My Year of Meaningful (2011)

I don't know when I'm going to collectively have enough to actually push "publish" on this but I'm just adding bits and pieces over the days because I am too damn scatterbrained and all over the shop to sit down and get it done right!

So last weekend was another big one again, with parties and gatherings and dinners and craziness abounding. There was a big fat traditional turkey dinner for Xmas at Mx and Soo's which also included Doc & Mrs Doc and Mx's nutty australian friend Nick & his even crazier (and I mean certifiably CRAZY) anglo-namibian girlfriend - that was on Saturday. Certifiably Crazy Girlfriend was seated next to The Mr. and basically latched on to him and droned away about everything from how she's not in love with Nick to how "if she is rowing her boat.... and someone else is rowing their boat.... and they can both row together in peace and harmony....." OMG I can't even remember how bizarre and weird it got. But anyway the fun part of dinner was that inside the christmas crackers that Soo had at each place setting, there were these "Table Talk" questions.... open-ended deep & Meaningful (sorta) questions that each person had to ask and the rest of the table discussed. It was pretty funny. And a new twist that I had never gotten in a Christmas Cracker before. Stuff like "if it was your last 24 hours on earth, what would you do?"

Since D & Mrs D and The Mr. and I carpooled, those of us who were "Not The Mr.", who was on driving duty, when a little spastic and made plenty of merry with the wine. Doc even "went missing" after dinner was over for a couple hours which we found out later ment that he took "The China" for a quick "Drive" and found a nice spot on the living room floor for a wee "nap". And by "China" I mean "toilet" and by "Drive" I mean "puke" and by "nap" I mean "passed out". Yes I am SO good at innuendo, I have to do it twice.

It all started around 5 that afternoon when D & MrsD came up to help us with another coat of paint on the cornhole boards. I supplied very nice Bombay martinis garnished tastefully with lime peel, as that is clearly the beverage that one enjoys with paint fumes. When we had to leave to go to Soo's, we transferred our drinks out of the lovely martini glasses (which I never get to use, hence any excuse for a martini, painting or no painting) and into plastic travel cups durable enough to bounce through the bush over to Dinner. Then there was of course champagne for pre-dinner, wine with dinner and poor old Doc was just coming off a 24 hour shift (and had to work at 7am the next day) so I think he just went hell for leather early in the evening and hence we lost him around 9pm or so.

Anyway fun was had by all! Soo found out the next day that she's preggers (AGAIN! Damn, It's like their current baby was just cranked out yesterday!!!) so there goes any more of these big hoo-has at their place til September. Bummer.

Sunday I can't remember what took up my whole day but I think it may have been relaxing & involved some sort of playing catch-up with the DVR. Then that evening the G-village 6 (us, the Docs - minus Doc that night though since he was working, and Jac & Mar) caught up at J&M's place for a lite pre-christmas gathering since M was leaving for Holland this week, to say bye-bye before we all go our separate ways for the Festive season. It involved playing cornhole (with our new not-quite-yet-painted-but-still-usable boards) and eating Filet on the braai and just general hanging out. Our OTHER young neighbours (we'll call them Christoff and Daisy) whom we never socialize with but who are pretty cool and our age too and live just up from the Docs also came over and while they are not exactly a party in a box, they're nice and humoured us by playing bags with us too.

This week has been troublesome in the work department mainly based on the fact that I had to go up to Maun AGAINST MY WILL on Tuesday which entailed waking up at 5am and then getting brain-rattle-syndrome in the plane because of horrible weather which is spanning the country at the moment, and then wasting the rest of my day on site. Not to mention being delayed in the shithole airport for FIVE HOURS because of some unexplained "technical difficulties".... nice. PLUS my cellphone network was blown up so i couldn't even use the phone. But thank god for wifi because I used it to catch up on email and gchat and skype and phone calls or should I say belly laughs with Brandon which was fun. But I still didn't get home til after 11pm and that SUCKED.

In protest after having such a bad-ass horrible day on tuesday, on Wednesday... I just didn't work.

In other news The Mominator is back up to her old tricks again, this time complaining that the photos on our "other Blog" don't reflect her, for the segment that THe Mr. did about our trip back home HALF A YEAR AGO. She also casually mentioned how maybe she should go check in with her friend whose daughter is FB friends with me and see if I've put any photos of our trip back home "including grandparents", up on FB. :-o
Really?
Psycho?
Really?

I wrote back a very clear and simply worded email saying "If you don't like our photo selections, make your own photobucket or put more on your own shutterfly.
If you want to stalk us on facebook through Sarah, I am happy to de-friend her and block her from my account since I only really use it to keep in touch with my FRIENDS that we never see. If Sarah wants to use it for "Family networking" that's her perogative, but I feel like I have enough ways to keep in touch with my FAMILY without some stupid social networking site.
You don't have to read our blog if it upsets you because we don't have enough photos of YOU on it. It is not compulsory. It is hard enough to keep it updated without you demanding that now we go back and "correct" the photos that were taken over six months ago. Please drop this line of inquiry because it is getting old and again I don't feel the need to apologize for which photographs from our private life make it out into the public domain, and we don't have time with a 3rd world slow internet connection to upload all 350 photographs taken on holidays. Don't ask me why The Mr. selected the ones he did but you really need to stop hassling about it because he's saying maybe we should just shut it down entirely."

Re-reading it I'm half-disappointed that I took the bait, but by the same token, I am tired and exhausted from one hell of a year and am just barely hanging on til Saturday when we leave for "that side". Seriously. I'm falling asleep in random places in public. I don't need a headache a la Mominator right now. Especially that same old "IT'S NOT ALL ABOUT YOU" flavor that we've been over 90 billion times before and just wears me down. I know why she feels like now is the appropriate time to bring it up: tis because she just deposited a whole bunch of $$$ in our bank account for ours & LJJ's christmas gift and so now feels like I won't have the balls to call her out on her nonsense. Well, I done did it. Now I gotta flee the country.

Speaking of fleeing the country, I am really truly looking forward to the big haul back to the land of the Nethers. I'm kinda bummed that I didn't get the results of my thesis back before the holidays but I'll just have to stop worrying/thinking about it and move on with The Great 2010 Recuperation. I keep checking in on the student portal but they just ain't postin'. So on to 18 days in the cold and snow and in our little cottage in the forest that we're renting (to avoid having to stay at La casa de inlaw) which by the by can be seen here: http://www.wellnessvakantievilla.nl/index.php?option=com_content&view=frontpage&Itemid=1
("Translate with Bing" or Google might come in handy)

There is a sauna and a hot tub and 3 bedrooms so we can have people over whenever we want and I'm REALLY looking forward to having Petra for a few days (my old BFF here in Bots who abandoned us a year and a half ago) and Jean of course who is coming for a couple days after xmas. Then the last couple days of our time there, we dump LJJ with the grandfolk and The Mr. and I escape away for 3 days of "adult time" off on one of the islands in the North Sea which will be blustery and freeeeeezing but at the same time romantic and ALONE! Indeed, I am looking forward to this trip to his turf for once.

I need to exercise.

Our office xmas party was last night and we went back to the Portuguese "all you can eat MEAT" restaurant with the guys. Our new PA, Neo, is finally the first ever L.E. employee we've had that actually drinks alcohol. It was fun to see if he would actually order a DRINK (knowing it's on the company) or not. And he proved to be a sensible little fella by ordering mango juice on the first round, waiting to see what The Directors did. The Mr. ordered a beer and I ordered a glass of red wine, and then lo and behold on the next round Neo ordered a beer. HAHA! I don't know why I found that so entertaining but I actively made sure the drinks orders went counter-clockwise with Me & The Mr. being last, because i wanted to see just how cheeky he was. heh heh heh.

Oh, and the Secret Baby still hasn't been discussed with me but last night at the dinner, Leto was forced to use the words "Maternity Leave" in a conversation that I was a part of, and let's just say the tension in the room got THICKE LIKE ALAN.

Tomorrow Doc & Mrs Doc and Jac are coming up for my 5-star spaghetti and salad and cornhole and maybe poker and basically another bye-bye friday night camraderie. Guiltily, I'm kind of glad Mar hit the road a few days earlier than Jac because this means more fun for us, and good old J-bird doesn't have to stick to his 3 beer limit & can relax a little without getting his head chomped off for saying/doing the wrong thing or otherwise. Or get scowled at for having a refill on wine. Or have to go home promptly at midnight. The Mr. and I have taken a few clues that we've overheard from the both of them as of late that this relationship doesn't have much longevity because of her inability to ever embrace the possibility of a life here in BW, and his similar anti-NL tendencies. But I respect the way he puts 100% into the relationship at the moment and really dotes on her and seems to genuinely care, despite probably knowing deep down that they're gonna hit a stale mate somewhere up the road. He's such a good guy. He just deserves a girl who can relax just a little bit more and not be so uptight at AGE TWENTY FOUR. eish. seriously she's younger than all of us but has this serious Grandma-syndrome that can really bring you down. c'est la vie.

So we leave on Saturday night, fly down to Joburg, then fly out to Paris in the evening and layover there for a couple hours. Then off to Hamsterdam where we will arrive on Sunday afternoon. woo hoo! Here's to holidays! Where hopefully the most complicated thing on my mind will be new years' resolutions. I've got a few ideas up my sleeve but need some quiet time to launder all the crap out of them.

Speaking of laundering.... our maids have the week off & wont be back til january. Now what the hell am I going to do about all this laundry???

OK this hodgepodge of nonsense has grown long enough now, and off it goes.