I kill cute little puppies

The irony of the contrast of this post’s title with my previous apparently tree-hugging one is not lost on me, believe me. Once again, the universe selects a large unwieldy sombrero and shovels it down my throat. Oh yes creation, I noticed.

But let’s not let this be entirely morbid, for there are happy things to report too.

Spur of the moment birthday visits…

…are the type of event that end in puppy pancakes. An off-the-cuff decision on Wednesday morning last week saw me grab my toothbrush as I was leaving for work, and discuss later that day with the Gilb the possibility of me driving through to the Poenda that evening to celebrate his birthday with him. As luck / fate would have it, two things conspired to make sure it was possible for me to leave early enough to avoid the 4:30 East-bound traffic gridlock: my big boss wasn’t in the office that day, and my manager with whom I was meant to have a 2-4pm meeting was off sick. Score!

Delirious with glee, I zoomed off (minor setback: caught in traffic after all due to almighty accident on the N12) and reached the delightful town at the thoroughly respectable hour of 5pm. I was overjoyed to see that he was legitimately making use of his birthday gift (I’m all for practical gifts these days, so I got him a goose-down duvet with tasteful yet very manly duvet and pillow case covers, even matching ones for me so that when I come through carrying my own pillow as I usually do, I can match the ensemble too. Décor geek!).

Anyhow, not having packed anything more than a toothbrush meant that I had to go to Gilb’s chosen birthday celebration venue of choice – Alley Catz, a dodgy pool club – in my corporate power-bitch garb while everyone else was wearing jeans and t-shirts. Teetering around a pool table in stilettos does not do wonders for the poor soles, I must tell you (and does even less for your pool skills, I’m convinced). Substantial drinking helped dull the pain, and the girls and I developed a new shooter which we called “October 11th”. If anyone ever offers you one, for the love of your tastebuds, don’t accept. Jack Daniels and Dalgado (creamy coconut liqueur) do not a successful concoction make.

After a really pleasant late night out, 4:45am came all too soon, so bleary-eyed after far too few hours of sleep, I was cruising down a quiet road just outside the Poenda at 140 km/h, to get back to Jozi before the traffic became unbearable. Out of the blue, 3 golden retrievers appear less than 10m ahead of me in the middle of nowhere, sitting in the road. Not just any golden retrievers, mind you, but specifically the kind that have gorgeously groomed silky shiny hair and rich chocolatey brown eyes that warm your heart when you stare into them. In a cold split second I made a calculated decision: if I swerved, my momentum would still carry me directly over the dogs, and I’d not be able to avoid losing control of the car either. If I continued… at least the latter could be avoided. And so I did. Two of the dogs got out of the way, one (the youngest, naturally) didn’t. So I hit it, grimacing at the sickening dull thud, and in shock, burst into tears. What disappoints me is less my hitting the dog (its owners should not let them wander around near a highway), and more the fact that I didn’t stop to assess the carnage. My thought at the time was that since there wasn’t a house within sight, there was no-one to inform that I had murdered their puppy. And worse, if the dog was really badly injured but not dead, would I have had the guts to do the humane thing and put it properly out of its misery? (I’m quite sure the answer is no). What didn’t occur to me then was that the dog may have had a name tag, so I could have at least contacted the owners, or I could have taken it to a vet, got it ‘repaired’ and donated it to the Gilb pet fund (Peas and I are technically not allowed pets in our building, besides it’d be cruel to keep a dog locked up inside all day). So I drove straight on, dwelled on my depravity for the rest of the day, and then got over it.

Dress: circa 1980’s…

…the theme for the party I attended on Saturday night with Peas ‘n pals. My outfit consisted of a lumo pink wool mini skirt; a black three-quarter sleeved, round-necked, shoulder-padded, Blingola-sized gold-buttoned jacket; a thin purple/navy/white/pink/yellow satin striped scarf; and gold shoes. The look: Amway executive – cum – Alitalia air hostess (although to my thorough dismay I was asked twice whether I was French!) I was bombarded with the highly creative pick-up lines of “Can I have the chicken, please?” and “What’s the onboard entertainment tonight?” and “Are we there yet?”, but then I did little to stem this irritating line of questioning with my please-locate-the-nearest-exit-to-you and how-to-use-your-oxygen-mask and Whoah-there’s-some-turbulence-up-ahead dance moves. Trés kitsch, I know. (And thanks to a dare from Peas, I’m actually wearing the outfit to the office today – have already received a compliment, if you can believe it!)

What was awesome about the party was the attention to detail: the hosts had stuck a Twister mat onto a wall, and lifted someone up to play on it – sideways and airborne, of course; they had got slush puppy machines to serve slush margaritas from; a bout of impressive breakdancing broke out; someone came dressed as Jacques Costeau (a rather liberal interpretation of the ‘circa’ of the theme there, methinks).


A boys’ weekend of heavy drinking, smoking and some golf…

…leads to the best sex of your life thus far. Ever. ‘Nuff said. Perhaps I should not bitch about the Gilb’s birthday weekend gallivant to a golf resort with a whole bunch of guys (girls not allowed), but instead encourage it. Hmmm….