Monthly Archives: January 2013

Thursday is produce day. After two disastrous attempts at one-stop shopping, I learned that most of the fruit and veggies stocked by the commissary are rubbish. The pre-chopped lettuce is already turning brown and slimy in the bag, and there’s no point bringing home the deceptively beautiful yellow bananas, because tomorrow their skins will be black and the insides will be mush. Decent produce must be purchased on the economy, and the nearest town to our village just happens to have a farmer’s market each Thursday.

Unfortunately, my schedule today was abnormally hectic for a Thursday, and didn’t put me in town until late afternoon. As I walked through light flurries down the winding brick lane toward the small plaza where the market is normally set up, I was dismayed not to hear the sing-song come-ons of the vendors echoing off the centuries-old storefronts:  “Bananas, pound a bowl!” Sure enough, when I rounded the final bend, the only signs of the market were a table laden with discount sudoku books, a tent full of sweaters, the display rack of high-vis jackets, and a couple depressing stacks of empty banana boxes.

My next best choice for good produce is the nearby Tesco supermarket, so I retraced my steps to the car and joined the heavy stream of traffic headed in that direction. The parking lot didn’t seem noticeably fuller than usual for late afternoon—loads of locals stop on their way home to get last minute fixings for the evening’s meal. But as I approached the store entrance, I didn’t see the usual number of shopping trolleys in the cart corral; in fact, there were only about ten. Uh oh.

It appears that Americans are not the only ones who make a run on the supermarket when the weatherman says the S-word! Bread, milk, and toilet paper were flying off the shelves as if the Brits were preparing for Armageddon.  Aisles were absolutely packed with shoppers trying to steer over-loaded carts (no easy feat, since there is no fixed rear axle and all four wheels move independently, rarely on the course you desire) around lolly-gaggers who’d run into friends and neighbors and had settled in for a good old chin-wag about the impending snow storm…and the horse-contaminated beef burgers…and the kids…and the price of milk…and last weekend’s Premier League final scores….

Unlike in the States, where displeasure would be voiced loudly and rudely, only faint and exceedingly polite rumblings of discontent could be heard in the checkout lines as queuing patrons noted that three tills were unmanned. The cashiers seated resignedly behind each of the open registers were unhurried as they scanned a month’s worth of provisions for each customer, and unperturbed by the fact that two more heaping carts joined the queue for each one that left. I felt bad for them, for I envisioned a manager ensconced safely in the office, far from the madding crowd, purposefully scratching out dinner breaks.

I’m not bothered. I got my week’s worth of fresh fruits and vegetables, and a carton of milk just in case, so let it snow!

(The photo today is a winter stockpile of peat in County Kerry, Ireland.)

If you’ve ever seen a movie set in England, you know there’s fog here every now and again. When it rolls in, it’s usually thick as the proverbial pea soup, and I just resign myself to a bad hair day and a slow drive to work. I never gave much thought to what happens if there’s fog when the air temperature is below 0°C, as it was all day today. Noted in meteorological observations as FZFG, freezing fog has the ability to coat anything and everything in dainty white crystals, turning the entire countryside into a dreamscape. One advantage to living in a rural area is that I’m not going to hold up traffic or cause an accident if I stop in the middle of the road and snap some photos over the hedge!

Spaghetti-limbed Pete be the bloke.

A pirate so fierce, not a joke.

Robbing ships on the seas

Of Parmesan cheese

Since plain pasta sauce made him choke.

Spaghetti-Limbed Pete sculpture created at the Mill Arts Center by people with learning disabilities working with artist David Gosling, April 2007.

Did you know that today, the second Monday in January, is National Clean Off Your Desk Day? It’s one of those obscure unofficial “holidays” that often escapes the notice of the mainstream public since it doesn’t really lend itself to a Hallmark sentiment. I, for one, think Staples and Office Depot are missing out on a huge marketing opportunity during January’s normal post-holiday sales slump—with some creative advertising, they could have been selling the daylights out of organizing paraphernalia these past three weeks since Christmas.

My husband, a workspace neat-nick, doesn’t need this holiday to remind him to clean his desk—it’s in a perpetual state of organized bliss, and is even dusted regularly! Rather, his joy in the day comes when he can walk into the office and not have to suffer the disaster zone that normally passes for my half of the room. When I was teaching elementary school, time to put things in their place was a luxury I just did not have, and I became accustomed to working amongst tottering piles of papers, books, file folders, magazines, and other assorted crap. The piles multiplied and migrated from the desktop to cover an arm’s-length radius around my desk chair, making the approach to the desk an avalanche waiting to happen. Since I could still instantly locate almost anything I needed from those piles, that dysfunctional work habit became deeply ingrained, and was hard to break even when I stopped teaching full-time.

Two years ago, I was shamed into adding Clean Off Your Desk Day to my personal calendar. In early March, Jim and I had left Japan for a few days’ visit to Hong Kong, leaving our friend Patrick to pop in on his way home from work each day to check on our kitty, Alina. Unfortunately, on March 11, Japan was rocked by a massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami. Well south of the most devastated regions, our town nevertheless got a good shake. As soon as it was safe to drive, Patrick made his way to check on Alina and assess the damage at our house. The cat was seemingly oblivious to the drama, purring happily to have some company. The two made their way through the house, noting only a few crooked pictures on the walls and a decapitated Willow Tree angel that had shaken loose from her perch on the bookcase. When Patrick popped his head into our office, though, he was stunned by the devastation he perceived on and around my desk. The desktop could barely be seen under the haphazardly piled detritus of my English classes, which also buried a fair amount of the floor around the desk. He truly thought the earthquake had toppled formerly neat stacks, and was frantically trying to determine how to restore order when he happened to glance to his left. Jim’s desk seemed remarkably untouched by the vicious tremors, even boasting a towering stack of 20-yen coins balanced on the narrow lip of a square wooden sake box. He concluded that the state of my desk had nothing at all to do with any natural disaster, and was solely due to my horrendous housekeeping.

Humiliated by the glee Patrick and Jim have found in the countless retellings of that story, I’ve made a concerted effort to keep my desk in better order year-round, and to completely clear and organize it on the second Monday each January. This year’s result is just too good not to share, although the lack of a “before” photo severely diminishes the magnitude of my accomplishment. Ironically, in our current house, Jim and I are not sharing an office for the first time, so even he misses out on the full benefit of my observance of this little-known holiday. But if you’re in doubt about what a stunning turnaround this is, just ask Patrick.

I guess he was my class clown that year. He was happy and fun-loving and everyone’s friend, but he was always too busy doing something other than the academic tasks that I’d assigned. He didn’t turn in classwork. He didn’t complete (or even start) homework. He didn’t read the textbooks or take notes or study for tests. In my gradebook, any spaces by his name that weren’t empty were filled with Ds and Fs. He wasn’t inherently booksmart like some kids, but with a small investment of time and effort on his part, he could have been just as successful as his classmates. His total apathy towards schoolwork infuriated me.

Unfortunately, I let him see my frustration and my anger in rolling eyes, hands on hips, harsh words, and raised voice. I am ashamed at the lack of patience and restraint I displayed not just to him, but in front of his classmates and other teachers as well. I should have invested more of my time and effort in trying to find ways to channel his enthusiasm and boundless energy without stomping on his carefree spirit with such blatant disrespect. Although I use the experience to guide my actions in a more favorable direction now, all of my mistakes with that smiling, impish, lovable little third grader will forever haunt my memory—I can only hope that they don’t haunt his as well.

Today’s post was inspired by January 2nd’s writing prompt on oneminutewriter.blogspot.co.uk

I do not claim to live a minimalist lifestyle. I have stuff. Most of it is stuff I want, not stuff I need. But I like to think that the stuff that is not necessary is not completely superfluous since it was acquired because of its personal meaning. It reminds me of a unique event, a special person, or a meaningful place. Simply looking at this stuff makes me happy because I am immersed in wonderful memories.

Which brings me to Lot 767 in today’s sale at our local auction house. Described as “a group of twelve antique Japanese watercolour fan designs with seal signature” in the online catalog, the above photo (not my own today, sorry) triggered a mild want because I so thoroughly enjoyed the three years Jim and I lived in Japan. But when I went to the auction house last night for the preview and actually saw all twelve designs, want became WANT. There is one hand-painted design for each month of the year, and they all bring back vivid memories of our experiences in the Land of the Rising Sun (well, except for July’s painting of the man with the monkey—that one just makes me scratch my head).

Jim and I discussed and agreed upon our maximum bid for this lot, and normally we’d be confident this figure would be sufficient to procure the paintings. However, today’s auction is the annual Country House Auction, meaning they’re offering up 1151 lots of the highest quality furniture, art, jewelry, and effects that they’ve accumulated in the past year. Instead of being limited to the crowd on hand in the auction house, this specialist sale is also live on the internet, so there are bidders running up credit card bills all over the world. As I write this (in my jammies as an internet bidder), the auction is in full swing, and prices are high. By high, I don’t mean outrageous—items are selling for a fair price given their quality, but the hammer prices are incredibly steep compared to the winning bids at the fortnightly general sales we usually attend. However, there is no rhyme or reason to what the buyers are willing to spend their money on this morning. In my world, cars cost more than furniture, but a late-model Jaguar S-type just sold for £1000, while an early 20^th century oak dresser went for a staggering £13,000! I fear my maximum bid for the Japanese fan designs, which is solidly in the triple digits and high by our normal standards, is going to be blown out of the water in a matter of seconds.

Update 8:30 p.m.

*sigh* My prediction was spot on. The fans sold for 150% of my upper limit. I can’t say I’m not disappointed—I’d already mentally matted, framed, and hung my win (I was actually just going to frame one with a reclosable backing, and switch out the monthly designs through the year). For now, that spot on my wall might be empty but my head and heart are full of happy memories stirred up by those fan designs. I’m feeling inspired to delve into my Rubbermaid bin of Japanese mementos and to finally organize the chaos it contains into some sort of display to be seen and enjoyed. I may not have gotten the fans I wanted, but maybe I now have the motivation I needed to tackle one more project that had fallen victim to procrastination.

I wouldn’t have been at all surprised this morning to hear an armor-clad knight clanking his way out of the mist towards this trusty steed. The fog totally obscures everything that is familiar–you lose your sense of direction, distance, and time. It can certainly be eerie, especially if you happen to be on a one-lane country road after dark, but it’s also kind of exhilarating to let yourself be swallowed. You become the center of your own narrowly defined universe and control whether the fog shrouds the past or conceals the future. Some days it’s therapeutic to take advantage of the solitude for some quiet reflection, but other times it’s more rewarding to yield to the inner adventurer, and push the vaporous boundaries in search of new discoveries.