LOVE IS IN THE AIR

It is official: Our teenage son has a girl-friend! After weeks of speculation, casual remarks about her, several visits to her house and late night text-messaging I finally - officially - met Mystery Girl!

Good Lord, our son has taste! (He probably got that from his father...) She is gorgeous! Everything about her is long: her overall size, her hair and her legs! If this isn’t enough, she seems to be very nice, polite, fun, well brought up and well mannered! It seems to be too good to be true, but pretty and nice can go hand in hand together.

Here I am, home alone with our teenage son and his girl-friend. They went up to his room – and from then onwards, silence! What are they doing? Actually, I leave this to your imagination and mine! I did what (hopefully) every mother would have done: I avoided the upstairs – in fear of being accused to spy on them! Instead of sorting through our laundry upstairs I decided to spent a delightful afternoon on YouTube, searching for the songs which would bring back vivid memories of my first kiss, slow dance and the other innocent, but still slightly naughty things I did when I was a teenager!

What was I worried about? A stolen kiss? Or that little bit more? I don’t really know!  Our teenager is fully aware of the story with the bee and the flower (i.e. reproduction). He spent his first ten years in the Dutch school system. A system were they don’t shy away from graphic illustrations when it comes to sex education and STD.  This country has the lowest pregnancy rate among teenagers in all of Europe! Need I say more?  Honestly, I am pretty sure our son knows more about any of the dating do and don’ts than I ever knew. So if it’s not the S.. I was worried about what was it?

From now on I am the mother of a teenager who has a girl-friend! This is a new step into unknown territory for me!   Am I the only one or do you agree when I say, as a parent you have constantly new territories to conquer? On the other hand, this new job-description is another opportunity to shine as an "extra-ordinary" mother (e.g. don't spy on them).

Finally, after I relived all my first time adventures, the laundry couldn’t wait any longer.  Hesitantly I went upstairs only to realize the couple wasn’t around after all!  At that moment I figured I had to avoid our den. But, I am only human and a woman and my curiosity got the better of me. I went downstairs.

I was prepared for hot flushes and embarrassed looks! But all I could hear was rapid gun fire (good decoy) and laughter. Here they are, in front of our TV screen:  The gorgeous girl-friend was kicking my son’s ass on the Xbox!

So much for my vivid imagination! When I was a teenager we didn’t have electronic devices! We had to entertain ourselves with different objects of desire...

FRIDAY NIGHT FEVER

It wasn’t a night to remember, but it was a fun night out!

Three real blondes and one brunette with a combined age of 201 years added more sparkle and energy to our dead Haney pub/club on a Friday night than all of the mid twenties combined!

Ladies, we rock!

Originally we started out as a cinquet, but ended up as a quartet. We lost Blondie No.1 as fast as we uttered “Let’s go dancing”. She couldn’t bear the thought of having any more fun without her husband and called it a day.  (Do blondes have more fun?)
Needless to say, the four of us didn’t feel guilty at all -  For tonight they were our ‘mansitters’ and that meant: Our babysitter came free of charge!

Our handsome quartet left for the closest dance floor in town, The Haney:  A pub at day time, a club on Friday and Saturday night.

The HANEY

It’s 10.10pm: The club/pub is still empty, the dance floor hasn’t even been cleared of chairs and tables yet – but the music is good. Top 40 music with NO artificial techno beats. Are we that early? Where is everybody? Right, next door at the Caddy Shack! They are holding their “Rookie of the Year Award”!

There is nothing better than a strip - show to lure the paying public from the public house! We are tempted to wander inside but reconsider after we read the cover charge. We all have the same thought: Let’s rather buy a drink for that money and not get intimidated by skinny bodies covered in lacy lingerie! This is fine with me, I’ve seen it already.



Back inside the pub/club we take matters in our own hands and rock the place! No turtleneck and hiking boots could stop me from joining my enthusiastic, dancing mother friends:

Alana has the groovy, trendy moves

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Jaqui goes with the flow and rocks it any way she likes.

Kerrie gets so carried away that she demonstrates the “litter box” on the dance floor for us!  This lady has no shame, she actually admits she has stolen this move straight from a Shrek movie.



(The “litter box”: Drop down on all fours, keep arms extended, toes on the floor. Alternately wiggle and kick one leg into the air. Pretend you are a cat in her litter box).

And for me? All moves are inspired by my former life as aerobics instructor and my German heritance (marching step-touches).

After 20 minutes of enthusiastic exercise we are still the only ones dancing! It gets busier, but still, the youth is hanging, checking their i-phones instead of moving their legs.  We are not the youngest anymore, we don’t have last names sounding like Travolta, Timberlake, Jackson or Usher, but we definitely have their attitude:

We can move like Jagger! I call these creative, innovative dance moves.. Or as Grace Jones said we are “Slave to the Rhythm”. Let me compare this to the young crowd who finally follows our lead. Uniformed in too tight dresses and high heels, they move like one. Nothing fancy here, all rocking to the same, dull beat of the same techno background. I couldn’t help but feeling sorry for them.  They never experienced the innocent disco scene. The great sound of pure, honest music. We danced to the originals. Not to artificially enhanced, computerized, pre-fabricated sounds.



We only know what we know and what we remember. I wonder what these young women and men will remember. Probably only the text messages they received while standing in the middle of the dance floor, moving as one.

I said it once; I have to say it twice: Ladies, we rock! And don’t let any twenty –something tell you otherwise! They might be extra-ordinary in their own way, but we are extra-ordinary on the dance floor! They don’t even know how to do the ‘litter box”, we do!

 

 

 

 

Childhood Memories, Nordseeinsel SYLT: Blessing or a Curse?

This awesome picture is my Past

Dear Island, You are responsible for shaping my early childhood memories.

I blame you for setting a high standard for every other island I visit.

You are the reason why for example I prefer eating shrimp fresh from the boat and not at a fancy restaurant.

Subconsciously you make me compare every beach I walk on. Every other one is too hard, too dark, too muddy or has too many pebbles.

My mother is convinced your wonderful, healthy air is responsible for my overall good health (North Sea air contains a high amount of salt- which in turns equals healing power!)

This is not your fault - I should blame my parents for dragging me to you, year after year. But even now, as a “mature” woman the love affair continues. I left Germany over two decades ago, today I live in Vancouver, but the memories remain!

It has to stop, right here and now!

Believe me:  Nothing compares to you- nothing compares to these wonderful Nordtfriesen islands up in the top left hand corner of Germany.  The Friesen-style houses only look good on the islands; sunsets look spectacular when you watch them from your Strandkorb with a glass of cooled white wine in your hand.

[caption id="attachment_138" align="aligncenter" width="150"] Friesen House[/caption]

You are the love of my life, always will be, but it’s time to give something else a chance to shine, to  be extra-ordinary!

The following is your lesson I have to learn from you:  If I want to fully appreciate the beauty of something else I have to stop comparing!   Sylt, you are not better, you are only different!

Sylt, I imagine we can form a harmonious partnership – but this may also be the reason why I never attempted to live with you! In my mind you are perfect- and I don’t want to be disappointed. I’d rather live with the illusion than be proven wrong by reality.

Instead of living with you permanently, I will enjoy you in short spurts whenever I return. And when I visit you it will be with another bottle of wine from “Gosch.”(The islands most popular fish and wine bar) It’s fun to watch the rich and beautiful (in Germany that is) strut their stuff.- Or shall I rephrase this: the many wanna - be rich and of average looks waddling past.  The idea of paying to walk along the beach is still unheard anywhere else in the world, but then, you have your reasons for charging us!

This was then, this is now:

Pender Island is one of the Southern Gulf Islands, lining the coast of Vancouver.

Like the rest of Vancouver, Pender is understated. If Vancouver holds the trophy of one of the worst dressed city in the world, Pender Island needs an award for “Easy Going” and “Hippy Chic”!

These two islands are worlds apart – but oh so special in their own unique way!

On Sylt you are judged by the clothes you wear, the size of your wallet and the colour of your AMEX card.

On Pender you don’t show off, you are not here to shine with your new trophy wife - you come here to just be yourself!

Pender is a rough beauty, raggedness on an unprecedented level.

Nothing cries “chic” or “sophisticated” here. Nothing eludes arrogance. Everything is so nice and refreshingly normal on Pender. Let it be the local residents or the day visitors.  I have seen and tasted more organically produced fruit and veggies on Pender, I have noticed more hand produced - or - crafted items here than I have ever noticed on my childhood friend.

If Pender is the rare diamond found on water, then Sylt is the fine cut and polished sister. And I love them both!

Extra-Ordinary places are found around the world and yes, my heart is big enough to carry them all!