Dim Sum Mum - Tess' Little Pieces

does it matter?

i passed on the closeup picture of missing four year old madeleine mccann to people on my mailing list last week.

slowly, the replies began filing back, with many people stating the obvious.

4. the case would not be receiving so much publicity if madeleine were not a photogenic, blonde beauty

3. many children go disappearing each year, and no celebrities contribute to their "FIND THEM" or "fight" campaigns.

2. the 2 million pounds (or whatever, this is a figure given to me) donated to the family for the purpose of finding ONE child is more than many missing children's organisations have in their bank accounts.

1. the parents left her alone in her room, unsupervised.

does it matter? best case scenario, a poor child is frightened, and needing to be returned to her family. you don't need to agree with the papal visits, the media hypocrisy and overplay...fight about it later.

but since i am thinking about it....and based on conversations with oprah and andrea...

4. yes, the media pays more attention to this case than to minorities disappearing. in no way is this madeleine mc cann's fault.

2 & 3 yes it is sad that the money and jet, etc is donated to just one family when there are so many missing children each year, yet what are the mc cann's supposed to do? stop looking for their child because no other family going through this horror and tragedy has these funds at their disposal? i wouldn't stop if it were my child. and when madeleine is found, i am pretty certain the mccann's would revert the money to a general fund.

1. this one was tough. no, charles and i have never left the kids alone when we went out to dine. at the end of our phuket trip we had pretty much memorised the room service menu. but then again, for me, a club sandwich or a random house curry isn't a hardship. it's a good thing. but i have done things that could have gone so, so badly. i just don't know it because they never have gone badly.

like leaving them unpsupervised in the bathtub to play.

like leaving them alone in a shopping cart while i dart two aisles over to pick up sweeties that i dont want them to see me grabbing.

like living in a city that doesn't require kids to sit in car seats.

like shrugging when mum asked me about carys's hamburger, "are you sure that's done?"

there's more. it's a long list. the stuff that could have gone disaterously wrong is massive.

PEOPLE magazine mentioned that originally the British press made much of the fact that the mccann's had left the kids alone while they went out to dinner. do you think the mccann's aren't tortured over that fact? cannot imagine how they are carrying that extra burden. and then the press dropped that angle of the story. was it because the family is blonde and well off, one email suggested?

i don't think so, i think it is because all parents, one time or another, without knowing it, endanger the lives of our children. thankfully, the kids usually live to tell the tale. hopefully, madeleine mccann and all the other nameless missing children that the press don't pick up on, will too.

suspicious minds

since you all must be keeping track, you know magnificent and i have been married seven years. and yes, while the itch is definitely less for me than it was a few years ago, oh, do i need to keep an eye on mc these days.

when i come home from a trip, out of my suitcase comes extremely interesting and essential items like noxema, egyptian cotton sheets, dramamine pills (LOTS), bowls that have straws built into them (very cool), placemats featuring canada, you know STUFF like that. household misc. the kids might get new socks, or possibly some new triamenic chewables.

lo and behold, when young chuck bounced off the plane the other morning, WHAT do you think he unpacked and merrily produced ALPHABITS for their breakfast.

ALPHABITS.

he thought ALPHABITS were worth toting across the ocean? did he NOT read my blog on twinkies?

i was stunned and of course called him on it. (admittedly my mouth was full of red licorice, an essential item that he very kindly did bring back with him.)

"well, why not."

then i saw him remove a packet of fruit loops from his suitcase. FRUIT LOOPS. i am stunned. isn't the crap count coco's that is made in malaysia good enough for my kids? apparently not, because my man has to haul FRUIT LOOPS as well.

i have to watch this guy every minute.

of course he did bring back a kick a$$ biography of mary queen of scots complete with some good maps and family trees, so am i a leetle grateful, but still, stunned. i think he might get an earring next.

3650 days

ten years ago this month i arrived in hong kong.

each time i sat squirming in my seat, throwing my book and papers into my bag, thrilled at the thought of being with and near magnificent charles, i never failed to appreciate the stunning landing at kai tak airport. it was like being dropped out of a sky, turning a very quick corner and landing on a very thin strip of concrete. it was amazing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQqAxp6qtxs a short blurb but a good one, taken from the street.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIbZqXqiQoI the bbc look at the kai tak phenomenon...it does sound like they're playing a video game though!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McNU5b2-7bc longer, but shows a bit more of the city

even if you don't click on attachments, please click on the first link...this is why hong kong kai tak airport was so internationally known!

kai tak closed in 1998. and although everyone agrees that hong kong international airport is a great efficient airport (except for the taxi drivers, who miss the fares to the airport and hate the airport express trains), it lacks kai tak's statement. the plane dropped you in kai tak, and somehow had room for you. sort of like hong kong. even today, 10 years later, people still talk fondly about kai tak, and the views into people's living rooms, and the angles it provided.

the views into people's living rooms...for me it provided me the opportunity to view my own living room, and to make my own living..the one i had always wanted with the person i had always wanted...i just hadn't known it (and really, over the years it would take me several times to realise this).

so as i sit back and celebrate a decade of life in hong kong and becoming the tess i always wanted to be, i look back on kai tak, where tess entered, and stayed.

"i just want to play"

sebastian begins primary one in a few months.

next week we head over to his primary school to meet his teacher and find out a few more pertinent details. but i admit to being concerned.

sebastian, my lovely, sweet, compassionate boy, wants to quit swimming and soccer, because it is too hard.

he stopped learning to ride a bike without stablisers because it was too hard.

he doesn't want to read anymore because it is too hard.

yesterday at swimming when i was talking to him about how at primary one he was going to be learning more, he turned to me and said, "but mummy, i just want to play".

at five years old, do i have to tell my child that that dream is unreasonable? that his playing days are over? i am having tough times with this concept, to be honest with you. i know there is a balance, but i had to end yesterday's conversation because i didn't want to frighten him. it just seemed too sad to say it. at five.

but still, the learning curve is going to be pretty steep, and the school's don't have time for the kids who aren't really picking up the concepts, especially those who aren't interested in picking up the concepts.

sebastian.

a tisket a tasket, a brown and yellow basket

there have been some stellar quotes floating around our home these past few days.

jasper informed me last night, "maybe my piece of broccoli (that he was refusing to eat) should go on a plane to canada"

sela, lamenting the fact that i have run out of cherry chapstick (after which is liberally applied to their lips, they make little smacking noises)...."will i ever kiss 'gain, mummy?" (hopefully not).

on the way home from swimming today, we were in the taxi and i asked sebastian if swimming lessons were as fun as swimming in phuket. and he said, "no mummy, we were mermaids in the water. but not when i was throwing up or had to do a poo."

poo. a topic that is getting way too much air time, and hence odor in our home. from carys, of all people. sunday, i discovered that while her siblings had done a wee in the corner, she had chosen to do a poo in her flip flop. a POO!

monday, her siblings kept their wees to themselves, but carys planted a poo in her toy basket, and did a wee as well. she was devastated when i found out. and of course, i punished her with a not so warm shower, which was awful for her and me. but it was a good consequence for her action. and she had to help clean it up, of course.

WHERE IS CHARLES? HE IS IN TORONTO!

but she told me that she doesn't want to do poos in the toilet.

but you did poos in the toilet in phuket? i questioned her.

yes, but apparently that is different. carys offered to go back to phuket every time she needed to do a poo. she was quite eager in this offer. i wish. our conversation pretty much ended there...her voice drops down past a whisper when she gets upset or thinks people are upset with her. so i don't know what she is thinking. or doing. i am not sure if carys did her movement at school today (certainly not at home) so our negotiations are at a detente.

my frazzled nerves. i feel sore, and black and brown all over.

in our younger years, (the 1970's as opposed to before the cancellation of arrested development) my brother graeme and i read a lot of archie comics. we bought them, at frugal blake's instructions, not at the corner stores, but at garage sales.

"who cares that it's not the most recent edition?" he's demand "they keep reusing the same comics over and over again. save your money." so we did, and instead of buying one for 50c, we would buy 5 for 50c at a garage sale, six or seven if the covers were ripped, as they often were. blake also taught us not to buy the large comics, rather save the money for the digests. the large comics only contained three stories, but were larger sized, and half the price, whereas the digests, contained at least four times the stories, and were about one third the size as the large comics, for twice the price. frugal blake heaven. it's a miracle that neither of us need wearing glasses now, for all in the dark comic reading we did.

the back page of the comic books was always devoted to twinkies or joes louis. they looked so delicious to graeme and i, and we spent years discussing how fantastic these items would taste. and archie and veronica and betty were fans as well! how wonderful! how chocolately the chocolate would be. how mouthwateringly complimentary the entire concoction would be. of course, twinkies weren't available in edmonton and yellowknife back then, they were an american deal, so we just fuelled the fantasy by talking about them for several more years.

at some point in our development, i think around 13 and 11, we laid hands on twinkies. i think frugal had gone on a business trip to the states or something, or he and mum had gone on a trip to hawaii and to compensate for not taking us, they had brought us back twinkies. (to be fair, that is probably what we asked for.)

graeme and i sat down across from each other and savoured the packets infront of us. at last. as carefully as any groom on his wedding night we revealed the cellophane wrapper and felt sorry that the poor class of cellophane had surrounded this poor twinkie with it's sad scent. we each picked up our twinkie, stroked it a couple of times, and on the count of three, bit in.

now normally, graeme and i would psych each other out, take a bite before three, not bite at all..you get the picture. but this was too important. we had waited too long for our twinkies.

so we bit, and chewed. and tried to pretend that we liked it. nodded for mum and dad's benefit, as they loomed over us, a satisfied smile on their faces. the twinkie was absolute crap. tasted like nothing and dissolved instantly. massive let down.  so much for our dreams of growing up and living on twinkies.

i think we finished the box of twinkies...can you imagine frugal blake not letting us? but i sure wasn't in a hurry to taste a joes louis or whatever they were called.

a pretty pointless blog, but there we go. soon i can write about WIG WAGS, the lost (and best) canadian chocolate bar. and graeme, i miss you.

Sela in the pool

Please click here

does it look like i like your kids?

in the six months when we planned, cancelled, planned, cancelled, planned and finally paid for this holiday, magnificent and i were resigned to the fact that while we were here, we would be on parent alert. this was not a couples lovey dovey holiday, at least not between 7am-pm. this was suburbia goes to the beach. forget the beach novels, the beach bag is filled with kids toys, cups, and kids needs. there is no reading when you have kids at the pool. besides upsetting our kids, who want us in the pool with them, it would also be kind of rude to our fellow holiday-ers. how fun is it to listen to kids trying to get their parents attention when their parents are locked in vanity fair (even a boring, sans dominick dunne episode) or a men's health? it is irritating because the kids will just increase the volume tone until the parents finally, exasperated look up and say, WHAT? so no, we wouldn't do that, to our kids, ourselves or the people around us.

with no false expectations, every day magnificent and i take the kids to breakfast, stopping en route to claim el primo kids poolside beach chairs. not many of our fellow le meridien holidayers are awake at 7am, so we have the best seats to choose from. to be fair, there is no shortage of pool in this resort:

www.lemeridien.com/phuketbeachresort

and then we're off to breakfast.

afterwards, we might explore the beach for a bit, but it is always handy to be near a bathroom, as all four are very regular morning time people these days. we found an eel the other morning, it was dead which was a good lesson for sebastian on how eels can't breathe oxygen, but people do, and i took some great pictures of it's little teeth. there is a place to rock climb, but young seb is too, well, young.

so we head back to the pool which is the only place the kids want to be anyway. we have staked out this circular pool which opens into one of the wider pools as our place. jasper loves "swimming" around the sitting area of the circle, the girls are getting braver and practise their "swimming walk" to and fro across the circular pool. seb is happy practising his front crawl and i have bitten a hole through my bottom lip as i have managed not to lecture him on how he could be so much more effective if he only straightened his legs when he kicked.yay me.

all the kids, except jasper, being swung in the water. this is a great way to get their faces a little wet. we either play tick tock tick tock im a little cuckoo clock, and then dunk them under, or my bonnie lies over the ocean, and lift them in and under the water. (exhausting).

now when we do this, a respectful or hyper little circle of other kids tends to gather around us demanding that we give them a go. same with when i am launching seb off my knees or charles and i are throwing him in the water. kids love this stuff. they did three decades ago when i was the launchee, and they do now when i am the launcher. i will vault the kid in the water a few times, but it's tough throwing 40lbs of kid into the water (when you're already in the water), and i start looking around for the kids parents.

the kids are around 3-6 years of age. the younger ones have arm bands and are paddling around, the older ones swimming. but where are the parents?

i can't tell. magnificent, mo, myself and the aquafit instructor are the only people in the pool right now. where is everyone else? everyone else is reading. occasionally looking up, but not really.

i am not kidding myself, if i for one moment thought that my kids were self sufficient in the water i would be heading back to the beach chair and opening a book. but when the sole parents in the water suddenly become the kids club, am i a bad person because i begrudge looking after all the other kids? i'm here to spend time with MINE. to watch them blow bubbles, to encourage them to put their faces under water and do the arrow float. to take THEM to the bathroom.

we have 2 days left here....how should i handle this??

thanks in advance.

Where's Tess?

Please click here

http://www.oneishy.com/personality/

here is another link for you, have fun with it. i personally am not all that assured of it's accuracy. in its attempts for alliteration, i think they lose something in the accuracy. however, having said that, it is an interesting analysis.

share the results. i am choleric something.

for the past four days i have had a ray of redlight in my life. one of my best friends from forever is visiting me. how good a friend is she? i don't really want to take the time to write, because i don't have a lot of time left with her, and don't want to post while she is here. but let's just say i don't have a high school picture of the two of us, because there was so much big hair, we couldn't both get in the frame.

she is beautiful, reddish blonde hair that she is now straighting, instead of backcombing. she is still optimistic and interested. she enchants locals with her questions and her attempts to master the language.  having her here is easy and good, we know each other well even though we haven't spent time with each other in years. ben and magnificent get along well, and both she and ben love hong kong.

we first really got to be friends one day during debate class, she was pro choice and i was pro life. we led the debate, and i don't think any one else really spoke. but we did, afterclass too. we did'nt agree on a lot of politics, but we sure liked each other. and nothing has changed.

i am caught in the middle at times, she is trying to nudge me towards taking them into discount shops and ben is trying to get a sense of the geographical layout of things. not that i don't have any experience with this sort of thing and my own parents, and i handle it well. she is a great shopper, no hemming and hawing and price debates. ben really has nothing to be upset about.

i love her because she made an effort for me. her business trip took her to beijing and she said, "how could i not be in beijing and not come and see you?" and she did make the effort for us. that overwhelms me. i love that even though we have spent very little time together, we have had a wonderful time and we still get along so very very well.

i have been so blessed to have friends like this in my life. friends who will come visit me, friends who want to. annemiekes and oprahs. old friends. new friends. my friends.

i think yeats said it best.....

think where man's glory most begins and ends,

and i say my glory was i had such friends