Hair to nail polish

When I'm chatting on the phone, I find my hands get a bit lost and are bored. Now that I don't smoke, I have to find other ways to occupy them.

Last night, I was on the phone to *gosh it's hard to think of alias' for everyone* L2 when my little eye spied something beginning with N. The nails needed a touch up of Golden Twilight - which is sort of a black/purple nailpolish with flecks of gold in it.

While chattering away, I touched up the one hand, and then tried to do the other. But while I'm female and therefore, multi-tasking should come natural, last night I lost it a bit. I do feel shame and I am mortified and I shall repent at my leisure.

In my left shoulder I had the phone, I was talking and laughing (as we do), I was painting my left hand, when I got an itch on my hairline. Before I realised what I was doing, I had scratched my itch.

I did do a quick check, but this is the quick drying stuff.

Phone call finished, and off I trotted to bed. Woke up, had a shower, went to work. It was only after I had gone through security doors, said hello to several people, gone to the canteen and come back did someone tell me I had Golden Twilight (which isn't golden at all, very much an emphasis on the twilight) on my chin/jawbone.
That was cleaned up fairly quickly.

It wasn't until some 3 hours later when I realised I had Twilight Highlights as well. And black on blonde is not really such a hot look for me. It's not one I'll attempt again! Did not take a picture of the hair/face paint but here's a picture of the colour (sort of). It's a pretty crappy brand in that it always chips after one day of use. Just while I'm saying: Avon you suck a bit at nailpolish wear and tear.

Mama and the Octopus

Let me set the scene. It's 1993 and it's a Sunday. I'm 19 and under duress, I am at the beach with my parents. It's a lovely place to be with lots of alcoves and chalets and stuff, and we've been here often. It's a favourite family place. But I'm 19 and want to be around family like I want snow in December. Not a lot. If you want, you could google map Beachview, Port Elizabeth. There are rocks, from which clever people get all sorts of mussels and oysters etc. My mother never normally joined us out on the rocks. Mainly because it takes her HOURS to delicately make her way over the jagged rocks and also because getting her trainers mucky isn't something she does.
However, on this day, the allure of oysters is just too great and some 3 hours later, she joins us in foraging.

Dad is about 10 jagged rocks to the right, Mom has one foot in a paddling pool between two steep rocks. The other foot is on a rock. I'm arsing about on the top of mother's rock as I'm far too cool to be a hunter gatherer. I'm better at watching waves.

I hear my mother giggling and saying 'Oh stop it John' (my dad) and 'Oh that tickles, stop it' and then: 'OW' so I look over- and my dad is still 20 metres away. I ask the woman "Who ARE you talking to, Daddy is over there?" - I probably did an eye roll - I was 19 like that.

She looks up, she looks down.... and she SCREAMS! Loudly! So loud that Dad comes bounding over the rocks like Bambi on speed.

With one more mighty shriek, she lifts up the leg that's in the rock pool and there's a great big octopus dangling off it. (I say 'great big' but like any sea faring story, the octopus size increases with each telling of the tale)

She kicks it with such force that not even *insert a fine goalkeeper name here* would have been able to save it.

Said octopus goes flying in Daddy's direction (he ducks, the crowd goes wild!)

Mother then scrabbles up rock face, crying and screaming all at once. Her lovely painted long nails are shredded by the time she gets to me. She grabs me, clings to me, whelping like a puppy: "mommy mommy mommy" over and over again. It's like she's trying to climb ONTO my head.

Took us nearly an hour to get her over about 10 rocks. Like a limpet she was, clinging to us. A few cups of tea and she stopped calling for her mommy.

No one ever enquired after the octopus but Mom does have a little scar on her ankle from the experience.

And that's some 17 years ago now and it still remains the family story that makes me cackle like a hyena every time I tell it. Consider it shared!

Dear Ri

6 March 1984 I wrote my first entry in my first ever diary. Gillian Anderson (not the X-Files lady) gave it to me for my birthday @ my Mike's Kitchen birthday party. And so the next 27 years were borne. lol
I gave my diary a name. It seemed like the right thing to do. And I still start my entries as I did that first one. Like I'm writing to someone. What do I call my diary. Well, even at age 10, I didn't want to be like everyone else and write (ho hum yawn) "Dear Diary". So I called her Ri. Say it aloud. See what I did? Looking back, I do think it's rather clever of my 10 year old self to do.
I wrote gibberish that first year, full of mooning over Magnum and George Michael and my friend T and I running all over the neighbourhood. The next two years are spent wondering why all the boys on their BMX's loved T and not me. Truth is, at age 11 and now, she is stunning and I was/am the shorter than average, freckled chubby cheeked brat!
I look back at those entries and cry with laughter. In 1986, I got my first kiss - this entry has been read out on GMTV by Richard and Judy (oh the heights of fame!) and it makes me giggle "Today M kissed me, on the mouth, with his lips, open - wow!"
1987 we hit high school - entry of the naive 13 year old has to be "H asked me if I'd ever given anyone a BJ. I dunno, have I? I'm not sure.Will have to ask Catty on the weekend". H being a girl in boarding school who probably gave them for breakfast, and Catty being my long-suffering aunt.  1987 is the start of much peer pressure on both sides of a coin, bitchiness and angst. And wanting boys who didn't notice me. But best of all, making friends who have lasted the distance and years.
1988 - I do dislike reading this year. It's the year I tried so very hard to fit in and be cool and failed oh so miserably. It's a year when I pissed off my mother, my family and burnt friendships at a glance. But also parts are so much fun like when TSG and I got grounded for two weeks at a time regulary. Fab groundings when everyone came to visit us!

I'm so glad I keep a diary. It's not the same as it was back then, I write now more about how I feel, when I feel like it, not so much an everyday affair. But the diaries back then are more like scrapbooks before they became the 'thing to do' that they are now. They are filled with momento's and dates and all the important stuff a teenager wants to remember.  I have a menthol cigarette stuck in my diary in 1990 from a friend, 50c that we picked up. Condom wrappers from a 'jiffy' that L put inbetween the train doors. Bet she doesn't remember that. lol
And if you had me as a friend back then, then you could ask me what you did on a certain day and I'd probably be able to tell you.

I guess I'm the historian of my friends. Shall we get remembering?

Numbers

So I was talking to the gals the other day.... and it was that age old chat about how many is too many. People to sleep with I mean. And the double standards. When a man informs you that he is almost into triple figures, you gasp a bit and then laugh. When a woman informs you of the same fact, why do we gasp and then think 'tad slutty'. Is it because as a woman, the majority invest quite a lot of emotion into sex? And you wonder how much emotion have you lost by sharing it with half the world?

And I've come to the conclusion that there is no 'acceptable' number - if indeed you can remember your number. If you are happy, then be happy. I've also come to the conclusion that EVERYTHING is a 'memory maker' and when you can sit in  your rocking chair age 90 and go 'well back in 1991, there was this one boy..and in 2003 I met this chap.', then you have lived and living is good.

While I'm thinking and typing, isn't it also a bit rude to ask 'numbers' of people? And maybe it's better not to know, I'm not sure I want to share my body with someone who's been around all the blocks twice. Yes for sure, they're probably damn good at what they do but in all other areas of my life, I thrive on the unique experience, not one where half the town goes 'oh yeah, I did that'.

Mind babble over...

Halloween

I don't get it, I really don't. You spend your years as a parent, telling your children to never ever take sweets from strangers. Yet, one day a year, parents all over the world, dress their kids up in fancy dress and encourage them to knock on strangers doors and ask for sweeties. Why do we do that?
And I feel guilt because I haven't done the trick and treating with my son... guilt - seriously!!!!! I've let him go around our street - and the people he knows, but strangers? Nope.
And I don't think I'm a bad parent for this. So there!

Memory Maker

Oh I've done it again, I've left my heart somewhere it has no place to be. It appears I've also left my balance there as well, as I have very little of it about my person at the moment - maybe this is why I'm over emotional and doing my best not to wish I was somewhere I'm not going to be. I know things are what they are but I'm really only human and I'm also a female, so there's a speck of me who is such an hopeless romantic, who kind of wishes things WERE different, that it was an ideal world where the people who should love me, do. No I don't mean people, I mean person.
I have had such a great week... I really travelled half way around the world - I did that! I went somewhere I have NEVER been before, I saw the most beautiful sights (thinking more caves and scenery than sex shows) and colours and met the nicest people. And ate divine food! And that was so amazing, I lost my words on so many occasions. However, I went with the one person who has never really changed for me - sad as that may be of me, it is mostly true.....obviously my life has gone on and I've done many a thing with it. But this person has occupied a part of me that no one else can reach. I don't live with expectations, I am more your go with the flow gal and that's not always been a good thing. But I think it works in this case BECAUSE.... and here's my grand theory: This is how it is. We have always met up and spent time together and then gone somewhere else - like where we live. And in the days when I thought I wanted what every one appears to have or want, that was frustrating and I perhaps read into situations a bit more intensely than I should have. But now that I'm who I am in this life, I realise that maybe just maybe, this is how the relationship is grown (see earlier blog) and that's what makes it touch the parts of my heart that others can't. I would be very happy with doing what we did again somewhere else. That's not to say I won't have moments where I would wish I was living a life but I do appreciate that maybe that's not in my make up to do successfully. I like my own company - and there were times on this trip that I looked around and thought, "I could do this somewhere else on my own, maybe lol". I wouldn't have had such a great time though...the company was superb, I could not have imagined having such a good time with anyone else. No one else seems to judge my mood as well....or should that be, no one else puts up with me quite as well? ;o)

Anyway, huge big shout out and thanks to one of my most favourite memory makers - epic. We are.

the love you have

My son - who shall be hereby named CG, said something yesterday. I can't remember what it was or how relevant it was at the time. But I looked at him and thought 'Gee I really love you but I also really like you'. Yes, he's at that age where I truly get why my mom said of me at that age 'I'd swing for you'.  He's at that age where essentially he is still a child but thinks he's an adult. I predict this stage to last until he's well into his 20s... if I'm anything to go by. But he is truly funny and witty and considerate and just really a nice person. And I really like his company.

And I'm sure there are plenty of lovely 13 year olds out there, but this one I made, so I have a particular fondness for him. And yes, I guess I have shaped him into a bit of who he is. He says please and thank you because that's how I taught him to behave.

I didn't - as I'm sure many didn't - think I'd be any good at this mothering lark. I didn't think I'd do a particulary good job and sure there are days when I think I must be absolutely disgusting and failing at every turn. But on the whole, I thinkI can be proud of CG and the little man-child he is.  I didnt' want to be a single mother, it was never in my plan of how life should be but shit happens and I have been. And if I was a play, I would have proved the critics wrong. If CG was a cake, he'd have risen nicely.

My funny, lovely, taller than me CG. My most favourite and best accomplishment.