I need to start by explaining the play on words in the title.  To the manor born means aristocratic or of high birth ranking in British society.  There was a program that ran from 1979-1981 entitled “To the Manor Born” that was a kind of meshed up romance/comedy that was incredibly British and had characters called posh names like Penelope and Daphne.  I don’t think I have ever watched more than five minutes of any episode, but I’d know it if I saw it.

British class system and manners are things that don’t sit too well with a peasant such as myself.  I’ve got crazy notions about life, society, and equality that lean far more to meritocracy than aristocracy.

I am also incredibly crass and swear a lot and would fail almost any etiquette guidelines that might be thrown at me.  I Love that about me.  A heart the size of a planet and I still drop the C bomb with reckless abandon.  I’m not Eliza Doolittle, I am more like Estelle, salt of the earth and completely comfortable with the fact.

So I have arrived in London with the kids and my mother and we are staying at a charming manor house that backs onto the grounds of Windsor Castle.  What is interesting about this, is that I get to stay in comfortable suites in places like this all the time.  These are the kind of places, that as a child, my mother would take my brother and I for a cup of tea and a sandwich and we’d be urged to lie about our age so we could be spared the entrance fee to sit in such grandeur for a moment or two.

Now, I frequently stay at castles, mansions, manor houses, and even old monasteries.  The staff are always nice, and I rarely mingle with other guests at these places.  And there’s always a part of me that knows I am an interloper.

The place we are staying right now is quite lovely.  It backs onto the Thames river and has its own resident ghost stories.  Today is crisp and beautiful.  The spring air on the banks of the Thames smells just like I remember it smelling when I lived in the UK when I was a child of 5.  Today is basically the opposite of yesterday on the hectic scale, and I feel at peace with the world, and utterly out of place.

Everyone in New Zealand is asleep so I am waiting for the evening here so I can ping home and see how the kids are and how far back down the island my husband has made it after being at the Northern-most tip of Cape Reinga yesterday.

So I’ll wrap it with some pictures of my day so far.

And I will sit back and watch the breeze kiss the branches of a weeping willow on the banks of the Thames, and I will know the whole time I sit in this opulence that the world is not yet fair or just or safe for far too many, perhaps most, people.  The water and the air are not clean enough to sustain us into the future, and the people sat on the terrace with their beer and their cellphones may or may not give a fuck about any of it.

Life is a sequence of moments and choices and boils down into memories that we carry with us in good and bad times as we carry on to our inevitable end.

I’ll just breath in this sequence of moments, and hope that somehow the peace of this moment will sustain me when I am faced with all the things that break my heart and force me into battles of one sort or another.

Thank you for Reading.

Everything costs something.

There are countless quotes to this effect ranging from pithy to pragmatic.  We can all have what we want if we are prepared to pay for it.  Problem with that being, we often do not know what things will cost until we find that they are far too expensive.

Travel is a fickle mistress,  I am deeply and eternally in Love with her in all her fucked up, unpredictable glory.  The costs of being on the move all the time aren’t merely the strain on one’s purse strings, but also a long and ongoing struggle to nurture relationships or throw down roots and watch things grow.  There’s also a shitload of stress involved.  Customs, baggage, flights, cancelations, accommodation, strange foods, a myriad of phrase books and awkward conversations using Google translate.  It can be hard on your system, your brain, and your heart.

It’s absolutely worth it though.

I’ve recently come to the conclusion that the planet is pretty fucked.  Like royally.  Like, I don’t have the ability to do much in the face of the catastrophic failure and reboot that is soon going to be upon us.  I feel like the bartender at the start of Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy asking “well, should I put a paper bag over my head or something?” and then unceremoniously being obliterated by a Vogon ship.  Without even being able to hear some of their fantastic Vogon poetry.  I digress.

Being that I figure we are pretty royally fucked and our chances to recover have come and gone so many times that our luck as a species could well be running out, I have decided to act in the following ways (which I genuinely feel are staggeringly appropriate):

1. Keep trying to bail out this Titanic sized disaster with the little itty bitty teaspoon I have at my disposal.  Ima keep on fighting till we hit absolute rock bottom kids.  Day and fucking night bringing that fight.
2. Do things.  Feel things.  See things.  Preferably with the people I Love the most.  Most obviously on the top of that list of course, is my long suffering husband Phteven.  Talking to him more than I do when we are in the same country, and while it is totally yummy to miss him, I’d much rather just be able to kiss him. Luckily next week I can.
3. See the world, meet new people, Love the absolute shit out of as much stuff as I can get by hands and heart on.
4. Tell and show people I adore them (unless I don’t because then I won’t) because our lives and time are precious, and saying a sincere thank you costs nothing but pays the recipient as well as the person paying it forward in dividends.

Today was a fairly interesting example of crossing shit off this list.  My mom and I both managed to not understand that our flight to London was yesterday, and when we got to my good friend Krissy’s house just before we were due to catch the plane, we realized that we should have been on the flight yesterday.  Not super fucking ideal really.

Small but mighty freak out commenced.  Phone call to AirNZ to plead absolute stupidity and throw myself at their mercy was initiated.  Through the entire ordeal, Krissy was as cool as a cucumber and made me laugh.  Her 18 year old daughter Xanthe had a fairly reasonable chuckle at our expense and bonded with my mom a bit in the kitchen while I got to know a woman named Judi at the air New Zealand reservations desk really REALLY well.

Do not miss your flight.  If at all possible, do not do this thing as it is a pain in the ass and requires calm and will send you on a phenomenal roller coaster of emotions.

This trip is done on the cheap.  The flights were booked a very long time ago during one of those short lived sales that our national carrier often has.  Therefore, the terms and conditions of the flight meant that a no-show would render the entire onwards journey as null and void.

Hearing this news, we were ready just to pack up and go the fuck home.

But after much begging, apologizing and some incredibly well-timed jokes (that was me, I am actually hilarious under pressure) we managed to sort the whole mess out with only a change of ticket fee attached to the situation.

So here I am.  Tired as a tired thing.  Having said goodbye to my dear friend after a brief but brilliant catch up, then onto the airport to check in, and then cruising past the long and languishing goodbye hugs, kisses and lovers embraces at the customs gate, I am sat here with two sleeping boys and a tired Granny bear at the wrong end of the fucking airport.  Our flight departs from gate 31 and we are at gate one.  Because, that’s the kind of fucking day this has been.

We’re off to see more friends and do more things.  New adventures in Iceland where I have not yet been are sending my thoughts all a flutter.  Seeing my soulmate in the greyest city on earth (Berlin) at the Hubject conference and then carrying on to collect the kids and bring them back to New Zealand with only my own two hands and stunning intellect and strength to get the three of us safely to the other side of the planet, well, it is all an amazing privilege and incredible adventure.

There’s more eating me up at the moment.  Loss, grief, stress… But between tearful outbursts I get to people watch and connect with strangers and new and old friends.

So what am I trying to say here?  Simple really… Travel is a fucking nightmare.  It is stressful, it is expensive, it is often too hot or too cold, you feel like you’ve been gone to long or not long enough.  It can be awesome, it can be awful, and always unexpected and frequently truly magical.

Now I get to wake two incredibly sleepy boys up and march their tired asses to the other end of the terminal.  Tomorrow I will be in London with friends.

Today was a total clusterfuck, but I’ll take 20 more just like it if it means I get to keep chasing the magic.

Goodnight.  Thank you for reading.

XXOO

It seems like most travelling Kiwis have been to or through Hong Kong for work or pleasure at some point.  This could be because it is on the way to places (China and Europe for example) or it could be that they are a relatively close neighbour.

At any rate.  It is a place where a lot of people I know have been, and most of the reviews I have gotten from people say that they really enjoyed it here.

I’m not so enamoured. We are staying in an incredibly nice hotel with harbour views in Kowloon.  The population density here is some of the tightest packed on the planet.  A couple of ferry rides around the corner is a green island-like oasis where my friend Krissy lives with her three fabulous kids.

My kids have been watching the old Hong Kong Phooey cartoons as my mother packed them up especially for them knowing we would be here in Hong Kong.  She’s good with shit like that.  I am proper blessed to have a mother and friend as engaged and adventurous as my rolly polly little mamma bear.

So.  Hong Kong.  What can I say.

I don’t hate it here, and to be fair to Hong Kong, I am in a fairly fed up state of mind already thanks to a string of bad news and a couple of recent (and somewhat sudden) deaths.  I won’t get into any of that, except to say the grief almost certainly plays a part in tainting the lens I am looking at Hong Kong through.

Where do I start.

I am here with my mom and two youngest children Adam (nearly 7) and James (3).  It is actually incredibly kid friendly here.

Fun fact while I am on the subject of kid friendly.  Our hotel is just around the corner from ChunKing Mansions, where all the drug trafficking and other such excitement occurs.  If you get asked if you want to buy a watch here, they are trying to sell you hash.  They will also be brazen enough to just say: “Hey, lady, you wanna buy some hashish!?” And the answer is a resounding no.  No I do not, but thank you so much for assuming I might have a desire to partake in such activities at 2:00pm on a Monday afternoon.  And the offers for watches and drugs so not wane when I am pushing a pram or holding a baby while I walk by.  Strange but not overly intrusive, so I just thought I’d take a moment to mention this anomaly for those traveling to Kowloon who may or may not be interested in such activities.

There’s a large Indian population in Kowloon, and I ventured through some of the back allies and into some of the Indian markets where I was regarded as a bit of a curiosity as I think it is mainly locals that frequent these fragrant locations.  The smell of curries and the sound of bartering made me smile, which confused some of the merchants into stopping and doing a double take as I walked by, I assume because smiling like an idiot is not the sort of thing that the locals do much.

Kowloon also has the museums and tourist trap areas contained in its relatively slim border.  This is not a huge area.  No-one of the islands and territories are all that large, and they build UP not out so they pack a lot in to a very small area.  There are no cars on some of the islands and in some of the territories, only busses and trains and ferries and areas designed for people to enjoy, with parks and ponds and walks and hikes.  The footprint of the buildings where these people live is not much larger than my single family dwelling (bear in mind I am a douche and live in a huge house) and contains thousands of people in an efficient and effective space.

In Hong Kong they seem to Love and respect greenery in a way we could learn from. Small market garden plots are all over the place, and trees are given pride of place even in the most crowded areas.  They also have recycling programs that are impressive, and discourage single use plastics and don’t look at you strangely when you refuse a straw or a bag.  The carbon footprints here must be relatively small all things considered.

Oh, and EV.  Tesla are basically ubiquitous here.  You can’t step out onto the street without nearly getting run over by one. There are incentives for EV ownership and there’s a shit tonne of money in and around these islands, so it is a rich breeding ground for the fertile foundations of luxury EV ownership that Tesla has established.

Public transport is great.

The light show is great (and free).

People are friendly and almost everyone speaks english.

I think that under normal circumstances I’d absolutely adore this city, but seeing as I am feeling quite sad and lonely and nursing wounds of grief, loss and separation, this magical island has not endeared itself to me.

Hong Kong is an assault on the senses from the very first moment you step off the plane.  It is a mild-mannered and well behaved assault, but an assault none the less.  crowds are HUGE here and personal space is non existent.  Peoples’ idea of personal space is basically the opposite of what you would find in Scandinavia, which is where we are going soon.

Well, there’s a lot more to be said about these beautiful islands, and I may do that another day.  For now though, I am going to pack up and head over to the big Buddha for some meditation and prayer.  It has been a week that calls for just such a thing.

Thank you for reading.

Yesterday was large. Every day is large. The balls to the wall busy that is currently my self imposed cross to bear is getting a bit tedious.

Life is getting real, and my notoriously fragile mental health is weighing in the balance, so I’ve identified some priorities (family, marriage, friends, passions, work… in that order) and let go of some things (trying to please everyone, people who don’t “get” or appreciate me, and this term’s papers for my masters degree)

One of the most important things is a commitment to seeing people more, and putting my screens down and closing my laptop so I can be fully present. The second part of this commitment is to see at least three people (who I do not work with) I Love every single week. I exceeded my goals this week.

First there was an early morning catch up with my old BNI chapter president JP. He’s a straight talking teddy bear with a brain the size of a planet. The rest of that day was spent with my GM James who is one of my closest friends, by virtue of the amount of time we spend together, and also by virtue of the fact we share a very similar energy and are incredibly passionate about justice, sustainability and spinning a good yarn. I work with James though, so that doesn’t count.

I guess seeing Rebekah (who has been my friend since our undergraduate degree) to receive my birthday present also doesn’t count… But it ought to because my pressies were very cool. Especially the sunglasses!

The next day was equally packed full and there is one story in particular I need to expand upon.

My friend Steph is also my optician. She’s a stunningly attractive, beautifully vulnerable, incredibly adventurous woman who I took an immediate shine to.

I left one pair of her yummy glasses at the Quest hotel in Nelson, and another in a Sheraton in Vancouver. So I needed to make good on my promise to visit so she could rush through getting me a new set before I fly out to Iceland on Saturday.

I am so glad I did. The fact is, we’ve both been feeling a bit fucking over it and snowed under. Life has gotten on top of us and it’s sometimes hard to breath. So we had a huge healing hug, and a good woman to woman cry.

After make-up was restored we headed to her local café for a cuppa.

Everyone. Knew. Her. It was like walking into Central Perk as one of the FRIENDS crew in the 1990’s. The barista got my order wrong, so the very attractive owner/manager popped over to our table to explain.

“I have bad news,” He said looking at me with deep brown eyes, his perfectly quaffed salt and pepper hair shining in the afternoon light. I put my hand on his had with feigned fear and urgency as it lay on the table. “You can tell me. I can take it.” I said with mock mellow drama playing obviously across my face. “We used real milk not soy milk for your Chai, and also the last of the spicy syrup… so now we only have sweet left.” He mirrored my mellow drama like a fucking ROCK STAR! “Oh, I think I can handle a bit more sweetness in my life anyway.” I said and he carried on back behind the counter.

As we waited for my drink to be remade, Steph told me a story.

“This is Margaret’s table.” She said about the corner table for two facing the glass wall that looked out onto the street. “She comes here every day for breakfast. Everyone knows her, and she’s always full of sweetness and joy. She was a dancer, and she still does cartwheels in her yard.” Steph continued. “She’s 92.”

“Holy shit!” was an appropriate response as far as I was concerned.

Steph continued with details about Margaret. How much her second husband adored her, how resilient and full of joy she was after a busy and sometimes difficult life journey.

I looked at my beautiful friend and thought how lucky the world is to have her in it. Wanting to know and care about people as she does, well, it is impossible not to Love that. I felt very lucky in that moment to know this woman.

That moment, the café owner popped over. He gave us a slice of plum pie.

“What is that for?” I inquired. “For being so nice about our stuff up.” He responded.

So we ate our pie. We talked about life. We talked about a friend she knows who had walked by outside the window who was deeply in Love with another of her friends, but had three nasty divorces and had closed his heart. The two star-crossed lovers were and remain passionate about one another, and they cannot be together and cannot stay away from each other either. I. Love. That kind of shit… Tragic romance makes me proper fucking giddy and melty and swoony and stuff.

I left Steph after another long and nourishing cuddle and headed to pick up the film crew and head home to my beautiful children.

I danced around the house with the kids for a bit. Ordered pizza and watched a terrible Disney style movie starring the Rock because Adam gets to pick the movies we watch if he’s good. He’s been pretty fucking good.

Then I handed my children over to the Actress and the Viking and headed into town to meet my friends Max and Shawn at a Karaoke bar.

We had great chats, I sang landslide, and I got a marriage proposal from a nice man named Steven who is a master builder. I told him I couldn’t marry him as I am currently quite firmly married to my husband Phteven, but we could be Facebook friends. Further conversation shed light on Phteve’s financial situation, and the builder changed his mind and said he’d rather marry him instead. If I had a dollar for every time that happened!

The crowd grew, I saw Oliver the left-wing stand up comic whom I adore and his girlfriend, and some tall statuesque Adonis-like millennial with a wry smile and a deliciously arid sense of humour. My face began to hurt from smiling as the night wore on but we opted to leave at around 10:15.

So here’s the moral.

Get off your fucking devices and BE with the people you Love sometimes. Have a coffee and a slice of plum pie, and if it is appropriate to, have a good, cleansing cry.

There is no virtual cake. You have to be there to taste it.

Thank you for reading.

I am not upset about aging. Quite the opposite infact, I am embracing it and looking forward to the next stages that are just around the corner.

It helps that I have a vast number of friends already in their 50s, 60s and beyond who live a life of adventure, creativity and impact.  Mother in law is 80 now and one of my best friends and closest allies (and harshest critics to be fair) so shout out to my squad – you know who you are and that I Love the fuck right outta ya!

It also helps that as the years pass, the fucks I give decrease in quantity but vastly increase in quality.

I no longer give a fuck about what is traditional, and I no longer give a fuck about people thinking I am nuts or crass or awful. That particular boat sailed long ago.

What I do still care deeply about, is Love, family, learning, laughter and meaningfulness.

So this year, I laid down some new guidelines for life, in my home, my professional life, as a mother, a friend and a wife.

I am taking a study leave. I am demanding more from Phteven and the children at dinner time and strictly enforcing a no electronics from 4:00pm to Bedtime in our home. This is going to be much harder on the parents than the kids, as our jobs have traditionally stayed pretty busy through till midnight and beyond. Closing it down will take willpower.

The coolest shit is happening only a few days into these adventures though. The kids ate their dinner last night. They helped clean up this morning. They engaged with each other and their mother without too much bickering or whining (once the shock of having their YouTube and Instagram taken away had subsided). And Steph stopped and looked at me in that haughty Steph way, and said: “You know mummy, this is just like back in the days when you stayed at home with us, only you don’t drink wine every day.” And she’s correct. Striking the balance between mother, wife, friend, boss, colleague, trustee, volunteer, student and human fucking being keeps me busy enough to manage my well-documented binge drinking tendencies. Still hitting it plenty hard at conferences and events unfortunately. But I am working on my, so try not to be too fucking judgmental 😉

So the word has come back from the Prof who I adore that I am good to take this term off and still go to Melbourne, Singapore, London and MAYBE still make it home in time for a conference that I would be off the planet chuffed to attend.

I am cooking a hearty meal for our offspring and have texted or spoken to my husband dozens of times because I am LOST without him. Phteven and I have scarecely ever in our relationship been so happy together or at peace with our journey or our relationship. It is nice, and I know that spanners in the works will arise, but it is being able to bottle up this past couple of months in my heart and memory that will remind me that he is mine and I am his and that’s pretty much one of the most urgent things in my life to fight for. Him, our kids, and the planet we inhabit. And social justice. And Feminism. And mental health… And a few other things that are fabulously beautiful and important.

So that’s me pretty much sorted. I’ve also made a pact with myself to see people I Love (from outside of the EV community) three times a week. So far so good! I saw JP this morning, video chat with Jen and Chris, and tomorrow night is KARAOKE with my ginger ninja and miracle Max!

I am going to live whatever life I have remaining on my own fucking terms. I am going to Love the shit out of everything and I am going to say no, even to things I would like to be involved in, because I am going to be truer to the priorities I have set out than ever before.

Today felt good.

Not every day will. But today fucking did so I am sharing it with you and I’ll be back to share when I fall flat on my face and want to chuck it all in, as that’s a thing that happens when you rush headlong through life as I do.

Thanks for reading.

XXOO

Today was not earth shattering for this fat little hobbit.  But the earth was certainly shattered in a lot of ways and a lot of places.

Heavy rains made their way from Australia causing closures, floods, and slips.  This shit is just going to keep getting worse kids.  Yet, somehow, so many people just seem to give not a single fuck.  Pains my brain.

My daughter stayed home from school with a sniffle, so I left her with our lovely Lolo (CEO of all things Rame Road related) an I went to the gym with the husband.

We don’t talk much on the way to the gym.  A few bad jokes and some sweary commentary is enough for the ride, as we’re both swimming in our own slightly different but inextricably linked seas of stress and worry.

The chemical weapons coverage from Syria was on Al Jazeera and the children’s limp bodies rolled across the screen on high rotate while I was paying penance from the banana cake I had for breakfast.

I’m so fucking sick and tired and ANGRY about Syria, and North Korea, and Isreal and Palestine, and West Africa, and all of humanity for just fucking continuing to hurt, mame, starve, kill, damage and break this planet and its inhabitants.

So I had a nice sweaty cry and rage ran on the elliptical trainer for a quarter of an hour.

Then I just kind of carried on with my life.

I remembered that I never did write that letter to Murray McCully (foreign affairs minister) about being happy to take in refugees personally at any of the three self contained houses I have to offer for such an endeavour.  I figured the historical lack of upgrading refugee numbers and support programs over the last decade was a pretty sure bet that my thoughts and pleas would fall on deaf ears (or eyes) anyway.

So I headed to the office on the way home.

I wished some very special people a happy birthday on their FB feeds, because I so often forget to, I wanted to try and improve upon that.

I saw my staff briefly and they got out the new display. It was very large.

Then I just sort of bobbed home to work on some school stuff.  I didn’t really get very far with that as recent travel changes became urgent and I haven’t booked from Iceland to Berlin, nor do I currently have any idea how the boys and I will be getting from Paris to Rome to catch our flight home in mid May.  Managed to change all our flights and score a sky couch so I can rush back to my other babies and ignore them all and get stuck back into the work I have been so clearly neglecting lately.

And the moment I wasn’t incredibly “busy” doing something, those pictures of limp children, the same age as my babies came back.  Some of them are dead after waking up alive this morning.  Some of them are fighting for their life, and all of those who will survive will have PTSD that doesn’t even register in the realms of possibility for the super sensitive brain I host in my skull.

But all of this anger, all of this helplessness, all of this emotion still has purpose and value.

I believe that the news of what is happening to the world around us serves to help us to help and learn in better and more productive ways than we ever did or could before.

I believe we need to know some of the news because ignorance is not bliss, ignorance can be incredibly dangerous and divisive.

I believe that my relatively new friend Monica (who is an international environmental and social activist extraordinaire!) was feeling the same way I was at basically the same exact moment today.  She in Costa Rica, I am in Auckland New Zealand.  And I believe that feeling of sadness, grief, dread, anger and helplessness will be fuel for us both to continue the varied work and the varied ways we are trying to make the world a bit more liveable and loved than it is.  This war, violence, climate change, corruption, greed, tyranny shit has got to fucking stop already!  We, as individuals, are each strong enough, smart enough and connected enough to create a future where civilians aren’t gassed to death from a distance on a Tuesday.  I wouldn’t do that, would anyone I know do that?  I suspect not.  So how is it even fucking happening?

Later in the day I bonded with the daughter, she did my hair and make-up and we went out for sushi before a pecha kucha presentation I was due to deliver for the Ecomatters sustainable community.

My friend Ella was there, so that made the evening immediately wonderful, not just bearable, but an actual joy to be in attendance.  She’s an incredibly smart, conscientious lover of the planet and her clever and quirky kids.  I am always shocked that she likes me, because she’s quite far up the food chain of humanity compared to the batshit craziness that is me.  Shocked, but pleased.  She’s a wonderful human.

So Steph jumped at the chance to just hang with her mom, because I know that the kids miss out on me.  Not just because I am busy and fly around the planet (ironically) in an earnest effort to halt climate change.  They miss out on me because the time I am around I am often so exhausted or disengaged that I do not give them the Love or attention that they so richly need and ought to receive from me. I need to work on that.

The presentation was a huge amount of fun.  It was to a small but engaged group.  I was the loudest and most animated by far.  I managed to make it through without dropping a single F bomb and I also steered clear from calling, or even strongly insinuation, that some of the people and corporates we deal with are a sackful of cunts.

What I DID say, however, is that it’s time to put aside our shit, and work together to make things better.  The fact is, this is an election year in New Zealand, and sadly I don’t feel like even a change in government will change things to the degree that we need to see them change.

Shortsighted policy and self serving suits will not reverse climate change or encourage innovation and change to clean up our oceans and our rivers and our lakes.  We all need to get seriously passionate about something socially and or environmentally sustainable and DO THAT FUCKING THING.  There’s so many things that need to be done, if we all did SOMETHING the fear, uncertainty, and bullshit would in theory be kept at bay.  Resources and power and money will need to see a fairly hefty overhaul, but that’s not my job… Right now… My job is quite simply to encourage as many people as humanly possible to buy a fucking electric car and plug it into some clean electric fucking power. For fucks. Sake.

And that’s what I did today.  And I will do similar stuff tomorrow.  And there are at least 58 people who won’t be getting up to do the same tomorrow, and that fucking sucks, so I will just be that extra bit better because my heart hurts for them and their families.

The third annual #LeadingTheCharge road trip is mere days away from kick-off.  This is the single largest and longest engagement/activity that the Trust we started in 2014 does in the calendar year.

Once a year, now in early Autumn, we pack our bags and pile into our EVs and drive from town to town/province to province.  We go from one end of this beautiful island nation to the other, and we stop so I can SQUEEZE EVERYONE and tell them how deeply and importantly I adore them (because telling people in person is always more special than saying it over the Internets) and after we play with all the people, we retire to our hotel for “quiet drinks” with the team.  It really is the most magical time of the year.

So, every year I think to myself, that we need to have an unofficial theme song.  Something we can have playing over the dinky little PA system I bought for the very first road trip.  Something that clearly captures the culture of our community.  Something, probably with the word electric in it.

So this year, I am putting it to the community to choose an unofficial theme song for the 2017 road trip.

I’ve chose five songs that could fit the bill, and am very open to further suggestions.

I’ll list the songs and make s short case for each.

Ready?

Here we go!

1. Eddie Grant – Electric Avenue
2. They Might Be Giants – Electric Car
3. Oasis – She’s Electric
4. MGMT – Electric Feel
5. Queen – We Are The Champions

1) So let us begin a the top of the list.  What can I say about Eddie Grant?  This is a fun, lovely, perky song from the early 80’s and has just enough political undertones to pack a bit of a punch in an election year.  I really do want to rock down to Electric Avenue… because doing so will FULLY take us all higher.

2) Well… Seriously.  Best Electric Car song (only, electric car song) EVER.  This is my favourite.

3) Oasis is truly not my favourite, but this song is cheeky, and fun and interesting and about a quirky girl.  I think we are all pretty quirky so that’s how this made it to the list.

4) It is just a good song to bop to.  My kids love MGMT so I thought I’d put the fact I am a prolific breeder to good use by suggesting something from their generation.

5) WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!  This is a great song and the volunteers and supporters have always been called champions BECAUSE THEY ARE!

So have a listen to these five songs and think about which will be the best Theme Music for the trip we are about to take.  I can guarantee whatever you choose will be playing when you come out to see us at any of the stops along the way.

Here’s a selection of pictures from events over the past few years.  Have a look and see if you can spot yourself!

My homegirl Frida knew a think or two about managing the crazies.

Thanks for reading, and remember to vote.

XXOO

Dee

Yesterday I was reminded too many times to recall, just what an impressively spoiled douchebag I am on a regular basis.  The source of the mirror that reflected this embarrassing reality back to me is most likely the super fun new medication I am munching for my super serious sadness disorder.  That, combined with access to the struggles of beautiful people I am blessed to know got me to thinking about just what a grade A asshole I actually am.

I am swimming in a sea of confidence, support, financial freedom, health, community, and there’s a nice ripe cherry of white privilege on the top to open doors and give me pause to feel smug for doing all the things and smashing walls, doors, ceilings and barriers.

Oh, and the HYPOCRISY!  We must not forget about all the ways I find to be a raging hypocrite.  For an environmental activist; my carbon footprint, food waste, self indulgence, hedonism and even grooming regime is appalling.  I live in a sprawling home where I killed my worm farm by feeding them banana peels and I always forget to water my garden.  I claim to be a social sustainability and equal opportunity activist and I live in the least diverse and most expensive neighbourhoods in one of the most expensive cities on earth.

Do I take this shit for granted?  Absolutely.  Am I aware of the spoiled asshole I am? You better believe it.  So I’m determined to remain aware of it and do what I can to earn my stripes and share air and water with people who are already, and would like to be gentler to the planet and all the plants, people and creatures we share it with.

I am not inviting challenges or lessons, as there’s been a fair number of hard knocks and sacrifices getting to where I sit fat, privileged and with some level of influence today.  I’ll get my plateful of grief, hardship and struggle.  We all have our turn dining at that dark and difficult table in this life.

What I am saying, in my characteristically less-than-delicate way, is that I don’t ever want to be the sort of person who feels superior or smacks around paltry advice like “If I can do it, anyone can do it” or “you just have to really want it”.  Fuck. That.  Fuck that sideways and seriously, because people are all fighting a hard fucking battle and don’t win every fucking time, but they ought to all be able to celebrate the shit out of and feel fucking fabulous when they do.  For fuck’s sake.

Life is hard, life is not fair, and the reason I wanted to remind myself and anyone who read this of that point is this:

Some of the strongest, kindest, smartest, hardest working people of various colours, creeds, religions and socio-economic backgrounds have reached out over the past few days in various ways.  They are struggling with loss and challenges that break my heart and would send me to a padded cell.  Yet they smile.  They show strength.  They complain in private to trusted friends and confidants.  And they keep going.

People who are kind enough to say “you’ve worked hard” or “you deserve it though” are very sweet, but the results of my choices in this life are as much luck as they are effort.  I married a mild mannered man who grew into a passionate innovator who’s changing the course of history and revolutionizing an entire industry for the second time.  I did not seek out this fairytale, but I sure as shit feel blessed to be a character in it.

My four amazing, healthy, kind, irritating, impossible children remind me every day that I am an asshole and a failure, and I am so glad of that fact.

So I’ll go out today and know that I am an asshole and try to do some good to balance it out.  Thanks for reading.  And thanks for being my friend.  Even though I am a bit of an asshole for real.

XXOO

I went to a women’s conference over the weekend. It was aptly titled:

Women Who Get Shit Done.

The South Island

Leaving Auckland

Safe in my seat Kia Ora Mag at arms reach.

Only one of the three guests I had invited was able to make it. My friend Erin joined me. She graduated with first class honors from Law school at the University of Canterbury. She works at the human rights commission and is one of the funniest females I know. Between mercilessly making fun of me and making epic wheelchair jokes (she has CP and uses a wheelchair), she often has me in stitches.

Erin and I were roomies for the weekend so we got to have those yummy giggly teenage chats before bedtime that are a natural consequence of sleepovers. This was about the only time I spent with Erin, as she’s always quick to make friends (and is well connected to everyone I know that has met her, because she’s actually that awesome) so happily did her own thing as I did mine.

I’m not comfortable going into detail, but I want to tell you what was particularly brilliant about this weekend.

There were 100 women, and a few super cute and/or well-behaved children. The vibe was incredibly diverse, supportive, and fun. Aside from a small handful of occasions, I did not feel judged. I frequently, perhaps predominantly feel judged when I am around other women. There are some obvious exceptions, like most of my friends and many of the women who work alongside me in transport and sustainability. But to be in a place with 100 strangers, where we all had something to contribute, it was more than just a bit magical.

I don’t want to talk about the session that I co-hosted in any sort of detail. I don’t feel a need to share all the fun and fabulous stuff we got up to in other sessions. What I do want to say is that I’d recommend this to absolutely anyone (who identifies as female or non-binary) who likes to get shit done.

There were young millenials running workshops and planning global domination. There was a beautiful bohemian woman teaching us protest songs from the 60’s and earlier. There were wonderful discussions on women’s right to choose, there were lessons, there was laughter, and there were tears.

I was incredibly mindful of my propensity to interrupt people, so spent two sessions completely silent. I also tried very hard to listen for understanding and learning, not just waiting for my turn to talk.

Erin assures me that it was the most mellow she has ever seen me, and I think she may be right. Still bubbly, still loud, still contributed and joined a session (or two, or three) for every time slot. I met a handful of truly kindred spirits (Emily, Eve, Yvonne, Hana, Shelley, Jo, Ruby, Aliesha) and know that relationships will grow and more will be nurtured over time and online as well. I need to take the time to start some private groups for us to continue some heavy but healing conversations in a safe place.

So I’ll leave it there. Just to get my gratitude down in black and white. I am thankful to the organisers, I am thankful to those who attended, I am thankful to Erin, and I am thankful to the long suffering Phteven for believing that smart, strong, impactful women are a wonderful conduit to spread the word about ChargeNet and to change the world. Thanks for your support and thanks for watching the kids over the weekend baby.