On blogs and blokes...

After nearly a year of on-off dating, courtship, seduction, the odd quarrel, endless foreplay till the early hours of the morning and the occassional midnight wake-up, my new lover and I are just about there...ready to climax together in a massive explosion of sensation and stimulation. Yes, my lover, The 2007 Innovation and Thought Leadership Festival, is supercharged with wow, and is the talk of the town!

Its true- I have joined the ranks of enlightened women and traded blokes in favour of Thought Leaders, Creative Geniuses and Innovative Entrepreneurs, and quite frankly, I have enjoyed more thrills than I've had in years! Nothing like a huge brain between the ears!!!

The Festival grew from a one-day fling called EXPO in 2005, to a full-on 24 week romance, with the main celebrations happening from 25-29 June, in Sydney.

The first of my 30 international guest speakers are arriving next week, I have a media circus on my hands, 3000 registered attendees, hi-tech exhibitors including virtual world avatars and parallel universes, a cocktail party for 600 with "virtual" decor being arranged by a genious French drag queen who covers the Sydney Gay Mardis Gras in his alias as Claire de Lune , I've battled uncollaborative building managers on turning their corporate headquarters lobby into an Expo Centre and cocktail lounge, driven a Lamborghini Gallardo donated by a sponsor, and am preparing for 90 participants to come on an 8-week innovation bootcamp with personal innovation coaches to develop the seeds of their business ideas into flourishing growth opportunities for our business. Today, I am selecting 30 art pieces from 300 entries produced by employees through a 12-week Creative Bootcamp launched to co-incide with World Creativity Day, for the art exhibition in our foyer - we open 25 June. All exciting new initiatives, and I am taking the 9-year old cub with for work experience!

Meanwhile, in the few hours that I manage to grab some sleep, winds close to 200 kms per hour are battering the coast, 6 ft waves in our normally flat inner harbour bay at Balmoral, ripping boats off their moorings, sinking ferry wharves and snapping the terrace furniture of my penthouse apartment like twigs! I woke at 5 am to run outside stark naked just with slippers on to salvage what I can before it smashes through the wall-to-wall glass panels of my little seaview nest in the sky! Not an erotic looking bird I was, I assure you! Hope the stainless steel BBQ does not dance off the terrace and into the Pacific....or worse, on someone's car!

So, that's the reason why I am up so early and decided to use this rare moment of weather bewilderment to update my blog. You see, I have a confession to make. I am NOT Superwoman despite what many say...I have launched the first corporate blog at work and I am simply finding life too short to blog in two places simultaneously, keep up with emerging trends like Second Life, Twitter and Facebook and what not, and play mummy and femme fatale all at once!

Something had to give....blokes and blogs, in that order....seemed a fair trade-off!

Rainbows are made of...

 








FRIENDS!

She was not supposed to die. Not before 100! A beautiful vibrant woman in full bloom....a rose just unfolding...33 years old and with the world at her feet ....the adventures of motherhood, stretchmarks, mid-life crises, career/motherhood guilt, raising hormonal teenagers and evolutionary thinking about the meaning of it all, still ahead of her.

But she was robbed. As were we...me, her wonderful husband, her loving family, her circle of adoring friends, her colleagues, her god-child (cub1)and the world. Its nearly 12,5 years since the rainbow broke, and I miss her more than ever as I struggle with life's ups and downs and need her wisdom and lack of judgement to hold up both a shoulder and a mirror. You don't form those kind of friendships easily at this stage of life, they are moulded in the crucible of life over time.

Her joie d'vivre and energy was boundless. She was fearless, hated injustice, laughed from her belly, was curious with an insatiable appetite for learning, passionate about excellence and one of very few people in the world that I absolutely trusted.

It happened in an instant....less than 10 seconds -like love at first sight except better! In a crowd of 53 new first years arriving at House Kruinsig at uni that night of 4 February 1981, we each recognised something in the other's style and attitude (quite rebellious and whacky in those days- not that much has changed!)that went "PING!"

That's something that I have experienced only a few times in my life...and those are the relationships (outside of your children who are born of your flesh) that give most meaning to one's existence. I read this book called "Love is not a game but it helps to know the odds!" and it talks about the mathematically calculated odds of finding friendships or lovers that are soulmates.

Its 1:2334!

Even though Mari lost her incredible fight against the horrid big C, I am so grateful to have had her for a while. And to have experienced this magical zone of soulmateship in 4 friendships over my life and once in the love of a man. These relationships are the colours of my rainbow.

Luckily, three of these friendships remain intact - though scattered and fragmented by geography and through career and family commitments. But they endure. And I close my eyes and give a telepathic hug to my rainbow makers.

No...its not a man!

 Friends...no....don't worry....it wasn't a man that stabbed my heart so...there was only ever one man who hurt me so badly but I am a fast learner and that will NEVER happen again...

I am ok..read the last line of the poem....the tears need to wash away the pain so when you lift your face up, it has cleared the vision to see the stars and sun again.
This blog is the chronicle of my thoughts and feelings. Mostly happy, excited, oozing joie d'vivre....but never one-dimensional, vacuous...its the chronicles of a feeling and passionate soul. A soul that feels pain as intensely as pleasure and joy.

Tears are a cleanser...healing...and us women are nature's ultimate survivors because crying allows us not to break. I once read..."drink" is a man's tears. (grammar sounds odd, but there's a lot of truth in that- how lucky are the ones who can shed tears and purge their grief through self-expression, communication or art!)

escape valve

 
Just when you think life is in harmony...someone puts a dagger into your heart.

And you know its going to break. But it doesn't. It just gets more and more swollen with pain....throbbing, aching, straining....until it feels it will explode....but then , in rivers erupting from your eyes, the pain floods down the contours of your face...so your heart can go on.

Tears - Elizabeth Barret Browning

Thank God, bless God, all ye who suffer not
More grief than ye can weep for. That is well--
That is light grieving ! lighter, none befell
Since Adam forfeited the primal lot.
Tears ! what are tears ? The babe weeps in its cot,
The mother singing, at her marriage-bell
The bride weeps, and before the oracle
Of high-faned hills the poet has forgot
Such moisture on his cheeks. Thank God for grace,
Ye who weep only ! If, as some have done,
Ye grope tear-blinded in a desert place

And touch but tombs,--look up I those tears will run
Soon in long rivers down the lifted face,
And leave the vision clear for stars and sun

Summer in Sydney- cool cats, hot dates!

 

Well, summer holidays on the Australian Riviera offer endless twists and surprises- and I'll be up all weekend blogging if I had to list them all, but as one friend said: "You should be on the payroll of Sydney Tourism"! This city offers so much....and we didn't even do a fiftieth of what is on offer!

It started with my 45th Birthday, the mystery roses, the weekend party in the country, the first swim in the Murrimbidgee, visits to the capital city, the Science Exploratorium and the Telstra Tower.

There was the wonderful Carols by Candlelight on Balmoral beach -a gentle stroll from home- a first for me and a breathtaking night it was too.

Other fantastic memories are cloudless night skies filled by a fabulous rising orange, then later big full silver moon dancing her moonbeams right off the bay and into my home and my heart! Closer to magic and amazement and wonder you cannot experience- its positively metaphysical.

There were passenger cruise ships - bedecked in fairy lights glistening like diamonds, simulating a brightly-lit floating wedding cake - slipping through the Heads at midnight as I sat quietly in the dark contemplating life and love, enjoying the night breeze.

Contrast this with the dramatic and glorious start of 78 spinnakers billowing at the start of the Sydney-Hobart yacht race, shared with a group of friends on my terrace on Boxing Day while cooking on that infamous BBQ!

Then the launch party at the trendy OTT Slide Bar (official festival bar for Sydney Mardi Gras) in Darlinghurst of the first rock concerts webcast to hundreds of thousands in internet land. There was also the first Oscars night for NiceShorts- at the Paddington Chauvel, and winning a bottle of rare single malt Scotch whisky in the lucky ticket draw!

Maintaining the gaiety, the stage production of Australia's very own home-grown musical about the misadventures of a colourful gaggle of drag queens in the Outback - the hilarious and over-the-top Priscilla, Queen of the Desert! was a real treat and masterfully executed!

Of culinary note, there were the dinners with the charming Frenchmen at the Watermark guzzling down exquisite fresh saltwater barramundi with Louis Roederer, and the discovery of new culinary gems-Alchemy (French) and Il Perugino (Italian, in fact Umbrian to be precise)with other friends- all of them in the neighbourhood, creative and atmospheric. Reminiscent of fine European traditions more commonly found in Melbourne! ah....love, love, love it!

There was nippers, kayaking and windsurfing and skiffs at Middle Harbour and Balmoral Sailing Club....blisters, sore arms and a bit of sunburn too! There was a dusk-walk to Clifton Gardens and that picnic with quail's eggs and an "oyster and champagne tasting competition" wearing blindfolds!

And how can I not mention the cricket and that final day at the Sydney Cricket Ground? But the BEST thing about the cricket was England's Barmy Army- what a wonderful spirited and well-mannered crowd of supporters and ambassadors for their island home! They lit up the whole city- thank you guys!

We also did the beach marathon...7 beaches in 7 days from Palm Beach to Cronulla...kids voted Bondi best- think that lunch at Icebergs had a lot to do with it as well as the festive crowds from all over the world...we counted 15 languages just in the 30 m2 around where we sat! Pity the storms at sea stirred up the cold water because swimming in 16 degrees was a SIGNIFICANT challenge. But here's an urban myth that really made me laugh...common wisdom proclaimed that the cold water was the result of the ice-shelf in Antarctica breaking off!

One of the best things about summer is the Sydney Festival with its exotic, innovative and breathtaking artists and experiences....the Jazz in the Park, Symphony in the Domain, and open air theatre at Custom's House and Hyde Park. All the more impressive because of the amazing spirit of Sydney's festival crowds.

Another highlight was the workshop at the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Paddy Bedford exhibition- an Aboriginal Artist who was a stockman and cattle musterer in the Kimberleys all his life and took up painting his life stories only at the age of 80!!! He is one of the artists commissioned by the new Musée du Quai Branly in Paris which profiles art from the New World. (Do click on the link provided through his name- its well worth the read!)

And the contrast of a rapid 54 degree Celsius temperature shift as we crossed from 39degree temperatures on the Opera House Forecourt to the -15 inside the Ice Bar (Minus5experience). Don't worry, only da mamee consumed the anti-freeze, the cubs stuck to mocktails which would explain why they nearly turned into popsicles! They had better practice for the skiing holiday in Aspen in March!

Oh gosh...and the Moonlight Cinema in the Botanical Gardens which I prefer to the one at North Sydney Oval, though the summer noodle markets there are a heap of fun!

Coming up towards the end of January, there was my 2nd Burns night supper, and the much-lauded "Toast to the laddies" by yours truly who can't do the accent, have never been to Scotland and can't stomach (scuse the pun!)the haggis, tatties and neeps, but the whisky-tasting and dashing Scotties in kilts showing off great legs provided a wonderful alternative feast. (Sexiest guys in the world- next to those smouldering Chilean tennis players!)

The school holidays sort of end officially with a very special Birthday Party- Australia Day! Its an all-day water-borne party with every man and his boat taking to the water dressed with flags, streamers, balloons, boxing kangaroos, and this year-a few "Priscillas", one of which won the best dressed vessel in the parade past the Jackson Landing Jazz on the water concert. After a long day in the sun, we decided we could forego another spectacular pyrotechnics and fireworks finale at Darling Harbour seeing we are hitting the road early tomorrow to return Cub1 to boarding school.

But not before we have a few more adventures! A farmstay in the Barrington Tops riding horses with a Captain Thunderbolt-type character- a storyteller like you have never come across in your life and in itself worth the drive! Then onwards to the final day of the 35th Tamworth Country and Western Music Festival-yeehaa cowboys!

Monday we check Cub1 back in for further educational enrichment (which means financial impoverishment for mum!) at her boarding school for Year 7 studies.

That will signal the end of a wonderful summer that was never very hot and most of the time unusually and pleasantly cool.

What made all of this so special? The kids did....they are at the age where they are becoming intellectually and emotionally aware....of course same goes for the physical changes to their bodies...and exposing them to a variety of new experiences on a constant basis is my innovation mantra! Laugh....I think it already shows in their school work, vocabularly, maturity and creativity.

Long live curiosity and the human fun button! Anytime you need fun, just dial me!

Leopardess.....by cub

 

How can any bought gift for my birthday compare to this work of self-expression by cub1? I think she's simply wonderful! And what is more...the older she gets, the more I like her...you always love your kids but you don't always like them...its a good feeling when the two co-incide!

The summer of my content

Sorry visiting Pommie cricket fans - to add insult to injury, the Ozzies are thrashing you even under English weather conditions! But thanks...misty, rainy, dreary days are what we call a MIRACLE in this dry brown land - a HUGE treat!

All the more so if you are on holidays and can actually stay indoors, watch the fat billowing fluffy purple clouds roll in over the ocean and then pelt the windows in a long-forgotten yet heavenly whooshing sound.

Even though its the 2nd January (and freshly-made New Year's Resolutions still ringing in ears!) it was evident when my 6am alarm beeped me from deep dreams that this was NOT a good day for trimming and training but a GREAT day for snuggling back under the covers followed by late brunch of Dutch pancakes and French toast - NOT the planned post-festive carbohydrate and bubbly purge!

This is also the summer where my bikini body went awol AGAIN! thanks to a penchant for French champagne and a delightful stream of suitors who seem to think the only way to woo a woman is through fine dining!

But its been a very important summer nonetheless! My daughters on the other hand have discovered bikinis, boobies and a much greater awareness of themselves and the world, and walking that journey of discovery with them is delivering two interesting friends to philosophise and laugh with. Hallelujah - finally the rewards of motherhood!

As their alternative rock blasts across the Balmoral slopes while I'm still scrambling the breakfast eggs, I wiggle my hips too and cart home canvasses and paint for the expression of self and new insights into the universe and try not to nag too much about the mess.

I have also realised that sending your daughter to a posh and expensive Anglican girls school at age 12 is educating her in ways much broader than you had ever imagined it would. Broadminded and liberal as I am about discussing sexual issues in an open and factual way with my girls, I was hardly expecting to be asked the why's and wherefores of losing my virginity! But there you go! How stimulating life is with little people as they morph into big people!

Yes, sex, drugs and rock'n roll is still as much part of teenage life as it ever was-although it feels like even more so thanks to ubiquitous technology and the omni-present media.

In my opinion, this calls more than ever before for open and truthful communication between kids and us as their solid pillars of trust, integrity and respect in a world where it must seem to them that "anything goes".

John Steinbeck wrote "The winter of our discontent" to focus on the moral and civil decay of the 60's. As did Shakespeare in 1653??? in Richard 111. One wonders if any of this is new? My intuition says its not-its just better publicised.

But it does worry me when children grow up with leaders who justify wars and other actions based on blatant lies, when good men (voters) do nothing about it as long as the economy keeps running hot, - so evil thrives!

And I realise that from this summer on, I would love to spend much more time talking with these little big people about the BIG issues while enjoying lots of little things and laughs too!

Hmm....contentment at home with kids...now that's a new era!

what matters most...

 

Its the Christmas morning service at St Clements of Mosman. About $10 million of German luxury on wheels sit in the carpark outside as inside we pray for world peace and, alongside Bill Gates and Bono, an end to poverty. Then we chuck a $50 note in the collection plate seeing its Christmas and we won't be here again till next year this time.

My thoughts go to toddlers and grown-up kids in countless malls lining up to whisper a wish into a "make-believe" Santa's ear as the moment gets frozen digitally and e-mailed to relatives continents apart...

...and my thoughts drift to the words of the Janis Joplin song "Mercedes Benz" , and I wonder....what indeed could we possibly wish for? We have so much, such abundance, so much material wealth...what could possibly bring happiness beyond the Mercedes Benz, the Porsche?

But then God/the Cosmic Brain/ Mother Nature/Allah/Santa or whatever people want to believe in...delivers....

He/She delivers what matters most in this dry brown parched land.

Not diamonds or pearls, no Prada or Tiffany, not iconic electronic toys or luxury goods, not Italian or German automobiles...but that what matters most...

...that which is the quest of scientists, geologists and cosmologists alike...the very life source...thundering, loud, splashing, soaking, drenching, luxurious, miraculous little drops of water falling from the heavens like angels of salvation...the one thing we cannot manufacture in Stuttgart or Silicon Valley, Guanzou or Bangalore...rain, glorious, cooling, life-giving rain...

...and I give thanks. I dance with joy, and to my wishlist for next year, I add:

"Dear Lord, please make the State Government build more dams, but this time...IN the catchment areas, please?"

Too few cooks in the kitchen....

Tonight, I cooked.

This statement would not have raised any eyebrows or been remotely a subject worth contemplating even 15 years ago. A woman, especially a mother, cooks!

Its just that I haven't cooked in some 6 weeks. Life is altered. A woman's existence redefined.

Time for browsing through markets, carefully smelling, probing, testing fresh produce to select the ripest, sweetest, firmest...a chit-chat with the butcher or fishmonger to select the best cut for dinner, and then home to lovingly prepare it with snips of fresh herbs, gentle simmer, slow roast etc...table set for dinner as the dessert bakes, family all arriving home from playing with neighbour's kids, husband and breadwinner arriving with the evening paper and stories of the latest deal signed, and cheeky children falling asleep from all the bike riding and tree climbing that they got up to after they finished their homework.

That's the world I was raised for.

The world I inherited lost the plot and instead, Mummy is breadwinner and cook, arrives late from board meeting at office to daycare to pick-up child from sanitised indoor "Occ healthed-and-safed,risk-averse" cage behind locked doors, kids not tired at all but hyped and hungry and wanting to eat NOW because the high-carb preservative-rich white bread with processed cheese spread or cheap margarine and strawberry jam served for afternoon tea did not dull the boredom of playstation or the same DVD for the 9th time.

So, forget going home, because last night, while you were finalising a whole year in advance's strategic plan for an 8am this morning deadline, you definitely weren't thinking about tonight's dinner preparation needs and consequently the piece of fish you bought to boost the omega 6 oils on the menu is still happily lying deepfrozen in the freezer and you know the asparagus have gone limp and the basil all slushy and slime green, and the vegetable store was just pulling down the shut grill.

Variations on the theme above, interspersed with weekends where you really just want to NOT have to do anything for anyone other than sign a credit card slip, is kind of how things went for 6 weeks leading up to and post a crazy busy overseas trip, with mercifully, someone else cooked and washed for your future genetic hope at boarding school.

So...meandering through the grocery store aisles today as if its some new discovery tunnel and actually deciding what to cook with all the yummy fresh things was actually like entertainment. I can recommend it!

Beaver tails (tales?????)

 

Friends, can you help please? I am looking for a native or near-native from the Colorado Rockies...I want to explore family holiday options around Beaver Creek and Vail for Easter (5-10 April 07) next year. Have booked airfares for moi and kiddiewinx to go snow-ball fighting, but internet research is no good if you don't know the "lie of the land". I am initially attending a conference in Aspen (its part of me investing in my own loooooooooong-term future as a independent consultant/ speaker/ author) and then want to travel by car to Beaver Creek or Vail or Arapahoe Basin where the snowboarding facilities are better.

All advice gratefully and gracefully accepted! 

Canada photo album:click on top page to open album

Canada

Skippy goes Froggy

Some piccies on tabblo...click heading or this link and cross fingers it works
http://www.tabblo.com/studio/stories/view/134465/

SURVIVOR a la Parisienne

I have invented a new "game" ...its called SURVIVOR! the location? Paris!!!

So...the clue above would suggest that I am NOT in Hong Kong now as I should have been....instead, I am stranded penniless and identityless but at least not humourless in the world's most beautiful and expensive city...also home to the most sophisticated pickpockets! In this case, they work the Paris 5 star hotels...everything from the George V to the Meridien Etoile where I am at (much lower on the food chain at 195 Euros a night vs George V at 865 Euros a night!)

Yes, if I was in the little Jean Paul Gaultier boutique hotel that I wanted to book into for its superior charm and style instead of this characterless chain that the corporate travel agency insisted was company policy, I would not have been a target!

c'est la vie! Suffice to say....after I packed all my gear, left my luggage with concierge, bought a ticket for the airport transfer bus, I went to have breakfast. It happened between the concierge desk and the breakfast room- for which access is controlled by a maitre'd- or in the 15 mins while I was having breakfast. My wallet and passport wallet was lifted out of my handbag! I discovered it as I exited the breakfast room to retrieve my just-purchased ticket to head for Charles de Gaulle airport to fly to Hong Kong for my speaking engagement at the university!

Well....you know that sinking feeling..................?

I instinctively KNEW I had been robbed. Funny thing is...the same thing happened to me 25 years ago in the American Bar in Paris....luckily that time my passport was not taken and I was a poor backpacker so a string of credit cards was not a headache.

I wont bore you with the tedium of what ensued....but I still have a throbbing headache almost 24 hours later as a consequence of the stress!

Luckily my company has insured me but dealing with global organisations like Visa and AMEX aint as global or 24x7 as the advertisements say. There is NO EXPRESS in American Express!I would love to place their Marketing Manager in this position and strip him of all his contact numbers and see how he or she manages! It has been a diabolical experience, but Visa is way ahead of Amex in the efficiency stakes I am hoping that by tomorrow I can get emergency cash and a replacement credit card, and then I will be camped out at Australian Embassy who says they no longer provide temporary travel documents, I have to wait for a full passport replacement- 48-72 hours.

So...what is a hungry and penniless nameless vagrant to do today but enjoy the free fresh air and scenic beauty of the nearby Bois de Bologne Park and indulge in my favourite past-time....a picnic on the grass among the lillies and swans, dressed in a fur coat, feasting on the exquisite handcrafted Belgian chocolates I had purchased as gifts in Ghent and a bottle of vintage Bollinger that I bought as a gift for my host-to-be in Hong Kong! Ah...the torture!

Yes, some music would be nice...maybe I will hear some if I am open to it...maybe even enjoy a slow waltz?

Last night, wandering a bit aimlessly trying to find a taxi in the non-tourist part of the city after going to the Police Station which is MILES from my hotel, I stumbled upon a tiny pedestrian lane in a non-descript residential area of Paris teeming with locals shopping at delicatessens, Boucheries full of local delicacies like dressed and feathered pheasants, ducks, and other feathery flesh, rabbits (lapin) in various stages of "undress", and even wild boar hams still covered in the hairy black skin, and...to top it all, the release of the 2006 Beaujolais with wine tastings everywhere, a fromagerie or 6, several exquisite patisseries and boulangeries selling pastries and bread too picture perfect to eat....and a juggler and Little Sparrow-like waif playing the accordion and singing the melancholy Jacques Brel songs made so famous by Edith Piaf.

Yes, I fell into a picture, plonked myself down by a little table, splashed out 6 Euros on a glass of new season Beaujolais, a baguette, some fromage and foie gras (with some emergency cash the hotel manager advanced me to pay the taxi fare to go to the police station!)....and then walked the 4 kms back to the hotel instead!

La Belle Epoque-click on photo to go to online album

Picture-purrrrrfect Brussels

I've fallen in love!

I have landed in a little spot of preserved old-style unglobalised pure Europe like a long-lost story!

My hotel is a candle-light and Christmas-junkie fairytale....romantic and cosy beyond my wildest expectations.

Roaring fires everywhere, fat white candles emitting a soft golden glow over rich plush upholstered furnishings, lit Christmas trees and tasteful decorations framing corners of the bar and fireplace. Tealights dancing around brilliant red pointsettias on the gleaming black grand piano.

Then out to dine on the famous Moules mit friten (mussels steamed in aromatic broth with hand-cut chips and lots of beer) at Chez Leon in the Grand Place-its picture-perfect row upon row of traditional cafes on cobbled streets.

One can only say thank God that Belgium is not the rockstar of Europe...it has escaped with its soul intact! I shall return to Brussels for sure-long may this city remain au naturale!

Boston: The brightest city?

Click on the title and it should...hopefully...take you to my Boston pics....ghhhrrr.....getting annoyed with technology here...Google has changed its software and what was easy before to publish directly on the blog aint so no more!

http://www.tabblo.com/studio/stories/view/134014/

lost in a great big Christmas cake!

That's just what northern Canada looks like-a giant Christmas cake, thick icing sugar dripping off cutesie log homes with little chimneys puffing real smoke, row upon row sugar- dusted pine trees, wild elk grazing on bits of green not yet frosted to a crisp and the frozen lakes a bit like the mirror on the cake-you expect to hear a Ho-ho-ho from a jolly old fat guy and the jingling of bells any minute!

As a kid, I loved the figurines on the Christmas cake even though it seems de rigeur for all kids to say-Yuk! I don't eat "brown cake full of dead flies" and only ever ate the thick white "snow" though insisted on having a Christmas cake every year and now I even bake and ice it myself in an exercise that brings me great joy! .
Yet, history repeats itself with my kids having the exact same relationship with both the decor and the guts of a Christmas cake! Cub2's first sighting of snow in France at age 6 was accompanied by a tasting test to see it was sweet like icing!

I digress-yes, I missed the turn-off to Lake Louise after finishing my business in Banff and ended up on an amazing little adventure that gave me a deeper appreciation of the vast Canadian wilderness than I had anticipated. Don't you just love life's little surprises?

Having driven along the main Trans Canada highway for miles without sighting any signposts, signs of human activity or the elusive Lake Louise (it was snowing so be gentle!), and finding myself agog at the size and magnificence of the mountains (baked Alaska's I'll call them!) I took a turn down a little dirt road to Lake Emerald. 6kms in, there it was. Quiet as the dawn of Earth, no humans or cars, just the soft swish of snowflakes falling and my totally inappropriate boots squish-squashing from being soaked in a puddle of icy water, I had my first face-to-face encounter with a real live wild beaver!

Unfortunately, the little devil refused to surface again by the time I squish-squashed back through the same icy puddle to retrieve the camera from the car, but I did get a photo of its log nest. (Perhaps there is a lost Beaver in Scotland which would account for the strange goings on at Loch Ness? Same deal, different accent?)

I did find Lake Louise in the end, had a glass of Moet Chandon and a wee lunch at the Chateau, but saw none of the brilliant blue for which its known due to cloud and snow. But a magical day nonetheless!

Creatures of Habit

Quote spotted in advertisement carried by The Star-Telegram, a major Texas newspaper which I read as we took off from Dallas to Boston: "We are what we repeatedly do."-Socrates. (The newspaper was just AWFUL-not a shred of international news and coverage of US election results mostly in terms of Texas-the home of GeorgeW, so not a mention of voter backlash and Democrat gains!)

But let me not judge an entire nation on the lack of depth and perspective of one newspaper because we know the likes of The Washington Post, NY Times and Wall St Journal are not in the same category.

Back to how our actions, repeated many times, become habits, then become hard-wired in our muscle memory and even at cellular level through neural pictates (spelling????) in the cell structure.

I admit, as an analytical thinker, I was a bit dubious about all this cellular intelligence stuff, but at a non-rational level I chose to keep an open mind about it, especially in taking an Eastern philosophical approach to life.

But.....I have now had a powerful Eureka! moment and have become a true believer in the powerful way our habits are hard-wired into our bodies. It came through a simple and common pattern-breaker: having to drive on the"wrong" side of the road.

Absolutely everything is reversed, and there are so many actions in driving that are simply repetitive habit that dictate to your body and all of a sudden, your muscles are on auto-pilot and if your brain doesn't take control back and actively "think" and problem-solve, you are going to be indeep doodoo up the wrong side of Santa Monica Boulevard in peak traffic!

But sure, those are the big issues and your brain is on alert for them, so surprise surprise!-you hire a car and discover an entire city/region you have no prior knowledge of in the course of a day, without calling 911 or waking up in a hospital emergency room!

3 factorso are at play here:
1. Courage (otherwise known as chutzpah or stupidity, based on where your own comfort zone sits, and
2.Intuition-listening to the inner compass, and
3. Acute observationskills-taking in clues that you don't even know are clues until your intuition deliberately accesses them in your brain's random access memory in a moment of panic!

This is a long-winded self-congratulatory back-slapping story because I was astounded at how my "comfort zone" was threatened at the thought of walking out of the LA + Calgary Airports at 1 am in the morning, hopping into a car without any orientation of the city/province and only rudimentary tourist maps, no passenger to help navigate (maybe that was a good thing because Mars/Venus tells us that a man can't ask for directions) and armed with only a determination to see and do as much as I could in limited time and an attitude of allowing myself to fail, have an adventure and a giggle, smile brilliantly if I upset the locals and ....well, just doing it!

The more I succeeded, the more my confidence grew and the bolder I became.Driving sans map into the CBD of Calgary for a frantic one-hour shop yesterday at 5pm (and finding parking!) when all of Calgary was pouring onto its congested streets heading home, is a personal best. LA wasn't so bad because it was Saturday and Californians at the beach are meant to be a little laid back, and Rome to Venice by car 20 years ago doesn't count because my sister was navigating although central Rome through the Via Veneto is worth a black belt!

No, its not the big things that tripped my brain-its the little things. Where cerebral process is bypassed and hardwired into a habit, that sparked most of myEureka minute. How my body consistently walked to the wrong side of the car where the steering wheel was meant to be, and how even in walking on thestreets and in airport terminals crowded with purposeful walkers, my body automatically steered left, much to the consternation of the Americans who must have thought me a stubborn upstream salmon!
Vive la difference!
The purpose of this business trip is about deepening my knowledge base and expertise around Innovation in organisations- and my first profound insight comes from a bodily not a cerebral process. The lesson I take from this is that just like we navigate traffic with eyes wide shut when we are in familiar territory, we operate on auto-pilot at work when executing our routine day-to-day roles and our powers of observation and thinking devolve to a muscular and cellular level where we are unable to "see" what is clear as daylight to a fresh pair of eyes.

In order to get a "fresh" pair of eyes, we have to pattern-interrupt: Swop tasks, swop roles, or if too hard, invent a different way at least once a week of performing a routine task because we will bypass the brain AND the senses if we don't- and there's no way we will get fresh ideas for innovation that way!

The Smell of Canada

Well, Ms Mav's mojo has bounced back and the bastard who smashed it is no longer a factor.

Now, where were we? Oh, let's just start with now and forget about chronological correctness. We are in Canada. The Oak Room of the Palliser Fairmont Hotel in Calgary to be precise and yes, unlike in the US, this Blackberry technology is working so I can update this blog in real time! Seeing the Blackberry is a Canadian innovation, its the very least one expects!

After a stupendous 44 hour day of travelling and exquisite experiences on a 14hour transit in LA yesterday (more about that in another Blog), I was finally able to lie horisontally in a bed ( a heavenly one too!) at about 2am Calgary time.

I woke 8 hours later, quite capable of sleeping another 8, but there are things to be achieved, experiences to be had and life to be lived. As I stumbled into the lift, it pierced my conscious awareness, my Epicurean being, into instant recognition: the smell of Canada!

Yes, right up to the 11th floor wafted the smell of freshly cooked waffles and maple syrup. Unmistakably! My descent was rewarded with confirmation. In the magnificent palatial reception rooms I found a stupendous set-up...a breakfast/brunch voted as best in Canada 5 years in a row.

Well folks, they sure know how to do brunch in GRANDE style....I have never seen anything like it! Everything from fresh fruit and yoghurt, anything you could imagine under the theme of an English breakfast, to pancakes, waffles, a complete Sunday roast lunch, an an entire three tables devoted to desserts!

Much as those waffles winked at me and nudged....I decided I couldnt possibly do that and the beef...but it looked soooooooooo good and was assured by the waiter that "if you've never tasted Alberta Beef, you ain't tasted beef"...so he promptly cut off this 1 inch slab and buried my plate under it.

That was it...I am now an advocate for Alberta Beef....never tasted ANYTHING like that....sorry South africa, sorry Australia, sorry Texas...in my book, Alberta is king...for now...until I go to Argentina and give their beef a whirl.

I couldn't eat that huge slab of meat, but what I ate left no room for anything else....and I wasn't about to tackle the long road to Banff feeling droopy and sleepy from an enormous meal!

Whilst driving to Banff, I stopped by the roadside for a leg stretch...and was joined by a Rocky Mountain cowboy who was very proud to hear of the impression his native land's beef had made, so he told me where to go in Banff for a good steak...the Salt Lick.

So, I ate like a bird next day whilst visiting at the Banff Centre for Leadership and Monday night I went to The Salt Lick...expecting a steakhouse but instead finding a fantastically sophisticated, very trendy restaurant and yip...the best darn steak EVER!

It was so nice to look at different menus and innovative items....I must admit its been a looong time since any Sydney menu wowed me with anything new....(I hope you are reading this Luke Mangan and Bill Granger)

Taste and smell, as well as visual appeal are such important senses....and particularly smell goes directly to the right brain...its highly associative and connected to memory....its so important when designing menus, restaurants and other experiences where we want positive mental connections, to involve the senses!

Thanks Canada...the smell of a freshly grilled piece of Alberta beef has been filed alongside the maple syrup and waffles....and will live in my memory till I die.

One day in L.A

One day in LA

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Gathering of the goddesses

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