Category Archives: Thoughts

Time Goes By…

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The street where I wait for the bus to work is where a lot of school children walk to get to school. I don’t know what school they go to, but at least 15 – 20 of them walk by every day.

There is one group of boys I have been seeing for the past 3 years. I’ve actually watched them grow.

3 years ago they were small children. Horsing around as they went to school, calling each other names. Now the shortest of them is taller than me. In only 3 years. And they look so darn serious, like the weight of the world is on their shoulders. In only 3 years.

I want to ask them what happened. What happened to them razzing on each other. What happened to the fireworks they used to throw around Bonfire Night (almost got me with one, once. I was less than pleased). When did they become ‘adults’? And why?

Why do we have to lose that? That playfulness as we walk to school? The feeling that all things are possible and all things are fun, even walking to school. Maybe the destination holds hard work, but getting there should be a joy, yes?

Now they walk to school, still in the same group, but they barely talk to each other. They walk like they are going to their doom.

I miss those playful little boys. They were a joy to watch. Now they are just another group, trudging through life, and it makes me sad.

How’d It Happen?

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Along with wondering Who Decided? I often wonder, How’d It Happen?  How did the myriad of immigrants accents become the broad twang of the New York accent?  How’d it happen that the French speak French and the Germans speak German if, theoretically, all of mankind evolved from one place and one species?

How did those same immigrants who moved to the southern part of the United States start speaking in their accents?  Boston?  Yorkshire?  Northern Ireland?

How do accents evolve? How do they start?  Do they change over time?

And how are accents learned?  I speak with an American accent, Simon with a Northern Irish/English/Scottish one.  What kind of accent will our kids have?  Combination?  Northern Irish as that is what they will hear most often?  But we’ll be the ones teaching them to talk.

I can’t even tell you how Simon achieved his accent.  His parents are both Scottish, his father speaks with a definite burr, his mother sounds more English to me.  But one thing I have learned in my time here is that I have a hard time differentiating between the United Kingdom accents.  Someone will call at work for the CEO and not leave their name and I’ll tell him and he’ll ask me what kind of accent they had.  I can never tell him, unless it is *not* UK.

So…How’d it Happen?

If No One Complains, Nothing Will Change

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So we are waiting for a part to come in for our boiler. We were told it would be in in a week about a week ago. No part, no call from the boiler man. Our boiler works, but keeps overheating, which is a pain in the ass.

When I mentioned to Simon how annoyed I was that we hadn’t even gotten a call with an update he said, “Well, British repair men.”

Nope, sorry, not a good excuse. There is *no* excuse for poor customer service, ever. And until people start complaining about things like that, nothing will change, ever.

There are sparks of good service in the UK. We have ordered a new shelf for our ‘fridge as one of them was broken. I ordered it online and have received two emails now with updates as to what the delay is. I am not angry about the delay because I was told there would be a delay.

There used to be a TV advert for some airline, I don’t remember which, with a bunch of people waiting in a meeting room. They are getting more and more restless as the clock goes 20, then 30 minutes past when the meeting was apparently scheduled to start with no one starting it. Then a man comes in and says “And now you know how our customers feel when a plane is delayed with no explanation. Let’s get to work.”

That’s all people really want. An explanation. Some idea of what the problem is and about when it will be resolved. Whether its a missing boiler part or building a whole building that is behind schedule.

And until people start to ask for answers, none will be forthcoming.

And that’s the key to the customer service problems in the UK, and Belfast in particular. No one wants to complain. So nothing changes.

International Association of Buffy Fans

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Some of you might have noticed the comment in yesterday’s entry by my friend Asta (sorry, hon, I have no idea how to get the accent over the first a!). If you clicked on her name, it will take you to her blog. Which you will only be able to read if you can read Icelandic (at least I assume that’s what she writes in!). That’s because Asta is from Iceland.

How do I know someone from Iceland? Same way I know my husband and quite a few of my internet friends. We met on The Buffy Cross and Stake posting boards, ‘lo these many years ago.

Once the show was over, most of us moved over to Live Journal and continued our friendships. As such I have friends from all over the world. Iceland, Germany, South Africa, United States, Canada, United Kingdom and probably other places I can’t recall at the moment.

And that, to me, is the true value of the internet. It brings people together who never would have met otherwise, in a way that has never happened before in the history of humankind. To be trite, the world is getting smaller and smaller every day. And I love it that way.

It isn’t only that I never would have met Simon without the internet, I never would have met a lot of people who are my closest friends. All of The Hussies, for one thing. Most of the people on my friend’s list on LJ, for another.

And, yes, I have met quite a few of them in person. They are my ‘true’ friends. Whether I have met them in person or not.

Maybe I can’t ring most of them up and say ‘meet me at our local’. Maybe there are some that I will *never* meet in person. Doesn’t matter. They are my friends.

And I love them all.

Memory

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Memory is a weird thing.  Ask Simon and he’ll tell you I have a horrible memory.  I joke that I need to ask him his name all the time, because half of what he remembers, I don’t.

But on the other side, I have some very clear memories.  And I find that a lot of things I remember clearly, make me smile.

One is the memory of a time my brother, my niece and myself went out to dinner.  I don’t remember where my sister-in-law was, but she wasn’t with us.  We were walking down the sidewalk, after dinner, and my brother asked my niece, who must have been about 2 or 3, so not really good with the talking yet, who was being carried by him, if she wanted anything for dessert.  She grabbed his cheeks with her hands and turned his head so he was looking at her and stuck out her tongue like she was licking an ice cream.  Yeah, she wanted something for dessert!

The memory of the sight of her little hands on her daddy’s big face is so precious to me.  Makes me smile every time I think of it.

Going back further was the day she was born.  I was there, at first in the room and then they took my sister-in-law in for an emergency c-section so I was kicked out.  The first time I saw my girl (and she’s been my girl her whole life) she was yelling her head off being held up to the window of the nursery by her head and heels by a nurse while my brother beamed beside her.  Also makes me smile.

Or the first time I saw her sister, who is also my girl, although I moved to Belfast not long after she was born.  That time I wasn’t at the hospital.  I was in a bad place mentally at that point and didn’t really feel like I could handle it, so I didn’t go.  I met my brother and sister-in-law at their house the day they brought her home.  I had a key so I was already there when they pulled up.  And I went back to the garage entrance to say hi and there was a tiny little human in the back hall in her car seat, fast asleep.  I took her out of her car seat and introduced myself.

There are so many more that are bright and sharp in my mind, like the first time I saw Simon in person, at San Francisco International Airport.  Our first kiss, also at the airport.  And other, more, shall we say, intimate moments.  No, those weren’t at the airport, you hussy!

So I might not always remember your name.  But I remember the important stuff.  And I think that’s all that really matters.

Who Decided?

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I often wonder, who decided?  Who decided that the colour of the sky should be called blue?  That the colour of the grass should be called green?

Who decided that the planet is called Earth?  That the pieces of hard substance on the ground should be called rocks?  That the wet stuff that lives in large areas should be called water? And ocean?

Not only who decided, but how did they get everyone else in the world to agree to call it what they wanted to call it.

Who named it snow?  Rain? Sleet? Hail?

I am sure there is an archaeologist or anthropologist or some sort of ologist, somewhere, maybe can tell me the theories.  In fact I am friends with several who can probably tell me the theories.

But I don’t want theories.  I want definite answers.  I want to know.  Everything.

Who decided?

Perspective

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I had a really weird experience on the bus home from work the other day.

I was, as I always am, reading a book as we are heading towards City Centre from work when I glanced up to see how far we were. I said, in my head ‘ah, Queen’s Bridge’ and started to turn back to my book. When the Belfast Wheel caught my eye. Now you can see this thing from far and wide around Belfast. But if I was on Queen’s Bridge, the wheel was in the wrong place. “Had they moved it?” I seriously thought. “I mean, if the bus is just crossing Queen’s Bridge, which I know we are, then the Wheel should be to my left. So why is it on my right?”

I seriously sat there and thought about this for about a minute. Until we made a right hand turn and were *actually* on Queen’s Bridge, and not the Syndenham Bypass we were actually on and the wheel ‘moved’ to where it should be.

If someone had held a gun to my head right then and said “Where is the Bus?” I would have told them, no doubts, that we were on Queen’s Bridge and they must have moved the Belfast Wheel during the day.

Perspective. Its a weird thing.