When I first started reading ebooks (on a Palm something) my husband tracked down a fan transcribed copy of Son of interflux. Ah the more innocent ebook days. I need to see if we still have that file.

I am going in three weeks and my carefully planned days have just been upended- I will break my longstanding avoidance of roppongi for this.

There was a very interesting Australian(I think) doco on vaccinations a few years ago. They interviewed the American who is responsible for the US now using the Salk vaccine (the one with dead virus) and it was fascinating. He has half an immune system, got the Sabin vaccine and contracted polio. His doctors didn’t…

Seriously? The country I live in has fewer than 100 domestic adoptions a year and it is almost illegal to adopt overseas. And this is in large part due to some very bad adoption activities in the past, so there is good reason. the reality is that every adoption represents a broken family in some way- adopted kids do…

Oh absolutely. Parasitic worm vs the urine of menopausal Italian nuns.(substance derived from urine actually forms the basis of a fertility hormone used for IVF) Worm wins.

Clearly anyone who feels an affinity for the word must be related (there are so few !) 😉

So true! I have largely avoided the responsibility for the in law communication- because I had spent 30 years not worrying about it, and also because I grew up on a different continent to my extended family- so I never saw my mother doing it. I sometimes feel like there is an expectation, but the most I do is remind…

Not really- most people would have had a very limited amount of outer clothes- suits, dresses etc. it’s why underwear covered more of the body and protective aprons were worn- to keep that single suit clean through the week. Proportionally, clothes used to cost a much bigger percentage of wages than now, not less

So true! At the end of a nice dinner or lunch out I just want what the Italians call a macchiato. A short black with a tiny bit of milk. But I am so reluctant to order a macchiato because I never know which coffee dictionary the barista has been trained on. I am not helped in this by three years in Japan where…

Oh wow. I foolishly chose that option on my first miscarriage and caved after nothing for a couple of weeks. I ended up with misoprostol (clinical trial and a catholic hospital).

A Japanese influence? It’s soya in Japan (my Japanese lessons there ended up becoming cooking class over time, so I learned useful food vocab only and was unable to name basic body parts (which turned out to be what the main Japanese teacher at city hall wanted me to know ).

No- miraculously when dads are taking mandated parental leave employers miraculously recognise that this is an important work life balance thing and the career hit for both partners disappears. Funny that, when it is a problem for the male half of the population it is addressed.

Oh this! I had a client once (when I was the liaison person and the contact centre had reported no complaints for the week prior) tell me that if the contact centre and I were telling him there were no complaints then someone was lying. He was (kind of) right. The contact centre thought they would have to fix anything…

They also sound like my tension headaches. I find a heat pack on my neck and heat helps. What really takes them away though is acupuncture. I am not an alternative therapies kind,of person, but acupuncture has actually helped significantly.

Definitely an individual tolerance thing on effectiveness. I spent my childhood thinking that headache pills were a fraud, because we only had paracetamol in the house (my mother is allergic to aspirin, which means that ibuprofen is also to be avoided) and paracetamol does nothing for me. And then I had…

Oh the macchiato! I like a short black with just a little milk after dinner. Here in Australia people are fine with that - I get a few odd looks, but I get it. I ordered that in the U.S. And got a very condescending look”do you mean a macchiato?” Well yes (although I prefer a tiny bit more milk) but the last time I…

People have different touch points when retelling stories. My family tends not use names when telling a story about someone that our listener doesn’t know, which drives my husband nuts. So, as a sort of reflex defense, I know I now pause and add a name (and gender) if not clear when telling a story to my husband. I…

Your family needs to visit Australia! They mangle all the Mexican food names (and others). My family lived in New Mexico for a few years, so pretty confident on the pronunciations and fairly used to eating the food. My sister once spent about 10 minutes educating a table of friends on the correct pronunciations of the…

I live in Australia. One thing to remember- 4 weeks paid vacation is the norm/base. If you stay in a job you get long service leave as well. The other reason Aussies leave- it’s expensive to travel In Australia, if you are smart it’s cheaper to go overseas. To be fair, we do have an inbuilt retirement saving…

Already there. The problem is that the forms can’t cover all eventualities.