My Year of Meaningful (2011)

Thoughts running through my head at the moment:

1. OMG
2. I never thought I'd ever get here
3. This can't be real
4. Surely I'm going to bomb
5. It CANT be good
6. It Cant be OVER
7. Holy shit!

I have officially "written" the whole thing. My MSc dissertation, that is. All the words are in (actually I'm nearly a thousand words OVER the limit so there's still lots of work to do) and the basic formatting has been finished, the References have been cited, put into Harvard APA style, and I THINK all my figures, tables, etc are labled accurately. I still want to spend quite a bit of time revising my conclusion & discussion because I feel like I kinda just schlepped it all in there in a fit of midnight oil burning but hey, that's cool.

Now all I have to do is write the abstract and the acknowledgements sections. Ahhhh, acknowledgements! I've been looking forward to this part for nearly a whole year. Who to thank, who to use words like "deepest gratitude" when mentioning, vs. "sincere thanks". Hee hee... this stuff is my crack.

All I know for sure is that Jonathan gets the creme de la creme of my acknowledgements. Honestly, I don't even know what that guy looks like but he's the only human being at University of P.mouth that has been even remotely supportive and constructive and helpful and basically pulled my research out of the black hole it was bound for, after that horrible experience I had during last semester with MISTER BUTTER. Fecker. I still hate that guy. He wasted a whole semester of my time for me. Thanks, asshat.

I also gotta thank the guys on the case study sites of course, but I don't want to use their real names because their input actually could reflect very badly on their organisations so maybe I'll just call them "Mister so-and-so". And then I'll have to thank The Mr. of course, and the guys at the office. Other than that, I don't want to make it a big weep-fest of insincere crap for people who didn't really do shit for me during my year of slavery so it'll probably be short and to the point. It is a freakin scientific publication after all, not an Oscar speech or a Dan Brown book.

But like I said, there's still a good chunk of work to do, just editing what's already there and then all the binding and CD writing and Fed-Exing (which is gonna cost me an arm and a leg since they want THREE BOUND COPIES. I need to get it out roughly by tuesday or wednesday - thursday at the very very very latest, and I still need to find out what the hell to do about my Ethics Form (getting it signed by my advisor, who is in the U-friggin-K) and all, but DAMN. I think I've pretty much rounded the last bend.

This week has been pretty good. I've been punishing myself physically lately, by running on sunday, doing Mrs. Doc's crazy insane workout video with her on tuesday, going to this new gym which does a lunchtime fitness class on wednesday (strangely very similar to Mrs. Doc's crazy insane workout video) and then yoga last night. All the physical activity is helping me to justify dropping out of just about every other avenue of my life at the moment (mainly work) due to the crunch-time that I"m in for school. I was PLANNING on celebrating big time with a super-happy-fun-time camping trip with us and the Docs this weekend, but Mr. Doc got bitten by a cobra on wednesday and isn't really feeling up to it, go figure.

Funny story, he was just sitting on the loo and BAM! Got this feeling that someone had just stabbed him in the shoulder blade with a knife! Some damn fool snake had crawled out of a void between pipe & wall behind the toilet and just, as I like to put it, "bumped into him with his fangs". whoopsie! But the funny thing about being an E.R. doc is that you just calmly get up from the toilet, walk to your camera and your cellphone, snap a few photos of the snake while simultaneously phoning your wife (who is on her way to the hospital for work) to turn around and come back to get you so that you can admit yourself into your own E.R. and order your own vials of antivenom and instruct your staff exactly WHOM is to be tasked with your intubation, etc etc etc. All the while, ensuring to collect your passport (and hers) to bring with you in the event that you may need to be heli-vac'ed to South Africa for emergency-emergency treatment, prior to taking a seat and sitting calmly until your ride arrives.

They had to give him NINE VIALS of anti-venom once they figured out which snake it was (thanks, photos!) at 1,000 bucks a pop (still cheaper than getting treated back home of course)and what I find very interesting is that when they drip you up with this stuff they're actually injecting you with HORSE tissue, which is how they make the antivenom - they inject horses with it, which then produce the antibodies, which then they take out & put inside you. His whole left side was pretty numb and he couldn't talk for a good half a day and of course he had to spend the night in the hospital but last night he came around while Mrs D & I were at yoga and hung out on the couch watching "The Big Lebowski" with The Mr. and eating pizza so I think it's safe to say he's surviving just fine. Some nasty looking black, dead tissue around the fang-wound, and he says he can feel gravity pulling the venom down, down, down his body so now the pain is generally around his hip area, but "should progressivly settle out sometime in the next few days". Huh. Doctors. Nuts.

Still no camping this weekend though. I think that's due to Mrs. Doc, who had to pretty much bitch-slap him into NOT going to work today. Which actually, although it breaks my heart because we had gotten the Sent.Hill campsite booked (the one with the "loo with a view" we went to a couple years ago and had rhinos walking through our campsite) and I was so looking forward to some peace and quiet and beers around the campfire, is probably a good idea because I NEED to finish this damn document up so I can get back to living life.

So I guess it might be an easy-going round of sundowners at the yacht club tonight, which it's been FOREVER since we've been there on a friday night. Then who knows what on saturday and this new monthly cooking-eating-drinking party idea that Mrs Doc dreamed up for some girls to do on sunday night that she's been planning for the last month. We'll see how that goes. I hear chicken parmesean is on the menu, so hell yeah I'll be there.

Labels: BW-general, school

The same thing keeps happening!  What is the definition of insanity?  Doing the same thing and each time expecting a different result or something like that???  Now that I'm working from home every other day, it seems I get the days when Emelda is here cleaning.  And every morning I put coffee in the coffee pot to brew and lo and behold every time, it's finished and calling me JUST as she's starting to mop the kitchen floor!!  AGH!  Torturous!  I have to wait for up to 20 minutes before I can go in and collect the perky goodness.  That is just about the worst.

Well what's also the worst is this blasted weekend, which, the majority of was centred around this *%&$ wedding (well it wasn't even a wedding, it was a RECEPTION, but the couple has been referring to it as a "wedding" for the past 8 months or whatever - even sending out "wedding invitations" etc etc.  I'm sorry, but if you want to call it a wedding, there HAS to be a ceremony.  Some dude or gal has got to get up and say the words "I now pronounce you husband and wife" or at least "you may kiss the bride", etc.  This, God help me, was nothing more than speeches and a dinner and dancing.  Is that a reception or a wedding?  I thought so.  Not to mention that they went to the church and did the church thing earlier in the week.  Now THAT would've been the wedding.  Oh and dont forget the "traditional wedding" that happened last month. The one where cattle and suits and blankets and MONEY were exchanged for Jr.'s right to marry Mma Finance.)

OK so first we had to wake up early ON SATURDAY (sin!)  b/c A.) the Mr. had to work (poor thing - uber pressure on his projects at work these days) and B.) I had to go buy a present and some wedding-outfit accessories and the like, wrapping paper, a card, etc etc etc.    Then it was all rush, rush, rush, to get home, get dressed, wrap pressie, eat SOMETHING (thank GOD we did, after what later would ensue), bundle up Miss Baby JuJu Fartypants, and whisk her off to the Animal Peeps Shelter where we would meet Soo (who was babysitting for the night), do the baby-drop, and then drive alllllllllllll the way to as far away as one can geographically get (from the shelter), where the "NOT a WEDDING" was happening.  The invitation said "4pm".  We were there at 4pm.  No one else was.  So we went to the restaurant and had 2 glasses of wine. By the time Leto&TT got there (again thank God they at least came) it was 5.  We got on one of the open-air safari vehicles and were driven through the dust and wind to what was called on the invitation "the picnic place for finger foods and snacks".  OK.  So where were the "finger foods" and "snacks"?  Yes, there were potato chips.  And peanuts.  And some bottles of water.  And no bride, and no groom.  Luckily there was Simon & his gal.  So the 6 of us sat and sort-of ate chippies and talked about all the things we could POSSIBLY talk about, while all the other lost-looking guests sat around and did the same, and watched some hippos and crocs in the lake.

NEARLY 2 HOURS LATER.... AND WELL PAST SUNSET....we started getting shuttled up to the main venue which was on top of a mountain in an open-air conference centre.  Where the "NOT a WEDDING SO STOP CALLING IT THAT" was being held.  In the windy season.  Sooooo as luck would happen, Simon & his gal get seperated for us because we were not on the first shuttle to arrive, and all the large-number-of-seats-together had been taken at the tables.  LUCKILY, L&T and The Mr. & I found the last batch of 4-together (at a table with a bunch of old biddies & 1 grumpy old man, all of whom didn't speak to us throughout the whole night, and fair enough, how could they... we were sitting at the table RIGHT UNDER THE ONLY SPEAKERS IN THE WHOLE PLACE which were turned up to "Insanely Hazardous" because they had to reach everyone in the whole place's ear-holes!)

9pm passes - still no couple (did I mention that the invitation said "4pm"?).  No drinks, either, b/c it's a dry wedding NOT a WEDDING.  Biddy No. 1 next to The Mr. is cleaning out her ears with a q-tip that she conveniently brought along.  Well, you gotta do SOMETHING!  9:30pm - the couple finally arrives. Everybody goes apeshit because they do a little dance (which I know they've been rehersing religiously for the last 4 weeks because Jr. has had to leave the office every evening at 4:59 in order to make it to Mma Finance & her Bridesmaids' instructional classes), whilst coming into the conf. centre.  Everyone at our table misses out on witnessing said dance  b/c everybody else bumrushes the scene and forms a human wall past which no one else can see.

After the dance-in, the couple takes their seats and the speeches start.  All in Setswana, of course, so again NOT ENTERTAINING for those of us who catch about every 5th word.  Sweet old L. translated bits and pieces for us, but again, TOO FRICKIN LOUD to really hear anyone at your table.  There was a prophet who prophesied over them.  There was a "poet" who channeled the voice of god and prophesied over them again (this is not an exaggeration), there was a preacher who screamed into the mic and burst all our ear drums, then there was the bridesmaid and the groomsman and Jr. and Mma Finance, who at least did their speeches in English.   Then some Auntie or whoever it was got up and screamed in Setswana some more, and according to Leto, this is where she was giving instructions on how the tables were to be served food.  (Number by number, go figure.  Help yourself-type serving line).  It was round about this time (the time when all the old ladies at our table were fast asleep in their chairs) when I SHIT YOU NOT, a minimum of 45 new people came strolling into the function.  These people were obviously gate crashing because the Mother-of-the-bride's eyes got super big and people started rushing around like crazy - screaming at young people to give their chairs to old people, and delegating people to sit on the stone wall, the ground, the band's chairs, etc.

I happen to know some behind-the-scenes info here, whereby Jr. told me that because the Mother-of-the-bride's family had agreed to fit the 60,000-buck-bill for this NOT a WEDDING, they told him that he could give out 50 invitations, and they would give out 150.  Well, in the setswana culture, this is just a giant snub to the family of Jr., and apparently he had some uncles and cousins that were NOT cool with this whole arrangement.  Not that I ever found out who they were (Jr. has the next week off work), but I'm betting they were his disgruntled people.  At any rate, every single table was taken up and every chair filled by this time, not to mention the caterer who had always been under instructions to cook for 200.  Looks like there's gonna be trouble...

So, you can imagine what happened when we finally (an hour later - 10:15 pm... the time we had told Soo would be the LATEST that we could POSSIBLY be expected to be at her place to fetch the Joo) got into the serving line. Where the bridesmaids were on dishing-up duty.  Instead of  "goat pieces", you got "goat piece".  Instead of "vegetables" you got "vegetable" (I literally got one cube of pumpkin... it looked so lonely there on my giant white plate...)  instead of "lasagne", we got "la sag".  The funniest part was when I got to the girl serving from the goat dish... she said "goat?" and I said "sure".  She looked disappointed.  She served me a begrudging 1/2 spoonfull of what was in the big silver serving dish in front of her.  It was sauce.  I poked at it and said "can I have some goat"?  and she looked up at me with that "DOH!  BUSTED!" look on her face.  Dumbass ho had the nerve to think that dumbass whitey wouldn't notice that GOAT STEW IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE GOAT MEAT IN IT!  I laughed.  I wasn't mad, I thought it was creative.  She then put a tiny little bone on my plate.  I gave her another look and she begrudingly then put a tiny piece of meat the size of my pinky toe into the mix.  You gotta admire a girl who takes her instructions that seriously (it was clear to everyone by now, that the said "instructions" had come flying down the buffet line by the Mother-of-the-bride, as soon as the gate-crashers arrived:  "only half-portions for everybody!  We're in 'Loaves and Fishes Mode', here, people!!!  Half-portions only!!!")  What was really hilarious was seeing the girl at the dessert table who was literally cutting a variety of things like cupcakes, trifle, cake pieces, and custard tart pieces into 1/2.  And then when you saw everyone's eyes light up at the sight of all that variety of potential desserts, you heard her burst out a very curt: "there is only one option!!!", Soup-Nazi-style.

OK So I'm not proud of it, but we wolfed down the burnt-tasting (well it HAD probably been on the warmer for up to 4 hours) half-foods and blew the hell out of there.  I know eating and running is very poor taste, but it was now 11pm and Soo is 9 months preggers and probably dying of exhaustion, waiting up for us to come pick up the Joolington.  Also you had to GRAB one of the shuttles that would take you back up to the entrance gate (2-3kms away through the bush), because there was a MASS RUSH by other disgruntled, tired, old people who just wanted to go HOME.  We found Simon and agreed he would keep an eye out and a foot in the queue, and jump on and save us 2 seats.  We left poor TT&L in our wake and found out the next day they only escaped 2 hours later.  I felt horrible about this, because out of all of us, it was TT who was the most freezing cold. I'm telling you, after the sun goes down in this country, it doesnt matter if it's winter or spring. . . . if you're on top of an un-protected mountain top, in a strapless dress, in the windy season... you're gonna freeze your tatas off!!!  But in chivalrous Titanic-style, both of them had agreed: "save yourselves! You guys have babies to live for!  We'll make it on the next ship!"

Final bonus?  All 4 of us (L, TT, Me, Mr.) were terribly sick the next day with the evil poopies.  Thannnnks.

It was funny though, I kind of had a bit of a laugh about this whole horribly bad experience (because I had forecast it all, knowing the M-I-L), whereas The Mr. was VIOLENTLY angry about it.  He was screaming profanities and carrying on the whole drive back home, and then couldn't even settle down enough to sleep once we got home after midnight.  He even woke up angry the next day, and on the way to the Hash, was still carrying on about how pissed off he was.  Then when the evil poopies struck, he got even MADDER!  All day long it was ranting and raving from the Mr.  It was kinda funny, but I felt bad for him being so angry.  While this had all been happening at the NOT a WEDDING, I was trying to just keep on keepin on, updating my twitter feed and snapping ridiculous photos of Leto & TT on the ol' iphone.  Meanwhile he was just *stewing*.  Like the non-existant burnt goat pieces. Trying hard not to, but failing.  The poor guy had soooo much work to do this weekend and a deadline to beat by monday morning, and here he was, wasting away in the bitter cold, starving to death while getting screamed at by an ill-placed speaker and a wailing, ululating Motswana woman professing that God was going to strike down anyone who didn't help the prophets cast out the demons of the shadow of the devil from the blessed marriage of the Jr. & his M.F.

At any rate, Sunday was supposed to be our "worth-it-all" weekend moment, because we just dearly love our sunday hashing sooooooooo much.  But unfortunately that was when we got sick, and we barely made it through the 7km (which just HAPPENED to be the longest one of the year so far - how timely!) doubled over in intestinal cramps, desperate for the nearest toilet, dyyyyying in pain.  We didn't even stay for the beer & braai on afterwards (also b/c the Mr. still had work to do), but came home and felt quite a bit better after some quality bonding time with the porceline god. 

Sunday night, we had promised Leto & TT that we'd drop the JuJu Monster at their place and that The Mr. and I would go out for dinner while they babysat.  We were feeling better at this stage, so we did.  But we kind of did it more for them (TT hadn't met her yet and was dying to) than our own need for date-night, because we still weren't feeling 100%, however it turned out to be a great arrangement because eating a bit of pasta and garlic bread turned out to be just what the dr. ordered for our abused tummies.  And it was a nice note to end a horrible weekend on.  Except for that the poor Mr. had to come home and work SOME MORE.  Well anyway, we bought L&T some muffins, went back to their place where we picked up the JooPoo Machine, swapped muffins for baby, said a terribly rushed goodbye, and sped home to get this weekend over with.  I was asleep by 9pm, and the Mr. pulled the plug on his computer by 10. 

At last it was over!

I did get a terribly cool spring wedding outfit of the whole gig however. And a 7km run.  And a nice italian meal - which didn't go straight to my waistline because it went straight out the other end without stopping.  Awesome!

But in a bittersweet moment that just couldn't be more appropriate for the weekend - The Mr. turns on his computer this morning at 6am to finish his project before it turns into a pumpkin and finds.... an email from La Client saying "um, we've put the project on hold. Stop working on it for now."
DOH!
Priceless!

Anyhoo, poor guy is going to come home early because I'm going to yoga this afternoon, so hopefully a restful long evening at home with nothing to do will be just what he needs and we'll just try to pretend like it was a 3-day weekend and that the week officially starts afresh on Tuesday.

Labels: aggro, BW-general, work

OK So now they've done it. Junior & Mma Finance have done the gigantic expensive "traditional" (my ass!) wedding ceremony, and we just looked at the photos today. Naturally every single person in the photos was one of HER family and friends and krew, while HE had maybe one uncle, a cousin, a brother and a mother there. I'm just sayin...

But now on comes the nonsense again. Mma Finance is "SOOOOooo Religious", right? (that's why she had her cleavage hanging out like Peg Bundy during the ceremony, I know) So anyway after the wedding she went into an almost-week-long lock-in in her church where they fasted for like 5 days. Whatever. That's not what I wanted to point out. What I wanted to point out is how Junior comes in to work and says that this weekend they got a "prophecy" that they would be having a baby girl. He just doesn't know when.

Ahem.

Yes, indeed, he is the kind of boy who believes that prophecies determine pregnancies, not the joining together in sweet horny bliss of a man's sperm and a woman's egg after a happy dance that we residents of the Planet EARTH like to call "bonking". Just a side note, I found it interesting that when he told all of us this, the sum total of ALL of us simply looked straight ahead and said...... nothing.

Crickets.... tumbleweed....

...more crickets.

It's not that any of us DIDNT have something to say. Oh hell no. I'm sure if any of the 3 of us who were there for this little "announcement" would've opened our mouths it would've gone something like this:


Me: "So you're trying to tell us you're finally schtupping her? Or what?"

The Mr.: "You're an idiot, you know that, right? She's going to get you to knock her up so that she never has to get a job."

Leto: "Dude, kids cost money!"


I don't know what makes me angrier... The fact that she already sucked him dry with her Wedding Fever to the point that now he goes to bed hungry for the rest of this month because he's already blew his entire paycheck on buying her family some damn cows and suits and firewood that they didnt NEED, and now she's obviously replaced Wedding Fever with Baby Fever and will probably make sure she gets pregnant so that she can come up with a brand new excuse to not get a job & pull some weight... or, the fact that he seriously believes that she's a prophet. Yeah ok that's a long sentence but DAMN!

He seriously believes that this cleavage-dangling, materialistic shopaholic, homework-cheating, lie-telling, spoiled brat hypocrite has a direct line to God and has been chosen by Him to bear his prophecy to the masses. ugggggggggghhhhhhhhh.

Who should I be mad at? Her for being such a hypocrite cow, or him for being gullible? Since obviously it's none of my business, I should just let it go and ignore, I know. BUT! The Mr. is right when he says he can see her becoming a problem for the company. I know it sounds far-fetched at first, but truthfully... your spouse always rubs off on you somehow. Whether it's in behaviour or mannerisms or otherwise. What if her "it's ok to tell little white lies, even if you're a prophet" mentality rubs off on him... The Mr. already suspects him of adding on extra little side-trips in the office truck when he wasn't supposed to, and then not copping to it. But she also makes him stay up all night praying, fasting for days on end, etc., etc., and quite frankly I believe one needs SLEEP and FOOD to be able to keep their concentration levels up at an adequate standard during a 40-hour work week. So sue me! Not to mention I believe she's the kind of chick who would plant ideas in his head that he could be making more money elsewhere, or that if (heaven forbid) he would ever get the sack from us, he should take us to Labour court!

So now it's babies. He still has no money, she still hasn't finished college and gotten a job, and they still can't afford a car nor find a place to live. And quite frankly he won't be getting a raise anytime soon, considering his level of effort at work is appearing to be directly proportional to the amount of time he spends eschewing sleep at her "all night prayer sessions", and getting 4,000,000 calls on his cellphone per day (from her). But all of a sudden the prophecies say babies. Greaaaat. The bank balance is a big fat 0.00, and she's got Baby Fever. AGH!

Labels: BW-general

I just sat through the most un-necessary, waste-of-time, piss-me-off meeting ever! Of course it stems from the presentation I had to make last week, where a bunch of people who didn't read my giant document from hell asked a bunch of ignorant, dumb-ass questions that dialed the WTF factor up to 11....

so without telling a boring government-work-related story of no interest to me nor the fly on the wall, the essence is that the (Department) moderator of that meeting MADE me hold this 2nd meeting at our office, where Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dumb, and Fancy-pants McGee could come over here and ask our groundwater specialist all their assenine questions, in a seperate forum, away from all the non-interested people. So that's what I just had to sit through. The problem being, it WASNT Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dumb, and Fancy-pants McGee that showed up, it was their BOSSES. Who are clearly more intelligent, and weren't even AT the first meeting asking questions. So these big gov't bosses are all sittin here in my office goin "Why TF are we here? We understand all this crap... Why did we have to come?" USELESS!! TOTALLY USELESS!!

I just wanted to konk all their heads together and go "well GREAT if you understand it, so Why TF are you sending your idiot bastard juvenile henchmen to the meetings where they have to be seen to critique expert work!?!?!?" AGGGGGGGGH!

Slappin' faces, man. Slappin' faces.

I am treading thin ice though. I have a terminal disorder where I can NOT look people in the eye whose face I want to slap. And so all these big shots are here in my office and I'm talking at them through clenched teeth and dagger eyes. I know it's bad, but I can't help it. This is why The Mr. has to be the P.R. side of our business. Unfortunately though he was already triple-booked at a bunch of other meetings. Regardless, I know they felt my wrath. But that doesn't help - it probably only makes them want to eat me alive the next time they see me. I need to go to "sensitivity training for normal people who have to deal with government people". Does that exist?

Two of them had to go to the bathroom while they were here, where I just posted my bitchy sign about "if you sprinkle when you tinkle, please be neat and wipe the seat", and my amazingly detailed graphic of a toilet seat with drips on it, that I just made yesterday. I noted that after the meeting was over, the toilet seat was left up and the toilet left UN FLUSHED!!! AGGGGGGH!

I have had it with work. Or mainly, i've had it with people. People pissing on my toilet AND my mojo!!

I am also having it *up to here* with the Animal Peeps. This is SO my last year on the committee. I won't even explain farther - but there, grievance aired.

And ending on a positive note, I'm looking forward to this weekend where the one organization I'm a part of that I actually LOVE, the Harriers, are having the weekly run at our place. So that means the Mr. and I will be setting out the track on Saturday and hopefully everyone will be pleased with it on sunday. Yay.

Labels: BW-general, HHH, 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

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

... ugh, I hate writing accounts of my rendezvouses with the great african bush, but I'll try and do it in 100 words or less:

the last 1/2 of the easter trip was great. we continued to eat and drink well, and drive around and read and watch the sun set and the moon rise and all that stuff. I worked on my animal track identification and can now pretty much 90% tell you a brown hyena's tracks from a spotted one. And lion from leopard and all that rot.

ok is that enough?

oh wait, and we blew a tire coming home somewhere along the cut line we followed from the Kgalagadi to Khokhotsha.

Pictures were taken, they're all on FB, yadda yadda yadda.

Right now I'm in a foul mood because I'm supposed to be writing my assignment plan for my course, and it's due tomorrow and I'm having a hard time keeping my mind on my research. I mean who cares about this crap, really? I mean, latest developments in energy law and policy MY ASS. Sooooooooo not interested.

But alas I press on.

I miss my friends. :'(

P. keeps writing me from the Netherlands and making me realize all my BFFs here are well and truely gone. Have moved on. Doing great things with themselves. -sigh-

BUT! The autumn has come to G-city and it is beautiful. I love this time of year here, and it comes on so suddenly (Botswana is a land of very few slow-transitions. It's all very black & white, weather wise). I love it love it love it. And I love FINALLY being at home once in awhile, enjoying our new place, and particularly enjoying it on the weekends... I mean when was the last weekend we were actually HOME ALONE?! Even now as I write that, we've only had one, and it was this past weekend.

It's confusing when all of my Northern Hemisphere friends keep carrying on about spring... I want to carry on about autumn and how awesome it is, but it just feels wrong somehow, as everyone on twitter and the FB and blogs and whatwhatwhat is talking crocus and flower buds and green grass and long days... whereas here I am sitting in the orange and yellow Mophane trees and early darkness and pumpkins. Eish!

Labels: BW-general, camping, house

Annnnnnd we have won!

It seems we've beaten the epidemic of Cranky Husband Syndrome at the home for wayward children. Ever since the business has somewhat exploded and my dear sweet workaholic baby has become consumed by stress due to his unavoidable Dutch breeding, it's been complicated and a truly bouncy ride when it comes to just getting along.

Well, the workload hasn't changed, and none of MY proposed 12-step strategies have worked, so who would've thought that making one slight change to one's lifestyle would be the saving grace that would bring us back down to loveland and solve all our problems?? Honestly, I'm having a hard time believing it too. but we're going on the 2nd week of success here, so I don't feel like I'm jumping the gun by saying "it's all good, at last", I feel like this could be the ticket!

The secret has actually been him getting up a little earlier every morning. Just that extra hour with the birds and the not-sweltering-hot death sun is making all the difference in the world. He can bang around the swimming pool pump/chemistry maintenance, read through his course material over his peaceful cup of coffee, organize some accounts for the Animal People, make an early phone call or two, and just come to life at his own pace. I'm amazed. I'm seriously, unbelievably amazed. Then he comes in and wakes me up NICELY and it's like he's a different person. There's no tension and stress explosions and "I won't be eating lunch today as I have to do A, B, C, D... so just GO BY YOURSELF!", none of this "No I refuse to get my eyes tested, I'm TOO BUSY!", no more "we should never have started that %$#*ing Setswana class! I can't handle it!"... basically no more "I'm TOO BUSY to be nice!!" mentality that I've been having to troubleshoot for like, weeks now. And all because he gets a little "me time" first thing in the morning and can clear his mind. I'm just shocked it was that easy and doesn't involve me having to work *my* ass off to achieve the ultimate goal, here. All I can say is Hallelujah!!

There's been one or two backslides along the way, such as a little "I refuse to go to the gym with you during lunch because I have A,B,C, and D as TOP PRIORITY" explosions (particularly when I can categorically prove that A,B,C, and D are in fact NOT matters of life and death - it's just that when you're Dutch anything on your T0-Do List is TOP PRIORITY MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH. But interestingly enough, those came on days when his early-morning hour of solace were used to do WORK STUFF, instead of Me-Stuff. Interesting indeed!

Anyway, I'm a happy girl and he appears to be becoming more of a happy boy. Now if we could both just reach the ends of our respective courses (my semester ends in early Dec., his whole diploma is finishing in Nov... WOO HOO!) then hopefully that will also alleviate some of the pressure pushing down on me, pushing down on you... da da da da. And then there will be holidays... ahhhhhhhhhhh

In the meantime, we had a weekend full of studying and working and Animal Peopleing as well as a visit from a ginormous Nile Monitor lizard in our backyard. Now THAT was surreal. I'm still kind of in mourning that he didn't make it. :'(

Labels: BW-general, stress management, The Mr.

Summer is here and it's hottttttttttttt.

This weekend was a blur but not bad at all. Friday me and the Mr. went to this TR (t is for tara, r is for rokpa) lecture given by a visiting guru from Harare. They're trying to get a group together in G-city and I'm very interested in it but not sure if I even have the time or could religiously make the time over the next couple years to write down every single memory in my head going back from now til I was 1 y.o., then back up to the present, and back down again. I totally appreciate it as a therapy and how it's supposed to allow you to clarify blame and release all the anger and turmoil from your life, but they reckon 3 hours per week is suitable to get everything written down, and at the moment I'm struggling to get in 3 hours of week into studying for my current semester of my course! And then there's the 3 hours that I should be putting into the Animal People newsletter and committee, and then there's the 3 hours (x2) AT LEAST that I need to devote to the gym spread over the week, not to mention if you combine my Monday yoga classes with the few dog walks we get per week, well that's about 3 hours too, actually more if you count the very limited time I can even make for myself to pick around on the banjo every now and then, all of which is desperately necessary for my sanity. WHERE do people get "just an extra 3 hours" a week??? I would love to know where that shop is.

So anyway the jury is still out on whether or not I'm going to take it up, but I'm considering it. The Mr., on the other hand, was all like "ohhhh helllllllll nooooooo" but at least he was open minded enough to join me on friday night. He didn't come to the saturday clinic with me though. Surprise!

These big projects are big. They are big and they are busy. Love working with Dave but man he is one high-maintenance consultant. It's all for the best though, I want both of these jobs to be good ones, quality. And I don't want the DEA all over my back once they're turned in - so I'm putting some effort in.

The Mr. made sweet and sour pork from scratch, and fried rice, last night and it was so nice. I was sitting there at the dining room table slaving away ALLLL DAYYY on my assignment and he just left me alone and catered to my every whim (well, if you call a couple glasses of water my "every whim") and cooked lunch AND dinner. This assignment is extremely challenging, mainly because I don't understand part 2 of the essay. hmmmm...

I am so looking forward to Xmas.... ahhhhhhhh.

Labels: BW-general, goin out, school, stress management

PULA!!
I'm sitting out on the stoep with the laptop listening/watching the first sounds of rain!! And how desperate we are for it!!! We're having our weekly/daily power cut, so that means I have [who knows how long] some time until this battery runs out. So let's see what I can come up with.

Firstly, viva la independencia for Botswana. [oooh lightning! good timing!] A tuesday/wednesday day off combo for us this week. It started bad, then ended good. In what is turning into a trend for me these days, I had about 48 straight hours of mental meltdown which cumulated in some epiphanies, some tears, some hours pounding my pillows, etc. But I think I'm back on top of things now and moving forward. It's just a time in my life right now where I'm second guessing every word that comes out of my mouth and every thought that comes into my head. And so off I go, onto a quest to be a better person. Less negativity, more positivity, more think-before-you-speak-it, more ethics and scruples. Wish me luck, I'm going to need it.

Wow the trees are really swirling around and the thunder and lightning is now really shaking things up, but as for the first big fat raindrop... still waiting... it is pretty violent though- I just hope a big fat tree branch doesnt come straight for my head.

Summer is really in full swing now. And my favorite time of day is between 5 and 6:30. With all the chaos in the office these days and our mamoth projects etc., I'm going to have to make a real effort to ensure that I get home at least a few times a week to take advantage of that time. It's so lovely, the heat is just starting to fade, the sun is setting, the puppies are up for playtime, and all the birds come back out from whereever they've been hiding from the 39 degree weather.
OK my keyboard is TOTALLY covered in a layer of sand now...
but here's the positive spin, the reason to be grateful right here and now: JUST before the power went out, I fired up the laptop, popped in the network card, and got on line. THEN the power went out, and here I am - thoroughly enjoying myself out on the stoep, in the dark, hearing the sounds of a storm! and hopefully soon... PULA! I'm thinking some candles would be nice... provided I could figure out a way to not have them blow out.

Right. Candles. Check.
Question - how does one keep the nighttime creepie crawlies off one's laptop screen while outside in the summer????

We got a new camera. I'm still getting used to it, but here are some photos I took on the long mid-week holiday...
Starting with Prisca from next door's son, Prosper:








and with that last photo of sunset over the backyard, I shall sign off!

Labels: BW-general, photos, QSI