Damn illegal aliens...
1 Comments Published by Oh Wayward One on 31 August 2009 at 8/31/2009 03:02:00 pm.
This blasted baby of mine still gots no passport, DAMMIT!
I am not cool with this at all because it is still preventing me from booking my Australia tickets, and that is giving me the fits because the longer we wait the more expensive they're getting, and the closer I get to missing A&T's wedding!! AGHHHHHHHH!
Nevertheless, Social Worker assures me it's nearly done and we just have to be patient. Whatever. In the meantime I just have to keep hiding from the cops and the BW Defence Force cuz she's an alien!!
In the meantime though, I'm promised that 2 of my BFFs are coming to visit next year (Hawt diggity!) so that's something to look forward to, and yes, it feels like the next great thing to look forward to is THAT far away because my last semester is starting tomorrow and it's one of those semesters where I'm going to have to take exams and GAH I hate that. If I could I'd just skip summer altogether this year.
I'm somewhat sad because I know xmas is going to be in BW this year and if there's one thing that SUCKS it's a BW xmas. All my friends fly the coop and the town goes dead and it's smokin hot and nay not just so-hot-ye-cant-sleep, but more like even-too-hot-to-go-camping-hot. I would much rather be trapsing through the snow in the N.Hemisph singing "Jingle Bells" and drinking eggnog and watching NFL games in the dark, than hiding from the blistering sun in a ghost town with no christmas spirit whatsoever...
OK but enough of all that Oh-Poor-Me crap, I have a brand new office chair and it's quite comfy, a new podcast of TAL waiting to be downloaded, and a leftover container of baba ghanouj sitting next to me with a few crackers and the feeling of post-lunch-gym-workout hanging in my aura. not so bad.
Ally was up this past week for about 5 days. I taught him how to change cloth diapers & operate the world's most cumbersome carseat. We went to the First Ever Farmers' Market, brought him along on the Hash, and had a braai, and did some other stuff. It was semi-pleasant.
I need a haircut.
I have to go to Jr. + Mma Finance's wedding this weekend.
They're having it at the game reserve & you can't drive your own vehicle so we will effectively be trapped there all night.
I love John Prine.
My landlord brought me a giant sack of fresh oysters from Cape Town.
I love being a Hasher.
Did I mention I REALLY don't want to go to that wedding...?
Sometimes I consider moving to Houston.
But then I think of Virginiaahhhh.
I am not cool with this at all because it is still preventing me from booking my Australia tickets, and that is giving me the fits because the longer we wait the more expensive they're getting, and the closer I get to missing A&T's wedding!! AGHHHHHHHH!
Nevertheless, Social Worker assures me it's nearly done and we just have to be patient. Whatever. In the meantime I just have to keep hiding from the cops and the BW Defence Force cuz she's an alien!!
In the meantime though, I'm promised that 2 of my BFFs are coming to visit next year (Hawt diggity!) so that's something to look forward to, and yes, it feels like the next great thing to look forward to is THAT far away because my last semester is starting tomorrow and it's one of those semesters where I'm going to have to take exams and GAH I hate that. If I could I'd just skip summer altogether this year.
I'm somewhat sad because I know xmas is going to be in BW this year and if there's one thing that SUCKS it's a BW xmas. All my friends fly the coop and the town goes dead and it's smokin hot and nay not just so-hot-ye-cant-sleep, but more like even-too-hot-to-go-camping-hot. I would much rather be trapsing through the snow in the N.Hemisph singing "Jingle Bells" and drinking eggnog and watching NFL games in the dark, than hiding from the blistering sun in a ghost town with no christmas spirit whatsoever...
OK but enough of all that Oh-Poor-Me crap, I have a brand new office chair and it's quite comfy, a new podcast of TAL waiting to be downloaded, and a leftover container of baba ghanouj sitting next to me with a few crackers and the feeling of post-lunch-gym-workout hanging in my aura. not so bad.
Ally was up this past week for about 5 days. I taught him how to change cloth diapers & operate the world's most cumbersome carseat. We went to the First Ever Farmers' Market, brought him along on the Hash, and had a braai, and did some other stuff. It was semi-pleasant.
I need a haircut.
I have to go to Jr. + Mma Finance's wedding this weekend.
They're having it at the game reserve & you can't drive your own vehicle so we will effectively be trapped there all night.
I love John Prine.
My landlord brought me a giant sack of fresh oysters from Cape Town.
I love being a Hasher.
Did I mention I REALLY don't want to go to that wedding...?
Sometimes I consider moving to Houston.
But then I think of Virginiaahhhh.
It's the first "normal" weekend since we've been home, so now I'm experiencing the weekend through a whole new pair of eyes - the kind that has to wake up and make bottles at 7:30 am on a saturday now! Well ok we were doing it in Windhoek too but you come home and something in your subconscious tells you it's all going to be "back to normal", even though you know otherwise.
ANYWAY, now that I'm UP at this ridiculous weekend hour, I realize how much time I have to do stuff.
One thing I just finally got around to was deleting Jeremy's number out of my phone. That was the most horrible, surreal, awful feeling I've had in a long time. While we were away, we got the news that he died from complications with pneumonia and H1N1. It was so tragic. Just before we had left town, we were at a wine tasting and talking to a girl who also knew him who told us that she heard he'd just been admitted to the hospital with pneumonia. That night on the way home then, I called him and left a crazy voicemail message on his phone telling him to get better and joking around about "how dare you get pneumonia and not tell me?!" etc etc. I had been working on some songs that we were going to get together and play soon... (Jeremy is the guitar playing friend of ours who I have played banjo with + his Irish music-playin' buddies). Anyway we got the email while we were away that he died. We missed the memorial service and it's really sad because he was actually supposed to do some ecology work for us on one of our jobs, and now we have to get another ecologist and everything... meaning it won't be me and him and The Mr. going up into the bush to do that site visit we had all been talking about for months... bringing the guitar and banjo and a giant bottle of brandy.... -sigh-
So what do you do when someone dies who you have in your email addresses, cell phone phonebook, etc.? I mean it does no good to just leave them there - nobody is going to answer the phone if you call that number.... so finally this weekend I got around to deleting it and it was just very, very bizarre.
On another macabre note, just before we left Namibia I tracked down the riverbed where The Joo was found... we went and took some photos and figured it was the least we could do, what with her ever having any interest in her past... it's not like we can tell her who her biological parents are or anything, but hey she can at least see where she was born. It was surprisingly NOT in a poor township or anything. It was actually in a somewhat middle-class suburb with a mix of good & bad houses and a large mix of people from working-class whities to black yuppies and a bit of industrial estates. We'll never know exactly what stretch of the river bed the policeman found her in, but we took a bunch of photos of all the different parts of it. I got the biggest "vibe" from this place right here:
(this is the name of the neighbourhood on the "welcome to" sign)Keeping with the macabre... is it wrong to be slightly happy when one of your best friends finds herself single again, because it means she might actually be able to come and visit you?!!??!?! I'm sure the answer is "yes it's wrong" but dammit I just can't help it. I see that God has closed a door and by golly the window that it has opened up is the fact that the Ex is no longer around to put the kibosh on her international galavanting!!! I see all sorts of potential here. Namely the part where I get personal gain from it!!! Oh I can just feel the flames of hell licking my ass for even having this thought but hey. Smoke em if you got em, kids.
OK how did this happen... I made a giant pot of delicious posh coffee and here I sit, typing, and have forgotten all about it. Just goes to show you what happens when you take a sleeper-inner and make 'em wake up at some bloody ridiculous hour of a saturday morning.
Labels: mis amigos, Namibia
healthing and safetying
0 Comments Published by Oh Wayward One on 19 August 2009 at 8/19/2009 08:28:00 pm.
I am on a course this week (tues, weds, thurs) so not in the office.
then when i'm not in the office i'm working from home.
my life is so strange at the moment!
I'm so confused!
Tomorrow I have to take the exam for the course I'm doing. I hope I get higher than 85% because our employee, L., got 85% and he's not even an Environmental H&S professional!
Speaking of my profession, my university programme is almost back in session. Classes start on the 1st. back to slaving and reading and slaving and reading. AND my workaholic husband/co-director has been tendering for thousands upon thousands of jobs (ok, 10) and we're getting just about all of them. Today we got 3 in one day. Great. Just what I need. More work. At the same time as more school. And a baby. (OK well I cant complain about that last thing I guess)
Thaaaaaanks.
It's going to be a busy summer.
-sigh-
then when i'm not in the office i'm working from home.
my life is so strange at the moment!
I'm so confused!
Tomorrow I have to take the exam for the course I'm doing. I hope I get higher than 85% because our employee, L., got 85% and he's not even an Environmental H&S professional!
Speaking of my profession, my university programme is almost back in session. Classes start on the 1st. back to slaving and reading and slaving and reading. AND my workaholic husband/co-director has been tendering for thousands upon thousands of jobs (ok, 10) and we're getting just about all of them. Today we got 3 in one day. Great. Just what I need. More work. At the same time as more school. And a baby. (OK well I cant complain about that last thing I guess)
Thaaaaaanks.
It's going to be a busy summer.
-sigh-
Ohh to be home again...
0 Comments Published by Oh Wayward One on 12 August 2009 at 8/12/2009 09:35:00 am.
I am home!!
We are all home!!
WOOOO HOOOO!
After an extremely stressful and eventful last 2 days, it feels like I never left. Springtime has sprung here in G-city, and my pups are still alive, and the house is still standing (albeit lacking a playstation, a Cardinals hat, and a Chiefs hat... sniff! Would you believe they left The Mr's Munster Rugby cap behind though!?) and our boy L. was a spotless, wonderful, perfect housesitter.
Right so the reason we're talking stressful and eventful here, is because not only was it the first time that the Mr. and I were apart for a night in many many years (since his operation in the hospital in Ireland) which just sucks in general, I had to worry about him taking The Joo into BW safely & soundly (we still don't have her passport because the red tape is being cut away so slowwwly in true African style) and surviving the 10 hour drive with her and the pup and a car that had its registration expire while we were over the border, etc etc etc. All this while I had to be up in the Delta for work, unable to do a darned thing to help them if anything went wrong, and do nothing but stress & worry... and bunking down with the construction site Boss at his place (just wait til I get to that part) because all the hotels were supposedly booked out for the 1 night I needed to be there!
So after a long hot day on site on Monday, it just started going downhill from there. From little things like the Boss only has a 2-seater truck, so naturally being the gentlewoman that I am, I let Suit & Tie Guy sit up there while I rode in the back and got covered in a fine layer of dust and donkey poo (in the only set of pants that I had for 2 days)... to having my gentlewoman offer to cook dinner for he & his wife actually being taken up, and which I got to shop for before we even reached their place... WHICH was the biggest pig sty I have ever had to bunk down in, in my life (and I've camped in a lot of weird places). This place had no electricity (ok solar panels but therefore no modern conveniences i.e. TV, electric refrigerator, etc), about 10 dogs and 10 cats, armies of ants everywhere, dirty walls, cat-pee scented furniture from the 70s, filthy greasy dishes with more ants (which I tastefully and quietly wiped out with a papertowel before cooking in) - I would go into more detail but it's all more of the same. The shower scared me. The whole place scared me. One of their dogs kept humping me and then bit me when I tried to get him off. I slept IN THE ROOF. no really. With the mice. Woe is me. But I digress...
And of course all the stress & worry was justified regarding the Mr. and the Joo getting back! Because ultimately, as I said, she does not have a passport! But things were taking so long, that the Magistrate over there felt so sorry for us (and for us having to be separated) that they issued a court order stating that the adoption had been finalized and that we were to be allowed to leave the country and return to our place. Well. Our lovely country was not having any of it. The Mr & The Joo got out of Country A just fine, but of course Country B raised a stink. "This is not a passport!" So after pleading and begging and carefully considering the option of crashing the gate (which was standing wide open so at least it wouldn't hurt the car) he went back to the border post of Country A and after passing The Joo around all the officers and letting her charm the pants off of them, they agreed to make up some sort of bogus travel doc on the spot. It was called a temporary travel permit and they put all sorts of official looking stamps, a passport photo, and a few dozen seals and signatures, and sent him off again. Lo and behold it worked on the grumpy sour-pants in Country B, and he was off like a rocket. Shaking and sweating, I got the call that they were through in the afternoon and everyone rejoiced. Whew.
Honestly I know they say kids will do this to you, but I had never worried so much in my entire life, nor felt the elation I felt when I found out everything is ok. I swear I can officially handle ANYTHING now. unnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnbelievable.
Anyway. It feels so good to be back. What does not feel good is looking at the literal explosion we made when we all arrived back at the ranch last night around 8:30pm.
We are all home!!
WOOOO HOOOO!
After an extremely stressful and eventful last 2 days, it feels like I never left. Springtime has sprung here in G-city, and my pups are still alive, and the house is still standing (albeit lacking a playstation, a Cardinals hat, and a Chiefs hat... sniff! Would you believe they left The Mr's Munster Rugby cap behind though!?) and our boy L. was a spotless, wonderful, perfect housesitter.
Right so the reason we're talking stressful and eventful here, is because not only was it the first time that the Mr. and I were apart for a night in many many years (since his operation in the hospital in Ireland) which just sucks in general, I had to worry about him taking The Joo into BW safely & soundly (we still don't have her passport because the red tape is being cut away so slowwwly in true African style) and surviving the 10 hour drive with her and the pup and a car that had its registration expire while we were over the border, etc etc etc. All this while I had to be up in the Delta for work, unable to do a darned thing to help them if anything went wrong, and do nothing but stress & worry... and bunking down with the construction site Boss at his place (just wait til I get to that part) because all the hotels were supposedly booked out for the 1 night I needed to be there!
So after a long hot day on site on Monday, it just started going downhill from there. From little things like the Boss only has a 2-seater truck, so naturally being the gentlewoman that I am, I let Suit & Tie Guy sit up there while I rode in the back and got covered in a fine layer of dust and donkey poo (in the only set of pants that I had for 2 days)... to having my gentlewoman offer to cook dinner for he & his wife actually being taken up, and which I got to shop for before we even reached their place... WHICH was the biggest pig sty I have ever had to bunk down in, in my life (and I've camped in a lot of weird places). This place had no electricity (ok solar panels but therefore no modern conveniences i.e. TV, electric refrigerator, etc), about 10 dogs and 10 cats, armies of ants everywhere, dirty walls, cat-pee scented furniture from the 70s, filthy greasy dishes with more ants (which I tastefully and quietly wiped out with a papertowel before cooking in) - I would go into more detail but it's all more of the same. The shower scared me. The whole place scared me. One of their dogs kept humping me and then bit me when I tried to get him off. I slept IN THE ROOF. no really. With the mice. Woe is me. But I digress...
And of course all the stress & worry was justified regarding the Mr. and the Joo getting back! Because ultimately, as I said, she does not have a passport! But things were taking so long, that the Magistrate over there felt so sorry for us (and for us having to be separated) that they issued a court order stating that the adoption had been finalized and that we were to be allowed to leave the country and return to our place. Well. Our lovely country was not having any of it. The Mr & The Joo got out of Country A just fine, but of course Country B raised a stink. "This is not a passport!" So after pleading and begging and carefully considering the option of crashing the gate (which was standing wide open so at least it wouldn't hurt the car) he went back to the border post of Country A and after passing The Joo around all the officers and letting her charm the pants off of them, they agreed to make up some sort of bogus travel doc on the spot. It was called a temporary travel permit and they put all sorts of official looking stamps, a passport photo, and a few dozen seals and signatures, and sent him off again. Lo and behold it worked on the grumpy sour-pants in Country B, and he was off like a rocket. Shaking and sweating, I got the call that they were through in the afternoon and everyone rejoiced. Whew.
Honestly I know they say kids will do this to you, but I had never worried so much in my entire life, nor felt the elation I felt when I found out everything is ok. I swear I can officially handle ANYTHING now. unnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnbelievable.
Anyway. It feels so good to be back. What does not feel good is looking at the literal explosion we made when we all arrived back at the ranch last night around 8:30pm.
Okay, NOW I'm ready to go home!!
1 Comments Published by Oh Wayward One on 04 August 2009 at 8/04/2009 12:32:00 pm.
Ugh. This is officially the part where I go stir crazy in this little apartment and start counting the nanoseconds til we get the hell out of here!! It's still just a matter of days, but the problem is that apparently our house got robbed last night and although everything is ok and what was taken was minimal, it just makes me want to get back NOW and every extra day is just a big pain in my ass!!!
These bastards that broke in at our place did it while L & T were sleeping, and I dont know how they did it but they must've drugged them because they were able to steal cell phones out from under their pillows and everything. They use chloroform these days for these things, we here. Niiice. And whatever they did to the pups so that they wouldn't bark is beyond me. I'd say Thank God that they only took a playstation, some cash, and nothing else because it could've been a lot worse (they didn't steal the vehicles, nor the house keys, tv, dvd, satellite decoder, etc - they were obviously on foot) but I'm so devastated because they took my Brandon-bequeathed video iPod & docking station. WAIL!!!!!!!!!!
Ugh! This is so not my day.
Now I gotta go back to work.
These bastards that broke in at our place did it while L & T were sleeping, and I dont know how they did it but they must've drugged them because they were able to steal cell phones out from under their pillows and everything. They use chloroform these days for these things, we here. Niiice. And whatever they did to the pups so that they wouldn't bark is beyond me. I'd say Thank God that they only took a playstation, some cash, and nothing else because it could've been a lot worse (they didn't steal the vehicles, nor the house keys, tv, dvd, satellite decoder, etc - they were obviously on foot) but I'm so devastated because they took my Brandon-bequeathed video iPod & docking station. WAIL!!!!!!!!!!
Ugh! This is so not my day.
Now I gotta go back to work.
