lost in soweto

Oh wait, before that I got lost in Nyanga.
Well, my Uber driver swore he was not lost but the multi-car pile-up in the middle of a 4-way intersection rapidly filling up with buses, kids, goats and pedestrians peeling out of cars to take their chances on foot felt a lot like lost.
Nyanga is the 'murder capital' of South Africa. My Uber driver kept asking me if I was okay and when I promised him I was (I really was, everyone in the situation - except maybe the goats - were intent on only one thing, getting out of the situation, and nothing felt threatening at all), he chuckled and said if he had tourists in the car they'd be crying by now ha ha.
I made him promise to never get into that situation with tourists, even if it was (usually) the quickest route to the airport.

I got to the airport in time for my pre-Joburg oh-seven-hundred manicure and got to Joburg in time to pick up my hired car and set off for Soweto. My little Renault Kwid (Quip?) had sat nav and a nice jolly English man periodically told me what to do.
Joburg freeways have only two speeds: crawling suicidal depression speed, and terrifying homicidal death wish. I alternated between the two.

Everything was going fine, my exit coming up on the left, when Jolly English Sat Nav man instructed me to stay going straight. 5km later I decided he was talking bollocks and while attempting to change direction via complex spaghetti junctions I loaded Google Maps with Laconic American Lady to see what her opinion was.
She and English man argued for a while - Him: You have gone off course, turn back now. Her: Continue straight - until I managed to turn his volume down, and Laconic American Lady boldly directed me straight into the heart of Soweto and a blocked off, non-existent road.

Soweto is massive, like a city on its own, but not the kind of place you dither around in looking lost. Staying cool, I followed a line of other cars diverting around the blocked off road. I followed those cars down a dirt track, through the heart of a very poor settlement, round a bend, through a field, over an embankment, a ramp over the pavement and viola! arrived at my destination.

Thank goodness Soweto is fairly flat, and from a distance I could see the iconic Orlando Towers - an old coal-fired power station - the University of Joburg campus I was headed to was just nearby...

Later that day my Kwid wouldn't start ... no idea why not ... but I got a new car delivered (sans hubcaps when they realised I was staying in Soweto ha ha) and made my way with Laconic American Lady to the Soweto Hotel.
Again she took me off course (in her defense she took me to the pin, which was off course) and this time, with the light fading and the exertions of the day taking their toll, I wasn't feeling nearly as adventurous and brave. And instead resigned myself to driving around in circles swearing outrageously at her, Google Maps, the architects of apartheid, the necessity of work, being self-employed, night time, the universe in general, hired cars and just fucking everything. Until I stumbled upon the hotel quite by accident - a massive concrete block on Walter Sisulu Square - and stood for a moment enjoying the light from my balcony and marveling at the wonder of this country of ours.

It's a pretty weird and wonderful place when you're able to stay still long enough to absorb it.

am I? am I a bitch?

A year ago someone called me a bitch, and just last week I discovered that someone else thought I was one.

Please believe me when I say that in principle this doesn't really bother me. I fully embraced my inner bitch some years ago. I know I'm no angel, I know I'm forthright and outspoken. But I like to think I use my powers of bitchdom in situations which deserve it, not to hurt or offend innocent parties.
Ah, such deliciously self-serving rationale ...

What does bother me is to be misunderstood, and what really bothers me is to find out after the fact, in a roundabout way, that I've upset someone. That despite being hurt, that person didn't have the balls/take the time to call me out on it. I just don't get that.

I'm working remotely from a big office. I communicate with them all predominantly by email. I went in to the office last week and discovered that someone there took offence to an email I wrote 3 weeks ago and said .... nothing.
Also, did nothing.
Didn't respond to subsequent queries from me, didn't action any of the tasks I needed done before I could proceed. Just decided to pretend I don't exist while I continued in blissful (yet puzzled) oblivion.

Mature huh?

And yet I was the one who apologised and explained and contextualised the 'offensive' email, and this person graciously accepted my apology while saying nothing about all the ways my work has been sabotaged by their lack of co-operation.
And then I went home and sent an email kindly re-requesting all the information I need in order to fulfill my contractual obligation to the organisation and received a response promising to 'get it to me soon'.
That was last Wednesday.

Call me a bitch, but seriously what the fuck kind of way is that to conduct yourself professionally?

Aaaaand, back to zen.

a little lunchtime trolling

The troll, in this case, being me.

troll

One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument

The National Elections this last week have been an emotional time for the Nation. Lots of nervous energy has been spent on speculation and optimism, and then disappointment when the results have not been as different as many had hoped.

The problem with being a Nation that once witnessed a miracle is that we forever maintain the hope we'll see one again. Does one get more than one miracle in a life time? I'd tend to say we are amazingly blessed to have witnessed one, and such a magnificent one at that.

I'd also tend to say that anyone who thought the ANC would fall, or even significantly shift, during this election is a fool. I don't get the 'So crushed #fml #sadforSouthAfrica' status updates I've seen around the interwebs.

I ALSO think that all those calling ANC voters 'idiots' (and much worse), are vile, bigoted sanctimonious twits.

A Twitter friend yesterday expressed this far more eloquently than I:

Amen Karen.

So THEN, I stumbled across this little corner of the internet, heavily populated by aforementioned vile twits, mainly of the expat variety, bitching and moaning at this post about their votes 'not being counted' and I just .... couldn't help myself. 

(Screenshots because I'm not tainting my blog with a live link).

Obviously this wasn't the popular approach.

Luckily I'm not going to 'loose' any sleep over this.

And then of course someone had to play this card ... so cute ...

Ah, SO much fun to while away a lunch break which I couldn't really afford to take but you know, when a girl's got to troll a girl's got to troll!

Viva South Africa Viva!

home security

Of all the ways we're ripped off as South African middle-class citizens - insurance, bank charges and the like - home security is waaaay up there.

Private security companies take full advantage of the horrendous state of crime in our country and totally coin it. They hardly need to spend anything on marketing either, one only has to read the papers or go to a dinner party with friends to get enough motivation to spend heaps of cash on beams and bars and electric fencing.

My brother-in-law's house was recently burgled in the middle of the day. Their bars and security gates and Doberman posed no hindrance to the determined thieves, and without a house alarm to betray their presence the bastards clearly spent a long time picking and choosing their loot (the doggie was completely unscathed and untraumatised by the way, she probably welcomed the company and no doubt got a big juicy bone too!).

My mother-in-law, understandably rattled by her eldest son's loss, turned to her religion to make sense of it all, saying that it was only due to God's mercy that he and his wife weren't at home at the time. I don't usually credit that fictional being with having a hand in these things but I have to say if I did, in this case I'd say god was with the burglars, they should be on their knees in gratitude that my brother-in-law, a big angry man who carries a weapon, didn't come home to find them there.

Anyway the result is that even that big angry pistol-packing man is freaked out, and looking to improve his home security. Quotes he's currently receiving to install a home alarm system are in some cases in excess of R40 000.00. Forty thousand rand to sleep better at night. What the actual fuck?

Which brings me, finally, to the inspiration for this post. This crude sign I photographed outside a house this morning.

A desperate, innovative, much more affordable and extremely indicative of how we're all feeling, approach to the constant threat to our possessions and well-being.
How long until the unlucky testicles of those who don't heed this sign (or can't read) are displayed along this wall as a real warning ... ?

other people's children

There is an astounding feeling of peace and restored equilibrium which descends over one when a person who has been, to whatever degree, tainting your days, exits your life.

Often, it is only once such a person leaves that one fully realises the impact they had on your general happiness, but in this case I was acutely aware day-to-day of how that happiness was being compromised, and it makes the peace on this side of the separation that much sweeter, that much ... happier.

Maybe a by-product of my years of working mostly from home, mostly with my children, but I count myself lucky that I've had relatively few opportunities to rue the presence of a particularly unpleasant person in my life (my own children don't count here).
I choose my friends well, I don't suffer fools, I don't compromise myself out of any sense of social obligation - those years of my life are over.
But all this makes me particularly annoyed when I do encounter an asshole, and find myself powerless to avoid them.

I'm not proud of myself that in this case the asshole was a child. But I'm also not afraid to say, with genuine sadness at the concept, that children can be assholes too.

Because of course it's never really their fault. Nature and nurture both play a roll and if you're conceived and raised by an asshole ... well then.

It wasn't made any easier by the fact that this kid was alarmingly smart, with a sense of humour which had me laughing despite myself, and a world view far beyond her years. Undoubtedly part of the problem.
And she was sweet, or she had real potential to be, but she was also mean, and cruel, and cuttingly shrewd.

I, we, just don't need that in our days. For a while, when I could envisage no way out of the situation which wouldn't cause major hurt and offence (discrediting, I'm not proud to admit, the amount of hurt and offence we were suffering from the association), I placated myself that is was better for my girls to learn how to manage an asshole in a controlled environment with their mother on by their side.

But actually no, there's time enough to encounter assholes. There's plenty of time before that to learn lessons in self-confidence, civility, self-worth and how to build boundaries before they need to put them into practice.

The kid is gone, it happened quite naturally and easily in the end, and our days are much pleasanter as a result.

stuck in the middle with you

I used to joke that while some people lived 'all over the world', we'd lived 'all over Obs', and that in many ways it was the same thing. I'm starting to realise that was truer than I'd thought.

After 20 years of living in small rural towns, a couple bunking with my parents while I was studying and then 15 living in Observatory (I've just checked the maths, I think that's about right), it seems I'm now experiencing urban, middle-class, predominantly white, mostly Christian, South African suburbia for the first time.

And it's ... not that interesting.

In fact, it's a little drab.

I realise now how unique life really is in Observatory. A diverse suburb never torn apart by the Group Areas Act, always integrated, always diverse.

It was easy while living under the rainbow of South African nationhood to assume that it arched over us all, encompassing our differences while in a weird way keeping us all on the same page. Living in Obs was our commonality, and that gave us the freedom to express our individuality.

I have no doubt that the longer we live out here in the 'burbs the more people we'll meet with shared interests beyond just our age, our breeder status, our common wish to bring our kids up safe and healthy. But I think they're fewer and further between.

In Obs I never felt I had to look this hard.

In Obs I never felt I was living a stereotype. In middle-class 'burbia the part-time working, 30-something, home-owning, Golf-driving, flip-flop wearing, under-her-breath swearing mother-of-two is the Queen of Stereotype and I seem to fit the part perfectly.

Where we live is still utterly amazing, but as we venture out finding schools and attending swimming lessons I'm encountering the curse of the middle classes ... the banal names, the fake Christians, the bad genes jeans, the lack of critical thought, the material 'must-haves' and the emotional taboo's. And it's ... a little drab.

I'll tell you what's not drab though. Getting on a boat in your pyjamas before breakfast to visit a flock of flamingos. To watch them take flight above you and wheel over your heard in a flurry of pink and black against a grey blue early morning sky. To look over and see their long legs reflected in the eyes of your daughter as she gasps in delight.

That's what I'll remember as I grit my teeth and ponder my identity next to a warm chlorine-and-pee soaked pool on Thursday. And as I try not to overhear the banal conversations about Jayden's Christmas wish list and how expensive horse-riding is these days and who's under-15 rugby team is the best and who's fucking who on the PTA (okay, I made that up - I'd love to be privy to that one), I'll try and remember too that we'd all rather be frolicking with flamingos than doing the school run right?

We all know there's more to life than the new store in the mall right?

Please tell me I'm right?

a tally ...

... of my recent injuries:

On Friday I got kicked in the face. By accident naturally, during a wild pre-bedtime game of, um ... Kick Mum in the Face as far as I can make out.

Lesson learnt: those little heels are hard and also, never get in a bar fight. My face hurts.

On Saturday I stubbed my toe against the edge of the exhaust pipe for Husband’s ‘project bike’ which was on the floor of the study because, um ... that’s where it seems to live now? I lifted a big flap of skin and may or may not have said bad words in front of my children.

Lesson learnt: buy house with garage, make Husband live in it (garage) and also, fuck.

On Sunday I moved the dog’s bed (made of a repurposed 4x4 tyre) and managed to drop it on my foot. I think I crushed one or more small bones. I may have said some more bad words.

Lesson learnt: get a chihuahua.

And also, feet are over-rated.

the twitter shitter

I've resisted a twitter account for years but with my new blog-venture I decided to create one. There's no denying twitter's usefulness for promoting and networking when you're blogging like (hopefully a whole lot of people) are reading.

For the first couple of weeks I kept my account really quiet, following only a blog buddy who was about to give birth, a couple of South Africans I'm interested in and my SIL. Then I went public with the blog and happily sought out all those people I'd been keen to follow on twitter for years, plus hosts of random parent bloggers, mothers and fathers - people I thought it would be useful to network with for the blog.

It's been a couple of months now and ... I can't say that I'm loving it.

I keep reading odes to twitter, articles about it's awesomeness, first hand accounts of how people's lives have changed, improved, benefited from tweeting.
But I still don't get it.

I know the basic tenet is that if you're not enjoying twitter then you're following the wrong people, and I definitely was doing that for a while there. I fell into that morbid fascination, like the early days of facebook, where I couldn't help myself reading every inane tweet, marveling at the utter crap people feel its relevant to share.
Just take a dump in cyberspace why don't you? No really here, I'll hold the loo roll.

And it left me with that same shitty feeling as wasting hours facebook stalking random wedding photos. Brain cluttered, slightly nauseated, majorly disappointed in my fellow humankind but mainly in myself for having even gone there.

I don't get the sharing random brain farts with 5000 mostly-strangers. I don't get the marvel at squeezing your thoughts and words into 140 characters (how is this a great talent unless you're in advertising or write for People magazine?). I don't get the people clearly tweeting throughout a social occasion or worse, outing with their kids.

I do get the advantages of business networking, sharing ideas and sounding out others on various topics. I do get the thrill of breaking news disseminating so quickly and effectively.
I have to admit to loving the hash-tag-of-descriptiveness #greatestthingsinceslicedbread.

But other than that? I'm tweetering on the brink of meh.

a bit meany

I'm sorry, I can't help it, but this is why sometimes I hate reading blogs ...

I’m especially fond of mornings so I wake up very early so as not to miss anything. My
day begins with a French press of coffee with rye toast, plum jam and almond butter or perhaps a bowl of Irish oatmeal with real maple syrup. Always there is writing in my
sketchbook journal (poetry, free verse, laments) and a morning walk along the beach
with my dog after my son heads off to school.

I am passionate about collecting records and play music on a portable record player in my
studio or I listen to NPR's ‘tiny desk concert’ series for soaring inspirations. And then
I write, and write and write some more as words dance across the page. Occasionally I
pontificate in my journal, illustrating my thoughts with polaroids and often I take one of
my very many cameras out to take pictures. Lately I am most fond of my Holga camera.
I make endless pots of tea in a vintage silver teapot and of course there is chocolate for
brain food. Creating is such a beautiful act of worship in my daily life and so good for
my soul.

Seriously, who lives like this? It seems so contrived.
Must the butter be 'almond', the oatmeal 'Irish' and the maple syrup 'real'?

I guess instead of being such a turd I should be happy someone's following their bliss. And obviously avoid reading about it if it irks me. And also acknowledge this wouldn't be my cup of tea (not even brewed in a vintage silver teapot) even if I had the choice to live like this. Which I guess I do, as do most of us, really.

But what's more fun than the occasional bitch?

not okay

This tendency, by the youth of today (I'm speaking to the twenty yr olds here), to abbreviate names.

I'm totally down with J-Lo, LiLo etc. I enjoy playing that game too, but there's a far more ridiculous trend I've been noticing on facebook and elsewhere.
Ryan becomes Ry.
Dylan becomes Dyl.
Tara becomes Tars.
Sara, Sars.
Brian, Bri.
Laura, Lau.

Not okay.

'Dyl & Lau's Big Day!' scream the album names.
'Love you Tars!'
'Happy birthday Bri!'

Perfectly decent short manageable names abbreviated away to mulch.

Call me Mother Grundy, or Mommy-G, or just Mo-G, but I think it's not okay.

I think it's l-a-z-y.

I hate summer

Also, Africa. I hate it. And Observatory. And being a Grown Up.

3 words: Total Bug Onslaught.

First there were flies.
Granted making fish pie on a hot summer's afternoon was possibly not the best idea, nor was creating a makeshift fly-shield from an upturned colander and a page torn from a magazine, but we wanted, nay needed, a run to the park before supper and what could be better than a late afternoon trip to the park in the knowledge that supper's ready and waiting at home?

Round about then we encountered the spider. You know what else I now hate? Kirstenbosch Gardens.
For if we'd not spent an idyllic 3 hours there the day before, picnicking with guinea fowl in shady spots, walking around collecting acorns and interesting leaves, paddling in a stream while Stella slept in the pram under low-lying branches - if we'd not done that we'd probably not have collected the ENORMOUS RAIN SPIDER I now noticed clinging Cape-Fear-style to the bottom of the pram as we left the house.
The pram which had travelled back from Kirstenbosch in the boot of my car. The pram which had spent the night parked in my hallway. The pram which was now packed to the hilt with hats and toys and had my chubby and delicious baby strapped into it.
(This is the part where I hate being The Grown Up. This is not the first time.)
Staying calm I thought I'd wheel the pram out the front door, then attempt to flick the spider off it (and hopefully far away), all the while being casual and informative about spiders in general for the benefit of my two small children.
Wheel pram out. Lock gate. Look down. Spider gone.
Freak the fuck out.
Stella out the pram, extract essentials (my phone, her yoghurt), wheel pram back inside and go to the park in the car.

Later, tired and hungry, I can't help but feel smug that supper is ready and waiting. It seems so seldom I get it right. Good mother.
I lift the colander and gag. You know the expression 'black with flies'? I get it now. Black. With. Flies.
I give the pie to the dog, and scramble eggs for the girls which we eat in my bedroom on the other side of the house.

But that's not all ...
Seems I also hate small independently owned spice shops. 'Cos if I only ever bought spices and dry goods from corporate giants I bet I wouldn't be facing the highly undesirable task of emptying and fumigating all my kitchen cupboards tomorrow to purge ourselves of the weevils which've suddenly started appearing in our dry goods. Or at least there'd be a Client Services type I could complain to.
'Dear Mr Fargo, the very cheap (but admittedly delicious) breyani rice your brother-in-law helps you import under the radar from Pakistan seems to have given us weevils in our muesli,' is just not going to fly ...

Urgh. Flies.

A quick recap of tomorrow's To Do list then:
1. Buy proper fly net food covering thingie
2. Gingerly unpack pram, shake everything out and investigate all nooks and crannies (remember to pee beforehand)
3. Develop response for very likely scenario in which I don't find spider (example: sell house)
4. Fumigate kitchen and possibly throw away a lot of otherwise fine foodstuffs

So much to look forward to.

f*ck that

At 06h05 this morning, this Sunday morning, awake with the baby after another horrendous night of multiple wake-ups and feeds and winds and bad sleep I followed the link sent by a friend to read this article, Why Parents Hate Parenting from the NY Times Magazine in July.

The title felt apt.

But what a load of shit.

Seriously the 1st world needs to get its head out of its own ass sometimes. I am sofa king over this kind of 'journalism', quoting all kinds of 'studies' into the human psyche.
And really, does anyone, anywhere, really trust stats and research groups anymore? Any twat with a theory can manipulate both to his or her own end.
And on the subject of twats, imagine spending all that time and money to train as an academic sociologist only to base your field of study on whiny privileged middle-class 1st world assholes?
Am I ranting here?

Why is it 'surprising' that parents are no happier than non-parents? Where, pray tell, did it say we should be?
Who really thinks it's odd that (according to women in, shock - horror! Texas) child-rearing rated sixteenth of a list of nineteen pleasurable things to do, rated after housework (this time their italics not mine). Try doing anything 24/7 and see how pleasurable it becomes - you wouldn't want to orgasm that relentlessly (be honest now).

I also have a problem with the assumption that happiness is our natural default state, were we all so happy farting rainbows until stinky old parenting came along and changed the flavour? Are childless people just sooooo happy all the time?

What a load of shit.

Go ahead, read the article. No really. 27 000+ people Liked it on facebook so it can't be that wrong. And it got 630+ comments so it obviously hit a nerve. Although granted lots of those are from the same guy with an axe to grind, and quite a few of them are from commenters with plunging cleavages bragging about their wanton desirable childfree lives.

I'm not even weighing in on this debate. The reasons for and against having kids are so many and varied, and so intensely personal, that to rehash this one in the public domain is too boring for words.
I'm just continually astounded at how many people in the world have the luxury to indulge this kind of naval-gazing and self-absorbed crap.
Just get out there and live you stupid privileged fucks.

Ja ok, I'm ranting. And I may not even be making sense. Blame it on the kids sleep-deprivation.

And maybe I am currently 'one of those women who were once smart and interesting but have become zombies' but I seriously couldn't wait to finish this article so I could follow the link to Man Denies Owning Bag of Crack Found in Own Butt.
Now that's more like Sunday morning reading.

pithed off

I finally tried my hand at jam-making this weekend. Marmalade to be exact.

You know, while I've always appreciated the vastly superior taste of home-made jam, I've never gotten why jam-makers are so often well, smug about their efforts.
Fruit, sugar, water, boil - what could be easier?

Well ... here's how my experience panned out.

Me: I think I'll make lemon marmalade.
Husband: You should use those left-over oranges.
Me: Ok, I'll make lemon and orange marmalade.

I set to work, using a very basic recipe as a guide (it's my first time see). I start diligently removing the pith from the fruit and rind of 8 or so oranges and lemons.
Husband comes in.

Him: You don't have to remove all the pith, the pith is what makes the jam set.
Me: My recipe says remove pith.
Him: My recipe (this being one he once read but is nowhere in evidence right now) says not to.

I fall for the idea of slacking off a bit (I've only done 3 fruits by now and am already getting bored). I start chopping fruit roughly, pith 'n all.
I juice the same amount of fruit, add an obscene amount of sugar and set the whole lot a-boiling.

Right: jars. I gather our motley collection of jars and start packing them into the dishwasher (sterilise and clean in one go - I love it).

Husband: You can't run those with the paper labels still on you know.
Me: #!%&*!

Start soaking jars in hot water and scrubbing at the labels. Fucking hell, I've just discovered the hard part about jam-making!

Much, much later; wrist cramping, humour disappearing, jam too thick, rinds still to hard, flavour a little too tangy - I'm starting to hate home-made marmalade.

Husband: Maybe grate in some ginger to lift the flavour.
Me (spewing pith & vinegar): Ja ok, but what about the fact that there's virtually no jam, just a bunch of rinds all clumped together??
Husband: Hmmm, maybe you shouldn't have added the pith.

Me: Seriously?? Are you taking the pith?

Luckily, it looks very good. And I'll grudgingly admit the ginger saved it. And once it cooled it was much less ... dense. Actually, it's not half bad - think I'll go make some toast.

the one about home schooling

Some weeks ago the girls and I went to the library, arriving a little early. We sat on the steps with a couple of other people, waiting for the Children's Section to open.

A thin and nervous looking woman arrived with her daughter, the girl quite tall but probably eight or nine years old.

The librarian must've been delayed, it was a few minutes after 1, and with some theatrical sighing the woman asked me if she could leave her daughter in my care until the doors opened.

The girl happily came and sat next to us and started chatting to Frieda.
The mum stayed a few more moments, glancing twitchily at the other people standing around, then she left, sharply telling her daughter to stay close to me and not to talk to anyone else, pointedly looking at a lone man standing nearby.

By this point I was judging, obviously.
I understand the importance of wising your kids up to the world, but I felt like don't leave your daughter at the library with strangers if you're so hung up.
Then I berated myself. You don't know anyone's history, this woman may have had real reason to be so apprehensive. But then again, if she's so worried, why leave her daughter there?

The library opened, we went inside, the girl asked if she could leave her bag near me while she went to choose books.
She was chatty and friendly, even sat in on some of the stories I was reading to Frieda. She was taking out an enormous stack of books and had a little moan that her mother always made her take out some Afrikaans books too.
Her mother took a long time coming back. I was starting to wonder what I'd do if she'd not made an appearance by the time we were ready to leave ...

Eventually she appeared, just as twitchy as when she'd left. Asked me if her daughter had 'been any trouble'.

And that's when she uttered those loathsome words: 'I'm home-schooling her.'

Ah yes, of course you are.

I know there are some really great people out there who home-school. I read their blogs and often find inspiration in some of the activities they do with their children. And I totally understand how you'd chose to home-school rather than send your kids to boarding school if you live deep rural. But ...
Really? To choose to do it in an urban environment, to spend all day and everyday together, to be your kid's parent, teacher, life-coach, guidance counsellor, disciplinarian, bum-wiper, playground buddy to infinity and beyond?
Say what you like I think it's just. not. healthy.
For anyone.
Twitch twitch.

f'king pregnant, f'king hot

It's like Groundhog Day. Every day I wake up: I'm still pregnant, it's still hot.
Like, real hot, and seriously pregnant.

I go to the movies to escape the heat. Last week I spent the morning with Alec Baldwin (there's just something about that man ...), today it was George Clooney (no explanation required).
I sit in the dark theatres, relishing the cool, the distraction, the eye-candy, wondering if I'm in labour.

I feel like a whiner. I've got it easy on so many levels but sometimes one just needs to whine. Must it be so f'king hot??

High 30's for the 5th day in a row - my feet, my feet ...
Watched The Incredible Hulk last night (yes, my brain is also currently affected) and could totally relate. I sit on the couch with multiple pillows behind my back, in front of the fan, my feet in a bucket of iced water. Husband replenishes the ice. Dog drinks from the footbath. Cat sulks across the room 'cos I just can't bear her additional warmth on me.

I really thought it was game on this weekend. Contractions started on Friday evening and continued through the night. Up to 5 in an hour, 25 seconds each. By Saturday morning they'd abated. We went for an early walk through the forest - I strided ahead in the hopes of getting things moving. A few more rumblings round lunchtime, then nothing. What was that?

It's hot. Did I mention that?
I've seen so many squashed squirrels in recent days. Are they also moving slower than usual?

I'm all about driving. Any excuse to grab some air-con.
I've been known to start whimpering as I reach my destination and know I have to get out and into the heat.

I got semi-stuck in a toilet cubicle today. Some f'king space-saver mall architect tried to squeeze too many cubicles into too small a space. Between the door opening in, the toilet bowl, the TP dispenser and my bump I couldn't find the best angle to exit. Handbag held high above my head I eventually made it, with much giggling. The giggling was only 'cos they had air-con. Otherwise it would not. have. been. funny.

Darling husband's done something to his back. This is not helping matters. We've promised that when this baby is born we'll make a concerted effort to be nicer to each other than we were in the colic hell of Frieda's first 3 months. We need to bring that arrangement forward a bit. Every evening when it cools down enough, round 9pm, we hug and apologise for being crabby bitches. Then we eat ice-cream in the pool.
That part's kind of nice.

F'king pregnant, f'king hot. That's me.

Check up today, baby's still dead happy where she is. After all of that. C-section booked for 17 March. All we can do is hope she makes an appearance before then.
And try to stay cool. And nice.
Nice.

I'm a snob

No really, I'll admit it. Freely. I'm a snob and very, very often, I hate people.

Not specific people so much, just the masses. The great unwashed. The sheeple.

See? S-n-o-b!

And there's nothing that brings my snobbishness to the fore such as a morning spent at the Department of Home Affairs.

I'll willing to admit that the venue itself is enough to generate a healthy amount of disdain before you've even looked around at your fellow countrypeople. It's dingy and run-down and oh so grimy. Layers and layers of grime. There's cleaning staff around but this is the grime of accumulated years of too many bodies passing through and spending too much time there. This is the grime of queues and desperation, the grime of bureaucratic balls-ups and boredom.
Let's face it, it's a sad place 'cos no one likes to spend time there. No matter how excited you may be about your international holiday, the 4h queue to get a new passport rather takes the shine off of things. No matter how enamoured with your new baby, standing there with aching boobs and too little sleep to register it's birth is not the fun part of parenthood.
The excitement and thrill of being newly-wed could get a little tarnished as you stand there waiting to apply for a new ID document.

Especially when the wedding was nearly 7 years ago. And now you're 9 months pregnant.

Yup, I'm doing it. I'm going all old-fashioned. I'm taking my husband's name.

But more on that later. Back to being a snob.
So I'm sitting there trying not to actually touch any surfaces (unfortunately my ankles decreed the sitting part non-negotiable), breathing through my nose, stoically ignoring the tubercular cough behind me, and being awe-struck in wonderment at how ugly people can be.
The incredibly bad hair (condition, colour, style), the ill-fitting and ill-considered clothing, the shoes! don't get me started on the shoes, the toenails, the visible greying underwear, the smoker's coughs and smoker's stink, the flab, the body odour, the facial expressions of pinched, dissatisfied ennui (maybe they can smell themselves?). Urgh.
Double urgh.

I'll no doubt feel bad about this rant at some point. I'm secretly a sucker for social justice. But this morning for a while I relished in feeling superior and snobby, and I probably had the worst expression of pinched, dissatisfied disdain of them all as I sat there with my fat ankles and my smug-married demeanour.

Trying to keep my hands clean but happily dirtying my conscious.

le grinch

~ christmas spirit is when you hide in the house until the rubbish collection guys have passed so as to avoid their verging on extortionate demands for a donation to their 'Christmas box'.

~ christmas spirit is when you feel like a magnanimous benefactor when you're able to vacate your parking space for another frazzled shopper. You reverse out gracefully and wave them in as if you're bestowing great honour.

~ christmas spirit is when some fuck tries to squeeze past you and your packed shopping trolley, elbowing you in your clearly very pregnant stomach, just to get out of the lift first.

~ christmas spirit is when a dude demonstrating a remote control car is so eager to make a sale that he drives it into a little old lady's shins, and doesn't really apologise.

~ christmas spirit is when a lady security guard rushes over to your car to help the very pregnant woman load up her heavy bags of shopping.
Merci nice Ghanian lady, you restored my faith a little.

a matter of perspective

The gods of Google are out to scupper me, that can be the only conclusion drawn. I promised myself I wouldn't get into a huge bitch about how phenomenally frustrating blogging (or attempting to blog) has been the last few months. Bit I think I might have to just a little bit ...
Admittedly my biggest hurdle has been my own general state of utter exhaustion, but the few times I have had the inspiration and energy to blog I've been sooooo frustrated by Blogger that I've often given up in a huff. I've lost posts, only been able to open a new post in HTMtothefuckingL, waited a gazillion years for pics to upload and all manner of other annoyances, and you know when blogging's not fun (read: easy), I'm more inclined to go to bed and read.
So I made the change to Firefox and was so inspired by the improvement that I thought I might actually get round to posting every day this week. Gasp!

To this end I wrote a wonderfully witty and cathartic post last night and scheduled it to publish this morning. I checked my blog after publishing and happy that the post was nowhere to be seen, snuggled up in cyber-space for the night, I went to bed.
This morning, before the time the post was supposed to be published, I started receiving comments on it. Um, what?
Went to my blog, not there.
For SOME REASON (yes, shouting), Blogger decided my post was better suited to the 29th of August. It clearly had more of a, you know, August feel.
All manner of efforts, including posting on the 'Something's Broken' feed of the Blogger Help Forum, have proved unable to rectify the problem. And I'm pretty sure Blogger's American so it can't have anything to do with my Pom-bashing right? Right?

But then, as so often happens, perspective comes along to kick one in the ass and point out just how insignificant your problems really are.
My little brother has mumps! Yup, that childhood disease we were all carefully innoculated against decades ago which has now mutated into a whole new virus and come back to take healthy 27 yr olds out at the knees (and, um, a little higher). The poor dude is in isolation in his house for a week, starting to closely resemble a greedy hamster and unable to eat anything except soup and yoghurt. And chocolate mousse.
Our other brother and I have been taking turns to re-up his soup and DVD supply, dropping a bag at the gate, ringing the doorbell and then quickly getting back into our cars and waving at him through the closed windows. Pretty bleak.
Or is it ... ?
Husband and I had a moment last night where we conveniently forgot about the pain and fever poor baby brother is experiencing and allowed ourselves to imagine a week of total isolation. Just you, a pile of books, a stack of DVDs, a mountain of chocolate mousse ...
Nah, I'm sure it sucks.

OR, you could be an innocent under-age flower seller in Pasadena, being pimped out by your mother to an older guy with creepy hands like on this postcard I received today via Postcrossing.

She doesn't even have the internet, or mumps probably, and I'll bet she's having a worse day.

bore-rocracy

The UK has recently decided to tighten its ass borders (who hasn't I suppose), and clearly regard us [shudder] Africans as a real threat (who doesn't I suppose). For the first time South Africans need a visa to visit Pomland. A very expensive and tediously detailed visa.
One which requires the completion of a 12 page form (which includes questions along the lines of 'Have you ever been involved in any activities which could cast you as a person of dubious character?') - I say old bean? Me, dubious, nevah! - and the collection of all kinds of letters of sponsorship and proof of this and that and, lordy, I just want to go for a 10 day stay!

Prior to this flexing of its chinless superiority, Britain let South Africans breeze in and out with an automatic 3 month visa and just a little bit of requisite questioning at Heathrow Immigration. Very sporting of them, what?

But those glory days are over. Now it's a mile long form, a dossier of accompanying documentation and - shudder - an interview.
So I toddle along at the appointed hour with duplicate copies of all said documents and my tongue firmly instructed to behave and my eyeballs instructed not to perform any rolling. I wait in the queue 'til the automated voice calls my number (and here, despite my annoyance with the whole process Ms Tannoy reminds me of the Tube and I feel a flutter of excitement about London. Yay!), and then all I have to do is hand over my dossier and go home (oh and be photographed and finger-printed. Yup, like a convict.) It seems the whole 'Interview' is merely a guise to actually see my face, to check that I really am the nice middle-class blonde I claim to be.

And if I wasn't?

Daily there are stories in our papers of ex-political activists being barred from travelling due to having 'criminal records' (i.e. charge sheets from the apartheid days) and Muslim clerics being barred for no good reason. But even for less illustrious travellers, it's getting harder to go anywhere. Unless you're in possession of an American, British or EU passport (and I think a Brit one is still first prize) you're basically doomed to a travelling life of exorbitant visa fees, pen cramp, queues and very possible major disappointment. Not to mention having to reveal all kinds of info about your life, family (the British visa application wanted me to list everyone I'm related to or know in the UK with their addresses and telephone numbers and 'nature of our relationship'. Excuse me big brother but actually you can fuck off.), financial situation, past, future, sexual preference, health (can you believe that HIV is a notifiable disease for an American visa applicant?) etc. etc.

Is this how we're ghettoising the global village?
We all purport to be sooooo interested in each other right now but what, only if we can communicate over the internet?
Let's have an massive rock concert to raise money for those poor Zimbabweans, but dear god don't let any of them in here!
We like to have your South African art in our government buildings but no, no, don't worry, we'll come over there and collect it.
We'd like to stock your homeware in our super exclusive stores but we want to pay even less than your local wholesale rate, oh ja and we're going to rebrand it and say it's from 'Africa' as opposed to an actual country within that vast and diverse continent.

Ok, I'll shut up now, I'm just having a little moan about cultural imperialism and bureaucracy and the fact that I had to spend so much time on this piddly little piece of paper in my passport.

Which, did I mention, I got! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaay - bring on the London funtimes! Yes I will flock to your foreign shores and spend my hard earned forex and take a zillion photos and go on and on about how amazing it all was to the utter boredom of everyone at home. And yes I will glance away from the bench of desperate asylum-seekers (many of them African) as I breeze through immigration, visa in hand, to visit the Tate Modern and gorge myself on European cheese and relish your efficient public transport systems.

Yes, I will pander to the West you fuckers. I can't wait!

7 random things & a bunch of pics

It's obviously meme season here in the blogosphere, I got tagged for another one by McGillicutty (confession: I cut 'n pasted her name from her blog 'cos I knew I'd spell it wrong otherwise ... ), in which I must share 7 random things about myself, and a picture (or many). And I love random. So here goes ...

1. My biggest vanity are my feet.

I've been wearing the rings since 1998.
They're heavy silver, made by one of my best friends
and given to me by my beloved Husband
(then the beloved Squeeze ... ).

2. I once followed a really bad BMW driver into KFC and berated him in front of everyone in the queue for driving like a c*nt. Then I turned on my heel and marched out to my vintage Beetle praying to all the gods of Cool that she'd uncharacteristically start for the first time. She did.

3. My proudest recent achievements have been persuading my picky-eater daughter to eat dry All-Bran Flakes by calling them ... wait for it ... Breakfast Chips. Sheer brilliance.
I also, after 7 nights in a row of her eating pesto on spaghetti (and only if we called the pasta noodles), beat her at her own game and duped her into eating risotto by calling it 'little tiny noodles' (to be said in a cutesy-pie voice). She wolfed it down. Go Parents!

4. I judge people by their hands. Not like I have standards of hygiene or anything, just that I kind of know whether I'll like someone or not by their hands. I have definite 'types' of hand which I dislike, or that I make (sub)conscious judgements about. Very occasionally I'm surprised to find that someone I really like has hands on The List. This almost makes me like them more.

5. I could eat curry & roti every. single. day. I've always been a fan but when I was pregnant I developed a serious addiction. I ate a particularly good veg curry with roti just before going to the hospital to have Frieda, I called Husband and asked him to bring one home for me after my waters broke and I knew we were in for a long night. Luckily I married a man who makes a mean curry ...

6. I've recently gained far too much self-righteous satisfaction from blatantly spying on someone on Facebook. Nothing unethical, but privacy settings exist- if someone's too stupid to activate them then don't blame me ...

7. We once took part in the Cape Town Aeolian Bike Ride. You've got to see it to believe it.

(http://aeolian-ride.info/) 

I hereby tag the first 3 weeps to read this post. Or something. Thanks McJillyCutie!