Chilling in the hoosegow. And a lesson in maturity.
1 Comments Published by Oh Wayward One on 23 December 2009 at 12/23/2009 02:35:00 pm.
OK so I'm not in the hoosegow. But I am chilling.
ahhh.
Right, so last night we had S&M over for dinner with their wee youngling the little 10-week old. I can see how one Mister Bachelor A. would not have felt like part of the spawning gang, but still, we tried to not talk about baby crap (which bugs the hell out of me too anyway) in an effort to include him, and guess what he tried.... NUTTIN! Just freakin rude, I tell you. Not only did he not utter a word the entire night, at one point he just LEFT! To go agitate Jock (who was being held in time out because of his earlier actions during the day involving Billy and an apparent territorial dispute, but that's a different story all together) and poke around in our room. Anyway, at one point I met him in the kitchen and said "oh, I didn't know where you went" and he just mutters under his breath "the fuck outta there". I just ignored this and went on about my hostessing. But come on. Maturity factor?
So anyway, rather than bringing myself down to the negative level of SOME grumpy ass grumps here in the hoosegow, I will instead try to make a positive stab at lending a helping hand to anyone with anti-social problems or immaturity syndrome out there in the universe who may be tapping into my brain and awaiting my virtual christmas gift of advice. Then again they might be too young to be tapping into my aura for knowledge-dropping, but WTF.
10 Easy, Painless Tips on How not to be an Anti-Social Git:
10. If everyone in the room is sitting down, don't STAND in a doorway.
9. If someone asks you a question, answer it clearly (don't mutter) and then ask them one back.
8. If someone is busy in the kitchen all by themselves during a dinner party, offer a hand.
7. When there's an infant in the room, start by maybe asking what it's name is. You don't have to act all fake and sappy, but at least an indication at having a pulse would be a place to start.
6. When meeting new people, don't just ASSUME they are beneath you and idiots based on age or physical appearance or other such nonsense.
5. If you realize halfway through the night that no one is talking to you, do not ASSUME it's because *they* are rude, assume it's because they've given up on you and your dead-fish ways, and do something to mitigate the situation. Maybe start by making eye contact and asking a question or two, or maybe contributing a sentence to an already-ongoing conversation.
4. If you're going to get a drink for yourself, offer to get someone else one too.
3. If you're in someone else's house, stay out of their bedroom.
2. Mustering a smile doesn't physically hurt. Don't be afraid.
And finally, should you find yourself in the unfortunate position of only being able to see the tops of people's heads and feeling a chilly wind tussling your hair...
1. Get off your freakin high horse and learn how to talk to people even if they're not 21 year old blonde big bosemed boozers.
God help me tomorrow when we all go over to the Swede's Xmas Eve thing and have to mix and mingle with up to 8 or 10 other people of all age groups and personalities. God help me xmas day when we have a family of 4 come over for xmas day festivities and we might have to be open minded about each other all over again.
But honestly I suppose I have to just grin and bear it considering that it was my dear brother-from-another-mother in question that saved the life of poor Billy boy yesterday during the unfortunate happenstance on Planet Pup. ugh. Grinning. Bearing. Wrapping presents. Getting the rhino skin on for all the cynnicism and muttered netativity and "oh this is so retarded" judgements to be passed.
I seriously need some humour therapy.
Hence the fact that I intend to do nothing all day but watch a Will & Grace marathon, and avoiding food (or, to coin an already borrowed-phrase from bella and then change it up for my own use) through my holiday "Thingineering", and drink white wine. Screw the houseguest. I'm sure it will result in me being called "boring", "old" and totally "lame" in the letters back home, but dammit this is my damn holiday and i've had a busy damn year. Quite frankly, vegetating in a state of semi-trance sounds damn good to me. I ain't in the entertainment business this holiday. And I will not be apologizing for it, nor will I apologize for my very decent, very nice, and perfectly acceptable friends.
We've watched some movies over the last couple days, which was nice. I have so many to catch up on. Caught "Annie Hall" (classic Woody), and "Diving Bell & the Butterfly" (meh.) Other than that, the only other goals we had (Me & the Mr) was to spend a lot of time on line catching up with stuff that has passed us by in the last couple months, like the internet and personal emails and skype phone calls, but of course the power keeps going out meaning there's no internet, and then my stupid cellphone is getting godawful horrible reception up here at the house (not a new thing) so so far none of those efforts have succeeded, but I will persist. We'll get 'er done somehow. In the meantime it would be great if I would get some freakin phonecalls on my landline myself!!! So far our own families haven't even tried to call to say howzit, and WTF is that all about? Not only did I not get a Thanksgiving phonecall from the big fambly hoo-ha this year, but The Mr. hasn't been getting his bi-weeklies from the farm either? whatever. Considering the source(s).
I ordered 2 cases of my favorite 2 white wines from our wine club, so I've got 6 bottles of chardonnay and 6 bottles of chenin blanc to get through. Awesome. Yay for summer!
ahhh.
Right, so last night we had S&M over for dinner with their wee youngling the little 10-week old. I can see how one Mister Bachelor A. would not have felt like part of the spawning gang, but still, we tried to not talk about baby crap (which bugs the hell out of me too anyway) in an effort to include him, and guess what he tried.... NUTTIN! Just freakin rude, I tell you. Not only did he not utter a word the entire night, at one point he just LEFT! To go agitate Jock (who was being held in time out because of his earlier actions during the day involving Billy and an apparent territorial dispute, but that's a different story all together) and poke around in our room. Anyway, at one point I met him in the kitchen and said "oh, I didn't know where you went" and he just mutters under his breath "the fuck outta there". I just ignored this and went on about my hostessing. But come on. Maturity factor?
So anyway, rather than bringing myself down to the negative level of SOME grumpy ass grumps here in the hoosegow, I will instead try to make a positive stab at lending a helping hand to anyone with anti-social problems or immaturity syndrome out there in the universe who may be tapping into my brain and awaiting my virtual christmas gift of advice. Then again they might be too young to be tapping into my aura for knowledge-dropping, but WTF.
10 Easy, Painless Tips on How not to be an Anti-Social Git:
10. If everyone in the room is sitting down, don't STAND in a doorway.
9. If someone asks you a question, answer it clearly (don't mutter) and then ask them one back.
8. If someone is busy in the kitchen all by themselves during a dinner party, offer a hand.
7. When there's an infant in the room, start by maybe asking what it's name is. You don't have to act all fake and sappy, but at least an indication at having a pulse would be a place to start.
6. When meeting new people, don't just ASSUME they are beneath you and idiots based on age or physical appearance or other such nonsense.
5. If you realize halfway through the night that no one is talking to you, do not ASSUME it's because *they* are rude, assume it's because they've given up on you and your dead-fish ways, and do something to mitigate the situation. Maybe start by making eye contact and asking a question or two, or maybe contributing a sentence to an already-ongoing conversation.
4. If you're going to get a drink for yourself, offer to get someone else one too.
3. If you're in someone else's house, stay out of their bedroom.
2. Mustering a smile doesn't physically hurt. Don't be afraid.
And finally, should you find yourself in the unfortunate position of only being able to see the tops of people's heads and feeling a chilly wind tussling your hair...
1. Get off your freakin high horse and learn how to talk to people even if they're not 21 year old blonde big bosemed boozers.
God help me tomorrow when we all go over to the Swede's Xmas Eve thing and have to mix and mingle with up to 8 or 10 other people of all age groups and personalities. God help me xmas day when we have a family of 4 come over for xmas day festivities and we might have to be open minded about each other all over again.
But honestly I suppose I have to just grin and bear it considering that it was my dear brother-from-another-mother in question that saved the life of poor Billy boy yesterday during the unfortunate happenstance on Planet Pup. ugh. Grinning. Bearing. Wrapping presents. Getting the rhino skin on for all the cynnicism and muttered netativity and "oh this is so retarded" judgements to be passed.
I seriously need some humour therapy.
Hence the fact that I intend to do nothing all day but watch a Will & Grace marathon, and avoiding food (or, to coin an already borrowed-phrase from bella and then change it up for my own use) through my holiday "Thingineering", and drink white wine. Screw the houseguest. I'm sure it will result in me being called "boring", "old" and totally "lame" in the letters back home, but dammit this is my damn holiday and i've had a busy damn year. Quite frankly, vegetating in a state of semi-trance sounds damn good to me. I ain't in the entertainment business this holiday. And I will not be apologizing for it, nor will I apologize for my very decent, very nice, and perfectly acceptable friends.
We've watched some movies over the last couple days, which was nice. I have so many to catch up on. Caught "Annie Hall" (classic Woody), and "Diving Bell & the Butterfly" (meh.) Other than that, the only other goals we had (Me & the Mr) was to spend a lot of time on line catching up with stuff that has passed us by in the last couple months, like the internet and personal emails and skype phone calls, but of course the power keeps going out meaning there's no internet, and then my stupid cellphone is getting godawful horrible reception up here at the house (not a new thing) so so far none of those efforts have succeeded, but I will persist. We'll get 'er done somehow. In the meantime it would be great if I would get some freakin phonecalls on my landline myself!!! So far our own families haven't even tried to call to say howzit, and WTF is that all about? Not only did I not get a Thanksgiving phonecall from the big fambly hoo-ha this year, but The Mr. hasn't been getting his bi-weeklies from the farm either? whatever. Considering the source(s).
I ordered 2 cases of my favorite 2 white wines from our wine club, so I've got 6 bottles of chardonnay and 6 bottles of chenin blanc to get through. Awesome. Yay for summer!
Well, we're back home. Yay! This means holidays start.
We hauled it back the last 6hrs from Nata yesterday, meeting Uncle Al here where he had let himself in, fed the pups and shopped for dinner already. Not a bad start!
Drank sundowners, cooked with the power off (freakin bastards!!! Again with this shit! 'parently it was off for 48 hrs while we were gone... What does this mean for my xmas turkey in there?!?) anyway then we ate, and hung round & ended up watching Annie Hall on A's laptop bc the power STILL wasnt coming on. Oh well. Went to bed after midnight and the BEST part then being....
....drum roll...
Sleeping past 9am for the first time in.... How Long..?????? Ahhhhh.
I didnt REALLY realize how exhausted we all were but realized in the last 6 months I honestly cant remember 1 morning when at least one of us didnt have to set the alarm for some stupid hour for something- mainly work/study obligations- and now... For the next 2 weeks at least... There's NUN a that!!
Even The Kid knows it's sleep-in time, too, not even making a peep til she got picked up out of her room at 9:20. She's a quick learner that one is!
So then it's been a leisurely day of nothing. Awesome. I messed round in the garden all day and did nothin else. I pray the whole 2 wks will be like this. 2 wks of nothin AND a live-in babysitter!!!!
But there's still social stuff on the agenda to balance the nothin... Tomorrow is the hash followed by a xmas braai, tues I invited Soo & Mx over for sundowners & dinner, then wednesday is xmas eve (right?) so thats the big Swedish party, followed by my mega xmas day feast on thurs. Then im not sure if it's fri or sat but A's 3 mates are coming up for a few days so we'll have a full house til who knows, maybe New Year. I dunno. Nothing solid. But that week will probably be all about lounging around, drinking!! Oh and sleeping!! Oh and making lotsa friendship maintenence phone calls!! Oh and playing Cranium and taking advantage of all those babysitters!!!!!
...like me & the Mr. are gonna do now! Dump the Pooper in Uncle A's lap and go for a run... TOGETHER, for the first time since Namibia when we had Robyn next door!! WooHoo!!
We hauled it back the last 6hrs from Nata yesterday, meeting Uncle Al here where he had let himself in, fed the pups and shopped for dinner already. Not a bad start!
Drank sundowners, cooked with the power off (freakin bastards!!! Again with this shit! 'parently it was off for 48 hrs while we were gone... What does this mean for my xmas turkey in there?!?) anyway then we ate, and hung round & ended up watching Annie Hall on A's laptop bc the power STILL wasnt coming on. Oh well. Went to bed after midnight and the BEST part then being....
....drum roll...
Sleeping past 9am for the first time in.... How Long..?????? Ahhhhh.
I didnt REALLY realize how exhausted we all were but realized in the last 6 months I honestly cant remember 1 morning when at least one of us didnt have to set the alarm for some stupid hour for something- mainly work/study obligations- and now... For the next 2 weeks at least... There's NUN a that!!
Even The Kid knows it's sleep-in time, too, not even making a peep til she got picked up out of her room at 9:20. She's a quick learner that one is!
So then it's been a leisurely day of nothing. Awesome. I messed round in the garden all day and did nothin else. I pray the whole 2 wks will be like this. 2 wks of nothin AND a live-in babysitter!!!!
But there's still social stuff on the agenda to balance the nothin... Tomorrow is the hash followed by a xmas braai, tues I invited Soo & Mx over for sundowners & dinner, then wednesday is xmas eve (right?) so thats the big Swedish party, followed by my mega xmas day feast on thurs. Then im not sure if it's fri or sat but A's 3 mates are coming up for a few days so we'll have a full house til who knows, maybe New Year. I dunno. Nothing solid. But that week will probably be all about lounging around, drinking!! Oh and sleeping!! Oh and making lotsa friendship maintenence phone calls!! Oh and playing Cranium and taking advantage of all those babysitters!!!!!
...like me & the Mr. are gonna do now! Dump the Pooper in Uncle A's lap and go for a run... TOGETHER, for the first time since Namibia when we had Robyn next door!! WooHoo!!
it's one of those days today
0 Comments Published by Oh Wayward One on 16 December 2009 at 12/16/2009 09:23:00 am.
...when I am finding my usual stellar patience level at an all time low. Why is it that up here in tourist-land, you get the highest concentration of the biggest idiots at THIS place?? Oh thats right, it's because the lodge we're staying at is semi-expensive, meaning the "entitled types" stay here, and it's in town, instead of actually out in the bush, meaning the soft wussy types, and it's all-buffet, all-the-time, meaning overcooked meat and soggy bland EvERYTHING, so anyone with any culture or sense of culinary quality would be put off from this damn overpriced touristy cheeseball establishment!! I know the only reason we're staying here is because of the youngling, malaria, etc, and needing facilities to work from. That's our worthy excuse. Otherwise we'd be in a tent somewhere. But anyway, my grievence here is that, on the whole, IDIOTS are just plain RUDE and I'm getting ready to lose it with them.
Today I had some complete stranger, a white south african lady of leisure type with drawn-on eyebrows, come up to me & The Joolz as we are sitting on the pool deck watching the river, minding OUR own business, and proclaims she "wants more details"... Uhhh ok, I'm freakin Ghandi these days with the patience for nosey people, as it's something I knew what I was getting into from the beginning, taking the chocolate baby on and all... So I get ready for the usual politically-correct FAQ, which I expect from well-meaning white folk (not the same as the brazen and untempered locals, whom have no taboo in their culture when it comes to just throwing out a "who is the father?!" or "you cant be the mother!" in your face)... no, the PC white folk FAQ is more like "is she a Motswana?" or a little more fishing like "how long has she 'been with you'? " you know, kinda testing the waters to see how much you're comfortable with giving up. Fine & dandy with me... quite frankly I'm continually entertained by the creativity some people can come up with in terms of sticking their nose in your bidnez. I'm happy to grin and silently rate their attempts on a scale of 1-10 for flair & effort and give them the whole 9-yards of story depending on if they earn it or not. But THIS one... This woman was Somethin Else!! Her and her "quest for details" broke the mold. Bearing in mind that I am a TOTAL freaking STRANGER, gee, what a shock when I hear "can you not have your own?" come out of her mouth, along with other wee gems such as "do you plan on having more" and then further prodding into our overall family planning outlook, and announcing "she'll be too spoiled if she's an only child, you know...". I was flabbergasted. So flabbergasted I didnt even know how to respond. WTF?!? I managed to get hold of my response filter and played nicey nice on some of the more benign ones but "can you not have your own" managed to take me a good half a minute to even pick my jaw up off the floor in order to form words. Ugh.
One funny thing tho was that when Rude Lady tried to hold The Poop Machine, she growled at her, which The Kid NEVER does when meeting someone new! See, she's getting taught well by her 4-legged siblings.
I realized I am so much more accustomed to handling this stuff from a clearly uncultured Motswana check-out girl or fuel station attendant, than someone who clearly travels and earns a salary and has a career (or at least married someone with a career) and has at least HEARD of manners and political correctness. Normally it's all water and I'm all duck. But this idiot woman has forced me to put myself in "time-out" now and consider re-enrolling in Mindfulness class because I
walked away from that one feeling like someone was either (A) gonna hafta die, or (B) get their tires slashed. Bad mojo.
Ugh. Idiots.
Today I had some complete stranger, a white south african lady of leisure type with drawn-on eyebrows, come up to me & The Joolz as we are sitting on the pool deck watching the river, minding OUR own business, and proclaims she "wants more details"... Uhhh ok, I'm freakin Ghandi these days with the patience for nosey people, as it's something I knew what I was getting into from the beginning, taking the chocolate baby on and all... So I get ready for the usual politically-correct FAQ, which I expect from well-meaning white folk (not the same as the brazen and untempered locals, whom have no taboo in their culture when it comes to just throwing out a "who is the father?!" or "you cant be the mother!" in your face)... no, the PC white folk FAQ is more like "is she a Motswana?" or a little more fishing like "how long has she 'been with you'? " you know, kinda testing the waters to see how much you're comfortable with giving up. Fine & dandy with me... quite frankly I'm continually entertained by the creativity some people can come up with in terms of sticking their nose in your bidnez. I'm happy to grin and silently rate their attempts on a scale of 1-10 for flair & effort and give them the whole 9-yards of story depending on if they earn it or not. But THIS one... This woman was Somethin Else!! Her and her "quest for details" broke the mold. Bearing in mind that I am a TOTAL freaking STRANGER, gee, what a shock when I hear "can you not have your own?" come out of her mouth, along with other wee gems such as "do you plan on having more" and then further prodding into our overall family planning outlook, and announcing "she'll be too spoiled if she's an only child, you know...". I was flabbergasted. So flabbergasted I didnt even know how to respond. WTF?!? I managed to get hold of my response filter and played nicey nice on some of the more benign ones but "can you not have your own" managed to take me a good half a minute to even pick my jaw up off the floor in order to form words. Ugh.
One funny thing tho was that when Rude Lady tried to hold The Poop Machine, she growled at her, which The Kid NEVER does when meeting someone new! See, she's getting taught well by her 4-legged siblings.
I realized I am so much more accustomed to handling this stuff from a clearly uncultured Motswana check-out girl or fuel station attendant, than someone who clearly travels and earns a salary and has a career (or at least married someone with a career) and has at least HEARD of manners and political correctness. Normally it's all water and I'm all duck. But this idiot woman has forced me to put myself in "time-out" now and consider re-enrolling in Mindfulness class because I
walked away from that one feeling like someone was either (A) gonna hafta die, or (B) get their tires slashed. Bad mojo.
Ugh. Idiots.
on the job on the river
0 Comments Published by Oh Wayward One on 14 December 2009 at 12/14/2009 02:13:00 pm.
So i am here on the mighty zambezi with the fambly getting geared up for a week of workin and eatin and i dunno what else. Driving 2 days northwards with an infant was successful. The 1st day she wasnt into it at all but the 2nd she just slept nearly the whole day. Her loss tho- it was her chance to tick baby's 1st elephant, giraffe, warthogs, mongoose, etc etc.
Just had mama & baby warthog on the lawn outside our little hotel room door. Baby warthog playing with sprinkler nozzle. Too cute. Kinda have to keep reminding self: not on holidays!!! Especially with this view of the river, hippos, and rich white tourist speaking a hundred different languages all around this place!
Just had mama & baby warthog on the lawn outside our little hotel room door. Baby warthog playing with sprinkler nozzle. Too cute. Kinda have to keep reminding self: not on holidays!!! Especially with this view of the river, hippos, and rich white tourist speaking a hundred different languages all around this place!
I can't believe it's over!
1 Comments Published by Oh Wayward One on 09 December 2009 at 12/09/2009 01:02:00 pm.
Listen up foiks, (as if there's any "folks" doing any "listening"!) I can officially hereby announce to cyberspace that I have officially taken the last final exam of my life.
And that is definite. I know they always say things like "never say never" and all that malarkey but I'm thinking it's a pretty safe thing to say... I mean what the hell, am I gonna do... decide to go and get a 3rd MSc? Um no. And a PhD is out of the question, so I can catagorically say it again:
Now all I have to do is write my thesis next year and I'm done with that bitch.
Assuming my proposal, which I also handed in yesterday, is acceptable by a completely different bitch.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Podgey Pie, the best friend a girl could ever have, for waking me up yesterday with a "good luck on your exams" text... I mean now there's a guy who remembers what day his friends are going to be under severe stress, and sends a wee pickmeup from across the globe. They broke the mold when they made that boy, they sure did. I am grateful & lucky indeed!
So now I have time to do stuff again, sort of. Work is still out of control and ridiculous (I'm going to be spending the next WEEK up north on the Zambia bridge project - not my idea of relaxing after finishing my last official semester of grad school) and GO FIGURE the *day before* my finals, Frau Meister (part of the geriatric string quartet) sends me an email DEMANDING that I come practice with them on Saturday and by the way can I also pay P100 for these sessions so that she can rely on us practicing in our spare time so that she's not wasting her time guiding us....
AGH!!!!
I DO NOT WANT TO BE A VIOLA PLAYER!!!!
So back into the deep end of "How to Say NO 101". And so of course I agreed to be there on Saturday. Do you even THINK I've even taken that Dvorak piece out of my folder since the last time we played (pre-Namibia)??? She can beat my ass, I dont care. Honestly, I dont. I want to get back to picking the banjo and watching my vegetables grow. Seriously. I am not in the mood for this crap. Just because she's loaned me her viola, I feel endebtted though. My folks are coming over in March, and I'll have them bring my own instrument with them so I can solve THAT problem though. I mean yeah, I don't want to lose my classical chops but hell I really don't have time for getting rapped on the knuckles for not practicing some damn Dvorak string quartet, as a friggin 33 year old scientist/mother/business owner/fitness freak/running club member/recreational banjo player/dog walker/outdoor enthusiast.
Anyway, in the last few months of hell it's been my Mindfulness course and the Hash that has been keeping me sane. I allowed myself those 2 days per week (Thurs - mindfulness, Mondays - Hash... which kinda sucks because it means no Monday Yoga until the Hash goes back to Sundays after summer). The Hash Xmas party was this past Saturday at the dodgey BullnBush bar, and I reprised my role as Semi-slutty Mrs Claws along with the Long Tall Swede as Santa, and we killed it. We led Christmas carolling in a round and everything, and made our grand exit with me slung across his shoulder. I let all the guys sit on my lap and gave them all a big wet kiss. Pretty exciting stuff for an old married bird like me!
The babymonster was really good at the Hash Xmas party, she is definitely turning out to be the darling of the running club, which is great because she doesn't freak out when other people want to take her and hang with her. That night she even went right to sleep spot on her bedtime at 8:30, in her car seat, under the table. That is until her pops & I accidently woke her up by pulling a big Christmas cracker which went "bang" right next to her. Oops. But she remained cool and stayed awake til she started to expire around 11pm, which is when I reckon we needed to leave anyway since I had to get up and slave away on my deadline the whole of the next day (paying the price for going out and partying on Saturday).
In other Xmas news it looks like our plans to make plans are coming together.... and even though it won't be 1/20th of the Xmas that we had last year, it should amount to something. As I said, I have to be up north on the BW/ZAM border for the week before xmas... luckily the Mr. and the youngling are coming too... we are going to try and make SOMETHING atmospheric out of it by staying in a nice lodge amongst the hippos, and eating nice food, etc. Then when we get back Alan will be here waiting for us, at which point the 5 days of eating, drinking, and lying by the pool will commence. On xmas eve we're going to (one of) the Swedes' places (A&L's) for thier traditional big Swedish Xmas Eve thing with other Swedish friends (Long Tall & Mrs. Long Tall) and I'm looking forward to that party. Then xmas day, we'll do the traditional Xmas thing at our place and Long Tall & Mrs Long Tall and their 2 wee chirren will come over for that. Then the 26th, Me, The Mr., The Joo, and the Alan will load up the new camping trailer and head out to the bush for Baby's First Camping Extravaganza. I'm thinking the Rhino Sanctuary for a night or 2 and then K-Island out in the Kalahari/Pans for a couple. Should be interesting to see how cloth diapers and sterelizing bottles goes in the bush! HA! Good times ahead, good times. (Quite frankly I think "sterelizing" is going to end up being "ah hell, blow on her a little and she'll be right"!)
I seriously need to lose a kilogram before party week starts though - there will be no gym up north for me next week, not to mention delicious lodge food - so not sure how that's going to work out, but I'll make it work through my mastery of portion control and possibly the dreaded pushup/situp workout, if I have to. It's been almost a year now since I lost those 3 kg over Christmas 2008 and quite frankly I am not about to let it come back just because I'm depressed about being stuck in Botswana for Christmas and end up having a field day of eating & drinking to make it all better. I've already accidentally put 1kg on over the last few hell-weeks of studying/working but that's mainly because I only get about one gym workout per week because of this insane schedule. That should change now. In fact I'm starting by leaving work early to do just that, today.
Did I mention that we seem to officially have sorted out the Offspring's passport debacle? I can't remember. Well at any rate after much sweating, stressing, praying, begging, hoping, finger-crossing, yelling, worrying, not-sleeping, etc etc, her country of origin has finally come through. In fact I even heard from our contact there, that it was printed on last Friday. That means the only thing they have to do is get it here to the High Comm. Where we can then pick it up. OK that in and of itself is a mission alone what with all the red tape it takes to release a gov't document from one department to another, just for posting. But hey.. it EXISTS! The only bummer is that they used her original application's photo which was taken when she was a little lost 3-month-old with blubbery cheeks. Looks absolutely NOTHING like her now. But hey if that's the biggest of our worries.... All I know is that this has taught me many things. Namely the following:
1) Suck it up, Cupcake: Complaining gets you nowhere and makes you sound like a whiny dick. Let's be honest, if someone would've come to us in March of last year and said "ok you can adopt a beautiful baby girl in July and take her home in August, but you'll have to wait a minimum of 5 months to get her passport or even potentially a maximum of 2 years if that option doesnt work out, before you can take her overseas"... would we have done it? Absolutely. In a heartbeat. Some people wait 3 years just to get on a freakin LIST.
2) When do you want something THE MOST in life?: When they tell you you can't have it, of course! Good Lord, I have to wonder if I've EVER wanted something so bad, as I have wanted to go OUT of this country over the last few months. It's unbelievable. Just a quick trip down to Jozi... maybe an xmas vacation back to the motherland... even (-gasp-) a brief gallavant off to the INLAWS in the north of the north. I have been DYING. And I know it's all psychological. Why? Because NOW that we've got that issue sorted out, I see all the things that we can do with that new camping trailer right here inside these borders. Naturally.
However, the breakthrough on the kid's identity has put my mind at ease a lot more now. Now we can make that trip to the Cape that we rescheduled twice (once on the day I booked it... the day the S/W called and said "so, are you interested in a 3 month old girl child?"). Now we can go to Aus over easter. Now we can go to Mauritius in July with Soo and Mx. Now we can talk about our next jaunt to the Motherland in SUMMERTIME 2010!! Oh the places we'll go!
I have to plan that last one with brilliance though. There are so many factors to consider. One being a fambly reunion in early July and a wedding of a friend, and the other being Favourite Cousin's wedding in August, and one being Memphis in May/Beale Street Blues Festival. I don't really know how I will choose between them because obviously a 3-month trip is out of the question. But my bare minimum requirements include the following elements:
Anyway.... time's up. Back to the salt mills....
And that is definite. I know they always say things like "never say never" and all that malarkey but I'm thinking it's a pretty safe thing to say... I mean what the hell, am I gonna do... decide to go and get a 3rd MSc? Um no. And a PhD is out of the question, so I can catagorically say it again:
NO. NEW. EDUCATIONAL. QUALIFICATIONS. That means yesterday at 4pm marked the end of the last final exam I shall ever take.
Now all I have to do is write my thesis next year and I'm done with that bitch.
Assuming my proposal, which I also handed in yesterday, is acceptable by a completely different bitch.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Podgey Pie, the best friend a girl could ever have, for waking me up yesterday with a "good luck on your exams" text... I mean now there's a guy who remembers what day his friends are going to be under severe stress, and sends a wee pickmeup from across the globe. They broke the mold when they made that boy, they sure did. I am grateful & lucky indeed!
So now I have time to do stuff again, sort of. Work is still out of control and ridiculous (I'm going to be spending the next WEEK up north on the Zambia bridge project - not my idea of relaxing after finishing my last official semester of grad school) and GO FIGURE the *day before* my finals, Frau Meister (part of the geriatric string quartet) sends me an email DEMANDING that I come practice with them on Saturday and by the way can I also pay P100 for these sessions so that she can rely on us practicing in our spare time so that she's not wasting her time guiding us....
AGH!!!!
I DO NOT WANT TO BE A VIOLA PLAYER!!!!
So back into the deep end of "How to Say NO 101". And so of course I agreed to be there on Saturday. Do you even THINK I've even taken that Dvorak piece out of my folder since the last time we played (pre-Namibia)??? She can beat my ass, I dont care. Honestly, I dont. I want to get back to picking the banjo and watching my vegetables grow. Seriously. I am not in the mood for this crap. Just because she's loaned me her viola, I feel endebtted though. My folks are coming over in March, and I'll have them bring my own instrument with them so I can solve THAT problem though. I mean yeah, I don't want to lose my classical chops but hell I really don't have time for getting rapped on the knuckles for not practicing some damn Dvorak string quartet, as a friggin 33 year old scientist/mother/business owner/fitness freak/running club member/recreational banjo player/dog walker/outdoor enthusiast.
Anyway, in the last few months of hell it's been my Mindfulness course and the Hash that has been keeping me sane. I allowed myself those 2 days per week (Thurs - mindfulness, Mondays - Hash... which kinda sucks because it means no Monday Yoga until the Hash goes back to Sundays after summer). The Hash Xmas party was this past Saturday at the dodgey BullnBush bar, and I reprised my role as Semi-slutty Mrs Claws along with the Long Tall Swede as Santa, and we killed it. We led Christmas carolling in a round and everything, and made our grand exit with me slung across his shoulder. I let all the guys sit on my lap and gave them all a big wet kiss. Pretty exciting stuff for an old married bird like me!
The babymonster was really good at the Hash Xmas party, she is definitely turning out to be the darling of the running club, which is great because she doesn't freak out when other people want to take her and hang with her. That night she even went right to sleep spot on her bedtime at 8:30, in her car seat, under the table. That is until her pops & I accidently woke her up by pulling a big Christmas cracker which went "bang" right next to her. Oops. But she remained cool and stayed awake til she started to expire around 11pm, which is when I reckon we needed to leave anyway since I had to get up and slave away on my deadline the whole of the next day (paying the price for going out and partying on Saturday).
In other Xmas news it looks like our plans to make plans are coming together.... and even though it won't be 1/20th of the Xmas that we had last year, it should amount to something. As I said, I have to be up north on the BW/ZAM border for the week before xmas... luckily the Mr. and the youngling are coming too... we are going to try and make SOMETHING atmospheric out of it by staying in a nice lodge amongst the hippos, and eating nice food, etc. Then when we get back Alan will be here waiting for us, at which point the 5 days of eating, drinking, and lying by the pool will commence. On xmas eve we're going to (one of) the Swedes' places (A&L's) for thier traditional big Swedish Xmas Eve thing with other Swedish friends (Long Tall & Mrs. Long Tall) and I'm looking forward to that party. Then xmas day, we'll do the traditional Xmas thing at our place and Long Tall & Mrs Long Tall and their 2 wee chirren will come over for that. Then the 26th, Me, The Mr., The Joo, and the Alan will load up the new camping trailer and head out to the bush for Baby's First Camping Extravaganza. I'm thinking the Rhino Sanctuary for a night or 2 and then K-Island out in the Kalahari/Pans for a couple. Should be interesting to see how cloth diapers and sterelizing bottles goes in the bush! HA! Good times ahead, good times. (Quite frankly I think "sterelizing" is going to end up being "ah hell, blow on her a little and she'll be right"!)
I seriously need to lose a kilogram before party week starts though - there will be no gym up north for me next week, not to mention delicious lodge food - so not sure how that's going to work out, but I'll make it work through my mastery of portion control and possibly the dreaded pushup/situp workout, if I have to. It's been almost a year now since I lost those 3 kg over Christmas 2008 and quite frankly I am not about to let it come back just because I'm depressed about being stuck in Botswana for Christmas and end up having a field day of eating & drinking to make it all better. I've already accidentally put 1kg on over the last few hell-weeks of studying/working but that's mainly because I only get about one gym workout per week because of this insane schedule. That should change now. In fact I'm starting by leaving work early to do just that, today.
Did I mention that we seem to officially have sorted out the Offspring's passport debacle? I can't remember. Well at any rate after much sweating, stressing, praying, begging, hoping, finger-crossing, yelling, worrying, not-sleeping, etc etc, her country of origin has finally come through. In fact I even heard from our contact there, that it was printed on last Friday. That means the only thing they have to do is get it here to the High Comm. Where we can then pick it up. OK that in and of itself is a mission alone what with all the red tape it takes to release a gov't document from one department to another, just for posting. But hey.. it EXISTS! The only bummer is that they used her original application's photo which was taken when she was a little lost 3-month-old with blubbery cheeks. Looks absolutely NOTHING like her now. But hey if that's the biggest of our worries.... All I know is that this has taught me many things. Namely the following:
1) Suck it up, Cupcake: Complaining gets you nowhere and makes you sound like a whiny dick. Let's be honest, if someone would've come to us in March of last year and said "ok you can adopt a beautiful baby girl in July and take her home in August, but you'll have to wait a minimum of 5 months to get her passport or even potentially a maximum of 2 years if that option doesnt work out, before you can take her overseas"... would we have done it? Absolutely. In a heartbeat. Some people wait 3 years just to get on a freakin LIST.
2) When do you want something THE MOST in life?: When they tell you you can't have it, of course! Good Lord, I have to wonder if I've EVER wanted something so bad, as I have wanted to go OUT of this country over the last few months. It's unbelievable. Just a quick trip down to Jozi... maybe an xmas vacation back to the motherland... even (-gasp-) a brief gallavant off to the INLAWS in the north of the north. I have been DYING. And I know it's all psychological. Why? Because NOW that we've got that issue sorted out, I see all the things that we can do with that new camping trailer right here inside these borders. Naturally.
However, the breakthrough on the kid's identity has put my mind at ease a lot more now. Now we can make that trip to the Cape that we rescheduled twice (once on the day I booked it... the day the S/W called and said "so, are you interested in a 3 month old girl child?"). Now we can go to Aus over easter. Now we can go to Mauritius in July with Soo and Mx. Now we can talk about our next jaunt to the Motherland in SUMMERTIME 2010!! Oh the places we'll go!
I have to plan that last one with brilliance though. There are so many factors to consider. One being a fambly reunion in early July and a wedding of a friend, and the other being Favourite Cousin's wedding in August, and one being Memphis in May/Beale Street Blues Festival. I don't really know how I will choose between them because obviously a 3-month trip is out of the question. But my bare minimum requirements include the following elements:
- A family gathering of sorts - preferably the larger the better e.g. wedding/reunion (cuts down on the amount of trips we have to make to "show the kid".
- A large music festival of my liking or alternatively just one really amazing concert of someone I am dying to see play live.
- A trip to see His Podgeyness, be that where it may, i.e. Vancouver or in between, since by then it will have been officially 3 years since we last saw each other.
Anyway.... time's up. Back to the salt mills....
