What will I ever do with my life?

Extranjera's guide to first steps of motherhood, or how not to kill your baby while still riding the insanity wave

2011-10-26T16:48:00.000-05:00

I'm sure the biggest issue on every new parent's mind on the day their child is born is: "Now, how do I keep this little life from being extinguished?" This thought is bound to rise to the surface as they yank the baby out and amidst a lot of crying emanating from several different people in the room hand the little bundle to you, or, as happened in my case, yank the baby out, rush her away, briefly rush her back in swaddled, stick her right up to my face while I'm still 'attached' to the operating table and unable to move (I kid you not, I think they thought I was one of those patients who would bolt up in the middle of it all to check out exactly how much of the wildly growing bush also known as my pubic hair they'd had to shave off, or, you know, just to see what exactly was going on with all that blood and stuff), let me briefly to try to focus on a palish blur with what could have been eyes right by my left nostril that's not saying a thing (the baby, not the nostril), and then whisk her straight into the NICU.

Still. There was that thought: "She's out. Now what?"

Well. I was lucky. In my case the NICU kept my little one alive for the first four days of her life, which I thought was only fitting since my womb (really the zombie-placenta) hadn't really been up to par until then. They let me see her, but, to be completely honest, I didn't change a single diaper until they sent her home. I was gloriously responsible for such important things as having warm hands to cuddle her with twice a day and getting enough sleep to better take care of her once she came home.

And then, to our utter bewilderment, she came home. After four days in intensive and intermediate therapy in the NICU.

They just let us take her. In a carseat much too big and with me having to hold her tiny flopping head on the ride home. She came home with us.

None of the complex and scary doctors' predictions of her being unable to control her body temperature or lacking or only having a weak sucking reflex because of the Down Syndrome, of her not being able to breathe on her own because of being so tiny and premature, or of her having some or other health issue, came true.

She was heavier and longer anyone had expected. And also possibly louder.

She was and is mostly fine. Maybe a little floppy once in a formula-induced coma. A little constipated (hopefully because of the formula and not because of something wrong with her bowels, but we'll see). Fairly disinterested in mom's boobies and really enamored by the bottle with the quick-flow nipple (the polar opposite of both of mom's nipples, which seem to be supporters of the slow food movement). Checking out the world with dark, dark blue eyes, much like her mother's. With reddish, and thus utterly Viking-reminiscent hairs on her tiny head. Generally smelling good and sweet. With long fingers and feet two sizes too big for her scrawny frame, but with 5 of the appropriate appendages on each hand and foot. All covered in beautiful, clear skin.

And she's ours.

Which probably explains why we panic and let our own special kind of insanity rule. All the time. About everything.

:: So far I've told the on call pediatrician at 1am on a Sunday in very questionable Spanish that my daughter "won't eat, but that I myself have been pooping all day long" and that I'm afraid "she will run out of water." He was very gracious about my supposed bowel movements and only coughed the tiniest bit.

:: I have practically tackled a security guard at my building because she dared to cross that boundary, also known as 'Don't you frikken even breathe in my precious babe's direction', I had mentally created to keep her safe from general harm, dragons, and traffic. In my defense (Or not, what does this have to do with anything? Who the fuck knows? Mommybrain. Ya.) she had gold teeth.

:: I have scared the poor, innocent (And new. Yes, again.) maid so that she now considers two car lengths away a safe distance to gaze at the baby. And then she hesitantly waves from over there.

:: I have become the queen of antibacterial soap to such an extent that every time I put my hands in my pockets my knuckles bleed.

:: I have tweeted and Facebooked shamelessly about my difficulties in breast-feeding, particularly the area of my sad, sad production. It seems my boobies are no longer just mine, but more like an appliance. A broken one at that. And I think the blogosphere deserves to know too. So there. Boobies - broken.

:: I have slept around four hours in total since returning from the hospital. She won't stop breathing if I keep staring at her, right?

:: I have taken more than a thousand photos and videos already, and I'm completely and utterly unable to delete any of them. Not even the shortish video I accidentally made of my own knee while waiting to get access to the NICU.

:: I have fallen irrevocably in love. With my daughter and with my family. And now know for sure that this is truly what I will ever do with my life. I'll be an off-kilter, broken-boobied, Viking-outnumbered mom to the sweetest thimble-sized human being on earth (Yes. Because she's mine.), and wife to the bestest dad ever (Regardless of his sub-par diaper-changing abilities, which, time and again, lead to pee puddles all over the place).

Wouldn't you have?

The babe and the boob.

Extranjera's guide to being pregnant: How not to end up mommyblogging much while making sure your baby's still alive and skirting mentions of tacos and a certain aging latino heartthrob

2011-10-07T13:31:00.000-05:00

I know that at some point I might have portrayed this blog as the often incoherent meanderings of an expatriate mind living somewheres in southern Africa, and then again somewheres in the land of the Aztecs, whilst drinking too much, shopping for shoes, having odd exchanges with random folks, and reading the occasional book. In a green bathrobe. Like some unbathed wannabe superhero. I know I have.

But lately it's been all about the bump. (all five-ish posts, but anyhoo...)

Not a single thing about tacos. Or Luis Miguel. Or raw sewage. Or even the Aztecs themselves.

Just the bump.

And that's gotta be just fine.

I would imagine that even in the most mundane of pregnancies, a woman could easily become wholly consumed (figuratively, not in the way of the Alien and Sigourney Weaver, although that would be kind of exciting for the media) by the little life inside her. First by coming to terms with it being in there, south of the stomach, bowel- and bladder-adjacent, conveniently intrauterine. Then by nourishing it. By making room for it, figuratively as well as literally (especially if the woman has one of those rooms generally referred to as 'just put it on the guest room/ office/ junk yard/ Santa's hideout bed on top of the pile and close the door'). By seeing it grow. By feeling the first flutters of a separate entity (or a swift kick in the bladder, as is sometimes the case). By wondering about and making preparations for the new arrival, who is sure to change everything, profoundly, and for good.

And that's if everything goes smoothly.

As you all know, my specific journey to motherhood (T - from some hours to days) has not been well lined, or even lined at all. In fact, it's been a big ole jumble of deceptively sharp items, sticky stuff with strong odor, and some ancient and possibly parasite-ridden pocket fluff in a place where none should ever be found.

It's been a flaming bag of shit on the doorstep, with a side of mysterious vomit in the bedroom closet.

It's been a chain of bad news, only intermittently broken up by even worse news.

It's been off. With a lot of blood.

And now, I've been sent home with a baby, still on the inside of me, who is... get this...

RAPIDLY DETERIORATING

The middle cerebral artery measurements are crashing. Soon the baby's brain will be too deprived of oxygen. And then they're going to cut me open and get her out. And hope like hell that regardless of being far too little to be out and about she will be able to breathe on her own, that she'll have a sucking reflex already stored in her brain, and that her fragile, little system won't deem the bright and loud world too much to handle.

I've been sent home to monitor her movements, because, apparently (In what universe, I ask you?), I know best when she needs to come out.

I've already said NOW and JUST GET HER OUT FOR ZEUSSAKES like a gazillion times, but it seems I haven't fully understood the balancing act of a successful gestation. When the benefits of days gained cancel out the nerves and panic. There not being a clear 'better safe than sorry' in obstetrics. Best possible outcome equalling a tightrope act without a safety net.

I've been sent home to keep my blood pressure low, my nerves in check, and for me to make sure she doesn't die. Which apparently, is a distinct possibility.

And we thought her having Down syndrome was the challenge. Fuck that.

So, I think, no mention of tacos, or even Luis Miguel, is somewhat justified.

I knitted this for her so she damn well better be alive to wear it.

Isn't a substantial part of raising one's children threatening them in creative ways? I think so. I consider myself well on my way.

Struggling from ME to US via FUCK

2011-09-29T10:30:00.000-05:00

Guess what, guys?

I'm still fucking pregnant.

Yes I am.

Full 35 weeks, come tomorrow.

With a big ole belly sticking out beyond my boobs, making it impossible for me to see what the bathroom scale has to say about my condition when I stand on it. Which, I think, a lot of you out there, if you also without really understanding when, how, or why had gained exactly 30 kilos (66 lbs to you Americanally challenged out there, and so say the sharp eyes of the OB/GYN), would also want to be blocked out by, if not a belly, then a fairy godmother of all things carbohydrate at least.

But I prefer the belly. Filled with 2 kilos of an alive & kicking baby, a paranormal placenta that according to any and all kinds of measurements should have completely stopped working a while back, the normal amount of amniotic fluid (the normalcy at this stage and considering the zombie-placenta also being something not short of one of those things people religiously inclined sometimes refer to as miracles, but I like to refer to as ginormous fuck yous from: me to: Universe), and some other assorted pregnancy related stuff, which I'm gloriously oblivious about, but which I'm sure accounts for at least 10 kilos of what I've gained and will thus magically disappear once they cut the babe out.

Sure.

Still, I'm not really concerned with the weight gain. That's not something I tend to worry about. I'm sure you've long ago realized that I've always been more of a 'what if the globe were to run out of Pinot Blanc-grapes' (a definite sign of an impending apocalypse) type of an existence.

And currently, even any impending wine-related apocalypses would have to wait while I get ready and have this baby.

GIANT FUCKING GASP. Yup, that's the breeze you just felt.

Because that's really all that fills my days and nights at the moment. Feeling for reassuring kicks alternated with moments of tear-filled panic when she's probably just taking a nap or not feeling up to squeezing the last drops out of my bladder. Proudly watching her giving the world the finger (she is mine after all) on the ultrasound screen alternated with creeping doubts as she fails yet another fetal non-stress test. Getting bombarded by bad news and rising above them all and finding that glimmer of hope that comes with listening to the Beautiful South's Don't Marry Her, or Loretta Lynn's Coal Miner's Daughter (just roll with these, there really is no intelligent explanation for either) on repeat. And telling the Universe and her curve balls to fuck off and just stubbornly get ready for becoming a family (I know, I too kind of shudder).

If her first word turns out to be 'fuck' I'll only have myself to blame.

But right now, we're just focused on there being a first word one sunny day.

Wine-apocalypse, just give me a few months.

NOT THE MOON.

Extranjera's guide to being pregnant: When to know you're fucked (not in the good way), fuck the fucker right back, and only remain mildly fucked, but with a whiff of glory.

2011-08-26T11:58:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, when I blogged about coming home with an actual baby, seems that I may have spoken too soon.

Jinxed it big time.

Or, as we Finns so 'eloquently' put it (remember that our poetic language houses more swear words than any other, made up [Klingon, Swedish], or otherwise), I seem to have 'started licking before the drop had actually fallen off whatever it was hanging on'. I said 'eloquent', not sanitary, or sane.

There are complications.

It seems that as we were proudly handling the diagnosis of Down syndrome, learning more about it, coming to terms with it, rising above it, being completely fine with it, telling people to shut up and fuck off for not understanding how cool we were with it, and just plain looking forward to meeting our special and not so special (Let's face it, the Viking and his genes can be pretty generic sometimes. Me? I have been referred to as special enough times for it to sink in so deep that I do believe I will be passing it on to generations to come, whether they like it or not) little one, and thinking that this was what Universe had in store for us as far as her curve balls go. But no. Universe, the giant bitch, was planning to aim at my un-helmeted head with the next pitch instead.

"There is a problem with the flow in the umbilical cord," the doctor tells us, "that means there'll soon be a problem with her getting oxygen and nutrients, and such."

"Her growth is restricted too," he goes on, "she is in the 5th percentile"

"She'll have to be born soon via a c-section," he finishes off.

But we already knew something like this was coming, so we nodded, made mental notes about already packing that mysterious thing called a hospital bag, and kind of braced ourselves for the early arrival of our kiddo, and willed her to pull through facing this world possibly a full 10 weeks before she was ever meant to.

"Oh, one more thing," the doctor then decided to add, "the doctor at the ultrasound also mentioned that the bones in her head might be prematurely fusing, but we'll have to wait a few more months to get a proper diagnosis, so that's not something to worry about now."

So instead of her having to take on the big playground with the aid of one extra chromosome, she might also come loaded with the diagnosis of craniosynostosis and whatever that might entail in terms of surgeries and hospital visits. If the cause for this doesn't turn out to be that her brain has stopped developing, that is.

This is approximately when we knew we, all three of us, were utterly fucked (not in the good way).

And what does one do when one finds out one is hugely fucked?

Well, if one is me, one cries a little in the car, then some more back at the apartment, and then one Googles some hard core information, comes to terms with things, and gets on with the living of that life that involves watching bad television and eating some cajeta ice-cream.

Because, and this is the only way to get on with things, one has to bear in mind how fucking fortunate one is on this earth.

We have to bear in mind that regardless of the feeble attempts by the Universe to kick up her pitching skills, we've pretty much owned the game right from the beginning (Does anyone else find it odd that I'm using baseball as my game of choice? Because I do.).

Our babe owns the game. She kicks and fights (as only my bladder/ ribs can tell you) and wisely decided to be born to us, two people with major resources, healthy appetites for Googling obscure research, and even major-er will to get things done (Unless that thing be showering on a day with nothing on the agenda. But that's a different post, possibly involving laundry, a talking fridge, and/or shoes.).

We are the fortunate ones in this world. The ones with the power, the possessions, the knowledge, and the potential.

We are the ones who have enough left over for those who have nothing.

And that's what the Universe can stick in her pipe and smoke.

I remain only mildly fucked, but with a whiff of glory. I am superwoman after all.

Some people don't even have shoes because some other person threw them up on some wires.

What do you mean by a sign that this is where you can score heroin? I took this pic from our old back yard in Mexico City.

Geez.

Extranjera's guide to being pregnant: How to have a proper meltdown.

2011-08-25T09:57:00.000-05:00

As I tweeted and Facebooked earlier today (yesterday really, but who gives a flying fuck?), late last night a thought hit me.

Like a ton of bricks. Or like that pretend (I hope) shit they discreetly (also not really, but again, who really cares?) squirt on your leather shoes on the streets of Rio de Janeiro about 20 seconds before offering you a very expensive shoe shine. Smooth.

It hit me that once this baby is born (this is the part everyone's supposed to care about), they'll probably let me take her home with me (not the same people who, as part of their clever business plan squirt shit, but the army of doctors and nurses, who inhabit our chosen hospital in Mexico City). It is looking very likely indeed that in not so long I will be coming home with a tiny person who will, at that point, no longer be inside my belly.

Honestly.

What?

See. That part really gets to me all of a sudden.

Unlike many of the ~~tiger~~ mothers-to-be I've encountered on the interwebz, I haven't really given a thought to things like the birthing experience (I thought about taking a class or maybe ordering a DVD, but then decided, ~~by spacing it out~~ subconsciously, that years of pushing on the toilet were training enough), the birthing environment (I'll intend to battle traffic to get to the hospital my OB/GYN's practice is, as well as the best NICU in the city [which boils down to me possibly giving birth in a Mexico City taxi], which I'm still counting on will admit me regardless of them having absolutely no record of me on account of me never touring their vast facilities, just as long as there's amniotic fluid/ bloody mucus leaking down onto the floor), or the pregnancy plan (I haven't given a leaping anything about weight gain, the minimization of stretch marks, lubing up the va-jay-jay and performing some sort of massage to avoid tearing [?!?!], and all that fizzy jazz).

I have been laboring on (obviously meaning watching bad television and knitting) under the assumption that unless I suddenly feel a tiny head between my thighs and as long as there are tiny kicks aimed at my ribs every now and then things are more or less under control.

But now I'm freaking out about the 'WHAT THEN?'

I'm plenty prepared as far as Down syndrome goes. We have therapists and specialists lined up. We know all about the potential health issues as well as the early intervention stimulation programs. We are looking into nutritional information regarding the syndrome. We have read and memorized, and met with children with Down syndrome and their parents. We got it. We've done the research. And then some.

But that's only a tiny part of it all. It's just one chromosome. She'll be a baby first. A tiny little life, who'll need to be fed, bathed, changed, not dropped, played with, talked to, rocked to sleep, clothed, and all kinds of stuff I'm completely oblivious to.

She'll need stuff.

Someone told me that they'll scratch their own eyes out if you don't cut their nails all the time!

And who knew you can't give honey to a baby? (I know chocolate will kill a dog though. Does that earn me some points at least?)

There's so much.

And I don't know any of it.

At least my hair color will stimulate her vision:

Please leave me lots of comments regarding how I'm a natural parent and how my daughter will never go eye-less even if I can't find the tiniest nail clippers on earth in time for her impending arrival. Thanks.

Begin here. Right now. Right away.

2011-08-10T11:52:00.001-05:00

I had my two last steroid shots yesterday (the first ones more or less painlessly administered by the kind in-house doctor [But with uncomfortable chatter concerning how to give injections in the buttocks as it seemed this was the first time in quite a while he had glimpsed one in the actual flesh] at the Viking's office, and the second set administered after quite a few washings of hands and random, yet endearing, sterilizings of the surrounds, at our kitchen counter by the, at this point only very slightly, freaked out Viking, since by the second round, the in-house doctor had tapered on off to the land of head colds, which I'm sure was in no way a trip related to witnessing the right side of my behind. I'm sure.) and since then, I have to say, I have really felt no need for actual sleep or rest of any kind. Let's hope the steroids work their magic now (other than giving me angry stay-awake superpowers) and there will be no need for a ventilator, unless it's for the Viking, which is a distinct possibility, for when our daughter decides to shimmy down/ shoot out of the birth canal.

So it might just be the 'roids speaking (Viking is apparently 100% sure of this and has vetoed my intended round of potential maid interviews for this specific week as apparently I seem "a little confrontational"), but I'm fuming. I'm filled with good old early 90s 'roid rage, as portrayed in several American football movies and series for teens, produced in the actual 90s.

Here is what I wanted to craft as one more in a long line of snarky and moderately (and oh so fucking annoyingly when done by others to me) cryptic status updates on Facebook (since I'm bed resting where else am I going to yell at the world and all the people in it but Facebook and Google [However, this was before I realized that none of the peeps I really wanted to yell at (about this, there's plenty of other stuff to go around) were on my Facebook.]):

Not being able to save everyone is not a direct invitation to stick both of your thumbs up your ass and sit on it. That way you'll only be able to smell later what you're made of while the world goes down the drain in one famine, blood, disaster, and hopelessness streaked swirl.

I didn't post this though. (I won't admit to the Viking talking me out of it either, but that might just be what actually happened.)

But I will elaborate. Right here on Google Blogger. Because at least some of the peeps I do wish to yell at from the ~~prison that is~~ comfort of my bedroom seem to be here. Not sure if they're reading, but at least I get to yell. And what else is there really to do when you're getting absolutely no sleep, but you're still forced to lie on your (now more uncomfortable than ever) left side and do nothing at all?

But what is it specifically that I'm yelling about this time around?

Well. I broke my (unintentional, I assure you) no comment streak of at least a good year and a half a couple weeks back because I just had to have my word in about bible school and choosing wisely (i.e. atheism). And then a couple days ago the inspiration (i.e. the 'roids) struck me again. Forcefully and right over the head. I had to weigh in.

I read my longtime pal julochka's post on all of the horrible goings on at the moment and her desperation at taking it all in and perhaps doing something about it. Now, I have to say that I respect this woman's life choices tremendously (Except for what in the hell is the deal with marrying a Danish man? Who does that these days anyway?), but some of the comments she received in response really rubbed me the wrong way (Much like the strangers and acquaintances who decide that they can rub my pregnant belly completely unannounced. The yelling in their case, they so have it coming too.). It seems that some people feel that if they cannot save everyone they'll rather just shut their eyes and do absolutely nothing at all.

NOW WHAT IN THE HEEBIE-JEEBIE HELL KIND OF SHIT IS THIS?

(See how I went all Kanye there, but with a dash more grammar and punctuation?)

There is always something you can do. There is always someone you can save. There is always somewhere you can begin.

Throw light on stupidity. (Thanks MissBuckle for the link on Facebook!)

Throw money at hunger.

And then some more money (this is one of my all time favorites and everyone's always paid back what I loaned them!) on self-reliance.

Put time into education. (I know no one has updated the site since I created it, but the contacts are still good.)

And cuddles. (And maybe a few changes of diapers.)

Click on it. (Now how fucking effortless is this?!?)

Create awareness. And then spread it like it's going out of style.

Buy and be cool for a better future for a few disabled folks.

Give valuable experiences to strangers (who should never rub my belly, just read the books). There should be less time to loot if you're inspired to pick up a book and put down that Blackberry.

And So. Much. More.

I'm really only scratching the surface here. There is so much love and compassion to go around as long as we're ready and willing. There is so fucking much we CAN and SHOULD do. Every fucking single day of our lives.

If we fucking don't get started now, we'll all just be smelling our shitty thumbs in no time at all, reminiscing about what could have been if we would have just done something when we fucking had the chance.

Let's fucking begin now.

Stop smelling your fingers

and start contributing to this instead.

When he said shots, this is not what I had in mind.

2011-08-01T06:58:00.000-05:00

If you found out that you had to have a couple of shots of steroids to mature your unborn baby's lungs on account of her being at least 3, if not 12, weeks early (Or possibly to win that championship title in the 80s. I don't know your life.), what would you expect of the whole deal?

Would you be like the naive, Scandinavian-rules-and-regulations-coddled me, and expect to show up at a doctor's office, have a qualified and appropriately dressed nurse (Also not wearing make up that in any way suggests a side job as a cabaret artist named Toots, which seems to be a popular night job for a multitude of Mexican nurses. At least based on the war paint.) perform some quick medical magic, and walk out of the place feeling a little sore in the buttock area, but without ever actually having to witness the actual needle or even the swab of disinfectant as anything else than a little prick on the skin and some unpleasant odor?

Or would you be thoroughly Mexican and receive a vague 'prescription' for some steroid solution while the doctor amiably chats away about his upcoming trip to Orlando's Disney World, show up at a drugstore, have a confused as well as confusing discussion with the guy behind the counter regarding how many ampuls it is you actually need, walk out with a feeling of discomfort and a mental note to email the doctor to make sure you're not doubling up on the 'roids by accident, get home and finally actually take a look at what's inside the packages you've just purchased, completely freak out (okay, so this is apparently where I stopped being the laid-back Mexican) by the length of the needle that you'd envisioned to be something more like the epinephrine-pen you were once, many years ago, shown how to use in case of a peanut/bee sting emergency at a children's summer camp (while you made a mental note to always be accompanied by someone who actually paid attention during the demonstration), or like the insulin-pen you once saw your high school friend use in the bathroom (There was no visible needle in either case, mind you!), to be followed by one mother of a breakdown, prior to regaining faith in the (at that moment absent) Viking and his nursing abilities, especially those involving giving other people shots, only to learn that he vehemently declines even touching the syringes, let alone giving anyone any shots of any kind? Unless they're of the Jaegermeister-persuasion in tiny glasses.

Would thoughts such as "Can you actually stick the needle straight into your hip bone? And if so, will the drug still get to the baby?" come to your mind?

What would you do?

Woman up, and stick yourself in the ass with the mother of all needles, hope that you don't hit anything that would kill, paralyze, or forever mentally traumatize you, or if you do end up doing just that, that at least the death is swift and painless or that your insurance covers years and years of therapy?

Or scroll through your list of local friends for doctors, nurses, vets, seriously sick folks who might be familiar with giving shots, and failing all else, intravenous drug users, and then make some calls?

Because that's what I'm doing.

Anyone medically qualified out there, within a 100-mile radius of Mexico City? I'll buy you Starbucks...

I bet there's someone in there who could give me my shots... Too bad this place's in Venice Beach, California.

You didn't really fok off, did you?

2011-07-26T18:14:00.003-05:00

I hope not. Unless I meant you to.

But that's complicated.

So.

While I was fuming over people and their sometimes poorly chosen words regarding our situation, or, as some of you suggested, elaborately telling everyone to fuck off and leave me the fuck alone in my fucking happiness...

We interrupt this politically incorrect sentence to bring you some more of the current tone before moving on to the actual point of this here post that will hopefully contain a little less swearing and a little more strawberries and cream and sweet baby smells (although not all in one bowl):

To be fair, I was only telling some of the people who've recently been in contact with me to fuck off and stop making me feel bad in a time that is supposed to be the happiest of my life and to maybe get a fucking grip on their 'poor you's and learn about Down syndrome instead. I did note I was only fucking pissed off about the communications that were seriously about supporting me in my fucking time of need. Gah. (I hope this doesn't count as Fuck Off - the Sequel, although I kind of see how it might. Hmmm. Also, who can guess the baby's first word?)

Ok. There. Whatevs. Moving on. End of interruption.

...it seems that I accidentally caught up to some milestones in my blogging as well as my real worldly (not the MTV-kind, but the kind that's not scripted and doesn't revolve around untalented weirdos other than me) life:

:: And I find it oddly fitting that I, completely by accident, managed to tell everyone to fuck off and leave me the fuck alone in my 300th post. Ah Universe, you wily creature you.

:: I also find it fitting that I'd be really mean after receiving exactly 3500 comments, none of which have ever really been mean. In any way. Although, there was the one about me writing trash, but that just inspired a whole frikken post out of me and made me take a picture of the crap that was actually in my trash can, so whatever mean there ever was in the comment was gloriously cancelled out. Correct?

:: I have gained exactly 20 kilos and the doctor is horrified. At every appointment, shortly after weighing me, he threatens me with some alien invention called pre-eclampsia (I think it's from Star Trek originally) until he takes my (scarily low) blood pressure and then we just kind of chat about me driving like a maniac and cutting him off on the way to the parking lot.

:: While in bed rest, because of the fucking placenta growing all old and calcified way too early, I have watched exactly 9 complete seasons of America's Next Top Model, and all I'm left with is this simple statement: "Tyra's no Oprah. Oh no she ain't." Great to know there's some substance to my life.

:: On average I manage about 10 pages of What to Expect When You're Expecting by Heidi Murkoff before I have to throw up from 'Jeez, does she think I've never ever seen a baby before in my life?', 'Oh Lord, how cutesy-wutesy is just too fucking cute', 'Not. Ever. Doing. That. Ever.' or 'You do understand that we didn't just recently upgrade the operation from storks to vaginas, right?'

:: On Friday I will have had this particular bun (You know, the one with one more chromosome than your bun. Ha!) in my fleshy oven for exactly 2 whole trimesters, the second of which, as far as I've been told by nauseating literature and some peeps who may have actually had children without feeling like they should write nauseating books about it, should have been the easiest of the complete set of 3. However, as I threw up my morning coffee while I was brushing my teeth this morning (I'm afraid the toothbrush might just disintegrate from all the stomach acid that has recently come its way) I strongly disagreed. But that's just me. I have no nauseating books to my name. And only two of the three trimesters.

:: The times I have sworn I'll never use one of those disgustingly pink, flowery, and completely pointless headbands on my daughter to make sure everyone can see she's a girl: at least 105. The times I'll actually use one of those disgustingly pink, flowery, and completely pointless headbands to make sure everyone can see my bald child (if she's anything like her mama, she'll be five until any actual hair begins to sprout) is in fact a girl: probably most days.

:: Amount of discussions I've had on normal baby stuff until now: 3. Y'all, she might have Down syndrome, but she'll also keep me up all night every night, have colic, bite my nipples to shreds, poop purpley stuff, vomit all over the only dress that'll fit me five minutes before the guests arrive, hate having her diaper changed, and start teething much earlier than anyone expected exactly when we're on our way to Europe, directly over Greenland, scarily low on sleep and with absolutely nothing for anyone to bite on.

Yah.

Not an actual baby. Just something Mexico has to offer.

Now, tell me honestly. Did you really fuck off?

Oh Frank, what did you do to the penguins now?

2011-07-20T14:08:00.001-05:00

"Stop supporting me at once!" I have an overwhelming urge to scream at the top of my lungs, to write in all caps on emails, to repeat as my status on my Facebook, to mumble under my breath to my ally, the Viking, sitting next to me so that the rest of the party won't hear, to mime in grand gestures, to interpret into creative movement to be performed by someone other than the very non-dancing me, and to have printed on a t-shirt in big bold letters strategically placed right across my pregnant belly (the letters, not the t-shirt, I'm pretty sure I'd like to wear the shirt. If I could fit it of course, which at the moment is a precarious issue).

"What in the Frank and his penguin minions?" you might think. And I understand, I do (though not about Frank and his penguins. Why not giraffes? Or hyenas? No one ever thinks about the hyenas).

But see. There's support and then there's support.

As much as I love comments from people telling me their babies were born far too early and were nonetheless completely alright, the hugs (preferably virtual), the happy 'my sister-in-law who has Down too just graduated from high-school,' or the double-edged 'congratulations on your pregnancy, are you having heartburn yet?' (and I do love those, remember that!), I just cannot handle the 'I imagine you're going through a really tough time mentally and physically and we really hope everything goes okay anyway.'

Can you decipher the difference? Because I for sure as golfing hyenas (Go hyenas! The underrepresented canine/feline or something of the sort [I will not get sidetracked Googling hyenas. Not again]) can. And I'm so tired of support.

Completely and utterly DONE with it.

I am not having a hard time with the diagnosis of Down syndrome. Really, I'm not.

I am excited to meet my daughter, and hold her, and raise her, and love her. I am delirious with joy that I am expecting a child, our child. I am oddly comfortable with my pregnant waddle. I feel pure, unadulterated love every time this tiny being inside me uses my bladder as a punching bag (even when I had a bladder infection). I watch with joy the places where my belly skin was stitched to my abdomen in two surgeries suddenly pop out and sort of smooth out (although not really. It's a regular battlefield, I tell you) because that means she's growing and getting stronger. Every time I come up to a full week without the placenta completely conking out on us, I practically cry of joy (and they're not those big, reserved-for-people-who-will-not-let-me-board-my-flight tears either). I look forward to shooting (That's how they exit, correct?) something pinkish and screaming out of my vagina (or to enjoying the high whilst a doctor fishes that pinkish something out of my belly through yet another opening in my abdomen, should the birth come down to a c-section) more than I've ever looked forward to a cup of coffee, or sex for that matter (cups and cups of it, in fact. Yes, sex.).

I am happy.

I want to hear and read CONGRATULATIONS in big, disgustingly baby-pink letters, not 'I can't even imagine what you must be going through, hang in there!'

Just because you think you couldn't handle something, don't assume I feel the same.

I am superwoman, after all. Well, no. Just happy.

Am I required to note the pregnancy weeks in that preggo-code I see all over the place? I don't feel like doing that, so we'll just say this was taken the same day I banged my toe on the futon base, broke it and howled for a good five minutes. Roughly half an hour later, to be more exact-ish.

What not to say

2011-06-29T13:17:00.001-05:00

Some people say stupid, hurtful things. They might not mean them, but there they are, the insensitive ignorant pieces of shitty thinking, hanging over the discussion, forever marring my dealings with the utterers.

Me: The doctor's saying the placenta is not working properly, and there are more calcifications than there should be. I'm only 22 weeks and the placenta looks like it's 30 weeks. I'm gonna have to go on blood thinners. This is not good!
A friend: Is there still a chance the baby could die? And if so, how do you feel about that?

The Viking: We're having a little daughter in a few months. We're so excited and glad! She'll have Down syndrome, but in today's world that's just a little bump in the road. We're so happy!
The Viking's close relative: Congratulations! At least she'll be spared from a lot of the misery of the world we others have to go through, since she'll have Down.

Me: I'm having a little girl and she'll have Down syndrome. We're really excited, but it's been hard since there have been all sorts of problems with the pregnancy.
A woman I just met: How brave of you to go through with the pregnancy and have this child, even though you already know she'll have Down.

Me: We're expecting a girl. We already know it's a girl, because we've had her karyotype done. From the karyotype, we also know she'll have Down syndrome.
A friend's mother: Oh, but kids with Down are always so happy. It'll be great to have such a happy, smiling child!

The Viking: There's something wrong with the baby. We don't know what yet, but we're having tests done. It might be something so severe that we'll have to terminate the pregnancy.
The Viking's mother: Yes, of course you'll terminate if the baby's not healthy.

And there's more. There's even some stuff that is just clearly offensive or intolerant and meant like that, like why am I bringing someone not perfect (and what the hell is 'perfect' supposed to be anyway) into the world when I had a chance to stop it from happening, while on the other side there are thanks for not murdering my baby regardless of that having nothing to do with our decision with both of us being bleeding-heart pro-choicers. Not kidding. There's a lot. A lot to deal with.

And she's not even here yet.

So no wonder I've been pulling away. Not wanting to hear completely unnecessary (and frankly very offensive) commiserations. Not wanting to hear ignorant comments about the perceived nature of ALL children with Down as if they are completely ruled and determined by this one extra chromosome and not in the least the 46 others. Not wanting to hear one more time how especially courageous we are, when courage has nothing to do with having a child with Down and everything to do with just having a child. Not wanting to explain time and time again how our daughter will have a full range of emotions from that humongo-tantrum-enraging anger to giddy happy hysterics (if she's anything like me that will be the scale), the ability to learn and develop like any other child (even if that development will happen somewhat more slowly in her case), and a bright future ahead of her with friends, education, coffee, jobs, boyfriends (or girlfriends should she be so inclined), and all that which comes with growing up. And most of all, not wanting to justify my joy and happiness for this, the approaching birth of my first child, my daughter, who I thought had already disappeared from my deck of cards, nor justify my deepest desire for her to pull through the misery the placenta is currently being held responsible for and arrive here safely, just the way she is.

I hope you're smarter. At least I will be.

Think before you blow.

Down

2011-05-17T11:08:00.001-05:00

You know that discussion where a pregnant woman is asked whether she's hoping for a boy or a girl, and the woman, although probably thinking "I'm so going to throw a megatantrum unless I get some decent wear out of those little princess baby-tutus I've been buying online" or "I've already painted the nursery blue, so whaddya think?!?!" answers "Oh, we don't care whether the baby's a boy or a girl as long as he or she is healthy"? (Brad paisley even wrote a song about it.)

I know you do. You've had that discussion. I've had that discussion. I've been the one asking, since previously the only baby-related chit-chatty blurb of baby-shower blab I have been able to come up with has been either that piece of shining brilliance and originality, or my all time favorite: "So, you craving anything weird... like dirt? I read some women want to eat dirt?" which has always proven very successful in that I've never had to elaborate, or better yet, host any baby-related shindig.

But now I'm supposed to be on the answering end.

Only, I already know that we're having a little girl, and that our little girl will never be classified as completely healthy, since she'll have Down Syndrome.

Now, I've already read enough to know that she won't be suffering from Down Syndrome, and neither will she be inflicted with it, she'll just have it, like the reddish hair she might inherit from the Viking or the narrow face and a pair of dark blue eyes set just a teeny tiny bit too close to each other to really be attractive, she might inherit from me. Although, let's hope she inherits my blondish locks and the Viking's strong chin and nose instead, shall we...

But what do I tell people who look at me with pity in their eyes?

Our daughter, she'll be special alright, but only because she'll be ours. We'll care for her and raise her, and hopefully enable her to face this world without too much alcohol and caffeine (something her mother has been known to occasionally struggle with, although not whilst pregnant I assure you, I might be off the charts in many ways but I mean no harm) and with an attitude that will allow for her to be ambitious while still enjoying the stuff that really, once you get down to it, makes all of this living worth it somehow. Like avocados and 90s pop.

And let's face it: She will be inflicted with a mother who I'm sure will still feel, at 40, 50 or even 60, that she can pull off a blue mohawk. No doubt about it!

Try that on for teen drama.

A little memento from the land of our little daughter's conception.

Come to think of it, she might also be inflicted with a mother who is willing to include time and location of the actual conception in the birth story.

Sick, right?

Where has she been?

2011-04-30T12:40:00.000-05:00

Fighting the Mexican drug war waged by the president Felipe Calderon? Nope. She hasn't seen, heard, tasted, felt, or even casually sniffed nor snorted anything to do with drugs or wars. Mexico City's mellow, man.

Binging on tacos and guacamole in the company of old friends? Not really. She's had her fair share of tacos and avocado in all the forms the designer intended (including murky, greenish drinks that promise to make your hair and nails grow twice their usual speed while also making you thinner, richer, and able to speak a dead language) and she's had plenty of opportunities to catch up with amigos and amigas who all seem to have procreated while she was gone, leading her to attend quite a few birthday bashes complete with candy filled piñatas and wine for grownups (after the kids are done smashing up the property and anyone smaller than themselves in lieu of aiming for the Hello Kitty or Spiderman hanging from the ceiling), but there have been plenty of tacos consumed in the privacy of her own bedroom while watching reruns of Mad about You.

Waiting for her stuff to arrive on a boat from South Africa? Well, yes. Among other concerns. She's still not entirely sure where her furniture, and 100 of the 130 pairs of shoes she owns, currently are, and the only thing she knows for sure concerning the huge honking shipping container that houses her and the Viking's life at the moment is that at some point someone forgot it in the Bahamas and didn't tell her until much later. But that's not it.

Saying a final farewell to her single remaining grandparent in the winter of freezing Finland? Sadly, yes. Almost exactly a year after her grandmother's passing the love of her grandma's life, the grandfather, the healthiest man anyone had ever known, decided to end it all with a lightning cancer and go spend eternity with the love of his life, her grandmother. She inherited his special coffee cup and likes to think of them together somewhere, in an ethereal coffee house, loudly complaining in Finnish about the quality of the brew. While still drinking liters and liters of it.

Getting her Mexican residency paperwork in order? Yes. Partly. Although that's mostly just meant she had to fly to Los Angeles, shop for a long weekend, see Hollywood and Venice Beach and stalk the pregnant P!nk in a casual and unthreatening manner, visit the Mexican consulate in Los Angeles and receive grossly preferential treatment because she kept maintaining her lawyer had made an 'appointment', and then sit around some more in the Mexican immigration in Mexico and again receive preferential treatment thanks to some lawyer trick she'd rather not know about. But although trying to stalk P!nk kept her on a high for weeks, that's not it either.

What then? What the hell have you been doing for weeks and weeks on end?

Well, now that you've mentioned Los Angeles, I do seem to recall something having its beginning on that journey. And I'm not talking about P!nk's pregnant belly. I'm pretty sure that was already there.

Unlike mine.

However - and this is a pretty fucking humongous however - things are not alright.

The little person growing in me, the person I and the Viking finally decided was meant to be born into this world and call me äiti and the Viking far, will not exactly be like you and me. Instead of having 46 chromosomes, this little person will have one more or one less, if this person is ever even born.

I hope so. The Viking hopes so. We're ready. Us and Mexico. Come what may.

Mexico says hello

2011-02-01T15:52:00.002-06:00

So. Here we are. Lots of time has passed. We've already been in Mexico for a month, which reminds me I should probably change the description to this here blog, and the picture, and such (luckily, I'm as undecided as ever, so the name at least still applies). If I were actually blogging, that is. Which I don't seem to be doing. Except for right now.

You know, this one might actually turn into a post. We'll see how long until my thoughts veer to the Starbucks conveniently located only a few blocks away, and I completely lose track of what I was going on about and I end up writing about how much better Mexican cows must be treated than cows in other Starbucks locations to produce such superior milk that is then frothed and made into the loveliest latte just for me and available to me now almost at any hour of the day and/or night, and then I'll just go on about coffee vs. Starbucks coffee for several paragraphs and cap everything off with a picture of the cool Starbucks mugs the Viking bought me and...

Well. That didn't take long, did it now? Still, I guess that counts as blogging. Yes?

But what is it that's kept me from spending my boredom and general (as well as quite overwhelming) inclination to sit around for hours on end by writing my caffeinated quirks (and sometimes preaching about coffee and/or other important issues) into the great big void, also known as the blogosphere-hood of the internetz?

Well, partly (the Viking would say mostly, but I'm still telling him my obsession will get better), Starbucks is to blame. Damn their comfy chairs, alluring coffee smell, and the staff knowing my name and being all nice to me in several different locations in several different languages! That's how they get me, they have nice-smelling, polite people and a place for me to sit down while I drink my umpteenth coffee of the day. Damn them. Sometimes there are even tables. Can you believe it?

But also, there's been quite a lot of life. Quite a lot of life in Mexico and Mexico City.

I hadn't realized how much I'd missed this place - its food, people, coffee, traffic, attitude, sounds, altitude, views, colors, and so on. I didn't remember how much this place had always felt like home to me and the Viking, or how many good friends we had here, or how ardently the customer the Viking had been working with worshipped at his feet (even when they kind of reeked [sometimes the feet, sometimes the customer]), or how good a proper guacamole really could taste when it was properly made in a molcajete by a surprisingly brawny old lady with more grey hair on her head than a docile Finnish bear after it had been hunted by my hunting-crazy relatives (imagine: Extranjera with a gun! I know.). In the two and a half years we'd been gone from here, I had adapted to life in Africa and really enjoyed it too, but I had forgotten how well this continent of colors and permeating smell of raw sewage really fitted my (increasingly cellulite-inflicted) contours.

Good thing we're back, and I'm getting a chance at remembering. (The Viking maintains he remembers everything, which I take to mean I'm lucky to still have him in my life, but also that perhaps that teetotalling-thing might just be of some value when it comes to such trifles as job performance, avoiding senility, and saying only smart things instead of blurting out drunken sentences like "two dead zebras would be a wonderful buy, yes please I'd like two." But that's only me. And then there's wine. And, in all honesty, I think the two are inseparable.)

Still, our stuff is stuck in a container in South Africa, the Mexican government refuses to officially acknowledge that they'd like for us to stay longer, leaving us to live in a vacation rental apartment, out of our suitcases, without a car, without a local bank account (leaving my Danish Visa-card soon closed and screaming for mercy), without a cellular subscription, and without anywhere to properly call home. Although we already are, referring to Mexico City as home, like we never left in the first place.

Sun sets over Polanco and Santa Fe, Mexico City

Yes, that brown haze is pollution. No, you can't see it when you're breathing it in.

I realize I'm not often perceived as a lady by others so I'm left with no other choice but to do it to myself

2010-10-21T08:55:00.000-05:00

(Although, when I really am doing it to myself I refer to myself in the third person. Leaves a better taste in my own mouth at least. Also, as a side note: I'm so not trying to sound dirty. I swear.)

I am such a nice lady. I really am. I was totally afraid that because of the countless South African maids who ~~I ended up having weird disagreements with regarding grease and feces and other assorted wonders of the modern household and then had to fire or watch them theatrically quit on me~~ my chemistry was at odds with, it would turn out that it wasn't them being duds and bad specimens of the cleaner corps here in the Joburg highveld, but that I had turned into one of these horrible white women, with snakes for hair who can freeze you if you accidentally look at them while you're actually trying to flee their cold grip.

But I hadn't.

Turns out my hair doesn't hiss or ingest mice, it's just quietly trying to bid farewell to the mohawk and my very questionable attempts at dyeing it solo (in my own bathtub, without permanently blinding myself or the already fairly sad bathtub), and as much as I'd like to I have no freezing action, just this sorry trick of finding out my stress level by the number of chipped teeth in my mouth after a night of some serious teeth grinding, and, hmm, my grip is not really cold, more lukewarm and sometimes a little clammy.

Because I really am a nice lady at heart.

El Grande Vikingo (the husband, a.k.a. the Viking, is going back to the original name, since it's very likely that we're going back to Mexico, but I'm not saying anything yet, because he still hasn't definitely put pen to paper and although I'm already thinking about selling the cars and having the insides of the house put into a container, I haven't actually even ironed anything in a while, let alone folded and packed) says I can be all warm and fuzzy as long as someone remembers to pick up coffee regularly at the store, and, well, it's been ages since my last 'ohmizeus-and-other-as-valid-deities-I've-run-out-of-the-sweet-manna-that-keeps-my-soul-going-someone-fucking-do-something-quick' (this might also apply if one were to imagine 'sweet manna' to refer to wine), which leads me to believe that I've been downright pleasant lately.

A nice lady!

But don't just take my word for it, I have proof.

Which is still technically my word, and I could totally be lying about everything and be a middle aged man who sits around in his underwear all day long in his mother's basement and convinces himself that he's conducting an exciting social experiment by pretending to be a past her prime trophy wife in South Africa who is married to a bearded Viking.

And who is also a nice lady (Not the Viking. He has all his bits.).

But I'm really real, and so's my proof.

Picture this:

A cluster of military-colored and yet eerily mock-Tuscan houses nestles in the suffocating embrace of slightly larger military-colored yet even more eerily mock-Tuscan houses in a valley far, far away, technically in the northern suburbs of Joburg, but in reality way behind the boerewors-curtain in the Afrikaner-territory of Pretoria.

In one of the houses in the cluster, a woman in her (very early) thirties (that's me!) sits in her living room ~~reading a book and occasionally surfing the world wide web~~ and sorts out donations for various charities. Every once in a while she glances outside to her backyard and at its one forever-dying tree and brown grass. It has been weeks since she's been able to do that. A crew of painters has been employed to paint all of the houses in the cluster a deeper and darker mix between military grey and green (so really, kind of melted together camouflage which is still a very kind description), and she's had to close all the curtains to avoid someone seeing her absentmindedly picking her nose or attempting to find out where exactly that weird smell is coming from (Is it the trash? Is it the armpits? Is it the breath? Wait! Is it actually something stuck in the latest chipped tooth? Yes. So Gross.). But it finally seems that everything has been painted and the painters have moved on to the last house in the cluster, on the other side of the street.

The weather's so nice and that breeze, oh that breeze, it brings with it the smell of margaritas and suntan lotion. She feels compelled to open the door out to the patio. To let in some of that lovely, lovely breeze. She makes some more coffee and ~~drapes herself with the book on the cushy chair once again~~ goes on with her charitable endeavors some more.

Then she hears a sound. Talk, actually. A whole discussion. In a language she doesn't understand.

She doesn't panic. She quietly walks back towards the patio door and once she reaches it, she sneakily peeks out.

Four men turn to look at her. Two of them are sitting on her loungers and another two have their lunches laid out on the patio table. They have lighted two of the citronella candles she's left on the table. The men all smile at her.

"Hello, ma'am," one of them says cheerily and smiles some more. They all wave. She waves back awkwardly, blushes a little, and slinks away. Suddenly things start clicking for her - she remembers that extra trash in the trash can her husband was asking her about, she recalls the muffled voices she has been hearing for the past week around noon, she thinks of the amazingly dustless patio table, and the patio furniture that hasn't quite known how exactly to position itself in the last few days.

She deems it too impolite to close the curtains, and even as she slides the door closed again, she tries to do it quietly. She leaves it unlocked.

She feels an odd sense of pride that the painters should have picked her backyard and patio as their lunch room regardless of which house they have been working on. They had 12 houses to choose from. 12 more or less identical backyards and patios to choose from. 12 houses with roughly the same view. 12 houses without other differences to them than the people who live in the houses and their perceived reactions to four paint-spattered guys making use of what they consider as their 'property'.

It must be because she is such a nice lady.

Such a nice lady.

Change of scenery

2010-10-06T03:25:00.000-05:00

While I'm sitting here at my (the original since I'm still not quite feeling the new one but which is slowly being coaxed out of its boxy hibernation by the Viking who I seem to have promised the current [although antsy] one to should he be inclined to buy me a new one... dammit) MacBook Pro, smelling what can only be the death stench of burnt ants emanating from the innards of this here silver (it has to be silver, the black just looks so scary. Apple designers take note!) keyboard, I'm looking at apartments.

In Mexico City.

Yes, my dear people, it's again that time of the decade. The ants in my pants (and not just the 'puter) part of the living that I do daily. The looming end of the Viking's contract. The should we stay or go or take a long vacation hitchhiking through some obscure countryside somewheres in the world point in time. The let's ditch the turquoise couch once and for all but still find it in the container upon arrival to the new country (the same goes for the forever-temporary television-stand. Sapient pearwood?). The let's find some new adventures and leave friends (sadness abounds) and routines (fokken A) behind. The let's call it a day and then some and MOVE.

Houses. Towns. Countries. Continents.

Let's shake it up a bit. Let's learn a new language, discover some new foods, wines, and find some new neighbors (Could be you. Scared?) to impose our by now extremely quirky 'Scandinavian' on (that's a nice way of saying I will always belt out the chorus to Yö's Ihmisen Poika [best song ever and perhaps the best band too] loudly in the shower when you least expect it [I take showers at odd hours apparently], and the Viking will look at you funny when you ask him to ask his wife to stop singing in the apartment before inviting you in to taste the world's best mustard [which is of Finnish origin, naturally!]).

So Mexico City would sort of be cheating, since we already left it behind after a wonderful and memorable two years there, only two and a half years ago. But I miss Mexico. And Mexico seems to miss the Viking and wants him back very badly (good thing he's so lovable. No one would ever want me back, I know it). It seems however, that South Africa wouldn't mind us staying another year, but lately, all talk of ants in my pants and various crevices (those bastards get everywhere, they do) aside, we've began to think that perhaps a change of scenery would be an appropriate move.

Don't get me wrong, I've had an awesome time here in South Africa. It has been cool to get behind all of the nasty reporting on the 'dangerous Johannesburg' and see the real city, the land, and its people, experience the beat of Soweto, get in touch with the reality of life in Diepsloot, hear a lion roar in Pilanesberg (and then see it try to avoid a puddle at all costs like the true kitten a lion still is underneath all that mane), hurtle down a barely-there dirt road at a breakneck speed in a rattling 4x4 in a red cloud of dust (this is, in fact, my new off-road route home from boot camp), be head-butted by a 'tiny' rhino, discover that I've actually contributed to a couple of kids learning how to read and then cry a little bit in the car because, seriously, how fokken great is that?, but maybe it's time.

There have been moments, you know. Those times that tell you, loud and clear, that a change of scenery/ mate/ hobby/ spending habits/ internet provider/ vehicle/ deodorant/ job/ trainers is in order. I've found myself automatically locking my car doors without anyone having to ask me "Um, are we locked in?". I seem to have internalized the lay-out of my neighborhood Woolworths and can thus do my grocery shopping with my eyes closed (not that I do. mostly). I realize that I lock the door behind me while I open the gardener's lunch can of beans for him. I bought Jack Parow on iTunes and was excited about it. I've stopped hyperventilating every time someone is surprised I'm not Afrikaans. I say things like 'Ag ja', 'shame', and 'eish' without even registering what's exiting my mouth.

I've told people that I'm fine instead of good, for fuck's sake!

In other words, I've started to feel at home.

And we all know what that spells, don't we?

Goodbye South Africa it must be. It's not you sweet SA, it's me. I just need some time alone, you know, to figure out where I'm going in life and whatnot. You deserve someone better, you do! I would just make you unhappy in the end. We could never grow old together. You'll be so much happier without me and you'll find happiness with that special someone. I'm only leaving you open for that person.

I'm not breaking up with you, I'm doing you a favor. Trust me. And besides, it's been a nice ride, neh?

So now all that's left is a great break-up fuck. Unless that fuck involves us staying the year longer, in which case I'm not sure I feel horny at all. Nuh huh.

Until then.

I'll always cherish our time together though. I will! Oh the scenery...

Just a few bones

2010-09-23T08:55:00.000-05:00

(Which I almost spelled and sent out to the reading world as boobs, but that, my peeps, is a whole different post altogether, and alas, I'm trying to move away from that kind of stuff. Really, I am.)

I have been known to scream at the Universe on several different occasions. Sometimes said screaming has taken place in front of complete strangers, on other occasions I have mistaken the poor, guileless Viking for the Universe (or the other way round, I often mix up the phrase, sue me), and at other times it has just been me, all by my lonesome, screaming at that stain on the bedroom wall that vaguely looks like what I imagine the child of Elvis and Madonna would look like - one big thing of black hair and veiny arms. Sometimes it's just PMS, which I keep forgetting I suffer from nowadays.

Having done my fair share of screaming, I have also found that the Universe does not respond well to screaming, if it responds at all. And I think we can all agree that the poor Viking has been through enough, and it is, after all, his birthday today. And he's going to be really old. Ancient, in fact, as I told him and all his buds on Facebook today.

So I think I'm going to use this forum of the interwebz to pick my specific collection of bones with the Universe. And then it will be up to her to read me or not. Cool?

Cool.

First of all, Ms. Universe, I would like to open by saying thank you for the awesome shit you have thrown my way over the years, like the whole being privileged enough to have been born in Finland to a couple of sufficiently lovely and quite normal folks, and not to have been a boy back then because then those folks would have very likely made me play ice-hockey and, well, I'm just not that into cold. I'd also like to say thanks for making my bladder embarrassingly small leaving me in constant search of a bathroom, a condition without which the Viking might have never entered my life, very possibly leaving me married to some schmo who would never let me buy my fill of extravagant shoes, or possibly a hippie (but really a hobo) with bad hair and only a sign saying 'will sing for shoes'. And that would have been just awful.

I'd also like to thank you, Ms. Universe (marital status undefined), for making me the kind of person (although I do believe ~~Ironfist~~ my mother would like to share in the glory on this one somewhat) who has never been afraid to make her, and others', own decisions, to steer her life in the direction she wanted it to go, and when it wasn't that steerable, pushed it with all her might until it almost broke, but didn't. Luckily.

For all of the above, having made me into a stubborn Finnish woman, I thank you, dear Universe, but that's not all.

There are some bones. Figuratively as well as literally.

There is the giant fishbone stuck in my throat. There is the whole maid-situation that is quickly slipping from a situation to a Situation. But not the Situation, although I bet he's much better at vacuuming than any of the recent maids we've had the pleasure of working for us, and then there's that stuff in his hair which I do believe would work very nicely on my armoire in desperate need of a polish (not a euphemism, unless it's Friday and you've already had a couple of glasses). There is the not remembering the Viking's birthday until after yelling at him for not making the coffee strong enough. There is the ringworm on the back of my arm that just won't go away. There is the having to use superglue to fix the car and then having bad dreams about stuff falling off the car because superglue isn't what it's cracked up to be, and also, that I might have owned that specific tube even before I knew I was going to marry the Viking, which is to say forever ago. There is Facebook telling me to blamingly reconnect with the Viking, my own husband, which I have now done and possibly pissed him off quite nicely in the process.

The first bone?

Yup. A humongous fishbone stuck in my throat. Came in with a delicious bouillabaisse, will not leave, has long since overstayed its welcome (and to be completely frank, it wasn't that welcome in the first place), made me unwell enough to visit the emergency room in Cape Town on Sunday night, on my vacation, where they made me drink three cans of Coca Cola sending me thus onto a sugar high that took most of Monday to clear off and left me with what I'm certain is a bleeding hole in my stomach lining.

"That stuff will dissolve anything, it's like drinking drain cleaner, only somehow you don't die from it," told the lovely ER doctor to me.

The second bone?

Well, there are no actual bones involved in this one, but I've decided to go completely without.

What? Without a maid? Really?

Yup. I'm pretty sure the gaping whatchamacallit I'm completely certain is in my stomach and bleeding like the mother of all ulcers, was just exacerbated by the Coke and was really caused by the maid-saga.

And of course you are the innocent victim in all this?

Of course. What do you expect. me to say that it cannot be the entire corps of maids found in South Africa whose main objective is to piss their employers off, but that it's me? Are you crazy? It's the universe sending me duds. One after the other. She keeps sending these folks my way who.... Argh. never mind. I'm winning this one by going completely without.

So you're just going to live in your own filth, huh?

Pretty much. Take that Universe! Let's see who comes out stronger on the other side. You with your purple unicorns that Pink flies or me with a crust on my clothes like a protective armor should some form of alien military want to invade earth. I'll show you, Ms. Universe. And your area 51 friends!

Uhm. Are we still doing bones?

Hihihihihihihi..... cough, cough.

I'm not sure. I don't think so. I think we were doing wine. weren't we? I'm pretty sure we were... And not blogging about no fokken fishbones and devilish maids, but getting ready to acknowledge that it actually is the Hubs's birthday and that even though his dear mama sang to him on the phone very early this morning (always a frikken pleasure) perhaps his day is not entirely complete with that, but something more is expected. Perhaps a nice dinner, a present, a card at least...?

Err...?

So wine for me it is. Without the screams, if you don't mind.

This thing bears absolutely no resemblance to the Viking or wine. It is dead though.

Screw you, I never said I was sane in the first place. Or in the last. Not to mention the middle. So there.

Welcome to Nigeria. No, actually we don't want you anyhow, but thanks so much for asking. NOT!

2010-09-09T06:15:00.001-05:00

There are those who would argue that my yesterday could have possibly been better spent. Even I would perhaps be inclined to think so, had I not been procrastinating and not doing the things I was supposed to do anyway, and as such the day actually, instead, will now forever epitomize for me the perfect day of pure and utter procrastinatory unaccomplishment.

What in the hell, woman? I mean... what?

Well, as it happens, a coffee with my Capetonian (A person who hails from Cape Town, South Africa. It is too spelled like that, I swear.) friend of Wheatlands News, the lovely and utterly smart journo Lynne (that's her reflected in the glass I think) who I've actually met through this here blogging thing and made friends with since she was in no way a psychopathic killer, a religious fanatic, or a crazed cat lady a la the Simpsons (and that's only bad because she uses the poor cats as weapons), turned into (How do you like my sprawling, to put it mildly, sentence structure? I know, bordering on insanely ingenious, neh?) a day sadly mostly void of coffee and cake, with nothing to eat but sugar free, teeth-whitening gum I had stowed away in my purse, at the Nigerian Consulate in Johannesburg.

After weeks of fruitless phone calls to the consulate (apparently, the whole answering the phone when it rings hasn't really caught on with the consulate staff yet), Lynne had finally decided to fly into Johannesburg yesterday morning and wrestle the visa needed for her travel to Nigeria on Saturday, out of the unhelpful folks herself.

She was giving the match 3 hours tops, and then we were going to be free to procrastinate our day away in the wonder that is the flashy and relatively safe (or so they claim, while I think they're wrong and I personally feel much safer [and more sane] in other parts of Jozi) 'the other' downtown of Johannesburg, Sandton. With plenty of coffee, foreign, air-freight mags that we would read for free at one of the book stores over a rather nicely executed latte, maybe a touch of shopping, some unadulterated people watching (believe me, Sandton is the place for flashier than Paris or any of the drag queens impersonating her put together amongst the Jozi-crowd), and of course lots of catching up and gossip, before Lynne's flight back to Cape Town at five.

Alas, 'twas not to be.

You really are all over the place with the lingo today, dude. What's with that? Plain, good English no longer good enough for ya, or what?

Hmph.

So I spent the morning doing some light shopping (Buying perfume and shoes, and trying on perfumed shoes [who wouldn't want a pair, or two seeing as I already own one, of these babies?] almost doesn't count as shopping, does it now? Everyone nod! Thanks.), and getting through my fill of the UK Vogue for free and some wisdom from the authors of the South African Cosmopolitan (I refuse to pay for the mag. It's just that useless) while waiting for Lynne. She had gotten to the consulate at 9am. Surely she'd have her visa by noon?

Finally, around rolled noon, and she texted me that things weren't quite going according to plan, and that she had been yelled at, treated like shit, accused of fraud, nothing was happening regarding her application, and that she had been told to either withdraw her passport or wait some more. To top it all off, that had been when someone amongst the numerous (and clearly not very overworked, as we later witnessed a clerk take a break for over an hour during their official 'office hours' and go grocery shopping) staff had been kind enough to actually acknowledge her presence in the waiting room, instead of avoiding her gaze and slinking away behind mirrored glass. She asked me whether I'd like to hang out in the waiting room at the consulate.

How could I have said no? Well, I couldn't. It was, after all, the waiting room of the Nigerian consulate. Who in their right mind would say no to that?

So equipped with two bottles of water, Lynne had asked me to bring, I set out to find the place. Time was running out. They were closing the doors at one. The GPS was no help. The lady who lives in it, was unable to locate the consulate, the road that it was on, and in the end Johannesburg as well. She kept asking me to make a left at a stop light in Pretoria, after which she would furiously recalculate before telling me to, what else, make a left at a stop light in Pretoria. I just drove up and down the street I thought the consulate was on until I saw a building that kinda, sorta, looked like an embassy.

I got lucky.

(Note to self: Learn which flag belongs to which country. Might come in handy when the woman in the GPS tumbles down into the wine cellar... Just saying.)

With not a minute to spare I left my car in front of some office's front entrance and dashed into the consulate. Seeing as I always carry in my wallet, when I need to stoop to that mind you, the card which can only be referred to as 'a frighteningly blond and pale woman in heels carrying what looks like whoop-ass in her purse' and in my desperation for entry decided to play it, I strolled right through the exit door, past the sign-in and the guards, straight into a largish but very sparsely furnished room with a counter with no one behind it, and frustrated looking people in various, most of them quite resigned-looking, stances, and found Lynne.

Who was holding a sleeping baby on her lap. Just not one of the grown-up ones she's personally brought into the world, but a tiny, cute, sleeping baby-girl. Not wanting to admit I'd missed her pregnancy, change of mate/ adoption process, and the birth of this little miracle (I really should read y'all's blogs more. I know I should. But really, I'm afraid to find out what I've missed...), I simply ignored the baby, let Lynne in on the bender-ways of my GPS sweetheart (she's really okay, until she hits the bottle or snorts something up her air vent), and how I almost didn't make it and...

And that's when I saw the lady in the corner, bawling her eyes out, the mother of the baby. And the people trying to calm her down. And the clerks quickly swishing by the counter separated from the waiting room by a glass clearly hoping not to be noticed on their way from one side of the offices to the other. I'm sure if food hadn't been involved they wouldn't have moved.

Later that day, after getting no answers regarding Lynne's application, as I was carrying around the tired and hungry baby clearly in no mood to be spending time in any embassy or consulate, her mother, as a last resort to finding some answers (all this poor Nigerian woman needed was a travel document for her Nigerian baby so that she could travel home to Nigeria), threw herself on the floor and pleaded on her hands and knees for one of the passing clerks to help her.

Even after "You want us to die here. In South Africa?" from the distraught woman, the clerk simply shook her grip off of the leg of his pants and disappeared behind the locked door.

From now on, when I think of the words 'undeserved' and 'unjust' what will undoubtedly spring to mind is the way the poor woman was treated by her own countrymen. For no other reason than they could do it, and get away with doing it. No one wanted to help her, instead it was almost as if they wanted to make her misery worse.

But when I think about the word 'smug' the only thing that can come to mind from yesterday on, is the face and the tone of one of the clerks, when she finally, at 4:30pm, came into the waiting room to talk to Lynne, only to tell her "See, this document is missing the sender's information and that's why we can't confirm it. No, you giving us that information would just defeat the purpose. Can't you see how it would defeat the purpose." This was a letter a Nigerian ministry had sent to the Nigerian consulate.

And then everyone went home. But not before one of the people from the bigger upstairs offices came downstairs in an effort to get us to leave too, pretended to be someone else than who he was after it became absolutely necessary for him to identify himself, told Lynne he would otherwise grant her the visa, but the office had been locked up by the visa people who had already left for home, and that she would just have to come back on Monday, because of the four-day weekend.

And then we really were thrown out of the embassy. Politely, but still. Swept right out the door. And Lynne ended up canceling her very necessary mentoring trip to Nigeria and paying double for her flight back to Cape Town.

I want to go to Nigeria now more than I ever did.

Do you think I should apply for a visa now? You know, in case I get to go for my 50th birthday?

My sentiments exactly.

What's love gotta do with it? Well, duh, that's what it's all about.

2010-09-07T09:53:00.000-05:00

Since the government workers' strike has been raging on here in South Africa (and I mean raging, people are in the hospital because they wanted to keep working, and the vuvuzelas have so been dug out from wherever they were laid to rest after the World Cup), and I haven't been able to do my thing of teaching poor 3rd and 4th graders my variety of twangy American, I've been papering some readers instead.

(Okay. To be honest, I've also been running, drinking wine, eating sushi, and reading Terry Pratchett, although mostly not simultaneously, but whatevs, like you'd want to know.)

Yup. It's a ~~dirty~~ sticky job, but since we paid good money for the readers, we better make sure they survive more than just one read. In the face of new books, some of our students can be a little, well um, let's just call them rather overly excited and enthusiastic in that tone that makes you all want to donate more money for more readers for these poor children whose shacks don't even have floors. Seriously.

*severely pulls at several different heartstrings while swearing on something or other holy, like possibly her copy of Mitchell's Cloud Atlas or even Eminem's Mockingbird, that they're very hard at work on installing that Pay Pal button on the Edu Fun blog*

However, I wasn't the only one papering anything (one rarely is, as papering even sounds like a viable group activity). There was a whole crowd, nay, a whole gaggle or even possibly a coven, of women (to be fair, since a lot of them are of a Swedish persuasion maybe the collective noun used for extremely tall and rather gorgeous people would be the best, but you get my drift), all frustrated by not being granted entry to the temporarily closed down school and needing something else than 'lunching' to do with their now empty mornings.

So naturally there was talk.

Where there's coffee and tea (and also sometimes wine, but luckily this wasn't that kind of a happening) there's talk, right?

And some stuff came up.

Heavy and deeply political stuff, this meeting being about charity, poverty, and providing disadvantaged children with a better future. The kind of stuff came up that I consider very dear to me. Stuff that I'm not willing to negotiate on. Life-changing stuff. Stuff that I don't think I could live without. Stuff that is an integral part of my everyday life. Stuff that feeds my soul to the deepest and darkest of its niches (and there are many me being an atheist and all). Stuff that helps to define me. Stuff that is practically a part of who I am as a person. Very important stuff, see.

What? Wine?

No, you fool! I'm way deeper than that.

The Simpsons of course.

And my love of the show, right alongside my almost equal love for Futurama, South Park, King of the Hill, American Dad, and Family Guy.

But guess the fucking what?

Apparently, not everyone is in luurrrvvvee with these shows. And as if that revelation wasn't enough, there are people who judge me to be irresponsible, maybe a little weird, and immature based on my adoration for these shows.

I know. It's almost like someone saying they don't get Brad Paisley's humor, don't think that Madonna is somehow key to stopping global warming, or that they haven't realized that Oprah is synonymous with 'power controlling the universe'.

Madness, right?

I rarely conceive of work as something I would be able to engage in

2010-09-02T04:23:00.003-05:00

Because nothing (cue sarcasm tone) ever happens in my life, and because of how much I simply delight in a chance to fly anywhere (You know it! My butt just loves it! Have never said anything different, neh?) I've applied for this gig that pretty much entails me flying all over for two whole months.

By myself.
On planes of various caliber and level of comfort.
All over the world.
On Planes complete with airplane food, crying babies, and, my absolute favorite, the seats.

Yes, indeed.

The dreaded airplane seats.

Now, after submitting the application, the website cordially told me that a picture of me, which I had, through a complicated series of functions (it was on my external hard disk and first I wasn't even sure where I'd seen it last. The hard disk that is. I won't even mention the painful task of actually accessing it, finding a semi-decent photo of myself in which I'm not wearing some sort of wig/ horrible grin, and then getting the picture from the hard disk onto my laptop without looping it via China or possibly the second moon of Mars [what's the word on Mars's moons? Do such things exist? Do we know yet? The Big Bang Theory, which I've been watching lately and which consequently is the sum of my info on any other planets than earth, wasn't too precise on that... anyhoo]) added, was missing. So perhaps H. Zeus did a decent thing and stopped me from applying until I could come to my senses, and could instead just get stuck reading Terry Pratchett again and forget to apply altogether before it's much too late.

Seriously, this getting stuck and forgetting business is why I'm not a lawyer now, why I didn't receive my student bursary for a couple of years, why I still keep getting the online version of New England Journal of Medicine, and why I don't have any photography classes at the moment.

Go H. Zeus and Terry Pratchett!

Wait, am I getting sucked into something completely different now?

Yes. I think I am. Hmm. Maybe I should write about Discworld though. I do love reading about it so. I do... Too bad there won't be any more, seeing as Pratchett has Alzheimer's. Poor guy! So unfair. Such an imagination and flair for comedy...

Hold on!

I actually think I want this gig.

I mean what good does it to complain (about having to squeeze into an airplane seat made for a barbie doll [not a life-size one, the tiny doll] and fellow passengers smelling of camel and urine and possibly camel urine) if no one is paying any attention (the gig would in turn involve complaining about travel among other, flashier things)? Or at the most just reads this here blog and thinks that whatever I'm saying is sort of funny and quietly wishes I would go on some more excruciating trips, just so I would be able to write about how I got my massively surprising and surprisingly flowy (yes, this is exactly how gross I get sometimes. Completely out of the blue too. I'm sneaky like that.) period in mid flight without having realized anything of the sort would happen and [a potentially very nauseating bit about fashioning a sanitary pad from the items commonly available in a standard airplane bathroom] while also desperately waiting for that layover cup of Starbucks at [any airport with the sweet manna of actual, real Starbucks], and then having to cut the visit out in favor of buying tampons, which almost turned into a missed connection (Yup. I'm that lady they invented the threatening 'this is a call for ~~lady, where the hell are you, we know your plane landed like 2 hours ago~~ Extranjera, please make your way to gate 16B immediately, the plane is ready for departure' announcements for). And it's all because of tampons. Or lip balm. Or jewelry. Or Sand and Malene Birger clothing. Or a pair of sunglasses. Or a toothbrush. Or one more drink.

Well, mostly tampons.

Really? Why do I keep going on about frikken tampons? What is the matter with me?

I should be thinking about this gig!

But definitely not of the ~~hundreds~~ thousands of others who'll be applying for the same exact gig. And are probably much more qualified, far less angry at random airlines, have no problems with airplane seats, don't start furiously menstruating in unfortunate mid-flight, never get their feet run over by the food cart, won't accidentally get into an illegal taxi at a strange destination and end up in the 'wrong part of town', wouldn't ever scare the security check people by accidentally falling over and hitting their head on the scanner while removing their shoes, always exit a plane looking fresh instead of like roadkill that not even the crows wanted, carry reasonably-sized hand luggage, aren't neurotic about their camera equipment and other people handling it, never run out of things to read and then subsequently panic and harass the fellow passengers for at least the realty section, find that elusive restaurant everyone is always raving about in the guidebooks instead of giving up and eating some nuts and semi-melted cheese on a park bench next to a homeless guy, and always know what to say and what to do in any given situation instead of getting caught picking their nose/ farting in public.

Yup. I'm a shoo-in, aren't I?

What do you think? (No need to answer if you also applied. In that case, the battle is ON! But thanks for reading.)

This is not the picture I attempted to attach. This is one of the ones with me wearing a wig. This wig has gold lamé in there. Purty, neh?

Things I blame Africa for. Vol. XI

2010-08-18T04:17:00.001-05:00

"So, what are we talking about today, dear Ext?" she says as I position myself on the plush, white couch that always looks so inviting and comfortable, but ends up poking me with a loose spring right at that place where no flesh covers my tailbone.

I change from one already uncomfortable position to another. The spring pokes at my backside. I wince.

"Well, dear blog of mine," I open well knowing that If I suggest any sort of redesign that will imply getting rid of what's been on here for what seems like forever, she'll just smile and nod. Smile and nod. And then do nothing. The picture with the giraffe and the whiteness are here to stay. There's no way out of it.

"I seem to have become a clutter-happy hoarder," I test the waters.

"Oh, what makes you think that?" she queries, as if she doesn't know how uncomfortable the couch is, or how monotone the picture of the giraffe has become. Or how many bags of coffee have been bought since that item was placed on the to do-list, neatly tucked into the margin.

"See, Africa has made me like that," I answer as if I'm actually answering her question.

"Oh?" she just says, without the slightest tone of interest in her voice, and looks sadly at the description over the poor giraffe's head. I know she feels the wine and the bad, bad books mentioned in the description have been lacking, but alas, she could just rewrite, but no. She feels the readers will look past the description, straight at her, the soul of the blog.

"You know when they didn't have any coffee filters for like two months?" I continue as I revisit the panic that almost overwhelmed me when I realized that it wasn't just one chain of stores, but all of them that never got their shipment of precious coffee filters. That go in the coffee machine. Without which the machine is rendered useless. Completely, and utterly useless. And a french press has to be brought in to replace filter coffee. And it will never, ever taste the same. A quality of pureness will forever be lacking. Oh no... I can feel myself slipping again...

"No," she just replies, "I don't think you've mentioned it before."

"Haven't I? I thought I have. I must have! I almost unraveled at that point," I remind her.

"Hrmph," she let's out an unintentional laugh that she then tries to mask as a coughing fit. She is professional like that. Or at least she tries.

"You unravel a lot, you know," she looks at me and it is easy to see she's still about to burst into giggles.

"Maybe," I tell her, "but that time I really almost did, kind of like that time my iPhone didn't work and then the international internet connection went from all of Africa, and I could only read the Sowetan and even the 'news' in it didn't make me laugh or cry or whatnot anymore."

"Ah. So it was bad. Really bad," she frowns. And now I can see she doesn't feel like giggling so much anymore.

"Yes," I almost yell, "It was bad! But guess what's going on now?"

"Tell me," she encourages me, "but don't just tell me. Make it funny too. And somewhat self-deprecating. And maybe even a little touching. Those always work well," she continues.

I do a little snappy imitation of a drumroll and she rolls her eyes.

"So, they're out of my favorite body lotion. Like everywhere. Everywhere!" I tell her as I feel the hot tears creep up to the corners of my eyes.

"Lotion," she says "that's what's making you unravel today?"

"Well, yeah," I don't understand her less than enthusiastic response to my predicament,"today it's lotion, tomorrow it'll be the deodorants that I've luckily been hoarding for a while now feeling something like this hurtling towards us, and let's face it, I really should also point out the 'what's with deciding to only import the crappier of tampons and sanitary pads and none of the good ones all European women get to use?' fucker of a deal we've been handed here in southern Africa."

"I have money. I can, and will pay for tampons. A lot. If that's what it'll take, I tell you," I finally breathe out. I feel myself going a little red in the face. But sometimes tampons will do that to you.

"I said funny, not embarrassing yet oddly pointless," she stares at me with a blank look on her face.

"But see, that's what's making me a crazy old cluttered maniac who always buys ten of each when she should be buying one or two," I finally reach the pinnacle of my story, but I can see I've lost her.

"Really? Do you really think talking about South Africa's tendency to have 'temporarily out of stock' on red background plastered across various shelves of its reality, at the most inopportune of moments, is a good idea?" she sighs.

"I mean, you hit a wall twice with the car yesterday, you have a new maid (again), you keep scaring random people when you wear that South Africa beanie even though you yourself think you look really cute in it, and you went back to teaching yesterday, yet you still think people want to know that you prefer European tampons (and you didn't even make that joke)," she lists with an increasing speed.

"But, but... European tampons are so much better! I wish European tampons on everyone!" I just wish she would listen to me.

"In fact, I think it would make everyone's life easier if Oprah would just do one of her South Africa specials and bring some in for the locals," I give her a meaningful stare. I know how much she loves Oprah.

"With the help of Oprah I know South Africans would see the light. Or the tampon, as it may be," I finish off with my coup de grace.

She stares at me. Then she carefully makes a fist and coughs into it.

"Oh Ext, you're just as clueless as ever," she smiles at me patronizingly, "I think our time for today is up."

I bet Cape Town wouldn't mind a shipment of some decent tampons. But that's just my opinion.

Posts I could have written while I was actually golfing.

2010-08-13T06:45:00.000-05:00

What gives? Or has given, or something in that vein, you might be wondering.

Well, I could tell you, but that would just involve a lot of random chatting about mildly (and also possibly only to myself) amusing anecdotes about golfing and everything to do with golfing, stuff about my ma, pa and wee brothers (and their significant others) and they have firmly placed themselves on my 'do not write about us you frikken ungrateful child/ not from the same seed sister' list anyhoo, more stuff about bears in my backyard and what kind of meat they would imagine me as, and other such greatness that, needless to say, I won't let you in on those tidbits of great insight and even greater awareness, but instead will again pretend like my last post was yesterday (and involved me talking about my lowering my handicap three times in one week and how I then cried and then weirded myself out totally by caring so much about a sport but then ultimately deciding that golf was really more like a guilty pleasure involving balls and shafts and thus much more like what happens after wine and not really a sport after all and aren't you glad you never read that post...) and delight you with...

Yes, you guessed it. You always do. Who am I kidding anyway. Transparency is what I'm all about, right? Oh wait, maybe that's the USA judicial system or legislation or something like that instead. Hmm, maybe I just need to drink more coffee instead. Yes, coffee. It's early.

...bits of posts I could have written while I was actually golfing (not really. some of this is stuff I just thought of while I was in the shower and blow drying my hair which I don't think can really be considered golfing. Even in my universe. But hey, at least for once there's some sort of thought process involved in my writing [again, not really. I'm pretty much giving this the same amount of attention as I am to the bag of cashews that is fast becoming my second breakfast of the day. It's nuts]):

But above and beyond.

1. I'll kick off with a great concern of mine: Of late I seem to be tucking things in. I kid you not. It's bad. It's shirts, t-shirts, tank tops, blouses, if it's in the top-family of clothes I'm tucking it in. Worrying. Now, why am I doing this? Are other people doing this? Is this fashion? Are we heralding the return of all of the bad things about the 90s, my teenage/early adulthood years? Not just the flower prints, mullets, pastels/ neons, and the ever so randomly rolled up pant leg, but tucking stuff in as well?

Great hawk that could swoop down and easily spirit Justin Bieber away right in front of our eyes! Will the body as a piece of clothing and not just the thing hanging below my chin(s) make a comeback too (buttons and the vag should never connect. Just saying)? Also, there is a pair of shoes smack in the middle of 1994 that I refuse to ever lay my eyes on again. I swear. Otherwise a vortex something something and a hot tub that's really a time machine sucks up something something and everybody gets rich and something russian and stuff (I saw that movie over the summer and remembered some stuff, I tell you. No need to go back. Simply cannot return. Ever!).

Ehem. Call in with your opinions if you should feel so inclined. Remember to reference the point in question, because there will be many. I golfed a lot. A lot.

4. Why is finding love so difficult for so many? Are there things one should do to find that special someone and things one should never ever do? Because apparently, regardless of its standing in modern society, Cosmopolitan does not have the answers to these questions. Neither does anyone on Sex and the City, the movies or the show. Or even me. Regardless of how hard I believe this to be a fact and continue in the same breath (always) that since I have found someone utterly awesome and cute with a side of nice firm buttocks at the same time, I should be considered a high priestess of attracting potential mates.

Totally not so.

Only thing I know for sure of this dating game a la Finland is that as a woman, if one attempts to attract the opposite sex that is, one should not get a haircut most men (and, frankly, most women as well) interpret as 'lesbian hair.' Also, it would not be advisable for one (my friend lady K in search of the father of her future rugrats) to go out partying with someone (me in a splendid display of the mohawk and other variations of the do) who will be, by most (including the poor lady K's inebriated colleagues at a concert) construed as one's spouse and/or love interest. A sad thing, I tell you.

Furthermore, why is this stereotype of what a lesbian looks like (so that you can spot them, so that you never, ever have to... OMG... talk to them without knowing that they are totally checking you out all the time and just thinking about your naked breasts and not ever, for example, their pets or tax returns or the inevitability of death) so rampant in the minds of Finns? Aren't we supposed to be like... uhm... sort of forward about these things? Oh wait, I'm thinking about some other nation, because we could totally be way more open to, well, pretty much everything and stop having embarrassing debates in the media about homosexuality, because those only lead me to think one thing: Thank Zeus our language is so complicated no one can understand us but us, and even we can pretend like the lady who said those horrifying things is not in the parliament but rather cleans its halls. No offense meant to the actual cleaning staff. They're probably great and very comfortable with homosexuality. Or so I like to imagine.

Again, feel free to chime in anytime. But remember, as usual, only if you agree!

3. How frikken great is B.o.B.'s (looks wrong when you stick an apostrophe on that, doesn't it?) and Bruno Mars's (regardless of the name itself, the s's instead of the older s' still looks far more normal, neh?) 'Billionaire'? Isn't it just awesome? Singable like nothing else. You get to swear (in the explicit version naturally, but right there in the chorus) while you belt it out, and you get to sing a little bit about Oprah, and that in itself is almost like praying and probably cancels out the swearing.

This one you don't need to comment on. Just sing it with me! You know you want to!

Yes, YOU! I'm looking at you!

4. Friends. Aren't they great? Except when they're not. Sometimes the only thing to do is to take the high road and that's what I'm doing. So nuff said.

But you're free to share. Get petty. Vent. I won't tell.

Plenty to choose from. There are always new ones.

A-Z. P!nk. I WENT TO HER CONCERT IN FINLAND! Not to the one during which she fell, which was bad for her and also took place in Germany, a country I did not visit during my European tour, and which I wouldn't have minded seeing. Still, the one that I went to WAS FUCKING AWESOME!!! Normally, I'm no fan of concerts because of the size of my bladder and the state and frequency of the toilets, and even at this concert, I was still in the line to the toilet (surprisingly vomit free I must say, P!nk must mean class in Finland) when P!nk descended onto the stage (with black wings on her back, while breathing fire and brimstone, on a unicorn galloping down a rainbow, I'm told. But I'm not bitter), but since I'd had a few sugary ciders I managed to jump erratically up and down, really fast, for the duration of the first 8 songs, and get a pretty good calf-workout, which was a totally unforeseen P!nk-bonus. And then I took some photos of ~~her~~ the stage which she is undoubtedly on, with my iPhone.

She's awesome. Truly awesome. You better agree, buddy.

98. Blog Camp. It was great. But it's better if you don't try to put it into words. Or me either.

The hostess

2. Punctuation. I don't care for it and generally like it very random. Sometimes to facilitate, sometimes to confound. That's how I swing. Also, I think thinking about it is a waste of precious golfing time. I could think about it at the time because I was actually golfing at the time and not in the upstairs shower as previously, albeit erroneously, assumed.

Don't comment unless you're actually golfing at the time. Actually don't even read the above point unless you're personally swinging the club, and if you are, let me tell you, according to the etiquette that phone/ laptop/ other wireless device is not supposed to be out if you're swinging. Bad golfer!

FOOOOORE (See? Totally lame.)

16. I completely and utterly get what Kelly Osborne is saying. Not about her dead dog, or her cheating boyfriend (just spelled that boyfiend which Apple insists on not being a word but that totally should be an often used expression about those people who through Photoshop-enhanced imagery tell us what we should weigh or how smooth we should be (i.e. teenage boys, neh?), or anyone who doesn't like small boys. Sweet Z! Am I really leading up to something about pedophiles? What's wrong with me? No one knows. Especially about that weird bump on the back of my arm, or my brain, but whatevs. Dropping the thread as of now.), or shopping, or in general, but with this one thing - I veritably feel her every word. Kel's that is.

She said that what she could never understand was that the attention paid to her weight was much greater than the attention paid to her drug use. Or something closely resembling that statement. No way am I Googling Kelly Osborne. Again. And just for the record, I have never, ever taken drugs, mother, although I support the legalization of Marijuana. If the criminal element is taken away from a substance that is comparable to alcohol, much can be achieved in this world and a lot of money can go to much better ends than fighting an inane battle.

Where was I?

Ah, I was talking about myself. What else?

Since losing a lot of weight, completely as a side-effect to some very necessary and hard changes in my life, people have come out of the woodwork to comment on how 'great' I look now that I'm thinner. It makes me uncomfortable. I never meant to lose weight (I know this is a smack in the face for those trying to lose weight, but the weight didn't just come off on its on, the loss was connected to a complete change in my diet [including my wine-y ways!] and all that jazz and hooplah). I was and still am adamant that I always looked great, no matter what my weight was, that it might just turn out that it is just my head that has had a surprising growth spurt and my body has stayed the same (I also saw Alice in Wonderland this summer), and that weight has nothing directly to do with health. Period.

Throughout my years as a fat woman I have had to time and again listen to various health 'professionals' advice on and urging about losing weight. I've had to deal with common peeps stupidity regarding my girth or the roundness of my various parts, I've had to submit to judgement from people that I actually know and who know me, and more. The Viking's the only person on this earth who has never touched upon the 'issue'. Still, when I was a raging (that means almost, mother) alcoholic, and even prior to surgery told a doctor how much I was drinking, no one, and I mean no one, ever said a word about my problem. Maybe they were too busy trying to gauge how much I could weigh? Who knows?

I hate being congratulated about something as stupid as weight loss. I've always paid attention to what I wear (I posit those 6 months in the green bathrobe as a profound comment on the power of fashion), my hair (the cutting it myself and having the Viking do the back also commentary on the pressures of society on women), my face (I actually managed to dye my own lashes and eyebrows without blinding myself, also as a statement on the beauty industry), my accessories (there's no commentary in shiny things, they're just shiny and thus must be owned), and my appearance in general.

I've always looked great. But there is just so much, so much more to me than the way I look.

Aren't you gorgeous too? On the outside and inside. Tell me.

Man, that's enough rant for today. Also, I have to go grocery shopping. Yup. My life's just that exciting.

Oh yeah. In case you were wondering. I'm home. Back in the cold as frozen shit South Africa. In home sweet Africa with Elvis at the security gate telling me he's missed me, Mrs. Guru, these two months, and peeps calling me Sir.

And I love it.

Huh? I thought I already published this, but since I clearly didn't I'll just call it old news or some such crap

2010-07-20T02:14:00.000-05:00

Old News or Some Such Crap:

There are certain things in this country (Finland. Because that's where I am right now. Weathering the amazingly hot [Come on people! It is barely over 30 degrees celsius. Let's not be such weirdo snow-castle dwellers for once. Everyone stop fainting because of heat-exhaustion asap. Drink some water instead. And please, whatever you do, stop drowning in it. Take it in a glass instead!] weather and watching the bears run free on the streets [I kid you not, more on that below]) that make me, surprisingly and not, proud to be a Finn (that's the correct noun, learn it now). And then there are certain things that make me (yes, even me) cringe more than any average person would, watching Paris and/or Perez Hilton put on... try on... say... wear... carry... well, do anything really.

So?

Behold, I shall now give you the highlights (complete randomness and jabbering. Go ahead and ignore the word 'highlights' and replace it with drunken and you're miles closer to the core) of such pride as well as said cringing. Because I want to. Not that anyone asked. And, you know, too much time has passed for me to acknowledge that I haven't blogged for a long time, so I'll just plunge in head first and pretend like my last post was yesterday.

I am proud to be a Finn when I can read the newspaper and see how some poor journalist has found yet another new and surprising way of making strawberries, and their 'sudden' appearance on our farms (it has only been happening for centuries, once every year) front page news. It shows we are inventive. I bet this is how we came up with Nokia too. Although that might have been an idea someone had in the shower, a place where you seldom ponder about strawberries, but might actually be thinking "man, what I wouldn't give for a chance to be telling my bff how frikken bored I am while I'm lying on my bed at home and my mom's yelling for me to get up because grandma's coming and if i want her money I should not still be in bed." Assuming, of course, that the inventor was a teenage girl. As one does.

I'm proud to be a Finn when I realize that my Finnish (the correct adjective, learn it) society is such a high-tech society that my parents, who cohabit a medium-size house, can without any sort of hassle, although I imagine they were both in the living room/ kitchen area at the time, call me separately yet almost simultaneously - my father to tell me that a bear running around close to downtown was a "complete city center away" and not to worry about stepping out, and my mother to tell me that "there is a bear around your way" who might just decide it would like some African-spiced meat in the form of a wine-marinated, blond, mohawked piece of flesh (not my mother's exact words), cross a few highways, and emerge from the forest (it's a park with a statue) next door to eat me. As to how the king of the woods would cross the highways, it would "walk of course" (my mother's exact words).

I'm proud to be a Finn when I realize that there are still live animals in the woods in Finland. Not just the zoos. And that they are fierce. And might just cross highways to get to me.

I am proud to be a Finn when my best friend tells me completely honestly that she thinks that I am just "so utterly strange" while I still feel the love. Apparently it's strange to love the Finnish schlager-tradition, have spiky hair as well as a giant belt with a metallic head of a tiger on it, and argue with a clothes-store employee about why she is not doing her job and returning clothes to their assigned racks after people have tried them on (I won and scared her witless, but will now forever boycott a certain store due to their unethical production methods or some such thing). Still, I personally think all of my quirks are simply delightful and spice up the general thing of living, and although "so utterly strange" could be construed as a negative, it's not, and my bff loves me regardless. (Yey!) The Viking husband of mine just tells me that I'm "special."

I'm proud to be a Finn when the local health food store (the one in Kauppahalli) owner notices the milk thistle having reached its sell-by date a month previous and thus gives it to me for free, because "it's still usable for six months, I just shouldn't sell it." And then I walk away, real quick like, because it's too good to be true and I suspect I'm on one of those horrid candid camera shows. Or being Punk'd by Ashton Kutcher himself. Totally. This is void-of-service Finland after all. And maybe Ashton's into bear-scares?

I'm proud to be a Finn when I can read in the newspaper about the heat wave. Every single morning, every single newspaper. Finland (and my mother right along with the nation. In a real bad way too. Like totally creepers) has a fixation on, nay, a weather fetish. And something about never being happy with the state of it, rain or shine. But at least that must mean that there really aren't that many actual news around, right? (Yes, because the other two headlines are about a puppy being saved by a helicopter and a guy biking across our glorious Funland "just for kicks.")

Wait! Am I still being proud, or have I already started with the cringeworthy stuff?

Agh. Who knows. All I'm certain about is that I will continue in list form. Before I pass out because of the 'heat'. Because everything other than that would just be disrespectfully un-Finnish. Yup.

I'm proud to be a Finn when... Golf. I'm not sure the sport has anything to do with being proud to be Finnish, but the 'heat' might just be getting to me and I wanted to declare my undying love to the playing of golf before I do that passing out thing, right here in my bedroom, possibly onto my bed. Which seems to be the thing to do. No, it's not called sleeping in! I'm frikken passing out because of the 'heat'. What drunken stupor? Screw you haters, it's the 'heat' that's making the nation wonky! Not in any way the season that we Finns refer to as the 'terrace season' - a season during which bars have tables outside so wearing one's sunglasses while drinking one's beer/ cider doesn't seem so out of place.

How did I go from golf to drinking beer on a plastic chair outside? The 'heat' must be getting to me. But apropos of getting drunk.

It makes me very much NOT proud to be a Finn when I go to a restaurant, order two glasses of dry, Chilean Sauvignon Blanc, and then, from the corner of my very own beady eye, witness the waiter fill up the glass that comes up short with an Italian Chardonnay. In Teatterikahvila, where they're supposed to have class.

It doesn't make me proud to be a Finn when I go anywhere expecting any kind of service from the lovely folks of Finland in the service industry (not euphemistic, really referring to waiters, clerks, cashiers, stewardesses, and the odd bus chauffeur). Apparently the term service does not exist in Finnish (the correct name of the language, learn it). Those of you who know Finnish (You there, yes, you!) and would like to suggest to me that the direct translation is palvelu, I would like to remind you that although it perhaps used to be as easy as that, nowadays the term rather signifies getting the client do your work for you, ignoring the client, gossiping with your friends on the telephone or over the counter while several clients are giving you the stare, and pissing the client off with inanities and/ or pure unadulterated lack of intelligence.

Yes, I'm pointing at you girls at Gina Tricot (Why was I even there? The clientele is teenagers for walking cane's sakes!), the oddly confrontational Paunu bus chauffeur, and the sorry excuse for a waiter at Teatterikahvila!

Read my revenge!

Grrrr!

Cue Punch line.

What? There isn't one? What were you going to do? Just taper off to nowhere?

Oh. Post a picture...

Because, clearly, me in a blond wig in an overexposed photo is what this post needs. What else?

So what you're saying is that you've accomplished absolutely nothing?

2010-06-21T03:15:00.000-05:00

I have started a million different posts, but there are just so many things to tell you, my dear readers, that I haven't known where or how to begin...

Dude! No you haven't. You haven't even logged onto blogger for like two weeks. At least! Stop lying, woman.

Okay. So maybe life has taken over a little bit. I've had to travel here to Europe, do all this super-important stuff and shit and see all of these people who just need to be seen like right now.

Really? Stop lying. Last night you had time to watch Porky's for the umpteenth time in history, and what's all that urgent shopping you've been filling the closets with? You just couldn't run your busy life without that black, studded, leather handbag, or what?

Well... Necessities man. I also got some deodorant on that outing. Get off my back. It's not like I've chosen not to blog. Stuff has just been going on. Like crazy shit and such.

Oh yeah? Like what?

It has too! There was that one night when I went to turn on the television and wanted to change the channel for the first time, because one of those weird, Finnish, badly-produced interior 'decoration' shows was on, and all of the channels disappeared. I had to call my brother to find out that I was using the wrong remote - a remote that probably should not even work on the television but I now know will make all of the channels disappear and green text in some language I've never heard of appear and possibly will send a distress code to the Titanic and not the other way round - and that was a total pain. Took me like half an hour to even get to sit down.

The TELEVISION?!?! That's your big time-consuming important shiz? Come on!

Well. There was also that Irish construction worker who followed me and the ever-fabulous K (wanna date a gorgeous, intelligent 30-something chick? E-mail me) home from the bar to be unceremoniously dumped at the downstairs door (But now he knows where I live. Frikkin scary. Should maybe have considered that beforehand...). And then there was that whole night, the overly expensive, but not that nice wine, and the scandinavian markup on the food in that new restaurant, the drunken men hitting on us in a way they had dredged up from the eighties, the incredibly awkward attempt by that older woman to hit on me (she started by, literally, hitting me on the shoulder), and attempting to resolve why it is that people leave their houses without ever looking into a mirror (because mirrors, as everything else in Finland, are too damn expensive) especially if they are attempting to attract the opposite sex (or the same, but so very different anyway), was just totally something I can't even really blog about.

But that's just one night. Or Am I mistaken?

No.... But I went to the movies too and suffered through the mostly plotless Alice in Wonderland. All while the 3D glasses were really uncomfortably pressing on the bridge of my apparently not average shaped nose. And that was like supremely time consuming. Felt like years. Unlike with the A-team, which I also went to see, which totally rocked and made me believe in the power of cinema to once again numb one's brain completely.

And then your fingers broke?

What? No! But that just took up some time. What's your problem anyway. If I don't want to blog about my parents' new puppy who is just the cutest thing ever, and who I keep carrying around like a tiny helpless baby and giving kisses to, that's my business. It's hard to blog when you're being all Paris Hilton-y and toting around 8 pounds of the sweetest, cutest puppy ever.

Carrying a dog? As an explanation? I mean... I don't even really know how to respond to that. So maybe I shouldn't. Maybe I should just let it go.

Just breathe in and out and let it go.... let it go... let it go...

Wait! I haven't even told you about the whole debacle with me not liking Finnish coffee anymore and how much dust that has stirred up. Or me losing my voice to Finland. Or me going way over budget (damn expensive European countries, can't even buy decent shoes and stay within a very generous budget) on a budget I've imposed on myself to learn the value of money (obviously so far it has taught me to loathe budgets and be weirded out by people who impose such things on themselves and to always give myself way more wiggle room than I initially think is necessary whilst imposing anything on my own person. Damn budget! And that money is worth more here in Europe than in South Africa which makes life very difficult on everyone, and that everyone should rebel against this European value of money. Yah. Very deep and all.). Or how it is totally possible and even quite likely to forget how to clean a house, pack one's own groceries, or put gas in a car (Although this one is purely theoretical as no one is letting me drive. Bastards.). Or how tiring it feels to haul too many bottles of wine across town manually (i.e. without the helpful aid of a car or a husband). Or... how long it takes me every morning to fashion the new mohawk into something that both looks cool (but not in that teenager-way) and that will hold up in this surprisingly windy city I'm currently calling home-for-now-because-my-computer-is-here. We are inland for Zeus's sakes! What is the deal with this wind? Or how much I miss the Viking and think that he should totally be here to carry my stuff for me, and drive me to places (see, they let him drive to places).

Uhm... Yeah.... See, I've just remembered that I have this thing that started like 10 minutes ago and I should be going at this second. No time to waste. Chat to you later!

Wait, wait! What thing? There's no thing today! Why haven't I been invited? I want to go to a thing too!

Dammit.

Oh well, there's always golf. Aren't you just excited to bits to be reading about that?

The coolness itself. In case you were wondering. Not saying that you were, but just in case. Just to stop you wondering. Just to you know, stop you. Uh huh. Yep. Indeed.

It's a country alright

2010-06-03T05:07:00.001-05:00

Since I fainted in the shower the other day, nary avoiding the sharp edges and blunt walls (upon a third-degree regarding the painful bump on the side of my head this morning, the Viking admitted to witnessing me "possibly having bounced my head off the wall a teensy bit" as I went down, before he could completely catch the limp me), I thought that I would have plenty of time to write this superbly long (and needless to say, eloquent as shit) post about driving through Namibia and Botswana and packing for Europe and all that excitement I'm about, on account of the Viking taking all of the car keys with him, so that I wouldn't pass out on the road and kill myself. Or possibly one of the poor guards at our gate (who jump out of nowhere straight in front of my car due to no fault of mine, as you all know).

What?

Yes, we shower together. We're that kind of a childless and sickeningly sweet deal. With hefty doses of caffeine and alcohol thrown in, and I guess now, complete with some earnest Victorian drama, just without the stifling corset.

But I just kind of sat there all of Monday and instead of uploading the photos from my camera onto this here laptop, I kept googling 'brain cancer', 'hypoglycemia', and ' exercise and sudden loss of consciousness', like the raging hypochondriac that I am, as well as 'how to hot-wire a car' in case the hypochondriac would start to feel her brain swelling, cooking, leaking out through any kind of orifice, and/or filling with blood. As one so often does.

(Naturally the smart and most definitely the sane thing would be to hit the road if one's brain was leaking out of one's orifice(s). Yes.)

But she didn't. Which is good, because I don't think I even know where the lever to open the hood of the car is located, having never googled that (I clearly still have no idea how to do any kind of wiring, hot or cold, or even gently spiced, Google), which would have left me with no other choice than to furiously kick the car and yell at it, and that would have surely worsened whatever brain-condition the hypochondriac had arrived at, and we all know what a mess that would have made in the garage. And the maid hates cleaning the garage. Spiders, bottles, guts, and what have you.

So yeah. Namibia. On Wednesday Thursday (I went out to lunch on Wednesday and managed to raise my trophy wife status to new heights by spending a good 7 hours at it) instead. While I'm supposedly going to the dentist and packing for Europe. In list form:

1. Namibia is pretty awesome. Not in that intense, in your face with experiences way, but more like in that "didn't we drive past here a 1000 kilometers ago? Oh no, it's just that the desert goes on for like... forever" way. Not to mention the "are we still in the third desert, or is this the fourth consecutive desert now?" kind of way. Or the "dude, shit, I think I see an actual person, and I'm pretty sure it's totally not a tiny dune this time" way.

2. There are very few people in Namibia. But there is a lot of sand. And somehow these people, who are even fewer in the places where the sand is mostly (the locals call it the desert as you might have gathered), have made an industry out of charging Germans lots and lots of money to drive them from one place with a fair amount of sand to a place with much more sand. And sometimes some dead trees.

We didn't let them drive us, seeing as they thought we were German too and made me royally pissed off at them, leading to our car now being half-filled with sand and making a sad noise when the wheels are turned sharply to the left at a high speed (which is incidentally how I like to make my left turns).

And the car was not a happy car to begin with.

3. It is very likely that on any given day in Namibia the amount of German tourists, all of whom seem to like to travel in herds in big air-conditioned busses, order beer loudly in German, and own creepy, circa mid-nineties styled fanny packs, exceeds the amount of actual Namibians. Statistically speaking. Or maybe it just seems that way, because they are so very... German*... like all the time.

4. Oysters. Who knew you could even prepare them breaded?

5. There are some pretty big holes on this continent. Most of them don't make for good photos but you are urged to go see them all. As are all of the German tourists, who, by the fifth big hole in the ground, you begin to suspect might be following you. And not in that good way, but with their fanny packs rudely pointing at you every time you glance in their direction. Not a good feeling, let me tell you, being eyed by a gathering of nineties fanny packs.

The holes do NOT come equipped with functioning toilets. And now many Germans are telling their neighbors of this hippie-woman with a mohawk and a camera around her neck who felt so moved by the beauty of [insert name of hole here] that she felt compelled to dance and jump up and down upon seeing it.

And then she might have even leaked a little.

6. Any Namibian as well as a Botswanan town can be comprised of a gas station and a bakery/liquor store in its entirety.

The town of Solitaire

7. The cows in Botswana very likely outnumber people. Or at least while people are nowhere to be seen, the cows like to hang out on the roads, especially the Trans-Kalahari highway, and it makes little impact on them to see you hurtling down that very same road at a breakneck speed smack towards them.

8. Forcing the Viking to learn how to change a tire was a good thing indeed.

Yes, I own a mint-green car.

9. Seeing the sun rise over anything is the best feeling ever, a sunrise will always kick a sunset's ass, and sunrise has the best ever light for photos. Ever. The only downside is the lack of sundowners at sunrise, but I'm working on that as I write, and contemplating a possible inclusion of a coffee-based cocktail as a morning picker-upper or some such thing.

10. Now that I'm actually studying to become a real photographer, turns out I don't really take that many photos anymore.

*Normally I have very little problems with Germans, although I must admit I'm quite put off by that whole Nazism thing, and this television show about a bunch of German highschool kids they used to show in Finland. Also, I don't like their idea of grammar. Or the schlager tradition (it's too sing-along-y, which is always my downfall). Or beer.

Ten points. Whew. There you go. I'm onto bigger and more important things. Such as figuring out whether I should a) pack my stripper-heels instead of my skull and bones hoodie, or b) just wear my golf clubs as an accessory on board the plane. Tough decisions. But I must go, those stripper-heels are not going to windex themselves.

I have to go tell the maid to do it.

NAMIBIAAAAAA!

2010-05-14T08:22:00.000-05:00

That's me going on a long and winding vacation in the neighboring nation with my Viking, not some sort of unintelligently constructed war cry or anything (for a war cry one kind of should go with a classic like Geronimo, right?).

This is an illustration of how involved I have been in the planning, where my packing activities are currently, and exactly how much I know about where I'm going. Oh well. Diving in.

Love ya'll and see you in June for the Extranjera goes to Europe to hang out with her mom, to golf and obsess about golf with her dad and brothers, and to drink plenty of coffee and wine with everyone else who will admit to knowing her.

So it'll be a while.

Miss me.

Please.

Can you move up from accidentally buying maternity wear?

2010-05-12T02:27:00.000-05:00

Some might say I should just pay more attention. Concentrate more. Steer away from the departments I have no business in. Focus. Look at the bigger picture. Weigh the situation.

To avoid these things.

But I say "What the hell. Go ahead and call this progress":

I was looking for a neon sign. The 2010 edition.

Lately, I have been 'forced' to do quite a bit of shopping for some new clothes. There's that inadvertent weight loss and no one likes a scary lady in a tent, neh? So I've been shopping my little heart out. I know, mine is a hard and tiring life, but it's all mine and well, yes, someone has to do it. Otherwise, what will happen to the global economy? How will the finances of nations fare? Without my contribution? Especially, if I don't walk out of a shop with at least one pair of highly weather-inappropriate and uncomfortable shoes, at least a couple of belts (say it loud, say it proud: "I think if I belt this shirt it will be even cooler"), and the odd, yet very cool and edgy t-shirt. And jeans. Shouldn't forget the jeans. Who will then keep the globe going, I ask you?

People who work all day long and pay taxes? Pshaw. You may say that, but you don't really think that. Do you, Husband?

(I can hear him roll his eyes and scream ever so slightly when he reads this. He sometimes does that in the vicinity of this here blog, but pay him no mind. He'll soon be on vacation.)

All I said was "how safe, just black and white," and then he totally decided to ignore me.

But shopping here is getting harder and harder. The winter ("Ha haa" I say in best Nelson-from-the-Simpsons-style as I weather the 'cold' weather...) is approaching. The things to own right now, at least according to all of the shopkeepers, seem to be big and woolly dark-colored sweaters, black and grey turtlenecks, navy scarves, black leather boots, dark wash denims, black pants, and really any dark things made out of flannel and wool. To be worn on top of other items made out of flannel and wool. Black and grey and navy and dark purple everything. Layered. one layer on top of another, onto infinity, it seems.

And I always was a gal for bright colors and big prints. Light, billowy fabrics. Just wearing that one shirt, instead of an undershirt, a shirt, a vest and a sweater. And I may have also mentioned my obsession fascination with bold horizontal stripes? Yes? I believe I have have.

So what do I do afloat on the sea of dark flannel and woolly things, also known as Woolworths?

I home in on a beacon. A splash of bright turquoise shining, nay, glowing in a wintery world made up of black and grey. I set my course. There is no stopping me. I rush over. I extend my hand and lunge.
I grab the lightness of the fabric. I hold the fabric to my cheek (as one does in broad daylight in a department store). I drink in its simple design and cut. I rush to the fitting room and gaze at my turquoise reflection in the mirror.

I think of summer and feel my heart growing lighter.

I wear the shirt three days in a row, before I see this:

AGE 11-12
HEIGHT 152-155cm
BUST 72cm

The tag on the shirt tells me that I am wearing children's clothing. Which I presumably bought at the children's department. Without noticing.

I hate you winter fashion.

When things fall apart (not by Chinua Achebe, although that was a very good book indeed)

2010-05-07T06:28:00.000-05:00

Once again, I seem to be here to spew some venom into the world. Yes, you read that right - VENOM. By which I mean someone out there was unable to read my mind and decipher the exact meaning of this piece of professional communication from my side:

".... Uhm. Stuff. You know. Pretty and shit. Vintage. Yah. Get it?.."

and has now therefore deserved my uninterrupted (at least until the coffee's done) spewing ability.

What the hell is she talking about? Snakes on a Plane again? What's with this reading snakes' minds all about?

Oh, I know! She must be making an obscure reference to that one Harry Potter with the hissing serpent in it, whose thoughts Harry Potter, or was it that red-haired boy, could read, thus making an insightful commentary on the sliminess of it all, whilst drawing a parallel to the UK election? Right? That must be it!

Yeah. Right. That totally must be it. Sheesh...

What would you, as an English speaker or not, take with you intellectually if I told you that someone out there has been kind enough to donate a marketing space for our charitable organization and that we are looking for 'vintage-y' items, cool/cute decorative items, expensive items that would be better off sold to raise money for the community than donated directly to the community, to sell at this marketing space?

Would you package up your old underwear and your paint-stained, torn t-shirts and cart them over to my house? Would you give me a 'decorative item' with (very!) explicit sexual imagery on it to be sold at this family friendly space? Would you drop off tons of things with huge company logos plastered all over them? Would you toss some dirty glassware in a bag and expect it to stay whole in a cardboard box underneath a ton of toys covered in a mixture of what very well might be feces, snot and some red-ish sand?

Would you?

Would you do that to me? Personally to me? And then on top of it all, would you give me un-constructive criticism helpful advice on how to run this specific sale?

Would you dare?

You wouldn't. Because you are an intelligent human being. And you wouldn't even be thinking of me, you would be thinking of the people you would be doing this for. You would be light years from the school of thought that can only be summed up with "they should just be grateful with whatever I can give them, even if it means not cleaning any of it, with a twist of one man's trash is another man's treasure especially if the other man is filthy poor and should just be happy with my already gnawed to oblivion leftovers, since they can still be used for soup or sucked on."

You would still assume everyone is worthy of respect and has dignity, right? You wouldn't be one of the expat wives/ ladies who lunch who are very vocal about "doing charity" because watching television and going to the gym just don't get the same wow-effect from the friends back home.

You wouldn't be cheap. And you wouldn't get venom spewed at you in digital form.

So no. No parallels to the UK election. I have bigger fish to fry this weekend. By which I mean broken glasses to be tossed, that costume 'jewelry' to be untangled, parallel-universe vintage-y clothes to be washed and ironed, and those trash bags to be carted somewhere far, far away where the smell of the used and moldy 'vintage-y' clothing can never, ever reach my nostrils again.

Also, I have a migraine. So there's that to be nursed too. With coffee, wine and venom. The trio of the gods.

Fancy meeting you here my old friend migraine! How did you find me again? Oh I know, you probably heard of me from our mutual acquaintance, Stress, right?

Think of me this weekend, and put some good karma into the universe to cancel out my bitchy. Please!

Now that my hormones are under control some minor rage issues seem to have appeared

2010-04-30T09:50:00.001-05:00

Today for me was to be completely internetless. Not a huge feat I'll grant you, seeing as I have barely spent any time at all here in the last few months (not counting Lamebook and Go Fug Yourself, which I seem to be able to check even if I'm in the bush without any kind of coverage just with the pure power of thought and the intense desire to view bad fashion), but still a trying day of only checking Twitter every now and then with my iPhone and getting through the day without laptop-heated thighs (oh the horror!).

Why?

Well, since we are on the continent of most likely (too lazy to Google, but can't be far from the truth) the slowest, yet most expensive internet in the world, the reason would be the oh so ubiquitous South African "I've reached my cap". I normally suffer through this a few times every month and have to top up (i.e. make the Viking make some phone calls and top up my account of limited and pricey access-joy), but I figured last night, I really truly did, that since May is just around the corner I can make do for one measly day without the glory of the interwebz. I really did.

But then things started happening and I started getting pissed off. And then I realized I wanted to blog. I wanted to share the stupidity of other people in the real world (and some of my own). I wanted to bark at other drivers in writing. I wanted to sweep that smug smile off of that face with the insults that I could only think of when I was already in the car. I wanted to stop screaming at the Viking (on the phone, and he couldn't really hear me, so I don't think he's too fazed). I wanted to vent.

Also, I think I'm PMSing.

So here I am. Internet topped up. Ready to let it rip:

Unhelpful, arrogant, and very unprofessional Apple iStore technician at Melrose Arch in Johannesburg

You will have to do better than "Well, ma'am, I'm sorry about that," if you make me drive 30 kilometers to your iStore to get my MacBook Pro fixed only for you to tell me once I get there that you don't actually do hardware repairs, which you could have told me anytime during the lengthy phone conversation we had (okay, the Viking had, but that's beside the point. Like I'm meant to make my own phone calls. Tsk.) during which you were repeatedly told that it is the CD drive that is ill and noisy and possibly ant-infested. I mean, are there ever people who are willing, without any kinds of back ups and separation anxiety, to just leave their Macs in your 'capable' hands without any warning for the duration of at least 2 weeks? I didn't think so.

You make me want to own a PC.

Big man in Big truck in front of me for miles and miles

Why does your truck say Fast & Fresh if you and the innards of the truck are neither? Why are you going 60 kilometers an hour when the speed limit is at least a 100? Why are the eggs (let's just say it's eggs, because it fits my beef today) you are carrying never ever fresh? Why is it so hard to find fresh eggs in this city? Could it have something to do with your snail pace? I think so. And why are you always there, at the ready to turn right smack in front of me, when I have to pee?

Yes, that gesture I made out the window when I finally passed you was Finnish for 'hello'.

That huge bruise on my calf and my very own hands while holding a jumprope

You will have to fade like right at this minute. You can start any time now... You are huge and purply black in a slightly yellowish and green way and you could light up a sizable room. You are the one thing (those weird fatty deposits on the insides of my knees excluded as usual) standing (lying?) between me and that flamencoesque, shortish skirt I intend on wearing out tonight. My one decent pair of black pantyhose smells like it should have been washed two years ago and would just scare innocent bystanders. So fade you piece of conceptual art on my calf! And while I'm at it... nah, The jumprope held in the tired hands at 5:30am at boot camp led to the bruise and that's all there is to that. Bad hands. I wish there was someone else than myself to blame.

Yes, today I will rock a bruise like a Louis Vuitton handbag: with weird pride, because it's not like I want it, but now that it's there I might as well make the most of it. It's obviously cost me a lot.

This very northern suburb of Johannesburg we inhabit and my school in Pretoria

Why can't you be more like Cape Town, where apparently no racists, such as described in my previous post, exist? Why should you choose to house, nay attract, proliferate, and breed, the most base kind of human beings and then put them on my path, one after the other? Because I am not talking about just one or two, but of a multitude, coming at me from all directions, from varying positions, and again and again. Just when I least expect it.

Perhaps I should just never go out again. Rather than face the reality of South Africa.

The ideas person who likes to suggest things but never actually does anything and always ends her mails with "I hope it's not too much to ask."

It is. Do it yourself.

Icy.

Have an exciting weekend everyone and thank you for reading (and even if you didn't I feel better already)!

Blogging the battle

2010-04-29T04:32:00.001-05:00

There are always people in your life that you just cannot avoid, but who you didn't choose to be in your life, and who you just really, really, REALLY, really wish weren't even on the globe. Let alone waiting just down the road, expecting to be picked up. Right?

You have to associate with them. There's no way out. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. You see them coming, brace yourself, and leave the rest up to some higher power if you are thus inclined, or to that miniscule part of the brain that also tells you to lock your car doors, to not eat that funky-smelling shrimp, or to wear a sports-bra while doing sprints. Whatever you think keeps you safe from a steep spiral into insanity, a serious black eye, the vortex of general doom, and/or a dangerous demise.

There is nothing at all for you to do when those people open their mouths, but to attempt to bite your tongue and think of sandy beaches, calming waves, and cold margaritas made with the proper kind of tequila, and en las rocas, naturally. A nice, 'largish', cold tamarindo margarita is what does it for me, anyway (although I am allergic to tamarind, which should help to really drive home the point...).

Unless you wish to unleash the beast of course. Which you sometimes have to do. Just to, you know, keep yourself on the side of the seemingly sane. There are things one doesn't have to or shouldn't stomach, after all.

But most times unfortunately, to stay on that very same side just mentioned, involving outerwear not confining any motor actions (do they still do straitjackets? I'm not sure. Seems awfully One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, particularly Nurse Ratched, to me), and in order to avoid spending precious time and strength and vitality (it is always away from you to fight the windmill, isn't it?) on pure stupidity and ignorance, one has to....

Yes, I am going to just come out and say it.

...pick one's battles.

Now, I know that all you adult people out there in the world probably know this, were brought up to behave in this 'keeping the peace' manner (as I probably was too, but some things just didn't take, I guess), and think that I am excruciatingly and perhaps even slightly embarrassingly slow to catch on.

I mean, the whole 'turn the other cheek' whatnot is like totally ancient. Biblical, man.

But I am picking my battles. Finally. Or at least today.

However, there's nothing in the rules about me blogging about it. Is there now?

Because, even if one is not out to get one's teeth or any other part of the body kicked in (or in some cases kick anyone else's teeth in. I am, quite large and powerful, after all) sometimes it just happens that South Africa, or usually, more correctly, one of its inhabitants, metaphorically nunchuks you in the groin with such force that you are left wondering how uncomfortable it must be to be a man and why men don't habitually wear protection over their nethers just to be safe and pain free. But then you start musing about whether you would just laugh at them if they did, and decide that that is exactly what you would do and loud too, and then, well, you think of Lady Gaga. Because she is fun in that nethers sort of way. And you really enjoy singing to Bad Romance in your car.

But the pain always returns. Gaga or no Gaga.

Still, whether you are picking the battle or not, the following statements should never, ever be allowed to be uttered by anyone, anywhere (So I guess, I'm blogging the battle instead?). And any such attempts should lead to such bad karma (now that I think of it, they might already have. Hooray, karma shoots with verbally abusive husband, and scores with a divorce and extremely low self-esteem. Karma walks all over the racist.) and utter misery falling on the utterer's path, that no one would ever want to utter them, or even think them. Ever. And everyone should just smarten up, get a proper education, and stop spouting the worst ignorant shit I have ever heard:

"At least during Apartheid the hospitals worked."

"I don't think the races should mix."

"Apartheid has been over for 16 years and nothing has become better for the poor blacks. The only difference now is that the whites are suffering too."

"It has already been 16 years! How long do we have to keep thinking about and blaming the past?"

"They are just so different from us."

The tip of the iceberg. Only the very tip.

The day before yesterday, this magnificent country celebrated Freedom Day, a day on which, 16 years ago, South Africans were, for the first time in history, able to vote in a legitimately democratic election. On that day, 16 years ago, South Africans chose the great Madiba - Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela - to be their president. They voted to end the suffering many of them had endured under the gruesome and truly horrific regime of Apartheid. They voted for freedom for all. They voted for a better life, and a new beginning.

But now, as the nation's awkward teenage years roll on, the government and the ruling party, Mandela's party, the ANC, haven't quite accomplished what they set out to do for South Africa, and instead they seem to be okay with potentially very dangerous individuals (read: raging lunatics) holding important positions within the party, and so there seems to be some backlash, to which I'm personally privy.

Backlash, in the form of more and more people feeling as if they can and perhaps even should voice their misguided racist tendencies opinions, and educate the poor foreigner (POOR ME!) who obviously doesn't understand that "the blacks are fucking up this country," and who'll "soon realise how things really are in South Africa."

"Just you wait and see for yourself."

Well, after almost two years in this awesome and beautiful country, I'm still waiting, and the biggest problem I see is your ignorant, racist ass, complete with nasty cellulite.

Unfortunately, often there is no talking reason. There isn't even a battle to pick. Just horrifying comments to block out, to be let into the consciousness only long enough to be blogged and thus hopefully diminished of any power, a tongue to be bitten into small chunks amidst a completely red view, and complete and utter faith in the ways of Karma.

Of reaping what one has sown.

What's in a day? Just leisurely picking thorns off my butt, thighs and sides.

What are you, dear reader, sowing today? And what will you reap? Tell me. Help me take my mind off of this shit.

Why they keep planting new bushes by my garage door I will never understand

2010-04-22T05:38:00.002-05:00

So my mother thought I had died.

Or actually the way that my father put it on the telephone when he called me yesterday because he had been told to find out my current status, was that she thought "something had happened", which is MyMother for "Is there fog in the mirror and if so, why in the hell are you not updating your blog, or even your twitter you ungrateful child who I sometimes regret releasing into the world but who mostly does okay as long as that nice husband of yours is making sure you think twice before you heckle that crazed taxi driver, or buy those shoes."

See, my mom is cool that way. She totally checks my blog all the time (and convinces herself that most of what I write is pure fiction), she has gotten on board with twitter and is using that to gauge my level of alivedness, I'm pretty sure she at least attempts to check my Facebook, but since she refuses to actually join it, there's no way she's getting anything out of it, and as a last resource she'll send an email with the heading 'How are you???' Which, again yes, you guessed it, translates directly to "Unless I hear a peep from you now, by which I mean right this minute, I will alert international media and get them to run one of those extremely embarrassing wannabe mug-shots you seem to inadvertently excel at and say something like 'last seen wearing running shoes with 90s mommy-jeans, one of those Bill Cosby-esque knits, and a side ponytail', so you better get on twitter and write whatever it is you seem to be so busy with asap."

There's no hiding from my mom. As there shouldn't be. For me. Seeing as I am her only daughter. Her eldest.

And I have no excuse. For her or for you.

Here is what I started last week. And then went out for coffee, which turned into drinks, which turned into a dinner, which turned into a lunch, which then turned into a wonderful new friendship. Way out there.

In the real world.

In other words:

Somewhere along the way, in the last couple of months, I seem to have developed a serious case of life.

Not going to say I'm sorry for not staying glued to the bustling ants' nest (Remember? Actual, live ants) also known as my MacBook Pro, and blogging all about the so very interesting thoughts that cross my mind nearly daily (such as what has happened to my doormat, and how many low things is it even possible to hit with the car just in a span of one day), or about the shit that hits the fan, and the grill, and the windshield on a daily basis (such as what has happened to my doormat, and who is that guy in my back yard), but I will say that I'm pretty sure this is not the end of my blogging, just a lovely occurrence which means that I'm out there doing actual stuff with more bodyparts than just with the tips of my fingers, with actual people who I know for sure are not weird bots (Not that any of you are either. I think. Right? Are you? Tell me now or forever hold your peace? Till death do you part? [I did a wedding photo shoot for my portfolio recently and am still battling leaving that weirdo zone]), all the way out there where there's actual wine paired with awesome salads (I'll admit, I'm a recent Cobb-o-holic), where people greet me with hugs, and where cappucinos are not virtual or imagined, but come topped with soft and creamy whipped cream.

Who could say no to that? I mean wine and coffee are involved...

And that's as far as I got before I actually slammed the door shut behind me (okay, pushed the button that closes the garage door while backing out of the garage thus hitting the curb with the fender and running over the newly planted bushes, which I felt I needed to share with everyone in the blogosphere, hence the heading) and went for an actual cappucino, instead of just writing about one. With cream on top.

So not apologizing. Or even really explaining. Just letting you know I'm alive.

So alive.

I seriously hate photographing weddings.

Ode to Guadalupe (not the virgin)

2010-04-09T06:39:00.002-05:00

Today I feel like a whine, and then some wine. And as luck, as well as my supremely awesome internet-skillz would have it, I have this here blog and as I am indeed the supreme ruler of this here blog and its all encompassing carrying force, I'll do exactly what I please, and w(h)ine some.

Voilá, and pop the sucker already. It must be wino-o-clock in some shelter somewheres in the universe:

*pours a glass*

But first here is picture of a lion-attack. Yup. The one standing is me.

As usual, I'm unhappy with my maid 'situation'.

In all honesty, there hasn't been a point in time I have been completely satisfied with anyone ever working for me. None of you, or really, anyone should ever try. I'm an on-off perfectionist, my-way-or-the-highway, please make sure everything is exactly where I left it, you should have gotten back to me yesterday, the handles must all point southeastwards, the couch pillows should naturally be lined up by size and use, even my own mother things I'm wacko, and can't you read my mind already kind of a person dragon-lady.

However, now I find myself missing my maid in Mexico, Guadalupe, who was practically blind (at least to dust and anything that required bending down to be cleaned), thought the tumble dryer was the bestest of any and all inventions, I'm pretty sure used the vacuum mainly in some sort of special Santa Muerte worship ceremony as an incense holder, but who was also very fun to talk to, and who pulled interesting stunts such as locking herself out on the balcony and then throwing stones (from my potted plants) at the passers by to get someone to call the fire brigade (Nope. Not me with the key, the fire brigade). But miss her I do, because of the succession (wow, we must be up to double figures by now) of maids I have been going through in the past year and a half here in South Africa.

I always have a hard time with people and not barking at them. Especially when they don't bow to my will.

I would so make a perfect dictator or a tyrant (Is there a difference? I don't know. Should I know if I think I could be one? Nah, that wouldn't be proper dominating behavior, I think). Or I could have my own talk show. Yeah. Too bad lazy comes in the way of benevolent world domination and/or being Oprah. Oh well. One can believe one is in control of the world when one drinks enough too, I guess. I'll settle.

In reality, the only one ever fit to be working for me is me, and even having that one employee is causing me sleepless nights and ground-to-unattractive-stumps teeth. Not to mention sudden bursts of rage when I am unable to remove the cap on my hairspray can (totally beat that can into submission. I am the dictator of my own bathroom at least. Unless this rebellious behavior spreads to my collection of 'hair treatments'. Then I'm fucked) or I hit one more low thing with the car.

Poor car. And stupid low things.

But why is my old stretched cotton underwear (I totally should buy some new fancy stuff already, by which I mean fancy stuff that can actually be worn underneath jeans and not that stuff I seem to buy inspired by Samantha Jones from the Sex and the City, because that stuff is not meant to be worn by the likes of me or anyone not intending to pierce their own netherparts while walking) tied in one of those uber-complicated sailor's knots this time around?

Is the number of whole wineglasses decreasing again?
Are the pillows in a disarray?
Is there a crack in that special and oh-so-cherished Iron Maiden coffee mug/ pint?
Was there a pile of unpaid bills underneath the stairs again?
Does the toothbrush smell like the sneakers that now look disconcertingly clean?

Well, not exactly. What's made the pea travel up my nostril this time, is that I'm simply missing someone to show up. On the day they are supposed to show up. To be at my door at that appointed hour, to first listen to me roll my eyes and sigh, then reassign new meanings to 'please', 'thank you' and 'we', before resorting to the barking. To be there to listlessly push the vacuum handle around in random directions and pretend to be dusting without actually touching a single surface.

I just need a presence. A body, in order to be able to keep believing that I can still eat that piece of chicken I dropped on the kitchen floor per the five second rule, and that those ants nesting in my CD drive are not there because there is also an entire cookie made of crumbs in there, but because Zeus is being unjust.

I need to keep my faith. This is how far I have compromised, and still it's not enough. Oh woe.

At least Guadalupe would always show up, even if she did spend the first half an hour telling me about her granddaughter whilst eating all of the bread and tuna she could dig out of my cupboards before crying a little bit because her water had been cut off. I would then give her a little cash for the water and she would ignore the dust with a smile, reorganize my closets, and iron a hole into my sweater. And then I would bark at her, feel bad, and ask her opinion on cleaning the living-room carpet, and bribe her with coffee and pastries.

But we laughed, she at my accent and I at her stories of which I only understood the very simple parts of, together. Every time she came. Rain or shine she was there. She cried when I left the country, and held on to my old iron and coffee maker tighter I thought possible. But most of all, her unfailing presence made it possible for me to wash off that weird black stuff from the soles of my feet and believe that it was the outside that was going down the drain instead of dust from my own couch, and that those splatters on the mirror were irremovable drops of paint not gunks of toothpaste and spit sprouting bacteria. And for that Illusion, I thank her.

And wish she was here.

Oh Guadalupe. If only you were here for me to tell you to stop using the tumble dryer and for you to respond by telling me that I'm rich and therefore am obligated to use it. Oh Guadalupe.

I really miss you. And Mexico. And Casillero del Diablo red.

Salud!

A spill

2010-04-07T09:01:00.000-05:00

Ya'll know this, but still, the fun never ends.

I always have to pee. At the absolutely most inopportune of the absolutely most inopportune moments of all possible moments. Ever. Tinkle, tinkle I have to go.

Like when the catsuit/ weird lingerie I'm only trying on for kicks and will deny ever trying on if directly asked/ scuba gear has been zipped up to that point unreachable by my own hands. Like when the elevator with me and a bunch of other peeps has just inexplicably stalled between two floors. Like when I've just reached the start of the line and am about to get on the ride/ pay for my groceries/ try on this cool t-shirt with blue skulls on it. Like when the tent door opening has just been zipped up and tied shut. Like when I'm going a 120 km an hour on the middle lane in a crowded area. Like when the one toilet in the vicinity is out of order or clogged by vomit and something that looks like grass-and-coal-flavored marshmallows and completely void of toilet paper. Like when the fasten your seat belts light has been switched on and the stewardess has just emptied the drinks cart on the guy's tray-table who's sitting in the aisle seat next to me. Like when I'm wearing my locked chastity belt. Like when there are absolutely no toilets around or nothing even remotely connected to the idea of a place for relieving one's bladder... You know, the usual.

Show me a place with no toilet and I will show you a woman desperately wriggling to the tune of the potty dance (can only be heard by special people like me and all pregnant women).

So, what do you think happens when I tell you I need to pee, there is an actual clean toilet - decked with actual toilet paper and all - in the near vicinity, and you don't let me pee before ushering me into a situation devoid of a toilet and with plenty of spectators?

This is a no-brainer. Pee-related dramz of course, and plenty of it too.

Sometimes my man apparently forgets either who he is, or who it is he is married to (other incidents include such gems as ordering me a fish that kept staring at me from the plate with its cold dead eyes and expecting me to debone and eat the poor creature [as if!], and making the penniless me take a separate taxi to our hotel in Madrid because we had too much luggage) and regardless of our ten years together, oodles and oodles of marriage and companionship and whatnot, on top of all that shiz that comes with spending all of one's free time with one specific human being, the Viking, my man in his own beloved person, decides to not let me pee.

When I actually really have to, have to, pee.

When I've had 'drinks' (read: a bottle of the loveliest Bouchard Finlayson Chardonnay) with our friends.

When I've had to pee for some time, but didn't want to break the interesting, if a tad wine-fueled, discussion regarding candida and what it does to the intestines and nails among other gruesome details about it to better diagnose them in my body later, and kept thinking I'll only get up to go to the bathroom once I've actually seen the nails.

But we had tickets for Stomp.

And we were late.

"Honey, they are announcing that the doors are closing, and then there's no entrance!!!" says the ashen Viking to me as he hurries me away from the hall leading towards the toilets.

The man hates nothing more than being late. Gets quite anal about it.

"But I really, REALLY, have to pee," I counter, "I was gonna pee, but then yeast came up! Man!"

"It's only for an hour and a half," he looks at me pleadingly, "Argh. They're closing the doors!!!"

At this point there is no one even close to the doors, let alone holding the handle. But I see the agony this is causing my Viking and I follow him, half running, while he gently drags me along and wants to know if there is any way I could "actually run." Yup. In my new Errol Arendz heels. Higher than high.

We enter the fully lit theatre, while the doors remain wide open.

We find our seats in the middle of the fourth row from the front and I introduce the first half of the row to my derriere, my profuse apologies in several languages, as well as the pointy heels of my new heels. The people right next to me are South American so I get to apologize in Spanish. Yey! But they still give me the evil eye.

We gaze at the empty stage, and I hiss insults at the Viking involving what's in my bladder and the doors' continued open state. But there's no way I can get up to go out again. People are already looking at us funny.

But finally the theatre darkens and I glance at my wristwatch. Only an hour and a half. Three half hours in total. Only six quarters of an hour. That's nothing. I can beat this. I totally can. I can kick my full bladder into next week if I want to.

After all. I am sitting down.

30 long minutes in and I'm desperate. I've wiggled, crossed my legs, uncrossed my legs, loosened the waist of my skirt, tightened the waist of my skirt, pretended to fiddle with my shoe, rubbed my back, jittered to the beat, jittered way faster than the beat, hugged my stomach, held my sides, pinched my legs together, and jumped quite noticeably on my seat. But nothing's working.

I. Seriously. Have. To. Pee.

Oh. And there are some people on the stage doing some weird shit with brooms and trash cans and newspapers. But I'm not paying attention. Simply can't.

I get up.

I hear voices behind me as I slowly make my impeded way toward the aisle. The people who have already met my derriere once are not impressed by the re-encounter. I can tell. They make disapproving sounds. I glance back at the Viking. I can tell he's scared of my wrath.

As I finally reach the closest exit a man in a black suit appears at my side: "Ma'am. You can use the door at the back of the theatre."

I whisper a thank you to him as I redirect my aim and pull myself toward the door at the back, taking the stairs at a swift pace, some two at a time. I just know there is a toilet not too far on the other side of the door.

I can make it.

And I do. For a glorious two whole minutes I sit on the toilet thinking how underrated the pleasure of finally being able to release one's bladder really is. How underrated indeed. It feels as though I'm again ready to face the world. To go back out there and enjoy Stomp.

I've been told it's an awesome show.

I quickly wash my hands, check my teeth and the back of my skirt in the mirror (I'm notorious for sticking it in my underwear/ pantyhose/ belt), and calmly walk towards the door.

I open it. No one stops me. In my mind I scoff at the Viking who believed the announcer's spiel about no entrance during the show. At the side of the theatre I begin my descent down the stairs towards the fourth row. Some people turn to look, but I make no noise. I let go of the wall to take a better look at the lettering at the end of each row.

Nearly there. I can see the back of the Viking's head and the empty seat next to him.

That is when I fall. Down the stairs. Practically gliding. Hitting my handbag on the wall and thus making a noise. I'm pretty sure I also yelp in pain. My skirt rides up as I try to stop my glide down the stairs with my knees.

"Good thing I'm wearing black pantyhose," I think.

Some people get up from their seats to help me up. Most of the audience turns to look at the ruckus that is me and not the show. I make my mind up not to wave. The show never misses a beat, or at least I don't notice it. They just keep banging on something. I make my way back to my seat.

I have no shame left. Seriously.

[Sorry. Again no picture. Seems that Blogger doesn't feel like I should be able to upload a picture from my computer. Thanks a lot Blogger!]

On Death and dying and Barbies

2010-03-25T06:29:00.000-06:00

[WHAT HAVE YOU DONE BLOGGER? I CAN NO LONGER UPLOAD MY OWN PICS! For all of you others - there would have been a cool picture right here, but now there's not. It would have been awesome. Hmph]

One of our friends is a bit of a player. A young, single, intelligent and handsome foreigner in a country seemingly filled with women eager to hook up with such a catch. Or I guess I mean playah if we're being completely accurate. As we always are. Always. Completely accurate. You know me, I would never make insulting generalizations or permeate stereotypes. Nothing of the sort. Nope. Not me.

A Playah he is indeed. Surrounded by an interestingly varying cavalcade of adoring women.

But let's talk about how we - I and El Grande Vikingo also known as the man of my dreams who drives me to shoe stores on a regular basis - fit into the picture. We are not adoring women. We are far from adoring (and even more so from adorable) and although I do admit to being a woman that adoring side of me never really blossomed. Sometimes I'll pretend it's there and not complain about the Viking's weird habit of emptying his pockets of all the weird shit he likes to store daily in in them, right onto the dining room table, immediately upon entering the house. Our house, that is. But it's a shoddy pretense at its best.

We are not entirely women, nor are we adoring - we are simply the Playah's friends. And friends go to places with their friends. Isn't that even on one of the Love is...? posters? Surely.

So we decided for once to not go home after the restaurant bill has been settled, but continue. Move beyond that 'married thing' known as getting home, slipping into something more comfortable and talking about how weird it is that regardless of me very well knowing how badly certain legumes make me fart I'll always be able to find a dish with them in it and without realizing what I've done order it, without fail, followed by brushing our teeth in sickly unison, before turning to the welcoming bed and the next chapter of Gloria Naylor/ The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy/ Bulgakov/ Austen/ some smart shit to show that that Marie Claire by my bed is some sort of an aberration. Seriously.

We decided to prove to ourselves and to the gang of playahs we had dined with (there were three of them and one of them was the original playah's brother, but still) that a couple in their comfortable thirties can totally party the night away. Like, totally.

On Saturday night I and the faithful Hubs (who, I now know, would follow me to the ends of the earth and beyond) decided to take a trip to an alternate universe. To that place where skirts are short, hair is big, men with money are sleazy and old and need help with getting out of their fancy sports cars, orange tans abound, and bling means so much more than just '...oooh shiny....'.

So... The 80s?

No. A club in Sandton, Johannesburg, called Taboo. A club whose webpage tells me that I'm "welcome to the Reivention of Forbidden." I guess I would be elated if I knew what the hell 'reivention' meant and if whatever it was about to do to the Forbidden (a thing I quite like as it is) wouldn't make me all wary. Now, why would anyone want to fok with a very comfortable Forbidden, I ask you? Why? I'm not sure about you but for me screwing with the existing forbidden just brings up ideas of downright ghastly as being passed off as forbidden, and then where are we going to be as a society?

Well. At Taboo, I guess.

Where what the awesome Fug Girls of Go Fug Yourself call crotchtacular is the norm, if not the dress code (I'm pretty sure I only got in in my faded Levi's and leather jacket because of the Playah's female contacts. Apparently, all of a sudden, I was on a 'list'), where having a 'wardrobe malfunction' a la Janet Jackson regularly happens just with the removal of an overcoat, where there are no fans because they would pose a danger of making like Dorothy in the tornado to the sizable heads-on-sticks clientele (although, I think I would perhaps even pay to see that kind of display of wind power), where everyone keeps drinking red bull and vodka out of tall glasses instead of something that was meant to be consumed by humans for enjoyment and not to turn them into drunken duracell-bunnies, where there is no proper seating unless you 'book' one of the cordoned off sofas (Really! This display of wannabe snooty made me laugh so hard that I think I peed my faded levi's a little) where I saw no one sitting while we were there, where the concept of a 'song' has been completely discarded in favor of 'noise that you feel vibrate your breastplate in a way that makes you think it must have some interesting consequences for all those mainly plastic boobies constantly nearly spilling out of flimsy tops' (perhaps the vibration keeps that hard casing around the implant from forming is what I'm talking about. Patent Pending, mind you), and where I could recognize none other than tons of Malibu Barbies, Dolly Forever Barbies, Fab Girl Barbies, Ferrari Barbies, Miss Pearl Barbies, plenty of wannabe Barbies and, I kid you not, a large congregation of My Little Ponies.

Oh, sorry. I meant a large congregation of girls who should have been playing with their My Little Ponies. Not hobbling around a club with no seating on heels much too steep in light of their still developing growth plates, drinking caffeine high in sugar with vodka, and making drunk-eyes (meant to be flirty, I think) to guys, if not three times, then at least twice their age.

Excepting the playah, of course. Who is young and dapper. Naturally. And likes to date real women. He told me so.

Needless to say we made a hasty retreat, preceded by quite a few loudly yelled (Nevermind, no one could hear shit anyhoo because of the horrible noise music and everyone was thus getting along famously. Grandpas out with their granddaughters, it felt like.) "J fokken H Zeus, did you just see that chick? Was that combined butt and chest cleavage?"

We bolted. Almost taking with us the in-house photographer with pleading eyes and a following of gals with a very skewed leg-boob ratio and eyes too smoky for their own good, nearly tripping over the low Ferrari parked directly outside the door, amidst inane chatter from different cliques of Barbies and their friends, and past the line of wannabe Barbies waiting to be let in.

We made like prisoners on the run. We sped away in our getaway car with tires screeching and smoke rising.

"I'm so glad I don't have to be single ever again," declared the Viking to me.

I take that as a suicide pact, and realize that if it wasn't for Taboo, we wouldn't be going together when it's time.

So... Thanks Taboo for making me want to kill myself?

A whole grain toast and some rolled oats

2010-03-19T09:52:00.001-06:00

On any given Friday there is always a slew of posts on various blogs that revolve around boozing in one way or another. There is always a flurry of tweets that speak of thanking a greater power for it being the end of the working week and how much that involves boozing, in one way or another.

Never disappoints.

I myself tweeted 'Cooling down the crispy, citrus-y chardonnay for tonight...' earlier today. Because I am. Cooling down the crispy, citrus-y chardonnay for tonight, that is. And fully intend to drink more than one glass of it too. Regardless of Julochka's admission of what her seemingly normal husband had done to a precious bottle of Patron tequila, which sort of initially made me want to treat my Patron like it should be treated instead of indulging in the the crispy, citrus-y chardonnay, just to, you know, give the Patron the kind of respect it deserves. To make up for the insult. Somehow.

Poor baby, my Patron.

Respectful tequila drinking naturally involving 1) only drinking the best of tequilas (get your shitty Jose Cuervo out of my line of sight or I might just bite you, or someone standing too close), 2) only drinking the aged, or añejo, variant, 3) enjoying it neat, with a glass of sangrita on the side, 4-100) and never ever using it in a milky concoction. Never, ever.

But where am I going with this? Other than on yet another tequila rant (it has been a while).

Well, mis queridos, I was thinking of making a toast, or several.

Tonight, I'll go with the Friday-flow, and raise my glass (which at the mo is a teacup containing a Pukka green chai blend which I know is wrong on a lot of levels, but which will eventually become a glass of crispy, citrus-y chardonnay, you know, once I get my ass into wino-gear):

to Boot Camp ultimate discomfort and many wedgies with a twist of butt-crack sweat breaking up for the weekend. But it's for my... health?

to meat. Specifically lamb. Given. Almost implicit at this stage. Kind of like raising my glass to coffee.

to coffee.

to Molly's nouveau babe, Stella. Hey STELLAAAAAAAA....... This is for you. (Was I really screaming? Really?)

to good tequila. And drinking it like it should be drunk. With no salt in sight.

to my chicken covered in suspicious pesto (not a euphemism, although it would be an awesome one), and my finally learning to cook something so that not one person barfed after eating it. I have made myself very proud. And my chicken all pestoed nice and oily.

to sort of being back in the blogosphere after taking some time off. Intentionally and unintentionally. And attempting to comment again. Even if the comment was about flesh eating bacteria.

to El Grande Vikingo who works like a maniac these days. I love him so.

to selling some photos, and using the earnings immediately to buy shoes.

to real names. Not mine, of course.

to not giving up on me and my uncommunicative ass.

And

to you. All of you lovely people.

What would you toast today? Other than drinking tequila properly and shunning people who don't.

My Patron in my garden. Just hanging out, watching the sun go down.

Sweaty kisses for the weekend and some toast(s) for all. MWAH!

Morph

2010-03-18T05:08:00.001-06:00

They should support me I know, but currently feel like an accomplice to the enemy.

Continuing in the vein of possible brain malfunctions, I recently signed up for something called a Boot Camp.

I know. The name says it all. What I should have read between the lines, or beneath the words, or wherever you feel that the real meaning seems to hide when it comes to language, was NOT 'Join the fun!' but 'Why do people do this stuff to themselves?'

Stupid, spontaneous me.

I fear this specific experience might end up killing me. And not softly either a la Lauryn Hill, but by a very painful, sudden, and, to be perfectly frank about my questionable skills when it comes to such things as basic coordination, accidentally self-inflicted strangulation on a jumprope, or barring that, by an equally accidental bashing in of my own skull with a weighty dumbbell. So more along the lines of something evoked by Richard Simmons. You know, without the accident variable of course.

Or it might just all come to an end because I have to get up way too early and I'm not able to sit down onto the toilet without help.

So car crash due to lack of sleep and coffee, or a burst bladder then.

But I plow on. I paid for the enjoyment of having to run around a field with a bunch of other women who also feel they probably should have never signed up, while sweat stings my eyes, and the cool morning breeze does nothing to cool my head down, but helps to freeze my toes, soaking wet in my sneakers from the dew on the field, and my leaden arms that I'm forcing to lift the dumbbells at least above shoulder hight. So I must stick with it. Or so says my misconstrued view on the Scandinavian Lutheran Mother-instilled work ethic.

Thank you, Mother.

What this boot camp boils down to is me getting up every morning, every day from Monday to Friday, rain or shine, at 5am in order to be at the fields at 5:30am, to do some variation of circuit training for a whole hour while the sun comes up (or the thunder clouds gather like yesterday) and sweat pours from sweat glands I didn't know existed (I mean, I've heard about those things in the armpits, but dismissed it as just an old wives' tale, silly me), and then getting other people to do stuff for me for the rest of the day because I'm unable to walk/ bend/ kneel/ turn/ wipe my butt, or even breathe properly.

But it's for my... health?

I seem to have forgotten that I don't like sports. Or getting sweaty. Or squats. Or lunges. I seem to have forgotten that I'm a sedentary person who drinks a lot of coffee and wine, and sometimes eats incredible amounts of licorice (preferably some of it covered in chocolate) while watching a whole season of Lost/ Weeds/Northern Exposure in one go. Burgers also strongly feature in this picture.

But no.

What in the name of coffee cups with pictures of other people's children on them has become of me? If I'm no longer the semi-alcoholic hermit content to lounge around in that famous green bathrobe for weeks at a time, then who am I?

I've also started to wear heels. Like, every day. And go places other than where the coffee maker is.

I seem to be having a crisis. Get help! And wine.

Does the dye inject stupid in right through the scalp?

2010-03-16T10:16:00.000-06:00

This has a nice Homer Simpson vibe to it. And let's face it, who else could qualify as the original airhead better?

My mental age just hit somewhere where it can only be defined as 'very old, bordering on senility and that stage when the fridge seems like the optimal spot for any sort of keys, the husband's deodorant, and Mitzy, the little hand-bag size poodle'. Or perhaps I finally bore witness to that thing called a blond moment, made so famous by Jessica Simpson of the notorious chicken of the sea fame. Or was it Marilyn Monroe (Oh no! Am I having another one? Of those moments. Or was it that Monroe was just having more fun...? Nngh! She does look like she was having oodles of fun in her hayday, but then again she did kill herself, so I don't quite know what that does to the whole having more fun than brunettes or redheads, and...

What was I saying?

Am I still writing an aside in the parentheses?

Shit.)

What?

Shit.

Oh yes. I was writing about my interesting discussion at the gas station today. In case that wasn't completely obvious from the Marilyn Monroe references. Nothing says gas like Marilyn, right?

"Please fill it up," I say, and the man smiles at me through my open window.

There are the usual questions on the water and oil and something I think sounds like 'carlage' but which I haven't actually told them to check yet, not even to find out what carlage might mean, when I hear the gas pump click.

"Hmm, that's awfully soon," I mumble to myself and frown in what I always believe is an endearing manner, but might just be scaring the bejeezus out of the attendant, as I'm pretty sure I can see his lip quiver just a little when he approaches me again.

"52 rand," the man tells me.

"What? That's not possible! I had less than half a tank left! How much did you put in?" I open with, but decide to make things easier for myself as him telling me 5 liters or 50 is not going to mean anything to me anyway, "wait, scratch that. Did you fill it allllll the way up?"

I make a sign that to me signifies full, but probably means that I would like to hitch a ride to Baragwanath hospital on one of the local taxis. Which I probably should not do. Or that's at least what every single person I've told about my two taxi-rides in Soweto says as they look at me like I'm insane.

"Yes ma'am, allllll the way up" says the attendant and makes a sign that might mean that he too is in need of some sort of transportation.

I start the car and watch the gauge that doesn't move at all.

"See!" I yell and point at the dashboard, "There's something wrong!"

"Madam, that's the temperature gauge."

Now, where to find a new gas station I can start frequenting?

In search of my 'tude mojo

2010-03-11T07:43:00.000-06:00

Looks sufficiently medicinal, but is in fact taken at a vineyard.

You might not know this, or may not have guessed it since I've been told more than once that it isn't exactly a thing I radiate and would possibly even sneer at, apparently because of my cynical, professional and rational-seeming exterior...

I fokken know. I mean, really? WHAT IN THE NAME OF PLATONICALLY FROLICKING UNICORNS WOULD GIVE ANYONE THIS IDEA?!?! See, right there, I just had to scream because it was sort of warranted. the whole thing's just that utterly confounding to me. Utterly.

...but I am a strong believer in the power of alternative medicine, the role of nutrition, vitamins, and such other like things, when it comes to staying healthy or being cured.

So I pop a lot of pills of the supplement variety. I drink a lot of wheatgrass juice. In the mornings I like to brew liqorice-root and cinnamon infused green tea to be sipped (and to hopefully cancel out some of the negative effects) right alongside my several cups of morning coffee. I eat a lot of broccoli and spinach. I chew on flax seeds. I drink incredible amounts of water. I buy organic.

Somehow, almost without noticing it myself, I seem to have become one of those people. Those annoying people who show up at a dinner and won't eat half of the things on their plate because they either contain sugar, white flour, starch, dairy, or something passing itself as fruit but which is closer to a lump of sugar, just not as refined. Those irritating people who can comfortably talk about the benefits of vitex agnus castus as a dietary supplement for at least a good 20 minutes, and don't even get them started on superfoods. Those boring people who swear by a green concoction of wheatgrass, spinach, cucumber, avocado, and some alfalfa as the best snack ever. Those frightening people whose pee is always neon yellow from excess vitamin C and completely discussible with anyone, odor included.

One of them.

Which I thought was a mainstream movement and I was just a little slow at catching on. Yes? Aren't we all pretty much those people by now? At least mostly. Surely we're all on the 2010-version wagon of 'you are what you eat'? We all understand and respect the awesome power of traditional medicine, but don't sneer at new, or sometimes 'ancient', developments in the form of uses of medicinal plants, acupuncture, patient-specific treatments, yada yada and all that jazz, right?

Turns out, nope.

For quite some time I have been managing my condition that involves a severe hormonal imbalance among other wondrous medical phenomena, without taking one pill of the drug variety. (Okay, so in the last year truly managing, prior to that just refusing to take the drugs and sometimes suffering quite a load of consequences. I admit. I like wine, burgers and coffee. So sue me, oh body of mine.)

When I was diagnosed in Denmark more than five years ago, it was the doctor who pointed me to a site on the internet with more information about a necessary diet, the necessary supplements, the correct kind of exercise, and other such hoopla. The website was pink in color, but it was doctor recommended, so I read it and have now finally followed.

Without a need for any kind of drugs. Well, coffee and wine of course, but they are more in the 'necessity for ultimate survival of the human race' category anyway.

However, here in South Africa, it seems that those people don't quite exist yet, and that medical 'developments' are running a vastly different course, if not a whole different race.

"Either you manage your condition with medicine or you suffer and live with the consequences," the doctor, a prominent gynecologist and an elderly man, says, looks at me and sneers.

"But I haven't actually had any 'consequences' in the year I've been managing it with natural products and diet," I respond. And, as much as I hate to admit it, I do the air quotes. Yup. I do.

"Well, that's all pure nonsense," the doc blurts out, "show me one [fancy word I don't know what means] placebo [other fancy word I don't know what means, the flippen a-hole] study out there."

The doctor laughs and I stare at him.

"Just because there aren't studies out there doesn't mean the products and diet do not work. There aren't any studies out there showing they don't work either," is what I should have said, but instead I just stare. Also, the ultrasound device inside me is throwing off my 'tude mojo some serious.

And the doctor just laughs.

And then he laughs again when I tell him I refuse to go back on the medicine because of the side effects, since according to him there aren't any.

THE ASSHOLE.

There I go, screaming again. Maybe it's the 'consequences'.

Some serious love

2010-03-10T01:29:00.000-06:00

Growing up Finnish, mainly in Finland, guaranteed a few things.

1) Someone, at some point of my fragile youth (I'm thinking the big mean high school sports coach, and yes, I too was fragile at one point in my life. Was too!) made sure I learned how to ski. Cross country. Fast. Even if I was wailing like a lunatic while frog-legging it up a steep hill with my increasingly slippery skis on.

But Finns must all know how to ski. Yes they do. And I still hate skiing like the plague. Only worse.

2) I didn't have to learn how to hug, compliment, or express any kind of affection through any other means than slightly raising my left eyebrow and grunting softly. Or by emptying the dishwasher. Or vacuuming my own room without being yelled at. Or making a full pot of coffee instead of just two cups for myself. Or not telling my best friend she looked like crap even if she totally did (Pigtails never look good. No they don't).

I learned to love the Finnish way. Except for skiing. That I learned to hate. Like hundreds of thousands of other Finns before and after me.

Why am I talking about skiing and affection? Together? WHY? Why would I combine possibly the worst memories I have of Finland and being Finnish with love?

Ah well. I'm not completely there. Or here. Yet. The lights are on, but the lady's still under the covers.

This past week saw me return to Finland at a time I normally avoid. I was supposed to be landing in the warmth of Cairo, but instead, at the airport, which incidentally instead of Cairo was in the freezing north also known as Helsinki, around midnight, I was met with -17 degrees celsius and my tired brother. My grandma suddenly passed away and my family needed me. Which was a first, because we Finns don't tend to need other people, or at least we won't say so.

As it turns out, they really did need me. They needed the one person in the family who has learned to hold hands with anyone else than their significant other (mine taught me that!), to hug, to console with words that are in no way masqueraded as grunts, to go beyond household chores as far as displays of affection go, and to laugh through tears and not be terribly embarrassed by it.

But that was only to get the ball rolling.

For the first time in my life I hugged my Grandpa. And he hugged me back. I held his hand. I consoled him. I talked with him about Grandma, about Africa, about traveling, about getting a good fire going, about my childhood, and about the life from now on.

And then I talked with my mother. I held her hand. I hugged her. I consoled her. And she hugged me back.

And we talked.

Last week, I learned the true depth of the love, I had sometimes doubted even really existed, between my Grandpa and my Grandma. I learned about the way my Grandpa would, whenever my Grandma wasn't there, literally count the hours to her return. I learned about his desperation at her open casket. I learned about the completely missing 'I' in everything he's ever done. I learned about how Finns, and by that I mean FINNS because that's what my war-veteran Grandpa is to the core, can love too, really love to a point where it takes your breath away.

I learned that perhaps I'm not so special after all, with my fancy hand-holding, foreign hugging, and the continuous 'I love you's. I learned that underneath that uncomfortable and repressed seeming eyebrow wiggling and vacuuming instead of talking, there are some serious and deep emotions coming out of Finland too.

Some serious love.

With all that enforced skiing, who would have guessed?

Bye

2010-02-26T09:40:00.000-06:00

How to handle this?

How to talk about this?

My Grandmother on my mother's side passed away on Monday afternoon. She wasn't very old and she wasn't very sick. She had a heart attack putting away groceries while my Grandfather was getting firewood from the shed. She wasn't breathing when my Grandfather found her and there was nothing the paramedics could do to bring her back. She was gone.

She is gone.

Her last word was 'coffee'. She was going to make some for herself and my Grandpa, which is only fitting, since that's what she spent most of her life doing. There was always hot coffee. Or at least the thought of making some and then drinking some.

Always coffee. For everyone.

Imagine her horror when she found out that my Viking didn't drink coffee. The first few times she simply ignored the exotic ways of this weirdo foreigner and poured some in his cup anyway, but once she found out that instead of the Viking it was I who was secretly downing the manna in his cup in addition to my own, she solemnly ordered him to "At least drink milk, boy". Loudly. And in Finnish.

I think that's when the Viking (after a sugarcoated translation from me) finally understood what it meant for me to say that I loved him "even more than coffee."

In not so many days I'll be in Finland, sitting in my mother's kitchen, drinking copious amounts of Finnish coffee, and talking about my Grandmother. While my mother makes sure there's hot coffee in the pot.

Always coffee. For everyone.

My Grandmother will be missed.

That Kevin Smith

2010-02-18T04:55:00.001-06:00

May I offer you something rotten to go with your morning coffee?

Warning: This here particular diatribe will include stuff about weight, losing it (weight and temper), flying, How much I love Kevin Smith, and other assorted controversial things (Maybe. Depends on what the maid decides to do with the wineglasses she's supposedly washing). So, if you're tired of the whole SWA humiliating innocent Kevin Smith debacle (something along the lines of this moron's view) go away and come back when I return to inadvertently trying to kill the guards at my gate (I would never, but they insist on hopping in front of the car at the weirdest places) or just to my general doing nothing and then some more nothing, and shoes.

Because, today, I have been thinking. Pondrin somthin serious.

In the last couple of days I have been following Kevin Smith's (who really, truly is some kind of a god-like force within comedy, if you disregard certain extremely carnal and perhaps even unnecessary tweets about him boning his wife, and I will disregard them and love him nonetheless) experience with flying on, or at least trying to, Southwest Airlines. How he got booted off of the flight that he had already been seated on (with the armrests down and not 'spilling' onto his fellow passengers) because he had gotten on that flight as a standby and had actually, for reasons relating to his own comfort on the flight and because he's probably fairly wealthy seeing as he's a really successful funnyman (How do I love Clerks and Mallrats? Let me count the ways.), bought two seats for the later flight he had originally selected. Thus apparently officially 'admitting' that he was fat, in fact too fat to fly in one seat.

Now, if you have been following this blog for a while you all know how I feel about flying, how much my derriere detests even the mention of it, how my thighs protest violently every time even the thought of travel pops into my head, and how badly my brain wants to grow to the level where I can invent an easier way of moving from one place to another - a teleportation device if you will, or even a Harry Potter-ish fireplace of travel, just without house elves, thank you very much - without having to subject any part of me to the experience that is check-in, airport security, boarding, other people's 'hand luggage', flight, in-flight 'entertainment', stewardesses (especially the ones I seem to encounter. Hello Air France!), airplane seats, airplane bathrooms, other frikken passengers, customs, and having my luggage mangled and/or efficiently spirited away (always to London, it seems).

I consider having to fly anywhere a punishment of epic proportions. Mainly due to the extreme discomfort of airplanes for anyone who isn't 5'4 and weigh at the most 100 lbs. Because, naturally, airlines want to make as much money as they can, and thus squeeze as many of us as possible into the smallest space possible. Regardless of whether or not we really fit.

Comfort and friendly skies my ass. Torture and bitchiness is much closer to the truth.

I hate the journey. I do.

Also, if you indeed have been following this blog for a while, you would know that I've never been a small specimen of a woman. Expressions such as East-German shot-putter, Amazon, and perhaps even Grand Dame (No, sorry, that was to do with champagne I think, but what the hell, I like it) have come up. But what you don't know, unless you know how to decipher my cryptic hints, is that today I'm perhaps 50 lbs lighter than I was when I last had to make a plane trip longer than 2 hrs.

Still, I'm a fat woman. I'll always, always be a fat woman. Regardless of how I look on the outside. And will never think there is anything wrong with being a fat woman. Or a fat man even (still, I think I'm going to stay a woman. I like my boobies too much to exchange them for just one overly dangly piece of anything). Weight loss has never been a goal for me, nor will it ever be. I strongly disagree with what normally passes as equal to healthy, and what kind of appearance almost automatically gets labeled as unhealthy, slovenly, lazy, undesirable, ugly, or second rate. My recent change has come about as a side effect to some changes (such as saying no to most fruit, traditionally considered an unhealthy decision) that have been quite necessary, and due to a genetic condition I have, in order for me to not need medicine that shouldn't be mixed with alcohol (and I seriously do want to keep drinking the wine, if in smaller amounts than before), for the sake of my poor liver, and to save poor VEG from her siamese-sister contractual obligation to give me a piece of hers when mine finally conks out.

So I feel for Kevin Smith. And I whole-heartedly support him. Awesome of him to use his fame, regardless of how humiliating the situation must have been for him, and bring some much needed attention to this kind of treatment received by all of us overweight peeps often enough world over. In all kinds of situations. More often than one would think.

Because, discrimination based on one's weight is unwarranted for. This kind of discrimination, like is in the case of smokers, could only be tolerated IF overweight actually directly also spelled harm to others, and/or costs to others. Which it doesn't. It's often said that it does, but the truth is that it doesn't. It just doesn't. Sure, there are many extremely unhealthy people who are sure to end up having [insert a costly medical procedure right here] before they are 40 years old who are also overweight, but it just isn't that overweight which makes it so. That overweight is just a symptom. Then there are many extremely healthy people who will live to be a nice 104 (and might in doing so end up costing quite a few bucks to society as well, I might add) who are overweight. There are many extremely unhealthy people who are sure to end up having [insert a costly medical procedure right here] before they are 40 years old who are 'normal' (who tell hell decided what was normal anyway?) weight. And so on.

Case by case.

All people are individuals, and the beauty (and the curse) of statistics is that you can have them display for you exactly what you want. That's why the media loves statistics. They sound official enough to back up a report about a 'fat epidemic' and can easily be made to play into that end. And a fat epidemic just hits so much closer to home than an actual epidemic STILL sweeping the world: the AIDS epidemic.

I don't need to remind anyone how many people die of AIDS in sub-saharan Africa EVERY SINGLE DAY do I? There's no way this number isn't plastered on every single front page all the time.

What?

It isn't?

Well, shit! I guess the 4100 people a day who die of AIDS in sub-saharan Africa are a drop in the ocean compared to the thousands and thousands of people who succumb to the evil, evil epidemic of having a BMI over 25 every single day. I guess it's the 6 in the 26 that wraps around their hearts and slowly suffocates them. Must be.

Fat does not automatically equal unhealthy. Nor does thin equal healthy.

In my part of Africa fat can also equal wealthy, beautiful, handsome, healthy, and happy. It's all cultural. It really is. And while we have, hopefully (although evidence to the contrary seems to be surfacing around me constantly) stopped categorizing and judging people based on the color of their skin or their gender, weight remains the last frontier of 'accepted discrimination'.

And who is it that is making it so? Well, us. You guys, we suck. Why are we so fokken dumb?

One last thing in the way of warning: Should you feel you disagree with me on this one and feel the need to tell me so in a comment or in an email, I WILL immediately think less of you. I will consider such a response equal to you telling me you loved the Twilight saga and didn't see anything wrong with how it portrays women and girls, or how you identify with the characters in Marian Keyes novels. I WILL think much less of you, your intellect, and your ability for compassion. Much, much less.

Teleportation device needed asap (pref. w/ radio).

2010-02-15T08:37:00.000-06:00

Lately, since I've been leaving the house almost every single day - albeit mainly to buy shoes (Thank you Zeus for Stave Madden), but also to work on all sorts of exciting projects with just a pinch of introducing some honest American English to unsuspecting souls in a (Whoa!) classroom situation (it gets better...) with moi actually in charge (when you say it all together like that the result is quite scary and unpalatable, I know) - I've again been subjected to one of the things I don't particularly miss from my life in Mexico City (Yes I do! I miss it all!), but that very likely accounted for quite a few months out of the couple year span.

Yup. Traffic. Trafico.

I have such fond memories of inching down Reforma, one of the main arteries of Mexico City, for hours on end in my burgundy shoebox of a Chevy with zero air conditioning. Wearing exhaust fumes like a fine perfume. Buying all of my cleaning products at intersections. Chatting to beggars in broken español. Singing along to the songs on that weird Mariachi radio station without actually knowing the words (cept for Cielito Lindo. Everyone knows Cielito Lindo. Besides it's just a whole lot of ay ay ay ay and then some more ay ay ay). Watching my suction cup Jesus gently sway in the furiously circulating lukewarm air. And believe it or not, sometimes playing sudoku. Honest.

And here I am again, stuck in traffic.

Granted, regardless of still conforming to the universally accepted definition of traffic (as opposed to the Finnish definition which can be loosely understood as: "Shit. There's someone else on the road at the same time as me! Holy Cow! I must watch out now."), the traffic here in Jozi is nowhere near the kind of sea of ebbing and flowing waves of chaos associated with Mexico City. Still, it's something you sit in for longer than you had initially intended or hoped. Until you run out of boogers to fish out of your nose, and that weird, red something between your teeth that looks like tomato peel although you can't remember when you last had anything with tomato in it just does not enthrall you like it did a minute ago.

But traffic's different here. Simply not slow enough to play sudoku, put on makeup, tweeze my eyebrows (I don't really, just putting it out there as a potential), work out what the hell that black stuff underneath my nail is and why can't I wash it off, come up with seven different ways of wearing my faux-hawk with the help of multiple mirrors available in my car, or make up stories of people who have those stupid 'baby on board' suction-cup thingies on the rear window in which (the stories that is) they always have dark family secrets or possibly an extra toe/finger/other magnificent appendage (never claimed to have a normal imagination).

Too fast for anything but radio.

Thus, I'm actually finally coming to my point.

Yes, there fokken was one all along. There really was! (Well, okay. Maybe not a point, but more of a theme. A unifying factor. Yes.)

And my point is a series of questions to you people:

How loud is it acceptable to sing along to 50 Cent's Baby By Me? Does 'doing that weird vogue movement' with your head make any difference? Is Baby By Me the new Baby Got Back? How frikken awesome is P!nk? Why don't more people sing loudly in their cars? What is it called when you kind of dance along behind the steering wheel? What do you do to kill time in traffic?

I know. I do. I blame the mother-in-law. Maybe you should too.

Postmarked somewhere entirely different that has nothing to do with any circle of hell or even purgatory

2010-02-11T07:45:00.002-06:00

Whilst I was wildly careening around Southern Africa, expertly dodging (Ahem! Yes. You have to own your strengths and avoidance of things is what I do best.) my mother-in-law's sneaky attempts at... what? I'm not sure, but she was definitely up to something sneaky and evil-ish, who knows with her? To wean me off her precious eldest so that he can find a nice Danish girl? To magically make me forget about contraception (and actually suddenly gain the ability to reproduce) and populate the earth with tiny ginger-haired half-vikings for her to clothe and give hard candy to? To make me eat a sugary dessert? To feed me to the lions? To ...

What was I saying?

Oh yes. Whilst I was romping around my part of this continent with my spirit safely stowed away in the upstairs shower, and taking crap from a certain someone without once raising a finger and only sometimes an eyebrow and only rolling my eyes and sighing when she couldn't see or hear, something wonderful happened.

Somehow, at some office of the infamous South African postal service someone decided to deliver two (I know. TWO! I can't get over the number, which usually is more like 0, the remains of 1, "Ma'am, there is no delivery for you", 1/3, "Are you accusing us of theft ma'am?" or less than 0) packages to me.

TWO!!! (I know I already said it, but two is almost unheard of. A mythical number postal delivery-wise. Possibly a sign that somewhere up there, an angel finally has his wings. Or a pig flies. Or a baby unicorn frolics. Or Hitler's learning to snowboard, way way below up there and everyone else in the bad man's case, of course.)

It is as if the universe knew who was visiting me. And wanted to stop me just shy of a violent act.

By making me remember how wonderful a place this world of the interwebz can actually be. And how well my bloggy pals really do know me.

I present to you in order of arrival:

A thing of pure beauty and ingenuity that really truly encompasses a good deal of my personality. Something to do with golf and then again, something to do with my blatant inability to golf. A way to become better without actually doing anything really taxing about it. I've always thought voodoo might very well be the answer to most of my problems. Or at least a more exciting way of ignoring them and not dealing with them than your most garden-variety means of procrastination.

A Golf Voodoo Kit

From my beloved siamese sister (who lets me ignore her just as I do my biological family) VEG of the (Mis)Adventures of VEG. Go read her! She is very much like a Canadian me. Except that instead of drinking wine, she recycles.

Followed by a mere day by another thing of pure beauty and ingenuity that really truly encompasses a good deal of my personality. Something to do with coffee. Well, actually the precious infant born to Arabica and Light roast: Starbucks. Which I love only slightly less than the Viking.

A Starbucks Christmas ornament and a card made by the sender herself

From my dear, dear friend and part-Finn Erin of My Camera and The Gentle Giant. Go check out her wonderful photos, learn about her life, or at least go check out something very close to her heart: autismspeaks.org

Thank you universe for people who love me and remember me. Even when my spirit's in storage.

Love you right back people!

Not you, mother-in-law.

Postmarked 7th circle of hell

2010-02-09T10:01:00.001-06:00

So.

Mother-in-laws.

They, and you (by which I actually mean ME ME ME ME ME!!!), are better off in their own little corners of the world. Or at least that's my immediate experience. A hypothesis now firmly grounded in the severity of reality and made into an iron-clad fact. This here = my corner, that one over there far, far away = the mil's niche. And we all can live happily ever after, like tradition, and Disney and each and every 80s teen movie, promise. And that Molly Ringwald, she wouldn't lie, would she?

So, please bugger off dear mama and let me have my prince already! The Viking's mine and no matter what you do, there is no way you will ever be able to shove him back up there. You know, up to Denmark, in case some of you were thinking I meant the uterus, which I did initially, but then I just decided to discard that image altogether lest it screw me up for good, so we'll just say Denmark. The sentiment still applies.

Between me and her (feel free to add your own disrespectful tone here) I prefer a distance of a few continents, and at least one whole ocean if at all possible, but I have heard - although this is something I would never personally accept or recommend - that a mere 'few countries to the East' is sometimes sufficient.

Well. Not for me. Still, like they say, bad things happen to good people.

And sometimes she (please amp up the disrespectful tone from before) is to be found right under one's nose. In one's spare bed. Loudly criticizing one's choice of linen, innards of the fridge (so the packet of crazy glue says to keep it in the fridge!), lack of tan, and the water pressure or the magical lack of it during her (you know the drill now) showers. And all that before the discussions about the ' unpalatable food of Africa' were ever even entered into.

But it's time to move on, she's (I know you know what to do...) gone. It's time to be generally glad that no one threw a punch or drew actual blood, intentionally or unintentionally, that doors have locks, that a car can drive you far, far away, that there was a fair amount of laughter, be it fake, distraught, to mask the tears or actual, that lions were being cooperative and not hiding in the bushes, giving everyone a welcome break from the evil eyes being shot left and right (I'm sure the lions never even knew what hit them), that regardless of not-so-veiled threats absolutely no one threw the poor daughter-in-law to them in best Roman style, that Spar sells wine early in the morning on a Tuesday, that a spot of archery and a wild imagination can relieve a pent up need to scream without any actual screaming, that world has coffee and alcohol and coffee-flavored alcohol in it, and that the Viking knows to take my (and only my) side.

And that my father-in law (who doesn't detest me nearly as much as I thought he did) and her (yada yada blah blah) managed to create someone I can call my bestest friend in the whole wide world, whom I love more than life itself, and to whom I'm the center of the universe without still quite figuring out how I manage to pull that off on a daily basis. And that he is the wonderful person that he is.

Thankful, yet homicidal.

Hmm.

Just give me a couple of days to retrieve my spirit from the top secret storage location (okay, the upstairs, master bedroom shower, that has excellent water pressure, I might add) I've had it shoved up into, to keep it safe from harm and any potential vampiristic, i.e. Hey-Zeus-help-me-this-woman's-sucking-every-single-drop-of-life-force-and-other-assorted-positive-things-right-out-of-me activities.

But I WILL be whole again.

And I'm still breathing.

HA!

Punch, Smack, Kick

2010-01-28T11:30:00.000-06:00

Sometimes, when you are troubled and have that petrified nervous feeling in the pit of your stomach - a feeling not unlike menstrual cramps - and keep adjusting, by a thin hair, the seemingly random, but actually meticulously thought out and arranged (you might have had a dream about how to execute said arrangement) assortment of candles on the dining-room table, the reality of South Africa slaps you in the face.

When you are consumed by the sheer impossibility (you never fokken ever thought it would happen) of the actuality of the fact that in not so many hours you will be at the airport, waving a Danish flag (Don't ask. Let's just call it an ancient viking tradition), and holding up a sign saying Mom and Dad your Viking thought would be a hilarious thing to be waving, waiting for your father- as well as your mother-in-law to clear immigration (Any favors in the form of an anonymous phone call to customs or immigration? Your choice. Anyone?), it kicks you in the stomach.

When you are fearing the discussion over the non-existent television in the living room because what kind of people don't own a proper television and put it exactly where it belongs and what the hell is up with all these clay skeletons you have everywhere, it smacks you upside the head.

When you realize that you have actually, against all possible odds really, truly forgotten to fokken buy more coffee regardless of a certain someone asking you on Facebook whether you would be willing to serve it and now you'll have to find a way to make the purchase on the sly and, boy, how sneaky will you have to be, it knees you in the back.

When you kill the umpteenth ant crawling out of your laptop and again, in a fair panic, try to make sure there are none in the foodstuffs anywhere, it sneaks in a right hook straight into your ribs.

"The panties in the dustbin, you don't want them anymore?" She asks me in a quiet voice over the hissing iron.

"The panties?" I reply, completely bewildered. Because, really, there is no way the maid could be talking about my hole-y old underwear I threw out this morning? Surely? That would be absurd. I must have misunderstood. She couldn't be talking about my nasty, washed-to-oblivion, cheap-to-begin-with, cotton underwear.

What kind of a world would this be if she was?

But she is.

And she would like to know whether she could have them, since I don't want them anymore.

I think they went in between the letters R and T.

2010-01-26T05:07:00.002-06:00

Here, have a penguin! Or what the hell, have two. (No, you may not take possession of the third. That one is already spoken for by some obscure wildlife organization.)

See (or hear, if that rocks your boat in a less sea-sickening way and unlike the waves that make it almost impossible to get back from Robben Island to the safe haven of the Cape Town Waterfront [that's where they keep the coffee and wine], but are still not enough to scare away the secret tears that almost came at the sight of Nelson Mandela's cell, if you know what I mean, which, naturally, you do.) that silence right there. Right below this here post. A silence of days, if not weeks.

A good, calm silence. Not a thought (okay, maybe a few hundred in my weakest of moments) spared for the abyss of the internets.

I missed you all, and even more than that loved being missed by you. But it was good.

Seriously good.

That silence was me falling off the end of the earth, which, purely statistically and the South African politicians alone providing proof aplenty of this, on the tip of this here continent I inhabit is a much more common occurrence than one might think. Unlike the politicians though, I fell gloriously, and right into the mix of family and great friends, lions (who again refused to eat me - Are they not into pickled things or what is this aversion all about? Am I not good enough?), windy and not so much beaches with white, warm sand, French champagne at its nose-tickling best, farting rhinos (both actual as well as a few more commonly referred to as my brothers), golf, great wine at great restaurants, dolphins, much too much wine at much too many vineyards, talk, discussions, penguins, chatter, smells of the sea and one unfortunate giraffe carcass, one severely flat mountain at sunset, and real, fleshy people, places, things, coffee, and some more of that wine, in random locations this time though.

A decisive sip of Calvados at the golf course.

And I'm just now coming up for (net)air. Only to find that small ants have made a busy apartment complex (or an Asian Shopping Mall, if those kinds of things are more familiar to you) of my MacBook Pro, and that I'm in serious need of an external hard drive (and the various skills involved in using it. Please tell me to create folders before moving a thousand pictures onto there. Thanks.) should I want to empty my camera of the 2000 large JPEGs firmly lodged on there and depicting mainly penguins in various (okay, pretty much just the one) positions.

They are cute, those penguins. But still!

Zeus, what in the name of hockey sticks, soured molasses, and one six-year-old are you playing at? What kind of a signs are these? It almost feels as if me on the internets is no longer working for you? Or is this just payback for the disappearance? What?

*kills an ant making its way across the space bar*

Hey Zeus my man, you are leaving me with very little direction, ants or no ants, when you very well know the in-laws are making their way towards South Africa practically as I write. You know they have packed their fridge down in case I refuse to feed them, or Africa is completely void of anything eatable, which of course is an understandable, rational belief. Yup. You know.

This might just be the end of Extranjera altogether. Or at least the remotely sober-ish, non-biting one.

Look for me in the bottle. The one by the penguins.

You could have just said "I'm not pregnant."

2010-01-15T02:39:00.000-06:00

Souvenir from Africa

"But I'm NOT pregnant," says Extranjera to the Hubby after reading some of the comments left in response to her previous post.

"Nope. No sirree. Not at all," she continues, while the Hubby glances at her and pretends to listen, while he is actually playing some inane game on Facebook, and is probably thinking more about whether to recruit his new-to-social-media-and-thus-all-excited-and-baffled-by-it mother to his virtual vampire army, than anything even remotely close to producing offspring. Unless that offspring were undead. And on Facebook.

"Uh huh... Hmm, vampire spawn?" he responds, and clicks with his mouse.

Extranjera is bewildered: "Not even a little bit pregnant, or in that movie-star way that Jennifer Lopez wasn't when she ended up having twins with that skinny guy, and that we all think Jessica Simpson might [not?] be, but then we remember that she isn't actually getting any bigger," she iterates, "And so, yes, I'm not pregnant like Jessica Simpson, which is to say that I like my burgers. With lots of mayo too. The ones made of beef of course, not of babies. Other than that, no link whatsoever."

"Eating babies. Uh huh. The Chinese? No, sorry, dogs," the Hubby compassionately pitches in.

"Yah. The Chinese. Google's fighting them too," Extranjera assures the inattentive Hubby, "But so no babies. No. Not in the uterus, or the stomach, or really even on the mind. And the bottom line is that the only way I'll even acquire a baby is if someone, somewhere in the world (crazier things have happened, and it turns out that regardless of my genes, I can hug after all and it doesn't even make me gag [I know, I'm just as surprised as everyone else]), gives me a baby to take care of," she goes on.

"Personally, I won't be popping them out. Ever," she adds with conviction.

"I know, hun. The Chinese should just give you a baby and stop eating them. That would be the humane thing to do," the Hubby says, "Do you think my mom will understand the word decapitate?"

The loudspeaker above this dialogue crackles and the nasal voice of an oldish woman comes on.

"We break this interesting exchange to bring you a very important notice regarding the main character in this blog: She is most certainly not pregnant, just really busy, and currently on her way to the airport to pick up yet more guests, the second bunch, and won't be back online until the 25th, and then with fears of similar exchanges since the last, and third, installment of guests consists of her in-laws. Although she is too busy working and entertaining at the moment to be online, she should be back by then and be most certainly driven to drink. Again."

"We here at the crossroads of the Super Id, Guilt and Perfection thank you for your attention, wish you a lovely week, and hope to see you back on the 25th. Or thereabouts."

Jaahas

2010-01-12T08:40:00.000-06:00

There has been Soweto:

And Cape Town:

And Safari:

And all sorts of general havoc, mayhem and chaos that only four Finns and one Viking can possibly wreak, but finally, albeit very sadly, the first set of guests is on their way back to Europe.

Although no thanks to Iberia, who bring new meaning to the words 'customer disservice'. And 'blow'. And 'suck'. And 'incompetent'. And 'rude'. And 'clueless'. And apparently also 'endless list'. They make me wish I mattered. Thanks a lot Iberia!

And as for me, you ask?

Well.

I'm having a pile up. Of people, to-dos, assignments, laundry, places, things, trash, mails, calls, jobs, and everything and anything imaginable. But mostly good stuff.

The real world is stealing me away. And not only from you and your blogs, but also from sleep which is resulting in some seriously suspect encounters, to-dos, arrivals and departures, answers, calls, performances, photos, some inadvertent public nose-excavations, and a lot of yelling at Iberia. And possibly at someone who had absolutely nothing to do with Iberia, but may have just been passing by.

And for once I have to just stick to coffee.

Seriously, the unimaginable has happened: I have no time even for wine.

I might as well just quit right now. But I can't. I'm too EXCITED!

A bite-size crisis

2010-01-10T00:21:00.000-06:00

"Are you going to try to eat me?" asks the younger of the visiting brothers when I open yet another packet of cookies, or candy, or chips, or biltong, or lunch bars, and stick it under his nose and prompt him to "EAT SOMETHING for goodness sakes!"

He is suspecting me of attempting to fatten him up, like what's-that-boy-in-Grimm-Hansel-someone, so that I can trick him into the oven in my gingerbread house and feast on him.

I'm not. I don't even like chicken that much (which is what people taste like according to Hannibal Lecter, I think? Or possibly that Argentine team that crashed their plane? I forget. Someone said chicken, right?). But just in case you were wondering where this blog was headed and whether prison or into hiding were some of those places, they're not. Sorry, I'm your garden-variety nut, not the murderous, wacko kind of loon, and although I would seriously want one, I'm fresh out of gingerbread houses, even the cheap, small kind. And I've never been a big fan of brown as an exterior wall coloring.

See! Not crazy after all.

But something is definitely going on, and while not a cookie-related, cannibalistic something, it's still creeping me out.

The only thing I can think of is: When did I become someone's grandmother? And whether this new development in my personality will also mean that wearing men's long underwear outside and accessorizing that awesomeness with a pair of rubber boots and an apron is something I'll find myself doing next (this might be in the genes)? And will I perhaps soon notice myself keeping crumpled euro-bills in my apron folds and slipping them to unsuspecting children whenever I get the chance? Alongside with cookies I've baked myself, but that accidentally have human hairs poking out of them, which I won't be able to see because of my failing eyesight (Ja. Also in the genes)?

Is this where I'm headed?

Because there's no way I'll ever become one of those grandmothers who coif their hair every morning, wear Dior to the expensive, posh grocery store, accessorize that very same Dior with a little bark-y pooch, and have dinner with their still-alive friends before heading off to the theatre.

Oh no. I'll be the one whose breath alone will scare kids far and wide. And whose hard candy will have that weird pocket-fluff and other assorted goodness stuck on it.

I'm rattled. The visitors are driving me towards an existential crisis.

But on the upside, I saw a wild lion up close and it didn't eat me. And In my world that's some serious balance right there.

Excuse me? Are you the one who starred in the Lion King? No? Didn't think so. Although I must say the resemblance is uncanny.

Good chance of heavy showers, and maybe a stink-related argument or two

2010-01-05T02:17:00.001-06:00

The visiting Finnish contingent - consisting of two brothers and one girlfriend - is currently happily asleep, still all exhausted from a busy trip to Cape Town to welcome the 2010 to the south of Africa, while also involving avoiding being bitten by aggressive penguins, scaring locals with whiter than white abdominal winter-flesh, more meat and wine anyone ever thought possible, windblown and sandy hair, and following a failed attempt at some serious golfing this morning.

"They ask me to tell you... sir... that there is no golf today because of the rain," the guard tells me at the entrance to the golf club at the ungodly hour of 6:30am.

(I was wearing my baseball cap on my head, and half of an egg yolk on my cheek, which I'm thinking explains the 'sir'. Or at least I'm hoping it does. Historically, egg yolks have been implicated in many a gender confusion, correct?)

I look at the sky. There is not a drop of water coming down.

"Because of the heavy rain?" I chuckle, expecting the guard to let me through, but he just looks at me somberly.

"Yes. Because of the heavy rain," he nods.

He refuses to lift the boom, and I'm forced to make a less than graceful retreat (instead of putting the car in reverse I manage to put it into 5th gear, but no actual harm is done), and the Finns retire upstairs to their respective bedrooms.

For me, there are always dirty underwear to be laundered and plates and coffee cups to be washed. And nothing says enjoying your visitors like sorting through piles of laundry and being surprised by a dirty pair of underwear that someone was clearly wearing while sitting 19 hours on different planes and then into the next day because their luggage failed to leave Europe when they did.

Except maybe the joy of such statements from the hobo-ish brother as: "Are you sure I shouldn't drive? I'm really afraid now, and you hit all of the traffic cones back where there was road construction. I saw them roll away in the mirror."

I barely touched the cones. Or the underwear.

Indian Ocean, meet the Atlantic. Atlantic, meet the Indian Ocean.

I so have it under control. Do too.

2009-12-27T11:32:00.002-06:00

50 bottles of wine. Check. Two of the three visitors arriving early tomorrow are related to me after all.
Enough meat. And by 'enough' I mean enough to sustain a small, yet moderately wealthy (none of that third world stuff for my New Years, thanks, I'm saving that for Easter) nation of a sizable bear-of-a-man population, such as Finland. NOT in Check? What is the Hubs playing at? Panic!
Deodorant and a toothbrush for the 'hobo-ish' bro who'll for sure be arriving without neither. Check. Maybe some socks and clean underwear too...?
Pent up need to speak Finnish loudly to people who actually understand it. Check.
The will to criticize everyone around and the will to delight in the fact that no one will know it's them we are talking about. Check. Like so check.
Presents! Check. And not all of them are from me to me either.
Plane tickets to Cape Town, hotel reservations in Cape Town, and a restaurant reservation in the Cape Town Waterfront for New Year's eve. Check. I assume. The Hubs is dealing with all of the minor details. I just worry about the drinks, and the hair staying blue. Which is incredibly tough to multitask, but oddly gratifying at the same time.
A way to freak out the visitors. Check. I'm picking them up from the airport by myself. In the big car. And the hobo-ish bro still doesn't believe that I can actually drive. Little does he know... Muahahahahaha.... (Go right ahead and imagine me doing that thing Mr. Burns does with his fingertips, only with more flair and less liver spots. Go ahead. I'll wait, I won't mind.)
Multitudes of food. Check. I accessorized the hall with a giant bowl filled with just-in-case-someone-should-feel-peckish-at-all-times power-bars. Looks totally snazzy. And only a tad trashy. Hmph.
Freshly baked stuff in the form of chocolate balls (giggle, giggle) I made myself (technically by heating up some cream [measured and heated up by the Hubs] and then mixing it with chocolate [grated by the Hubs] and forming it into balls [ALL ME]. So no actual baking involved, but that's what I'm going to call it anyway. Don't hate). Check.
Plans. The Hubs says: "Check."
Random problems getting the spare bed to play nice. So check I'm almost embarrassed to admit it here. Think: problems with the soft box (which still hasn't been folded)...
Excitement over the visitors. Check. Like totally psyched.

I'm just so prepared it almost hurts. Wish me luck.

Go ahead, have a ball!

See you in the New Year!

BLOU

2009-12-24T03:03:00.001-06:00

Instead of saying something Christmassy, since it wouldn't be real anyways, I'm just going to say this:

I FINALLY HAVE BLUE HAIR!!!

Now I won't have to write anything scathing about the salon after all, and my Harry Potter days are over. I think I'll miss the wine-spells though... And HP did give my personal evil eye that extra-oomph it was always missing. Oh well.

Still, everyone jump of joy with me, won't you, and all that other blue-haired goodness too.

Big kisses to all of you folks, and everyone pretend like I sent out some Christmas cards (probably with my own face on them, illegible gibberish, and the addresses all screwed up, which is why they're only arriving in a few months). Thanks.

My baby's all grown up, and wordy too.

2009-12-22T06:00:00.000-06:00

It seems that milestones (I can't believe I just spelled that liestones, Dr. Freud?) are just coming at me left and right. Today my blog, this here one y'all gazing at right this very minute, is one year old. Post-wise that is, not in terms of how long I've had the account, but anyhoo.

One whole year of babble.

I know that's a piece of stinky cheese and not cake, but on its birthday the blog gets what the blog desires, so it was really out of my hands...

I have very little insight as to why I started blogging in the first place, or really, what this whole 'being a blogger' has done to me. So I thought I would combine a little random and highly inconclusive list-type-of-a-thing-a-ma-jiggy-dealio to chart my experience some.

So really, I'm just talking to myself here, people. Because I have nothing better to do (Yes I do actually, but we all know how I can procrastinate, yes?).

Blogging Pro (Blop): All of my grand ideas on whatever I thought of farting on any given day of the past year are on file.

Blogging Con (Bloc): Sometimes my big thought of the day came down to meat, or possibly what was in my thrash can. I also believe that shoes were mentioned. More than once.

Blop: Instead of having to send an email to people confirming that I am, contrary to general belief, still alive and the weather is good in SA, I just update the blog.

Bloc: Apparently that's not enough. Mother.

Blop: I have something to do while I'm drinking my morning coffee, so that I don't just sit around in my bathrobe all morning long and stare into the distance.

Bloc: I have something to do while I'm drinking my morning coffee, when I really should be getting myself psyched to begin working. Or, you know, to get into the shower.

Blop: I have met an incredible amount of cool folks on the internet. I have been inspired, horrified, moved, disgusted, touched, envious, entertained, bored, flabbergasted, amused, informed, and made to think. And sometimes something completely different, or nothing at all.

Bloc: They all live somewhere far away. And are unwilling to travel to South Africa just to look at my face. Even if I'm buying the wine. Can you believe the nerve?

Bloc: And I've come across a few ignorant assholes too, who have just made me really, really sad.

Blop: I have managed to write something almost every day for the past year, which sort of, in my book, and in this parallel universe that I inhabit and that I like to call home, makes it okay for me to call myself a 'writer - sort of'.

Bloc: I have neglected to write anything that I was supposed to have written because I was busy updating my blog and being a blogger instead.

Blop: I have discovered how incredibly supportive and loving complete strangers can be when there's a need. And how quickly they go from being strangers to friends.

Bloc: See above point on how no one is willing to confront me in person. Even if I really am supplying all of the wine.

Blop: I generally love to Blog

Bloc: I generally love to Blog.

Communication schkommunication

2009-12-21T01:26:00.000-06:00

On Sunday, yesterday, it was my 31st birthday. Now, I've always gotten shortchanged in every birthday-turn as long as I can remember on account of that Jesus-fella hogging all of the attention around this time of year (no one ever gave me myrrh, or even Body Shop scent), so I haven't really paid that much attention to my birthday, apart from that milestone-ish 30, in years.

But as luck would have it (how? why? what luck? I don't understand.) we had dinner plans for Saturday night. With some lovely folks, namely our golf coach and his girlfriend. After a rocky start of me thoroughly sucking at golf for months and him telling me just that on a weekly basis (though in diplomatic ways) we have recently bonded over our love for proper tequila. And drinking lots of it. Often.

And what could be better on one's birthday than an hours-long conversation about golf, all of its aspects including the value of an athlete and in what universe would the amount of women he has slept with affect his backswing (we mused about Clinton even) over two bottles of Kanonkop Pinotage 2007?

Really. Practically nothing.

Apart from a sideshow provided by the exciting rapport between I and the waiter - Anthony.

"Anything to drink?" says the man with an impressive head of braids.

"Yes, I'd like a bottle of sparkling water while I look at the wine list, thanks," I begin.

Anthony looks at me blankly: "Sparkling wine?"

"No, sparkling water. Water.... WAH-DER," I spell the word out, as the golf coach's girlfriend chimes in with a far more South African accent.

Anthony looks at the golf coach pleadingly, while the Hubby stifles a giggle and coughs loudly in his hand instead.

"Water," says the coach calmly while he too suppresses a smirk, "and do you have any tequila?"

Anthony lets out a thankful sigh: "Yes man, gold and silver?"

"But what kind?" I demand.

"Gold... and silver...?" answers Anthony pleadingly to the coach.

"No, I mean what brand? The brand?" I enunciate, and make a sign with my hands that to me expertly signifies the, admittedly rather abstract, concept of 'brand', but what to Anthony probably looks like I'm threatening to slit the throat of his pet turtle, or possibly asking for a ride to downtown.

"BRAND," I try louder, and without gestures. Maybe it's a question of volume?

Anthony looks scared.

He looks at the coach: "Man, you're going to have to help me with the accent."

"Now, that's just unfair," I exclaim to the table, "I know my accent's not South African, but at least it's generic American."

Anthony turns to look at me and smiles: "Thanks very much. I really appreciate that!" and with that he is gone.

We had no tequila that night. Neither gold nor silver.

I have no other pictures of cake. And none of Anthony, which is a crying shame.

Now what do you say to that?

2009-12-17T06:19:00.000-06:00

So the person who normally picks up after me, does my dishes, irons my clothes, and cleans my toilets didn't show up this morning.

She sent someone else instead.

Who has now been here all of four hours ...er... cleaning?

In those four hours she has managed quite an assortment of things, but as far as I can tell cleaning is yet to be one of them.

However.

She got lost on the way from the gate to our house.

"The people, they not help me," she said as the first thing when I opened the door to her, and I smiled and shrugged and invited her in. Which she took as an invitation to enquire me about whether I had children, how old I was, and why I didn't have children.

"So you not interested in home." she finally told me after giving me a hard stare, and poured herself some of my coffee.

She then proceeded to ask me for a cher, which I provided her with in the form of a barstool, which she then piled dirty dishes on because it was in fact something completely different she had asked me for. To do with dirty dishes. But also possibly the singer herself.

I didn't interfere.

Instead, I saw my chance, escaped to upstairs, and claimed to be working. Which she took as an order to jimmy open the locked garage door and mop the concrete garage floor.

"Too many spiders. Ugh. So I clean," she informed me when I finally decided to venture downstairs, take the maid by the apron-strings, and find out why she was opening and closing the electric garage door as if it was a fun new toy.

"So what you do on Christmas day?" she engaged me as I was reaching for my keys in her hand before I could sprint back upstairs.

"Oh nothing. Just working. Here at home. We don't celebrate Christmas," I told her in the hope of making the sentence long and winded enough to carry me up the stairs.

"BUT Church?" she managed before I was even halfway up.

"Ah. Er. Uhm. We don't go to church. We're atheist," I said as I saw her fingers go to the gold cross around her neck. I couldn't move.

She looked at me thoughtfully and slowly opened her mouth: "Ah. That's why you not have children, and why you not like holidays."

An uncomfortable silence has reigned ever since.

Reconciling and reclining.

2009-12-16T04:06:00.000-06:00

Albuquerque sky back in August.

Not a cloud in the sky. Good book awaits in the barcalounger in the back garden. And sitting by the pool does not seem like the worst thing one could do while one waits for this thing made out of Coca Cola, J-man, white hair, gift-related blood-pressure issues, and red and green sugar swirls, which some of you like to refer to as Xmas, to slowly inch its way closer.

Not at all.

But why am I sitting by the pool with the husband? Naturally, the whole trophy-wifeism explains why I'm there (since I do nothing at all, but wear the bikini-uniform of all trophy wives everywhere, with makeup on, my nails and hair done, and with a glass of chilled Chardonnay in hand, while I veritably glisten in the sun. Oh, no, wait. That's an 80s movie. I sit by the pool with oodles of sunblock on, sweating like a pig, and hoping the sun will bleach some of the black off the hair and help in making it blue, and read intermittently while sweat stings my eyes. Oh and it's not like I can even glisten, what with the unshaved legs. Yup.), but what about the Hubs? Shouldn't he be sweating away in the office, since apparently, as soon as most people are away on their summer vacations they turn off the air-conditioning to save money? But this could also be a pity-fishing ploy on the Viking's side. Hmm.

Why is it that we're planning an evening braai this time around?

Good thing there's Google. And wi-fi in the garden. Makes fact-finding so much easier. Even for a busy, completely randomly sweating, and unshaved trophy wife.

Turns out today is the Day of Reconciliation in South Africa. In the New South Africa, that is. In the Rainbow Nation of the beloved Madiba.

In the old South Africa this day was celebrated because the Afrikaners beat the shit out of some Zulus in the battle of Blood River (or did they?), but also because the African National Congress (ANC, the ruling party now) decided to take up arms in their fight against apartheid.

So really, this is a public holiday that has done a complete 180. This day used to be about killing, having killed, attempting to kill, and then some more killing. With a twist of blood and suffering.

And now it's about reconciliation. And pools. And braai. And the impending Christmas and some hardcore shopping. Definitely sounds like something I can totally get on board with. And something that makes all the sense in the world.

Observe the spin:

Christmas is linked to shopping by that whole deal of those guys who went and found myrrh (and how much was that?), gold and whatnot and made a present of all that to the newborn. The babe in turn connects the whole Xmas deelio to the institution of braai by the fact that he was appropriating for a bed the dinner plate of a bunch of sheep and cows and some other animals (Would you believe that I have actually read the whole Bible? I wouldn't. But I have. So. Yeah.). So plate + lamb = braai dinner. The pool comes in the picture by way of the concept of entertainment area in South Africa, which is never used to signify your living room, or anything inside your house for that matter, but your patio with your braai and your back garden with the possible pool and some palms and plants and such (I could also connect palm fronds to the man of the hour, but I won't mix it up anymore. And that's more Easter anyhoo). And finally, reconciliation comes into the picture by way of sitting by the pool around Christmas time simply being something a Finn and a Dane must reconcile themselves with.

Ha! And it all comes back to me. Huge surprise. Totally. And I can't believe I just wrote that whole thing. There must be something wrong with me. Surely.

But no worries. I'm sure some sun will clear my head. Or not.

Happy reconciling everyone! And big drunken smooches to all!

Seriously?

2009-12-14T10:25:00.002-06:00

In the past few days (okay, a month intermittently, but a few days sounds more efficient) I have been going through the clothes and shoes I own.

I'm not certain why.

Perhaps because in not so many days I'll really, truly be in my thirties as opposed to thirty, or because we're expecting that slew of house guests any day now and I've come to the realization that to pass this place off as remotely home-y and/or cozy I should probably unpack (What? We've only been here a year and a half? What's the rush?), or because my ever so slightly more controlled guzzling of vino (so that my si-sis can keep her liver in one piece a while longer) has seen the pounds come off (had it been beer, I would have effectively been on the 'man diet'), or because I was procrastinating with a certain photo-job that I'm now desperately bringing to a close as the deadline looms uncomfortably and I find myself wishing I could take half of the photos over with a polarizing filter. And someone else's skills.

To tell you the truth, I don't have any idea why.

But I do know one thing.

I'm one lucky woman.

Behold.

The outfit I wore when I met el Grande Vikingo (a.k.a. the Hubs) for the first time ever:

Yes, those are glued on sequins on pink animal print, and that is indeed pfleather. And no, I was never employed as a stripper or one of those coyote-ugly chicks. I wore that of my own free will. I did. In fact, I done brought it in that outfit.

Yah.

And we wont even mention the freakishly big woolen sweater that covered half of my face that I was wearing the second time that I met the big V. Or the giant Mickey Mouse T-shirt I insisted on wearing to bed the night I moved in with him (also known as the third time ever I met him) that I'd purchased as a souvenir from Disney World in 1994. Silver lining to that shirt is, I see it now, that I was unable to locate the matching silk boxers.

Thank Z for missing silk boxers. Those might have been the tipping point.

How to end up blacklisted by your workplace security:

2009-12-10T08:03:00.002-06:00

By following these easy 20 steps you too can have your name on that special list of difficult and dangerous people at your place of work.

It helps if you are already late on the first day of your assignment. And sweating profusely.

Leave the exact information of the location at home, and instead, whilst telling the guard who to inform of your arrival, call whoever it is that you are there to see by the wrong name. Have the guard wait while you access your hotmail via your cellphone to find the correct name, but only after he has already called another person.
Assume that when the guard, after your arrival has been confirmed, circles behind your vehicle, you are meant to drive forward, and to be ready for the boom to lift.
Ignore his yells as you do this.
When you do realize that what he wants to do is check your trunk instead, in a disoriented panic lift your foot off of the clutch and make the car jump forward making the guard jump also. Avoid the boom by a hair.
Shrug and laugh a little at the other guard peering angrily at you from the booth.
Ignore the first guard's pounding of the trunk and quietly wonder to yourself whether you should unlock the doors or what for the trunk to open.
Start the car again. Get very spooked at the loud Rihanna song blaring from the loudspeakers.
Put on the emergency lights while trying to turn off the radio.
Turn off the radio.
Finally unlock the doors.
As nothing happens, turn off the ignition and get out to check what is wrong. Remember to shrug, giggle nervously, and look at your watch repeatedly.
Ignore the people behind you in line honking their horns angrily.
Try the trunk.
Try the trunk again. More forcibly and with grand gestures.
Stare at the trunk for a little bit until someone honks so long that it begins to annoy you.
Turn to the first guard, stare at him in disbelief, and articulate clearly "For fok's sake, what in the fok did you do," and add for emphasis, should you so feel inclined: "FOK."
Realize what you have just said, smile, shrug again, and giggle more nervously than ever.
Get back into the car and put your sunglasses on. Cower with embarrassment.
Start the car as the boom goes up.
Drive out of sight. Quickly. And explain the confrontation to the person who hired you and who wants to know why you're unloading your camera bag, tripod and lights by taking down your backseat, in very different words.

Sometimes the answer is 'walk'.

I'm already out the door

2009-12-09T01:48:00.001-06:00

I blog best when nothing happens. I have come to realize that. I also wouldn't want to use this space as my diary, or as a place to organize my thoughts. I would rather write something you all some of you would enjoy reading.

But today I'm all about excuses and explanations, and very little of actual blogging.

So in short, too much is going on.

I'm having jobs, all of them actual photography gigs, thrown at me thanks to some incredibly serendipitous turns of events, and seeing as I know most of them are beyond my current abilities, there's quite a lot of stress, lenses, and general tripod-wreaked havoc going on. And plenty of me faking a capable photographer with chatter about portfolios, lighting, composition, and photoshop (by which I mean iPhoto, Elements, or Lightroom, since the actual Photoshop completely eludes me, but no one [apart from you, my lovely bleeps] needs to know that, and we are, after all, still more or less under the same-ish umbrella. No?).

There is also an incredibly cool project that Lynne of Wheatlands News is launching in the new year, I've managed to get myself involved in, and that I want to keep participating in to the best of my abilities. After all, the project enables me to do one of the few things I do, and have always done, extremely well - complain. In writing. For all the world to see. Thank you Lynne for this awesome opportunity to project my snark out there for all to enjoy read!

On top of that, new classes will start after Christmas, right when we are getting visitors. Three sets of them. Some of them my in-laws (there is a comment just aching to come out right here, but I have promised to Hubs to be respectful and nice[ish], so just insert your own baggage here please). Back to back. From three different countries. Who'll all be coming to South Africa for the first time. The first group of visitors arrives in little over two weeks, and the only thing I've done so far to prepare, is going out and getting 50 quality bottles of wine, and don't really see myself extending far beyond that either. Whilst they are here I'm confident I'll comfortably fake a hostess and a tour guide.

There is a clear connection between wine and the birthday boy after all, and if I can fake a photographer, I can surely fake a hostess/ tour guide. No sweat. This way, please. To enjoy the body of the man of the day, in largish quantities.

And it's summer. And the sun is shining, and the pool beckons with its turquoise water and the possibility of an afternoon spent reading a good book while sipping on some pale variation of the body of our savior. With ice.

I have excuses. Even religiously motivated ones. Surely I'm off the hook?

You just put them on your feet, you don't take photos of them. Duh.

2009-12-08T06:20:00.000-06:00

When in doubt, there are always shoes to blog about.

Well, shoes and the eradication of such evils as war, famine, sickness, and poverty. But sometimes just shoes in all of their complexity are enough. When that other stuff gets to be too much. Shoes; the ones in your closet, the ones on your feet, the ones you really want but can't afford, the ones that you were wearing when you met that special someone, the ones you wore to bury your grandma, or quickly slipped on your feet to rush out after that phone call, the ones that didn't quite match your wedding dress but you were beyond caring at that point, the ones that make you 3 inches taller and thus oodles more powerful, the ones you take off every night, or the ones that give you horrible blisters but look divine, and the ones you paid through the nose for but have never worn.

Or the ones that are surprisingly comfortable but that don't go with anything, but that you've regardless worn to every single shindig in the past 6 years requiring more than 5 minutes of standing up.

Or the ones you had to own in every color they came in, but have only ever worn the black ones.

Or the ones that make you look like a weirdo and always earn you comments and/or someone suspicious talking to you about your shoes.

Or the ones that you'll wear to that superimportant fancy-pants gala. That you will totally attend. As soon as you're invited. Sure you will. Soon.

Or the ones that could totally take all the other shoes. Hands [heels?] down.

Or any of the ones from your impressive, yet simultaneously extremely disturbing, collection of Converse and Birkenstocks. That you just love and wear all the time. Like right now. And sometimes to bed when you forget to take your shoes off and fall asleep on the couch. Or especially when you sleep on an airplane because there is nothing quite like the friction offered by the rubber soles of your chucks when the only thing that will allow for at least some circulation to your lower extremities is to wedge them onto the armrest of the annoying, smelly guy sitting in front of you.

Shoes shouldn't be forgotten. But embraced. Do you know what's going on with your shoes today? Do you even know where they are?

I don't.

Just ashes and water and a few helpful tips

2009-12-07T08:19:00.001-06:00

Just to set the mood. This is the closest to a picture of 'snark' I can find in my iPhoto.

So lately the Hubby is a huge patron of the performing arts.

Which in lay terms means that a few months ago I had a huge tantrum over not having anything to do on the Saturday nights, and that South Africa sucked because everyone I know has children (when will this fad be over?) and they couldn't get sitters and so couldn't come out to eat with us (and to answer that look in your eyes: No, I don't want to go out to a fancy restaurant with you and your offspring), drink nice wine with us, play night-golf with us, go to concerts with us, or do any of the kind of fun and cool wasting time stuff childless couples in their thirties spend most their time on. Or at least their Saturday nights.

South Africa was boring me. I was getting the urge to relocate, and had my mind set of Bolivia.

Don't you just love the sound of that name? Bo-LI-vi-a... (Yes, that is what I base many of my life-altering choices on - how things sound. What else?)

Imagine the panicked Hubby who still has a whole year of his contract left here in SA. And combine his desperation with an ingenious invention called Computicket.

Move forward a few months, and find out that we have already been to see the Beauty and the Beast, Cats, Cinderella on Ice, and we still have tickets for Saturday night performances of Stomp, Grease and Mamma Mia.

All local productions. Sure. Which until now has signified unintended humor and Cats dying (the Beast included). Metaphorically, yet extremely painfully, on stage for two whole hours. Except of course for the latest nightmare, Cinderella on Ice, which was mainly performed by Russian, Ukranian, Latvian and other skating hasbeens and neverbeens.

While it was about 30º celsius outside.

On a stage that was roughly 30m x 20m (i.e. miniscule for any attempts at skating), and that by the beginning of the second half had become more of a puddle than actual ice to skate on to awkwardly move on whilst wearing skates.

But that eventually offered plenty of Saturday-night entertainment in the form of:

A possible drinking game based on the clap-happy South African audience who obviously feels that anyone who can turn on skates deserves a round of applauds. Whenever that person turns on skates. Yes, every single time. Every. Single. Time.
Another kind of potential drinking game based on checking out who in the first couple of rows is hit by the sludge coming off of the skates as the performers manage pirouettes. And what parts of the body are hit. Face of course meaning a double-shot.
A possible drinking game for the people around me based on the numerous times I turn to the Hubby to have the following exchange:

Me: Ha! I can do that! I can. I totally can. And I can do it better!

Hubby: Honey, you're Finnish. All Finns can do that better.

Me: Exactly! How much are we paying to see this again?

Hubby: Just watch the damned thing.

A different kind of potential drinking game focused on the guy playing the prince/ mayor's son getting his light-colored pants wetter by the second from the puddle he attempts to skate on and guessing how long it will take for his pants to be wet all the way to his crotch and reveal the part of him he, according to the program, doesn't normally reveal to Cinderella but to the evil stepmother instead, who he has a son with. This game can, and possibly should be extended to the numerous times the prince/ mayor's son checks out his wife's 40 kilogram body and clearly isn't turned on by the sturdy thighs (or any other sturdy/hefty/ample body part of your choice) of our poor Cinderella.
A possible drinking game based how many times all of us will have to admire someone's russian panties. (Really, aren't these people supposed to wear a sort of leotard if the audience is going to be exposed to their undergarment area? Not panties underneath a pantyhose? because the latter just doesn't somehow spell Cinderella to me. It spells Victoria's Secret and just leads me to wonder whether Heidi Klum can skate and whether she ever could, what with those enormous wings they make her wear at all times, but maybe that's just me.)
A fun drinking game involving making up professions for Heidi Klum where the wings would be a bonus and not a hindrance, while giving the other people in the audience dirty looks for coughing something out there that very well could be H1N1.
A slightly off drinking game based on the parts of the clock (?) emerging onto the stage, and how many dirty ways one can find to describe what goes for their 'costume': A helmet-type of contraption that any sadomasochist enthusiast would find orgastic indeed combined with what can at best be described as Captain Kirk's Sunday best. With sequins.
A devious drinking game involving flapping bingo-wings during the standing ovations (I'm at the brink of losing all faith in South Africans' common sense.) and a weapon of your choice. be gentle and only aim for the wings. You know that is the right thing to do.

So all this to say: Should you ever feel forced to go see Cinderella on Ice, or anything on ice for that matter, especially if there really isn't that much ice to speak of (outside of your glass), bring at least one bottle of tequila, an assortment of shot glasses, a print-out of this here post (since I've already done the coming up with shit part for you and you can just proceed straight to drinking. Thank you very much.), and be ready to drink. A lot.

Disclaimer: All rights reserved. These games may induce nausea, sleep, and hate mail. But generally, we're cool with all that shit, so no worries.

All roads lead to Namibia

2009-12-04T05:50:00.000-06:00

I have never insisted that I have any sort of social graces, or that I'm one of those people who others are easily drawn to or want to confide in, and all that fuzzy goodness some people seem to possess.

Instead, upon meeting someone new more often than not, especially if I'm outside of my 'professional' context (literary theory, tequila, coffee, or wine), I say the wrong thing when I don't mean to, come off as arrogant (which I sort of am too but that is completely beside the point and actually has to be considered one of my endearing qualities because there is nothing I can do to change it), manage to insult the other person's values, beliefs, teeth, spouse, television viewing habits, hight, taste in music, children, hobbies, or some other less definable thing, or make inappropriate jokes that are not at all understood as humor. At all.

Sometimes stuff just pours out of my mouth, and well, you would know what that can be like if you've been reading this blog for a while. Stuff just pours out.

But there are some people I instantly click with, and then many more I really wish I would instantly click with but with some effort manage to grow on over time, arrogance, inappropriate humor and all.

Now I'm trying to grow on Lynne who was brave enough to visit me yesterday. At my house. She even ate something I had warmed up in the oven. And that is true bravery I tell you.

And I wish I could take back the ten whole minutes I kept talking about the road-system in Namibia (where I've never been), had asked some nice questions instead, and perhaps also nipped the incoherent babble about riding an elephant in the bud, and talked about something interesting. Like my hair. Or the municipal governance system.

But like Lynne guessed, I was on my best behavior, trying to contain the opinionated crazy lady, and for some reason that apparently meant talking about roads in Namibia. I mean, once you think about it, it makes thorough sense: Why not the roads in Namibia?

They are, after all, roads, and in Namibia, nonetheless. So yeah. Uhhuh.

This is NOT a road in Namibia. Also, it's not a road either, it's somewhere between a path and an alley. I think.

There will be a completely random picture of a snail below

2009-12-03T06:53:00.001-06:00

First of all, thank you so much for all of your lovely comments. They do make my day. Every day (and I do wish I could hang out with all of you in real life, so what's up with not wanting to come to SA for a blog camp...?)

The comments also kept me thinking for a whole glorious unbloggable day about this business of 'becoming cold'. And made me realize that, while I didn't perhaps get across exactly what my main fear about the whole thing is, it being the supposition that I'm becoming (because it is always going to boil down to ME at some point) a little too heavy and unpalatable for those whose day to day bears no resemblance to mine (i.e. How can I ever even think about someday returning to Europe without thinking that I'll alienate everyone by talking about the things close to my heart - while I already do that to quite an extent with talk about farts and such, and, you know, just by being the very humble and non-confrontational me that I tend to be), there are people out there who will understand. And listen. Even when I chit chat about the statistics that show that one in every three females in South Africa is raped at least once in her lifetime. And will attempt to help rectify the situation and, if nothing else, raise awareness about it. Or at least wont ever, behind my back or otherwise, refer to me as 'too heavy' in its dreaded denotation: mentally (Physically? Who gives a shit? Not me. That's who ...not? who doesn't? Err...).

But there's also something else going on. Something to do with the joy of blogging and the good things that are the result of this world of threads, connections, and links. But that has made me, very oddly indeed and in a way that has scared the Hubby in ways not expected, clean the house. By which I mean organize the growing pile of random stuff on the dining room table and the kitchen counter, that are off limits for the maid, and move most of the piles - now organized/repiled - to random places upstairs, closets, and just generally away from the field of vision of anyone entering the house through the front door. Should anyone choose to enter through the balcony, well, that would be a different issue.

Like meeting someone, who I feel like I already sort of know because I've been reading this person's awesome blog for a while (and reread most of it the previous day), and feel like there is so much to learn from this person about the land, her land, that I am residing in. Also, I'm really happy to be meeting this person, because, frankly, she is someone I really respect, and someone who was sort of part of the struggle back in the day and I really truly wish that all of the people I keep meeting in South Africa would be like that, while unfortunately, they really truly are not.

So welcome Lynne of Wheatlands News. May you find this Tuscany-infested, backwood-plagued estate we call home without hitting one single traffic cone at the side of the road, which seem to be there just to make us then, in June 2010, when we are ready to scream because of the FIFA World Cup-induced traffic, appreciate the time when all we had to worry about were all of the loose stones on the road, the horrendous potholes, the ubiquitous but completely superfluous traffic cones (that do NOT mark the potholes), and the roads that just stop suddenly without any warning because someone thought of ripping the road apart and just building a new road a couple of meters to the side. For the World Cup.

Welcome. To my, now pileless, home.

More on this story tomorrow...

Let's imagine that the above is somehow relevant and that I'm not too busy to blog. And let's also pretend that I didn't forget to take a picture of Lynne, because I did and now I'm a little ashamed. Bad Extranjera! And let's also state that the above is nothing like the energetic and bubbly Lynne, but I'm off to chat to someone on Skype and all of this is a little haphazard and random today. Sorry folks. I just like the picture.

Thanks so much. Love and airkisses to all. I promise to get my focus back soon.

Expatriate life - The other side of the coin.

2009-12-01T03:45:00.001-06:00

Something seems to have happened to my sensibilities in Africa.

No, that's not a euphemism. I do actually, completely honestly, mean my sensibilities. As in 'a person's delicate sensitivity that makes them readily offended or shocked'. Not my boobs. My boobs are as fine as they've ever been. Well, there have been some visits from this unfortunate concept this Newton guy came up with, that have happened seemingly overnight, but nothing that a good bra won't sort out.

So boobs good. Sensibilities not so much.

Ever since I can remember, I have been a causes kind of a gal. Easily incensed when I feel someone or something is being wronged purely on the basis of that someone or something's accident of birth, physical being, nationality, mental attributes or state, beliefs, coat, or traditions. I have always felt strongly about equality and personal choice.

As a teenager in Finland I hopped on the 'Fur is Murder' wagon, protested, campaigned, and went vegetarian quicker than you could say soaking lentils overnight gets tiresome quickly, but looking menacing with too much eye makeup and purple hair while holding up a sign is every teen's dream. I belonged to and campaigned for both Greenpeace and Amnesty international. When I and the Hubs first lived in Greece I used to cry at the sight of every single roadkill, and once attempted to scale the wall of a closed off cemetery to save a little pooch who I deemed was bound to die of heat exhaustion if I didn't get it out in time. I dreamt of that dog for years. In Mexico I and the Hubs stopped at the site of every car accident and even 'accident' we came across regardless of being told several times not to even drive with our car doors unlocked, and we also seriously contemplated adopting a three-year-old boy with fetal alcohol syndrome until we found out that his grandmother, regardless of having stuck him in an orphanage, would never relinquish custody.

But that was then, and this is now.

I think the eroding of my Finnish sensibilities began with the 60 'orphans' in Mexico, and their backgrounds of abandonment, physical and sexual abuse, violence, extreme poverty, and death. Amongst other things, my job was to direct and raise funds, as well as channel and train volunteers for the orphanage, and in order to do that I had to learn about the children. About how wrong someone's starting point in life could be, and what unfortunate circumstances could really signify in relation to a little life.

I couldn't save everyone, or even most, tears made absolutely no difference, and no matter how hard I tried there were always going to be new and worse cases, and that was just how it was going to be.

I had to be cold about it, and stay focused on the difference I was making instead of the difference that could have been made had we only had "a few more people", "some more funds", "a little more support", "a little less politics to deal with", "a little more time," and a "little less indifference."

And then I came to Africa.

Today, on December 1st, is World AIDS Day.

I look at the World AIDS day website and a quote jumps at me: "I was diagnosed with HIV seven months ago. It has made me more conscious about my health and made me realise what is important. No matter what - life goes on. I don't suffer with HIV, I live with it." This is Gary's story, and I'm sure he's right. He won't die of AIDS, at least not for a long time. He's in Europe, he'll be able to live with his chronic condition for many years yet.

"Good for Gary," I find myself thinking, when, really, I should be incensed, I should be livid, I should be campaigning and protesting so that World AIDS Day is never again a day when what jumps at you from their official website are success stories of lucky Europeans or Americans who are at peace with having this horrible disease, coping with having to take medication every day, and having to reconcile with always using a condom during sex.

What should jump at anyone looking at the website is the number, almost unbelievable in today's modern world, of the daily deaths of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. That number is around 4100.

Approximately 4100 people die every single day in sub-Saharan Africa of AIDS.

I should also be annoyed beyond belief and readied for some serious action by the fact that I had to go to seven different websites and actually do some math myself to come up with that number. When it should really be the first thing one sees on a HIV/ AIDS website.

And one should be driven to help out. Right away.

AIDS still kills in Africa. In Zambia selling tombstones is a lucrative business.

But AIDS is only one in the vast ocean of things that should make me cry and jump into action every single day on this continent.

Instead, I trudge on, helping, but every once in a while forgetting completely the miserable reality that for many is their complete existence here in Southern Africa. I live in the hope that the "Good job! You could be the teacher," followed by a soft pat on a little shoulder in response to a perfectly written 'Miss Extranjera's camera is black' will stay with the growing mind that thought up the sentence, and someday maybe bear fruit. I don't kid myself about making a difference, but allow for the possibility.

(Okay. So they don't actually call me Extranjera at the school, they call me by my real name. There are some people, out there in the real world, who do. Honest.)

I don't cry anymore when I find out that someone's mother died of AIDS. For a short time I'm reminded how unfair life can be, then I buy kilos and kilos of rice and beans to help tie the poor family over for a while, but quickly go onto wondering whether a new 7-iron would improve my game. The other day I drove past a cyclist on the ground who had been run over. A crowd was waiting for the ambulance to arrive. As I drove past the crowd I glanced back. Half of the cyclist's skull was gone, and I doubt he was going to make it. I didn't dream of him.

When I'm in Europe or in the States I'm often met with awkward silences or looks that clearly plead with me to shut up already, because I'm off on a monologue about the lack of improvement in the welfare situation complete with examples to make the lecture more touching, more personal, but that clearly make it unpalatable for many, or I'm making chit chat about the ubiquitousness and causes of rape in South Africa, and quickly reaching many a person's tolerance point.

It's just that there is often an overload of misery and injustice, and I'm slowly becoming numb to both. I'm becoming cold.

I am cold.

Something seems to have happened to my sensibilities in Africa.