It was one of those moments when you see something and you just want to laugh, but it's only you, by yourself, and the person you want to laugh at... so you act mature and appropriate and smile sweetly, chuckling to yourself on the inside.
I was walking to work and passed a man with a Glassons bag. He was well dressed in dress pants and jacket, and I recall he was wearing a tie. His hair was nice, freshly washed and styled and his skin looked well kept. Moisturised. Possibly exfoliated. He was standing on the footpath beside a busy road into the city, as though waiting to be picked up. In his hand, which was resting at his side, he held the handles of a Glassons bag, which hung flat and uncrinkled. Inside, visible through the opaque bag decorated with green designer florishes and swirls, I could see a lone banana.
I am all for carpooling, cleanliness, taking pride in ones appearance and fresh fruit snacks at work. Great! But, seriously, this guys looked distinctly emasculated. I think it was the ever phallic symbol of the banana, carefully held in the well-cared-for popular young woman's shop bag that really made the the scene for me.
I'll be walking by the same spot next week, but this time I'm taking my camera!
*Glassons; a popular New Zealand fashion shop for young women, tween-twenties. Sizes 6-16. www.glassons.co.nz ...I tried to find an image of the bag, to no avail.
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
Friday, 9 November 2007
Wednesday, 7 November 2007
Athens (or roasting and toasting in the old city, back on the Continent)
July and August are typically summer months in Europe. 2007 was no exception. I know; I was there and summer was most definitely out in full force. There were, in fact, many places of notable roasty-toastiness experienced by myself and the husband on our sojourn but none that sticks in the mind with such sweaty lethargy as dear old (indeed, ancient!) Athens.
Geography and latitudinal placement converged on this ancient city to make it a sweltering sauna of ruins, marble and grime. I'm not partial to saunas or grime, but it seems those little gems never make the advertising brochures, or the super adventure stories you hear from well-traveled folk. So here I am, suitably well traveled for the bank account to call me home and armed with some hard-hitting hot truth I'm going to share with you.
Marble. We've seen it in expensive bench-tops and pompous old busts. There's an amount of elitism that colours our perception when we see a place adorned with marble. Not so in Athens. Bricks in buildings and paving are replaced by marble. Concrete steps down to the underground train stations are marble. There is no sand on the beaches but marble pebbles. The gravel on the walkways up to the ancient ruins is marble. School-yard games of marbles are not played with glass balls, but with marble. Holigans avenging themselves throw, not bricks, but marble through the windows of their enemy.
It's everywhere.
Like a noxious weed, only mineral, not vegetable. And the bloody bugger is reflective! So, if you weren't hot already, you have the addition of the sun's burny bright rays bouncing up at you from below as well.
And as well as being a public nuisance and halving the burn time there's the added bonus of it's wear-away-ability and slipperiness. With Aristophanes and Plato and all their mates and all of everyone's family trees ever since running up and down all the pretty marble steps since the dawn of whenever, they're no longer flat. Quite warn away in some places. Once, while resting and hydrating ourselves in a much coveted pool of shadow, we witnessed a sweet defenseless young Asian woman slip and fall, painfully and embarrassingly hurting her ankle.
As if to mock her we came upon a European woman (possibly Italian) prancing 'round the Acropolis in crazy heels. How she got there, or whether she escaped in full possession of both of her legs is anyone's guess.
My only thought is that perhaps she was a professionally-trained, well-paid stunt woman there to inspire and annoy...
Like many much-visited spots the Acropolis boasted a teeming horde of hawkers and sly, over-friendly salesmen. The common object of sale were parasols. There was much to covet in a parasol; their bright colours gave a feeling of laughter and holiday gaiety rarely available outside of Lesbos, and when placed against the shoulder of a young woman there was a sense, by me anyway, of that lady being cared for; treasured; loved- lest the sun should shine down upon her and taint her precious face. Obviously the salesmen were not sly as they could have been for there was a considerable absence of hand-held fanning devices, of both the manual and electronic varieties. Though with heat like we experienced it is quite possible the entire stock of fans had sold out!
Grime was ever-present, but definitely exacerbated by comparison to the gloriously clean, marble underground train stations freshly chiseled into the Ancient soil for the Olympic Games in 2004. It wasn't horrific, but it felt like the whole place had spent a week playing a jolly exciting game of backgammon and not bothered to shower afterwards.
Another contributing factor to grime issue may well have been the blanket ban of toilet paper in toilets and the scent related. After wiping the toileter was required to place soiled paper into the wee bin (lid? no, sorry) beside the loo. To counteract the immanent stink in this hot humid environment there is an sickly sweet artificial scent pervading any and all ablutions facilities.
But, all in all, the stinking hot, griming place is jolly old and, if you're in the neighbourhood, do swing by. But don't get carried away, you'll only need one day, possibly one night if you can't avoid it. And perhaps when you go they will have finished the restoration of the Parthenon and have taken down the scaffolding and shade cloth that got in the way of all the photos but none of the sun.
Geography and latitudinal placement converged on this ancient city to make it a sweltering sauna of ruins, marble and grime. I'm not partial to saunas or grime, but it seems those little gems never make the advertising brochures, or the super adventure stories you hear from well-traveled folk. So here I am, suitably well traveled for the bank account to call me home and armed with some hard-hitting hot truth I'm going to share with you.
Marble. We've seen it in expensive bench-tops and pompous old busts. There's an amount of elitism that colours our perception when we see a place adorned with marble. Not so in Athens. Bricks in buildings and paving are replaced by marble. Concrete steps down to the underground train stations are marble. There is no sand on the beaches but marble pebbles. The gravel on the walkways up to the ancient ruins is marble. School-yard games of marbles are not played with glass balls, but with marble. Holigans avenging themselves throw, not bricks, but marble through the windows of their enemy.
It's everywhere.
Like a noxious weed, only mineral, not vegetable. And the bloody bugger is reflective! So, if you weren't hot already, you have the addition of the sun's burny bright rays bouncing up at you from below as well.
And as well as being a public nuisance and halving the burn time there's the added bonus of it's wear-away-ability and slipperiness. With Aristophanes and Plato and all their mates and all of everyone's family trees ever since running up and down all the pretty marble steps since the dawn of whenever, they're no longer flat. Quite warn away in some places. Once, while resting and hydrating ourselves in a much coveted pool of shadow, we witnessed a sweet defenseless young Asian woman slip and fall, painfully and embarrassingly hurting her ankle.
As if to mock her we came upon a European woman (possibly Italian) prancing 'round the Acropolis in crazy heels. How she got there, or whether she escaped in full possession of both of her legs is anyone's guess.
My only thought is that perhaps she was a professionally-trained, well-paid stunt woman there to inspire and annoy...
Like many much-visited spots the Acropolis boasted a teeming horde of hawkers and sly, over-friendly salesmen. The common object of sale were parasols. There was much to covet in a parasol; their bright colours gave a feeling of laughter and holiday gaiety rarely available outside of Lesbos, and when placed against the shoulder of a young woman there was a sense, by me anyway, of that lady being cared for; treasured; loved- lest the sun should shine down upon her and taint her precious face. Obviously the salesmen were not sly as they could have been for there was a considerable absence of hand-held fanning devices, of both the manual and electronic varieties. Though with heat like we experienced it is quite possible the entire stock of fans had sold out!
Grime was ever-present, but definitely exacerbated by comparison to the gloriously clean, marble underground train stations freshly chiseled into the Ancient soil for the Olympic Games in 2004. It wasn't horrific, but it felt like the whole place had spent a week playing a jolly exciting game of backgammon and not bothered to shower afterwards.
Another contributing factor to grime issue may well have been the blanket ban of toilet paper in toilets and the scent related. After wiping the toileter was required to place soiled paper into the wee bin (lid? no, sorry) beside the loo. To counteract the immanent stink in this hot humid environment there is an sickly sweet artificial scent pervading any and all ablutions facilities.
But, all in all, the stinking hot, griming place is jolly old and, if you're in the neighbourhood, do swing by. But don't get carried away, you'll only need one day, possibly one night if you can't avoid it. And perhaps when you go they will have finished the restoration of the Parthenon and have taken down the scaffolding and shade cloth that got in the way of all the photos but none of the sun.
Wednesday, 6 June 2007
stinky breath day
What a stink day!
... you know how sometimes you're just going merrily about you day and each part isn't so bad but for some reason your overall vibe of the day is A%$E! Many, many little frustrations, problems and mysteries all gang up on you and laugh, taunting you with thoughts like "don't get upset- this happens all the time" and "you can't control this problem" and while they are all true still they sit and snicker, muttering nasty things about you behind their hands when they think you're not looking.
Adding to the malaise and general discontent of a day like this one, there are some good things that happen during the day but so distracting and irritating are all the little wee problems, with their laughing and muttering, that the good things are gobbled up and dissolve into what comes to be known as, an a%$e breath day
So, now, to piss off the muttering, chuckling little problems I will now talk about the good bits of my day in an effort to extend their lives and minimize the effect of the a%$e-breath day.
GOOD THING #1. Our Alarm went off this morning. This is good because yesterday (the first day of the week due to a public holiday on Monday in NZ, for all you international readers!) it did not and we awoke stunned and confused an hour after we would usually be woken.
GOOD THING #2. I did 2 loads of washing and now they are inside -not dry, but not soaking wet. Just that kinda cold dryness that you know indicates residual wetness.
GOOD THING #3. I worked with my computer and it did what I wanted it to. This is good because later it did not.
GOOD THING #4. We have a supermarket just three doors down from our house. This is good because I utilized it's facilities not once, not twice, but three times today.
GOOD THING #5. I did a photo job, taking photos of a cool flash house after the sun had set. This is good 'cause it's doing the business I'm (trying) to start, it was fun, I'm getting paid for it and it got me away from the frustrations laughing at me at home
GOOD THING #6. I am now walking out the door to babysit some lovely kids who (usually!) like me and that always feels good, 'cause kids have no reason to bother lying!
... you know how sometimes you're just going merrily about you day and each part isn't so bad but for some reason your overall vibe of the day is A%$E! Many, many little frustrations, problems and mysteries all gang up on you and laugh, taunting you with thoughts like "don't get upset- this happens all the time" and "you can't control this problem" and while they are all true still they sit and snicker, muttering nasty things about you behind their hands when they think you're not looking.
Adding to the malaise and general discontent of a day like this one, there are some good things that happen during the day but so distracting and irritating are all the little wee problems, with their laughing and muttering, that the good things are gobbled up and dissolve into what comes to be known as, an a%$e breath day
So, now, to piss off the muttering, chuckling little problems I will now talk about the good bits of my day in an effort to extend their lives and minimize the effect of the a%$e-breath day.
GOOD THING #1. Our Alarm went off this morning. This is good because yesterday (the first day of the week due to a public holiday on Monday in NZ, for all you international readers!) it did not and we awoke stunned and confused an hour after we would usually be woken.
GOOD THING #2. I did 2 loads of washing and now they are inside -not dry, but not soaking wet. Just that kinda cold dryness that you know indicates residual wetness.
GOOD THING #3. I worked with my computer and it did what I wanted it to. This is good because later it did not.
GOOD THING #4. We have a supermarket just three doors down from our house. This is good because I utilized it's facilities not once, not twice, but three times today.
GOOD THING #5. I did a photo job, taking photos of a cool flash house after the sun had set. This is good 'cause it's doing the business I'm (trying) to start, it was fun, I'm getting paid for it and it got me away from the frustrations laughing at me at home
GOOD THING #6. I am now walking out the door to babysit some lovely kids who (usually!) like me and that always feels good, 'cause kids have no reason to bother lying!
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