TGIF, obvs. And some Musk-lurve.

Shortly after I retreated into the Auntie Carrie batcave yesterday I was jolted out of my slump by the Elon Musk Mars transcript. Having given up on the Herald and Stuff about 5 months ago I now read the Washington Post and the NYT. The Post pops up the SpaceX piece. I have become totally enamoured with Mr Musk and the simple, 11-year-old way he announces his infinitely complicated ideas.

One snippet makes me giggle. “It will be quite fun to be on Mars, because you will have gravity which is about 37 percent that of Earth, so you will be able to lift heavy things and bound around and have a lot of fun.” I hoot quite noisily at this, reading it several times, once or twice out loud for DRAMATIC EFFECT.

The next bit really cheers me up: “I just want to give you a sense of what it would feel like to actually be in the spaceship. I mean, in order to make it appealing and increase that portion of the Venn diagram of people who actually want to go, it’s got to be really fun and exciting, and it can’t feel cramped or boring. But the crew compartment or the occupant compartment is set up so that you can do zero-G games, float around. It would be like movies, lecture halls, cabins, a restaurant. It will be, like, really fun to go. You are going to have a great time.”

You are going to have a great time!!! Aha ha ha ha ha ha! It is wonderful stuff. We’re not going to MARS, people. I mean, we just are NOT GOING TO MARS. But looking at it this way is endlessly entertaining. I make it my lifetime goal to have dinner with Elon Musk and ask him about the multiverse, whether he likes horses and to enquire politely if he is in the market for a third wife.

 

 

 

 

Mystery unsatisfaction

On paper, everything goes fantastically today: running, (back up to speed), lunch with a mayoral candidate, client meetings. I do my hair exactly right and in under my self-imposed time limit of 24 minutes, setting yet another Caroline Ritchie French-brush blow dry world speed record. I make calls, say all the right things, text everyone asking after their various ailments, not mentioning me once, and some of my shares even have a good day.

So what the hell IS wrong? Well, nothing is WRONG, of course. Life’s pretty sweet. But something is NAGGING at me. I drive home from town and ponder what it is.

Aha! Michelle in Wellington had shown me the LinkedIn profile of the head of an organisation she was seeing for a final interview. The reason she was asking me to look at it was because of its exceptional nature. And even though I shouldn’t, and even though I’ve given up the politics of envy, and even though we are not in the business of comparing ourselves to others, I scroll through anyway. The worst case of inferiority I have ever felt in my whole existence crashes over me. The richness of the career, the obvious relentless hard work it has taken, the endorsements DEAR HEAVENS the endorsements, the contacts, the boards, the trusts, the charitable organisations, the bolt-on startups in just the right diversity sphere of the moment, and the companies. My yawning inadequacy jumps up and smacks me in the head. This woman is only five years older than me. It confirms all my worst fears. I have wasted my life.

Drat.

I retire to bed at 7.02pm, to read a book about something completely different to take my mind off it, and to contemplate the future.

 

 

Wellington proper report.

YESTERDAY

Alice

“Getting there” driving trips are so exciting. I stuff myself full of caffeine and they follow a familiar pattern, with my verbal groupset being quite reliable:

“Get ON with it! 

“Go ONNNNNNN!”

“Get ROUND it!

“SOMEBODY BLOODY PASS HIM!”

“Arghhhh I’m gonna have to pick ’em off one by one arghhhhhhh!”

In between the lilting exclamations and the hammering out of some serious vocal training in my contralto range to Dolly, Loretta, Willie, Emmylou, Kenny, Meat Loaf, Carpenters, Roy Orbison, Abba and Elvis I’m actually super relaxed, as all the best female Formula One drivers should be. Fingertip control. Quiet in my mind. Smooth, carving lines, my head never moves out of vertical, I am at one with the road and the white line, the inertial bliss of a corner weighted just right, the lovely wa…. “Don’t overtake THERE you PILLOCK!”

I sift down to Paraparaumu to visit Alice, my friend from primary school, the sensible, solid, reliable, highly independent, logical friend who fell over the other day, smashed her knee, hit her head, got hypothermia and was emergency-helicoptered to hospital. She’s banged up and feeling fragile. I take her to get the surgical stitches out at Coastlands and spout forth my top tips about being injured. I am a total pro at it, having busted one leg, two ankles and both collarbones. We laugh uproariously that I have turned out to be of some practical use to HER.

Michelle

I leave Alice and shuffle southwards to Khandallah to see my old boss and fabulous pal Michelle. She makes me a king size Aperol Spritz on arrival. There is a reason we bonded at work. We go to a gorgeous local place, Cashmere Lounge, for dinner and natter away like macaws on holiday about how happy we are not to still be with a certain organisation. I shout the evening and we have the compulsory sob into our handbags about how the bank no longer picks up our enormous tabs. OH WELL YOU LITTLE EX-CORPORATE PIGGIES! We Uber into town to try and be cool, but even Dakota, bar of a thousand Tuesday night sinners, has nobody in it so we go home and watch some replay of the Debate. I can only hack 15 minutes before my Trump lifetime-full-of-crap levels are exceeded so call it quits at midnight.

TODAY

Drive home

I walk out to my car, check the tyres and become utterly convinced my forehand front has a slow flat. I teeter to the nearest Johnsonville Z and stick air in it, peering anxiously at the digits. PHEW! Just an optical illusion of ultra low-profile proportions and operating on a slightly tired brain. They’re all a bit spongy, though, at 27, so I get the idea to pump them up like the cops do, to 38. The S then starts performing like a sabre-toothed tiger that has had an electric shock up its bottom and now has all its claws out to kill any man, beast or child within a 30km radius. I CHANGE MY MIND, and let them down to 32.

I tootle home. IT IS NOT A RACE! Except everything is a race to me. What if I MISS MY CHANCE TO BE AMAZING!?! But mostly I plod back, stopping at Shannon for nature and the kind of sandwiches you only ever get in small, dusty towns on the sides of highways in New Zealand. These sandwiches are right where you left them fifty years ago, next to the lolly cake, that other ubiquitous substance of the travelling salesman food bar.

Oooooo

I strike a rare treat on the way home – a totally clear run, on a dry road, through the gorge. I shoot out the other end of it, a wicked grin pinned from ear to ear. I can smell the brakes.

 

Wellington cool.

Tooled around the North Island. Passed everything in sight. God it was fabulous. 

Much better today! And the promise of a road trip tomorrow…

Dr Lisle says…

I get up early and do weights in the living room. I have not yet risen to home-gym ownership status in the world.

Doug Lisle PHD, psychologist and co-author of The Pleasure Trap says that if you are feeling low, you can instantly pop out of it by exercising REALLY HARD. This tells your inner audience you TOTALLY TRIED and self-esteem will flood the circuits. I’m pretty sure I don’t lack self-esteem, being a world class superstar at lots of things, but I take his advice anyway, you know, just in case. I have of course been suffering for hours on the bike thinking all this, but it doesn’t seem to be having QUITE the desired effect so I grab my barbell. And, sure enough, after 15 minutes of squats and military overhead raises I feel my old Mistress Of The Universe powers coming back. I then sally forth down the hill in the rainy darkness to meet Julia for a walk at 6.15am.

a.m. gets better…

The morning is also boosted by an email. “Fans of the column” and “Like the idea of paying you for your time.” There they are ladies and gentlemen, the magic words! It is no secret that if you tell me you think my column is good I will slip, dilated pupils, into the happiness pond. If you then take it further and say the column has more than just entertainment value to you and it is worth real money in the form of consultation fees, then I am going to feel pretty sensational. I think my over-reactions are a bit sad and pathetic, but Doug insists that I (not me personally, obviously, I’m only one woman, he means us a species) cannot help it, my esteem processes are wired this way. Other people roll their eyes and say things like GIVE YOURSELF SOME DAMN CREDIT WILL YA! And stuff. (*Insert adult voice, think BBC newsreader in sensible shoes* “They are correct, of course. I am a seasoned insider trailblazing a new and vital path in the investing world with my own business, leveraging off thirteen years of success in the industry.”)

The emails happen quite a bit, which is good, and each has the same effect.

So! I spring off into the day, firing on all 58 (kilos), pound four more coffees, hammer out some work, meet a Person Of Coolness for salad and mind expansion at Chantal then mooch into the ‘Dale to indulge in more vanity – eyelash extensions.

Tomorrow, a drive. Yeehah!

Off to Wellington tomorrow to visit some gal pals. I love driving. I love cars. My little S3 is as far as I’ve climbed on the motorised food chain, but I get good sling for the outlay. (*Insert deep booming voice of reason* “Well, actually, if you take the dollar spend and cross reference this on a spreadsheet with the power and speed achievable over a range of Euro sports cars, you will find that an Audi 2012 S3 gives you a MASSIVE cent per wattage advantage over anything else. GEEK.”)

Wait for it…

I’m having the time of my life scooting around the countryside in it, passing all in sight, singing the geat songs of our age by Conway Twitty. Someone let me drive his Ferrari once. I was so busy enjoying the moment I hardly noticed he was trying to undo my pants.

 

 

This ride totally sucks!

Psychology of bike riding

The definition of mental fortitude, apparently, is doing things that you do not like to do. The definition of success, apparently, is doing things that OTHERS do not like to do. Well, today it was both and yet none on a stick as I blobbed my way along a rainy, freezing, completely cyclist-bereft stretch of Hawke’s Bay. It would be nice to report that every outing fulfilled my happiness addiction to the brim and that I wander off into each day cloaked in my own personal endorphine. But…….even Ms Ritchie has to face reality sometimes. (ARGHH WHAT A PAIN!)

The ride

I have 84km to complete, which is to hoof it down Middle Rd to the Patangata Tavern, neck a coffee and refill the bottles, then iron-thigh it back along the same route to where I have parked on Te Mata Rd in the village. But I am fatigued at Birdwoods. At Blind Rd I stop and shovel in extra dates and caffeine and tell myself not to be such a baby. 

A giant magpie then dive-bombs me from behind and clutches with claws at the back of my helmet whilst doing some kind of mad-stabbing-beak manoeuvre. This scares the shit out of me. I pedal onwards. I make it 21km down Middle Rd and I’m totally spent. I stop and take the ride pic, then beat it for home into a southerly rainy headwind. My tired thoughts race and I wonder if something is actually seriously wrong with me to be performing this badly, like Ebola or Rabies or…. oh shut up Carrie. I am interrupted from these hallucinatory ramblings by the magpie. Ahhh. I had forgotten I have to come back through his territory. He crashes into my helmet SIX more times and at this point I am simply trying not to fall off the bike. This ride is ARSE!

Home phew

I get home and whine about it all like a doggie wanting a treat. Inwardly, obviously, or further distant bike rides might not be encouraged and may cause concern. I lie in bed with the electric blanket on, scoffing potatoes, licking my metaphorical wounds. HUMPH! I am, though it niggles me to admit it, in a good old-fashioned form slump. I better BUCK UP, as they say in the Enid Blyton books about boarding schools, or Tour Of The Bay is going to be a teensy veensy bit agonising.

 

Ramblers and a movie.

Off to Ramblers! Mostly.

Jogging during the week has whispered in my ear and told me how Ramblers is going to go today (ARSE!) but I stick on a smile and deploy all my best psychological techniques anyway. I pack the car meticulously, though there seems to be an inverse law that says the harder you try to do this, the more likely you are to leave something vital behind. True enough, I get 500m down the road when home calls to inform me that I have left my dates on the benchtop. Dates are very important. They must be Medjool, from Chantal, and scoffed 15 minutes before the start. At this exact moment, I either have to go all the way round the hill again, or I can perform the backwards driving manoeuvre of my life. I have to rewind 80m, right now, in spectacular fashion. The turbo works in reverse! Spiked the adrenals a bit, but.

Racing! Kinda.

Get dropped on the first nanna hill. It IS by two visitors who should rightly ride in E grade but…oh well. My new buddy Chris and I decide to work together (COME ON LET’S BLOODY WORK TOGETHER!) and we do this for half the race, which is nice. At the mid-way point I am shattered. I give Chris my royal ascent to leave me (ONWARDS MY MAN!) and fend for himself in the wilderness of the Tuki Tuki Rd. I nearly catch him back up at one point because I am SO PISSED OFF at myself, but alas. No legs, no gas and no win for Ms Ritchie today. I roll in for 5th. I resolve to double down on the training as am clearly lazy, weak and without rigour.

Movie! Almost.

I pick up a friend and we hop down the hill to the Globe. Movie totally awful, adds to weight of argument for those demanding extra justification from NZ on Air as to WHY THE HELL these dollars are spent this way. But that’s only my lowly opinion and what do I know? I simply cycle about and do investment stuff. Other audience members clap as the credits roll. I ask my friend, who is artistic, creative and used to work in television, whether I am a total philistine. She hated it too. PHEW.

Friday, where Carrie discovers the Forever Country video and life changes completely. Sort of.

Jog early to show myself I have at least SOME semblance of discipline left. It doesn’t go great, but I get the endorphins needed to start banging out the column and to get it done in a manner that is less total dumb-ass and more the business-lite that is required.

It’s ONE OF THOSE DAYS though, and at 15 minutes to deadline, with 100 words and the scan and polish still to go, my sister posts something on my Facebook timeline. I f—–g hate Facebook as a rule. I’m only on there because….. because…. dammit.

So I open up Jess’ post and there must be something in the cloud based, (my ass), water, because this is the second boots n spurs music video I have been sent this week. Today it is Forever Country, a slickly produced mash up of Take Me Home Country Roads (all time fave please play at my funeral if everyone gets stuck for songs), On The Road Again and I Will Always Love You. I’m bored with the column and despite being right up against the clock with the writing, open the link.

Time stops. My day stops. Any focus on the index versus active argument I was making gets flicked out of my brain and I watch this glorious, all sound, all colour, country celeb extravaganza. I sing along, then I shed a little tear, like they do at the Oscars In Memorium. I rip the covers off (for I have been typing the piece in bed like a hobo) and race into the living room. I play it again and again, full screen, all twelve speakers, loud.

I finish the column on autopilot and change my true calling in life from being New Zealand’s most trailblazing, fair and just ex-sharebroker, taking the evidence-based passive investing truth to the world, to a country and western hit songwriter. Fingers crossed.

After all this blather I slap on some makeup and potter over to Vania’s to model eyebrows. It turns fun and I put on these slinky patent boots which are far too high and salacious. Meredith snaps a shot and I decide I don’t look too awful so post it up. Total, utter, vaulting vanity. I should stay home and check myself, probably.

Thursday morning with Ms Ritchie

Awake nice and refreshed at my personal sweet spot time of 5.30am. Then exhibit casual disregard for this hard-won circadian rhythm realisation game and sleep in until 7am, buggering up all my delicate wee hormones, as I knew I would if I continued snoozing. Idiot!

Used up all the stimulatory grounds-of-life yesterday on coffee shenanigans so make a cup of tea instead, which does NOT CUT THINGS AT ALL. I resist, I really try, but I resort to half a caffeine tablet, (100mg, well within Surgeon General guidelines, caffeine shall be the last shoe to drop, caffeine shall be the last shoe to drop). This makes the “tea” incredibly fabulous and within 10 minutes I am again well in control of all my superpowers and we are doing our pre-running routine of bodyweight dips and squats and other girly stuff.

Performing these warmups gives me the first indication that the run is going to go “interestingly.” No jogging for a week and in that time Marg and I have managed to, ahem, undo quite a bit of our good fitness work.

12 minutes in I am half dead, there is no gas left anywhere in the complicated system of My Legs and after 2 kilometers I walk. I was running 17km at 5.43m/km just the other day. It’s a bit of a shock…and…the best thing to do when you have a little fright is to let your insecurities RUN WILD. I fear that all the culinary oil in the Gold Coast has wrapped itself around the endothelium of my arteries like a choke-chain and thickened my blood to molasses. The voice of one of my all-time heroes, Caldwell B Esselstyn, Jnr MD rings in my ears. “Every high fat meal is creating cardiovascular damage.” I thank GOD that brachial artery tourniquet tests are not available in restaurants or nobody would have fun eating out on holiday ever again……

Well, even I can see that I am exagerrating just a teeny bit (points for SELF AWARENESS!) so I saunter up the hill, think my Oh Well! (I should darn well trademark that phrase) thoughts and make myself an enormous low-fat potato salad, scoff the lot, and Get Back To Bloody Work.

 

Ski day!

Day starts ominously!

Make a takeaway coffee at 5.50am. I need to leave the house at 5.53am to pick up Kat at 6am. I get the genius idea to add the almond milk and then SHAKE the barely sealed container to mix its boiling hot ingredients, you know, to save time over just stirring like a normal person then closing the lid. The beaker EXPLODES as I do this, at 5.51am, all over the kitchen blinds, my heated vest, the white tennis skirt I wear in the car before changing into my ski pants on the mountain, the floor, the carpet on the other side of the bench, and also, incredibly, my hair. With no time, lest I be late, (if I am late to something for you, I have probably died, I HATE late that much), I give everything in reach the emergency scullery-maid once-over then leap into the car, hot drink-less and reeking of bean. I thank my lucky stars that I have just switched back to Coco by Chanel, one of the strongest scents known to mankind, and pray like hell it will mask the layer of brown in which I have newly coated myself.

Getting to Whakapapa!

We cruise in the rain towards Mt Ruapehu. Today, I explain, we are most certainly not in a rush, NO WAY, as the viz is not going to be 100% and it is more of a day to chill and work on technicals rather than race up the mountain, hare around all the runs and come back exhausted. But as we turn left onto the Chateau road the old red ski driving mist descends and it’s all I can do to prevent a serial game of overtaking. I pass about 6 people but they bloody deserve it, frankly. Park it if you can’t drive it! Arghhhhhh! My little S3 was a star in the wet and then the slush. I really love that thing. Carpark 1, phew. This is a relief. I also spot a gap in row 1. Visible relaxation occurs.

Actually skiing!

Usual manoeuvres, abandon Kat, make her promise to get a private lesson, then zip up to the highest lift open and find some opportunities. Amazingly, though utterly crap snow at the base (having been rained on for a week) it has fallen fresh and even to about 6 inches over the Knoll and the Valley. I can’t see any damn contour, but I cut four sweet new tracks, two down each. Wheeee! It’s no Vail talcum, in fact it’s really Whakapapa Concrete, but first tracks are first tracks. I kick myself for bringing slalom skis to a snow day (NEVER BELIEVE THE REPORT!) but resolve to chuck both pairs in on any other trip, ever again during my lifetime, to cover these sorts of issues. I paddle out a few more runs on same, the West being closed, then ski down to Happy Valley to find Kat. The Waterfall Express is the most melt-ridden (molten?) I have ever seen it and is not (NOT) a fun ride. Still, it is way, way better than being chained to a desk with some idiot telling you what to do all day so I SMILE and SKI and LOVE every minute.

Conclusion!

We call it quits at 2pm, this sort of session must not be pushed, and speed home. Sri Thai awaits in Napier, and we scoff and re-tell our tales of the adventure, mostly as they did not happen and wildly exaggerated. 🙂