Incidents of me

Back when Facebook didn't exist, I used to be a member of an online expat forum and quite often used to post my blonde moments. As it turns out I was a regular poster. *grin*

I kind of wish I had kept drafts of those posts as a reminder of things not to do. And because they were amusing. I don't think I can remember half of them. The incident with a glitter bath bomb is one that sticks in my head - note: NEVER use one of those bombs the day before your yearly lady appointment.

Anyway, I've put one such incident on facebook and since it's such an 'epic fail' (in the words of the youth), I thought I'd edit it and share it here. It was written 20 September 2009. Here goes: *quick edit - I have NEVER used that brand again - in fact I wasn't the first nor last to do it and the opening mechanism has been change. Secondly, I ended up losing 0.04% of sight in that eye*

My bathroom and I have a love/hate affair. I love it and it hates me. It's come to this situation where I almost fear to run a bath, wondering what it store has in for me next. And I don't understand it at all, since all I do is buy it pretty stuff!

For those that have read my bathroom 'issues' before, believe me when I say this new one just goes straight into the charts at number one.

So we've had the overflowing bubbles, we've had the bath bomb that glittered me from head to toe before the visit to the doctor (EVERYTHING was glittery - I really dressed up for that visit!) and now we have the case of the errant Shower & Shave.

I decided on Tuesday night, that I needed a late night bath and decided to crack open a new bottle of shower gel - Shower & Shave Imperial Leather...I don't think the flavour is important but it was the Jasmine and Nightflower one in case anyone is interested (it had some such stupid name).

I've opened plenty of these things before, I have the whole range (I HAD the whole range, they are now at my parents) so I barely looked at the thing. Well, actually I did look at the thing, that bit will become clear! So I looked at it, tried to open it and the stupid idiotic S&Shave squirted with HUGE pressure right into my eye socket.

It was like I had a Great White in the bath with me - or maybe I was the Great White? Whatever, I thrashed and screamed and shouted and cried in absolute agony. My 11 year old slept through the ordeal btw, giving me knowledge that should I ever fall down the stairs and break many bones, he'll be as good as a chocolate teapot. I rubbed the eye, I splashed it - got a nice foam up. ;o) And still I was bawling like a newborn. I crawled out the bath, taps on cold and rinsed eye for the next 5 hours - bad move - that just did more damage. Btw, I was sobbing throughout this and STILL, the 11 year old was having sweet dreams! lol

The next day looking like I'd been punched in the face with a big fat bottle of shower gel, I ended up in A&E and the eye clinic for near enough 7 hours!! Prognosis is that the swelling will go down (as it has - I no longer look like I've had a stroke), but it will take a while to get full sight back - if ever.

This is not something I recommend out of all my bath drama's (the glitter bomb I actually do recommend for that special night - not the next day gynae visit) - the saline wash out with a mini-hose is not fun and best left to those with a love for torture.

I was thinking that I should just stay indoors for the rest of the year (one broken limb, one broken eye gives me a good enough reason) but then I'm scared the bathroom will just have more time to be evil!

5 days after the event, I'm okay to laugh at this now.

Attack of the grumps

It must be because it's January?

Everyone says that at least once in this month. They blame a month for all sorts of things... oh yes because it's January.

But it works, everyone nods their collective heads and says very sagely 'ah yes, it's January'. As if this month, this poor defenceless month, can be blamed for our wallets being empty, our clothes not fitting and our tempers fraying.

When in actual fact, it's all our own fault. Our wallets are empty because we overspent at Christmas (an easy thing to do), our clothes don't fit because we ate FAR too much and the exercise plan went skids up. And our tempers are fraying because of the prior sentence. The monthists among us will surely cry, 'I always knew December had a hand in this'.  However, it's not fair to blame our woes on a month. You have to question if it's ever fair to blame anything on something when your hand has influenced the very woe you're grumping over.

And I'm not without blame here. I dread February in the Northern Hemisphere. It's the coldest month and it's the month where I'm generally broke. But I think this year, this year, I'll be different.

All through 2011, I was thinking about how change is something that cries out to be taken notice of. 2012, I would like to think I would do it. This last weekend, I've been almost shouted at by the Universe. I can hear it banging at my head. The trouble being, if I do all the things that I'm thinking I should, I don't think I'm going to be very much liked. I said that I wanted 2012 to be about me saying NO to bad behaviour and people making poor excuses for their bad behaviour. And for the most part of this month, that's exactly what I've done. But there are one or two people who I routinely excuse. And it's not fair really on the people I don't excuse.

Sadness

Today I heard a cat get run over, I saw it's last moments played out before me and I sobbed like it was my very own kitty. I could barely face it.

I was sitting in the car, waiting for JG and CG. I looked down the path and saw a cat shoot up towards my parked car and then bump! as the car coming down the road (not speeding) hit it. I looked out my driver window and saw the cat in it's last throes.

I honestly did not know what to do, I froze with my hands to my face. Any other person would have been out the car in a flash, trying to administer first aid. Me, I just turned into those girls I don't like, all the shrieking 'oh no no no oh no oh no'. I clambered over the gears and into the passenger side and saw my dad coming up the path. I reverted to about 5 years of age 'Daddy, daddy, the cat the cat'. While sobbing. Still, a bit of the mother resided in me as I sent CG away back down the path. The woman who was in the other car was just as frantic as I - and we clung to each other like it was a beloved pet of ours.

The cat died. My dad dealt with it all.

And now some hours later, I'm still left with this sick feeling. The cat was feral so it won't be missed, which is sad in itself. That no one will cry for it (bar myself and the other lady).

But why was I so useless? I'm the mother of a teenager, I've dealt with many an accident involving CG, blood, stitches and visits to A&E and I've coped admirably. But when it comes to animals, I turn into an incapable mess. I hark back to when Fluffy the rabbit met his Maker. I was inconsolable for days. Winnie the parakeet. I held him in my hands until he died and was hysterical on the phone to the vet, so much so that I thought I'd end up getting a shot. Tyson the Russian hamster (he bit everyone hence the name) - I ran to my parents with cage in one hand, a three month old CG in the other, screaming that Tyson had popped his clogs.
It's really no surprise that people are amazed CG has made it to 13. But clearly, it's just animals that I fall apart at the seams over. When Mom had her stroke, I went into a very capable mode. When Dad's knee went disgusting, I turned into Florence Nightingale. And when CG swallowed his marble and choked on it, I did everything it tells you to in the first aid courses.

Anyway, poor kitty who ran out of lives today. No collar, no name, but remembered in my heart.
R.I.P

Sunday reflections

And I'm doing a blog from my phone. Gosh, how 21st century of me. It's a truly gorgeous day so I'm sitting on my step with a cup of coffee. And having a teeny reflection.

School haze

I went to an all girls school from the age of 5 and 3/4 to the age of 16 and 3 months. Then I went co-ed.
People assume a lot of things when you tell them that but unless you've been to an all girls school, there are some things you don't get. Having been to both sorts, I can clarify that they are world's apart.

You don't get 'sisterhood' like you do at a girls school anywhere else. And I dont' mean the stuff of boy's fantasies like pillow fights, pseudo-lesbian kisses in the toilets blah blah blah. I mean this: You could despise a girl at school (and her friends, cliques are huge in all girls schools) - and girls can be the meanest things on the planet. Come Saturday and there's a school disco at a neighbouring school, you see that girl being argued with or picked on by another school, you stick up for her. Because she's one of your own.

And some hundred years that's the same. On the good old facebook today a friend wrote about seeing a girl we went to school with down on her luck. A few hours later and 47 comments later and there's offers left, right and centre on help for this woman and her family. We don't know who she is, just that she's an old girl.

And that's something I'm proud to belong to. Might be a bit sappy to say but it's truth nonetheless.

Amusing antidote of sorts: my schooling was done in South Africa. The girls school I went to is quite well known. I'm in England now. When my mom had her stroke she went to a rehab unit in a neighbouring town. One day, a nurse comes to me and tells me there's an old dear who is from Cape Town, could I go and say hello as she's heard my accent. Off I trot and there she is: this grande dame - all of about 80 years old (So there's several generations between us if not more).
She immediately quizzes me, where did I grow up. I say Kenilworth. She asks what school I went to: I tell her Wynberg Girls. She tosses her white cap of hair and looks down her nose and says 'Young lady, I am a RustyBug'. Holding back a giggle I retort: "Well we all have our cross to bear". RustyBug being the terminology for another girls school in Cape Town of which there was some rivalry. It amuses me, because our paths would never have crossed, her being that much older, we were now in a different country. But still, she wasn't going to give an inch to a rival school.

Exploding heads

I told my dad about this blog and he wanted to know what I wrote. So I said I wrote stuff and I told him that I had written about Mom and the Octopus. He chuckled and wanted to know if I had told the people who read about The Exploding Heads. I said I hadn't and then wondered why I hadn't. Here goes another memory from my annals of time. This does not show me in my brightest light but then entertainment is the key here.

When I was 15 my dad turned 50. My mom threw a party. It was a raucous affair. My dad's friends came from far and wide. This included my Uncle Peter. Him and my dad had been friends since they were 16 in England, they went out to South Africa together and it was mayhem when they got together. I reckon I could write blog after blog over the tricks they pulled on myself, H, S and K (Uncle Peter's daughters - always considered them my bigger sisters) and never be finished - there would always be another tale to tell. Anyhooo, the stage is set for the 50th. There's Uncle Sid (another immigration friend) who thought the Archers in the freezer was ice water and kept topping up his triple whiskey's with it - he didn't surface from his bed for 3 days we were told. There's my dad passed out in the pantry on the pretence he's looking for more soda stream gas bottles. And then there's Uncle Peter, who has discovered tequila and is LOVING tequila mixed with Baileys. "Oooooh this is JUST like ice-cream, I MUST have another" This is while he is dancing with my wine-fuelled mother on the tables.
For my N (my best friend also 15) and I this was a revelation. We'd seen drunk parents before, but never in this state. It was hysterically funny and as we sneaked a few cans of Hunters Gold into the garden, we laughed at how silly they were. And we were good girls, we put all the drunk adults to bed. Dad from the pantry to his bed with Mom, Uncle Peter to the lounge where there was a lovely fire warming it up with it's embers.
So the next morning dawns and there are a lot of sore heads. N and I bound into the dining room as there is bound to be bacon and eggs on offer. As we walk into the dining room, a hush descends. My dad just shakes his head at us in a rueful manner. "Girls, girls" he says
We look at each other, we look at uncle Peter. He looks, quite frankly, pretty awful. Really white and drawn.
Dad is whispering "He nearly died last night girls, because of you". We gasp! US! Surely not, we put him to bed on the mattress on the floor by the fire, covered him up nicely.
"Aaah" he continues with Uncle Peter trying to nod in the background "but you NEVER EVER put someone to bed with their head facing the fire, it swells the brain and well, if I hadn't saved him when I did...."
We were mortified, N started crying. And we apologised and grovelled and everything they wanted that day, they got with bells on.
Fast forward to a day in the future, some 12 years later and I'm 27. And I'm sitting with my dad and Uncle Peter and I'm a mother to a child. And it comes up in conversation and once again, I apologise.
They laugh so much they can barely talk and it turns out: it was a load of crap. It was just a trick.

12 years I believed that, told strangers never to put anyone to bed with their head facing an open fire.

And that's just one of the many ways they fooled all of us girls. There's a lot of things I go to say (that I learnt from them) and then think 'hmmm I wonder if that was true'.

I'm still not convinced that if you play competitively for your country, you get an actual hat.

my day off

I proclaimed this on Tuesday: "Thursday is my day off, pretend I'm at work, for I will be doing NOTHING!".
That was my plan, phone on silent, just me and the house and some 'me' time.  Some personal space.

It's now just prior to 11am and I have sorted out the debacle at the library, awaiting a callback from another organisation (possibly more on that later), have cleared up the garden (it's nice out there) a little bit, hoovered, done some ironing, bleached the bathroom and totally left the kitchen to it's own devices. What happened to me slobbing about?

It's really nice to have a day to myself though. To just be in my own company. Is it the only child thing I wonder? That every now and again, I just 'vant to be left alone'. That I become sick and tired of people and need to recharge on my lonesome. It's not that I don't like people or being around those I like but gee, I do relish time on my own.

Now, why is it that the library has better customer service than the organisation I work for? Which I am a customer of as well. I can't name it as I might get into trouble but what I do know is, if I gave the level of customer service I get, my line manager and higher would have my guts for garters. And it's the same bloody building!! So annoying, I was told I would get a callback immediately. An hour later and I'm still waiting. That's just rubbish.

My mom

Since the stroke (4 years this month) my mom has struggled with getting her mouth to say what her brain means. She knows what she wants to say, she just can't say it.

She battles with remembering my name but since she's called me 'sweetheart' and 'darling' for most of my life, I don't begrudge her not getting Alison out there. My son's name she is okay with and she can spell Dad's and her own. But still, I keep saying to her 'What's my name, what's my name' (just like a Rihanna song).

This week she decided it was Veronica. VERONICA!! I've NEVER been a Veronica. Even prior to my birth, I was a Bronwyn, Morag or Megan, never Veronica! Still that was amusing. Today not so much.

CG is a massive 14 in February... I'm another age after that. We were chatting about this and I said I found it lovely that Stephen Hawkings had made it to 70. The conversation went on, we discussed that she was an age of 60+ this year blah blah blah and then she says 'and you'. So dad informs her I'll be **. She says

"No!" Like it's unbelievable that I could be that old. I confirm it is true. She says "You'll be 70!"

Somehow, me and Stephen Hawkings age had become interwined and that was that.

So in March I'll be 70 - older than my mother!

2012

Ugh! I hate that my first post in 2012 was about that awful man. So here's a much better one. :D
New Years are all about resolutions aren't they? I don't normally make them but I thought I'd give it a little bit of a go this year.
1) No more making excuses for bad behaviours or attitude (this is going well, so far it's not broken)
2) Try to stop Coca Cola intake (this lasted a day and a half before the crippling headache reared it's ugly little head)
3) Now that I'm getting older, attempt a beauty regime of creams and stuff (when I remember, this is working a treat!)
4) Don't stress with work stuff (day 5 of work and so far I've only rolled my eyes twice)
5) Don't smoke (pretty easy since I gave up AGES ago!) *always good to put a resolution in you KNOW you're going to keep

All in all, 2012 is working in my favour. Here's hoping it's working out for everyone too. Seems like a lot of people I know, have had a rough couple of years (I do hope I'm not the common denominator!?) and I hope this is the year it all turns around for everyone.

That bloody man

I'm not friends with this person on face book. Because it's my choice. Because he's a bad father and a very poor excuse of a man. I cannot fathom how this man has not realised that the world has NOT conspired against him to give him a shit time, but that he has made those choices himself. He's the person who blames everything and everyone for his crap existence, except the one person who made it so: him.

I fear this may come across as bitter and twisty. However, it does really piss me off that this man does not own up to his financial responsibility to my son. That he owes SO much in backdated child maintenance yet will not pay a penny. So while he swans around in all his cars, buys new puppies, has a business, with a girlfriend that doesn't work and so on, I sit here and pray that my son's feet don't grow anymore between now and pay day.

And I've not harassed anyone for money, I find it crass and horrible and I'm not pushy in that way. And CG has NEVER gone without.

Oh hell, maybe I am bitter and twisty. Of course every now and again I get an abusive email from him and his girlfriend which makes me thankful they aren't a part of my life. Their grammar is atrocious for one! (t.i.c)