The long years of the untouched aspidistra, and the parking station.

In the newly acquired town-house court yard stand amongst the clivias (Amaryllidaceae) an aspidistra that is almost as old as I am and that is pretty old. The astonishing thing is not so much its age but more of , how and why ? It is our most neglected plant. I can’t remember watering it and apart from the occasional shower it doesn’t get moisture or nurture from anyone. A bird might fly over it occasionally. Perhaps a careless rosella  aims its droppings at this loveless plant as a sign of their care at least, which nature often astounds us with. I remember Helvi telling me that we took the plant from the farm in Holland and that dates back almost beyond my memory. We smuggled it in the crates of our furniture that included all our household goods with chairs, our home-made slatted bed, egg-cups, pillows, a large Dutch armoire and lots more. So, it is about at least forty five years old considering we left the farm in Holland around 1976.

And now it is outside near the clivias and still very much alive. At the previous place (of the garden slasher) it had a position in the downstairs bathroom and I suppose benefited from the shower droplets or steamy humidity. We sometimes mentioned it when conversation was about the indoor plants which throughout our many years together gave us so much pleasure. I read up about the aspidistra and we should have been more curious about this plant. Its flowers are so short and low that they just never seem to appear and another insightful information states it propagates with the help of slugs that crawl over those stumpy flowers and help to pollinate the plant. Another name for this plant is Cast Iron Plant. Its the plant that gets put in a dark place behind aunty Agnes’ untuned wood framed piano, and gets totally forgotten till aunty gets buried, the house sold, and removalists find this profusely growing aspidistra made of Cast Iron.

As for the parking station. When I visited my sick daughter at StGeorge brand new public hospital, I with the nonchalance and nous of a Mika Häkkinen drove into their large multi story parking station. Little did I know of the drama looming ahead. I have no experience of city living anymore. In any case, this multi story car park seem to attract hoons that race up and down the very curvy car park just to train for the Monte Carlo or the Dutch Assen race, to stay more local. But, forget about the screeching tires and the nose ringed hoons. At the entrance you are given a ticket that you present on the way out. This ticket has a time and date. After you pull the ticket out of the machine only then the boom gate allows you to enter by lifting it up and out of the way. Th ticket has to held onto for dear life. Don’t ever loose it!

When my visit was over, I made my way to the parking station and noticed with some relief that the race drivers had gone. I slowly retrieved my car from level C and made my way down numerous levels to the exit following the yellow painted arrows. I had the parking ticket grimly between my teeth and felt super-confident. I’ll proof a city slicker yet! At the ground floor I drove carefully towards the boom gate and next to a machine that after inserting my credit card and paying the fee would surely lift up and allow me to exit the parking station. But, as I inserted the ticket and thought I paid my charge the notice on the electronic screen kept saying. ‘charge not processed, try again’. I tried and tried and kept looking at the boom gate that stayed rock solid down in position. It then asked me by a mechanical voice to insert my card the other way around. That failed, by then I was getting into a state. I did not want a rage to well up. Just be an old man, I kept telling me. Pretend to be an aspidistra.  Nothing worked, I tapped and inserted and no help. Finally a voice told me to go to the office but ‘don’t leave the car’. Pay cash. But how? I then lost it and shouted to the machine. ‘I am an old man, and I want to pay, but for f”8£k sake let me out. I have a heart condition. ‘ The ‘office’ could sense a man holding onto the mast before the ship sunk, and soon a man appeared opened the machine and then told me ‘you did not put a ticket in’. I told him I did. He said ‘where is the ticket’, and held up a handful of tickets. My ticket was $10.40 but I wasn’t going to help him sort through tickets.

I said, ‘do you think I am lying?’ I am eighty years old and would I skimp on paying my dues?  He said, no and repeated, where is your ticket? I remained quiet and just looked ahead. He lifted the boom gate and I drove off.

It wasn’t a good moment but I am over it now.

 

Walking and vitamin supplementary quakery.

 

Our two grandsons and Mother with Grandmother ahead walking. 2016

We are forever being urged to keep walking. In times gone past we moved about using our legs which took us between different spaces. Inside our homes we still practice moving our legs till this day. Outside it is a different matter. I suppose, when the riding on top of a horse became fashionable, we managed to move a bit faster. In regions with snow and ice, skis and sledges were discovered, but, by and large we used our legs if we wanted to get somewhere…Some countries, the bicycle became a mode of transport which not only served to move people faster but it also kept  legs and body very fit.

This is now all gone. Since the invention of wheels and engines, the car replaced our legs. Not only that, putting wings and engines together gave us flight, and we can now use airplanes to get from A to B. I am not sure at this stage what I am going to arrive at, or indeed what I am aiming for, except that the reason why streets in Australia always seem to be so empty of people might be because we have developed a way of living whereby the use of legs slowly became less important. And the car took over. Today, when we want to go from one place to another, the car clearly dominates over our legs. People think nothing of living somewhere whereby even to get a loaf of bread or the newspaper, they have to jump on wheel carriages and drive the metal box on wheels to get a loaf of bread or a bottle of milk.

I watched a good program on SBS last night how in the US and Australia, the market for vitamins and all sorts of untested medical supplementary paraphernalia is sold over the counter without having to proof their worth of the product nor the veracity of the printed label on the product. . Here it is:

https://www.sbs.com.au/programs/vitamania

Is this why there are so many chemists around? They are a major money making enterprise and one questions to what extend is their concern for our health? Some of the larger chemical shop consortiums are listed on the stock exchange. The huge number of chemist shops are in direct proportion of how far we live away from shops and each other. Even here in Bowral with a population of 12 000, it is spread out over an area the size of Amsterdam which has a population of about a million. In Amsterdam people can walk to get bread, here in Bowral most have to plan a major journey by car or bus to do the same. We are almost next to major hospitals and that has come in very handy. We were so lucky!

It is not always so easy to live near infrastructures such as shops, schools or trains, because most cities and towns have zonings that are either commercial or residentials, and when shops are zoned commercial they generally exclude  residential dwellings. This means that people have to live away from shops or around the shops, and hence we revert to the car instead of our legs. We have cities and towns where very few actually live in those towns or cities. In the evenings they become empty ghost towns because people have gone home in their cars miles away.

Our way of building houses is very dependent on driving. So, by and large, people drive and give up walking, and that is why we are losing the use of legs and for many the only way to get legs moving and supple again is through joining a gym or get a rowing machine/weightlifing equipment stowed in the bedroom. Again to get to the gym, a car drive and not walking is the main mode of transport. It is no wonder so many now have to get knee and hip repairs done. They say; use it or lose it, don’t they? This might also be that  there is a link between our lack of physical movements (walking) and our love of supplementary medicines and vitamins as promoted in chemist consortiums/emporiums. We prop up of what we feel we lack.  Why have we developed a way of housing whereby we live so far from what we often need? And these needs are shops, entertainments, and streets full of people to talk with, and exchange some latest news.

I miss European cities.

 

Hotdog

Every few months I take some time off and get the car washed. I know I should do that myself but I have hardly ever washed a car. The tediousness of it I never overcame. It might also explain why I was never drawn to join the army, the police force, became a Jesuit or follow any kind of group where discipline is required.

The car-wash place is about three kilometres from here. They charge $ 45.-. They do a thorough job. A whole team of young people beaver about with specialised equipment. High pressure steam spray blasts the dirt off the exterior after which the interior gets a vacuuming with the upholstery cleaning and burnishing waxing of the leather seats. The carpet especially is beyond my capability. They have a specially strong machine that just about sucks up the car itself. Anyone who has a Jack Russell would know that their hairs will be almost impossible to remove. They stick to the carpet like a Velcro stocking to a varicosed leg.

Some of the car washers wear headgear of Sikhs, others wear Turbans both indicating a belonging to a disciplinary faith based organisation. This installs me with complete trust and confidence. I never heard of car jackings by people that wear religious clothing. I mean, would a man (or woman) steal a car wearing a cardinal’s mitre with humble desert sandals?

The cleaning always takes about an hour. And as this car-cleaning business is situated in a large shopping complex with a food-court, I do what I rarely do; have a coffee with a hotdog. It does not matter what time it is, the food-court is really rocking. I read yesterday that peoples lives are becoming more and more aimless. Eating is the one activity that is still possible to experience as a pleasure. The food courts are proof of it. Eating is now seen as an aim in itself. Of course, I become part of that as well. I sit there the same as the others. The hotdog itself contradicts everything that I know about healthy eating. Part of it is that I am doing this by myself. With Helvi, I would be eating a far healthier Japanese sushi take-away. But what the heck, (I sooth myself). The car washing combo with hotdog is enjoyed a couple of times year.

So what?

Relaxing in the Dentist’s chair

Birds always understand

“Isn’t it about time you get your teeth looked at?” That was one of the first things my wife came up with one early morning rising out of bed. “Why, I asked,  is there something about my teeth that kept you awake?” “You were gnashing them, all night,” she said  stroppily. “Oh, great, lets compare your snoring with my teeth gnashing,” I replied, ready for combat. “It isn’t just your gnashing,.” Helvi said. “Oh boy, is there more,” I said  warming up into a nice marital fencing?  “Yes, but for now, can you just turn away from me while you are talking, you have either not brushed your teeth last night or you got something sinister travelling inside your mouth”, she said. I thought that was quite a funny thing to say. She won.

I took the hint, and made an appointment with the local dentist. It was some years since I last visited one. Helvi had already made several visits to this new dentist who has his practise inside an old weather-board cottage. The outside is painted a stark white. The picket fence at the front is also pearly white. By squinting and using imaginary projections it is almost possible to see a perfectly formed white toothed mouth. There is a board hanging outside; ‘Family Dentist.’ The gleaming whiteness of it all is the best advertisement for this dental surgery. It impressed us enough, and that is the reason why Helvi decided to get her teeth checked out there. She is not scared of dentists. Not many women are.

She had already warmed me up by telling me that this dentist is very calm who explains the procedure in the greatest detail. Helvi seemed very impressed. I like calmness in dentists and would certainly not have my teeth fixed by a nervous or very agitated dentist.

I arrived promptly at 10.30 am and was met by a very nice bare armed secretary. She wore a blue floral shirt with a white open collar. Her previously mentioned arms were decorated with a modest arrangement of silver bangles around her wrists. There were no other adornments, not even earrings. She seemed kind and reassuring. If I was a dog I would not have minded being walked around town for a bit by her. I would definitely try and refrain from lifting my hind leg.

She gave me a large sheet to fill in. The sheet had all sorts of questions regarding any illnesses or diseases, suffering at present or suffered in the past. Was I pregnant etc? One question that stood out, and shows how far we have arrived in how people are now considered with so much more dignity and empathy was; Was I nervous and if so; what was my level of nervousness? I filled in that I had no nervousness at all. If the secretary had been less friendly and welcoming, I could well have answered with honesty ,and filled in ‘very bloody nervous.’ I can’t say that dentists and I have ever been close soul mates.

I also signed that I took all responsibility and more importantly would pay in full after each treatment. I sat down and waited for the dentist to call me in. The walls of the waiting room were adorned with nice pictures, all meant to calm and ready us. There were some magazines but no hunting or car racing magazines. No deadly accidents or photos of shot pigs.

I was called in by Craig and we shook hands. He was the dentist. It is always comforting when first names are being used by the medical fraternity. I can’t imagine that being normal back in Holland where things used to be much more formal. Perhaps that has changed as well. It is all becoming friendlier, I hope. The dental chair is what struck me first. I have never seen a chair so modern. It had in front a screen on which a projection of a photo of a grizzly bear in a forest was shown. I had hardly absorbed this image when it was replaced with a penguin surrounded by a vast polar expanse, all white. The penguin was large and I suppose it might have been an Emperor. It all looked very nice and peaceful

Craig sat down and crossed his legs in an amicable fashion. He explained in a friendly and calming manner what he was going to do and after perusing my medical sheet, he promised “no great drama.” “You have no medical problems now nor in the past.” He reassured me, and he chatted on how long he had been practising his dentistry art. “Your wife told me you used to have a farm”, he added.

It was after this brief chat that he examined my mouth. His assistant took my glasses, hearing aids and other paraphernalia around and inside my mouth. We are going to take some x-rays, he said. All in all nothing too intrusive. It was over fairly quickly. “It will take about three visits,” he said. “There are some teeth that are split and there is a built up of tartar, a few fillings have come out. Nothing insurmountable.”

I was ushered back into the waiting room.

Nothing too bad. Almost a nice experience.