You just never know who'll you'll meet...

Was kind of dying of boredom, (of my own company that is )when I decided to go out and just take some photos.

Today is a Hindu holiday and tomorrow is a Poya (full moon) day so the streets of town are quite deserted.  I have never been able to saunter across Duplication Road! Duplication Road in itself, is not so interesting so I went off on the little side roads with names like "Palm Grove" and "Inner Flower Lane" (sounds vaguely pornographic doesn't it?).  

On Unity Place a gentleman approached me and asked what I photographing and I told him I was admiring all the old houses.  Turns out he was also Canadian, having left Sri Lanka 30 years ago.  He was Tamil but had been educated in all the British schools here.  I got the feeling that he was of the "old boys" network that seems to be here in former British colonies.  Anyway, as it is in Sri Lanka, you have the entire family history (all incredibly successful it seems) plus a few complaints about whatever country they've emigrated to within the first 5 minutes of meeting. 

This story however wasn't your usual doctor/lawyer one.  His son is Shyam Selvadurai, a well-known Canadian author who has written several books about the Sri Lankan experience, being gay, being in Canada, family and all that entails!  I was totally blown away.  This was not what I was expecting on my little sojourn! So it just goes to show you that you never know who you might meet out a walk.

By the way, my pictures sucked.

A wonderful trip to "wring" out the old...

I think this picture sums up everything I feel about our return trip to Malaysia!  We stayed at a hotel a block away from our old place on Jalan Madge.  It was great, so familiar and easy!  Hard to believe that we lived here for only 4 years!  Wah!  I want to come back!

Some things never change...Malaysian Flagmen!

Downtown KL was a mess but the kids didn't mind as it was quite incredible shopping.  N dropped all his money the first day so the remaining days were a bit flat for him.  M is a bit more conservative with his cash and actually came home with some.  After KL we got the car and headed up to the Cameron Highlands. (It was lovely to have a vehicle but she had obviously transported durian in it and it always took about 10 minutes for the air con to clear the smell or is that for my senses to deaden to it!) It was good to be back there and the lovely cool air was a welcome respite from KL's heat.  G got in some golf and I walked around a bit.  A few footrubs were taken as well!

Went for steamboat in Brinchang...slightly dangerous but tasty!

This picture makes it look all nice and festive but under the centre of the table is the charred formica and the table cloth has a perfectly round centre where it has been burned in previous meals.  Plus that tower is a little wobbly!

To the manor born.

Another place we had to hit up was The Old Smokehouse in Tanah Rata.  It's a rather decrepit old hotel built like a tudor mansion.  One of the few places in Asia where you sit by a fire to await being summoned for your meal.  Of course, being "veddy proper"  we ate roast beef, yorkshire pudding, and horseradish.  It was a delightful meal and brought back lots of memories.

Oops!  So excited by the sight of beef, I forgot to photograph it before eating.

Some of the rowhouses on our street/jalan.

After a long drive out of the Cameron Highlands ( never take the "fast way"), we arrived in Penang and it's not without a certain amount of pride that I say I guided us directly to our hotel sans map!  That Geography degree really paid off!  We stayed in a different part of town than usual and I'm glad we did.  This area was full of old rowhouses.  The styles really ranged from elaborate to Art Deco.  Their state of repair ranged as well.  I put myself to sleep every night dreaming of renovating one.  Of course, the reality is more of a nightmare!  The people who renovated the hotel were incredible clever and all the rooms had funky found artwork like this.  (Uncle Michael please take note!)

Now to do all the sightseeing necessary, a gal's gotta have her coffee.

A bowl of noodles helps too.

Can't believe G made me work for this holiday..sheesh!

As if Penang weren't interesting enough, they have created an ArtWalk. In the part of town by the docks, they have painted all these gorgeous vignettes/ghosts/whathaveyou and you can explore the area by following the art.  It's very cool and kind of like a treasure hunt.  They have also commissioned an ironworker artist to recreate some "Lat*" cartoons with a dash of history and bunch of humour.  I didn't include all of them but I did see them all.

Getting a leg up...

Being chatted up.

Not to be outdone, my own artistic contribution!

Speaking of artistic contributions, I finished my book for "The Sketchbook Project".  Submissions have to be in by the 15th of January to be included in a tour.  I'm sending mine on a tour of the Pacific Northwest (includes a jaunt into Vancouver).  It was fun to do and it did not in anyway turn out the way I had thought.  My initial idea turned out to be so constricting and what I thought others would be like that I abandoned it completely.  I realized that this was for me so I went and ahead and did what I felt that day.  Some stuff good, some stuff okay.  However it was cool to participate and be able to say "I'm published and you can find my work in the Brooklyn Public Library."

So here's the cover...quite clever if I do say so myself!

So we're back home in Colombo and looking forward to things.  The boys have their "Week without walls"  trip coming up.  They get to go to various sites around the country and get to know Sri lanka and their classmates better.  Of course I am very hopeful that this will help things improve for N but I'm also a realist...sigh! M will be able to use his newly learned diving skills at his site which is very exciting.  G and I are going to hit the road and explore a few more places in Sri Lanka. Needless to say, the boys probably won't be too jealous that we get to see the Buddha's tooth and they don't!  Then my sister arrives just at the end of Chinese New Year.  Busy, busy, busy!

So here's hoping that your holidays were all that you wanted!  Happy 2014!


*Lat is a well-loved Malaysian cartoonist who created "Kampung Boy" and a cast of Malaysian characters. 

I draw the line at Christmas!

Just thought I'd share some of the festive work of my youngest.  He really is a dab hand and his drawings never cease to make me smile!  I love that he draws cards for holidays.  So since it is better to give.....I present:  

Etchings by M&P

Not bad for a drive by shooting and only having Sharpies.

I know what Mary is praying for...reconstructive surgery!  Look at the noggin' on that kid!

Will write soon.

Thank you (put your initial here)!

It's beginning to look like Christmas even in Sri Lanka!  Check out these goodies at the Bread Talk store.  All I took away was a photo, no calories!

Haven't really been doing much.  Most activities are winding down for the holidays as people "get outta Dodge".  I made a terrible miscalculation this year.  I thought the kids got 2 weeks due to CHOGM but no!  They get 3...sheeit!  I don't want to go anywhere early without G so we're kind of stuck in town until the 22nd.  That is, if I live that long!

Yup, the spirit of Christmas is in everyone except my eldest and I continue to live the "12 hellish weeks of Teenage Christmas"...supply your own lyrics! My youngest is baking like a demon for his friends.  He often speaks of perhaps going to a culinary school...cool. He's excited about Christmas and our trip to Malaysia.  We've been conferring about which restaurant makanning strategy we'll employ.  Anyway it's win-win!  


In spite of a little rain on my parade, I've had some good news this week.  My sister has bought her ticket out for a visit in Feb...yeah!  She's just doing her visa now.  I've got my list all made of places I want to go to!  It's funny how having someone along with you gives you that "Dutch Courage" to go places or to do things you wouldn't normally do.  Perhaps it's the show-off in me. Thank you S!

Also really nice was an email from old friend from Korea days, telling me that she had read my blog (yeah, a reader who is not related to me!) and if I needed to commiserate about teenage angst to call.  "Wow, it is amazing how that short email made me feel so much better!"  I won't call because I'm not a phoner but it wonderful to know she's there.  Thank you J!

Further proof to me that I'm not totally friendless was a lovely package I received from R in PoCo.  She put together a thoughtful note with leaves (I have to be careful when I open up her cards because something's always falling out!) and a funny little change purse.  Thank you R!

I also taught a yoga class on Monday.  I never know if it was successful or not because I'm always thinking "oh I could've done this or that".  It was small group but that was okay because then you get to do more stuff with them.  I love how the energy of the room changes when people partner.  Everyone gets all twittery!  

So even though I thought the week sucked it turned out pretty well...I am lucky.

Even my counter was Chrismassy!

If a picture can speak a thousand words...

I guess I've mentioned that the honeymoon is over in previous posts.  It's not Sri Lanka's fault, it's nobody's fault, it's life.  My eldest is pushing boundaries in a rather stressful and frankly, incomprehensible way.  Part of me knows that is what he is supposed to do and it's great that he wants to venture into the adult world but the way he's doing it is disruptive and really not getting him anywhere.  Of course, he would disagree with me on that but then again he would disagree with me over the air we breathe.

So I come to cringe a bit when I go to open my email.  I'm actually hoping for spam rather than a message from school, that's how bad it is.  I am grateful that G is really stepping up to the plate on a lot of this.  But I am the first line, I will always be the first line and I have to be honest I DON'T GET IT.

(Warning to any teen readers:  the following is a typical parental lament. You can return to the normal blog post after the jump!)  

I asked him what is so horrible about his life, school. his parents.  I really wanted to know.  I can't change everything but I figure knowing is half the battle.  He really couldn't give me an answer other than he hates moving.  He wants what we had, the stability of living in one place whilst growing up.  I tried to impress upon him that we chose this life because of what it ultimately offers.  I realize that doesn't hold a lot of water for a 15 yr. old...I get it.  He has idealized Seattle and life there to the point where it's become mythical.  Again, totally normal but he won't allow for the sad fact that life moves on, people move on, you have to move on or be left behind.  I tried to get this across by referring to the last scene in one of our favorite movies "Stand by me" the one where the kids go their separate ways after that one incredible, intense weekend. How those people, the ones you swear will be friends forever just become faces in the hallway, ghosts of your past.  Even as I write, I know that he has got to learn this himself.  He won't acknowledge that he is changing, life in Seattle is changing, that's the way it goes.  He clings on to the past..understandable.  So where does that leave us? 

Of course there are other issues, he is a pretty complex character - that's what is going to help him have a great, rich life.  Like any parent I want to give him the tools to realize that life.  I don't want to dictate it, my period of dictating is drawing to a close( but I do have a few "further mores" to add! Duh!)

I didn't think that I would have to learn so much at fifty.  "What the hell I have been doing for the past 50 years?" I know that other people are going through this and frankly, some of them are going through worse things.  Still, I wish I had someone to talk to who wasn't at the school.  It's a small place and having worked at a school I know what happens in the lunchroom.  The biggest shock though is the loss of my sense of humour, I feel so grim and I hate that.  I love my family, I want them to be happy, I want to be happy!  

What to do...what to do?

The Sketchbook Project

After much hemming and hawing I decided to join The Sketchbook Project. It is a project created in conjunction with the Brooklyn Public Library and a group called Art House Projects.  The idea being that people can get one of these books and record their life/mission/adventures/whatevah the way they choose.  These are then submitted to the library, catalogued and put onto caravans that tour the country.  People can take them out and enjoy what others have done.  You can choose a theme or just write (from what I gather!).   It is a neat way to engage with other people, artists and the public library system.  Sounds right up my alley!

So I sent off my money and waited quite excitedly, I must admit!  I don't think that there will be high demand for my work but it's fun to be a part of something big like this.  Besides chronicling my life seems to be the thing I'm into right now.  So you can imagine my dismay when this arrived in the mail!

 It came on a rather tense day so this just added insult to injury.  "Why would you have to open this when it is clearly a paper product and then drop it in water?".  Yup, that's what they did and we know how much paper lurves water.  
 I'm still bummed!  If any of you write, you know the physical pleasure of opening up a new notebook and smoothing out that first page and having the pristine paper accept the black ink from your quill-like Sharpie.  It is exquisite!  But alas, not for me!  So I dried it out as best I could and now have to work paper the texture of Melba Toast! (dating myself there). So what do you do when something like this happens?  Well, I've decided to work with it and call it "Water log(ged)".  Quite good I think and it makes me laugh,  albeit ruefully.

But I have another book in the works as well.  There is an area here in Colombo called "Slave Island"(sounds spooky, I know!).  It's a very historic, culturally and religiously diverse neighbourhood. The name, the crowded conditions, the poverty all make it a rather daunting place for me to venture but it's vibrancy draws me.  It also has the unfortunate benefit of being close to downtown and the new developments that are now starting to come online.  Already we've seen the loss of the Elephant House Cold Storage Godowns and sites are trained on the rest of the area.  So I'm trying to document what's left of the area in a book for G for Xmas.  I got the idea from a store called "Barefoot".  The grandson of the owner published a book about the colour of Sri Lanka.  As I flipped through it I thought, "my shots are as good if not better than these", so I decided why not make one for G?

I'm not such a great photographer but I want to learn.  One thing I think about photography is that you have to anticipate, react and then be patient to make sure you got the shot.  Quite often this means approaching people and asking their permission.  Argh!! I'm a big chicken shit!  You wouldn't think so, but I am!   So me venturing into this neighbourhood really took some cajones.  I was so happy I did!  I was handsomely rewarded!  People couldn't have been nicer and and friendlier.  It's the kind of place where as soon as there is a new face everyone knows so I'm sure my presence preceeded me!  Lots of people very kindly let me take their photos.  But being a little freaked out,  I didn't get all the shots I saw in my head.  That's where I'm running into problems. I can see it in my head and aim the camera toward it, but I can't capture it because I don't have the technical knowledge or the patience.  It's incredibly frustrating but on the up side I am going to go back and take some more shots from a different angle.  I also want to see if I can find this one woman and her baby, I took such a nice shot of them I want to give her a copy.  I hope that's not too creepy!

I would include some of my photos but I don't want to spill the beans about G's Xmas present.  Yeah... he occasionally looks at my blog.  Whoo hooo!

"I don't vant to be alone..."

This

=

This!

Once again, I find myself in the bathroom after "Law and Order, Criminal Investigation" goofing around with the camera.  It must be something about Vincent D'Onofrio that gets me going!  Actually I've wanted to "do"  Greta for awhile!   

I especially love my studio.  It's the bathroom and my crappy little digi cam perched on a swaying stack of toilet paper rolls to get the right height!   I have yet to work up the courage for an outside shot but I do have someone who will take my photo for me.  She's taking a photography course and I dunno, wants an example of what not to do for class?!  

I've got some other ideas and for now they are all black and white.  If anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear from you!