My Year of Meaningful (2011)

On a very, very, VERY rare occaision I get these waves of desire to be back in the US. At present, I think that the current presidental primary elections, combined with not having been there for nearly 4 years are what's got me thinking about taking a trip back at some stage in the near future. But before I get ahead of myself (because our holiday list is still like a mile long, and includes our next trip to Aus, trip to the Seychelles, trip to Namibia, trip to... oh god everywhere) and go booking tickets or anything, I have been thinking about what it is that makes me feel like that:

• Sometimes I just get a craving for a yankee bbq. It's like, sometimes I've just had it up to HERE with this (also yummy, in fairness) dry braai chops and wors with pap and sous. I'm talking real PORK STEAKS, utterly swimming in KC Masterpiece over Hickory chips or some crap. With a side of potato salad. MUSTARD_BASED potato salad. Not mayonnaise-based... oh no, thick, gooey yellow potato salad with raw onion and dill pickles all chopped up in it. Mmmmmm....
• I want to call up someone who actually gets it, if you suggest "hitting the Boulevard and going out for ice cream" as a way to spend a random weekday summer evening.
• I want to walk into a Wal-Mart and have my mind boggled at all the amazing new inventions in food and otherwise, that have totally skipped my radar since 1999. Like... no-fat, no-carb, no-sugar, no-guilt but still tasty products in the cereal aisle, etc. Example: for my bday, my aunt sent me this stuff called Skippy HONEY ROASTED peanut butter. WTF!?! When did this happen!!?! And in an ORANGE jar no less?!? (I do find it oddly tasty).
• I want to go see live concerts.
• I want to see all the tv shows whose names I see dropped all over the msn.com homepage. And all the actors that are in them.... who are these people?? I miss being in the know!
• I want to go see live music played by hacks who still have amazing talent on electric guitars, in crappy midwestern bars - any bar!.... who absolutely rock, even though they're not world-famous.
• I want to pay 5 dollars to get into that bar and to get a plastic bracelet on my arm and a bottomless cup of beer for no charge for the whole night.
• I sometimes want to live in Washington DC where my best friend in the world AND nearly all of my other friends live, either in, or within a 3 hour radius of (not to mention the restaurants and concerts and art and theatre and multicultural madness and everything else that abounds there).
• I want my 4 seasons back.
• I want to drive around in someone's car listening to Steve Miller Band and not feel like a retard.
• I want to go to a Mizzou football game, in the winter, wearing a parka and a scarf and gloves. THEN I want to wander around in downtown Columbia, soaking up the atmosphere and feeling like a college student again.
• I would also settle for going to ANY football game in the autumn.
• I would also settle for going to a Cardinal baseball game in the spring.
• Oh MAN, I REEEALLYY want to go shopping at one of those PetSmart stores, WITH a dog! And I want to put it IN the trolly and browse ALL the aisles. Just like that woman in that clip that I saw on CNN awhile back... where they were talking about the recession and how it might affect dog owners?
• Starbucks.
• 3 words: Classic Rock Radio
• Multiple radio stations
• Red Lobster
• Olive Garden breadsticks
• Mind boggling technology & wireless internet connections on every corner
• My american buddies
• I would love to find out what this mysterious "NetFlix" is all about...
• Making deposits into ATMs.... siiiiggghhhhh

Man, I REALLY didnt think I was gonna have a list that long. Eeesh, that's disturbing.

But the point is, now that I've gotten that all out, I feel like I've identified everything and now I can move on with life as usual. Back to the blazing sun and bush. The end!

No way! Way too hard.

But if I had to put it in a nutshell:

-I had an anniversary
-I had a birthday
-I got internet at home that is slower than any other Botswana connection at a whopping 238kBps (that's slower than frozen shit crawling uphill) so it really doesn't help my endeavor to doing more email at home and less at the office
- My aunt and uncle and cousin & his high maintenance annoying high strung animal-hating picky-eating high-heel-wearing compulsive clothes-ironing girlfriend came over for 2 weeks
- We went to Tuli Block
- They left
- The Mr. and I are up to our eyeballs in work
- We both got elected to the SPCA committee
- Got a new laptop & printer for the office
- Easter 4-day weekend

Oooooohhhhh how I loved the Easter 4-day weekend. It came the day after everyone finally left, and we did nothing but quality alone-time and watch movies and sleep in and cuddle on the couch. Lots of cuddles. And walking puppies. And going to the gym. And cooking for ourselves.

Watched:
Michael Clayton (pretty good)
Atonement (eehhhh... disappointing and waaaay too long & drawn out in the first 2/3rds and AGH I hated that little Saoirse Ronan character!!)
Air Guitar Nation (FUN-NYYYYY!)

Friday we had dinner/meeting with the Animal folk. The Mr. is going to be elected the new Honorary Treasurer and me just a plain old Board Member. What with him already sunk into his correspondence course and me starting my new MSc thingy next week, our lives will be busy. Busy busy busy. The topic of this meeting (aside from committee elections) was how the BW organization can improve, and the speaker was the head of the Zim organization who had been here at our facilities/kennels for the past week, observing and critiquing and gathering up a list of suggestions and recommendations on how we can be better. She was great, and very positive too. Apparently our kennels here are the only ones she's ever done an inspection on where there was not even 1 occurrence of kennel stress. Totally 100% kennel-stress free, and that's even working at WAY over capacity.

And the photos:

My birthday dinner at the greek restaurant with Ma & Pa P., and the aunt and uncle and Alan. This was before Cuz & Ms. High-maintenance got here. Oh how I lovvvvvvvve de greek fooood.

Sundowners with the fam at our local.














Here she is. Note the complete lack of interest in anything, as we admire the beautiful african landscape and scan for wildlife. This was probably right before one of her squealing incidents due to a 2-inch gecko crossing her path or something. I love it how my aunt & uncle also think she's totally wrong for their son. It made for some great bitching & venting once they left. Oh, let's play "what's wrong with this picture": who TF brings their HANDBAG up to a viewpoint for sundowners & game spotting?











Me & my beloved Mr. stealing some alone time.

















The above photo is the best. It reminds me that no matter how SHITTY I get with people, I have this amazing Husbanator who makes everything better and will whisk me off into the sunset for some zen time and a few minutes to look at the Baobob trees (and warthogs) and make everything right again. He is just sooooooo fantastic. I just want to kiss the screen!!

OK I think I'm ready to have my house back to myself now.

Visitors are welcome to kindly leave.

bye bye!!

(unfortunately I'm only getting rid of 2/4 of them today, but fortunately that includes the high-maintenance one. The remaining 2/4 head out on Thursday)

I would most like to have that time alone to get back into SHAPE and stop eating CRAP!!!

We didn't see any leopards in Tuli. poo.

My husband is going to throw a fax machine on the floor. I better go....

Today I find myself wanting to beat people up and/or get one of those "No Country for Old Men" air compressor apparati.


I am generally a positive person with lots of niceness but today I just feel shitty and my dear sweet old blog is gonna pay.


So here is my current shit list, and let's hope nobody ends up on my "Needs Killin'" (AC) list:

• What a surprise: fussy eaters who come to peoples' houses and expect them to pander to their immature picky BS. Screw you, I'm making spaghetti. There's the cornflakes.
• What is the story: My terrier Billy weighs less than 10 pounds, stands no taller than my boots, and doesnt bark, bite, or growl. And you're SCARED of him? Let alone the other 3... You're going to annoy everyone and whine like a little girl each time he walks in the room? Right, so let me get this straight, I have to change and re-organize my life around you and your patheticness? While meanwhile you're sleeping in my house and eating my food? And I'm dragging your ass all over town in my car??? Get stuffed!
• The older I get the more I start to hate birthdays. They just suck - i mean you get older, for one, and then the older you get the more people start forgetting your birthday anyway which should basically be a GOOD thing b/c you hate being reminded of getting older but by the same token you're like; "well fuck! I have to get older anyway, I might as well get a card out of it!!!"
• People who tell me to "fuck off" are more than welcome to eat shit.
• When someone asks me a question, and then proceeds to rudly INTERRUPT while I'm explaining the answer, with some COMPLETELY NON-SEQUITIR IRRELEVANT exclamation or observation, are hereby notified that if they ever ask me another question again and seriously expect me to give them the time of day, they can piss RIGHT THE FUCK OFF.
• These 2kg that I appear to have picked up over the last couple weeks can just eat my ass.

OK So sunday was our 6-year anniversary! I can hardly believe it. Even people who were AT the wedding must not have been able to believe it too as they sent me emails wishing me a happy 5th anniversary... HAHAA!

It was a really relaxing day, we virtually did nothing. Well we caught up on some sleep that we missed because we had to wake up early on saturday morning to make the annual pilgrimage to the vet for booster shots. This time with 4 pups instead of 3.... it was all fun and games let me tell you. We lounged around and watched "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" which I really liked, particuarly the heavy Missouri content (haha! no, really. it's silly but true.) and Jesse James was always a childhood folk hero of mine (go figure, kid from Missouri) so it was personally a good movie-watching experience. I'm not sure what the rest of the world thought of it but I feel like potentially other people wouldn't have seen what I saw in it, which I'm fine with. Oh yes but THEN later that night.... we watched the Oscar-winning "No Country for Old Men"... OMG now this is going to get me on a tangent. Here, let me acquire a new paragraph:

GOOD LORD WHAT A PILE OF OVERRATED CRAP!

Can someone PLEASE explain to me how it managed to pull off a near-sweep of the Oscars?!

OK I love Fargo, and Fargo took me about 3 times re-watching it before I really could appreciate it but man I might die if I have to watch NCFOM again. Actually, that sounds really horrible, but I didn't even hate it as much as the Mr. did! He was viciously, vehemently, violently HATING it. Like, I just thought it was over-rated and had no idea how it could've won picture of the year. But the Mr. literally went stomping around the tv room after it was over, blurting out profanities related to how horrible it was, and literally called it "a waste of time"! I've never seen him so violent about watching a little ol' movie! I think his difficulty in understanding the really sketchy, over-the-top laid on west-Texas accent of a few characters (~ahem~ Josh Brolin, Mr. California and Kelly MacDonald Miss GLASGOW SCOTLAND) was a contributing factor. I actually didn't find the violence a big thing - I hardly noticed it being any more/worse than a movie like Fargo... which makes me wonder why everyone's going on and on about the violence. Hell they should be going on about how long and drawn out and LAME the plot is! I didn't even think they developed the characters very well, and so many characters were left totally hanging out there in no-man's land with regards to WHO they actually are and WHY they're characters in the story!?!?

OK I'll stop there. Back to the anniversary - went to the big 5* swanky hotel's buffet for dinner and got too full. There were presents and cheesecake and it was lovely!

I'm cutting this short now because I think the Mr. has heat stroke. He's laying down on 3 meeting chairs pushed together in the corner of our office, not working, and groaning. Dying. Anyone who knows the Mr. knows that if he's not working, and laying down on office chairs in the corner of the office, well, then basically the end is nigh. We just did aNOTHER big public consultation in a different village today. It was totally frustrating, 40 degrees, and went on for 5 hours. 5 hours sitting outside in 40 degrees, getting yelled at by people who DONT WANT A RECREATIONAL PARK in their village for fucks sake (WTF!?!?) like what is WRONG with these people!?!? A factory? Sure! Throw one up! A diamond processing plant? No worries! Bring us a dozen of 'em!! A nuclear reactor? Hell yeah! Reactors for everybody!!! But a RECREATIONAL PARK? Oh god no! We're not ready for THAT yet!!! Are you insane!?!??!?!?!

Anyway that was my day. Now my husband has heat stroke. I should be going now.