had to get stolen, it's convenient that it happened this week, so that we had a reason to come down to Christchurch while you were in hospital. I mean, it's such a long drive and so much hassle, so we wouldn't have done it just to see you, but since we had to buy a car, it kind of made sense to visit."

Let me do that math:

Buying a car = good enough reason to travel to Christchurch
Visiting sister with cancer != good enough reason to travel to Christchurch
:. Buying a car > visiting sister with cancer

The nice thing about having lots of friends

These are just today's additions to the great flower and teddy bear forest that my mother's flat is fast becoming.


I have totally run out of surfaces to put things on.

One good thing

New Zealand cafes and bakeries are The Best. (Ever.) (In the whole world.)

Somehow I always forget this. And I forget about lolly cake*, which is the one reason why I would never be able to go on a permanent no-sugar diet in New Zealand.


_______

* If you don't click over to that site, you will be culturally poorer and never really understand what entertaining reading a well-written recipe can be.

Random Bullets of Cancer

• I expect that being the support person for an ill family member is probably a lot easier when it's someone who doesn't irritate the crap out of you. It's amazing the conflicting feelings caused by constantly feeling pissed off with and sorry for someone all at the same time. (Ultimately, though, I do realise that the things Mum does that make me feel uncomfortable are probably more about me than about her.)
• For instance, today I overheard her telling a (not especially close) friend on the phone, "I haven't opened my bowels since the operation, but I'm starting to feel it maybe coming on." Is that really something that other people need to know?*
• She keeps telling people I don't know that I will call them, meet them for coffee etc. I just won't. I can't imagine how anyone can do that with strangers. And some of her friends kept insisting a few days ago that I would be terribly upset and anxious during Mum's operation, and that I should come to their house to wait. If I am upset and anxious, the LAST thing I want to do is be with strangers and have to make polite conversation or (worse) turn into a mental wreck in front of them. Ugh. In the end I switched off the phone for a couple of hours and took a long, relaxing bath. When I switched it back on again, there were 13 messages waiting from people I don't know wanting me to call them back. Which I did. But it kind of negated the relaxing effect of the bubble bath.
• Today she railed from her hospital bed against Americans ("Those awful Americans are as subtle as a screaming red light, and their idea of humour is to hit you over the head with a laugh soundtrack. Not like us British**; we understand delicacy and tact"); against Australians ("Must be awfully hard to teach linguistics. To Australians, I mean. What with the way they mangle the English language. In fact, it must be hard to teach anything to Australians. A bit dense, the lot of them, aren't they?") and against Asians ("So horribly driven. They don't know how to have fun".) When I don't look appropriately amused by these sentiments she tells me I've been "infected by that nasty political correctness" and that I need to learn to relax.
• Mum is totally convinced she is going to die. She is writing letters to be given to people in case. Has updated her will. Took me out to show me her solicitor's office. Told me what sort of funeral she wants. If I suspected I was dying, I think I would make arrangements too, but secretively, because I would be worried people would think I was an obsessive pessimist.
  
• I am hemorrhaging money like a big money-hemorrhaging thing. Here a dollar, there a dollar, everywhere a dollar fifty. Yesterday alone I paid $14 for parking, and I've used up $35 worth of petrol in less than a week. If it was down to me I'd take the bus everywhere, or walk, but I'm ferrying other relatives and Mum's friends around everywhere too: picking up my brother from the airport, driving Mum to appointments, driving her friends to visit her in hospital, driving my grandfather around... I don't know how anyone affords to use a car for their main means of transport.
• Then I'm spending at least $5 dollars a day on fetching Mum cakes and cokes from the hospital cafeteria, since she is convinced that now she has cancer she will waste away to nothing if she just lives on hospital food. And then there's groceries and bills and "Could you buy me a new kettle?" or "I really meant to repot the plants on the front porch before all this happened. Be a dear and pop down to the shop for some new pots. And don't get those awful plastic ones. They are so cheap and nasty."
• Her welfare payments have been finalised, and although they will now pay for extras like a gardener, a cleaner, petrol for trips to the hospital and doctor, all her prescriptions and other illness-related expenses, Mum's total income now that she won't be working at all will be $100 a week less than her current budget (which she has trouble sticking to anyway). I've suggested getting rid of her cellphone, which easily costs her $20 a week, and that she maybe stop using things like her colour printer (she prints out all her photos and emails in full colour), try going just a month or two without buying new clothes, and if I were her, I'd get rid of the car. (She lives half a block from a major bus-stop that connects everywhere, and is within a short walk of a supermarket, or a half-hour walk of the centre city). But she has never lived without a car, and I can understand that she feels now that she is ill that she won't have the energy to use public transport. It just bothers me that she spends more than I do on discretionary expenses like new clothes, fancy brands of household items, a flash car, top quality insurance, home repairs, entertainment, etc, and then constantly complains about being short of money. Especially when I am subsidising her like I am at the moment, it frustrates me to know that she is spending my money on things I wouldn't buy for myself.
• If you are going to get a nasty disease, you might as well do it in New Zealand. As well as Mum's welfare payments covering the extras mentioned above, she has received a $600 voucher from the Cancer Society to cover a prosthesis and new bras, and will get another $600 for this every four years for the rest of her life. She also gets a free wig and hats, as well as various small things like cushions and face creams and wotnot. And in a few weeks she is booked in to have a free makeover and massage. My grandmother has had six hats and a lovely wig all free from the Cancer Society. And the Cancer Society are paying for my grandfather and aunt and uncle to stay in a motel near the hospital, since they decided Granddad was too elderly to cope well with the usual shared accommodation they provide. On the other hand, this makes me feel bad for people who have less well-publicised diseases and presumably don't get any of these compensations.
• Mum came home from the hospital this afternoon, though. So hopefully the next week or so will be a bit less frantic.

___________

* I do see the irony in complaining about someone over-sharing like this when I spill out all the details of my life to complete strangers on the internet. It just feels different, somehow. And at least I don't tell you about my bowels.

** She is British when it makes her feel appropriately superior; but counts herself as a New Zealander when it is time to complain about the "whinging Poms".

I'm such a hedonist

(As seen at Sea Change.)

Haymaker

You are one of life’s enjoyers, determined to get the most you can out of your brief spell on Earth. Probably what first attracted you to atheism was the prospect of liberation from the Ten Commandments, few of which are compatible with a life of pleasure. You play hard and work quite hard, have a strong sense of loyalty and a relaxed but consistent approach to your philosophy.

You can’t see the point of abstract principles and probably wouldn’t lay down your life for a concept though you might for a friend. Something of a champagne humanist, you admire George Bernard Shaw for his cheerful agnosticism and pursuit of sensual rewards and your Hollywood hero is Marlon Brando, who was beautiful, irascible and aimed for goodness in his own tortured way.

Sometimes you might be tempted to allow your own pleasures to take precedence over your ethics. But everyone is striving for that elusive balance between the good and the happy life. You’d probably open another bottle and say there’s no contest.

What kind of humanist are you? Click here to find out.

Tactlessness or the height of efficiency?

When Grandma got her diagnosis (stomach cancer with incurable secondary tumors in her brain) about two weeks ago, the very next morning she received a courier package delivery from the local undertaker with forms for her to specify her funeral wishes and details of their "very reasonable" pricing schemes.

(Weirdly, the undertaker's forms want the most bizarre details, like her mother's maiden name, and Granddad's number from when he was in the army in WW2.)

I heart my brother

I was going to write a long post about the past week here, and I might still do it later on, but for now I think the following anecdote sums things up quite well.

I picked up my brother from the airport today. He could only get one day off work, despite explaining to his boss that both his mother and his grandmother are down here in the hospital with cancer. But at least he is here until Monday.

My brother and I have never been close. In fact, years go by when we have almost no contact with each other. We don't really have anything in common. Mum was a little bit worried about him coming down at all, since he tends to need looking after rather than being any help around the place himself. As far as I can tell, his main hobbies are spending money, breaking things, and losing his job.

So anyway, I picked him up at the airport. He got into the car and asked me, "How long have you been over here?"
"Since Sunday," I replied.
"Aaah, good times," he said ironically. Then, with concern, "Have you had any good times lately?"
"Not exactly," I said, and started to cry.
"We'll have to do something about that, then!" he said. He took me to the shops, bought chocolate and sweets and all the ingredients for pancakes, drove me to the movies and made me watch Pan's Labyrinth and eat chocolate, and tomorrow he is cooking me pancakes for breakfast. (I think my no-sugar thing is on hold.)

And I'm off!

Posting will probably be lighter than usual over the next few weeks, as my mother only has a dial-up connection and a crappy computer.