Sunday night drama: X-factor Australia

Sunday is the Great Australian TV-night. That’s when all the best shows are on like ”Modern Family” and some interesting reality TV shows like ”The Bachelor” and ”X-Factor Australia”. The Daughters and I watched ”The Bachelor” on two occasions but that was so embarrassing I couldn’t continue watching. Sure, the bachelor is a handsome fellow and the girls are mostly beautiful ladies but gosh how desperately they throw themselves at him. Several times I had to look away as it was too painful to watch how little dignity some of the girls have. Besides, my husband is refusing to watch ”The Bachelor” and if we want his company, we have to find something else to watch on TV. Instead, we are watching another reality show – ”X-factor Australia”. This year my daughters are taking an eager interest in the show as one of the hopeful acts are a Swedish boy band called JTR, consisting of three handsome brothers. They also happen to be our friend’s nephews so the daughters’ interest is not purely patriotic. Unfortunately the Swedish boys have not really appealed to the Australian audience as they have been in the bottom-two these past two weeks. This has lead to some serious dramatic scenes in our living room; my eldest daughter gets very stressed when the judges are building up the suspension to see who gets voted off and starts crying, I suffer when I see my daughter crying and I try to comfort her and her tears make me cry out of sympathy for her upset emotions. Youngest daughter gets affected by seeing her sister and mother crying their eyes out so she starts crying too. My husband sits helplessly watching his girls with tears streaming down their cheeks. Luckily the Swedish boy band has managed to hang on so far so the sadness is quickly turned in to happiness again. I am very sensitive and very emotional and I often cry when I watch something emotional on TV. After 16 years with me my husband is used to my tears. ”You’re the only one I know who cries to Masterchef” he says. As my daughters note very often: ”Mom’s crying again”. Yes I am, I’m empathetic and compassionate and those are good qualities. I will proudly keep on crying to the reality shows on TV. 

How to deal with sloppy neighbors

It’s been a while since I have had time to sit down and contemplate on life’s tribulations and joys but now I actually have not only a few minutes over, I also have something to talk about.

As I have mentioned before, we live in an estate with quite many townhouses. A townhouse is according to the dictionary a ”modern, 2- or 3-storey house build as one of a group of similar houses”. I admit, I hardly know any of the neighbors and people don’t really seem to say hello or talk to each other either. In the house that is facing my kitchen window, lives a Chinese family consisting of father, mother, a son in his twenties and a teenage daughter. I only see them as they leave their house or when they walk around in their intimates in their living room at night with the ceiling spotlights on – which they do every night I happen to look out the window. They never take care of the flowerbed in front of their house and they cannot be bothered to remove the newspapers and what not in their mailbox. This means the front of their house looks like a suburban version of Angkor Wat and their junk mail is scattered by the wind – often landing in our flowerbed. This is very irritating to say the least. One of our former neighbors had enough one day, collected their papers in a bag and threw in front of their door where it lay for several days before anyone in the household even took notice of it and eventually removed it.

 Last week I was on the phone with a neighbor and I was looking out the kitchen window and saw the husband. He was blowing his nose in a tissue and when he was done he simply threw it into the bushes in the flowerbed and went inside. I was chocked, appalled but not speechless as I re-told the event to my neighbor on the phone. ”I know what to do” I told her. Soon the entire Chinese family appeared and left in the car. I wrote a note that said ”USE THE RUBBISH BIN!!!” and stapled it onto a plastic bag. With my kitchen gloves I went out and collected the Chinese residue, pulled out all the newspapers and flyers that were jammed into their mailbox and put it all in the bag that I dumped on their doorstep. The next morning the bag had vanished. Let us hope that they will take care of their own garbage and use the rubbish bin in the future. If not, they can count on the Neighborhood Vigilance – me - to point out that they are misconducting. 

Our house where I can keep a watchful eye on the neighbors from the generous windows.