Textin'

My mother has the texting “skillz” of a teenager. A new millennial.

Just today, I received the following messages:

Ggle mad again.need new pass.loftperson.
Xaktly

From this I understand she’s locked herself out of her Gmail account. Again.

After receiving frantic texts and calls the last few times this happened, I ended up setting myself up as her recovery email address – it’s just easier.

Mum has the impression that her emails extolling the virtues on certain products, and her chastisements of other products are the hot commodity on the net. As a silver surfer, she changes her password at a rate most system administrators would find amazing. Sometimes I think she does it hourly.

The only thing wrong with this plan is that she sometimes (read often) forgets what her last secure password update was. Hence the teenage texts.

Anyway, all taken care of. Which resulted in:

Tku u2. love u mum

Gimme a “Y”

I love the fact that my Mum text messages. She’s in her 60’s, and likes to email, surf the net (at her local library) and now she’s gotten into the whole cell phone SMS revolution.

The thing that I don’t love is reading her texts. As my brother puts it, she texts like she is charged by the letter, with an extra surcharge for vowels.

The most recent example:
“early lunch @ choc fish. driving honda jazz 4 test. rtcle free weather ok. xs”

Ok – breaking that down.
Early lunch @ choc fish – this is fine, she had an early lunch at the Chocolate Fish (a restaurant in Wellington)
Driving honda jazz 4 test – got it, a test drive of the Honda Jazz.
xs – kisses, got it

The thing that has me stumped is “rtcle free weather ok”

Is that “article free weather ok”? – well, that makes no sense...

Perhaps “reticule free weather ok” – I guess that could make sense; she has no small fabric purse from the 18th century, so she’s “reticule free”, and “the weather is ok”. Still, that doesn’t seem like something you’d text someone. “I have no 200 year old article on me right now.” It’s not even something I’d say to someone face to face. “No reticules on me today.”

I guess it’s just a mystery that I shall leave unsolved. A cold case to crack at a later date.

Glaucoma

My grandmother passed away this past week. This got me to thinking about times we shared together, and some I’d like to share.

On my last trip to New Zealand my grandmother, Nan, asked me if I’d ever tried marijuana. Nan suffered from glaucoma. She had a friend Gwyneth, who was in her 80’s. Gwyneth was married; her husband’s name is Colin. Now Colin had done some research on the Internet and discovered that marijuana was good for glaucoma. Being an avid gardener and a good friend, Gwyneth procured some marijuana seeds and she’d been able to grow them on her Bay of Plenty section.

On their last trip to visit Nan, Gwyneth and Colin had taken some, I guess you’d call it “primo stash” to Khandallah; where at a dinner party of the over 80 set they’d all shared it - as Nan put it "like a peace pipe” being passed around.

I can just picture Nan and her WWII generation friends all trying marijuana for the first time.

After relating this, (relatively) shocking story to me, Nan got up and pulled out her left over stash from the party. She’d explained that she asked an uncle to try it with her, but he was “too chicken”. I’ve never done any sort of drug, and wasn’t about to start now. Though I know members of my family that do partake, in fact I call their home “The House of Hashish”. Nan was very pleased to hear this, as she didn’t want to smoke it alone.

Anyway, in Nan’s little plastic baggy were about 8 fat doobies. She explained she was very worried having them in the house, as she didn’t want to be “raided”. The scandal that would cause in Khandallah! She talked about transferring the illicit medicinal drug to said House of Hashish where she could enjoy it in like minded company.

I have to admit, I was very proud of her; having researched and then tried an alternative treatment to help her eyes, all in her late 80’s.

Nan was never one to shy away from adventure. She back packed across Europe in her 40’s, had traveled around the world in her 50’s, 60’s & 70's – she was the living embodiment letting all her knew her know there’s really no reason to not continue living life to the fullest, no matter what your age.

Pure Evil Bottled - Soju

In the future I will know I've had too much to drink when Soju starts to taste good.

Karaoke evening in Wellington with my brother & sister-in-law this week. We hired a private room at the Korean BBQ on Willis Street. Now Karaoke is more fun when a little tipsy - however, my first taste of Soju was an instant "Oh this is awful". After 3 hours (and I dread to think how many bottles and ill advised songs) Soju was GREAT!

Until we got up to leave and found that walking, and keeping down the evenings meal was no longer possible.

J & I could do one or the other, but not both in conjunction.

Soju = pure liquid evil

When wrong is right

Mother turns 10 minute drive into 30 minute tikitour of Wellington beaches.

Ms. G. Philips, mother of 4 sons, took a wrong turn on the way to 'The Chocolate Fish' in Scorching Bay, Wellington New Zealand on September 19, 2007.

While making a u-turn at a dead end on a hill in Wellington, Ms. Philips (after asking for directions) remarked "This is the right way to go" prior to making the next 4 lefts to get out of the hills and back down to the coast.

I think your dipthong is hanging

I'm in New Zealand at the moment. I've had a rather good facility for various accents for as long as I can remember. Well, born in Oz, raised in NZ, lived in Brunei & the U.S., traveled to the U.K. - I've had a rather good dose of English in all it's various accents & disguises. Which makes the following all the more disturbing.

I answered the phone the other day at my brothers house, and the conversation went something like this:

"Good afternoon" - me
"Hi, is J there?" - dude on the other line
"No, I'm sorry he's not. Would you like to leave a message?" - me
"Sure - tell him that Noel from La *@##$$#Hc called. His loats are ready to be picked up." - dude that just id'd himself as Noel. (I was unable to catch the company he worked for...)
"Loats?" - me
"Yeah, loats. There's one box of loats, and they're ready to be picked up." Noel
"A box, of 'loats' are ready to be picked up." - (very uncertain) me
"Yeah, his loats, that's right. Cheers mate." - Noel

I'd repeated the mysterious word as I had heard it to him and after I got off the phone, "loats, loats, loats...." and I still had NO idea what loats were. Now, J, my brother is building some houses. This means it's quite possible that this is some new building thing I hadn't heard of before.

J came home & I gave him the message. Unfortunately J didn't know any Noel, and had never heard of loats either. As I hadn't gotten a number or the name of the business he was a little stumped.

Over the next hour or so he figured it out.

It was Noah, from Wellington Light & Electric who'd called, and his lights were ready to be picked up.

Biohazard

The world has a more global reach than ever these days, except apparently in New Zealand. My father was a pilot for Air New Zealand, and he would relate with a touch of frustration (and a touch of amusement) the story of foreign pilots landing in NZ saying that the local time and date was (for example) 7:15am, Monday August 3rd – 1962.

Time did catch up with Aotearoa – but I do like the fact that you can walk into a local New World grocery store and buy yourself some SARS.



SARS for only 94c - that's got to be a deal.