Where's My Towel?

When you stay in a hotel, the carts come around each day with the clean linen. The staff go into the rooms, one by one, collect the sheets, towels etc, drop them in the bin on the cart and then put the fresh ones out.

In most hotels in my experience, the people who do these jobs are female.

The system works well.

But, I have to ask myself, why is it that when a man is living with a woman, and the woman takes it on herself to deal with the linen changes, the old is taken away but not at the same time replaced with the new.

So the bloke comes out of the shower to discover there is no towel in the bathroom.

He should have checked first? Don't be silly. That would mean, for a bloke, him checking each and every single time. You can't expect a bloke to know what else is going on at the same time.

Of course the difference could be that the people working in the hotels are employed. The woman in the relationship is not. She is her own boss and as such is perfectly entitled to do the self-appointed, albeit unpaid, task her own way in her own time. Fair enough.

Aha! So while employed, the staff are acting under the instructions from someone else - the manager, the boss, the hotel standard protocol.

In my experience, the usual workplace gender imbalance applies and the jobs of this sort are mostly filled by men.

So, guys, if you have a problem with this the answer is simple.

Get yourself a paid housekeeper. This has several advantages:

• You will always have fresh towels, tea-towels, pillow cases, sheets, etc as and when you need them
• Your partner will not have to do that work and have more free time for herself
• You have created employment
• The employee's pay will be spent on things and benefit the economy

You have the chance to turn a whining complaint into a benefit for all.

Oh, one more thing. Keep your relationship with your employee professional only.

"Just Friends" and other Thoughts

I know this woman in NSW. We worked together and were always on the same vibe. With little discussion we jointly tackled complex tasks putting grant proposals together for voluntary and community organisations. Everything ran like clockwork.

We spent a lot of time together out of the office and we were always on the same page in discussions on all types of subjects, or plans about what to do on any particular occasion. Little discussion was required. We laughed about the same things and we laughed often.

We hosted a couple of theme parties at my house and in preparing stuff in the kitchen we created multiple dishes quickly and effectively without any collisions or need for planning or discussion. It was like a dance.

But when it came to the proposal that we extend the way we were into a life together as partners, she said "I don't want to risk spoiling the friendship we have".

We are still great mates, which is good. And I still love her to bits.

But this situation is not unusual, it seems.

And I had to ask myself, is that kind of life harmony something that a woman does not look for in a partnership/marriage?

Some of the women who had said this, to me, to mates, enter into relationships with fellahs who turn out to be arseholes to them.

All became clear when I asked the lovely irish barmaid at my local irish bar in chch why this was not on the list when women were looking for a partner. She laughed and said it was. She said that "I just want to be friends" was code for "I don't fancy you". Aha. Problem solved.

But I wish they would just say that and then we know where we stand.

On the other hand, I was in a club in Brisbane one night. I like a beer after work to draw a line between my business life and my personal life and I had been working quite late.

Anyway, this fellah starts talking to me about his problems (this happens all the time). He was very miserable because he had come to the conclusion that he did not love his wife.

"Does she love you?" I asked.

"Yes, deeply. That is what makes it so hard."

So I told him that in my opinion it is easy as anything to find people that you can love, be in love with. But one of the rarest things on earth is to find a person who loves you that way.

He paused, said "Thank you". He put his half-finished beer on the bar and walked out.

So in a long-winded way I come to my questions:

Ladies. If you make a list of all the things you find necessary in a bloke as a partner, will 'He Loves Me', be at the top of the list? Not he says he loves you but if he loves you truly. And not doe-eyed puppy dog stuff either.

Is love at the top of the list? I bet it is not.

You reckon that if you get all or most of the stuff on your list, you can change him to get the rest.

News Flash - you can't.

You can come to love someone who already truly loves you. You have buckley's chance of engineering someone to love you who does not. Might sound like a paradox but it is not. Anyway, if you love them you would not even try to change them.

In fact, the very wish to change someone from what they are is totally counter to my understanding of loving someone.

Which is why when someone I love tells me that they are not interested. I don't weep. I don't argue. I don't try to persuade them or manipulate them or emotionally blackmail them. I just accept it and continue to love them.

That's who they are and that is more than fine by me.

On my lonely death-bed I will be able to say, to everyone and no-one, "I have loved and I have loved truly".

Fideli d'Amore

A Ghost Story?

Last night I stayed in the Vulcan Hotel, St Bathan's. The hotel is supposed to be haunted. Coops, Frank and Catherine were there with me.

The story concerns a female client-faced officer of a local sexual services outlet (I understand that this would have been rendered "a prostitute from a local brothel" in pre-PC english). She came to the hotel one night to meet a client. Well, the client received the service and then murdered the woman. The murderer was never caught.

So since that day the woman has haunted the hotel on occasions. Male guests awake to feel an icy touch on the leg, or even icy fingers around their throat, throttling them.

Anyway, I got home and me mate asked: "Did the ghost throttle you?" and I replied "No. I tied her hands behind her back and we were fine after that."

No. That didn't happen. No ghost story I'm afraid.

But the countryside is great and Mike Kavanagh, mine host, was entertaining and very knowledgeable about local affairs and people. And by local I mean he covered all of Otago and half of Canterbury as well.

A great night.

The Toilet Seat

Hey Guys, train yourself to put down the toilet lid.

This gives 3 advantages:

• Both you and her have to work the hinge;
• You can sling off at her when she puts the seat down but not the lid; 
• You replace the gender myth about men with a gender myth about women. 

Sorted.

The Toilet Roll

Toilet paper against the wall or toilet paper away from the wall?

There is no right or wrong answer to this. Everyone has their own way of doing it and some don't particularly care which way it is when they put a new roll on the holder.

But here is what I have observed.

In all the 4 and 5 star hotels I have stayed at in different countries, the paper is always away from the wall. Always.

When I call in at an outback truck stop cafe, I am never surprised to see it against the wall.

Which way you prefer says a lot about what type of environment you prefer to live in, the values for your home environment.

Youth Culture

I have lived and worked in different countries and this morning I shared one of my observations with some folk from different countries staying at the same farmstay place as myself.

As often happens with discussions among middle to older age people, the subject of current youth culture - language style, behaviour, values, etc - came up. We all know that while in that 'youth" age-group we were less than perfectly behaved. But we measured that against the culture in which we had grown up. This is different in different countries and we can share and compare those differences. To a certain extent we can also appreciate and understand the differences.

(I haven't defined "youth". It's too tricky to do rigourously. I will hope the descriptions here will "point to" the group I am talking about).

I mentioned over coffee that I had partly formed the conclusion that the "youth" of the different countries in which I had lived and worked had more in common with each other than they did with the culture of the country they lived in.

I have observed a commonness of values, behaviours, evaluations of situations, norms, reactions, language style across the board. It is as though the shared or community values of this group have been learned or developed from some source other than their parents, teachers, fellow community members,etc.

If that is the case, those people are NOT behaving countrary to "the culture". They are behaving consistently within it. In fact, those few who do not share it but are within the bounds of their country of origin, they will be the odd ones out, the pariahs. The common-culture group are not misbehaving and will perhaps be puzzled if you take them to task over their actions or language.

I wonder how it is that those responsible for the transmission of their culture have in so many countries dropped the ball, leaving their children to find other sources for learning community values. And I wonder why the result of that is a certain commonality across the board.

There may be many answers to these questions, but certainly one place to look for the common source of cultural values is the so-called "third parent" - the TV.

Well, it was the TV at one time but now that provider of cultural norms of behaviour includes DVD, You Tube, video games, on-line gaming and so on.

There is a commonality across many countries in the offerings and use of these media. The most successful are used world-wide.

Looking at the proportions by country of origin, you will find that the USA is a leader in this field.

Certainly in the english-speaking countries the use of the phrase "Oh my God" is pandemic. OK, just one example and I am not going to enumerate them. Travel and observe for yourself and the pattern may form for you.

But I am not at all concerned about this in and of itself. What does concern me is that this substitution of a different culture in a new generation growing up will lead to the end of the specific and unique country-based culture in which they live. If I am in Australia and ask "have you a zac in your kick" or say "that's a furfey", how many would now understand those iconic terms that had been in place for nearly 100 years? The values and lifestyles will be at odds and the existing culture will lose out, there is no doubt about that.

Am I saying this is a bad thing? Is there not a benefit from the whole world in a couple of generations having shared values and understandings about how one behaves in a given situation?

Of course there could be benefits. It could even lead to a shared global culture. Fewer misunderstandings in the United Nations? Perhaps.

But couldn't we have done this with a better choice of culture-of-origin? We could end up stuck with the culture of arguably the most conservative, hide-bound, competetive, aggressive country on earth.

IMHO

Whatever...

The River: A Love Story

Life can be like a river, if you relax and let it happen.

I am a leaf, swirling along, taken by the whim of life's current. Without volition. Without desire. Without regret.

Sometimes the flow is swift and things happen around me in a rapidly changing kaleidoscope. Sometimes the river widens and the flow slows. These are the languid days. Beer and mudcrabs on the island.

Sometimes there is an eddie that swirls me around and around the same part close to the bank. Routine with the taste of security.

Sometimes the river runs fast through the shallows or in white madness over rocks. Leaf-me flung through the air and precipitated into raging foam. Ordering a plain old Indian Take-away for lunch and having the whole restaurant building fall around you in an earthquake.

But ah - the beautiful times when another leaf finds itself for a while following the same liquid path. Edges touching, overlapping as we share the joy, the madness, the routine, the dangers, the losses.

Together, yet each still pursuing their own way, the destination unknown, the journeying the whole.

And so the time comes, as it always will if you allow life to be the driver, when our responses to the flows within the one river take us on our separate ways. A rightness. A beauty. A sorrow. But Love remains.

Ivonne left for Wellington today.

Man with Stick

Give a small boy a stick and he will play happily outside for ages.

Give a grown man a stick and he will play happily outside for ages:
Fishing rod;
Hunting rifle;
Golf club;
...
Add your own. It's true!

I guess even the remote counts....

The Difference

The man goes into the shower. He comes out. The woman goes into the shower. "You've used my towel!". "No, I have not. I used mine", say he.
"No," she replies, "yours is the red one".
"No," says he. "Mine is the one on the left".

And that, folks, is the difference.

Get over it and understand each other.