in the bleak midwinter

It's day 4 of a 7 day storm, and we're back in lockdown.

The girls just finished school 10 days earlier than planned, booze sales are prohibited again, no gatherings (like, none), no restaurants, no galleries, no museums, 9pm curfew. They kept the beaches open this time, but in this weather this is only really good news for those restaurant owners who can go for a surf to distract themselves from the crippling debt and human cost of having to close their doors. Again.

Ostensibly this lockdown is for 14 days but I mean, we've all heard that one before.

So we're back at home. Except this time I'm also working. Or am I?

I spent yesterday compiling a document which might mean a pause to my current contract, and although it would be pretty shit to lose the distraction, satisfaction and paycheck that comes with actual work - it's also madness to try and put together an in-person event in this ridiculously unpredictable time.

I realised recently that I've possibly reached peak apathy. I just don't really care that much anymore.

I can't think about the future without waves of absolute gloom breaking over me so I just don't. And by future I mean everything from will I ever travel internationally to what options will my children have in this new world to how, with 67% youth unemployment, our country is surely heading down the tubes. See why it's better to just not think of it?

I have never been this apathetic in my life. I'm not even despondent because that would require too much feeling. I just ... have the biggest case of the whatevers ever.

Also an excellent time to have a midlife crisis. I turned 46 in May and it was hard. The actual birthday was lovely - I have the best friends and family - but in the weeks that followed I hit a real wall. But even that is ruined by the fukken pandemic.

As I texted a friend recently: what we've all got is the constant second guessing of all our feelings - do I hate my life or just the pandemic, do I want a divorce or just a vaccine, is this Covid or a normal midlife crisis?

It's all extremely boring actually.

BUT, there are rays of light and my god we need them...

Our big girl turned 14 last month and scored (as she always does) a beaut of a still, warm, winters day to have lunch out with her besties and cupcakes on our deck. After her tiny 13th celebration last year this was a big win, especially in light of our current restrictions.

The sun comes up every day (not much evidence of this the last few days tbh but ja, still she rises) and reminds us that we live in a beautiful place.

We have the most ridiculously lovely and infuriating collection of pets to comfort and entertain us.

In our home there is art, and beauty, and kindness, and love, and delicious food - and this, in the end, is the thing which must be enough for now. 

Just un-wedgie your big girl panties and get on with it girl.

ex-spike

For nearly 3 weeks I had a dead hamster in my freezer.

Spike, the innocuous grey and white dwarf hamster Frieda got for her 8th birthday, succumbed a few months short of the 2 years we were warned hamsters usually last.
I ... didn't really get the hamster thing. He was kinda cute, very soft, but more likely to bite one on the sensitive web of skin between your thumb and forefinger and leave a string of turds down the front of your shirt than anything else.
His cage ponged and his wheel squeaked all night.
We had to keep the girls bedroom door closed all the time for bull terrier and cat risk.
Except for the couple of times we didn't.

Spike's most noteworthy achievement, in his small life, was to not once but TWICE ward off attack by voracious bully. Orca just couldn't resist that little guy.

#hamsterwatch

Very possibly the stress contributed to his shortened life span. Spike got steadily more crabby and less lovable. His fur lost its lustre and that wheel didn't squeak as energetically at night. One morning I realised he was really not happy. I called the vet to warn him I'd be bringing in a hamster for euthanasia, I prepared the girls (home for the holidays and remarkably - worryingly? - unfazed), I kinda berated myself for not being butch enough to just hold a ball of socks over the little guy's face until it was over, but call me 21st century soft if you will, I just couldn't do it.

And by the time I got upstairs to fetch him it was basically all over. He was lying in the sawdust, in a coma I think, occasionally a limb twitched but he seemed peaceful and that to move him would be more traumatic than to just close the door, tip toe away and come back later.

No more caged pets please.

Husband felt we needed a proper burial and so, in a box and a bag, into the freezer went Spike.
And then we forgot to bury him.
And the next night we all got home too late.
And the next day is was raining, or something.
And then it was rubbish day and I informed the family I was going to send Spike off in that great wheelie-bin to the sky.
And then I forgot.
And then the next rubbish day was Easter Monday and we were away.
And then finally, today, after that box had been opened a couple of times by morbidly fascinated children, after I'd shuddered more than once getting ice for a drink or scratching around for supper makings, after we'd had a very naughty but delightfully squirmy imagining about a ... hamster smoothie ... I managed to get him out, in time for rubbish collection.

RIP Spike.
No more caged pets.

best foot forward

Late on Wednesday afternoon, I stepped off the patio to catch a glimpse of a Fish Eagle I heard calling over the lake.
And turned my ankle.

I always thought Fish Eagles were one of my spirit guides (long story), but I'm still trying to work out how this one was serving my best interests.

Doc this morning gives me 2-4 weeks immobility (I'm on crutches) as a best case scenario. Could be closer to 6.
Right foot sprained, no driving, swollen toes, sore arms and palms from crutches, work-stressed husband/solo parent, delightfully helpful little girls (for now), school starting next week, anti-inflammatory meds, complete state of disbelief.

Really 2014? Really?

This is not how I'd thought we'd set off together.

gratuitous photo of small girls running, because they can

27 June 2008

Frieda was just one. She and I had spent the afternoon at a friend's. I remember I'd had more than one gin and tonic. It was Friday and it felt that way.

We got home a little late for starting supper etc, and swooped straight through the house to the kitchen. I put Frieda in her high chair and started scrabbling for something to feed her.

The alarm had been on when we'd arrived, I'd disarmed it before we entered. The study door was closed but that didn't strike me as odd, we often closed it so Frieda wouldn't toddle in there unsupervised.

It was only when I tried to open the back door, and couldn't, that I realised the broom cupboard which stood just outside it was on its side. Then I saw all the broken glass and went cold.
Where they still here?

I grabbed Frieda and my phone and walked straight out of the house again. Stood in the bitter wind phoning my husband and the security company. I wrapped her close in my big jersey, my heart thudding through us both.

Turns out the burglar was long gone. He'd smashed the solid pane of the study window (having realised that the alarm worked with contact points on all the opening windows and doors), closed the door to the study and helped himself to everything in there - 2 laptops, a tablet, a bike jacket, a mobile phone, some cash etc.

A bloody fingerprint stained the strip plug he'd unplugged my laptop from.
I am so grateful I'd copied the photos of Frieda's 1st birthday to a flash drive to share with a friend.
He left a can of mace spray behind.
I'm so grateful we came home when we did.

He left some other fingerprints too. And the reason why I tell this story now is that tomorrow I go to court to bear witness against him. 5 years and another dozen charges later they've got him, and although I don't really see the worth of my testimony - I can't add anything to the original police report, I never saw him - I'll do what I can to help find him guilty.

We were 'lucky' to have only been burgled once in all the years we lived in Observatory. (Actually we were broken into twice but the other time the perp only got into our garden shed and took a dump - I was away working on a shoot so I guess that time just I was lucky!)

But I don't feel particularly lucky now as I have to leave home in the dark and rain tomorrow to spend the morning on a cold, hard bench in the unsavoury environment of the Cape High Court.
But Justice must be served right?

okay twitter, I get you now #blacktuesday

Wow.

Today I experienced that thing about Twitter which so many people rave about. I watched, in real time, as history was made - following the hash tag, my home page bumping up every few seconds with another 20 tweets, another 30 tweets, another 60 tweets as the announcement was made.

#BlackTuesday out-trended Thanksgiving for a moment today. Apparently that's huge.

I wish the historical event I was following was a more positive one. I wish I'd been outside Parliament to experience it with my peers, not reading about it once removed - albeit only a few seconds removed.

But Twitter totally came through for me on this one, and I get it now. Fucking marvelous technology.

Not just the real-time connection with the event, but being able to garner all the varied comments - from SA's top newspaper editors to comedians, political commentators, assholes - the voices of reason, of hysteria - to instantly have ones own reaction tempered, inflamed, counter-balanced, validated, refuted. Great stuff.

And instantly those (South Africans) whom I follow fell into two stark categories: those who were talking #blacktuesday and those who weren't. How could anyone really have been tweeting about anything else today?

Twitter, I take it all back. You totally came through for me today.

Even if my government shamefully and horrifyingly didn't.

annoying on so many levels

So last night, in a freakish replay of last week's events, I heard a distinctively ominous BANG at about 9pm. Calling husband I threw open the front door in time to see a hooded figure run across our front yard and jump the wall, taking off down the road.

Seems he'd tried to force our front security gate, hoping to gain access to the enclosed porch in which we keep our bikes - admittedly irresistible bait to the small-time criminal - in the process rendering the lock useless, and us captive in our own house.
Cunt.

Security company was duly called, more for procedure than any hope of pursuing the perp, and then our home insurers to book a locksmith for the morning. At which point we discovered that obviously in order to claim for the damages we would need a police case number, which of course meant having to formally report the incident.
And so, in what felt like a massive waste of the already massively-strapped SA Police Force's time and resources, we had two officers in our lounge last evening, taking my statement about nothing, and a visiting detective and a finger-print guy here today, practically doing nothing, all so we wouldn't have to spend R500+ of our own money on repairing our gate.
And they were all so nice and helpful and sympathetic, which almost made me feel worse. And even more annoyed with the would-be burglar.

I'm annoyed that this pathetic little junkie/opportunist/desperately hungry individual (I added the last one to create the illusion of lefty-liberalism, sneaky hey?) got within metres of my sleeping daughters.

I'm annoyed that my feelings of security in my own home have been shaken a little.

I'm annoyed that we now need to find alternative storage for our bikes when the porch was just perfect for them.

I'm annoyed that the key for the new lock is ugly.

And mostly I'm annoyed that my BULL TERRIER slept soundly on her chair throughout the entire event. So much for that!

solidarity

Thinking of you.

I got schnaaied

SCHNAAI (sh-nigh) ~ Rip off, betray, stab in the back.

No, this is not a balderdash, this is a real SA slang word. I think it comes from a mix of the Yiddish 'schtoop' and the Afrikaans 'naai' - both such wonderfully expressive languages, both words meaning basically, to get screwed.

The annoying part is that I kinda knew it was happening, but I just didn't want this well-dressed, nice-looking guy to be yet another con artist. I wanted to believe that in a world where real people do honestly get stuck in bad situations I could help someone out. That just because we get spun so many stories every. single. fucking. day. we don't have to numb that essential element of human compassion which'll reach out to someone in a time of need.

So I listened to his story, while Compassion and Cynic had the following conversation in my head:

Cynic: 'Ja, whatever with your 'sad' story junkie-man, just get out of my face.'
Compassion: 'Jesus dude, he's standing here in the pissing rain in a decent suit of clothes - have a heart.'
Cynic: 'Decent? The jacket has a red paisley lining - wtf??'
Compassion: 'I'm not going to judge a man by his clothes. I'm not going to judge a man by his clothes. I'm not going to judge a man by his clothes.'
Cynic: 'Oh so if he was wearing Crocs you'd still feel sorry for him? Yeah right.'
Compassion: 'Could we focus here? He's offering to leave me his laptop.'
Cynic: 'Which is where exactly? In that bag? Sure....'
Compassion: 'How crap must it be if you're in a genuine bind and no one will believe you 'cos they're so used to being scammed? Maybe this is one of those times when one just needs to trust in humanity.'
Cynic (whiny voice): 'How crap must it be if you're genuinely hanging for a fix and no one with believe your sorry little con story? Trust away girlfriend, but don't think I'm not greatly looking forward to graffitiing I TOLD YOU SO all over your wounded pride later.'
Cold toes: 'Could you two get a move on, we're getting hyperthermia down here.'

So Compassion gave the guy R50 and 'her phone number so he could phone her later to make arrangements to reimburse her'. And Cynic laughed, said: 'What, and then you'll give him your banking details?!', and got out her spray-can.

And as I walked away I knew I'd been schnaaied. And through all my stewing about it on and off through the day I have to admit that while I feel disappointment in the guy who'll consciously lie to make a quick buck, and anger that his scam will make everyone who falls for it that much more hardened towards anyone out there with a real story (and there are many), my main feeling is embarrassment. Seriously, did I  really fall for something like that?

Ok Cynic, tag me you incorrigible bitch.

big fat sulk

Entering 48 hours of dread stomach bug.

Husband.

Self.

Child.

All stricken.

Surviving on miso soup and fragile good will.

Big fat sulk: missing the LKJ concert tonight which we've been looking forward to. For. Ever.

Hmph.