My Year of Meaningful (2011)

BB sitting next to me at a beach bar in Swakopmund, staring out at the ocean. We were drinking beers (LJJ's first ever bar) and relaxing after walking the beach that afternoon in the cold & wind. Probably wondering what the hell is going to happen to him now that there's a small 3 month old sitting not only just across the table from him, but right smack in the middle of our lives.

and:

Me & the boy having a moment, after playing hard in the dunes. That's a tough workout, fer realz. This is quintessential B. behaviour - I stop moving for a second and he's right there for a cuddle, ideally ON TOP of me somehow. He is such a lovey dovey hound.

Labels: hounds, Meaningful

Wow, I'm back on the bloggy horse and with my new attitude adjustment, it seems that meaningful sh*t is just springing up all around me. Again, I cite attitude as the catalyst. You can't see the meaningful sh*t if you got a bad attitude. Jeez, like!

So this installment is about Fridays. Simple pleasures, the Fridays. The restless night owl in me is tempted in downer-times to bitch & moan about how lately (particularly post-evacuation of Doc & Mrs Doc) we seem to be in a solid rut of staying in on Friday nights and watching movies (or catching up on DVR stuff). However, you gotta see this as something of meaning in the following perspective:

1. Sleeping in is one of my favorite things in the world. The way we rock the stay-in-fridays is to stay up extremely late, which, at the end of a mammoth week (which all of them seem to be these days) combined with the bottle of wine, etc ("etc" to be further explained) means sleeping in til OMG, PAST 9, the next day. Blissful.

2. My valentine's present to the Mr. was a Martini Deck - i.e. a stack of cards with the How To's of every single martini in the universe. I figured it would be a good party trick for him, as well as a do-able challenge to become a martini-specific mixologist, and lo + behold he's a natural. Plus we were kinda martini-idiots and this has taught us a thing or two about what we like and don't like, with him at the controls. Every friday we try something different, and he is a champion martini master now. His best ones are the Metropolitan (pictured above) and the Smokey martini. This has now become such a highly anticipated part of my friday nights, that I get slightly annoyed if there's any talk of NOT having NO plans on the last day of the work week.

3. Dinner. What else is there to say other than on fridays we normally put some effort into organising something delicious. Recently I've even been cajoled into making a dessert or two. Unheard of in our house. But fridays..... ah, fridays. This friday I made Missouri burgers, for example - something I would never dream of having during the week when i'm usually busy being my normal psychotic health nut freakish self. Good LAWD they was deee-vine. They are always so divine. And I only ever make them on fridays. Go figure. So much divineness it hurts my mouth!

Anyway, there's not much more to it than that. Just that. But I've realized it's a simple pleasure that I ought not take for granted because in it's own rite it is actually freakin' beautiful.

Labels: Meaningful

Well, here I go again (on my owwwwn....)

I don't know why it's been so hard to identify meaningful things in my life over the last month. Probably because I have not been in the most optimistic, positive frame of mind. No reason in particular, I like to think of it as just a brief trough in the sine curve of life. The blues. No outlet, no laughter therapy, no real inspiration or motivation to give a rat's ass. In these circumstances, you don't see the meaningful, because you've just got your damn eyes closed. Trust me, I'm now even MORE certain that happiness is a decision that you have to make and then push through the brick wall in order to get out of your rut. Ain't nobody else gonna fix your ass for you, and you're lucky if you even have anyone try and give you a hand to help you out.

However, I let myself wallow and now it's time to pull the socks up and get back on the horse and stop living like a Scandinavian... although the iceberg temps we've got going on here in G-city the last couple weeks don't help that. Friday was a real eye-opener, a real reality check in terms of defining meaningful and appreciating it. It kinda went like this:

So The Mr. and I haven't had a lot of time alone recently, what with No. 1 Babysitting Team Doc & Mrs Doc being permanently removed from our lives (still in mourning, probably one of the major bummers at play in all this). Jac & Mar are still ready and always willing to sit on the choddler whenever we ask, but I just hate exploiting their services too much, especially since I always have this guilty complex of reciprocity and sometimes I feel the payback more than I enjoy the service!

But nevermind that, the fact is, we had the day off LAST Friday (SSK holiday) and used it to take them up on their permanent-standing offer. Dumped LJJ at their place in the late morning, and took the motorcycles out for a beautiful ride. The winter is cold, but that time of day it's warm enough that you're not physically shaking by the time you've ridden 3 miles. So we motored on over to the new mall in town (woo hoo!! 10 shops!! 1 restaurant!) and did a lovely, leisurely Chinese lunch at the one restaurant. It was freakin' blissful, that's all I can think to say about it. I really miss spending time with him, especially since work has been so busy and a lot of free time has turned into work time over the past couple months. It's like, work work work and then collapse in a coma at home and wake up and do it all over again.

After lunch we strolled through the new grocery store there and rode back home. So bloody boring and simplistic, but totally worth it. Probably the best day I've had in 4 months. And totally meaningful. I don't know if it was the subconscious symbolism of the fact it was a weekday and we were totally work-free and unshackled to anything, or if it was just that we really enjoyed each other's company without anyone else around (usually if we're MINUS LJJ, that means we're PLUS other friends - not just alone). Throwing the motorcycle riding in was also euphoric, as I'm still enjoying that more and more and can't get enough. But riding together is also sensational. I just want to do it more and more and more and more. Addictive, indeed.

Anyway, I don't know if it'll ever happen again or if it was just the perfect day which can never be repeated - and I've still done a crap job of explaining WHY exactly it just felt so great. Hey, I dont even understand that myself. All I know is that I keep repeating the memory in my head and going over it and over it, whenever I feel like slipping back into the bummers. It also gave me the inspiration to suck it up and put my best food forward for the rest of the winter. It's freezing f*cking cold, dark as hell all the time, but there's stuff to get happy about. Like our trip to Zimbabwe in a week's time. And the big USA Holiday in September/October. But until then, I'll just use this "last friday memory" to keep me going.

Labels: Meaningful

Labels: Meaningful

....that's the answer you get if you ask the choddler "what does the motorcycle say?"
(we're in that whole "the cow says moooo, the goat says baaaaaa, the kitty says meeeooww" ad nauseum stage)

I have to write about motorcycles this time because it's the only thing on my mind these days (I really don't have anything on my mind these days. In the words of Tom Petty, I'm barely prolific and incredibly lazy. What can I say). Which means it's also a meaningful part of my life. Ever since I got my license and have been riding the Harley, I just want more and more and more motorbike in my life. So much so that The Mr & LJJ and I drove all the way down to Pretoria last weekend to do some shopping for my OWN machine (yes the Harley is a maginficent beast, but *technically* from a health and safety perspective it is not ergonomically suited for midgets and I need to be able to put my foot down flat in traffic and I just can't on that one). Aside from now having 2 motorcycle fanatics in the family and only one machine (which will simply never do), I also wanted something more comfortable and wee-person-friendly in terms of center of gravity, weight, height, etc. So I fell in love with a 1994 Honda Steed (meaningful to me because it's when I graduated highschool!! Plus my dad raised me on the back of a Honda) while we were down there and promptly bought it. We're bringing it back this weekend. I can't wait. I just want to ride all the time and I can't really think of anything else.

Well I do want to spray the tank black and put the same Missouri flag artwork that we have on the HD onto it. But I can wait awhile to do that because that means it'll be out of commission for several days and I'm just a little too obsessed right now to deal with sending him away for that long after just getting him.

Him, by the way, meaning Sneaky Pete. Named for my favourite pedal steel player and Rock & Roll History Legend from the Flying Burrito Brothers (who I've been drowning my sorrows in a lot lately). And for the fact that compared to the HD, it's such a soft & quiet ride. no earplugs necessary. And i know a lot of class-act guys named Pete.

Point being, we are getting closer to the day that The Mr. and I can ride off into the sunset on the machines and no one has to get their ass kicked on the back of the HD (which is LITERALLY what it feels like when you're riding as a pillion on the back of that thing). Last hurdle is getting it registred once we bring it into the country this weekend. That may take a few days too, but it's the last piece of the puzzle.

In terms of why motoring has all of a sudden become so bloody meaningful to me, all I can say is ever since I got my license I feel like I have another THING that brings pleasure to me which is actually attainable, something I can actually DO. Not like music which is really frustrating me these days (but that's a whole 'nother story involving this trio of guys I started playing with but who appear to be the laziest human beings in the country and have totally disintegrated off the planet), and not like fitness which is just a means to an end (health & wellbeing) but that I don't dream of doing for FUN... hopping on the bike and just riding in and of itself is something that lifts my heart and shoots adrenyline through my veins and leaves me happy and in a state of bliss. The riding part makes me experience my surroundings in a whole different manner, an organic manner where you feel you're a part of the space and sky and air around you, not just trapped in a big metal/glass bubble rolling down the tarmac surrounded by electronics and gadgetry.

Anyhoo, Bots is the worst country in the world to be a motorbike enthusiast but I'm going to make it work one way or another.

Next installment - my upcoming trip back to the homeland.

Labels: Meaningful, motorcycle

So the one day I decided to do a blog, blogger was down, a couple weeks ago, and that kinda sabotoged me because ever since then I've been running around crazy and just haven't had a spare minute.

Lots of things have been happening. Big things. it's like when the "Big things" happen (pregnancies, marriages, babies, engagements, breakups, international moves, etc) they all come raining down at once. That, in a nutshell has been my last month.

So it's like all the "meaningful" is happening to everyone else (thank God) and then just a couple bad things, to me directly. Respectively those include:

Mrs Doc is preggers
My brother is engaged
Bronnie in Aus (who we always used to laugh about being the "anti-mother") had her baby
Doc & Mrs Doc have gone
We had to sack an employee as it turns out he is a violent spouse abuser (long story)
I've been to hell & back for work (aka "up north")
We had a near-death experience in an almost fatal car crash which is still only partially sorted out.

I think out of all those things the thing I want to write about now has to be the car wreck, as it's still kind of messing with my mind. The point being, and making an INCREDIBLY long story short, I'm mentally wrestling with it because it HASNT changed my life in a "meaningful" way, and I keep waiting for it to.

The jist of the story is that we drove for 6 hours on a terrible highway that is notorious for being dangerous. We drove responsibly, with everyone in their respective seatbelt/baby seat, at careful speeds and avoided driving in the dark. 10km from our destination, the winter nighttime hours snuck up on us and it was pitch dark for what would have been less than 25 minutes before arriving at the lodge. In this incredibly short (proportionally) fraction of our 6+ hour journey, the typical textbook Botswana asshole drivers who drive drunk with their bright lights on full beam and at 140km an hour literally came out of the woodwork, one of which was hurtling straight toward The Mr. with his high beams on full blast, and completely blinding him altogether at which point a bull was standing in the middle of the highway but totally unseen due to the massive bright lights of the dickhead coming straight at us in the dark. Crash bam boom, and we carreen into oncoming traffic, missing a giant truck by about oh, 3cm, and smashing into a ditch.

And it doesn't end there - I had just taken LJJ to the potty and was putting her back in her seat AS we were driving, so I was facing backwards and crawling between seats like a freakin chimpanzee. This was a process that takes THIRTY SECONDS, MAX and during a long-haul drive of SIX HOURS, and so of course.... when was the exact second that the smash happened? What are the bloody odds? Seriously!? That's 2 out of 3 W's dead for sure, under most circumstances of this nature.

The fact that we WEREN't hurt and that we got out unscathed is like folklore. First of all, the majority of the entire highway is basically an elevated road with several metres' depth of ditches on both sides. Literally gaping chasms on either side which any car going over will either roll repetedly down, or jackknife on its face, if headed down straight-on. The portion of the road in which we crashed was the ONLY section for miles and miles in which the road was *almost* flush with the bottom of the ditch, meaning even though we careened out of control into it, we didn't roll.

Secondly, the oncoming traffic that was speeding straight into us was coming at full speed and also did not have time to divert away from our crashing vehicle. They just kept coming straight ahead, one by one, as our truck was spinning through their lane of traffic. I have no idea how it happened (because I had my ass thrown onto the floor of the passenger seat, and airbags were flying everywhere above my head) but somehow our vehicle went straight between two other cars (one being the jackass who blinded us and just kept going) and the next one just barely squeezed by the passenger side mirror leaving only a scratch.

Thirdly - well, what can I say, two of us out of our seatbelts in a head on? Completely unharmed? NOT crushed to death by the fact that the engine was all but shoved through the front of the 4x4 and into the cockpit? LJJ barely even whimpered. Only when I started screaming like a maniac because I needed someone to blame (so of course I lashed out at the driver, The Mr., even though I knew in my heart there was NOTHING he could've done. I apologized from the bottom of my heart later, of course).

And finally the angels on standby that we then immediately encountered after the drama: Like, just the fact that we had JUST come into cellphone reception as we were so close to the village in which we were staying, we were able to call the cops and get them there to sort us out which was such a blessing. We happened to be travelling with a phone book (???) so we could look up the local cops' number (no telephone-based directory info in BW) Followed by the fact that one of the first vehicles to pass the scene of the accident was a tow truck who could tow our obliterated rig to our lodge right then and there. And then the manager at the lodge who kept the kitchen open past it's operating hours so that while The Mr was doing his statement at the cop shop, LJJ and I could have something to eat... not that I could even process all this, I was so shaken up.

I don't really know what's wrong with me, it's like I've become so cold that I don't even appreciate to the full extent how lucky I am/we are, and this is not as meaningful or valued as it should be. I mean The Mr could be alone right now, missing his wife & kid, which crushes my soul to even think about. Or even worse, he could be widowed AND critically injured or paralyzed or anything else. We all barely scraped by, and here I am just going along like nothing happened and nothing's changed.

Not really sure what I can to to AMPLIFY the occurrence that happend so as to be MORE affected by it, but I feel like I should! I guess I have acknowledged the fact that I have a lot to be grateful for and that how ever you want to call it, being blessed, being lucky, being spared... is a lot to have bestowed upon you. I just need to mull over this a bit more and answer the question "what does this mean to me?" because I've got the guilts for not even so much as feeling even a little affected by it.

Hmm....
Let the mulling begin....

Labels: Meaningful, work trips

OK I'll admit it - (1) it's been a long time, and (2) I'm feeling little of meaning. damn.

But before I give myself a free pass to just keep on writing NOTHING, we just got back from a 10-day trip and I suppose that if nothing else, recapping said trip adds to my conviction that one reason my life has meaning during this "era" of my existence, is the flexibility and opportunity that my occupation/lifestyle avails to travelling and leaving home for extended periods of time.

So the trip.

First we started off in GNZ (or do I refer to it as "GZI"? I can't remember - that cow town out west by the Namibian border where we have a lot of work these days, anyway). It was a fun road trip with Doc, Mrs Doc, myself, The Mr, LJJ, and our newest employee, Cat. We all loaded up the 4x4 (with trailer, because that's a lot of adults and a choddler (my new moniker for LJJ since she's a chocolate toddler now, no more baby. Chortle)) and headed west. The reason Cat was involved on this first leg was because technically we were going out there for work (big meeting), which happened the next day. Prior to the work-day component of this trip though, we enjoyed a leisurely road trip with a hamburger stop and much banter and good time belly laughs on the lonnnnnnnnnnng drive. Stayed in a nice safari camp that we often frequent when out that way, ate some nice game for dinner, and drank a glass of wine or two before retiring.

The next day, after all work obligations were taken care of, we said goodbye to Cat and the rest of us headed for Namibia where we stayed at yet another awesome, quirky, could-use-some-TLC, quiet lodge on the fringe of the desert. Already being back in NAM was soooooo refreshing and wonderful. Just little things like how the staff at the lodge are POLITE AND CONVERSANT AND HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOUR AND ARE CLUED-IN AND DELIVER ACTUAL SERVICE really makes a difference. I loooove NAM. I pine for it. Anyhoo, good food, good wine, etc. the night we got there. Since Doc & Mrs Doc would be running the Cape Town half marathon within a week, they did a 16km run the next day, and The Mr. and I did about 12km (I had to seriously push him to agree to it as he is not exactly in peak condition running-wise these days) and we decided to just relax all day and stay for 2 nights before pushing south to the Fish River Canyon. R&R indeed.

The next day we drove (lonnnnng desert gravel roads the whole way) for hours and hours, heading southward, and the fuel filter started packing up and our top speed decreased over about an hour to about, oh, 30mph. Trouble. NO towns around here, NOWHERE to be saved. After about an hour or more of 30mph, we limped into a village where some cowboy mechanics (lovely, albeit drunken - see, I LOVE namibians!) patched us up just enough to limp into the next "major" town about 2 hours away (and also at top speeds of about, oh, 40mph) where we got the most amazing, excellent small-town Toyota service ON A SATURDAY NIGHT which fixed the rig up perfect and all in all the whole debacle only set us back a day - which didn't even matter because the 4 (5) of us could spend a month locked in a hole together and still get along and have good time belly laughs. So we swerved off schedule for 24 hours and stayed in that cow town at a crappy roadside motel but which just so happened to serve the most amazing food EVER (see? this is total Kul-d-sac-Krew luck) so it was all good. Plus, the lodges we were booked at for the remainder of the trip had no problem shifting our bookings with no extra charge or worry.

Next day we pulled into the Fish River Canyon (the world's 2nd largest canyon after that big ol' thing in the USA) way down at the bottom of the country and lo and behold it was like we landed on the moon. unbelievably gorgeous landscapes and boulders and vistas as far as the eye could see. The lodge we stayed at was super special and like nothing I've ever been to before. The chalets are built RIGHT into the rocks, and your room has natural boulders in it and everything. No place on earth I've ever been is this stunning. Ahhhh NAM and your beautiful STUFF!!! Again, amazing service, staff, scenery, environment, food, EVERYTHING was 100%. The swimming pool (and poolside bar) alone was a sight to behold. And since it's not peak season (well, even if it was, it's so far away from civilization you can see not many people are ever there at once) we virtually had the place to ourselves. It was glorious. Again more amazing food & cocktails & wine & games of Rummy at night after the choddler retired, runs during the day and a quick trip to the nearest Roadhouse for frosty mugs of Hansa beer. aaahhhh.

Then it was off down even-more-south-er, to SA and the Orange River Valley Wine Route, in the Northern Cape, SA. Or as I like to call it, "The Cape Winelands' poor hillbilly cousin!" There's only 7 wineries in this valley, so you can do 'em all!!!! Which we did!!!! We stayed in gorgeous guesthouses like this one in the area for 2 nights, and ate amazing food and drank semi-ok-have-drank-better wines. ahhhhh.

And then we said goodbye to Doc & Mrs Doc who flew down to Cape Town to run their 1/2 marathon and meet their american friends coming to visit for a week. At which point The Mr. and LJJ and I made our way leisurely back to G-city over about 2 days, just stopping where ever we chose to, and finding digs along the way. WHICH, I might add, turned up the most unlikely awesome B&B in the most unlikely south african cow town you could ever imagine - obviously run by gay fellas (how do they exist there? seriously?) with amazing taste in linens and antiques and wine. weird-ass stuff.

Our leisurely family road trip back got us home during easter weekend so we even had the sunday and monday to re-coup from all that fun and decadance, and start the adjustment-to-the-real-world and post-holiday starvation and exercise regime. Which is quite pleasurable in the winter because I do love soup and do make very amazing and healthy soups, if I do say so myself. Combined with having an opportunity to go running and to the gym several times this week already, it's all good once again and all the pants fit like they should. whew.

Now the axe waits to fall, as when Doc & Mrs Doc arrive back here tomorrow (and will move into our house as they've handed their keys back already) it will be 4 days with them and then POOF, they'll vanish into thin air as they relocate back to the states. whimper.

Labels: holiday recap, Meaningful, work trips

So there's no doubt about this one -
Probably one of the most meaningful birthdays of my life last week. Partially since I was so deathly mournful about turning -gulp- the big "mid-30-number", and then it turned out to be so fantastico. I remember when some of my older friends turned "that number" and how back in the day I used to think to myself "wow, that's old! That's like... so adulty!!" Well, now it's my turn and I'm thinking... uhhhhhh.... am I really that old? No! It doesn't feel old at all! I keep forgetting I'm not 25!!! Until I realize all my employees are like, 25 or thereabouts and I feel like they're just babies. It's a freakin mental roller coaster, age is. I know it doesn't matter and you're only as old as the woman that you feel and all that, but still. You can't change your birth year... it's still glaring at you on your passport, driver's license, CV, residence permit, etc.... and it just starts looking outdated every time these new young whippersnappers keep dropping in their cover letters & CVs that say "DOB: 1980-something.... or even 19NINETY-something!!!!"

Anyhoo, so the long and short of it is that I was dreading the day, and of course it started out as most of my Maun days do (or as Brandon calls it my days in "AssCrack-istan") with a 5am wakeup, schlep into the airport, schlep into Maun on a bumpy-ass flight, and then a full day of full-blown Kalahari sun, asphalt, workboots, long pants, knee-deep sand, and shadeless, waterless, sweat-filled hard and frustrating work. This particular day was one of our monthly project meetings and I had started a lot of shit on the site over the past month so I had a lot of yelling and followup to do (otherwise I may have opted out and sent my apologies and just not gone since it is such an anti-birthday way to spend a whole day). Then as usual, I end up not getting home until after 7pm, tired, airsick, sweaty, covered in sand, and uncomfortably full of MSG (the Chinese contractor on site always feeds us for lunch there and it's always backdoor on-site cooked Chinese food).

So the majority of what I just described came to pass, only lightened up a little by the number of messages and phone calls and emails from people who care. My expectations were that I would fly home as per usual, and then The Mr. would meet me/surprise me at the airport (sans LJJ) and we would go out for a fancy-pants dinner, at which point he would tell me that we were going away to such-and-such a place for the next couple of days (he had told me before that I had to keep the rest of the week "free", but with no indication of what that meant). I had all sorts of expectations of where that destination could be, but nothing concrete to go on.

As it was time to get back to the airport and fly home, Tendayi, my lovely and gorgeous Zimbabwean colleague/friend on the Maun job pulls up next to me and demands to take me for one quick birthday drink before I go back. So I gather my stuff, get in his truck and was handling a work issue on the cell phone, when all of a sudden Tendayi starts cranking up the radio outrageously LOUD and I start getting pissed because I can't hear my phone call. And he is acting sketchy and weird because he is normally not the kind of guy who would be BLASTING the stereo while you're on the phone right next to him. We pull up in front of the bar by the airport and run inside (as it's lashing down with rain, cats & dogs like) and as I do, a 4x4 pulls around the corner and parks RIGHT in front of us. Thought nothing, just trying to get out of the rain. Once inside, I see a white girl with dreads getting out of said car, and my thoughts were "hm. Looks like Petra". Still nothing. Then a second later I realize, it *IS* Petra! (For the record, I'm talking about our BFF from NL who used to live here when we first moved here but then moved back to NL a couple years ago and who is currently in BW on a 3-week holiday, but was SUPPOSED to be in G-city, not Maun!) What the hell is she doing in Maun? Oh... what? That 4x4 she's getting out of..... is MY OWN VEHICLE!? Oh, and who's that in the driver's seat? It's The Mr.!!! WTF!?!? And so then I realize they're wrestling to get something out of the back seat while the rain is dumping buckets on them (LJJ), and then they run inside and it's all "surprise, surprise!s and WTF are you two doing here?s" and so on. So apparently Tendayi was in on it all and the whole blasting-the-music thing was because Petra had been on the phone with him telling him he needed to stall me because they were running a little late and knew if I showed up at the airport to check in and realized THERE WAS NO TICKET HOME IN MY NAME available "she's gonna go ape shit!" (which is 150% TRUE). This was because The Mr. had cancelled my return flight, in consideration of what he was planning (to drive up and kidnap me). And it would've set me on FIRE and the (not) kind ladies at the Air BW check in counter would've received the verbal lashing of their lifetime as I could absolutely NOT tolerate such nonsense ON MY BIRTHDAY.

So anyway, there we all are at the bar, Tendayi, Petra, GG, Keith, etc. and enjoy a couple beverages laughing about all the people who were in on the surprise (apparently several guys on the consulting team in Maun, even). And eventually The Mr. lets me in on the rest of the gig, which is that Petra just rode up with him to keep him company and she's going to hang out in Maun and fly back tomorrow, and meanwhile he, me, and LJJ are going to this lovely posh tree lodge that we went to & thoroughly enjoyed a couple years ago outside of Maun, for 2 nights of R&R, before moving onto a second destination (which I only found out was this elegant old-fashioned tented safari camp as we drove up to it a couple days later) in the Makgadikgadi Pans for another 2 nights before returning home on Saturday.

So anyway, I would have to say that hands-down, this was a true no-brainer on the Meaningful front. I mean, how much planning had to go into this!? Loads!! I am so freakin lucky. The amount of love and organization that went into making my birthday a true surprise and truly special is mind-boggling. If you think about it, it wasn't an easy task. He had to book the venues, cancel my work flight, *PACK MY BAGS* for me (well, now that's another story all together.... one that ended up with me having to wash my hair without conditioner, not be able to comb said hair due to lack of comb/brush/etc., and wear pretty poorly-matched outfits, but who cares!), drive 8 hours with the foot down to beat me to the airport, manage LJJ all the way up, ensure that I didn't find out with anything out or worse yet, potentially ruin the surprise by scheduling some work-meeting or other conflict during the week (which he had to be VERY clued into what I was doing at the office to avoid this). Even right down to sorting out all my management issues at work to ensure that the things I was in charge of doing during that week were handled by someone else etc. And at the same time, not tell certain people who would've botched the surprise. He packed a red wine, a white wine, and a champagne so that we could have our choice of beverage to enjoy out on the veranda each night, and had written a very sweet card and insisted on doing every thing for me for the whole remainder of the weekend. Everything. Like, from feeding LJJ breakfast every day while I laid in bed, to walking back and forth between the main lodge and our chalet/tent each time I wanted something like a bottle of water or snack, etc. "It's YOUR birthday trip, let me do it"... was the mantra for the next 4 - 5 days. Honestly, this could possibly be the highest bar ever set by any husband in the world. I'm still in awe, as I think back about it a week later.

Then the presents were glorious too. My long-sought-after iPhone 4 was the big dog of them all of course, and then the 2nd most awesome component was that he had gone and PERSONALLY sorted out all the logistics for me to get my motorcycle license (FINALLY), which has been one of those nasty "hanging" things that has been loitering around on my To-Do list for like, years, but I've just been too lazy to get moving on. The credit "note" he gave me included a certain amount of credit hours training that you have to do (which is kind of unnecessary since I know how to ride a bike, but you still have to do it, and is the main thing that has been keeping me from getting through all this crap already) - all organized & ready to go, all I had to do was show up, as well as all paperwork filled out and submitted for both theory and road test exams, so I have to do NOTHING. Just show up on the dates and walk away with the license (which I've already aced all the training already this week, loving every moment of it, so will go for the theory test on Wednesday & then have the learners' license in my pocket, woo hoo!).

So anyway, regardless of what the chalet/lodges were like, and how awesome the presents were, and how sweet the thought was, I feel like the amount of sensitive planning and scheming that went into this whole thing was just like the biggest "I REALLY DO LOVE YOU" I could've ever got, and absolutely by all accounts, was one of the most meaningful presents I've ever received in my life, and will go down in history as possibly the best birthday ever, without a doubt.

Labels: Meaningful, The Mr.

I'm kind of in mourning these days, after we got the news that Doc & Mrs Doc are leaving us in May instead of September. Upon banging my head up against a wall several times in a state of "not knowing what's meaningful again, dammit!" I realized that this is something that is on my mind a lot, making me sad a lot, and what what what, so again - something meaningful must be lying in there waiting to be extracted & appreciated.

And it is! The Mr. and I haven't had good friends like this in our midst for so long. I mean sure we have great friends, all over the world, great friends, yay, great, what have you. But the ones that you REALLY click with, and at the same time that are a daily part of your lives and therefore you get the most value out of - hey it's been a long time.

Back in our life in Australia, we used to have our own version of the Cul-de-Sac-Krewe (my moniker for our 2 sets of neighbour couples that we always hang out with who all lived within a kilometre or 2 distance of us at the time) in SPH & A, and Ad & TJ. The feeling where you just know that each weekend you're probably going to do at least *something* together, and it isn't weird to just lounge around in each other's living rooms drinking wine or watching something on TV... not everything is a planned "event", something you have to dress up for, it's just comfortable hanging-out-time. The regularity of it all (helped out by being in the same neighbourhood and therefore just a minute away at all times) fosters extra comfortableness between you, where you get to know way more about each other in much shorter of a timespan than when you're talking about someone you only see once a month or something. Then the close proximity of your locations makes quick drop-ins, or unannounced visits or even simple stuff like "we made too much chilli, do you want some?" so much easier than when you're across town... which means that the casualness is increased and therefore you don't have to feel like you're "on" every time you see each other.

Ever since we met Doc & Mrs Doc, and convinced them to move into our neighbourhood The Mr. and I find ourselves saying incredibly touching things like "wow, we're really lucky to have those guys down the road". Or, "I love that we can hang out with a couple who we have so much in common with". And once he even said to me "Ever since they moved in, I feel like our social life is back to where it used to be in Melbourne"!! And it's true. It's so hard to find people where you BOTH click with BOTH of them - not just the dude (like our situation with Jac & Mar, the other third of our C-d-S-K) or the girl (like our situation with Soo & Mx). For example, sometimes it's Doc that calls me about what to do on friday night, sometimes it's Mrs Doc calling The Mr. and vice versa. We feel exactly the same about both of them and to be honest, I'm not even sure whose number I'm dialling when I phone, because it really doesn't matter (literally, I have them both in my directory under "Mrs Doc" anyway).

Then there's the part about genuineness. There's nothing worth hiding from them due to feelings of skeletons in the closet or anything like that - there's no pretense, and this is on all levels, from being able to talk to them about ANYTHING, to not even attempting to clean up the place when they come over, if it's not convenient.

And then just plain and simple "good personnness". Their enthusiasm about everything is infectious and inspiring - from every time we suggest cooking something bizarre to planning hiking trips or camping. Everything with them is "awesome!" and "fantastic idea!" and you just really genuinely look forward to doing it together. Stuff that a lot of our other friends would complain about or just not even have the slightest bit of motivation for if you just suggest it on a whim ("let's build cornehole boards!" "let's walk for 20km!" "let's make a neti pot out of an ice tea bottle and squirt baking soda and water up my nose!" "let's see if we can make tamales!"). They're really like genuinely gung-ho people which is what you need around these parts when so many things really get you down about daily life and frustrations related to living in a developing country and dealing with complicated & difficult people all the time. I think that must be directly related to their profession, when they're surrounded by a lot of tragedy in the ER and death and illness and 24-hour-shifts and what not. Whatever it is, it's infectious and extremely valuable.

And the stuff we have in common is probably one of the most valuable aspects - when you're an immigrant and you hang out with a variety of locals & expatriates, you generally have a mix of people that you're either just friends with because of work, or because of some club or something or other. It's not because you grew up together and your lives intertwined for a number of years and you have all sorts of life events & interests in common. It's not because you shared experiences over the years and lived through good times & bad together. It's just a lot of "relationships of convenience". With them though, it's like we brought our own friends over with us from "back home" (wherever that is) or something. We all love food, we all love the outdoors, we all do sports, run, etc., we all have the same sense of humour, we all like (generally) the same style of music, we all like the same personality types of people, we're all animal people, we're all adventurous, etc.... and the majority of things we DISLIKE are exactly the same too. Made to order!

So yes, in conclusion, my quality of life and happiness is about to take an incredible nose dive, as these 2 have recently been laid off by the floundering, bankrupt hospital that brought them over here for what was supposed to be a fixed year-long contract. Come May, both me & the Mr. are about to be 2 EXTREMELY sad puppies. However. The meaningful bit is that like SPH&A and TJ&Ad, at least I know that the friendship will last over decades, and that we'll make the effort to see them again no matter where life takes us. I guess that should make me feel better, knowing that what developed was of such Quality that it will stick. It's just going to be really hard to be going it alone again, or I don't know if it's even worse or not - sticking it out with friends who just don't quite measure up. Sometimes I think it's almost better to be lonely than to have average or less-than-average friends around you. That's depressing, I know, but these are the thoughts you have when you have to say goodbye to your besties forever (well, "forever" as in they'll never be your neighbours again - that chapter is OVER).

At least we have (most of) March and April.

Labels: Meaningful, mis amigos

OK, I accept I need to work on this 2-week-interval thing.... especially since that last blogger-misfire thing resulted in my 2-weeks-ago-post not even being posted! It has been *mentioned* and I have taken *note*.

My bad. I'm just full of second-guessyness.


The secret must be in not making the post too long, even though when something is meaningful, you have to explain why, and that can get emotionally involving. And thus, wordy.


I know there's more meaningful things in my life..... why don't they come to me? Why do I keep second-guessing the things that I do think about for a brief moment every couple of days or so?

Maybe I should sparsely integrate normal boring "this is what I have been doing with my life" posts in between the meaningful ones?



Anyhoo, another whopper of meaningful smacked me in the face the other night at the U2 concert.


For the record, The Mr., myself, Doc & Mrs Doc, and another couple (friends but more on the "acquaintences" end of the spectrum than the Doc & Mrs Doc end), we'll call them the Morgs, went down to The Big Smoke (Jozi) to watch the U2 concert. It also happened to be Valentine's weekend. Not sure why that's noteworthy but it is.


Well, in an attempt to keep this from being an hour's worth of writing, I will try and be less wordy than usual. Here goes:


So, The Mr's and my "Song" has always been a U2 song: "In a Little While", off of the "All that you can't leave behind" album. I always have been of the opinion that it's important to have "your song", mainly because music is my THING and all songs conjure up feelings inside me when I hear them, and I think it's important to have one that conjures up nothing but you & the love of your life together. Something of a "feature song" on the soundtrack of your life together. And that's "our" tune. It's the song that we danced our first dance to at our wedding, and it's the song that plays in the background of the "3-minute-slimmed-down version" of our wedding video. Actually - That whole album was big for us because it was released in 2000 (I'll always remember that - and I am HORRIBLE at remembering album release years that aren't 1969 or 1976 for some reason, or aren't released by The Band or The Rolling Stones). The whole album was really huge in our lives when we met back in South Africa that year, as it was getting a lot of airplay, we were both U2 fans, and we had several assorted "moments" during our ownership of that album together. One including a particular morning when we were hopped up on Extacy and had the damn thing on non-stop loop/repeat for an uncountable number of hours, during which the activities that took place I will refrain from translating into words for the sake of my reputation.... BUT ANYWAY. Our first dance at our wedding was to this song, and it has always given me goosebumps to this day to hear it because it fills me with oceans of emotions and love, love, love.


Anyway! So there we were, the 13th of February, 2011, 11 years later on, in the nosebleed section of FBN Stadium in Soweto, not expecting anything other than the latest tour's setlist material and some standard throwback hits from this one of the world's greatest bands massive catalogue... and I was already chuffed that they had already done a song or two off of "our" album... and all of a sudden.... that tiny little guitar riff that starts out with a whole-step slide from the first note to the second.... Edge starts playing it.... and...... ohmygod


the tears!


I never in a million years would've guessed it. I mean first of all, it's not even one of their hits. Oh hell no, it's just some B-side level tune off of a 10 year old album that happened to stitch itself into the lives of US TWO.... really, no one else even knows it unless you're a big fan of that album. Or the fact that "we" started out as a couple in South Africa to this song, and here we were back in South Africa 11 years later having OUR song serenaded to us by Bono on Valentine's Eve...? Never in a MILLION years. How the HELL did that come to happen? I was so shocked, I just don't know if it was my shock or my emotions or the fact that we already were kind of in awe of this massive production that we were blessed to be a part of (reportedly the biggest concert they've ever put on in terms of number of attendees, and HUGE for South Africa).... but I whip my head around to Mrs Doc who was sitting to my right, and go "THIS IS OUR WEDDING SONG!" and immediately am engulfed in the arms of The Mr. and we proceed to slow dance (to the dismay of those seated behind us I'm sure ... as this was obviously one of U2's "sitter" numbers, but OH-to-the-WELL) through the whole thing, and these tear ducts of mine who have not been called to labour for hell, eons now, are kinda working overtime.


To try and explain in words the feeling that I felt in those 3 minutes or so, is just too hard. But I reckon every 9-year-old marriage needs that kind of "refresher" and HOLY SHIT moment where the tsunami of nostalgia and reminders and memories and emotion just washes over you and you're having a COLOSSAL heart swell. And I could see that The Mr. was overwhelmed too and just for one song we didn't give a shit about the people behind us, and just for one song it was just us and the 4 dudes on stage.... the rest of the 100,000 people in the audience just disappeared and there was nothing else in the universe. My heart was all swelled up to the size of Africa. Love flowed in from all directions and flooded every atom of every cell in my being. It was indescribable. And an extremely meaningful phenomena that I will NEVER forget for as long as I live.

Labels: Meaningful, The Mr.

NB: OK in my defense - this was written 2 weeks ago and somehow it didn't get published when I clicked publish... and now only half of it is in my Drafts folder? WTF?!
oh well, so here's half of my musings from 2 weeks ago...

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Meaningful take 2.



Right, so this is still hard for me. I have noticed over the last week that my main problem is thinking something, anything, every tiny little thing that even pokes it's head into my mind in terms of potential "meaningful stuff", just gets shot down by my brain. "Nah, that's just a sorta whatever-fine-okay thing." And I find myself waiting around for some other idea to surface that would be post-worthy.



...which is just stupid, because obviously if something was valuable enough to pop into that corner of my mind in the first place, it's got to have meaning and quality and worth and some sort of power that I'm not acknowledging. Which is worth further investigation and will most probably result in the realization that I'm not paying such small blessings or people or whatevers in my life their due. Which is kind of the point of this little exercise.



So I need to practice more, or something.



But anyway, let's go with one of those exact little "things" that happened last week (or before?) exactly the way I just described it: I got an email from someone that registered in my head and my heart and made me really FEEL something for a moment there, and of course now being on board with this new blog project of mine I was tempted to say "yeah, hey, that is definitely meaningful" but then the cynic in me got the better of that thought and it was dumbed down through no fault of its own by a bunch of "yeah but..."s.



So the email was from my little brother-from-another-mother (little BFAM?) Uncle A. He's been in India with his new girlfriend (an american medical student that he met in Malawi on his travels northward a couple months ago and subsequently spent 2 weeks with and fell in love with and made a plan to meet up in India for 3 weeks with last month.... but that's a whole 'nother story). He wrote a classic little BFAM email to me inculsive of a whole 9 sentences or something - cuz that's how he rolls - but in it he wrote about his heart ache of leaving the new girl behind, how much he misses her, and how he would even entertain the thought of uprooting and moving for her. Then, in the same email he made remorseful mention of how he feels sad about missing (of all things... can hardly believe this one...) wait for it... it's unbelievable....



... LJJ and the growing up period she's in the midst of right now, since he's been gone so long!? I was flabbergasted. Seriously? Let's just say I NEVER expected that. Not in a million billion years. EVER. This is the guy who Foreigner pre-emptively wrote "(You're as) Cold As Ice" for, in 1977... oddly enough, 7 years before his birth!



Ok, so where was the meaningful in this story?



Uhhhh, only on so many freakin levels!!!!



Firstly, the honesty. I crave honesty in my relationships and it's probably the number 1 value I hold dear when it comes to the people in my life that I really value. Honesty allows you trust, give in, be vulnerable, believe in that relationship because the other person is saying "look, I'm picking you as someone who's worth the truth, no matter how it makes me look. It inspires you to be more honest with the other person, which is a buttload of added value to the relationship itself. And most of all it purifies all the ju-ju that circulates between people in any relationship. And, let's face it. I kind of crave this in a little BFAM. My own worthless waste-of-time relationship with my own bio-sib is one big cess pool of anti-quality, mainly related to the fact that he is a two-faced liar who would sell me down the river to anyone he meets as well as betray with the drop of a downbeat. Not to mention happily foster a 1-way relationship in which he quite happily collects all the attention made available to him like freakin' trinkets, and then lies unblinkingly to the faces of those offering that which he collects. Family members, significant others, friends, anyone. Everyone's fair game. What that does, is creates a situation where I can't be honest to him and I become cold and stonewall-y all together. And stonewalling people is just another type of dishonesty - you're hiding stuff, you're putting forth a false face/personality, and you just rot under the lies and stinking bad mojo.



The honesty part of this story is about the fact that this little BFAM of mine is one tough cookie, emotionally. One of these guys who honestly believes that vulnerability is a terminal cancer that will bring you down. Someone who puts forward a tough exterior and uses (as I've learned over the last 6 years) cynnicism and insults and negativity to compromise for the fact that there's something missing. As I've recounted before, having been at the receiving end. But this is PROOF! that when he has love in his life, he actually has a heart of gold (I'm going to go with that, even though I've been burned before by him, the last time there was a gf and I thought... well, anyway). So for him to actually open up and say this sort of stuff, it really kind of bumps our spookily-frighteningly-sibling-like relationship up a notch on the meaningful pole. It's like a bit of confirmation that I'm NOT dreaming when I think that our *thing* is more than just a superficial friendship. It's evidence that specialness exists and all the shyte that we've been through together (inter-continental moves, breakups, dead dogs, desert breakdowns, family nonsense, etc etc) actually built something and created a platform in the friendship on which honesty is practiced.



Secondly, the love part. This is meaningful to me because seeing him being in love and knowing what it feels like... to love somebody... (yeah, that's right, the BeeGees wrote that song pre-emptively about him too! Amazingly enough this time a whole 17 years before his birth...) but I digress. It means that he's got a new facet to his life, a new depth, a new perception that he never had before which opens up a whole world of difference in how he's going to enjoy life from now on, regardless of if the relationship works/lasts or not. (these are such big-sib feelings here) Not only is it going to make him happy, it means that it'll give him perception.... all those times he balked at the idea of people being soul mates. All those times he rolled his eyes when me or The Mr. would mention that we believe in it. That kinda stuff.

Thirdly, the "I regret that I'm missing all this growing-up stuff" re: LJJ part. Sure, everyone wants to feel like their friends like their kid. But this really gives a whole 'nother dimension to the "Uncle A." moniker that we've given him from the get go. Again, in contrast to my biological sibling who has shown all of .00009% interest in his neice, this part goes a long way. It means a lot to me to know that there is some sort of emotion there, a genuine interest, some caring going on. Not in just the standard "how's the kid" question that everybody and their dog can ask without even listening to the answer (yes, I now know parents CAN actually get fatigue in the "let me tell you ALLL ABOUT MY KID" department, especially when it's usually just a disinterested rhetorical question), but in that "I feel like I have a relationship with her" manner. I never saw that one coming, not a mile away. Wow.



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Anyhoo, that's all that was left in the Drafts folder. I think there was a "Fourthly" section, but I can't remember anymore. damn blogger.

Labels: Meaningful, mis amigos

And here we go with the meaningful....

Having the opportunity to work from home every other day over the last year and a half.

OK, so this new blogging strategy to write about only meaningful things this year was difficult to kick-start. Ever since I made the decision to do it, I find myself thinking all day each day "so what exactly is going to be worthy of "meaningful entry No. 1"? Is it this? Is it that? Is this good enough? Is that really what I meant by the word 'meaningful'?" It was hard.

Then I realized this week that Thursday we will be casting the Kiddo off into the great abyss of nursery school for the first time, thereby ending a blissful period of our lives that extended from August 2009 - January 2011. The emotion that I felt when I realized this was going to well and truly be *over* is what made me realize that it has really been a meaningful time of my life. And thus, I write about it:

When i usually think about my job, it makes me feel really lame and uninspired. That's largely because although I like my chosen carreer, it has unfortunately resulted in a generally desk-oriented job that involves lots of report writing and management and other non-interesting day to day blaaaah-dom. However, there is a huge difference between drawing one's lot as an environmental consultant, and drawing one's lot as a BUSINESS OWNER. The former does have its drawbacks, but the latter does have serious perks, which I need to be more appreciative of on a day-to-day basis. Such as making up your own vacation time rules. And setting your own hours. And as is the case in this post... giving yourself the luxury of alternating work-from-home days with your spouse, so you can watch your baby become a toddler.

Don't get me wrong, I think I would slide into a deep depression if I ever becamse a stay-at-home-mom. But the 50/50 split with work and with the husbanator has been a godsend. I still feel like I live in the adult world, but at the same time 2 or 3 days a week I get to take a break from whatever I'm working on and read a book with the LJJ or teach her a new word or sign or how to use the potty, etc. As opposed to just.... keep working...

It's been a benefit to all of us. I get to enjoy studying the way my kid works/behaves/plays and thus feel like I know her better. The Mr. gets to do the same, thus not feeling the typical out-of-balance mom/dad knowledge of exactly what makes the little person tick. LJJ gets to form the exact same bonds with both of us such that she gets the exact same amount of 1-on-1 time with her ma and pa. For example, on any given day, she doesn't KNOW for sure if she's going to get woken up in the morning and get fed breakfast by one of us or the other. It's all surprise potluck from day to day. And she knows she has to behave the same way for both of us because there's no "fun time daddy" or "hard ass mommy" role in her life who comes in at 6pm and takes off again in the morning.... since she has to live with both of us on her back every day. It has also taught her how to be independant and a good self-entertainer and non-clingy (for the most part) since while we're working at home, we still actually have to GET THE WORK DONE, and sometimes yeah, she's left to hang out wither herself or the dogs for a couple hours at a time. I think it's made her a better person, more patient, and value her real quality time with us even more. Honestly the only downside to the arrangement that I could really come up with, in writing and thinking about this, is the fact that I do often miss being in the office with The Mr., together. But that will be back in my life soon enough.

In the meantime I'm just taking the time to be grateful for this one thing that my "boring old stupid job" has given me over the last year and a half. OK, not every day is parent & child bliss... she still cuts teeth and has bad days and drives us insane on those days when she just can't cope and we just have to get some bloody work/study/business done. But largely the whole experience has been special and has meant a lot to me in terms of teaching & enforcing the life skills we as parents have been able to give the kid. For instance, it really helped during the days we were going through sleep training & schedule setting, it really made all the difference while we were teaching her how to sign for the things she wanted to say as a baby, it let us do the things that just leaving her with the maids (our other options) wouldn't have agreed with due to cultural differences and therefore never would've put time into (like teaching her how to cuddle & kiss the dogs... actually eating dirt and rocks to find out they don't actually taste good, understanding that IT'S NOT ALWAYS ALL ABOUT YOU and how to wait for things rather than scream for them, you don't get picked up every time you cry.... etc.) it allowed us to have consistancy and perservere on another of the endless "projects" we wanted to carry out during her first year(s).

So anyway, now that it's coming to an end (ok granted she'll only be away for 1/2 days for the first couple years, so we'll still have afternoons together, albeit largely nap-dominated afternoons at the beginning, I suspect) I thought I would pay homage to this opportunity that I was afforded, and acknowledge that it was very meaningful to me. And I know The Mr. feels the same way, and hopefully someday LJJ will also realize it contributed at least a little something to the kid she becomes. But mostly what it MEANS is that is that I have had a really nice experience doing this since mid-2009, that I am a better person/parent for it & ultimately I have been very lucky to have been able to do it like this.

Labels: Meaningful, The Kid Files

I'm thinking of doing something different with this blog this year, since my life has nothing incredibly meaningful in it so far as I can tell that I'm going to be operating on in 2011, intensely.

I am clearly having a hard time accepting the new year and using it for positive progress as I did last year. Not quite sure why, just don't have the same up & at 'em mojo that I did a year ago today. Perhaps it's my notorious personality trait of laziness creeping in, and tendency to rest on laurals ('cause they be sooooo damn soft and comfy.... mmmm.... laurels are perfect for naps.... zzzzzz....)

BUT ANYHOO!

Rather than saying that I just "don't care anymore" or "resolve not to care", as I worded it to Brandon yesterday (and then recoiled at how defeatist that sounded) for the year 2011, I've thought of two all-encompassing projects that will hopefully help cultivate the motivation I need on the long and 365'y journey through 2011. I mean, the success of setting do-able intentions from last year is still really fresh in my mind, and honestly I have been impressed with myself in terms of how I actually made the whole year work around those intentions and saw the fruits of the labour at the end of the year. So I don't want to just do NOTHING, even though my listlessness and anti-gumption forces are functioning overtime.

Project 1: Bits and Pieces. If I learned anything from last year it's that lifetyle change is an everyday thing. Hence the pushups. You can't skip a day, or otherwise it's just a luke-warm, vanilla, sorta, half-assed, whenever- I- feel- like- it- but- not- really,- nagging- voice- in- the- background,- I'm- spoiled- and- undiciplined- and- don't- REALLY- buy- into- this- but- I'm- gonna- phone- it- in- INTERMITTENT kinda thing. As Pirsig said in Z&tAoMM "Intermittents become gumption traps when they fool you into thinking you've really got the machine fixed"!!!! Which is why I resolve, for the elements that I want to improve on (which I mentioned in the last post or wherever) I'm resolving to do "at least one serving per day", for the whole 365. This basically includes the two selected departments of....... wait for it........

music and romance. Granted, when I travel, the whole banjo/piano/viola thing ain't gonna be possible, which is why on those particular days that I find myself without one of the toys, I resolve to listen to whatever it is that I am working on (or at least the same genere) on the ipod, and focus/concentrate/suzuki myself into getting value-added inspiration/technique, for when my fingers can get back to doing the walking. But otherwise, it's cold, hard, finger-contact every day. Even if that little bit is 5 minutes on the side of my bed before the eyelids come crashing down at night. Every day.

In the romance department, that's going to have to be one particular The Mr.-focussed SOMETHING that matters. I'm not talking about "I kissed him goodbye twice instead of once". I'm kind of still a little fuzzy in terms of what constitutes "value for effort" regarding the parameters of this one (affection? words? deeds? bow-chicka-wow-wow?) but the best guideline I can come up with so far is something like "it has to be something that I would otherwise not have done last year for no good reason" or something to that extent.

Project 2: Overhauling this thing. Let's face it, journal-blogging is getting kinda lame and repetitive after (how many>?) years and even *I* hardly get any enjoyment out of reading long-winded "here's what I did on the weekend" self-focussed reports of boring old me and how lame I think my job is or whatever other complaints are on the menu at the time. So I'm going to try something new.... hell if it doesnt work out it's not like I'm carving these words in rock.... and hopefully this strategy will find me the positive energy I'm looking for. WHICH is why I'm going to make this 2011 blog all about......

...."meaningful"!!! My old "disclaimer" at the top of the blog was focussed on how I write nothing of value (which I didn't really) and a lot of crap. So I'm going to do the opposite this year then, for lack of anything else interesting to supply other than yet another year full of "this is what I did today and here's how many beverages I consumed over the weekend". Really, who cares, and what insight am I going to get out of another year of that stuff ("yeah, ok, I get it, you liked to throw dinner parties when you were in your early 30s!!") when I'm 70 years old and getting my onset of dementia. (Which is why I do this anyway) So! I'm going to write each post about one thing MEANINGFUL that happened to me/is happening/etc that day or week or hell I don't have a regular blogging interval so who can say. It's kind of a throwback to one of the main themes of my favorite book of all time (Zen & the A.o.M.M.) about QUALITY, and what "quality" really means/does/looks like, etc. In fact, in relation to my lack of gumption here on this early side of 2011, Pirsig says (in Z&tAoMM) "what happens to someone who connects with Quality.... He gets filled with gumption"!! Not a small topic in itself... But anyway, if the things that are going on in my life are truly meaningful at the time of blogging, then that is what will make print, one at a time so as to truly concentrate *in words* on that one thing that I choose, and pay truely genuine homage to that one particular thing and nothing else - no rubbish and clutter. Just 1) what it is 2) why it deserves the label "Meaningful". Focus on one little good thing and then use words to realize that it is amazing in it's own right. Surely, I think, SURELY I can come up with ONE. MEANINGFUL. THING for each post.....?!?!

And then at the end of each, if there's anything amazingly otherwise-print-worthy, bullet points will be invited. Like Project 1 updates to be saved for posterity or something.

So there. My attempt at salvaging the rest of January (and 2011) from the post-holiday duldrums and poo-poo.

Labels: Meaningful