A story

I am still wading through that squelchy, confused mud, but am trying to be a good girl and write regularly. After all, this is my practice pad, and what's a practice pad's point if you don't practice on it? It doesn't have one. And I'd hate for my very own practice pad to feel pointless. But my brain is befuddled and not-so-bemused, and is dwelling on the transience of it all, after hearing some news last night that I'm not ready to write about yet so, instead, I will write a story about a girl watching her shadow on the beach.

She sat above the shoreline with her knees against her chest and her arms wrapped around her legs. There was a slight breeze but it is was surprisingly warm considering the time of year. She breathed deeply, inhaling the smell of the ocean - seaweed, salt, mermaid's breath. As the sun set behind her, she watched her shadow lengthen across the sand until it reached the wet sand where the waves washed up.

She lifted her arms and saw her Dr Seuss-like shadow fingers reach into the lacy foam at the edge of the sea, then watched as it rushed up the shore, eating her head, neck and then shoulders. There it stopped and withdrew, dropping her shadow back onto the sand as it receded.

There her shadow being was again, on the smooth wet sand, her neck, like a Modigliani woman, even longer now, as the sun sunk lower behind her. A welk made it's way through her shadow ear, down her neck and toward her breast.

She stood up, stretched her neck, and walked down the beach, her shadow hurrying behind her, glancing at the sun nervously, knowing it's time on this beach was limited.

Pea Soup

You know that soup that’s made with the little round green things, all mushed up together, quite often with ham? That’s what is in my head today. That soup. I’m not entirely sure why. It is the most beautiful day here in the city below the mountain, something that would normally electrify my being and make me grin. But not today.

Today I feel like I’m stuck in some very gooey mud and my Pea Soup Brain is not helping with trying to work out how to unsquelsh myself. There are some things happening this week that are making me angsty and edgey, a state of being I am not fond of. It is making my head swirl stodgily, it’s soup sloshing lazily.

And the thing is, I should still be floating in amongst the clouds, being all happy and fluffy, because I spent the weekend out in the country in the most beautiful spot where I watched the clouds melt off the mountains to reveal a vast blue sky and the sun shine on the very beautiful Nguni cows in the paddock next to the house, and ate delicious food and drank champagne and played games with lovely friends… ahhh.

Perhaps that’s part of it – I wish to be back there, on that wraparound stoep, with my glass of champagne, book, and a view to forever.

Why-oh-why do I have to be a Real World Worker?

Revenge of the mosquito

It is Winter. Anyone who has read this blog for a while will remember my monster mosquito problems and their stopping me from getting a good night's rest and then my not-so-clever attempts at getting rid of them in the Summer. Yes, that's what I said: In. The. Summer. The Summer, of course, being a perfectly reasonable time for monstrous mosquitoes to be flitting about your head, buzzing wildly, and sucking the life blood from your body.

However, it is Winter here (haven't you noticed my whinging?) therefore it is completely unacceptable that I was awoken last night by one of those very same monster mosquitoes buzzing around my head. The only parts of me sticking out of my lovely warm blankets were my forehead and one ear (the left, to be precise) because, like I said, it's Winter!

So where did the little guy go? He buzzed (and buzzed and buzzed) around my exposed ear. And then... the little fucker bit me on my exposed forehead, leaving an itchy bite above my left eyebrow. Lovely.

And did I mention... it's Winter! I told you these are anabolic-steroid super-mosquitoes, I wasn't exaggerating after all.

Am I destined to mosquito choir practice in Winter too?

The Treats Box

There is a heirarchy in my home.

I have a Treats Box. Everybody who comes into my house knows about it within about half an hour of being there. I'm not sure how, the news just spreads. I think people take newcomers surreptitiously into corners of the house and whisper to them. Or maybe they know already, and that's why they come.

The Treats Box is a cardboard box which lives in the cupboard next to The Fridge. It contains, obviously, treats. These range from chocolate (bars mainly, sometimes boxes if anybody in the house gets gifts... at Christmas there are always Ferrero Rochers) to sweeties (jube jubes, jelly babies, Sugus, Fizzers standard, various others intermittently) to biscuits (chocolate and savoury, sometimes pretzels too) and chips. It gets requests too (popcorn for The Pond, Sugus for SJ, sour worms for Nini, anything for The BFF - I have had occassions where I've had to soothe sulks from people not finding what they're looking for in there. Invariably, though, there's always something for everyone.) Sometimes it's full to overflowing, sometimes it's a little less but it is never, ever, empty.

The Treats Box enjoys a status similar to the other members of the household. Sometimes, I fear, it even enjoys top spot in the heirarchy. As in, it gets greeted with as much enthusiasm as the rest of us (that being me, Big Black Dog, the Siamese Princess and, of course, The Pond. I exclude the inadequately named Babycat purely because she lives outside and is generally not greeted by those coming through the front - long story.)

So, yes, depending on who you are, and three people stand out as shining examples of this, namely one of my favourite people in the world (SJ), Nini, and The BFF, the order can change of the greetings. These three love me, the Big Black Dog, and The Treats Box almost equally (she says cautiously, suddenly doubting herself). All three will always say hello to the Big Black Dog first, generally because she bounds at them before they've even made it through the front door. Nini and SJ will roll around on the lounge floor with her for, well... until I make loud whinging noises about being ignored and start mumbling things like "I swear you love that dog more than me." Then they come through for hugs and kisses from me, and then... Treats Box. Immediately, without fail.

The BFF does similar, but he finds it hard to ignore the pull of the Treats Box (and The Fridge) so spends a little less time with the Big Black Dog initially (he always goes back though). As for me... if he trips over me on the way to the Treats Box, I get my kiss then, otherwise I'm after.

Okay, so I may have over-exaggerated that slightly but it's in my nature to do so. You get the idea though. That the Treats Box enjoys a status up there with the rest of us in the house. And rightly so. As far as I'm concerned, a house is not a home without one.

Now why did I not get dark chocolate the last time I Treats Box-shopped?

The Second Lift Phenomen

So I have spoken about the irritating-multiple-button-pushing-lift-freaks previously. There's another Lift Phenomenon I need to get out. It's also to do with human nature, I think, and is (in my mind at least), equally as intriguing. It's the phenomenon of In Lift Behaviour.

There seems to be something about being in a lift that makes people go all quiet and squirmy. And look up, at that little lit up box that would, in normal lifts, say G, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 but, in our, slightly eccentric and very old lifts, says E, F, G, H, J, K. There's another wonder - why do our floors have letters, instead of numbers? And, why did they skip out I? Initially I thought maybe they had something against vowels but then I (rather embarassingly) realised that E is a vowel too... I'd also like to do a survey to see how many people, per day, get out on G (aka 2) thinking it's the ground floor, and wander around aimlessly looking for the door outside. It could be dangerous you know - someone could walk out onto a balcony, not paying attention, and tumble over, thinking they're on the ground floor. Perhaps I should write to somebody about it...

I digress - so I came up with a theory this morning, as to why people in lifts seem only able to mumble unintelligably at each other, look at their watches, dig in their bags, watch the little screen etc. I think it's because they're in a small tin box, hurtling into the sky above (okay, maybe I've read too much Roald Dahl), and it feels like there is only a certain amount of air in there, so it's probably wise not to use too much of it up doing things like, say, exchanging pleasantries with the woman you've shared this very same lift with fairly regularly. For over ten years. God forbid that you should profer up anything more than a mumbled "morning" to my cheerful greeting this time - we might run out of air.

Ooo, did you see how my general musings whittled their way down to a very specific personal encounter? It just amazes me really. The way I think (and I'm starting to realise, finally, that perhaps it isn't how everybody else thinks, after all, despite my mother's reassurances when I was a child), that I should, by this stage, know all my fellow lift partner's names, kid's names and ages and where they're going on their next holiday. If they knew the wild stories I've made up in my head about their lives, they might be more ready to spill the truthful beans on our shared lift rides into the sky.

Maybe I'm just too curious?

Backed into a corner

I backed myself into a corner, all of a sudden. I don’t know how it happened, it just did. One minute I was sitting at the table by the fire, drinking wine, reminiscing about our youthful folly, and catching up on the new, not-as-youthful folly (yes, we struggle not to be follyful, still now). And the next minute, the deadline loomed up big behind me and then it was there, next to me, and then it had passed me and I watched it’s lithe bottom streak ahead of me. Oh shit.

Reading that back, perhaps I do know how it happened – wine, reminiscing, folly, all in one sentence. So that’s where it went. It was worth it though.

Excuse me for a minute while I chase after it… it really does look cute in it’s little Deadline Running Shorts. And I'm sure its thirsty, I must give it some water to drink.

Winter seeps into me

I have my first winter fire roaring in the hearth. It is grey and rainy outside. The Siamese Princess just came in from outside, damp and cold, complaining in her yowly-not-so-pleasant siamese voice, jumping onto my lap, demanding that I stroke the dampness and cold away. I love that she does that.

The Winter brings with her, in her many bags, a sadness for me. The greyness seeps under my skin. Days like today make my heart contract more when sad songs play - it's almost sore. It makes me struggle to breathe. As if the air is thick with globules of that melancholy. There is something beautiful in it too. My writing skills don't allow me to explain properly. I want to write beautiful words that are strung together in a way that does that heart squeezing thing. They're there, in my head - a vast sky above a stark landscape, letters raining down from huge columns of cloud, landing higgeldy-piggeldy in puddles that make no sense.

Why-oh-why is it so inexplicable when I can see it in my head?