My Year of Meaningful (2011)

Why is everyone on the FB so obsessed with recruiting me for their mafia!? Can't they just play Word Twist with me instead?

Anyhoo, the HHH Xmas in June was great this wknd. OK I am probably still suffering from my wham-bam hangover to this day (3 days later) but it was worth it! And myself and long tall swedish boy made a great Family Claus, I reckon. We got lots of compliments anyway and the Mr. said I pulled it off without being "too slutty", so I'll take that! Hell yeah! What with me feeling so bloody old these days, one needs these sort of opportunities to ham it up every once in awhile and be able to jump on a few laps. Hopefully the photos will come around soon.

Sunday I had a pretty good practice session with the grannies too. Our Dvorak is getting there, and now we're starting a Beethoven (great, something ELSE to practice!! agh!!) but overall I'm not sucking. Frau Meister still shoots me the odd greasy every now and then like "WHO ARE YOU TO NOT BE PRACTICING 2 HOURS EVERY DAY!!??"

I would really like more of my overseas friends to use Skype!! Ever since the Mr. got his new laptop, there is a computer open and a network connection up and running all the time - which means it would actually be natural to just pick up the "headset" and make phone calls more often, if anyone would actually be on the other end of the line! At the moment it's only J & the Mominator who are on there, and it's so frustrating! Our landline is just impractical and stupid because you have to use these idiotic phone cards which only come in incriments of P20, which gets me what, 10 minutes to the US? Oh, and you can't charge it up with all the phone cards at once... AND there is no stupid lady who comes on and says "you have 2 minutes remaining".... oh no, that would be way too practical. Instead they just cut you off! MFers!! I mean, at LEAST come up with a P100 phone card... or at least let me build up a balance of 10 x 20P phone cards...

what's REALLY annoying is that you have to use these damned phone cards even to make a local call, b/c my landlord has installed only pay-as-you-go landlines in all the houses.... so even if I want to ring my next door neighbour, I have to type in 40000 numbers every time I pick up the phone. grumble.

It is freezing fricking cold here!! brrrrr...

My dog is wearing a coat!!

You KNOW how much I hate the Gov't Department I had to give a presentation to, yesterday. So I won't dwell on that but let's just say IT MAKES ME WANT TO START CUTTIN' BITCHES in a bad way. Especially the SENIOR INDIVIDUAL in a position of power in the DEPARTMENT of the ENVIRONMENT, who blatantly litters right in front of his protegees (and environmental consultants)... and is rude... and is a jerk... anyway. Oh but lest I not forget to mention how when we were organizing this meeting, they said it would be a 2-hour gig. Well that 2-hour estimate turned out to be 4 hours, and then these f-sticks have the nerve to come up to me and ask if *I* organized LUNCH for THEM!?!? CLOWNS!!! HELL no I ain't buyin you and your half a dozen 20-something year old foot soldiers who just raked me over the coals and then bluffed their way into forcing me to do more work a free lunch!!

I'm just glad it's over. And another thing, I wouldn't be able to survive these things if it weren't for The Mr.! Not only is he a good supporting force before and after, but he is stellar at these things and we make a good team during these things... I get up and do my PowerPoint Wizardry and give the whole 9-yard-spiel, you know, captivating the audience and blowing their minds with my analytical data stylings. Then he fields the questions, comments, and criticisms with his smooth-talking and diplomacy as sweet as strawberry wine. I am not allowed to do that... as in I don't allow it myself, nor would he allow me, as I will start FIGHTIN!! I mean I really can't stand these kids who just want to be seen to "make constructive suggestions and comments" to us professionals, in an effort to look big and powerful. It's such a THING around these parts... just like back in my old school days, it was always the kid who didn't read the whole book who made sure he raised his hand and piped up about the one thing he DID know about the story, in order to look like he'd done his homework. Well, yeah, it's EXACTLY like that. UGH!

So anyway, at least my dear sweet husband has a way of responding to these imbeciles in a levelheaded voice with smooth-talkin words like "we shall take your comments on board, you make a very good point, etc". I just start protesting. These IDIOTS! AGH! READ the DOCUMENT, then you might UNDERSTAND! And until then, don't BITCH about wanting to see BIGGER MAPS....!

In happier news, after that crap, the Mr. and I celebrated by going to the Deli for a delicious lunch and chilli chocolate cake and cappuccino thereafter.

I can't believe I didnt write anything all week - it was just too busy around these parts. Last weekend was great, we had a fun time with the Cs on friday and the Ks on Saturday, and then sunday the neighbourhood BBQ was pretty ok... there was Lite beer and wine in a box, extremely over-done meat and some salads, but it was good to meet everybody. I found out I have 1 semi-redneck Belgian boy neighbour, a nice Indian couple who we talked cricket with (& who invited us over for authentic south-Indian cooking some night soon), some funny British chaps, and a crazy South African artist. There were others, but I either already knew them or can't remember them now. It was unfortunate to have to miss the Hash for it, but it was fun.

I meant to make a bunch of catch-up phone calls this weekend but didnt get around to it, we were so busy. There was hardly time for anything else, so it went by too fast and then was followed by a too-busy week. But I managed to squeeze a Brandon call in on the way home from yoga on monday, and even managed to use a good old BW-traffic jam to my advantage and ring Adelly on wednesday... there may be some fallout from my cellphone bill in return, once the Mr. gets a hold of it, but c'est la vie I gotta do some improvement on the friendship maintenance side of things.

This weekend is Hashmas (the HHH Christmas-in-June thingy) and I have just returned from thrift-shopping for my Slutty Mrs. Claus look. The red top I wanted only came in M instead of S, but I'll make it work somehow. There will be a lot of tweaking and fudging going on tonight to try and make something out of nothing, but these things always come right.

Then sunday we are going over to our old neighbours' for lunch and I am heading straight over to the old ladies for quartet practice. I am currently working on figuring out how to get my own viola over here from the States. It would help if some of my friends would come and VISIT me from that side, so they could help a girl out here!

It is friday and by gid it feels like friday.

My gym burned down so I won't be going to gym after work, which means I can get home super-early and finish my preparations for the dinner party with the Cs tonight. I am going with a WHEAT FREE GREEK/MEDITERRANEAN menu (crikey!), as follows:

A trio of appetizers including:
- Baba ghanouj, Tzaziki, and a variety of olives (with pita bread for dipping for those of us wheat-eaters, and gluten-free crackers + wheat-free rye bread for Ms. Celiac, for dipping)

Main course of:
Kleftiko (aka "stolen lamb") slow cooked with potatoes and carrots in individual foil parcels - heavy on garlic, heavy on rosemary, heavy on HELL YEAH

Supported by a greek salad.

And for dessert:
- Flourless cheesecake on a wheat-free crunchy cookie base, drizzled with a very greeky lemon/honey sauce.

I put the kleftiko together over the course of last night and this morning, which means all I have to do when I get home tonight is whip up the Baba ghanouj and Tzaziki, and get some help from my very beautiful sous chef (the Mr., obviously) on the cheesecake. I'm thinking of cutting it into little squares to serve on the wheat-free crunchie cookie squares (which have already been purchased) because my cake mold is round, but the cookie squares are (obviously) not-round.

Last night was Wally's (fellow Animal Peeps committee member) birthday party which was pretty cool - a very weird mixture of Germans and Batswana. The most bizarre combination ever. But fun. I got to know the city's No. 1 local crazy-cat-lady picture framer very well. She's a trip. We may be on the verge of starting a book club. Wally had some caterer who specializes in only bruchetta, make the finger food trays. Who knew you could do so much with slices of french bread? There was a curry chicken one, some with blue cheese, some with brie, even a prosciutto & melon bruchetta. Great idea. I'm going to remember that one... seriously, you can make an entire 4-course meal out of just bruchettas, with all the food groups and everything. The caterer even had wheat-free ones (because the Cs were there too) all prepped as well!

Then saturday Soo & Mx are having us over for dinner at their place, so it will be a weekend of good eatins. Soo is like what, 7 months preggo now? So who knows how much longer she's going to be on the social radar, hopefully we can pull these things off at least a few more times before she drops a baldy on our lovely blossoming friendship!!

Sunday is the "neighbourhood bbq"... I put that in "quotes" due to the fact I am fairly certain that this thing will start at 1pm and end promptly at 2. If I were a gambling woman I would also probably head down to my local bookie and ask him to lay a few Pula on Me & the Mr. being the youngest couple at this shindig, but no bother. I'm extremely interested in sticking my nose into this business of "who lives in what house" because as yet we only know like 3 of our neighbours. There could very possibly be a cool cat lady or burned out hippie vegan or other such eccentric person of interest hiding out in any number of these funky little cottages in the trees on the mountain. We'll see. The fact that our landlords (the hosts) don't drink should also prove to make for an interesting spread and effect on the level of social-lubrication that gets reached.

In other news I realize I really need to get out of the EIA business. I think everything happens for a reason and the fact that I'm more than 1/2 way through this new Masters' degree now is probably just right on time for allowing me my way out. If I can start now just turning down the spigot on the EIA work, it should give me just enough time to gently transition me into the EHS side of things by the time I graduate at the end of next year. I have just SO HAD IT with the government crap and the idiot ass-hats in unwarranted positions of power who are just eternally out to get my goat and kill my buzz... these 23 year old kids who feel like they need to flex their muscles and have NO idea what they're talking about, but yet have the power to screw up every single project we work on and (more than anything) PISS ME OFF. I just need out. I can't deal with this aggro. The worst part is, it isn't just a BW problem - I hear from my old pops that he has to endure the exact same BS back in the states too. I guess assholes are just the same all over the globe.

So anyway, I'm going to miss the Hash this sunday b/c of the neighbourhood bbq, which sucks - 2 wks in a row now. And there's no gym to go to! So today at lunch we shall climb K-hill, and then I don't know but we'll have to be creative over the weekend, concerning the road to fitness. The Hashers are having our "Christmas in June" next weekend, and they asked none other than yours truly to be a slutty Mrs. Claus. This could truly be interesting. Long Tall Swedish Boy is going to be Santa. I think they probably thought the photos would make nice on a scale of irony (honestly, that guy is like 6'10"). I need to check into securing some fishnets, I reckon.

Ah weekend. I feel like celebrating. What, I don't know, but I may have to do something drastic like make some long distance phone calls or something - which reminds me - fathers day. agh! I best get on that too.

Labels: food, HHH, mis amigos, work

OK we're on Day 6 now, and we still have no water at home. I'm surviving though, because I am a hardass camping-type of gal. As I slosh buckets of swimming pool water into the toilet cistern every time I want to flush it (notice I said "every time I want to flush it", not "every time I take a leak"... you can interpret that as environmentalism or just plain survival skillz), I think to myself "I have a helluva lot of girlygirlfriends who could just NOT deal with these conditions". Yes, laundry, dishes, bathing, hand-washing, tooth-brushing, dog-watering, simple rinsing of vegetables, etc are all things that you take for granted when you can just go to the tap and turn a little handle and have unlimited quantities of our most-used resource come out.

There's an Adventure in Cooking coming up this friday... we invited DD & S over for dinner and she (S) is gluten-intolerant. This will be a first for me and my cooking mojo. I was going to make my famous memphis-style pulled pork and cole slaw with some various southern style supporting dishes, but now I'm thinking . . . what doesn't have gluten in it?? You can't have pulled pork without bread rolls. I know she likes lamb, so maybe I'll do slow cooked leg of lamb? With salad...? And.....? OR, I know that the one thing we actually CAN get in this town in a gluten-free make & model is pasta noodles. And I make one damn good spaghetti sauce...

Hmm.

It was a frickin busy weekend, I tell you what. Saturday was taken up by haircuts and Golf Day preparations for the annual big-ass Animal Peeps golfing fundraiser. Which of course affected sunday too. I was annoyed because I had to give up the sunday Hash on sunday for it. It was 7am that the Mr. and I rolled up to the golf course. NOT my idea of a good start to the sunday... but we raised maybe 80k+ for the shelter so that's good. My feet were Dyyyyin' by 4pm that afternoon (er should I say my dogs were barkin') and I still went to the gym (another excuse for a shower!) and then we both collapsed by 10pm. As for the Golf Day, the Mr. and I were in charge of handing out shooters on the 8th hole. Who knew that there are grown ups out there shooting vodka and Drambuie at 8:00am on a sunday morning?! Well, we sold over 1.5k worth of shots, so trust me... they're out there!

I'm just glad it's all over now so I can stop hassling people to buy raffle tickets. I HATE having to beg for money. And the worst part is that all the committee members have to sell 10 books of these feckers, meaning I'm hassling people at my yoga class, hassling people at Cafe D., hassling my clients, hassling my employees, hassling my friends, hassling random strangers out on the street... I mean I HATE IT. I know it's all for a good cause, and it builds character, and all that crap, but hey I was a Girl Scout (and my parents were hard-nosers, they wouldn't take my cookie order form to work and do my crap for me, if I wanted to sell to their collegues I had to get my ass in there before school and pound the hallways) so as far as I'm concerned I've paid my dues in the "learn to ask nicely for a favour and a donation to a good cause" department. I believe that my time and efforts on this bloody committee are my donation and by God why can I not just "opt out" of the solicitation side of things??? Ugh. I am the worst marketer ever.

I cooked a leg of goat last night and it was good. Next time though, I want to concoct a red wine sauce for it. I think that would be tasty.

Oh, for the record: I draw the FB line at Aunts, Uncles, and PARENTS. I don't know what has gotten into my mother but apparently now she is on Facebook. My dear brother "suggested" that we "know each other" in the "recommendations" thingy. Um, no. Nothing against the Mominator, as we know I am happily in agreement with making something out of this mother/daughter relationship after all these years, but I'll be buggered if I'm gonna take it to that level. Oh Hellz No. That is MY domain, and a girl's gotta have some of her territories left sacred. I would ultimately find it a little too ironic, as well, having grown up my whole life hearing the phrase "I'm your mother, not your friend!" ad nausium, only to end up having to endure my immediate family members predictable evaluations of my debaucherous holiday photos, wall posts, and status updates. I've already had to deny the aunt and uncle-types, and I'm not afraid to do it to the parentals.

Now back to figuring out what all this non-gluten stuff is about...

Labels: animal peeps, BW-general

Everybody knows that winter is our dry season. Right?

Well for the last 3 days it has been pouring down rain. No one can explain it. The Batswana are saying "it's the ancestors"... as in "they [their spirits] are pissed at us so they're reeking havoc on the weather patterns".

It is that weird. It's so weird the only thing I can think to compare it with would be a freak snowstorm in the red centre of Australia in the middle of summer.

And they say climate change is a myth! HA!

OK so 'water water everywhere, and not a drop to drink' is a phrase, but it's also a living reality now because we dont have water at home. yep, after 72 hours of straight rain, we have no water in G-village. Gabz-city does have it though, so we're just gonna fill up a bunch of water tanks at the office today and take them home. Still a pain in the hole though.

I've been sleeping poorly the last couple nights.

Tuesday I had meetings in M-town up north all day and survived THE WORST plane flight back (3 hours delayed, by the by) I have ever had in recent history. I was green in the gills. It was awful. Even more awful was the drunk South African guy in front of me who WOULDNT SHUT THE HELL UP for the whole ride and proceeded to flirt with every woman on the flight and be obnoxious as hell to the staff and all those surrounding him. This is what happens when flights are delayed so horribly... people get drunk, b/c they have nothing else to do.... and then get on the plane. I was not happy already with having to have sat around for the whole day (we couldnt do our site visit because of the monsoon) doing nothing, and having had to wake up at 5am just to make the flight up there... it was a bad day.

But the Mr. made the world's most delicious soup ever, for when I got home. At 10pm. It was SO nice. And I'm normally not a huge vegetable soup fan.

What else, what else.

Well this sunday is the biggest fund raiser for the Animal Peeps of the whole year. It's a big old Golf day. I'll have to be there at the ass crack of dawn, slaving away. Most likely serving booze and food to rich golfers. -sigh- I've already been battling for the last month to sell all these damn raffle tickets... I still have 12 left to get rid of. tick, tick, tick...

I want a holiday. Don't we normally go to the beach around now? (the answer is "no, normally it's more like September... you're 3 months early!")

Today's story comes from my real-life employee and his real-life fianceé... or should I call her Mma Finance.

Look, I could easily be elected "Miss PC 2009" or at least be called flexible and understanding in most cases when it comes to cultural differences, but in this situation I just get so annoyed. I suppose because I know Jr. personally and care about the guy, and hate to see anyone I care about get taken for a ride, but anyway...

Right, so Jr. wants to get married. About 10 months or so he asks Mma Finance to be his bride and she says yes. Various theories re: "WHY?!" abound in the orifice, but it comes down to either
a) church/beliefs or
b) HER/wedding fever.

I'm on the "b" team. The other guys are on the "a" team, but whatever. I'm a girl. I have perspective on these things.

Background: Mma Finance comes from money. She's also still a college student. She likes shiny american magazines, hollywood weddings, and glamour. She is the only child of a single mother - who has a good job and a big house and a degree/career/etc. Mma Finance is very "religious", and has convinced Jr. that she is a prophet (that's not a sarcastic metaphor, it's a fact). By the by, she also cheats on her university homework, and neglects her pets (has had 3 dogs die painful suffering deaths in the last year from neglect & treatable disease) but then she & her dear mother promptly replace them with new cuddly puppies of posh breeds. Loves expensive handbags and shoes, and gets her hair did about once a day. She has recently failed a bunch of her college classes so will be re-taking them this coming term, after the wedding. Has never held a job.

Jr. is the only educated child of an uneducated, disjointed family with a history of poor health, poor choices, poverty, hard knocks, and just about every misfortune you could imagine. But above all he's a good kid who works hard and is very genuinely religious. He is a GRADUATE EMPLOYEE who makes about 5,000 bucks a month, and has JUST finished college.

Back to the story.

Lobola. The Setswana tradition of dowry in which the girl's family makes demands on the boy and his family, before they will agree to the wedding of the 2. Traditionally, this amounted to a number of cattle. What's truly F'ed up these days is that society has modernized, and these people are happy to go along with modernization and get jobs in the city and NOT live as herders and gatherers, drive fancy cars and eat at the local Portuguese Chicken Fast Food joints, but yet they still HAVE to have their traditiony traditions. So yes, you have all the doctors and lawyers of the big city running around trying to organize lobola for their future-in-laws whims, even when the future-in-laws probably make more money than the kids do and live in a 3rd floor apartment and drive a 2-door sedan. Whatever.

So anyway, Mma Finance's extended family up in S-town (3 hrs away) have recently submitted their list of demands for lobola (everything happens with the extended family in these traditional things). Mind you this is all taking place one month before the "traditional" wedding, which will be in the next few weeks, followed by a "western" type ceremony or as I like to call it a "big-fat-expensive-extra-showoff-party" which will be held in September, here in the city.

Their list of demands:

• 8 cows (at +/-1500 bucks each)
• A 5-tonne truckload of firewood
• New suit for Gramps
• Full set of new clothing for Mma Finance (including underwear)
• Set of new clothing for Mma Finance's mother
• One live cow for the wedding feast
• A set of furniture for their new house
• Transportation for the G-city family to S-town for the traditional thing
• Transportation for all the S-town family down to G-city for the September thing.

There's other stuff but I can't remember exactly (because I get so annoyed I stop listening), but basically everything that is required for the whole future-in-laws family and their friends, AND his family, and basically whomever in the village who wants to stop by the wedding and get a free meal (yes, weddings are invitationless here - if you see it, you can join in the party), to have a big ol' feast day on behalf of him.

Did I mention he just finished college... like... last month?

What's that you say? "why doesn't his family help him out with the cost of this?"
Did I mention his mother lives in poverty and is jobless, moneyless, etc., he has no father, and his "uncles" who are basically supposed to represent his needs and negotiate the lobola on his behalf with her family, are so worthless they couldn't even talk straight when they went to negotiate, and ended up coming away from the table without even getting any quantities or demands lowered!!!

New set of clothes for the MIL my ASS! That woman dresses better than Michelle Obama!

But yet she won't take the family dogs to the vet to get vaccinations because 200 bucks is "too expensive". And dogs don't need vaccinations anyway. And they don't feel pain. Did you know that?

_sigh_

It's all so ridiculous. Probably what makes me angrier than anything is the behaviour of Mma Finance in all of this. Everybody knows how much Jr. makes. But girl's got wedding fever and every 5 minutes she and her mother turn around telling him about their new latest and greatest idea for the "extra" celebration in September.... music, food, decorations, circus tents, wedding favours, etc etc. Oh, and what was the ONE THING that is built into all this Setswana traditional crap that would actually require any input from HER, financially? The wedding ring for him. Tradition has it that the boy buys the girl's ring, and the girl buys the boy's ring. Well guess what, Mma Finance can't afford Jr.'s ring. Aw, poor thing, she must have spent her allowance on her latest hairdo and handbag. So Jr.'s paying for his own ring too. She's having him take her down to SA this weekend so that she can pick them out.
AGH!

And she wants a car. You know if you get married you HAVE to have a car. (Even though they're both coping just fine right now without). It's a must. You know she must be able to be driven up to S-town to see her family on occasion, after they get married. It's tradition! (How the hell does she get up there now? Public transport, duh!)

She tells Jr. he needs to take out a loan to pay for all this wedding garbage. Because you know loans are just "magical money" which magically appears and then gets magically erased someday by the magical money fairy. Luckily, Jr., (who rarely has a backbone when it comes to his beloved prophet wife-to-be) has put his foot down on that one. No loans. He knows that there is life after the wedding and they will have to at least be able to sit in the dark in their cold un-furnished house with no television and EAT SOMETHING. As soon as he would take a loan out, it would be spendy-spendy time from her point of view, and all those repayments would be getting bigger and bigger and bigger, right before his eyes, meaning they probably end up broke and starving because the bank ain't gonna take "I spent it all on cows, hairdoos and handbags" as an excuse for defaulting!!

Never fear, in the meantime Mma Finance is coming up with all sorts of creative ideas for Jr. to save money. For example, she will come over and cook his dinner for him. That's a good idea. Because normally, Jr. lives rent-free in his cousin's house, provided he cooks dinner every night for Cousin & Cousin's other renter. It's a nice arrangement on behalf of Cousin: Jr. just takes care of the food, just so long as Cousin & Roommate get some of it. Now see, when Mma Finance comes over, she cooks *JUST* enough food for herself and Jr., thereby forcing a welch on the gentleman's agreement between Jr. and Cousin and putting Jr. in an awkward sticky situation. But she's saved him the equivalent of 1 portion of food!! $$$ That's crazy big savings there!!! $$$

Or how about this one - she's arranged a nice programme of fasting for him. She's a prophet, you know. She likes to fast. Once she went without food and water for 3 weeks. (again I am NOT making this kak up. Before you say "but that'll kill you", let me say "I KNOW". So let's do an enquiry into how it worked, cuz the girl is still alive. She did lose 20lbs though...) She's got Jr. fasting for weeks at a time now, in "spiritual preparation" for the wedding, etc. It's great, he doesn't spend any money on food! He also doesn't eat any food! Monday through Friday last week, he went food-less from wakeup time in the a.m. til 8:30 pm. Every day. One small meal at 8:30 pm. You gotta be spiritually ready, yo.

OK now I realize I've totally digressed from the outrageous Setswana lobola tradition to just telling "Crazy Mma Finance Stories"... my point is... Here is MY own PERSONAL opinion on the topic: If tradition is what you're after, fine. Go out into the Kalahari and live off cacti and goats. Bravo. But if you want to be city folk and live in a 4 bedroom house with 2 bathrooms and satellite television, DONT force a graduate environmental consultant who makes 5000 bucks a month and already has to give 1/5th of that to his own family in F-town to keep his poor mother alive, to bring you 13,500 bucks' worth of cattle so that he can marry your Princess Paris Hilton Gucci Girl niece/daughter/granddaughter/whatever.

And go buy your own damn suit!!!

Labels: BW-general

May was officially the busiest month of my life, I think. I actually don't know where it went. I think I went to bed some night in the late 20's of April and woke up in a parallel universe. Or, maybe I just woke up on the 1st of June and it was some OTHER Wayward Child who had managed to slug their way through May? I don't know, but I'm kind of feeling like I'm living an episode of "Lost".

Anyway.

There was school.
There is a new string quartet.
There are the most ferocious work issues ever seen in our company's history.
There is the new Animal Peeps committee and the everlasting drama built into that.
There is the HHH.
There is getting up over an hour early in the dark every morning just to keep my head above water.
There is the constant battle between practicing viola (now) vs. practicing banjo.
There are Human Resources issues.
There is the website for the Animal Peeps I am behind on updating.
There is the newsletter for the Animal Peeps that went out THREE MONTHS LATE due to a giant debacle, and internal drama amongst the committee & associated characters (which of course goes out with my name in big fat letters under "EDITOR", so of course I'M the one to blame).
There is the other associated drama that goes along with being me. Naturally.

Let me think, is there any of the above that I even wish to go into in any amount of detail now that I finally have the internet back on and about a 10 minute break in which to write something that does not have ANYTHING to do with Health and Safety, Ergonomics, the Environment, or the prevention of cruelty to animals...??? ANYTHING??? Or would I rather just put the whole thing behind me and move forward???

Well I guess there's the whole thing about my successful time-management through all of this month. I think I handled it pretty well, even if it was at the expense of my own personal life and sanity. For example - anyone who knows me knows that I am the ANTI-morning person, as in I really REALLy hate waking up in the morning, and particularly hate waking up earlier than the sun. HATE IT. But for the entirety of the last month, I have been doing it (albeit begrudgingly) and have found that I'm doing my best work and writing my best stuff between the hours of 6:00 & 7:00 am. The Mr. wakes me up, he goes downstairs and starts working (he's in deep too), and I stay upstairs in bed with the laptop and go to town. He (being the champion best-husband-on-Earth that he is) brings me a coffee and then calls me when my time is up and we have to get the smoothie show on the road and motor off to the office. In that brief time, I have already usually accomplished 200% more than I would have in half a day behind my desk in the office. Unreal. Although I hate it, I can say at least by Age 33 I've discovered a good formula for TCB.

Tip: completing 3 major research papers at once and running an office, doing a 50-hour-per-week job, and singlehandedly running a non-profit magazine and playing 2 musical instruments (one which requires substantial daily practice time now that I'm playing with a group and have 10 years of rust to work out) is unreasonable IF it becomes the norm. Especially because I like to have a life outside of all that crap. But I guess this was just the temporary luck of the draw, so I'm not going to have a pity-party about it! There's a lot of silver linings in there, like, the quality of my research papers increased because I was working a lot more intelligently than I normally do. I didn't let my physical fitness slip because regardless of how exhausted I was I just bit through it and forced myself to keep going to the gym, yoga, HHH, etc. It all basically boiled down to the fact that Frau Meister *happened* to ring me and ask me if I want a place in her quartet in May. I just *happened* to have to take 2 very heavy-load courses in my degree programme this semester. It just so *happened* that our highest-maintenance client demanded his 900-page publication to be finished in May. etc, etc etc. This is hopefully not going to be the norm, it is hopefully going to be one of those character-developing experiences that people talk about.

At least I'm really happy to be playing viola again, but I'm not really happy about the discipline issue. What I love about the banjo is that it's only ME who requires that I practice enough during the week that if Jeremy comes over with his guitar on a saturday or something, that I can have my chops up to scratch and can hang. What sucks about being in a quartet is that it's 3 other pairs of beady little eyes staring at you over the wire music stands going "did you not polish up that bit you were supposed to work on last week???" ugh. So now, I come home from the gym or yoga or whatever, at whenever, normally around 8pm or something... my shoulders hurt, my head hurts, I need to eat something, and instead of flopping down for a mind-numbing evening of Burn Notice, I have to drag myself upstairs and stare Dvorak in the face for at least an hour, by the end of which I just want to be knocked out. But still have to shower and throw something in the crock pot for the next day (notice there isn't even "make dinner" in there anymore because there are literally just not enough hours in the day and I refuse to become a fast-food queen).

I put the final touches on my last paper at appx 11:30pm on Saturday night, and was even able to muster a phone call to the beloved brother-man for his big 3-0, and got a big rush of adrenaline from finally having put at least SOMETHING to bed. So sunday I could start fresh and I did - although I had to cram for a practice session with the geriatric quartet, which wasnt quite so fun. But I started out with a gorgeous run with the HHHs, which I'm still really enjoying BTW - they're a great bunch. Good fun, good people, running, and drinking. What more could you ask for. They're even doing a Christmas-in-June soon, which I can't wait for. I don't know if it will exacerbate or alleviate this hangover of homesickness I've been hanging on to since January. There will be the whole 9-yards... wassail, yule logs, santa, mistletoe, xmas trees, xmas music, etc etc. And of course the cold weather. What a bunch of expats. HA!

OH and another fantastic addition to May - one of my BFFs from Aus called to tell me she's (FINALLY) getting married. October or thereabouts, and would I be able to make it. I am frickin crossing my fingers because I need a vacation and that's the one I want!!!! It was great to hear Agent H's voice, I miss her sooooooo much. Then Alan called from the satellite phone from Angola last night to let us know HE's still alive, which was nice, because we haven't talked since Easter and I was worried he had fallen into the Atlantic or something. No strange parasites yet, no hijackings, no STDs from the local Good Time Girls of Angola. good boy.

OK I'm caught up. The Mr. has been good about putting some photos on The Other Blog - he is such an all-rounder. I don't know how he does it.

I'm thinking a weekend in Cape Town in July is in order.