23 sleeps

It's Saturday morning. I'm at work with DomTastic, listening to her go off on a rant of note, which is making me laugh, which is making me forget that I no longer own my TheNotTheBullet, which is good.

I'll definitely miss all my friends when I go back. I know I've got family and friends back in the Hammer, but it will take time to readjust. It's the day to day casual comfortable elements of having friends that I'll miss, like DomTastic's G-rants that start like this: "f**********[bangs head on desk]*******ck!", or theGreek dancing around the kitchen and singing I'm a Little TeaPot while cooking, or the Queen screaming "SANderson!!!!" from across the gym... I suppose it's the familiarity of the predictable that you get used to in day to day living.

DomTastic (Dom[ass]?) suggested that I take out an ad on Gumtree or Craigslist or similar. Like this: "Wanted: Friends. Short-sighted, partially deaf, self-proclaimed intellectual giant and martial arts enthusiast seeks friends. Have been told by current friends that have a warm personality - like a sunbeam across a cold cheek on a midwinter day. I think they mean it. Must be fun, childless, willing to put up with mad sms messages at 1am, vodka/lime appreciators. Must know all the words to the Sponge Bob theme song and not make spelling errors of any sort. No freaks."

63 sleeps

Slow night at the office, love? Oh, that made me laugh. Every time I look at it I giggle. Thanks to the DomTastic for forwarding it to me.

It's a beautiful, breathless, sunny stunning Sunday in Cape Town. I'm at work. Barely. I trained yesterday morning on Camps Bay beach with Miss K. What an awesome work out! My calves were ceasing about 20 minutes into training. We are going to do that more often. That, and run up Lion's Head with gas masks on.

TheGreek is finally back from Stellies. Yay! The return of the double deal pizza night! All is good in my world again :) I'm trying to think of something profound, intellectual, humorous to say but nothing is coming to mind. I think my brain is on vacation today. I'll be back tomorrow, with witty stories and fabulous photos.

Happy Sunday!

32 sleeps + 60

It's a lazy hazy Cape Argus Sunday. The Cape Argus is this mad bicycle race around the peninsula. There are tens of thousands of cyclists on the road, so I'm doing the sensible thing and laying low until its all over. The DomTastic was out watching the cyclists this morning and saw Matt Damon. She screamed her head off and he either smiled or grimaced at her, which made her day. TheGreek is sprawled on the couch beside me, moaning, groaning, napping, shaking. As he does. I'm off to the shops to pick up a battery charger for my CyberShot. I've lost the charger (I always lose the important things, like the charger for my i-pod) so must get a replacement. I want to start taking photos of my last days in Cape Town. If I don't force myself to start now, I never will.

Have a happy Sunday, wherever you are! :)

33 sleeps + 60

It's so hot today... i think Cape Town saw the 40 degree mark earlier this afternoon. TheGreek and I hit Camps Bay beach for a couple of hours just to stop our brains from melting in town. I am going to miss the beach lifestyle so much when I go. The Hammer does have it's own 'waterfront' effect, but for me an ocean is an ocean and Lake Ontario, though beautiful in its own right, is not an ocean. There is no feeling like sand between your feet, or the feel of the warm sun on your body as you read on the beach, or the ice cream headache you get from dipping a toe in the icy Atlantic water. But, as much as I like the beach, it's not enough to keep me here. I've been having an intense G-chat with the DomTastic about life, love, pursuing your dreams and the ever important HOW to pursue your dreams. I must take my own advice... suck it up and push through. I know the decision to go back is the right one, and as time passes and events unfold, it seems the universe is pushing me there, wants me there, anyway. I'm just finding it difficult to leave the life I have here. Again, I shall take my own advice - after I'm gone for 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, I will look back and know that I did the right thing.

52 sleeps

Here's some photos from a trip up to Plettenberg Bay a while ago.

68 sleeps

That was for DomTastic.

73 sleeps

I have seriously neglected the blog this month. I see we are at month's end and this is only my fifth blog. I'll be better in February, I promise!

I suppose it's a good sign for the Company that I haven't had a chance to blog much... they've got a lot of new stuff on the go, which means that I have a lot of stuff to review. Good for them.

Otherwise, hmmm... what's news?

Ok, here we go...

The top five moments of January 2009!

5. Arguing with a tarot card reader over the correct definitional interpretation of the word "home". And winning.

4. Intense debates with theGreek and Domtastic over which superpower would be best to have, not including the obvious answer "all".

3. Moving to the new DP. It was sad to leave the old place, but onward and upward! I love muay thai so much, I'd probably enjoy training in an underground parking lot though :)

2. Finding 5 books in my collection that I could pass on to worthy readers.

1. The Queen's Hen Party on Saturday night. I always love an excuse to wear feather boas and glitter and dance until obscene hours of the morning with a great bunch of friends.

And... WTF? 73 sleeps? I've realised, since making The Decision and starting this blog, how quickly time flies.

I first started noticing it with my nephews. One minute I'm like: Oh wow! My sis-in-law is pregnant! That's kinda cool for her. The next it's like: My nephew is fluent in french and starting kindergarten?! Wasn't he still in the womb just yesterday? And now there's another one too? Sheesh, I'm still - still - living my life like a 22 year old college student (I AM still studying, in my defense) and one of my brothers goes and gets kids and stuff. Bloody hell.

But now, counting down sleeps is effin hectic. I'm going to blink and it'll be four sleeps and I'll be apoplectic about leaving and confused and sweating and wild eyed and thinking. I think a lot. Sometimes I think myself awake, which is a total pain in the *ss, cuz if you wake up thinking, there is no way you are falling back asleep anytime soon.

98 sleeps

(A point in limine for my mom: don’t freak out when you read this; all’s well that ends well)

Santa sucked this year.

I went to the family SS for Xmas, which was great. We had the standard present-and-turkey day; the food was a delicious traditional hot lunch. ‘Twas all lovely. I woke up the next day with a horrific pain in my stomach. What is this?, thought I. Did Mrs SS go a little too ballistic on the spices for the turkey stuffing? Was I getting flu? Was it a latent injury arising from the last time I trained? (PAH! Pfft! That’s funny even as I write it… one must actually train hard for an injury to arise.) I went to the emergency doctor (after I went to the bookstore and purchased myself three – three – more books). He did his cursory examination on the table by tap-tapping on my stomach. Flu? No. Torn muscles? Hell no. The doctor said that my symptoms were consistent with someone who had either an inflammatory pelvis or ovarian cancer.

[sound of needle scratching on record]

Or what? What? Can you repeat that please? What? How the f*ck can this happen to me?

Ok, we can deal with this. We can deal.

I went back to the flat and locked myself in. This was on the Friday. I was booked in for the sonogram on the Monday. I made a big pot of herbal tea (shameless plug: Cape Town Nights Black Tea blend from the Tea Emporium in Cavendish) and hopped into a hot bath (shameless plug: with mint and eucalyptus bath salts from Rain in Waterfront). Then I drank my tea and sat in the tub until it was cold. Then I re-ran the bath and got back in. And did the same thing over again. I think that’s what emotional shock does. Wash, rinse, repeat in some sort of Jung-ian return-to-the-womb fashion. I spent three days drinking tea, bathing, watching adventure movies (Pirates; Lord; Indiana), hiding in my flat and sms-ing Mrs Starke, Sister SS, DomTastic and Little Mouse, who were all supportive and provided rational arguments for the whole process (thanks guys!!!).

When Monday finally rolled around, I half-ran, half-crawled to the radiologists. Being petrified by circumstance and difficult by nature, I made the radiologist show-and-tell the entire process. After twenty minutes of examination, they gave me the all clear. OC eliminated as a problem.

Phew!

With that, I hopped into TheNotTheBullet, threw Sister SS in the passenger seat and screamed up to Little Mouse’s spot on the Breede River. We were meant to stay one day; we ended up staying for four. What a fantastic spot! Fishing for kabeljou! My favourite thing! Riding waves in Blaublass! My favourite thing! Reading by the beach! My favourite thing! Braaing with the folks! My favourite thing! Riding in the rubber duck to the Bush Bar! My favourite thing! Carrying the rubber duck across the river at low tide in the dark for a vodka lime! My favourite thing! Laang-araming with the hotel cleaning staff on NYE! My favourite thing! I’m sorry I missed Beaverlac with Mr and Mrs Starke, the Dunbar Whittakers, Heids et al, and I’m sorry I missed out with the Queen and her crew, and my housemate theGreek and his crew, but I had an absolute blast at the Malgalas hotel on New Year. In my mind, you know you are doing New Year’s right when you are barefoot, on a dirt road in the bush, listening to a blend of saakie music, 80s pop, current hits and hip hop and trying to speak three different languages.

140 sleeps

What Kiria did.





What Kiria should have done.


I've been house / dog / aunt - sitting in the southern suburbs for the past few days. I have been dog sitting Kiria since she was about 8 months old, so we have a good 3 1/2 years of bonding behind us. We've been jogging, to the beach, in the forest, up the road, to the shops, in the car and everywhere else together. She went to obedience school as soon as she was old enough to bark. Perfect for me.

On Saturday I met DomTastic and her two dogs (Franklin the sausage and Tori the cross) at Cecilia forest for a misty early(ish) morning walk. Of course, Kiria ricoheted from side to side in the back of TheNotTheBullet all the way to the forest, barking all the way. At least I'm left in peace at traffic lights, although I think I'm deaf in one ear as a result.

DomTastic rocked up in the Green Machine with her two ricocheting off each other/doors and asked if she needed to put her two on a lead. I said that she may want to put hers on a lead but mine had been to obedience school so didn't need one. No sooner were the words out of my mouth that Kiria was bounding out of the parking lot and into the forest. I managed to catch up with her, wrestle her to the ground and get her lead on. As soon as the lead was on she dragged me up the side of the mountain, into a tree and over a log. The car guards found this all very amusing, as did DomTastic. My ankle is still a bit sore from the initial take off point. Thanks, Kiria!

147 sleeps

Para 6 of this article is good news:

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/business/story.html?id=cd279da0-107a-485e-9ca5-098daebba6d4


But then there is this:

http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/November2008/13/c7984.html

It is high time for a Song of the Day:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viPWb3ieH6o

I was positively apoplectic at 03h13am. I went from dreaming away (Mrs Starke - you featured with a green car and a bad attitude) to clawing the ceiling in 0.03 seconds flat. The wind, 'affectionately' known as the Cape Doctor, blew over our wooden coffee table on the balcony, sending me into a claws-out fur-flying hissy fit. I couldn't fall back asleep after that. On a positive note, the Greek didn't come lurching out of his bedroom, golf club in hand, battle cry on lips, ready to take down the bad guys.

In other news:

I think I need to get sort of anti-out-with-Domtastic-VtotheRB-login feature for my laptop, like I must answer an asymptotic space complexity algorithm query before I'm allowed to access the internet. It would save me so much trouble.

149 sleeps

This is the view I had for my b-day drinks with DomTastic last night. Of course it was night time, so the moon was shining on the rocks. The sea was relatively calm, too. We almost - almost - went for a midnight swim - alas, common sense prevailed :)