A positively sweet post. WTF?!?!

For Zeus' sake. Now she's posting pictures of flowers. What's next? Babies? 

I have been sitting here on the computer a while now. Racking my brains for something to write about. Right now. Tonight. To be posted tomorrow whilst I'm on the train to meet with a great group of friends from Mexico. Because I could not go without posting at least once this weekend, hey?

I know the internets have a decent death-hold on my sorry ass, but what is there to do? Stop? No, I mean really.

And then I started thinking. There was that rash but necessary post about not having friends in SA that resulted in some sizable repercussions. For the better I presume, but still. One doesn't ever intentionally set out to hurt another person, even if one is me (or any of my warring personalities). So I thought that I needed to write about friendship some more.

And also, there was that thing about me coming off scary and mean, and I thought I would show you the side of me that has friends, not just minions (although they are seriously cool too, and everyone should get some, like right now, and get the mixed bag, they're the most versatile). And also to show you that I can actually have friends who are not necessarily bleeps, but good, honest RWP. Scary but true.

Because there are people who like to spend time with me, even if they are settling the restaurant bill.
In no specific order:

There's Lady Kicks, who came to visit me in South Africa, after our not having communicated in about 15 years, and we picked up right where we left off back in the early 90s (with some wisdom, and far better hair and hygiene richer). Turns out that today we support entirely different political parties, we don't like the same books, we see work and having a career through very different goggles (mine are the wine-variety), and we have extremely different views on what is fashionable. Still, we get on like a house on fire. I love this woman to bits and feel sorry for myself when I think of the 15 years I could have had her as my friend. Well, there's still time, and her pullout-couch is surprisingly excellent to sleep on.

There's Gringa, who I'll be visiting in the US, when the other blog campers will be having fun at Blog Camp 1.5 in England (or thereabouts). This woman can talk books with me for hours, have long lunches fueled by some bottles of Prosecco and then die of laughter while watching Hugh Hefner's girlfriends on 'Girls Next Door' (or as it is called in Mexico 'The Girls of the Playboy Mansion' because that sounds far more Mexican) never having seen the show before, while she waits for the buzz to die so she can contemplate driving home to her little pueblito to her esposo and crazy cat. This woman got me through several awkward talks with my Mexican maid, and her and her husband let us crash family parties, and without her my fundraising attempts would have remained just that, attempts. Only after about a hundred phone calls soliciting money or goods for our charitable ends did she tell me that she hates making phone calls and sort of has a phobia. She used to be a bleep and when she stopped our world died a little.

There's Ph.D. Mommy, who I see every time I'm in Denmark. This woman will write to me about how good SouleMama's blog is and that while SouleMama was on hiatus she followed my blog instead, but "what the fok is up with you playing golf?" Brutal honesty, and brutal love. When I and my husband first decided that it would be a good career move for him to start traveling 200 some days a year this woman was the person who would always have coffee with me, drink wine with me, talk books and theory with me, and never let a good opportunity for the occasional talking trash about another student pass by. She was and is supercool and supersmart, and will some day soon take a very obscure niche of the academia by storm. Those three guys are in for a surprise!

There's Zara in Paris, who I hadn't seen for a while, because she is far too busy being all executive like all over the universe and busy champagne tasting on several different vineyards. And she doesn't get Facebook. But, once she blew into town there was talk like there can only be talk with someone who has different views on the world and world-related stuff than you, but is able to see and appreciate your point of view and discuss without the slightest hint of disagreement. This is the woman who made me feel welcome, and who made me belong in Mexico, and then abandoned me to a guy who drove the entire length of my one-way street the wrong way, drunk on tequila, to drop me off at my house, because I didn't know where I live. She is a bleep, but she keeps it quiet, and Finnish, which is just too, too bad for you guys.

There's Missus Ambassador, who I see in Finland, or in Joburg, or in Mexico, or... This woman has taught me so much. She has lived her life on several different continents and countries, raised two awesome international, multinational and global children, and is still best friends with her husband. And boy, she can tell an intestinal parasite story like you've never heard before. She has gotten to see the world before it got all global and shit, and still she manages to find places where mere mortals rarely tread. This woman always makes me feel at home and at ease, and when I told everyone we were moving to Jo'burg she was the one who said "you'll love Africa". I am so lucky we click.

There are others too, but these women are the ones I think of as my 'in case hubby dies, or is swallowed up by a giant alien ship, or a very large cat' network. Apart from my parents, these are the people whose numbers I will be dialing in any large cat related disappearance or other disaster. Theirs and my bleeps'.

I love you guys. Yes, all of you.

Glossary:
In case you haven't read everything I ever wrote.
Bleep - A blogging peep, exists on the internets and puts her thoughts into an odd little (and sometimes big and widespread) space called a blog. Everyone's doing it now. If you're not, What's that all about?
RWP - Real World People. The people who live outside of your 'puter and usually make your life hard by existing. Sometimes they are nice and have heard the word blog before, but mostly they crowd trains, and get in front of you in the grocery store line.