It’s all aboot the accent, eh?

It’s no fun being an American living in a foreign land.

Especially when you’re actually a Canadian.

There are a lot of things we enjoy about living in New Zealand:

— best ice cream in the world

— best wine in the world

— the price you see is the price you pay, taxes in, so no having to do GST/PST percentage math in your head

— a driver’s licence that’s good for 10 years, or about 15 different hairstyles

— the world’s last lode of O’Ryans potato chips

— no need for a military budget except to help with UN duties

— no nuclear anything

— no poisonous anything

— feijoas in the backyard.

But there is one thing we still struggle with: Kiwis hear our accent and automatically think we’re from the U.S.

OK, I will admit we got that a lot more during the three years we lived in Gisborne. People in Napier, being somewhat less isolated and therefore a bit more worldly, have actually pinned down our Canuckness on the majority of occasions.

We understand it’s simply a case of not being familiar with the North American accents and not a plot to insult us. Still, Viking Woman has developed her own cheeky response. Now, when someone asks which part of America we’re from, she asks them which part of Australia they’re from. Ouch! You can see the Kiwis flinch and then nod. Touche.

They understand Canadians don’t appreciate being mistaken for arrogant, ignorant pricks who will bomb women and children for a barrel of oil. As opposed to, say, toothless gorms using hockey sticks to protect their igloos from ravenous polar bears.

As further proof that the South Pacific is a million miles away, I once saw a wall map in the Cook Islands that had Canada and the U.S. displayed in the same shade of red with no discernible 49th parallel. The words “North America” were printed across the entire continent. A mistake or a warning or a prophecy? Time will tell.

If Kiwis do pick up on our Canadian citizenship, it’s usually after they hear us say “about.” Because, much to our dismay and annoyance, to the ears of everyone else on the entire planet it apparently sounds like “aboot.”

Which makes me cluck in disgust. “Listen to me,” I say, and then carefully pronounce “about” as we do: “abowt.”

“Abowt. Aboot.”

“Ow. Oo.” 

“Hear the difference?”

They waggle their heads: no.

Of course, these are the same Kiwis who can’t discern their own regional accents. Never mind that our Canadian ears hear “six” for “sex” or “shit” for “shed,” on the west coast of the North Island, the residents tend to add an “o” sound before an “i.” So “life” comes out as “loife.”

If Kiwis can’t distinguish that difference in their own backyard, then we can hardly expect them to understand us. The strange part is no one here ever comments on how we must also pronounce “shout” as “shoot.” (These are the same people, by the way, who add a “w” and several “o’s” to “no,” resulting in something akin to “nowooooo.”)

Which leads me to believe the world is having us on. That the whole “aboot” thing is just a way to wind up Canadians whenever we get a bit too uppity. Sort of the Great White North’s version of “the dingo ate my baby.”

But, just as there was a real Lindsay Chamberlain and there are dingoes in Australia, so there must be at least a faint grain of truth in the whole “aboot” issue. 

Somewhere in Canada, someone actually has an accent that has resulted in the rest of us being subjected to international ridicule.

Tell you what I’m going to do. If you’re out on one of those fishing boats off the foggy coast of Newfoundland and really don’t know how to pronounce “ow,” please pass along your mailing details and I will post you a ticket to New Zealand.

I will even meet you at the Napier airport.

After which I will kick your ever-loving, aboot-speaking arse all the way back across the Pacific.

Then, again, maybe I’m just overreacting. Maybe I should just stop pooting and get on with loife. More ice cream, anyone?

Yo, ladies, check out the size of this noisemaker.

I can hear winter approaching.

Yes, it’s still February in New Zealand (the equivalent of August in North America) and it’s 29 degrees and sunny in Napier.

But I know the cold weather is on its way.

The cicadas told me.

According to Wikipedia, “38 species from five genera populate New Zealand.” According to what I’m hearing, all 38 species have taken up residence in my back yard. Wikipedia goes on to explain how male cicadas have “loud noisemakers called tymbals on the side of the abdominal base” (note that they do not make any noise with their mouth parts, which are enclosed in a sheath called a labium).

Cicadas can modulate their singing by humping the tree branch they’re sitting on or, conversely, by simply turning up the bass on their car stereos as they cruise through town. Both methods, apparently, cause the female of the species to lose their inhibitions and spread their wings.

Our yard is a cicada cacophony, at times so loud I can barely hear the lesbians next door playing their Fleetwood Mac CDs. The males are “singing” their squishy little guts out now because, once the temperature turns frigid, so do the females. Also, because, shortly after mating season ends, the adult cicada dies. In other words, they come and go.

So this is indeed “busy time” for the noisy little bastards, made more interesting by the fact our yard is also home to several varieties of praying mantis, a natural predator of the cicada. Which brings a whole new meaning to the term “Bite me” being used as an invitation to foreplay.

Winter is coming because I’m also watching the firewood being delivered to our neighbours. I suspect I may soon have to dig out the Yellow Pages and look up Diminishing Natural Resources. I got off easy last year because our house’s former owner left a stack of wood in the shed and all I had to do was chop it .

Let’s get one thing straight: chopping is not my idea of fun. I do not do wilderness well. The outdoors is why they invented the indoors. My idea of roughing it is a hotel room without a fan in the bathroom. It’s being forced to drink Via Ready Brew.

Chopping wood is also a dangerous enterprise. Any time I swing something heavy and sharp near one of my extremities, it’s pretty much a call to the ambulance service waiting to happen. I hurt my hand chopping wood. Not oh-my-gawd-I-chopped-my-thumb-off hurt. But a painful injury nonetheless. Let’s just say I am no longer ambidextrous with the remote control.

Let’s just say I’m wondering why I’m living in a house heated only by a wood burner, a house where, in the middle of winter, it’s actually warmer outside.

Did they not have a building code when they hammered this place together in 1960? Did they not have building inspectors?

The answer on both counts is yes and the inspection process went something like this:

“Does this house have doors and windows?”

“Yes.”

“Do they close?”

“Yes.”

“Good enough. We’ll be dead before some wimpy Canadian buys it in 2008. Moving on.”

Maybe I should have been a cicada. They spend most of their lives underground where it’s warm and cozy and you hardly ever have to vacuum or do the dishes.

And then I could simply emerge in the glorious heat of the summer, bursting into song like a contestant on Insect Idol, tantalizing the ladies with the sheer magnitude of my tymbals.

I might not live long, but at  least I’d die with a smile on my labium.

If I can’t see the hair on my back, is it really there?

I’m hairy.

There, I said it. I’m also right-handed, a December baby and I’ve worn glasses since I was 10.

But mostly I’m just hairy.

Not Robin-Williams-bear-pelt hairy, mind you. Not “Mom, is that a sasquatch in the cereal aisle?” hairy. Not is-there-a-full-moon-tonight? hairy.

More like I’m-a-real-man-and-wow!-am-I-virile hairy. And, yes, I do like the sound of that.

I don’t mind the hair. It’s not like I have to groom it or anything, and the occasional shower generally keeps the cooties at bay. The hair just showed up one day when I was 13, along with a deeper voice and a nasty smattering of acne and one of those all-day erections that can trigger both embarrassment and a deep sense of personal accomplishment.

For the most part, I don’t think about my body hair. It’s a part of my life now, a reminder — after the acne cleared up and the all-day erections went south — of a younger, innocent time. Of a younger, innocent me.

But if I don’t sit and ponder my body hair anymore, other people do. And by other people, I mean Viking Woman. Mostly when I’m in the shower and she decides it’s perfectly OK to use the toilet at the same time.

Viking Woman makes her living zapping hair with a laser and so she sits on her throne, eyes me up and down, and then is kind enough to offer her professional opinion.

“I can remove that,” she says.

“You’re talking about my body hair, right?”

“I can make you as sleek as a walrus,” she says.

“You mean a seal?”

“What?”

“You can make me as sleek as a seal.”

“Yeah, right. Keep dreaming, fat boy.”

“Will it hurt?” I ask, rinsing the shampoo from my eyes.

“No.”

“By ‘no’ do you mean, ‘you won’t feel a thing’? Or, ‘this will hurt you more than it will hurt me’? Or ‘I’m going to tell you it’s painless but, in reality, you’re going to scream like a 12-year-old girl’?”

“You might feel a slight burning sensation,” she says.

“Like a tree feels a slight burning sensation when it’s struck by lightning?” I ask.

“You’re being a baby.”

“But if it doesn’t hurt to grow the hair,” I say, “why would I want to endure pain just to get rid of it?”

“I could make you look like a porn star.”

“Which part?”

“The hairless part,” she says. “I’m a nurse, not a miracle worker.”

“Then forget it,” I say. “I’ll keep the hair.”

“Fine,” she says. “Do what you want.”

She gets up. And then she flushes.

And I end up screaming like a 12-year-old girl anyway.

Planet Man baffled by disappearing toilet paper. Pictures at 11.

Planet Man has been invaded by Venusians and it is not a pretty sight.

Viking Woman already resides here, of course, under that whole until-death/divorce/justified homicide-you-do-part clause. But two other members of the female persuasion have now joined us: a friend from my days at the Langley Times and Viking Woman’s niece.

Like all residents of Planet Man, I have learned, over many years of practice, to tune out The Wife. I nod my head when I deem it an appropriate action, and then grunt when I sense some sort of verbal response is required.  But I’m not really listening. Because I don’t really care. And by that I mean, because I’m a man.

That’s fairly easy to do unless, of course, the nod/grunt follows a question like “Are you having an affair?” or “Would you like a chainsaw enema?” Followed shortly thereafter by me standing there with the Stupid Man Look on my face, going “What?”

But I’m finding it a bit trickier to ignore three women. Not when one of them is sitting in my favourite chair. Not when one of them is using my favourite spoon. Not when one of them is occupying the library toilet and another is standing by the kitchen sink, leaving the flower garden as the only viable outlet. (On the plus side, I now know urine kills weeds. Also zucchini. Both are good things.)

Everyone on Planet Man knows women are aliens, beings who possess weirdly formatted bodies, who cover their faces in war paint and who vacillate between needing a hug and telling you to **** off.

They do not come with an instruction manual and yet somehow expect the inhabitants of Planet Man to know exactly why they think babies are so damn cute or why Extreme Makeover: Home Edition causes their eyes to leak.

A further difference between the planets was hammered home recently when one of the Venusians asked how much toilet paper I had in the house.

“I just bought 12 rolls,” I said.

She shook her head in disbelief. “That’s not going to last.”

“The month?”

“The weekend.”

I do not know what women do in the bathroom. In fact, I don’t think I ever want to know. Some things are meant to stay a secret forever: What happened to the Incans? Who would ever vote for Bush? Who would ever vote for Bush twice? Does the pope really shit in the woods?

And, how do women manage to go through so much toilet paper?

For the sake of my delicate constitution, I’m just going to imagine that they enjoy playing Revenge of the Mummy and wrap themselves in the stuff.

Sounds good to me.

As further proof of the differences between Venus and Planet Man, Viking Woman and I recently compared our list of future goals.

I Want To Do: Return to full-time employment. Pay off credit card bills. Get in shape.

Viking Woman Wants To Do: John Corbett.

I rest my case.

You can bitemymoko but please don’t steal it.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, what can you say about plagiarism? That it’s the sincerest form of laziness? Of larceny?

I can only remember someone “borrowing” my words once before, and that was in high school, when the fellow who copied my assignment proceeded to lend it to a third party, without my knowledge. When Mr. Third Party and I were the only ones busted, I could honestly plead ignorance. It turned out to be a good defence. Sometimes, it still is. Ranks just behind “Because I’m a man with needs” on Planet Man’s Ulitmate List of Good Excuses.

Because I’m an unemployed freelance writer, I often find myself idly trolling the Internet, hoping inspiration for my next novel will somehow pop off the screen and grab me by the throat. I was tag surfing on wordpress.com when I stumbled across a link to a website called Seo by the Sea (seobythesea.com), run by a fellow named Bill Slawski.

One of Bill’s pages is called Test Your Blog, and it’s here where you’ll find such entertainment as the ability to render your blogsite in greyscale (um, oooookay . . .), or translate it into Bulgarian or any number of fun languages. Or see whether China has banned your site for, you know, making fun eyes with Miley Cyrus.

The test that caught my eye was lucky number 13 — “Catch people who might be plagiarizing your words on the Web.”

Yeah, right. I’m a middle-aged Canadian living in New Zealand who writes about wine and yet doesn’t drink it. Who claims to live on Planet Man and yet worships a wife named “Viking Woman.” A self-proclaimed novelist who wrote one book in 2004 and has tried in vain to flog it ever since.

Like anyone would want to plagiarize my words. RAUCOUS LAUGH!

And yet  . . .

I clicked on the link.

And said hello to Carlos Chernij (its-never-too-early.blogspot.com).

Carlos likes, among other things, football and baseball and, judging by the teams he cheers for, lives in New England. He has several favorite movies, mostly comedies — “anything but not too sappy,” he notes with daring disregard for commas.

He also appreciates good writing.

OK, I’m just guessing about that last part, but it’s a guess based on the fact that, among Mr. Chernij’s blog postings is one called “The 2008 G-String has a particularly unique bouquet.”

It was, as noted at its conclusion, “Posted by Carlos Chernij” on Jan. 21, 2009, which is the exact date the post was written.

By me.

No attribution. No link to my blogsite. Just good, ole Carlos taking all the credit.

Now, as much as I’d love to be the next Dave Barry, my postings — while time-consuming and occasionally chuckle-inducing — are hardly gold. Which leaves me struggling to understand why Carlos would bother “borrowing” the post in the first place.

If you’re going to steal my words, for chrissakes, take Brown Girls. It’s a finished novel and one that has already earned kudos from readers. In fact, if someone did nick my book and publish it under their own name, I’d almost be chuffed. It would mean my work had someone slipped past the gatekeepers at Ivory Tower Publishing House and I could at least take some small consolation in that. For as long as it took to load my shotgun, that is.

The same day I discover my posting has been filched, I also comes across this note from frootbat31.wordpress.com:

Here are a few tips you should consider concerning blogs . . .: Do not post another writer’s work in your blog. Link instead. Some blog authors require a certain number of hits to their page in order to glean some income from their work. Cutting and pasting those words steals hits from them! There is also to consider the copyrights all writers have to their work, which includes email and web site. If its (sic) printed somewhere, its (sic) copyrighted. I also link with direct credit, to let readers know who is responsible for the article.

Sounds perfectly logical to me. But maybe there are too many multi-syllable words in that paragraph for Carlos to understand. After all, someone who doesn’t list the Bruins among his favourite New England teams can’t be all that bright.

Oh, and Carlos? You have my permission to steal this post. Yer welcome.

The only boob on Planet Man is me.

One of my wonderful, beautiful step-daughters, knowing how much I miss the Great White North, sent me a gift to remind me of home. No, it wasn’t a copy of The Hockey News — I should be so lucky — but, rather, a DVD entitled Girls Gone Wild: Canada.

I knew of this series, of course, but had never viewed any of its, um, parts. Depending on your opinion, its founder, Joe Francis is allegedly a) an asshole; b) a complete asshole; c) a pornographer; d) a hopeless idiot when it comes to math, especially the part where you’re supposed to subtract the current year from someone’s birth year and arrive at a number at least equal to the legal age; e) a tax evader; or, f) all of the above.

I had to watch the DVD, if only because one of the commandments in the Planet Man Handbook reads, “Thou can never see enough boobies in your lifetime.”

Plus, the whole Canada angle intrigued me. I needed to hear someone say “eh” and “hoser” and “aboot,” having resided too long in New Zealand and grown frustrated with people ending sentences with “sweet as.” Sweet as what, people!?! Finish your bloody thought, for chrissakes!

There was a time when I would have watched this DVD to the final second, chair drawn close to the TV, one finger poised over the Pause button, another over Rewind, eyes wide and staring, breathing hard and ragged through my mouth.

But not this time.

In fact, I only watched maybe 10 minutes before pressing Eject.

It’s not that I’d grown bored with 20-something sweeties displaying and caressing their perky bits. My new passport photo may look like something taken during an autopsy but my ticker is still turning over and pumping blood to all the right places.

No, the reason I hit Stop was a combination of embarrassment, despair and sadness. I actually felt bad for these girls, plied as they were with free booze, flashing dazed and confused smiles as they dutifully followed the instructions of an offscreen cameraman (Francis himself?) to shed their tops and, because they were invariably teamed up with a best friend, to nuzzle each other’s breasts.

For what? The free beer? Free T-shirts? A free hat? The opportunity to be “famous” via the DVD? Was money exhanged and, if so, how many pieces of silver buys one’s dignity these days?

I found myself raising my eyes from these ladies’ breasts to gaze instead at their faces. Realizing this was not simply meat with nipples, but real people, with feelings and aspirations and dreams and entire lives lying ahead of them.

They might have been too drunk to feel degraded, but I certainly wasn’t. I was stone-cold sober and left shaking my head at how stupid people can be. And realizing the name at the top of that Stupid List was my own for watching this crap.

Oh, Christ, I’m starting to sound like a puritan here and I assure you, Dear Reader, that is not the case. I enjoy living on Planet Man, where porn and sports and scratching and farting and muscle cars and caffeine addiction are part of the air we breathe. The day I do not want to look at a winsome young lass is the day six of my closest friends will be carrying me into a church.

But I’m tired of being a grotty-minded voyeur. I’m bored with watching professional copulators, with their exaggerated size and endurance.  They leave me feeling less of a man and serve only to deflate my self-esteem. Why the hell would I want that?

Face it, I will never be the next Johnny Wad. But I can be a better John Ireland.

And if that means throwing a gift DVD in the rubbish, so be it. If that means deleting youporn.com from my Internet Favorites, consider it done.

Maybe it’s a sign that I’m getting old. I prefer to think of it as an indication that I’m growing wiser.

My kids can’t have sex until after I’m dead. And other fun facts.

This is probably another embarrassing indication of how far out of the tech loop I really am, but I’ve only recently clued into a new “sharing” phenomenon where you are supposed to write a note containing 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about yourself.

Both my adult children have produced just such a list which, like any good parent, I read from behind spread fingers, wince reflex on Full Alert, lest some family (read: Dad) secret be revealed. My daughter’s list is on her Facebook site and so tucked away behind several layers of privacy. However, you can read my son’s random acts and facts at kolemanireland.com.

Their lists made for some interesting reading. My daughter’s regret at not having tried more hard drugs when she was younger made me sit up straighter. Uh, honey, sweetie, what — exactly — do you mean by “more”?

Several of my son’s entries have to do with urination. He’s an inhabitant of Planet Man — say no more.

I was pleased to see that no intimate relationship details were revealed. I’m going to assume that’s because there aren’t any, not after I made them promise years ago not to have sex until after I was dead. So far, it seems, so good. Mind you, I’m not sure how my son-in-law feels about this but he seems like a reasonable enough young man.

I’ll admit reading their lists did trigger thoughts of creating my own. Thoughts like: Do I dare? And, who the hell would want to read it?

On the slim chance I do decide to bare my soul, where does one start? And how do you cull it down to only 25 entries? If I wrote only one fact for each year I’ve been alive, I’d have . . . well, let’s just say there would be slightly more than 25.

Do you play it safe, like my daughter with her note about being unable to remember a single line from any movie she’s seen? But that wouldn’t be on my list because I do remember lines. OK, I remember three of them, and I’m not even sure they’re verbatim:

“How does Jesus look to you now, Bob?”

“Ignore the man behind the curtain.”

“I just filled the cup.”

Do you get personal with your list? And, if you do, is that comparable to offering to show someone your circumcision scar? While it may be awfully important to the list maker, there’s a good chance your readers’ first reaction will be to gag.

And how well-known should your random facts be? My friends and relatives (and the faithful reader of this blog) already know I’ve never had a drink of alcohol in my life, but strangers are often left shaking their heads in wonder at the news. Their second reaction? They ask if I’m Mormon. For the record: No.

I suppose I could include the tidbit about marrying the first woman I ever kissed. And that it took three weeks of dating before I worked up the courage to deliver said kiss. Except that might make me sound pathetic. Except my first wife might not want to be reminded she was once wed to that strange, hesitant fellow.

How deep do you dig for the list? And how much should you know beforehand about the statute of limitations?

You might be tempted to jazz up the list, just as you do with a resume, to make yourself appear dangerous, a flaunter of laws and mores. Of course, you might end up being treated like a pariah. Of course, you might end up in prison.

The more I pondered the questions, the more confused I became. In the end, I’ve decided to leave these sorts of tell-all, reveal-all fun-and-games to the youngsters. After all, if they’re anything like my wonderful offspring, their closets are relatively empty of skeletons, as opposed to the crypt-like storage units we baby boomers tend to lug around.

I will however leave you with one factoid: I was 22 before I got my driver’s licence. Which means, for the first two years of our marriage, my first wife did all the driving.

That’s a boring fact, you say? That’s all I got, sorry.

Well, that and this scar.