Hair stylists around the world

One thing that is always a bit of a hassle when you move, is finding a new hairstylist. It sounds like a trifle but for us women, having a hairstylist we like and trust is crucial.

In Bangkok I found one conveniently located in the shopping mall where I used to spend quite a lot of time. The hairstylist was a trendy Thai man who spoke about three words of English and I had to bring my driver to translate the first couple of times until he knew what I wanted. Our silent relationship lasted for almost five years, until we moved to Mexico. There I found a hairstylist in a fairly trendy salon. He spoke English and had won awards for his skills in hair coloring. My entire family went to him on a regular basis. He wasn’t very talkative, not like the Swedish hairstylists anyway. When we moved after three years we all said good bye to him and he shook my hand and gave my husband a big hug. It's usually the other way around but hey, you can't win 'em all, can you? 

In Kuwait, a fellow Swede dragged me to her hairdresser whom she claimed was ”fantastic” and so good priced. The salon was located in a building that looked like it had taken a good beating during the invasion and not much had been done since. The manicurist had to wake up the Lebanese hairdresser who was living in an apartment next to her salon. The hairdresser kept smoking while she was cutting and coloring my hair, insulting me for the hairstyle that I was having as it was not in accordance with Lebanese hair fashion. My Swedish friend introduced me to her hairstylist, a British young man who did a good enough job with the scissors. Sure, he kept reminding me that I’m middle aged; ”when you’re older - like you are – this and this is good for your hair”, sometimes he intended his comments to be compliments like ”you have such a nice and shiny hair for your age”. I did like him, even more since I started reminding him about his age: ”you’ll know this once you get a little older” or ”you’re too young to know what Dallas and Baywatch were” and "no, the Karate Kid with Jackie Chan is NOT the first Karate Kid movie. I saw the first one in the cinema when I was like 12 or so". 

After an unsatisfactory cut at a boring salon in my Melbournian suburb, I found a very trendy salon in the shopping mall only minutes away from our home. It’s posh, there are different levels of the hairstylists, the higher title the higher the price – of course. I get to choose drinks from a nice menu and they always start by giving a neck massage. I feel pampered. As I am now adapted to a more modest lifestyle, I only go to the salon when I really need it instead of when I feel like it. I went last week for a much needed haircut and I brought a picture of Heidi Klum as a reference for how I would like to look like. I am very pleased with the outcome of my hair but I still don’t look like Heidi Klum.

 In the morning, before I’ve done any hair styling whatsoever, I look like a rock singer from the 80’s. So my daughters start their mornings with a big laugh and that’s always a good start to a new day, isn’t it?

Millionaire me!

I have a special e-mail account for this blog, diaryofaladyofleisure@yahoo.com.au in case you feel like you want to write something nice or encouraging to me. I don’t check it very often but when I do, I always have a number of e-mails waiting for me.

African and South American bankers and business men and women in countries where the regime does not allow them to make business or is trying to confiscate their fortune, they all turn to me for my kind assistance in lending them my bank account. In return, I will get handsomely rewarded. I also get a couple of business propositions every week from successful business men who have singled me out as an investor and potential partner. I’m honored, truly honored that they can see my potential as a driven and sharp business woman. However, I’m very busy with things that mothers and housewives do and I cannot invest time nor money into these ventures... of... well, I can't say what the businesses are being described -  if they even are being described - as I am not reading most of these e-mails.

These past couple of days I have gotten two absolutely fantastic e-mails to this e-account: one from Western Union Bank in Benin and one from a lady banker in Burkina Faso. In Burkina Faso, a multi-millonaire passed away in 2002 and left his fortune to his next of kin who has now passed as well. And you know what? I am the lucky person to inherit ten million three hundred thousand American dollars! They have chosen me to be the next of kin. All I have to do is provide my banking information and they will immediately transfer the money to me. In Benin, some generous person has set up a fund with two and a half million US dollars in my name and I will get four thousand dollars every month transferred into my account - starting as soon as I  provide my banking information and they will immediately transfer the money to me without any delays. I am deeply touched by the kindness of the unknown people in countries I have never even been close to visiting, who find that I am the rightful heir of their fortunes. Thank you so much! Not to seem ungrateful or anything, but I would much rather prefer some nice e-mails regarding my blog. That however, would really make me feel as a million dollars. American dollars.

My children: Three peas in a pod sometimes

With three children in the house, I’m always busy. My children are 11, 13 and turning 43 later this year. Regardless of their age, they have many things in common and they are all depending on me. The easiest of the lot is the 13-year old. She makes her own bed, keeps her room neat and puts her dirty laundry in the laundry basket. The 11-year old doesn’t make her bed unless I’m there to help her, she doesn’t put away her toys unless I tell her to and she puts her laundry on the floor until I tell her pick it up and put in the laundry basket. The 43-year old uses at least five shirts per working week and two tennis-shirts on the weekend plus seven pants or shorts, same amount of boxers and socks. As he quickly filled up the laundry basket in the master bathroom, I got him his own basket and assigned him the chore of taking care of his own laundry. The first days he smuggled his laundry into my basket, hoping that his shirts and slacks would pass unnoticed into the laundry machine. My hawk eyes picked up on the alien clothing and it were immediately transferred to the correct laundry basket. 

   His laundry basket, with embroidered "easy to follow" instructions (not followed though...)

All three children fight with each other and they all come running to me either to tittle-tattle or to have me resolve the issue. Lately the 13 and the 43 year old have not been getting along so I’ve been practicing my diplomatic skills. In my own family, I’m a top diplomat, in the real world I have very little tolerance, patience and understanding. Blood is thicker than water for sure. All three children go to bed too late and are tired in the morning. The two youngest I try to chase into bed at 21.00 but they never fall asleep until at least half an hour later. The oldest has to mind his own bedtime but sometimes I call him to bed when he’s burning the midnight oil. All three children are tired in the morning, the 13-year old is the easiest to get out of bed. Luckily none of them has a bad temper in the morning.

All three children sit with their iPads during the commercial breaks on TV and they all bring their iPads when they are planning on spending some time in the bathroom. Speaking of bathrooms, my children have a sixth sense. As soon as I’m in the bathroom they come and want to talk to me or want me to help them with something. My 13-year old often wants me to help with her hair when I’m in the shower, the 11-year old wants me to help her with a  zipper or a button and the 43-year old always comes in the bathroom and says ”woo-hoo, a naked lady”. Same thing when I’m on the phone or on Skype, they can be invisible for hours but as soon as I’m talking to someone they all emerge from where ever they've been and need to talk to me.

Yesterday was an excellent day! I had a good talk with both my 13-year old and my 43-year old and showing off some great diplomatic skills. I cleaned the entire home and did grocery shopping for the weekend. I was in a fantastic mood, feeling very happy and liberated from heart ache. After a long creative drought I came up with an idea for a new children’s book and my girls approved of it. It’s warm and sunny outside. Life is good. The weekend is here and that is when my 43-year old child steps things up and turn into my husband. He will fire up one of his three Webers and make a barbecue – ”baaaaarbie” as the Aussies call it. That’s what separate boys from men – the barbecue. Oh how I love my children but I prefer when it’s the weekend and we are two adults and two children instead of weekdays when we’re one adult and three children. 

P.S: As people love to speculate, I'd better point out that everything's peachy in Wonderland and my husband (and best friend) has been consulted and approved of this diary entry. 

Exciting night in Suburbia

Living in a Melbourne suburb by the sea might sound like a uneventful lifestyle. In the monthly local newspaper they report that a woman was caught by the police when she was speeding, driving 65 km/h on a 60 road and a man neglected to pick up his dog’s poop and has to pay a fine for his offence. In our estate we do have a bit more action though. Most houses are occupied by families with children but unfortunately some houses are rented out to very young people who share a house. This is a very popular living arrangement in Australia; some friends renting a place together. I don’t think I could live with friends other than for a couple of days, I want my privacy. I lived with a boyfriend when I was just a little over 20. It did not go well and we parted as enemies. He said it was my fault. After me, he has lived with friends and thrice with girlfriends. It did not go well and he parted with all of them as enemies. I rest my case. But let’s not dwell on my past life, let’s get back to the suburban life in Melbourne.

As I have mentioned in a previous diary entry, we have the bad fortune of having a group of young, ill-mannered, loud and potentially alcoholic girls for neighbors. They have the tendency to sit in their backyard – which happen to be facing our entire family’s bedrooms as well as 11 other families’ bedrooms – until way past midnight on weekdays and until dawn on weekends; talking very loudly, drinking, smoking and laughing. They have been warned by the company that owns the house, but they are not only a nuisance to the estate, they are incredibly stupid too. They continue their destructive path to eviction. At 2.30 in the morning on Sunday, my husband and I woke up by loud, drunken chatter. We looked out the window and there were people sitting in the dark in the blasted backyard. We closed our windows to minimize the noise when we hear a loud banging and we see a man climbing up on the roof of The Coo-coo’s nest, trying to open up a window. ”I bet those stupid girls lost their key, you can hear how plastered they are” said my husband. ”It could be a burglary for all that we know” I said and went to get the phone. Then I did what every woman in my position would do: I called the police and gave the phone to my husband. ”Why are you giving the phone to me?” he asked. ”Because I’m a terrified, defenseless woman and it’s your job to save the damsel in distress” I replied. When he hung up, I got an sms from our neighbor across the street, they had been woken up as well. The police came a couple of minutes later and we were all watching the event in the darkness of our houses. ”This is so exciting” I said, ”we should have called the police months ago”. I went to sleep and slept quite long in the morning, feeling very rested when I woke up.

The company that owns The Coo-coo’s nest has had enough and is now putting together all our complaints together with the police report, hoping that they will be able to evict the delinquents in accordance with the Australian law. We will celebrate with our neighbors the day these female hooligans are kicked out of the house. Time to start chilling the champagne I reckon...

Making friends. Again.

When you move around as often as we have, you get used to meeting new people and making new friends. Since we have lived in each place for a limited time, the process of making friends needs to be very efficient – like platonic speed-dating. Often we turn to our countrymen in the search of potential friends. My closest friends today are friends I’ve made since we moved out of Sweden. It’s a challenge to make new friends; finding interesting people, getting to know them, building up a mutual trust that will lead to friendship. So far, it’s been really hard to make friends here in Melbourne. If you come from Europe, Australia’s not that different. Well, what am I saying? Of course Australia’s different. It’s an entire continent just bursting with amazing and beautiful places, interesting and unusual animals and nice weather all year around – except Melbourne, where we happen to live. Melbourne is fairly close to the South Pole, hence the cold winds and the sudden changes of weather. What I was referring to was that the Australian community and society is working in a similar way as the northern European dittos. You can get around by speaking English as the official languages here is English, Australian English that is. They have a tendency to shorten most words; pressies are presents, brekkie is breakfast, mozzies are mosquitoes. Since it’s a modern, Western society, most women work at least part time. Only senior citizens, mothers on maternity leave and a handful of ladies of leisure are populating the streets and beaches of Melbourne on a regular weekday.

Just as I have met some wonderful people – who have become close friends – thanks to our nomadic lifestyle, I have also met the absolute opposite. I sometimes wonder if these unpleasant people are better persons when they are in their own environment and not in the somewhat artificial world that the expatriate life can be? Perhaps this topic deserves a blog entry of its own as I have so many thoughts on this.

We haven’t been here for long and our circle of friends is currently very small but I must say I’m quite happy with taking my time in making new friends. We are not in Melbourne for a limited time only, there’s no rush. I don’t need to socialize with people just for the sake of socializing. With most things and matters in my life; I much more prefer quality over quantity. Also when it comes to friends. 

"Friendship is not about whom you have know the longest, it's about who came and never left your side"

Daddy can too!

I went grocery shopping on Friday morning. Well, it was late morning and the supermarket was full with Friday shoppers, mainly women and quite many small children. A father was pushing a shopping trolley with his baby son sitting in the baby chair and a small boy around three years old was walking next to him. Suddenly the three year old says loud and clear: ”Daddy, I need to wee-wee”. No immediate reaction from the dad. ”DADDY, I NEED TO WEE-WEE” shouted the boy. ”Do you really need to wee-wee right now?” asked the dad. ”YEEEESSSS, RIGHT NOW DAD! I WILL WEE-WEE IN MY PANTS SOON!” Shopping women around him started to give good advice to the the father who looked stressed and as if he were searching for a toilet to magically appear next to the meat deli. I kept on walking so I don’t know if the little boy did wet his pant or not. 

I wonder how come a father get so much sympathy when he’s on his own with two children? How often don’t we see mothers with two, three children? Children who are crying and screaming? Do we rush to their aid with advice or help them out? Probably not. I might give the struggling mother a faint smile while in my head I’m thinking ”just get your ill-mannered kids to put a sock in it”. Why are we mothers expected by other women to manage the children by ourselves while we take pity in the men and offer them help as if the men are not capable of taking care of their children? Taking a kid to the bathroom for a wee-wee is a piece of cake. It’s a whole other deal when you need to go to the restroom and you have small children. I’ve been to public toilets many times with my youngest in a Baby Björn, the oldest being only two years old and too little to wait outside for mommy. Half standing over the porcelain chair, lifting the youngest daughter in the Baby Björn a little with the left hand, holding the oldest daughter with the right hand so she doesn’t touch anything in the toilet or tries to open the door. Sure, a little help with the children would have been nice but I managed. 

When our youngest was about ten months and our oldest was two and a half years old, I decided to take a couple of hours off to go shopping by myself downtown Bangkok and leave the girls with my husband. It was Saturday and the maid wasn’t working so he was really on his own.  At 13.30 he calls me, sounding desperate. ”The girls have been crying for one and a half hour now. Something’s wrong. You have to come home right now.” ”Have you tried giving them lunch? They eat at 12 every day.” I asked. ”Eeehhh, no. I didn’t think of that” replied my husband. He fed the girls, they stopped crying and everything was fine. See, a father can take of his children too! I never went shopping without the girls ever again though, but that’s another story... 

                                            Family lunch some 10 years ago....

Dealing with illness: Mommy style

I’m feeling a bit under the weather today. If I were a man, I would most likely be in bed for a couple of days, resting and getting well. But I’m not, I’m a woman. And more importantly, I’m a mother. This means that I can only be indisposed between 21.00 and 07.00. My subconscious somehow always manages to gather energy and pull me together so I can be a somewhat functional mother around my daughters; picking them up i school, serving them snack, sitting with them as they do their homework, cook dinner and make sure they go to bed on time. When I go to bed, I take paracetamol, I spray my nose, rub my feet and chest with Vaporub. Feet you may wonder? Yes, an old trick I learned from a doctor i Mexico. I cannot say for sure that it works, but my feet feel soft and smooth in the morning so at least something good comes out of it. 

I have to admit that I kind of like when my daughters are sick and have to stay home with me. I get to pamper them and fuss over them, watch a tweenie-movie or even an old Disney movie we haven’t watched since they were in kindergarten and loved princesses. 

My husband is not a typical man, he is always well enough to go to work and when he comes home he’s exhaused and collapses in bed only to get up again in the morning and go to work. The man was even considering a business trip when he had chicken pox but then he got so sick he had to go the hospital. Two weeks he had to stay home and I don’t know who was happier when he finally could return to his office, him or me? 

This time it’s not any of my darlings who is sick. It’s me. I realize of course that complaining about my failing health in this blog entry is not the proper way to deal with a sickness. What I should do instead is what many people do as their first action during illness: namely to post a Facebook status informing all my friends of my condition followed by a sad face and dot dot dot in order to get some sympathy and empathy from my Facebook friends. Or I shall go back to bed for a couple of hours. Yup, I’ll go for the latter. 

A wombat and its keeper! It has nothing to do with today's text but I wanted some Australian flair and the wombat is an Australian animal. Voilà!