Insomnia and holidays

At this time on a Sunday, I’m usually getting ready for bed –bags packed and tucked in bed with my ereader for an hour or two. But I popped 50mg of cortisone this morning. Yip, I just can’t seem to get enough of the stuff. I got 750mg from the GP about eight weeks ago and I’ve been staggering my intake to combat this blasted eye infection. Today was the second time this week I medicated myself and my system isn’t taking kindly to the invasion of this foreign substance.

Cortisone comes with a host of side effects and I seem to get most of them. Most notably are constant hunger that only subsides while I’m actually stuffing food down my gullet into my stomach, insomnia that generally only affects me when the sun goes down, depression, lethargy and heartburn (but I take a pill for that). All in all, I’m a mess when I’m on the stuff. But, it does seem to keep the infection under control. I have promised my ophthalmologist that I will go for more blood tests and second opinions with Rheumatologists and other specialists in the New Year, when my medical aid rolls over.

First things first for the New Year, though, will be sorting out a washing machine. I now have two broken washing machines, one of which is seeking sanctuary at S-Friend’s house. And washing machine repair people are already on holiday. So I’ve been taking washing to moms and cornering my elderly neighbour in the parking lot to beg a little time with her machine. And I’ve been doing my ‘delicates’ in the bathroom basin every couple of days.

In wonderful news, I have four more days at work before an 18-day break – yippee! I can’t wait to sleep late, lie by the pool at my parent’s house (while I wait for my washing to dry), sip the odd cocktail, and spend time with friends and family. T-Aunt and L-Aunt are coming up for Christmas this year. A-Sis is coming back from London and most of my friends are on holiday, so it should make for an entertaining festive season. I am definitely grateful to have my own house to which I can flee, and for the fact that it’s not big enough for entertaining large groups of people – I suspect I may need some time out from the family fun.

I’ve almost finished my Christmas shopping. Just need to pick up presents for Dad and A-Sis; L-Sis’s present is coming all the way from England. I’ve even organised my Secret Santa gift for the office. Today I found the last pieces of my chosen gift wrapping and was finally able to finish up everyone’s parcels. All that’s left now is to deposit them under the relevant trees.

Half price shopping

In case you’ve been living under a rock, or possibly you’re living in a different province or country, you might not know it’s been raining in Jo’burg. I love the rain. But it causes something I loathe – traffic. So, on the way home this evening, I took a detour when I noticed kilometres of cars lining up Witkoppen to cross over Beyers. I zipped into Northgate and did a little shopping. And this is what I discovered.

At the end of the day, probably an hour before closing Pick ‘n Pay marks down a whole bunch perishable goods that have reached their sell-by dates. Score! Or so I thought when I was picking out my dinner and, because everything was half price, lunch for tomorrow. Figuring I was looking at a good half hour drive home I thought some finger food would be a good idea and I could eat in the car. So I chose the mini chicken burgers for R14. And all I can say is I’m glad I didn’t pay full price. I can’t imagine they tasted any better at 09h00 this morning, or even yesterday. The onion bhajai (sp) I warmed up in the oven were no better. My hopes for the butter chicken I planned for lunch tomorrow aren’t particularly high. But I’ve often consumed the strawberry jelly (jelly only comes in one legitimate flavour in my house) and custard so I know that was three bucks well spent.

Checkers also does an end of day price cut. I was there last week and was pleasantly surprized at the quality of their produce. Their prices aren’t always as much as half price, but they’re low enough to have me planning three veg for dinner.

The only question that remains unanswered is this: will this newly discovered shopping technique save me money or will groceries end up costing me more? I suspect the latter – I have an annoying tendency buy more things than I planned or need when faced with a shop full of things for sale.

Quick update: the Butter Chicken wasn't nearly as good as Woolies, but it was ediable. And worth R14, but I don't think I would part with R30 for it. The jelly and custard was worth every cent, though.

Spider hotel

Where the hell did all the spiders come from? Is there a tiny insect newspaper with a tiny insect classified section advertising property to rent and holiday spots? If there is, I reckon my place is top of the list. Nice, one bedroom ground floor unit; large garden with delectable eating spots; no cleaning in the corners or bath. Make an offer.
There’s been a steady stream of these (excuse the terrible pics – cell phone camera isn’t the best, but it’s all I’ve got):

They’ve been making webs in all sorts of places, including the bath. They seem to think it’s ideal; I don’t use the bath, so I don’t feel the need to clean it too often – especially when its inhabited by creepy crawlies.

Yesterday morning I woke up to find this rather menacing arachnid chilling in the corner of my bedroom:

I thought it was just a rain spider, but on closer inspection, I changed my mind. I did a bit of googling, but couldn’t find the identification. He was still there when I got home, but I opened the window and once the sun set, he scurried out into the great wide open. At least I hope that’s where he went. I dud a cursory check and didn’t find him lurking in any other corner or dark spaces.

And then, while taking a shower I noticed this idiot:

He decided that a good place to set up shop would be in the rubber seal of the shower door. Yeah, I know – go figure.

I’m seriously considering complete fumigation – these house guests are driving me nuts, and creeping me out just a little.

I-Pledge

The life of a journo involves attending many functions, where companies try to impress members of the media into giving their product/service/establishment/initiative a little bit of ‘free’ exposure in their respective publications. I say ‘free’ because they do pay for it, in a roundabout fashion – hiring venues and caterers, and occasionally lavishing guests with gifts all cost money.

And this time of year, the invitations come in thick and fast. This week alone, I have three invites. Next week, another two. And in-between, a trip to the KZN Midlands.

My first function this week took place in Sandton (evil) at 9am (doubly evil). It took two hours of rush hour traffic through Randburg and Sandton to reach my destination. But that’s a story for another post.

Imperial (the car people) launched its I-Pledge initiative to the public, after successfully developing it in-house with its employees. Basically, Imperial wants to make South Africa’s roads safer, starting with individual drivers. You take a pledge to give up one (or many) bad driving habits, like talking on your cell phone, SMSing, tail gating and road rage. It maintains that if everyone was a little more courteous to drivers and pedestrians (and I assume cyclists, although they weren’t specifically mentioned) we could reduce the number of deaths caused by traffic accidents. I happen to think it’s a wonderful idea and can make a real difference, if people buy into the concept.

I started thinking about what I could change to qualify to take the pledge. My driving habits include:

·         Occasionally driving over the speed limit. I don’t have spare cash lying around to line the pockets of some traffic official, and I usually leave enough time to travel to my destination, so there’s not really any need to speed.

·         Occasionally driving through an orange robot. Because I drive at the speed limit, I am usually able to brake at an orange robot without causing a pile up or burning rubber off my tires. Also, I stop at orange robots because the cars behind tend to shoot through red robots if no one stops in front of them – and the irritates the bananas out of me.

·         Swearing at other drivers, pedestrians and cyclists for doing stupid things and/or getting in my way. I pay my taxes and have as much right to use the roads as they do. This is my Road Rage coping mechanism. It's not hurting anyone and I'm not going to stop.

·         Occasionally talking/SMSing on my phone. Honestly though, I don’t do this often. But I suppose I could try harder to cut this out.

·         Never weaving in and out of lanes – this is one of the behaviours that induce swearing and the occasional zap sign from me. I plan my journey and pick my lane according to the direction in which I need to turn. I don’t decide on a whim to change lanes because the other one is moving faster at the moment. And then push my way back into the previous lane, one car ahead of where I was.

·         Making an effort to travel outside of rush hour so that I don’t get a chance to morph in to Road Rage Jane too often.

So, here’s my pledge:

I-Pledge to continue driving like a responsible person.

If you'd like to take the pledge, visit http://www.ipledge.co.za/

Depro days are here

I’m having a depro day. And not the good kind either.

Some depro days bring with them the ability to focus and an urge to put my head down and plough through my to-do list. I call those constructive depro days.

This depro day is making me tired and restless. All I really want to do is crawl back into bed and sleep until tomorrow. I don’t want to be stuck at the office, trying to focus on work, surrounded by people asking me questions about stuff I should care about. The only people I’d like to see are the ones inside the TV, or, better yet, the ones inside a book.

And this is as much enthusiasm I have for blogging – not even 150 words.

Oh well, it’s better than nothing, right?

Road Rage Jane

I learnt something new about myself yesterday. For a person who spends a fair amount of time on self-reflection, I was quite surprized by this – thought I knew everything about myself already.

I hate traffic – that’s nothing new – but I found out that I do have a tolerance for it I never thought possible.

Not sure if every person who lives out west of jo’burg decided that yesterday was THE day to get in their cars and travel up Christian De Wet/Witkoppen, but the traffic was ridiculous. I joined the queue around about the Randburg SPCA.

I took this very calmly, letting cars join the flow of traffic where I was able and generally being polite. Before 10am, with no caffeine in my system,  this pretty much a miracle. Also, I didn’t want to give anyone an excuse to do damage to my brand new wheels.

We stop-started all the way down the hill, up the other side and on to Cedar road. I remained calm and polite. The traffic opened up until Montecasino (all of about 1km), after which we sat again. By the time I got close to Main Road, I was fed up. I checked the time – it was almost exactly one hour since I left home. By this time I was tired of people pushing in front of me, cutting me off from the yellow lane, making rude gestures when I left more than 30cm of space between me the car in front.

I morphed into Road Rage Jane – hooting, swearing, gesticulating and riding up the arse of the idiot in the BMW who insisted on pushing in. I regained calm after turning onto Main Road and by the time I got to the office, my blood pressure was under control.

And that’s my discovery – I have exactly one hour’s tolerance for traffic. Which is good to know. I don’t think my tolerance of stupidity stretches that far, but maybe one day I’ll discover otherwise.

Home sweet home

Since I was a little girl, I’ve had a problem sleeping away from home.

I clearly remember making my dad fetch me from friends’ houses close to midnight after I’d arranged a sleep over, and making up excuses why I couldn’t sleep out.

I’ve grown out of this, to some extent. Travel being a perk of my job, I do spend a few nights a year sleeping in strange beds. And when I travel, I do sleep. I’m not so messed up as to suffer from insomnia if I can’t sleep in my bed. But it’s when I get back home that things get interesting.

For the first two or three nights after returning from a trip, I have weird dreams about being at a party and deciding it’s time to go home. Then I sleep walk to gather my keys and get into my car.

I haven’t actually ever made it as far as the car, but I did get to the back door once and woke up just in time to stop setting off the alarm.

Clearly my subconscious takes a while to catch up to reality.

The best cure I’ve found is to chant a little mantra as I’m getting into bed. “This is home, no need to roam.” (The poet in me can’t resist a bit of rhyming.)

This weekend A-Friend and I spent two nights on KZN’s South Coast for the launch of a new Camelot Spa at San Lameer. I was ecstatic to be getting out of Jo’burg and I was promised a day of pampering at the spa. It didn’t quite happen that way, but the weekend was still completely relaxing and enjoyable.

On returning home I forgot to chant my mantra as I readied myself for bed. I was completely buggered on Sunday night, so there was no problem. But last night I half woke up and remember wondering what strange place I was in. I think I even opened the curtains to check outside.  It was after midnight before I was able to convince my subconscious that everything was okay.

I still can’t figure out why it happens when I get home and not while I’m away. But I’m getting used to being odd , swimming upstream, going against the grain – it just seems to be my way.

Looking for some down time

Wow, but life has been busy of late. I’m looking so forward next weekend, when I can finally get my personality back with a little R, R and R (rest, relaxation and rejuvenation).

Last weekend I got to travel to Knysna for a work trip – one of the best things about being a journo. I got to fly to George, drive a hire car, stay in top notch accommodation and eat at amazing restaurants. The down side is that I’m run ragged – seeing places and meeting with people. My introverted personality has a bit of a meltdown when it doesn’t get enough time to recharge in between seeing people. I ended the weekend at the Civic Theatre with A-Friend, E-Friend and K-Friend watching Burn The Floor from the third row.

This weekend the company had a stand (or 4) at WODAC at Gallagher. It was 2 rather trying days, bringing back memories of Dharma (who I had to decide to put down about 3 weeks ago). Watching people with their dogs, doing the things we used to do together was harder than I expected.

Today the company organised a team for the 702 Walk the Talk. My main contribution was to collect balloons from Showbiz and deliver them to our gazebo. True to form, Mark’s Park was chaos, but I made it in time. The walk took a little over 2 hours with A-Friend and E-Friend and was a lot more fun than last year when I raced around the course in 1 hour.

Now I face another 5 days of work, work, work and next weekend I plan to do nothing more taxing than enjoying a leisurely breakfast, test driving a few cars (Carlos needs to retire from my service and fairly soon), watching TV and reading.

Weekend adventure

Finally, a day of rest. Well, sort of.

After last weekend’s disaster, I was looking so forward to a proper weekend, which usually means a lot of nothing – watching TV, cross stitch, web surfing and lots of sleep. Occasionally there’s breakfast with S-Friend. More and more frequently there’s some work to be done, but I don’t usually mind – it doesn’t feel too much like work as I don’t have to go into the office.

Yesterday I got a sanity-saving employee from Mollywood Maids to clean my looks-like-a-bomb-hit-it teeny tiny townhouse. This means that I have to go out, coz there’s not enough space for me while someone is cleaning. I decided to give my pathetic excuse of a winter wardrobe the defibrillator treatment and my Edgars account a work out, neither of which worked according to plan. I got one pair of summer pants on sale – go figure.

After this I took some work to McDonalds. Why McDonalds?  Well, for two reasons:

1: the food (if you can call it that) is reasonably priced.
2: they don’t send waiters to your table to bug you about ordering another overpriced coffee to be allowed to keep your table. So you can sit and work in relative peace, if not comfort, without being pestered.
I returned home to a clean and tidy abode, which always makes me happy. I took a short nap (shopping generally tires me out) and then headed out to collect N-Friend for a drumming circle in Benoni. It was a really eventful drive – N-Friend is a little crazy at the best of times; yesterday she was on top form.
 
Drumming was fun, but I feel I need a few lessons to fully enjoy the experience. I’m not a wing-it kinda girl – I like to know what I’m doing. And I really like lessons.

Today I’m packing up to house sit for the folks while they enjoy a 10-day trip to sunny Rio. Due to renovations, the folks are living in le shack, better known as the servant’s quarters, until their pretty much brand new house is complete. Le shack isn’t a step up from my home, which is saying something, but it’s comfortable enough.

There are three things I enjoy about house sitting for them:

1: it’s a 20-minute commute to the office, against the traffic.
2: they have DSTV, which is a luxury in my house.
3: I get to be close to my dog, whom I love dearly and hate being parted from (but circumstances just don’t allow her to live with me)

Dharma is a rapidly aging German Shepherd, who I’ve had since she was eight weeks old. We went to puppy school for 10 weeks, dog training for another five years and even entered a few shows and competitions – she won a cutest dog photo competition when she was six months old. She came on holiday when the folks had a home on the south coast.

She’s 12 ½ now and her health is failing. We were at the vet last week, where she was prescribed nearly R1000 worth of medication for her degenerating heart and pain medication for collapsed discs at the base of her spine. The vet said that if she’s not back to her old self in two weeks, it is probably time to make THE decision – can’t actually say the words out loud and even writing about it makes me tear up. So I’m looking forward to spending some quality time with her.

It does mean that Baylea Bird is on her own for a few days. Thankfully she’s a very low maintenance pet who can cope for three of four days without me. I do plan on being back to check up on her on Thursday – I’m not neglecting her for 10 days!

Press trip: 0/5

Dear Miss Kennedy

SANParks cordially invites you to join us at Golden Gate Highlands Park, just outside Harrismith, for an overnight excursion for the launch of revamped hotel.

Please meet our kiddie bus at the Groenkloof National Park in Pretoria at 08h00 sharp. We’ll depart at 09h00. We’ll collect a self-important gasbag journalist from his house and chauffer him to a nearby mall where we’ll wait for him to find an ATM. Then we’ll stop in town to collect five more journalists before making our way the destination. On the way we’ll make two pit stops. All this will turn a four hour drive into six.

For on board entertainment we’ve got a Thokozani Langa DVD, which we’ll screen until you can recite the words and perform the choreography. The DVD contains enough images of bare breasted women to get you through the rest of your life, and afterlife.

We’ll put you put up, not in a hotel with coffee, hairdryer, carpeted flooring and central heating, but rather in a self-catering rondavol with screed flooring and a panel heater to keep you warm in the middle of a Free State winter. You’ll need to purchase your own coffee, cremora and sugar. There’s no hairdryer to speak of and the shower is probably the worst designed in the world.

 

After dinner we’ll ferry you from the hotel parking lot to your sleeping quarters with a kamikaze driver, who will do fair damage to the bus and pristine white Jeep.

In the morning, we’ll collect you nice and early so that you can see the unveiling of a special plaque by the Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, after which you’ll have a breakfast. Then you’ll need to amuse yourself for 2 hours until we make you sit through a 2 hour programme commemorating World Environmental Day. We’ll give you a quick tour of the hotel, showing you just enough to make you envious of all the dignitaries who spent the night in our wonderful establishment.

We’ll leave Golden Gate at exactly 13h00, which really means 16h00.

We’ll deny that there’s lunch and wait for you to order, eat and pay for your own lunch before announcing a buffet in the dining room. After lunch, you’ll be free to roam the grounds or amuse yourself in other ways.

However, we won’t give you a programme of any sort, so you’ll have no idea what to expect and will pack at least 1 unnecessary outfit, the space for which should ideally be used to pack your artic gear.

In return you’ll get to watch DSTV in your bed and fall asleep under the calming influence of the Maluti mountains.

Here are the directions to our meeting point, but I’m not going to give you my cell phone number, or ask you for yours. If you should get lost on your way to meeting the bus, please feel free to drive around until you find us.

I look forward to hearing your response to this amazing invitation. 

Sincerely yours

Amateur PR for SANParks

Dear Amateur PR for SANParks

So, I won’t be staying here?

Instead, I’ll be staying here?

For this?

Wow, how could I pass up such an invite?

I’ll see you at 08h00 on Saturday morning. I’ll definitely get lost on my way, so despite leaving in plenty of time, I’ll be late. To try and find your offices, I’ll switch on my phone’s GPS and chow the battery.

I’ll need two seats on the miniature kiddie bus as I have a gamy knee that needs space to stretch. I’ll check my facebook on my phone, reducing my phone battery down to nothing. I’ll forget my charger and will need you to find someone to charge my phone so that I can I set an alarm for the morning.

I love coffee, so I’ll purchase some sachets of coffee and cremora at the ridiculously expensive spaza shop conveniently located in the rondavol complex, but I’ll under estimate my need and will have to request extra from hotel housekeeping.

To amuse myself on Sunday morning, I’ll trek from the hotel to my room to write a blog post and watch The Tooth Fairy. I’ll make a slightly less arduous trek back to the hotel in a bone chilling wind that will threaten to knock me over. I’ll bring my book to amuse myself with while waiting around for hours on end for the bus to leave.

I look forward to a 6 hour drive back to my car, with my MP3 player plugged firmly into my ears. It will be a wonderful change of pace to drive from Pretoria to my house at 21h30, finding a new route back due to the horrific car accident on the N14, closing the exit I was planning to use.

Many thanks

Kate

Dear Amateur PR for SANParks

Is it too late to change my mind? This sounds like a horrible trip.

Many thanks

Kate

Existential crisis

A-Friend has this uncanny ability to put me in touch with my intuition. Not sure how she does it, but after some time in her company, I have this urge to contemplate a topic of conversation we had. This usually leads to contemplation on issues that, in my twisted mind, branch off from it.

On Friday one of the branches lead to me contemplating my existence. I don’t want to believe in reincarnation because I don’t want to have to come back to earth and do this whole living thing again. My soul is old and wants to retire. The next time the soul train pulls out of the heavenly station, I’ll be sitting in the nearby park with my magic-porridge-pot cappuccino and the latest Stephanie Plum novel. Yes, that’s right, Janet Evanovich will be spending her afterlife writing an everlasting supply of hysterical crime novels for me to enjoy. And Matthew McConnaughey will keep making movies where he takes his shirt off.

But I had a revelation. This time around, I think I’m supposed to say a gentle good-bye to the world, cos this is my last trip. This is the trip when I’ll leave my mark on the world (thinking more along the line of literarily – may this blog be testament to my existence – not really passing on DNA to another generation).

This would explain why, at 31, I’m still single and childless and not really unhappy about it. Or all it really explains is that I’m full of shit and have issues with intimacy and rejection.

Naming protocol

 I've finally hit on a naming protocol for my blog.

After reading so many blogs with writers who have such clever ways of identifying the people in their lives and their blogs without violating their personal privacy, I’ve been racking my brains for my own clever ID. And it finally came to me.

So, from now on, people on my blog will be identified by their first initial followed by my relationship with them. For example, you’ll see people like A-Sis (as in sister), L-Sis, A-Friend (completely different person from A-Sis) and C-Col (as in colleague). And depending on how close I am with my relatives, you may even see T-Aunt, H-Uncle, B-Aunt and L-Cuz (as in cousin).

Time for a holiday?

I think I’m in desperate need of a holiday. Everywhere I turn lately I’m assaulted by reminders of a family trip to the UK two years ago.

We spent Christmas with my sister, who’s using her ancestry visa to get her British passport. Being winter, the weather ranged from chilly to freezing (for us warm-blooded South African’s at any rate) with overcast skies and a wind chill factor that bit to the bone. It was wonderful! My only complaint was the ridiculously few number of daylight hours – usually no more than 6 – cos when it’s dark, I want to sleep.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve had numerous flashbacks. The early morning Joburg weather is chilly and overcast and you’d be surprized how much an Engen or BP garage smells like the underground. Since I was using the garage shops to satisfy my early-morning demand for caffeine, I was further reminded of this trip – on the journey from London to Plymouth we pulled into quite few one stops to pump our own petrol and stock up on stash*.

So each of these reminders was like a little holiday, but they really only added to the growing desire I feel for a new holiday adventure.

 * Stash is a Kennedy necessity while travelling, and usually consists of chips, chocolate, biscuits and biltong. However if my mom is in charge we get wholewheat vegetable sarmies, no-sugar-added fruit juice and wine gums.

I'm ok, I'm alright

After a couple of frantic SMSs from Baby Sis last night, wondering what was happening in my life, I thought I'd write a quick post to reassure everyone that I'm fine, at least in the physical sense. I'm nowhere near an actual earthquake. My turmoil is all psychological, pertaining mostly to some changes at work that I'm finding a little hard to deal with. It’s gone from being safe and fun to a little scary and stressful, and I’m still figuring out how to navigate this new situation.

Yesterday was a particularly difficult day for me and I needed an outlet – the exact reason I started this blog in the first place. To give you a more concrete understanding, I can tell you that BossLady resigned – Thursday was her last day – and, until her replacement starts on 3 May, I’ve been left in charge of the department.

BL was a large part of why I’ve enjoyed my job so much over the last 2-odd years. She’s been my mentor and a pretty good friend. I’m missing her leadership and the security she exuded, not to mention her passion and flamboyant personality.

On Thursday evening 4 of my colleagues and I took BL to see Madam Zingara to say farewell. The show is amazing and I recommend it anyone. I finally switched off my bedside light just before 2am and was sitting at my desk a little after 7am. A serious lack of sleep made all the emotions feel at least twice as intense. Add this to a minor problem at the office and I was an emotional wreck by the time I left there.

But the day was salvaged by a couple of new friends who bought me dinner and assuaged my emotions with an evening of good music. Thanks E and L – you guys rock!

Earthquakes all round

Scenario 1

Imagine you’re walking on a beautifully tarred road. The road is without potholes and its markings are always freshly painted.  The hills, dales, twists and turns, while sometimes large, aren’t insurmountable. Walking on this road is wonderful –it’s a great workout, safe and fun, with interesting scenery and interesting people walking with you. Up ahead, you know someone is preparing this awesome road, but it seems to happen when you’re not looking.

Scenario 2

Now imagine that road is struck by an earthquake. This earthquake devastates the road. It’s reduced to a path of rubble.  You need to be careful where you put your feet, make sure you don’t slip and fall. The up side is that there’s someone there to hold your hand, someone you can lean on, who can show you the best spot to place your next step. You’ve also got a million things to distract you from the state of the road, so its broken shadow of its former self doesn’t freak you out overly much.

Scenario 3

Now imagine that this person disappears and leaves you in charge of guiding other road users. Yip, while you’re floundering on dangerous ground, often in your high heels, you’re now expected to make sure other people don’t slip and fall.

It’s a pretty apt description of my life over the last 8 weeks. It’s the main reason for my absence from blogging. There have been just too many things to deal with and I’m rather good at burying my head in the sand when I don’t want to deal.

However, I’m not one of those people who can ignore this type of thing for ever. I’ve dealt with, or at least I thought I had, some of the emotions of the earthquake. I’ve spent 7 weeks (it took 1 week to get over the shock of the earthquake) distracting myself with planning, organising, applying for a promotion.  This method has kept my emotional rollercoaster away from those scary climbs and falls.

Today is the first day of Scenario 3 and there’s a big part of me railing against the change. I knew it was coming and I prepared as best I could, but still feel a bit like Jack clinging to one of the Titanic’s floating doors, immersed in an angry, ice cold sea.

The rollercoaster is in full swing and I’m finding it hard to keep my composure in public for any length of time. This post isn’t helping with the composure, but it’s a necessary part of my rollercoaster maintenance.

I long to feel safe and secure again.

But, like the people of Japan, I will pick myself up, rebuild this road and learn to be a better person in the long run. It’s just gonna take some time, so please bear with me.

Linguistics of love and friendship

A few of us at the office were having a discussion a while ago about the different ways we experience love and support. Someone mentioned a study conducted about this subject which resulted in the 5 Love Languages.

The 5 Love Languages was developed by marriage counsellor, Dr Gary Coleman and it outlines the different ways all people show and experience love.

I figured, surely there needs to be more than 5, so I gave a lot of thought to what my love language is and went to look for it on the list.

My love language is: put me first every now and then. It’s one of the ways I express love to my friends and family – by making time for them – and its how I know others think highly me.

This doesn’t mean I want to be the centre of someone else’s universe, or that friends should drop everything to make sure they can see me when I’m free. But rather, make some time for me in your life, even if it’s not always that convenient to do so. Like, maybe, every four or five months, have coffee with me, or see a movie, or get a drink. Am I being unreasonable? Is this too much to ask of people who say they’re my friends?

I realised that my mom didn’t understand my love language when I got really upset at the number of people who declined invitations to my birthday party last year. I mean, I hardly ever want to commemorate my birthday with a party, and it was the big 3-0, so why were some people so reluctant to celebrate with me?

Thinking about the situation from a Love Language perspective, I realised that this isn’t a global reality and I shouldn’t take it personally. The whole situation was made better when one guest told me that she turned down another invitation just to be at my party – it made me feel really special. Another guest made a real effort to be there, bronchitis and all.

Anyway, I took this new-found knowledge and tried to prove that 5 Love Languages wasn’t enough. I came across this site http://www.5lovelanguages.com/learn-the-languages/the-five-love-languages/ where I discovered that I did in fact fall, very neatly, into the Quality Time category. The other 4 categories are Words of Affirmation, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service and Physical Touch.

Here’s your assignment for today: give some thought to your Love Language as well as those of your family and friends – it should help your relationships run all the smoother.

Workaholic? Me? Never!

I never thought of myself as a workaholic, but it seems to have snuck up while I wasn’t looking.

These days I don’t seem to do anything but work. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not unhappy about it – I’m really loving my job and the work I’m doing. It’s not a hardship. And, aside from line dancing (in which my interest waxes and wanes), I don’t have many commitments to non-work related people or activities.

But you know it’s bad when, on your day off, you still check your mail (the joys of 3G and laptops – you can take your office with you everywhere) and agree to attend a meeting. The control freak in me feels very comfortable with this, but not many people understand.

The antidote – plan as many things on leave days as possible. For the 2 days I’ve taken off at the end of this month, I’ll have to arrange to see friends, go to movies, see doctors, dentist, hairdresser and possibly look for a craft class or 2. Leave can be really expensive!

Insomnia

It’s just gone 5am and I’ve been awake for nearly 3 hours. This isn’t the first time this week, but it is the first time I gave up the tossing the turning for more constructive activities. It seems Insomnia has come a-calling.

I don’t often have a problem with Sleep – we get on famously. For me to be at my best, 10 hours a night is almost mandatory. Don’t get me wrong, I can function perfectly well on 7 or 8 hours, but 10 is gravy.

So I’m figuring that Stress is giving Sleep the old heave ho. Instead of being well rested to handle Stress during what is becoming a normal (stress-filled and hectically busy) work day, I’m up half the night trying to tell Stress that I’ll deal with it in a few hours. It’s not listening and I get the sense that it’s taking perverse pleasure in watching me squirm.

I’m taking preventative measures, like going to bed as late as I can manage, cos by 7pm I’m pretty exhausted, and reading my book until I just can’t keep my eyes open. But usually less than 5 hours later, I’m wide awake. Having nothing to do before going to work, I lie quietly in bed until it’s time to get up. Then I work a 10-hour day in the hopes that I’ll be tired enough to sleep through the night, but it’s just not happening.

Thankfully I’ve discovered McNabs energy tablets, which work wonders for me (although I know they don’t have the same effect on everyone). In my increasingly bleary state of mind, I figure these little sachets are going to be the only thing that keep me from driving my (in great need of a service) car off a bridge. That and a regular intake of Seattle grande cappucino from the garage shop on the way to work before 6am.

It’s now a little before 6am (on a frikking Sunday) and I’m going to see if I can catch another hour or so of shut eye. Wish me luck.

Pressies

Baby sis got back from a 10-day holiday in London and brought me pressies! I’m not usually so materialistic, but I love gifts from exotic places that I hardly ever get to visit. And she has a knack for buying just the right things.

One of my favourite things in my goodie bag was a bottle of Fairy dishwashing liquid. When I was in England 2 years ago, it was one of things I wanted to bring back with me, but felt too stupid to actually lug bottles of cleaning product half way around the world.

The fascination? I guess it’s that it’s called Fairy. I mean, come on, who wouldn’t want to wash dishes with a product so magically named? I couldn’t wait to get home and squeeze the purple liquid (with Olay moisturiser) under the jet of the hot water tap and scrub the dishes.

Can you imagine if someone produced Unicorn toilet cleaner, or Centaur window washing spray, or Dragon tile cleaner? My house would never be dirty. I’d be cleaning all the time and looking forward to it, imagining I was a Harry Potter character, coating the toilet bowl with magical properties of Unicorn, making my toilet impervious to attacks from Dementors.

Another gift was some Winnie-the-Pooh stationery. But it caused a bit of confusion when I read the label.

Although I was pretty sure it was stationery, I saw the word tampon and couldn’t quite marry up what my eyes were seeing and what I was reading.

My mind was working over time. Novelty tampons? That could make someone a lot of money. I’ve already proven that a grown woman without any children will buy Winnie-the-Pooh plasters, for a few bucks more than regular plasters, regardless of the fact that I need 2 plasters to cover a cut on my finger because they’re made for kids.

So why not endorse hygiene products with cartoon characters? Why not Spiderman condoms, or Hello Kitty tampons – seems so perfect I can’t imagine that I’m the first person to think of that. Even Hello Kitty condoms are appropriate. Ok, moving on before I this post goes completely downhill.

So, that’s my genius idea. I’m sure someone knows a way to make him or her self rich off of it.

Hunger pains

It seems the refrigerator fairies were conspiring with my mother to make sure I had a steady supply of food – just not the kind I would often buy.

A week ago my dad was diagnosed with cholesterol and told to lose weight and healthy up his eating habits. This was the perfect excuse for my mom, who can’t understand why people continually eat chips, chocolates and all those other unhealthy foods, to put him on a diet.

She got the soup diet from a friend, who lost quite well on it, and roped me into dieting as support. This is a diet and not an eating plan, designed to be followed for a week at time and claims rapid weight loss – and now I know why!

This is not to say that I can’t stand to lose a substantial number of kilos, but I’ve never really had the correct motivation. Supporting my dad in his journey to a healthier him is a great motivation.

The basis of the diet is fruit and veg, so it’s not a nutritionally deficient as some fad diets. They throw in the odd carbohydrate and protein to balance the nutrition intake.

Mom cooked up about 20 litres of vegetable soup, the main ingredient in this diet and packed my rations on Saturday so that I could start the diet bright and early on Monday morning.

So Monday I had fruit salad for breakfast, soup and apple sauce (delicious) for lunch and again for dinner. But it wasn’t just pieces of fruit – mom prepared raspberry sorbet and paw pay with freshly squeezed orange juice (really yummy).

When I sitting at my desk, longing for the sweet chocolately goodness, I kept telling myself that my dad wasn’t cheating, so I couldn’t. It kept me strong.

Tuesday was the vegetable day – dried fried mushrooms, onions, cherry tomatoes, peppers for breakfast (really not great unless it’s in an omelette), soup and salad for lunch and soup with baked mushrooms and roasted veg salad. As a reward you’re allowed a baked potato. I never thought I’d miss eating fruit, but man, was I jonesing for something sweet.

Wednesday was fruit and veg, and soup. Not so bad, but still no protein.

Thursday was soup, bananas and skim milk. I dry fried my breakfast banana, which was tasty, but not nearly filling. There was a banana for tea time, soup and banana for lunch and soup and a banana smoothie for supper. Mom has really gone to a lot of trouble to come up with different ways to make the legal foods tasty and varied.

Mom and Dad had both lost between 1 and 2 kilos by this stage.

I couldn’t work up the enthusiasm to get up in time to beat the traffic to the office, so I worked from home for an hour or so and dragged myself to work at 9am. I was irritable, hungry and by the end of the day I’d pretty much lost the will to do anything – even eat! I sucked down my bowl of soup just because I had to.

Today, I’m 5 days in, with 2 more to go. It’s protein day today – 500g of steak, with tomatoes and more soup. So I had a piece of steak for breakfast (no way was I eating more bloody soup), soup, steak and salad (technically cheating, but come on, what damage is a few lettuce leaves, cucumber and red pepper going to do?) for lunch. Steak and soup again for supper. I’m supposed to eat tomatoes, but I really hate these little red spheres unless they’re pureed into pasta sauce.

I’m still miserable, irritable and would be quite happy to be dumped into a hole and left alone to waste away. I couldn’t be bothered to eat a packet of chips if you said I could.

But I’m hoping this diet will help break my bad eating habits and cravings. Already I’m thinking things like “if only I could have a few spoons of yogurt with my fruit salad”, and “if I could add a small tin of tuna to this salad, I’d feel better”. It used to be “I could really use a chocolate”, or “McDonalds is on the way, I’ll stop for a quick burger”.

On the up side though, I haven’t had to buy or prepare food for 5 days! And my tummy has been regular as clockwork – something that hasn’t happened in nearly 4 years.

Refrigerator Fairies

When we get close to pay day, I always remember a story I heard about Refrigerator Fairies*. They’re kinda like Tinkerbell, but instead of sprinkling fairy dust that makes you fly, they fill a fridge with delectable, delicious noms.

But I’m starting to think that these fairies are dying out, or at least favouring others with their magic dust instead of visiting me. I don’t remember when last my fridge was this empty. Sure, there’s bread and milk (so I'm not going to starve), but I definitely remember buying those myself.

There’s also marg, jam, a small block of cheese, a kilo of Woolies peeled onions, coffee and sugar. And yes, I store all of these items in the fridge. But where are the roast chicken leftovers, the bag of apples, the half eaten milk tart? The freezer could use a new tub of Nestlé’s Peppermint Crisp ice-cream, a frozen pizza or two and some chicken nuggets.

No matter how often I open the doors to the magical cold storage box, nothing new appears. The sting of rejection by one of my most loved magical creatures (the unicorn takes top honours, but that’s mostly cos he’s a horse. Pegasus comes in second for the same reason) is hitting hard.

I can just see the little bugger thumbing his nose at me, sniggering “Ha, ha. I got new friends now. You’re just gonna have to survive on peanut butter toast.”

I thought about playing Ready, Steady, Cook – Home edition, with the few ingredients I can scrounge from various storage cupboards, but I’m not really that ingenious when it comes to cooking and I figure I’ll end up throwing away the result, which would be a real waste.

So it’s end-of-the-month-Salticrax-snacks until pay day. Now if only I could find some Salticrax, that idea might work. How many ways are there to prepare a peanut butter sarmie?

*In the interest of complete honesty, it could that I made this story up as a coping mechanism for justifying my complete lack of money at the end of each month.

Old age and ill health

Doctor doctor give me the news

I’ve got a bad case of medical blues

Oh man, I’m tired of seeing doctors. Actually I’m just tired of paying them. And there seems to be no end in sight.

I’ve never been a particularly sickly individual. Aside from tonsillitis, chicken pox, a broken ankle, measles and the odd cold or flu, I’m fairly healthy. But I turned 30 and suddenly I’m making personal acquaintances with doctors and eating through my medical in about 9 months.

I had an accident at the office in about August last year – I didn’t pick my feet up while walking back to my desk and fell up the stairs. I landed on my left knee – hard. I spent a few hours in the ER, was given crutches and generic myprodols and told to take it easy for a few days. It took about 3 weeks before I was walking normally, but a few people suggested I see a physio. As work was paying (I claimed from Workmans Compensation), I figured I had nothing to lose. I completed three appointments so that the doc could massage my kneecap back into place.

At the beginning of October I went to see my GP about my right eye – it was weepy and scratchy. He diagnosed conjunctivas and gave me eye drops. A week later I still wasn’t better so he wrote me a script for another bottle of eye drops. A week after that I had developed a major head and the eye wasn’t any better, so the doc had another look, suspected scleritis and referred me to an ophthalmologist.

The ophthalmologist confirmed the diagnosis and prescribed more eye drops, and myprodol for the raging headaches that split the right side of head like a meat cleaver through rump steak. 10 days later I went back – I was no better. This time I got amoxicillin tablets, which finally did the trick.

Or so I thought.

Less than 2 weeks after declaring to the world that I was once again in good health, the nasty little infection invoked squatter’s rights. I managed it with the same drops from the last prescription, and more myprodols. It seemed to get better over the holiday, but came back when the office opened in January. I went to see the eye doc again last week, and he can’t find any infection (but did find an allergy, which means yet more eye drops). He’s now referred me to a Rheumotologist, because scleritis is usually a symptom of diabetes or arthritis.

That’s not the end of the story.

Last week I was the unfortunate victim of a taxi stupidity. Some idiot stopped in the middle of a two lane road to, I assume, pick up or let off a passenger. I slammed on brakes, burned about 10 mm of tread of my brand new driver’s side front tyre, and narrowly missed the car in front of me. Unfortunately the car behind me didn’t have enough stopping distance and used my poor, elderly little Carlos as a punching bag. I felt the impact in my mid back and figured I’d be stiff the next morning. However, when I started feeling pain a few hours later, I figured I’d better have myself examined. The GP didn’t suspect anything serious. He shot me full of Voltaren, gave me five day’s worth of Cataflam and sent me on my way.

Now I just have to wait and see what the new doctor has to say. If she can’t find a cause for the scleritis, I’ll most likely be making annual visits to the eye doc to manage the eye infection. 

If this is what getting old does to your body, I do hope that my life expectancy doesn’t extend much past 80.

Spud

The family went to see Spud at the drive-in and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of production and performances of most of the actors – I didn’t have high expectations going in.

On the way home I made a comment that I am annoyed by all the books that are being turned into movies.

Dad: it’s all about making money

Me: well, it shouldn’t be

Sis: now you’re just being ridiculous

Mom: it’s for the people who don’t read books

Me: well, they should read

Sis: ok, stop being so ridiculous (sorry for having and expressing opinions Sis)

But please tell me what’s ridiculous about feeling like money is not the bee all and end all of life on earth? Or that people should expand their imaginations by reading, or loose out on a story?

Admittedly, this is a new view – I do have Lord of the Rings on DVD, and the first 5 Harry Potter DVDs. And while I’ve read, and loved, each Harry Potter book at least twice, I’ve not read Lord of the Rings (I’ve not felt a need to read it as the movies are really good in my opinion).

It just irks me that I can hardly rent a DVD without finding out at some point that it was book, where the story is inevitably told so much better than what I see on screen.

The Last Song – DVD jacket says that’s a book by Nicholas Sparks, who also wrote A Walk to Remember (was pissed off when I discovered that, despite how much I love the movie) and Nights in Rodanthe (broke down and rented the DVD and was not overly impressed with Dianne Lane and Richard Gere, but I figure the book would be really good).

Charlie St Cloud – according to mom, it’s a book, but the movie was apparently so abominable that it’s not worth seeing.

Montana Sky – rented it even knowing it’s a book by Nora Roberts. I love her stories, especially her later ones, and was sorely disappointed at the portrayal of the characters by pretty much unknown actors. I know what her heroes are like, and John Corbette (the only name I recognise) didn’t do this male lead any justice.

I’m sorely tempted to boycott reading books by authors who sell themselves to Hollywood as much as I am refusing to watch movie adaptations of books.

The reason I’m trawling through Mr Video’s appalling collection of movies is because I can rent 5 movies for 7 days for R55. Sounds like a great deal, but then I’m told it excludes all new releases. You’d think there would be some good finds, and there are a few, but for the most part, it’s just films that, for obvious reasons, went straight to video. After 3 rounds, there’s virtually nothing left to interest me. Spending R100 (I never pay more) on a DVD I really like and can watch a million times over, is a far better way to go.