Lolo go bye-bye!

As much as I love my 'net verbal diarrhoea sessions, there's a dose of Immodium coming my way, so to speak. That's because I'm off to Canadia, to hunt down that hot man I met on Saturday. Just in case I don't find him, I'll pop in at my best friend's place for two weeks, then head back home in despair at the lost love opportunity.

As much as pals rave about their lives overseas, they're all reduced to shameless pleading and begging for such simple SA stuff that we don't think twice about. "Rooibos please!" "Peppadews on the double!" "Ten Inside Stories to go!" Don't these funny "first world" places sell food? Eh? We're really lucky in deepest darkest black Africa, I guess. No hashbrown is gonna get anywhere near my plate, ever.

(Alright, I'll admit, I've been asked by an almost equal number of peeps back here to bring them stuff from this "first world" place. Hats, chocolates, fancy razors. Fair swap, I guess.)

Right, I'm off to pack. Sunnies - check. Cozzie - check. (Just to point out that I'm escaping the winter, to rub it in all your faces). Anti-terrorist spray - damn! I'm all out, so hold thumbs for me!

A hard-knock life

Despite my immune system being bludgeoned by a particularly vicious cold, I refused to be KO’d, and managed to have a downright decent weekend (today was another story, however…).

On Friday afternoon, after almost falling asleep during my own presentation on what I have (or more accurately, haven’t) been doing during my Pretoria (Tshwane, sorry) assignment, I rushed to Sandton to check out whether le venue for my 25th par-tay was still a good idea (still in two minds, though the manager has agreed to bring down some of his outrageous prices for me), then headed to a farewell/birthday party for 2 colleagues. Was pissed that the boyf had left me in the lurch, preferring to have a shindig with his own mates, until I laid eyes on a cocky, upstart-ish lip-smackingly gorgeous Canadian who proceeded to entertain me for the whole evening. He even offered to keep me company in my bed that night, but given: a) my morality issues around the aforementioned abandoning boyfriend, to whom I am a devoted, caring, considerate girlfriend; and b) that the lasting memory I would leave with this sultry stranger was one bad-ass cold; - and not necessarily in that order – I decided I would have no company in my bed that night, other than the pleasant thoughts rushing around my head at the time.

Saturday went like this: haircut, 1 hour maths lesson with spoilt fat lazy girl in grade 6 – for which I charged a fat premium, of course - drag so-hungover-she’s-still-drunk friend from her misery and force her to drive me around Joburg in her new ultracool Beetle (accompanied by de rigeur Carpenters/Annie soundtrack/Nelly muzaq combo), jewellery shopping spree at cheap bead place, tea in Melville, beer in a pub over the last two minutes of the rugga, home-cooked meal with the boyf, Carfax in painful heels, Earl Grey on sofa talking shit for hours with friend who exposed her boob to my father.

Sunday went like this: sort out admin shit that accumulates in life – including a 2-hour long survey I completed for the Human Sciences Research Council out of pity (and which I hope they call me back for an interview over, I’d like to crap all over them about their questionnaire bias), frantically wrap two-month late birthday gift for boob-exposing friend, drag boyf and sis to antiques fair and reward them for their pain with overpriced mocha-choco-latte-frappe-cappu-spresso thingies, race around Joburg CBD taking photos of new architectural/cosmetic features for a little project of mine, rent dvd based on recommendations of crazy so-hungover-she’s-still-drunk friend (in retrospect, what the fuck was I thinking listening to her? Peas, that’s the damn shittest movie ever. Watch it again? You must be drayming!), attempt to pass cold on to boyfriend during bed company time.

And in five short days, I leave for Vancouver – to quote Annie/Jay Z, “It’s a hard-knock life”, eh?

I sure know how to pick ‘em, don’t I?

My upcoming holiday – yes, the one I postponed since December last year – has been marred by a few events beyond my control…

Event 1 – crazy fucked-up dudes blow themselves up in London, trying to prove a point or something. The point it no doubt managed to prove is that the Brits should be a bit more xenophobic, perhaps to the extreme of not letting in South African tourists en route to Canada.

Event 2 – SAA strikes at Joburg International, which might extend to other airlines: -

“Eish, Sipho, why are you not working today? And what are you toytoying for?”

“Hawu, Beauty, come join us – we’re striking for higher wages. Don’t you think Virgin Airlines wekkers should get more money too?”

Event 3 – I have the flu. Got it baaaaaad. Should be at home feeling sorry for myself, instead I’m in Pretoria at 6:45am feeling sorry for myself. What if this little virus decided to get some friends in – “I’m a little lonely, why don’t I host a bronchitis/pneumonia par-tay down here?!)

Event 4 – more crazy fucked up dudes try to blow themselves up in London, but haven’t learnt the basics of wiring bombs. What if the UK authorities thought “hmmm… if we close off all access to England, people can’t get in, but more importantly, those bomb fuckers can’t get out – that would help with our manhunt, wouldn’t it?”

Given my car luck, I wouldn’t put it past the forces of nature to conspire to bring about the worst case scenario in all the above-mentioned events, in which case, I might just go apeshit and bomb a few public places myself…

Other people’s car troubles

So, I shook off the curse – the one that made me rip a wound in the back of my Dad’s car, then dent a large hole into his bonnet, then ding the back of my boss’s rental car, then transport my car to Joburg on the train that supposedly derailed. Understandably, I’m breathing a bit easier these days, but it seems I’ve passed the curse on to those around me. So, if you know who I am, stay the hell away for a while, and if you don’t, I can’t guarantee that reading this won’t jinx you.

Still reading? Well, you’ve been warned.

The day before my colleague was scheduled to sell his Beemer back to the dealership – a car he’s had for a couple of years and taken impeccable care of, and needless to say has never so much as scratched – the office manager at work reversed into his bumper. D’oh!

Then then then… yesterday, my boyfriend was singled out as fate’s (or my) next victim. “Liefie, tell me how your day went first – mine was downright kak” I remember saying. To paraphrase – omitting most of the “fuck!”s that were flying around – he was on his way to varsity when he went round a traffic circle, and an idiot girl and her mom decided to leap into the road (this is his version of the story, I haven’t had it corroborated from her side, but a lass has to support her boyfriend, doesn’t she?) and get knocked by his side mirror. He pulled to the side of the road, jumped out and started screaming at them (they naturally blamed him for the incident), so they turned and walked off (hopefully not in the direction of the nearest lawyer’s office). He then decided to get a quotation for the completely smashed side mirror, and while trying to reverse out of the repair shop’s parking lot, connected with a car “in his blindspot” (funny how that excuse never gains me any sympathy). He says he swore so loud that people were coming out from buildings all around to see who the perpetrator of such foul-mouthed commotion was. The bumper popped off its hooks, but the owner was able to pop it back on, and is apparently fine with the hairline paint cracks the connection caused.

So, seemingly, The Gilb is off the hook (don’t you only have 72 hours to lodge a docket with the police? He’s 48 hours away from freedom). He was so pissed off yesterday he thanked me rather rudely for the little gift of an Oppikoppi ticket I secretly deposited in his wallet the night before… a girl can just never win, can she?

Before I sign off, you’ll no doubt be wondering how I survived the 10km BlueIQ Marathon – I didn’t, because the fuckers cancelled the race. So the weekend consisted entirely of drinking, a little lacklustre booty-shaking (it’s hard to get down on the dancefloor amid bomber jacket-clad poppies in Midrand) but some good times spent with friends…

Trivialities

So, I went away for a company strategy meeting, and decided to “fling my eager through footless halls of air” (ten bucks for anyone who can guess the origin of that (bastardised) quote) – went for a canopy tour, aka foofie slide from eleven platforms in a gorge in Rustenburg, which, while in itself is newsworthy in a dull life such as mine, is not the main point of this story. EVZ, a former colleague and current tormentor (publicly degrades my ass on his own blog – his last reference compared it to the size of Soweto), joined me, the boyf and another colleague for the canopy tour, and let loose with another fat joke. I replied something about the polite form to refer to them as “child-bearing hips”, to which he told me an amazing little conversation he overheard the other day. Readers, I’m not joking, he swears this actually happened:

Broody chick #1: You’re so lucky you have child-bearing hips, X

Broody chick #2: I know!

Holy fucking shit. If I ever say that, please shoot me. Even if my narrow hips (EVZ can’t read this, so I can say whatever I like) cause me unprecedented pain during childbirth (if I ever choose to go down that path) and I happen to utter the phrase “Motherfucking cuuuuuunt! I wish I had child-bearing hips – Ayyyyyyyyyyyyyiiiiiiii!!!” you are still under moral obligation to shoot me.

Onto matters less extreme – unless you’re Peas who’s plotting a big letter-bomb massacre of everybody’s favourite tax collecting government agency – I must say I admire their latest initiatives, even if I’m somewhat alarmed at the Big-Brother-is-Watching-You aspect of it all. They’re eventually gonna do away with filing for tax and tax rebates, and just monitor your accounts (banks, life policies, investments) and remove/deposit money into your savings account as is appropriate. Efficient, eh? Makes me wonder whether to admit to having worked on weekends last year – oops! Genuinely forgot to mention that to them. Oh well, there’s ammo for anyone out there who hates my guts enough. Use it, don’t use it, just a thought.

Farewell peeps, and have a peachy rest of the week. My plans involve a night tour of the Joburg Zoo, some dodgy club in Midrand (the things we do for the peoples we love, eh?) and potentially running the BlueIQ 10km race on Sunday morning. I’ve run it three years in a row, why give up now, even though my ageing body crumbles at the mere thought of exercise…

Don't let Baygons be Baygons.

Yep, I'm on a creative spurt at the moment - got to post while I'm near an Internet-enabled computer, you understand - so let me just write my trivialities for the third day in a row.

Today's gripe (I'm a moaner, aren't I? Never have anything nice to say) has to do with the vulgar disrespect towards our fellow animals on the planet, blatantly displayed by our current (human) house guest last night.

I have this friendly rain spider (Burt) who lives in my room, who has made one ceiling corner his home. Burt's an accommodating guest - he never ventures too near my bed, knowing I might get squeamish and demand he vacate the premises asap. Occasionally he makes a short trip to the bathroom, enjoying the change of scenery. Again, he occupies the corner furthest from the shower, politely respecting my nude privacy during my daily hygiene routine. This relationship has been going on quite a while - Burt's been room-sitting for me while I was in CT, always glad to see me every weekend I came home to visit.

So, last night, I stumble in weary from work, look up at my corner to greet Burt, and he's not there. Hmmm, he's doing the bathroom vacation, I reasoned. I thought no more on the subject until I went to the bathroom, where a large can of Baygon stood gloating on the basin counter. That's funny, I thought, there aren't any mosquitos/ants around at this time of the year. And then, a panicked thought crossed my mind - where was Burt? "Burt!" I called, frantically searching all bathroom corners, behind the toilet, in the cupboards, the wall just outside the window - but you intelligent readers will already have gathered what had happened. The fucking guest (whose bedroom is close to mine, and hence usurps my bathroom) fucking murdered my fucking friend. And fucking wasn't around to get a fucking lecture on some fucking respect for life. It's fucked up, man.

Good-bye, Burt, I will miss you dearly. No other spidey can ever replace what we had.

life on my new case

My new work contract couldn't be more different than the last if it tried. I sit in a room with like a hundred government employees, where privacy is as elusive as free aeroplane tickets to Havana. I have no Internet access, which leaves me feeling as disoriented as a blind person, and means I haveprecious little to dawdle about on when my manager isn't looking. Did I mention I have to trek 50km north of civilisation? That means I get up at the false dawn (5:30), stumble around shivering and swearing in the dark, chuck muesli and scalding hot tea down my throat, start the stupid rental car5 times before it gets going (more about cars later), all so I don't have to park for hours on the N1 to Pretoria, which, if you didn't know it already, is the busiest highway section in the southern hemisphere.

I've been on the project since Monday (which ended at 2am), and my job is to stare at Excel spreadsheetsall day long, and perform trivial tasks such as sort, filter, cut, paste and compile data. Yawn!

But let's get back to cars. So dear Shosholoza Meyl called me yesterday to inform me that due to the derailing of the train, my car will only arrive at the Joburg train station on Thursday morning at 6am. They said nothing about whether it would arrive in one piece or not, or more importantly, whether the R2000 worth of wine bottles itwas carrying in the boot were still intact. Poo. Yip, saying this has been a bad month for me and cars is putting it mildly.


Aaaaand, today's cherry on the top will be a work evaluation with my Nazi senior colleague.
The rest of the week holds some excitement, though - my work's having its biannual (?biennial? I always forget) strategy getaway, which means we go to a resort for 4 days, talk shop and eat and drink lots on the company account.

So... have fun and games the rest of this week, darlings. Hope to be Internet-enabled some time in the not-too-distant future.

Jozi, limo rides and best friend's ex

Well, I'm back in the economic powerhouse of Africa, feeling rather strong withdrawal symptoms from my magic mountain that loomed over my skyline permanently. My mates saw me off with a farewell drinking session, followed by another drinking session, followed by dinner and drinks, followed by another drinking session (just Earl Grey the third time around).I decided to come back to Jozi on Saturday morning, rather than lurk about in Cape Town and risk making another impractical hefty wine transaction (which I did on the Friday afternoon - it happened so fast, I didn't realise what had happened before I packed my car to rail back to Jozi, only to find the boot was too small to fit all my wine cases in it). Oh, and considering my recent spate of bad luck with cars, you'll find this pretty amusing - I, on the other hand, can only hope that I'll look back on it and laugh, because currently I'm ready to cry - I heard on the news this morning that yesterday there were problems with trains being derailed from Cape Town to Jozi; yes folks, you guessed right, my car was on a train to Jozi yesterday. I haven't plucked up the courage to call and find out whether my car has dismantled itselfspectacularly over the Karoo landscape or not. oh well.

Anyway, back to Saturday: I arrived in Jozi shortly after midday, spent an entertaining afternoon with the boyf (so nice to know you can hug him today, tomorrow, the day after that, the day after that, etc, if you so desire). Reluctantly kicked him out for my social butterfly role that evening -had to join my italian society committee for a limo ride around the Sandton elite's playground -started at 1886 for drinks (a quaint, pseudo-pretentious little Rivonia restaurant with a maitre d' who calls you 'Sweetie' and fondles your love handles. Drove through to Chef's in Motion, whose reputation has preceded itself all the way to Cape Town, where I eagerly awaited trying it. Food is like R30 cheaper per dish, service is about 100% better, location - well, location leavessomething to be desired. Out in preppy Lonehill, nestled between industrial parks, claustro-house complexes and unsightful office parks. When one travels in a limo, dessert simply has to be served at another venue, dahling, so the poor ordinary-vehicled people can ogle on. We drove through to Melrose Arch, for cinnamon chilli ice-cream at Orient, then went back to Rivonia, where the stupider among us - myself included, goes without saying - decided to fork out R100 entrance fee for that rather average trendoid hangout, Taboo. The scene tries more or less to emulate Cape Town's much more appealing Hemisphere, except entry's double the price, without the view (and no-one brave enough to venture to hit on you!)

But enough about that. The most eventful thing that happened over the course of the couple few days since I last wrote occurred last night, at 21:34 (while I was still slogging away in our client's office, in deepest darkest Pretoria, mind you). The phone rang, I was pleasantly surprised to see it was Timmy. So he begins this mundane conversation, I'm thinking "you're a bad telephone conversationalist at the best of times, what arb reason are you calling me for?" And then, my life changed - back to the good old way I was comfortable with before the ominous whiney cloud that is Lindi descended on it. Yip, he's acknowledged she was not for him - him being an intelligent, stimulating, entertaining, generally awesome person, and her being the polar opposite. Of course, I responded with cool, calm, collected interest rather than the true glee I was feeling. So, yay! Got my best friend back the way I like him - all to myself (except for the minor glitch that he remains in Cape Town and I'm more than just a stone's throw away).

So, it's been eventful, I guess. Who said life in Joburg was boring?