When friendships die

It's a sad day when you realize that the person whom you thought was a good friend turns out to be secretly harbouring resentment towards you.  You may think you're getting along great but if you listen closely to that little voice in your head, you know there's a quality to the relationship, a tension that doesn't exist in your other friendships.  It's that feeling that even though it seems like she is being agreeable,  somehow you need to tiptoe around her feelings.  Sometimes the friendship just explodes when the resentment comes pouring out of the other person and you are left absolutely stunned.  At other times, it just fades quietly away, as if both parties acknowledge that neither one of you can keep up the charade any more.  Either way, it is puzzling, hurtful and not a nice experience.  You think to yourself, "How could I have been such a bad judge of character?  Were there signs I missed?".

From speaking with friends for whom this has happened and my personal experience, I've concluded that very often it is envy that is at the root of this evil.  The very thing about you that attracted the other person to you and wanted them to make you a friend, superficial things like the way you look, the people you know, a fun life, turns out to be the thing that they think they are missing.  So they live vicariously through you for awhile and then the frustrations mount because you are living the life they want.  Of course, you don't realize any of this, you only notice that as time goes on, you find yourself watching what you say around them and steering clear of some topics because it tends to upset them.  As you don't actually think your life is so charmed that someone else would covet it anyway  it doesn't occur to you that, that may be the case until too late.  Another scenario is they meet you when you are at a particular down period in your life.  They come in, comforting, offering a shoulder to cry on and are so supportive, but as you slowly rebuild your life and become who you used to be, or you evolve into someone much stronger and self sufficient, they can't handle the shift in the relationship.

Is this something that only happens to women?  Do men have friendships like this?  Of course not all friendships end due to some unnamed resentment.  Some are meant to just be temporary, to share some common experiences and then move on.  The key is to distinguish between the intense but short friendships and the low key rest of your life ones.  Easier said than done I think, much like most of life.

Banana bread I can eat

No wheat, no dairy, no sugar.  That's my mantra these days.  The dairy is lactose intolerance so I pretty much have no choice there.  The wheat and the sugar is more voluntary.  Unpleasant things happen when I eat them but it is not tragic like it is with dairy.  So I try and stay away.  Now for someone whose favourite activity was afternoon tea, the new diet is a tragedy.  But I am willing to forgo the teas because I feel so much better.  I had a couple of friends over for lunch today to try out a new recipe.  They were very complimentary but what really got raves was the banana bread I made from some too ripe bananas I had sitting around.  The lunch is long consumed but here is a photo of the banana bread which doesn't look that sexy on its own.

D and V, here is the recipe:

Banana Bread - makes 1 8" cake round or the equivalent loaf pan
180 degree oven
50 minutes to bake

Wet ingredients
3/4 cup melted soya spread
3/4 cup agave syrup
2 eggs (room temperature)
1.5 tsp vanilla extract

Dry ingredients
2 cups Dove's Farm gluten and wheat free Plain white flour blend.
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1.5 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 cup well mashed ripe bananas soaked in 1 cup orange/mango juice

1. Beat wet ingredients in large bowl beginning with agave and soya spread, add eggs one at a time.  Add vanilla and beat until light in colour.
2.  Take dry ingredients and sift together twice.
3.  Add dry ingredients and banana mush alternately to the wet ingredients beginning and ending with dry.  After each addition, mix gently to combine but do not beat or otherwise overmix - this toughens and dries a cake.
4.  Generously soya spread an 8" cake round or equivalent loaf pan and pour batter in and bake.
5.  Cool 10 minutes in the pan and then remove to finish cooling.

adapted from the Moosewood Cook book by Molly Katzen
sorry about the mixed fractions and decimals in the ingredients list.  I can't find the symbols list on blogger.

A slice of this with a cup of Rooibos Chocolate Chai and I can have my own afternoon tea.  Try it, you'll never mistake it for regular banana bread, but it's good on its own merits.

Weekend in New York

Just got back from a whirlwind weekend in New York.  It has been at least 3 years since I was last there.  It still feels like home even though we haven't lived there in almost 20 years.  I went to college there where I met my husband, worked there and had two kids while living in Brooklyn.  After we moved out to the burbs, I didn't go in nearly as often as I would have liked and so stopped identifying myself with New York.  But then we moved overseas and New York became our base while the kids were little.  But as they grew older, there was less and less reason to spend time there and that is how we ended up in this current situation of not having been in several years. 

We have good friends from college, some of whom we've stayed in close touch with and many we remember fondly but haven't seen in awhile.  So a 30th college reunion seemed like a great excuse to catch up with some people we hadn't seen in a long time.  Our friend B is a great organiser, calling out to classmates who had been such close friends at one point, to come together and reunite.  A group of us made it to New York for the weekend and it was a wonderful occasion.  There were a couple of friends I hadn't seen in I'm not sure how long and it was great to reconnect.  We went to college in the late 70's, early 80's and it was a great time to be young.  30 years later, we had all taken different paths but the strength of friendships formed so long ago made it seem like we had just seen each other.  Not everyone that B contacted could come, but the ripple effect was there just the same. Thanks to e mail and social media, we are reconnected.  We left vowing to stay in touch and promising to come together again in 5 years time.  

Scammed again

Honestly, I must have a big S on my virtual forehead for ":sucker:".  Last year, we stayed in a gorgeous condo with my parents but never got our deposit back.  It was a big chunk of change as it was a full month's rent.  The man who owned the company that the agent worked for turned out to be an A1 crook and it has now turned into a criminal case involving extradition, hundreds of victims, very messy.  I doubt we'll ever see a penny of that money.  All of this has been unfolding slowly since about the end of last year.  So you'd think we'd learned our lesson about dodgy real estate on the web.  Well I've done it again.  I gave some money to a non existent person for a non existent apartment in New York for our weekend.  This time we are only out the 3 nights worth of rental, but I feel incredibly stupid and annoyed.  So for my friends to whom I recommended Craigslist as a great place to fine deals on vacation rentals, please be careful.  I have rented successfully from them in the past so they are not all crooks but it is a tremendous leap of faith I realize now to send someone you've never met money in the hopes that they will do what they say they will.  So no more deals for me, I will just spend the extra and potentially save myself hundreds in money lost not to mention the aggravation and inconvenience.  I feel badly for all the honest people out there trying to rent their places out.  All I can say is Jane Synovec, if you really exist, I hope you use our money for something stupid and it brings you no joy.

What is success?

I have been set a challenge by a fellow Seven Sisters alum to define success.  Since I've never thought of myself as particularly successful, I thought I might have a think about what the word means to me.  

Success for me has always been linked to external approval, a label put on you by society.  It is the way society judges where you are in the hierarchy of deservedness (I know it’s not a word).  As the saying goes, “whoever dies with the most toys wins”.  So for me, it’s about material, visible accomplishments.  As someone who retired from an almost career 21 years ago, it never seemed to have much to do with me. 

Now don’t get me wrong, I haven’t just been taking up space all this time.  I have had a full and wonderful 21 years crammed with ups and downs and much living.  I have been the stay at home mom with two kids while my husband pursued my definition of success.  We did country moves, house moves, school moves, you name it, we’ve moved it.  Did I miss working and the external validation?  Not really.  I felt I was doing what I needed and wanted to do.  I’m not going to tell you it was a walk in the park, trying to guide a child into becoming a responsible human being is not easy.  Especially, when you realise fairly early on that they have minds of their own and they may do what you want them to do, but they’re going to think what they want to think.  I have been really lucky to be blessed with two wonderful kids who are sane and sensible with just the right amount of crazy to let me know they’re normal.  I am also lucky to have a very supportive husband who has recently redefined his concept of success and is much happier for it. 

Now that I am at a point where my kids require emotional time, not physical time so much, I am pursuing my own interests.  Who knows, in time I may achieve what society deems success.  But I may be too busy living life to notice.


You can read Kim's view here.  She is the originator of the Success Challenge.  Why don't you have a go?

Flying??

Flying has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.  According to my mom, we were flying from Tokyo to Osaka to visit relatives before I could walk.  Then the back and forth of being an expat kid followed by college in NY/ parents in Japan and my own nomadic life has meant that the way I see family is by first taking a very long plane ride.  But all of a sudden, what I took for granted is no longer a sure thing.  The volcanic ash didn't affect me in the first round of chaos except in the happy form of seeing friends I would otherwise not have seen, but now it may keep me from seeing my family this summer.  Add to this the fact that hubby is about to start a commuting life involving planes and I am wondering what will happen.  I had to break the news to my mom this morning that we may not see them this summer.  We've been getting together like this for a long time now, it's the one opportunity my parents have to see all the grand kids together.  As both my parents and the kids get older, I cherish every year thinking this may be our last year, as parents become slightly less mobile and kids develop more independent lives.  I hope the ash clears soon and then my only worry will be where to stay.

It's all about the little things

I must admit, I've been feeling very harassed lately.  My cooking classes, which are going well and so much fun to do, still require a lot of time.  Add to it, a translation job with the exact same schedule as my classes, needing to plan for the summer, a quick weekend in NY possibly jeopardised by the BA strike, and the myriad of phone calls it takes to keep a life running smoothly and I was feeling a bit overwhelmed.  I make a quick strike to Waitrose to gather ingredients for tonight's class and am tearing home.  I pass a mother and little boy on the street.  He's probably about three, doing the running, skipping thing little boys do because their legs just don't move fast enough for their liking.  He's also carrying on by himself because his mom's on her phone as she walks.  I try not to trip over him as I cross the street in my rush to get home.  Then, I hear him say, "look mum, flowers".  I expected the mom to just acknowledge briefly or even ignore him, how often have I done that do my kids.  But instead, she came to a dead stop, got down to his level and just matched his enthusiasm for how gorgeous the flowers were.  I wanted to go over there and congratulate her for being a wonderful mother, but of course I continued on my way.  It was a very little thing, but it made me stop and think, life is not about the grand gestures,  but an accumulation of little moments.  I know everyone says that, but I feel like I may have seen it first hand today.  Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but I feel like my life was made just a little better for having been a witness to their love.  A deep breath later, I am ready for the rest of my day filled with just a little more gratitude than this morning.