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Recent posts:
- Adventures of an Urban Nomad - Power of the Dark Side
- Adventures of an Urban Nomad - Stories Are More Important Than Food
- Adventures of an Urban Nomad - Pay It Forward
- Adventures of an Urban Nomad - House Do's, Don'ts & Maybes
- Adventures of an Urban Nomad - OH & S Nightmare
- Adventures of an Urban Nomad - Back in the Burbs
- Adventures of an Urban Nomad - Time for a Breakdown
- Adventures of an Urban Nomad - Hound of the Baskervilles
- Adventures of an Urban Nomad - Bad week for boys
- Adventures of an Urban Nomad - The Menagerie
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Tikkun Olam
Tikkun Olam (Repairing the World) is a fundamental principle in Judaism and Jewish thinking. This blog is our thoughts on how to improve the world in various areas and our personal experiences. We'd love to know what you think, so please send replies to our posts or raise issues yourself.
Adventures of an Urban Nomad - Power of the Dark Side
Laurence Harrould - Friday, May 18, 2012
This week I turned 60. "Why did you do that?" - you ask. Without boring you with time/space mechanics, solar system dynamics and planetary physics (all of which you understand anyhow) and paraphrasing Tony Abbott when he was asked about the difference between the Baby Bonus and the Kiddy Allowance - "it just happened". (Senility must already be setting in - I'm quoting Tony Abbott.)
Something else I did this week was attend my first Network Central event. It was fantastic, met lots of interesting people and had a great time - I highly recommend it. The speaker was Mandy Holloway who spoke about courageous leadership. One of the points she made was getting feedback from the people around you about how they perceive you. I decided to give this a go using the excuse of having turned 60. (One thing I've noticed is you can use turning 60 as an excuse for all sorts of things that just don't work for earlier ages.)
So I sent out a request to many friends, relatives and other associates asking them for HONEST comments (just 4 or 5 words) on how they would describe me. I braced myself for a whole heap of abuse - well not quite "abuse" but I was expecting some confronting feedback. What came back was fascinating. I could relate to all of it in terms of "yes I can understand how that person would see me that way". Of the hundreds of positive words there were very few which were in the confronting category.
The intriguing thing was the impact this had on me. Only a tiny percentage of the feedback was challenging and yet this is what stuck firmly in my consciousness. Even days later I can instantly recall this feedback but I have to work quite hard to remember the more encouraging comments. I don't think I'm unusual in this. (Mind you based on my little experiment I'm now thoroughly convinced I am unusual and just not in this aspect.)
Reflecting on how much impact we have in how we talk to others - whether it's our loved ones, children, work colleagues, friends or even those telemarketers who call you at the worst possible time - I realised how the imbalance works. We can say hundreds of supportive, encouraging things and yet one or two words can destroy it all. So my objective now is to be MUCH MORE MINDFUL of what language I'm using especially in those necessary but challenging conversations.
On a lighter note: I've had comments that 60 is the new 30, 40 or 50. Interestingly no-one seems to want to go back to their 20's. That must tell you something :-)
Adventures of an Urban Nomad - Stories Are More Important Than Food
Laurence Harrould - Sunday, May 13, 2012
One of the joys of housesitting is having access to a new library every few weeks.
For example I read the book "They Marched Us Three Nights: A Journey Into Freedom" by Dr Abraham Wajnryb. It's his experience at the end of the Holocaust. This is a short book and very easy to read. I think it's important to read and it covers many of his experiences. I'd like to focus on one episode that was particularly powerful for me.
As World War II was drawing to a close the Germans were aware they had lost. The Allies and Russians were sweeping across Europe and Germany was in full retreat. As part of this they were clearing out the concentration camps. Dr Wajnryb describes the death march of which he was a part. For years he had been "living" in a labour/death camp. During this time the amount of food the inmates received was well below a subsistence level. We've all seen the horrific photos showing the skeletal state of these people.
In the closing days of the war the inmates of the camp were forced to leave and marched towards an unknown destination. They were not fed and anyone who collapsed was simply shot on the spot. During the night they were force-marched and locked up in barns during the day (so as not to be seen from the air).
Abraham describes how he noticed that the guards were disappearing and after three nights he and a small group of other inmates found an opportunity to slip away. They were in the countryside, with no food and dressed in prison garb.
Eventually, they came to a farmhouse which was clearly inhabited. They had no idea of what reception they'd receive if they approached the house and took a long time to decide what to do. Finally, it was decided to send a couple of people to see if they could get some food while the rest would wait to see what happened. If there was trouble the rest of the group would be able to escape.
Dr Wajnryb was one of those chosen to go. He describes his trepidation going to the farmhouse hoping for help but expecting to be shot. Fortunately, things went well. The occupants took them in and gave them food for themselves and the others. However, before letting them return to the group the farmer and his family insisted that they stay and eat. This whole process obviously took a long time. Eventually they returned to their companions carrying sacks of food.
Now if you were one of those waiting for the return of your companions what would you have done in this situation? You haven't had a real meal in years and nothing at all for the last three days. You are literally starving and on the point of death. Someone arrives with a good supply of food. Would you want to eat first or hear about what happened at the farmhouse and why it took so long to come back? Personally, I think I'd be into the food and worry about everything else later. Not so in this case. The first priority of everyone was to hear about what happened; they'd eat later.
This episode made a huge impression on me. Here is a group of people literally starving to death and their first priority is to hear a story. Just goes to show how important and powerful stories are to people; sometimes we need them for our survival even more than food.
Adventures of an Urban Nomad - Pay It Forward
Laurence Harrould - Sunday, May 06, 2012
Last Wednesday Danita had a car accident. Thankfully she wasn't hurt but the car was rendered unsafe to drive.
She was going through a roundabout when the car was hit from behind - the passenger side rear wheel. I don't know about you but to me it seems that to be hit there means the other car was in the wrong. Anyway, the driver of the other car had the chutzpah to say Danita was at fault. (BTW the definition of chutzpah is someone on trial for murdering their parents pleading for leniency because they're an orphan.)
Now, where was I? Oh yes the car accident. The driver of the other car was very kind and replaced the rear tyre which was shredded. With this done Danita managed to get the car to an AAMI Assesment Centre. Have you ever tried to contact AAMI? Once you get a person they're wonderful, but it's a real challenge actually managing to connect with someone to talk to and their website:- if you're trying to do anything it's very unhelpful. It wouldn't even let me pay my premium (which I was trying to do before the accident). Enough wingeing and back to Danita, an unusable car and an event for us both booked for 7am the next morning (sorry I hadn't mentioned that bit).
That was our next dilemma - how to get to Homebush by 7am the next morning. It was now after 5pm. I spent some time looking into various car hire options and then Orana Car & Truck Hire (www.oranarentals.com.au)
appeared at the top of my Google search.
Since we started house-sitting we've used Orana to move a number of times and they've always been really friendly and helpful (not to mention the lowest prices).
The first time we used them there was a little interaction involving one of the managers (Karl Romeo - isn't that a great name!!). When I told him the date we would need the truck he remarked; "Oh I'll remember that one. It's my birthday".
As an astrologer I'm particularly tuned to birthdays so made a note of it. In the packing and discarding process which one does on moving house we found some bottles of port which had not been opened. As Danita & I are not port drinkers I decided to give one to Karl for his birthday when I collected the truck.
Back to our dilemma. As I mentioned it was about 5.15pm when I called Orana to find out about booking a car. Luckily Karl answered the phone. He was amazing! He arranged a car and offered to stay back until I got there (which was about 5.45, well after their closing time).
Now I'm not saying Karl offered to help because I'd given him a birthday present - he's a great guy anyhow. But the point is by acknowledging someone and developing a good working relationship sometimes you get helped out of a jam when there doesn't seem to be a workable options.
So, if you're looking for a very reasonably priced car or truck to hire call my mate Karl at Orana and tell him Laurence sent you :-)
Adventures of an Urban Nomad - House Do's, Don'ts & Maybes
Laurence Harrould - Sunday, April 29, 2012
As an Urban Nomad we're privileged to stay in many different places and so we find out what works about a house and what doesn't. Here's our list so far:
Must have
What not to have
Nice to have
That's our list. What do you think?
Adventures of an Urban Nomad - OH & S Nightmare
Laurence Harrould - Sunday, April 22, 2012
In last week's post I pointed out the house we're in now feels like being in our parents' homes. Feeling almost normal we decided to have some friends over for dinner - something we haven't done for a while. As a result of this, it's probably something we won't do for quite some time either.
The event started badly, went well for a while and then ended badly.
As I mentioned it's been some time since we've fed more than ourselves and an assorted collection of animals. So we're out of practice cooking for a group. Consequently, the menu consisted of dishes which were probably a lot more complicated to prepare than we ought to have picked.
At the last minute we realised we didn't have all the ingredients we needed. We're currently living near Chatswood - very close to a major shopping centre - and so thought it would only be a few minutes to race to the shops and get back quickly. The snag was we'd completely forgetten about evening peak hour traffic. This was an excellent reminder of why we prefer to live in the outer suburbs or rural areas.
Even with this outing we still ended up missing a couple of ingredients. We made do as best we could & rang our guests asking if they wouldn't mind coming a little later.
Fortunately, this all worked out and the meal went well, even if any similarity between the recipes we used and the final dishes was purely coincidental.
The real disaster occurred when everyone was leaving. The driveway/entrance to this house is very steep, wet and dark. (I found out later there is actually a light but I wasn't aware of it at the time. Isn't it amazing how you always seem to find out really important things AFTER you need them?)
As they left, one of our friends stepped across the one-brick-high edge of the driveway and fell backwards hitting her head. She seemed OK at the time and we're hoping it all turns into nothing. HOWEVER, we were concerned for her welfare and rang the following day. She assures us that all is well - thank God.
This did raise the question for me of liability. Should the outcome have been worse who would be responsible and who would get sued? We do, after all, live in a very litigious society. Us, because we 'live' here and had people visiting us or the home owners because lighting seemed inadequate and we hadn't been properly informed of the operation of the safety equipment. But then maybe we had been informed, but in the midst of all the information we needed to take on board in a very short time, we had missed the bit about the outside lights (although there's nothing we could do about the wet path - that's a result of rain - so then we could argue it was an Act of God). Even if we had been told about the lights perhaps we could argue we'd been inadequately trained. As you can see this is a lawyers' dream.
So if you're a lawyer or insurance broker who'd like to give us advice on how to address this properly, please form an orderly queue and we'll get to you eventually - just watch out for the slippery slope.
Adventures of an Urban Nomad - Back in the Burbs
Laurence Harrould - Sunday, April 15, 2012
Last week we moved to Chatswood. We'll be here for just over 7 weeks so this is almost a permanent residence for us.
We're enjoying the new house and while it's in an amazingly quiet location (given it's proximity to a road with heavy traffic) we have been subtly reminded about why we prefer the country (or at least the outer suburbs). So far there's been a crying baby, a screeching woman, next door's pool pump running constantly, lawn mowers, chain saws and leaf blowers. Apart from that it's been very quiet. Even the dog here is quiet - in fact we're not sure she can bark as we've never heard her - such a delight especially as we've come from a house with 6 dogs, 2 cats, 2 birds and more; all of whom were very vocal!
Allowing for the background noise we're very comfortable here. It's an older style house and both Danita & I feel like we're back in our childhood homes - the photos on the walls look like our relatives, the furnishings are similar to what we had growing up and so on.
I remember visiting a museum a few years ago in San Fransisco. One of the displays was a 1960's bedroom. I was amazed and horrified. It looked just like my childhood room; the same furniture, record collection, posters etc. That was amazing! The horrifying part was when I realised I now qualify as a museum piece - and I don't think I've made it to the status of a living treasure just yet (still working on that one).
As I was saying, we are very comfortable here. It's wonderful having our clothes in a wardrobe and not living out of a suitcase, having separate rooms properly set up as offices (not having to use the dining room table as one) and space in the kitchen to put our supplies. I'm finding we're really appreciating the so-called "little" things in life.
There are still some disappointments we are confronted by though. When we met the house owners there was a Thermomix (an amazing piece of kitchen equipment). This was very exciting, as we'd had one in a previous house-sit and been very impressed by it. So the prospect of having one for a couple of months was thrilling. Shortly before they left they sent us an email saying their daughter had requested to use it while they were away and, of course, she had priority. While being very disappointed by this sudden change of plans we felt we could overcome the pain and grow through the experience. And so we soldier on :-)
Adventures of an Urban Nomad - Time for a Breakdown
Laurence Harrould - Sunday, April 08, 2012
This week Danita & I separated. No we haven't split up - we had an overlap in house minding commitments and so we needed to be in separate places.
My job was to be in the new house, set up the IT infrastructure so we could keep working and prepare the materials for Danita's She Business meeting. Danita stayed back at the old house to wrap up and feed the animals in the morning. All straight forward enough except that's not how it turned out. She had limited time to get everything done and get to the new house to get ready for her lunchtime meeting.
The house we were leaving is a doggy farm stay - rather than put their animals into a kennel which keeps them in cages, this one has a paddock where they roam free and are housed with other dogs.
Danita's first job was to check the chickens and ducks. Here's where things started to go wrong. Every day until then the birds were happily inside their pen waiting to be fed. This day Danita arrived to find them wandering around the yard outside the pen. First job was to get them all back in. This required talking, chasing, herding and there's always one who refuses to go back in. Combined with the fear that some had gone missing this got the day off to a "good" start.
Next were the arrivals of some new dogs - one was expected as we'd previously spoken with the owner, another was booked in but we hadn't been able to speak with anyone and so we weren't sure if and when they'd arrive. Then to top it all off there was a completely unexpected arrival just as Danita was ready to leave.
Time was rapidly ticking away for Danita's timely exit when yet another twist occurred; the owner of the final dog to arrive had pointed out that theirs was an indoor dog who'd been there before and knew the ropes. Danita took this to mean the dog was house-trained and allowed her to stay inside. As soon as she got in she weed and poohed all around the house including on the table and the notes we'd prepared for the owners on their return explaining how well everything had gone(???).
It was then necessary to remove the 'indoor' dog to an outside area which, of course, led to considerable protest (i.e. barking). Meanwhile two of the other new arrivals who had been sharing an area had become too boisterous (lots of running around with one 'humping' the other) with yelping from the recipient of the unwelcome attention. Again, time to remove one to another area and keep them separated at least for the couple of hours until the owner of the property returned. Each relocation of course required corralling the appropriate animal (without scaring it) and providing bedding and water.
On top of all this were the tasks involved in leaving a housesit - preparing new bed linen, washing what we'd used of the linen and towels and setting everything up for the return of the owners. After this crazy morning Danita arrived at our new place quite frazzled. However, she pulled herself together and went off to run her meeting - which went very well, as usual.
Adventures of an Urban Nomad - Hound of the Baskervilles
Laurence Harrould - Sunday, April 01, 2012
For the last couple of days there has been a the noise of a dog (or dogs) howling in a nearby property. It started late one night and had being going continuously for over 24 hours.
As you know, dogs are pack animals. Consequently, when one starts barking (or in this case howling), it sets off a chain reaction through the neighbourhood. We're currently living with seven dogs and so this set them all off. The result has been a long time of screaming in the distance combined with a lot of barking at our house.
If you're a parent chances are there's been a time when your baby just wouldn't settle down and just cried and cried. You tried everything; feeding, bouncing, rocking and anything else you could think of and still the poor child wouldn't settle. Distressed, lacking sleep and at your wits' end you may have gone to a hospital, doctor or in really desperate circumstances even resorted to asking your own parents for advice.
To some degree that's what this was like. The constant howling had us concerned that there was something seriously wrong. Also, the noise meant sleep was challenging or even impossible. Our initial response was to try to shut out the noise, hoping things would settle down. After all, it was some distance from us so (surely) there must have been people closer who were more affected by it than we were.
However, nothing changed.
So, after many hours of constant noise we decided to take action. The big question of course was what could we do? We decided calling the police would be appropriate as there could be a major problem. I had visions of a murder scene where the dogs have been trapped inside the house with the owner's corpse. Who said I don't have an imagination? It's fascinating what scenarios you can come up with having been sleep deprived for a while.
First thing was to see if we could find out exactly where the noise was coming from. By the way, at this point it was now midnight.
We drove around the neighbourhood in order to determine the address from which the noise was coming. We think we found the property and went back home - this was because our mobiles didn't have any coverage and so we needed to get to a phone. I thought about going in to check, but since it was very dark and the house was a long way back from the road and couldn't be seen (properties out here are quite large) in addition to my overactive imagination I decided it was more prudent to let someone else do it.
Back at home I called 000 and the lady I spoke to was very helpful - took the relevant details, asked about whether it was just barking (no it wasn't) or howling/screaming (yes it definitely sounded like the dogs were in pain or somehow traumatised) and said she would arrange for someone to look into it.
As soon as I got off the phone the noise stopped and we haven't heard anything since. So now I've probably been marked as a potential prank caller - doh!!!
Adventures of an Urban Nomad - Bad week for boys
Laurence Harrould - Sunday, March 25, 2012
This week has been a bit of a tough one for the boys around here.
In a household consisting of 7 dogs, 2 cats, 2 horses, 2 birds, assorted chickens, ducks, geese and finally 2 people there are a very limited number of males. There's me, Sancho, a couple of roosters and a peacock. As you can see we're a bit outnumbered and this week has seen considerable violence perpetrated against us (well maybe not considerable but ...)
As you'd be aware, males are supposed to have a lower tolerance for pain than females (at least that's the story you'll get from the girls). Well, I think we've managed very well under extremely trying circumstances.
Firstly, I was attacked by the electric fence and a rooster. My understanding is that the electric fence is around the chicken yard to protect them against foxes, which are common in this area. While organising the water for the chickens I inadvertently (well I wouldn't do it intentionally would I?) touched the charged wire. I was immediately assured that it was working very effectively.
Feeling somewhat sore and slightly sorry for myself (actually I was having an internal discussion - using appropriate language - about what a dumb thing that was to do) I entered the enclosure only to be viciously attacked by one of the roosters. OK - so it wasn't so vicious but he did leave me with a bloody knee and a very trendy hole developing in my jeans. Given my earlier comments about the gender imbalance you'd think there'd at least be some solidarity but oh no - not this little black chicken!! Mind you, I had been warned about him. The owner had told me she had to beat him off with a rubbish bin lid at times. Fortunately for me, he seemed to respond to a good hosing down - perhaps the chicken equivalent of a water cannon at a riot.
Then it was Sancho's turn. As I mentioned in last week's post one of the dogs is blind. Danita was taking some meat and bones outside to share around and there was a canine stampede for the front door. Unfortunately, the screen door had shut and so five dogs were jammed together trying to get out with Sancho and Stella (the blind one) in the centre.
Stella, presumably under extreme duress, then had a bit of a barny with Sancho. This turned into something like a schoolyard punchup - two dogs, in the middle fighting, with a few onlookers providing very noisy encouragement. I provided "crowd control" by throwing Stella off Sancho which had the desired effect of calming the situation. We were then able to open the screen door and everyone headed out to their objective - the meat and bones.
While he dealt with it very stoically, Sancho did end up with a cut just below his eye and one of the back of his neck. I contemplated taking him to the nearby vet but after cleaning him up with antiseptic he seemed his usual cheerful self and so we decided to "keep him under observation".
Ultimately, all has worked out and Sancho still gets on well with Stella, and the rooster and I are doing much better - I think he's worked out that whenever I turn up he gets fed so that's incentivised him quite successfully.
I'm now looking forward to a more sedate week.
Adventures of an Urban Nomad - The Menagerie
Laurence Harrould - Sunday, March 18, 2012
This week we moved from the rural location of St Albans to semi-rural Dural. We are now in a house with a tennis court, swimming pool, outdoor pizza oven and more. Who says you can't live in amazing locations without lots of money?
One of the intriguing attributes of this place is the menagerie. It consists of:
Indoors
2 cats - Sootie and Tigger - named primarily based on their colouring. Tigger is fairly shy & retiring and tends to stay out of the way, but Sootie loves contact and seems to delight in teasing the other animals.
3 and a half dogs (half because Stella spends as much time inside as outside). The dogs are:
Coco - a black miniature poodle
Bella - a white Maltese who bears a striking resemblance to the house elf Dobby from Harry Potter
BooBoo - a Pomeranian who apparently thinks she's a Rottweiller. She took on a very large dog and ended up with a broken leg, broken ribs and numerous other injuries. She hops around with one front leg sticking out at a very odd angle. I'd say this is a classic case of nominative determinism - where your name determines what you do eg Dr Tooth the dentist.
Stella - a bitsa who's blind & balding. It's amazing to watch her get around the house. She's like a ball inside a pinball machine - bouncing from object to object using her head as her 'cane'.
Outside
More dogs - Millie a golden retriever & Bianca the maremma.
2 birds. Birdie a Sun Conur which seems very similar to a Rosella with more yellow colouring and Charlie a Sulphur Crested Cockatoo. If you've ever heard Cockatoos screeching you'll have an idea of how loud Charlie can be. He's very chatty and will say "Hello Charlie" when you're around. He does get very persistent & loud and can be quite vicious if you have the misfortune to get too close. It's amazing how quickly he picks up on what you say and starts to repeat it. Since there are children who normally live here we have to be very careful not to tell Charlie what we really think of him. He's making a concerted effort to chew his way through the wire mesh of his enclosure. I can't really fault him on that since it is very restrictive even though it's quite large.
2 miniature horses - Gizmo & Sugar Mint. Don't blame me; I didn't name them. These are quite amazing as they are fully grown but are only about 3 feet or 1 metre tall.
And finally a collection of ducks, hens and chicks which have the benefit of being an excellent source of eggs. There are also a couple of roosters and a peacock. .
So now you've met the whole family. It's time to go feed them all.....
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