Pop the cork

Phew. That nasty mist is rising. It’s a terrible thing, it is. Thank you for all the kind words. This bloggy world thing is quite incredible in that way. Pretty amazing really. So, yes, I’m feeling a lot more like myself, thank god. A combination of sleep, love and, I guess, just time, has pushed the monster back into his hole. Long may he stay there.

I have to go over the weekend to do some research for my Other Job, sigh. Over a weekend. It shouldn’t be allowed, weekend work things. Remember the urgent meeting I had to go to last time on a Friday afternoon? This is, well, if it’s possible… worse.

You see, I’m going to have to drag myself and Unwilling Companion (for who wouldn’t be unwilling to do this?) all the way out to an incredibly beautiful, secluded valley in the winelands. Vineyard after vineyard, beautiful old houses surrounded by majestic oaks, frolicking lambkins (maybe too far? I’ll stop there). I know, I know… what a schlep. It gets worse, though.

Once we get there, into that hellish place, we’ll have to be hosted by a rather well known champagne-maker, who will show us around the place, and then force us to taste the five different kinds that they make there. Ugh, doesn’t it sound awful? That’s not the end. We might even be forced to taste some homemade nougat with it.

And then?

Unwilling Companion and I will have to spend the night in a really beautiful old hotel in that breathtaking valley to allow us to quaff on said champagne without worrying about driving. And we will be forced to eat a three course dinner as part of the deal. And… wait for it… breakfast the next morning. Sheesh, the cheek of it.

You can see why I hate my forced outings for the Other Job, can’t you?

Sad. Still.

My feet are cemented to the ground. I turn myself inward, into my head. And run.

I hold on so tightly to you, I'm sure your arm goes numb. If I don't, I fear I'll float away. A helium balloon tied to a child's wrist. But the bow is too loose. I need to cling.

Good grief, enough already. My sadness flits by every so often but normally doesn't stick about for so long. This one is lurking about in the corner, looking at me with its' glinting eyes. Back off, you bastard, you're making me too watery, I might wash down a drain and into the sea. Away.

Apologies for this morbid morosity. Normal service will resume shortly. The grey, twisting mists of sadness even cause me to make up vocabulary it seems. Is morosity even a word?

Melancholy

It's insipiddly grey. Not even. It's invisible, but grey, as it creeps slowly toward me, pushing its' foul breath into my space... a warning about which I can do nothing. I can feel it coming, my heart fills with tears and becomes squelchy and small as I try to flee from it and slam doors in its' face, but I am rooted to the spot. No matter how hard I try, my legs are leaden, my feet concrete, it will get me, again.

I fill a day with the inane tasks of life, feign jollity on the phone, take another sip of beer and smile too much, wrap myself in a false sense of okay. But back home, it's dark outside, and it's dark in here too, and my heart clenches more, as I try to stop my mind from going there, into those murky recesses, but the door has swung open, I heard it's ominous Hollywood-horror-style squeak, and I know nothing will take this away. I'm in it. And stuck. It's too late this time to turn my back on it. It's tendrils are around my neck.

Do you think, perhaps, I'm a little melancholy today?

Birthdays and history

It is 20 years today since the ANC were unbanned in a monumentously historic announcement by then-president, FW de Klerk. It was my 15th birthday. I remember being incredibly proud that it happened on my birthday, and have to admit, that I still feel a little shudder of pride about it. Even better was when, 9 days later, on my mother's birthday, Mandela was released. In my up-your-own-arse teenage mind, I was directly involved in these wonderful moments.

Which, of course, leads us to the fact that I am 35 today. Middle aged. I'm not actually all that perturbed by age. It seems a silly thing to be hung up on because, really, what are you going to do about it? Stop time? A friend of my mother's has never told anyone her age. Bizarre. I plan to grow old gracefully (well, ok, I'm not exactly the most graceful creature* but you know what I mean) and be brazenly honest about my age.

Unfortunately, regardless of my Birthday Girl status, I have to be at Real Work, but I am not being particularly productive and am answering lovely birthday calls instead. I just got one from Aisha, my personal banker. Hmm... Funny thing is: I didn't even know I had a personal banker. I was going to say: "Thank you, but it might be better for you to spend more time improving the service at your bank, and less time phoning people to say Happy Birthday", but then I thought that'd be ungracious. Then I felt a little bad about not knowing when HER birthday is, to return the favour. Luckily another friend phoned, so my guilt flitted away like confetti on the breeze. Shows you what a solid character I am - focused is the word I like to use.

So, happy birthday to me. Who could ask for more than to wake up on one's birthday, loved, and be able to look forward to a lovely meal, al fresco, with delicious friends and delightful food, later?

*Understatement of the year

Middle ages approach

I am turning 35. Tomorrow. Which makes the name of my blog even sillier than before. I knew that'd happen when I started it. I think I even wrote a post about how silly it was. Naturally, though, as I am wanton to do, I ignored my sensical side and went with the nonsensical side. Even though I'm turning 35, as I just said, nonsensical Shiny seems to win most arguments still. I am beginning to accept that I may never grow up and become sensical.

So, in this vain, I had a little birthday party on Friday, in the garage, with music, and a mirror ball. There was champagne and lovely friends and fairy lights in the trees and I got spoilt with beautiful presents and the only difference between my youthful garage birthday parties and this new era of middle-aged garage birthday parties (because the garage parties are traditional at this point... I get complaints when I miss a year) was that everyone left by 12. Like in Cinderella.

Tonight I will dine out (look, I'm using phrases like 'dine out' now that I'm almost middle-aged) with my parents and their best friends who have known me, well, since I was 0, and my love, and then tomorrow night I shall go out with a little group of friends, to the same place I celebrated my birthday last year because it was just so fabulous. In that post I couldn't say what the newses were, but the first was that K was pregnant, with my now-Goddaughter, the beautiful Ava, and the second was that my sister was having not one, but two babies. Who now look like this (Allie, especially for you):

I may be an over-zealous, biased Aunt, but aren't they just too sweet?

Stalkbook voyeurism

I've been meaning to write a post about Stalkbook, I mean Facebook, for ages. Why? Because it fascinates me. I love the way it can induce all sorts of heated arguments from people who have stayed off it, proclaiming that it's an invasion of privacy. Somebody even called it 'dangerous' the other day. Come on, people, it's just Facebook. Guns are dangerous, crossing the road without looking is dangerous. Facebook... not so much.

Nobody forces people to go on to it, or upload their photos, or become friends with people who used to put chewing gum in their hair at school. It doesn't actually define your relationship status. I haven't heard of any hijack situations where people have been forced at knifepoint to log on and, shock-horror, update their statuses. Nope, as far as I can see, it's just made voyeurism part of everyday life and, come on, who doesn't love a bit of voyeurism, hmm?

I do understand that the internet is filled with predators and it's possibly not clever to allow your wayward 12-year old daughter to frolick about on Facebook unattended, but us consenting adults with more than two braincells to rub together are probably quite safe. And those twits who stay home from work because they're hungover and announce it on their statusses for everybody at work to read, well, they're just twits, and twits generally do get caught out every-so-often.

One little thing I struggle with, though, is friend requests from school people. I don't want to hurt people's feelings by denying friendship requests so I leave them festering in my notifications box (or whatever it's called), inducing guilt every time I go in. Why, though, would I want to now be friends with someone who, really, was very mean to me at school? More guilt. Then I remind myself that it's just Stalkbook.

And then there's Farmville, that appeals to my 10-year old boy brain (and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Okay, maybe a little), and Scrabble, which I'm completely addicted to. That reminds me, I have a fabulous Facebook Scrabble Romance story to tell from my long-ago past. I must write that post too. I must be off now, though... my Forget-Me-Nots need harvesting and I should pet my turtle.

There's nothing wrong with living on an imaginary farm until I get my real one, surely?

Grumpiness and gratefulness

You know how people talk about Glass-Half-Full people and Glass-Half-Empty people? I work with a The-Glass-Has-Been-Empty-For-Years-And-Is-Growing-Mould person. Like in, seriously, this guy is grumpy. He could find the bad side of a triple chocolate cake. It's like having a large black cloud walk into the office when he arrives each morning.

Don't get me wrong, he and I are very good friends and my intrinsically sunny disposition (thank god for it, if I may say so myself), normally manages to push the cloud away from my side, and back to his. I've given up (after 12 years) trying to make his go away. I tried and tried. And tried some more. But, alas, the task was too huge. We do get along though mainly. Like a house on fire really. I love that saying... like a house on fire.

The result is that, most of the time, I hum a happy tune in my head and make it louder than his grumpiness. Sometimes, though, it's hard to hum loud enough. I think I may be a bit PMS-ey too, and am going through one of those unsatisfied-with-my-job phases, so that may be adding to it. I do just, every now and again, want to hit him (possibly quite hard) and tell him to look around and realise how much he's got to be grateful for.

Good grief, listen to me (and my sunny disposition I was just bragging about) whinging like, well, a grumpy old man. I'll stop now, shall I?

I have a wonderful dinner to look forward to, with two old varsity friends, one of them being K, mother of my beautiful godchild, who is going back to Sydney on Thursday (sob!) And then home, to where my love will be. See, I have SO much to be grateful for, and that's just scratching the surface.

I am a lucky girl, aren't I?