Remember the nice photos I posted of my newly setup veggie bed?
Well, the arugula has been eaten by a dozen caterpillars a few months ago. They looked beautiful, grass green with bright yellow stripes on their back. When I discovered them it was much too late. A woman from the local gardening society told me that they would turn into beautiful butterflies. Little bastards!
They also ate the Kailan (Chinese greens). The Japanese cucumber and string beans climbed up the bamboo sticks and look pretty, but there is not a single pickle nor bean in sight.
The surprising winners are the cocktail tomatoes and carrots from seeds I bought in Germany. Thirty juicy and sweet tomatoes and a dozen small but very orange carrots. I also put supermarket ginger into the ground and it sprouted. However the lemon grass, which was such a success in Dubai, withered and died.
I knew it would happen. Gardening is about learning and sticking with the winners. It takes time and experience. Next year my compost will be ready and I will dig it into the very clayie veggie bed. Every morning I will search for caterpillars. I will construct a raised bed, because tropical downpours will turn level veggie beds into ponds (with tiny cute frogs). And I will plant German carrots and tomatoes and maybe have a second go at Japanese cucumbers.
While the caterpillars munch the rest of my veggies, I watch a BBC series Around the world in 80 gardens. It’s enlightening. Gardening is like religion, so different around the world, but the concept is the same, we all like it and it makes us happy, in a weird BDSM kind of way.
I have been fifteen years in Hong Kong, but having this little garden around the house has been such a pleasure and new discovery. The veggie garden is a work in progress, but the rest, the so-called weeds, the plants that just sprout up after each rain, they are so pretty. The ones I like, I transplant to prime spots where they will strive and grow.
Whereas gardening in Dubai was about watering thrice a day, gardening in Hong Kong is about cutting down plants you don’t like at least once a month. I feel like Tarzan in a jungle with a machete… ok, huge -made in Germany- garden scissors. I also spray myself with “Deep Woods” mosquito repellent. It lasts for about 15 minutes until a colony of these little devils break out in laughter and descent on me.
And then they are the palm-sized spiders, and the creepy crawlies in the compost pile, and at least three geckos inside the house. I was raised by a mum who threw the spiders from the ceilings under our bath tub to eat the silver fish. Nature is about balance, and we are a part of it.
Little man and I observed our bedroom gecko tonight. George the Slow climbed up the wall, ambled past the curtains, and then stumbled behind the TV. The insect population in our bedroom will be kept at a minimum, my task in the equilibrium will be to wipe the gecko shit away.
Tomorrow little man and I will leave for Berlin where we will take care of my Dad’s garden. He is in hospital and half of his right foot is amputated, but in spite of this, and because of this, his tiny allotment garden is Eden and I will help my mum to take care of it. I am so ready for the pleasure of a temperate garden in summer. A bit of grass cutting and watering, how hard can it be?
Male: Hello!
Hello, I am Dominik.
And what’s your name?
Female: I am Jacqueline.
Male: Oh, that’s a beautiful name, oh, such a beautiful name!
And what are you studying?
Female: Biochemistry.
Male: Oh, that’s fascinating, how fascinating, fascinating, fascinating. Well, I am studying social… that’s also totally… well… boring.
And, you want to fuck me?
Female: Pardon?
Male: You want to fuck me?
Female: Yes, of course.
Male: Well fine, are we going to my place or yours?
Female: Don’t know.
Male: Well, don’t know either. Perhaps we could… or rather… or rather…no, don’t know.
You can’t truly appreciate your mum (or your dad) until you are a parent yourself. At least that’s true for me. When you have kids you are forced to acknowledge the sacrifices, joys, and pains your parents went through. Some people I know don’t need to have kids to know that, but I was stupid until I had little man.
I called my mum today to wish her a happy Mother’s Day. I could hear the happiness in her voice, despite all the challenges recently. My dad is in the hospital, one of his toe has been amputated because of diabetes. The wound won’t heal, my daddy is depressed, and my mum has to cope with it all alone because I am thousand of kilometers away.
I called my dad to try to reinstall the feisty strength into him he always had, and I called my mum to reinstall the sunny optimism that has been always in her heart. I think I succeeded, at least partially.
I woke to a card with a poem under my cushion this morning: “Dear Mama, I have a poem for you. Mums are sometimes a pity but always pretty. You are sometimes lazy but always buzy. Happy mother’s day! From little man”
Little man told me that he had a hard time to find the rhyming words, that it took him two hours, but he never gave up … :)
I was waiting for little man at the school bus stop. A little Dutch girl who was waiting for her brother together with her mum said “I don’t understand why Chinese eat dogs”. Another daddy (Australian, with Fido on the leash) said “At some point in time people had very little to eat, so I guess they started to eat dogs”. Little girl: “I still don’t understand. These poor little dogs. Just imagine. It’s as if they were eaten by GIANTS!”. Mum of little girl: “Lots of people around the world eat unusual foods. For example Germans eat horses” and looks at me with challenging eyes.
Lol… ok this was a new one for me. I usually have to deal with liverwurst and Hitler. How to respond? Yes, there is horse meat available in Germany, though you have to look for it really hard, and most Germans alive today have not eaten it, me included. But then I thought, what’s the difference between a cow, pig, chicken, dog, frog, monkey, or horse? It’s only in our minds and cultural upbringings. Many Chinese don’t eat beef, because they view cattle as loyal helpers that plow rice fields. It is very unlikely that I will ever eat horse sausages, dog drumsticks, or monkey brains, but I will not look down on people choose to do so, because I eat bacon, steak, and chicken breast, and like them. And liverwurst.
Me: “ Yeah, Germans are not the only ones. The French eat it too.” (Lame, I know.)
Little girl: Yeah (turns to her mummy). Do you remember? When we were in France, the people also ate snails… escargots.
Dutch mummy: Yes, with parsley butter.
Me: Have you tried snake?
Dutch mummy: No I haven’t. Is it any good?
Daddy from Alaska (“We don’t like Sarah Palin!”) stares at all of us opened mouthed.
Me: Tastes similar to chicken, almost the same like frog legs. I had it in a soup.
Little girl: The good thing about having a dad who is a pilot is that he brings you many different things from around the world. Clothes, toys, food.
Dutch mummy: Yeah (looks pained because she and daddy are in a nasty divorce)
Little girl: Do you remember when he brought emu and kangaroo meat from Australia?
(Australian dad smirks)
Me: Have you had Impala?
Dutch mummy: No
Little girl: What’s Impala?
Me: A gazelle, really tasty.
Gazelle eater. Dutch cheese lover. Sarah Palin… only well done.
The weather has been unusual this year. I follow a few spots around the world, just a consequence of being an expatriate and having friends and loved ones at strategic points around the globe.
My parents in Berlin just lived through an unusual cold winter, despite global warming. Dubai was unusually wet. Hong Kong has been hot-wet- cold, hot-wet-cold, hot-wet-cold one time too many. What’s going on?
My veggie garden has not been a success. Butterfly worms have feasted on the arugula and gai-lan. The rest has not even sprouted from seeds. Volcanoes break out and stop airline traffic.
Nature rules, and she is telling us. We can’t eat money.
The toads are croaking so loud that I can’t sleep, snails are everywhere, a thunderstorm has just drenched the laundry I painstakingly hanged outside, a colony of ants has discovered little man’s too sweet cocoa pops.
It comes every decade or so, doesn’t it? Too cold, too hot, too wet, too dry. To remind us that we are an important but fairly small part of the picture, and that finding the middle ground in our life is an objective worth keeping.
This was Anne-Sophie Mutter 13 years old playing Meditation from the Thais opera by Jules Massenet with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Herbert von Karajan. After 30 years she plays it again. The first version was stunning, but the one below brings me to tears every time I hear it. In thirty years she has managed to pull out the essence out of the notes.
I know that daily life can puff away all your dreams. But when you think that it is not worth going on anymore, and you feel the pull of letting go and giving up, know that you give so much joy. This is your life and mine. Nothing is true but life and love.
The previous year was not a good one. I can tell from stepping on the scale. I have gained 8 kilos. Don’t know about you, but I gain weight for two reasons. When I am unhappy or when I am pregnant. I am not pregnant.
Other mothers-to-be crave pickled cucumbers, I craved Moevenpick ice cream. It was a delicious pregnancy. When little man was out, the scale was where it had never been before at 80 kilos (wow!). Ok, about four kilos went to Elsie (left breast) and Luise (right breast) to feed insatiable tiny man, but the rest attached to the bum, the belly, and (most bothersome of all) the face. I am pretty tall for a girl at 5′8, but 80 kilos dragged me down to snail’s pace. I felt tired and had no energy. Having a baby and a job was stressful and left little time, but after two years I draw the line. I started to go to the gym, even if it cut sleep from three hours to one. Exercise had always helped to loose extra kilos. Not this time. It gave me more appetite. Now I was 80 kilos and had the stamina to run 5 kilometers every day. Great, but not what I had hoped for.
A chat with my brother-in-law who had lost 20 kilos and a little bit of googling on the internet brought me to this site. My brother-in-law told me that he lost weight by counting calories. He had tried the Hollywood star diet (only tropical fruits) and other gimmicks, but nothing really worked until he wrote down what he ate and limited his calorie intake every day.
On the side, I normally hate my brother-in-law. He has about half a dozen girlfriends at any given time, a terrible temper, and an ego to match. However, I value his diet advice. Someone who has the need to attract women a dozen a night ought to know.
So I found the Hacker’s diet, and it made sense. I downloaded the Excel spreadsheets and adjusted them for my needs (grams instead of ounces, goat cheese instead of American cheese, etc.). I lost 15 kilos, was my pre-pregnancy self, and felt great.
Then 2009 came. Can we all agree that it was not the best of years? I was in Dubai, and hated it. Somehow food became comfort and a curse. 65 kilos, 68 kilos, 70 kilos (gosh), 73 kilos (no!!!).
So I am back to what worked before, an Excel spreadsheet where I put in all the food I eat, and I strictly stop at 1500 calories per day. It’s easy, geeky science. A woman in the prime of her years needs about 2000 calories a day. If you eat more you gain weight. If you eat less you loose weight. And depending on what you eat, 1500 calories does not need to mean a growling stomach. If you eat lots of veggies your stomach is going to feel full all day, and even a bit of chocolate is ok.
You may think it’s strange and over the top, but I know it works and I know what the alternative is. My dad is 73 years old. He is the best Dad in the world. He has been overweight for most of his adult life. Not obese, always active, just with a little pot belly the sun shone on. But diabetes runs in the family. In his sixties he began to need insulin injections, then the pain in his legs started, now the nerve damage is so bad that one of his toes may need to be amputated.
I am worrying about my Dad, trying to get him doctor’s appointments with the best specialists, wanting the best for him, but in the back of my mind I know that everyone of us needs to take responsibility for his/her own health. So while I am prep talking Dad over the telephone, I am busy putting the calories of my lunch into an Excel spreadsheet.
It would also be nice to be able to breathe again in my favorite pair of jeans.
I kept him inside the house for the first two weeks, and he was bored as hell. His favorite spot was the chair next to the window. Mealtimes were the highlights of his days.
Last week I let him out for the first time. Wow… happiness is a cat that can smell, explore, eat grass, disappear for a few hours into the unknown. I stalked him. He explored our garden, went around the neighbor’s house, smelled their cats, then went for a pee near the fence, then disappeared into the unknown. A few hours later he was back, looking happy and exhausted.
I know that the four month in quarantine weren’t easy for M., but the good thing is that he learnt to use the cat loo. He peed on the sofa and crapped on a pile of laundry in our house in Dubai. Baby nappies smell like roses in comparison to cat pee. I had to call in the professionals to clean the sofa. Now he goes to the cat loo or pees in the neighbor’s garden… good cat.
Friends told me that there is a dog in our village that kills cats to defend his territory, so my preference would have been for M. to become an indoor cat, but he was looking too miserable. The killer dog is at the other end of the village, and should they ever cross paths I am hoping that M. will know how to defend himself. After all, he was the undisputed king of Umm Suqueim. Doggy run if you can.
Today I bought him a Harley Davidson collar for good measure. It says “Bad to the bone” and has printed fish bones for decoration. I hope the village dogs know what’s good for them.
One hour later, our neighbor came home and I helped him to chase Elsie away. She was obstinate, to say the least. She left remnants. Three in neighbor’s garden. Four heaps in mine.
