Flying, tiling and happiness

I take it back. My whinge about the self actualisation and positive thought mantra-saying. My house is, indeed converted - the bricks are made of chocolate cake, the roof is covered in wafers, the door handles in the kitchen are Jelly Tots, and the chocolate spring flows into a meandering stream through my garden. And I'm flying.

It's a good place to be. I know I'm being all cryptic again, but it's just that I'm not quite there yet. You know the 'there' I'm talking about? The one where you're able to blurt it all out and make it all public. I'm getting there, at the speed of light, really, what with my new wings and all.

The good news is that we will all be moving back into the House in the Middle of The Street on Saturday. The floors are in, the walls are painted, I just need to choose tiles for the kitchen (walls - at the sink and stove). You'd think this'd be a walk in the park. It's not. Finding red tiles? Like trying to get hold of the original hotpants worn by Axl Rose in the '80's.

You amble happily into tile place (after tile place, after tile place, getting less happily ambly exponentially, as the number of tile places increases) and ask to see their red tiles. Smiley Salesperson enthusiastically says: "Sure, we have a whole range!" (Why do sales people have to talk in exclamation marks?) Said Smiley Salesperson then rushes off and returns minutes later with a range of orange tiles. They're all bloody orange.

Anyway that's a long, gripey story which I will deal with (some more) over the weekend. In the meantime, I must fly around the office a bit, looking busy.

I wonder if my colleagues can see my wings?

Catching up

I have lost my desire to write. Well, not really the desire, just the drive. I just can't think of anything interesting to say. Which is a bit silly really, because there is so much extremely cool stuff going on in my life, but I just can't get myself to write about it. I have just made myself come into this "New Post" block and am forcing my hand to make letters into sentences (of a sort) in the hope it'll turn into something worth reading. Thus far... I don't think I'm winning. Drivel, that's what this is.

Let me catch up with some news. The House in the Middle of the Street is almost ready to be moved back into. It has been a veritable building site and I have had to try very hard not to kick and scream at the builder's boot marks through my lavender, and my dead mint (presumably choked on concrete dust or paint fumes, poor thing) and had the very stressful job of choosing new paint colours (I mean, seriously, how the hell are you supposed to pick a colour for an enormous room from a square 4cm x 3cm?)... But the walls are all done, except the kitchen, and the wooden floors are almost done, and rumour has it that we may be able to move back in this weekend.

My parents left last Monday for Botswana/Big Smoke/Bali allowing us free reign in their house. It instantly made me want to throw a party, of course, having regressed to a 16-year old. Unfortunately work has been ridiculously busy and so I haven't pulled myself together to organise it! Also, they have DSTV, and I have, basically, become a DSTV-whore. There, I said it. Now you all know the real reason for my lack of writing.

Who says TV swallows you whole?

Unhinged

It came from nowhere. The wind was blowing so hard that the tree outside my window, all fifty-plus years of it's five-storey height looked like it may blow away like one little stalk of a dandylion. I'm convinced the Weatherman fucks with me, and changes the weather, according to my head space. That seems a bit presumptious but, perhaps, it's just my little world's weather. I wouldn't want to mess with anybody else's.

In the midst of a swirling, whirling, tweeting bird, sparkling star-filled time with so much promise of fabulous new things and amazing people (person), it appeared, just like that. The skulking shadow came out into the light. I see it and feel like every single piece of me is made of salt water. Like I could easily just turn into a pool of tears, gushing along the gutter, into the rain drain, and down to the sea.

Perhaps, finally, it is time?

Another letter: weariness-inspired

I have a problem. Just a small one, really, but it is a problem. I just ate the most delicious lunch. That, however, is not the problem. The problem is that I am now overcome with weariness. It's like there are little weights attached to each of the eyelashes on my top eyelid. This makes it very difficult to be in the office. And then there's the fact that my (rather large) mouth keeps gaping open to suck in large quantites of air (I think they call it a 'yawn'). My problem has prompted another letter. It may not get me anywhere, but writing it might help me stay awake.

Dear Superintendant of Large Building in which I work,

While I do realise that our prior communcations may not have been the most pleasant, I hope you will spare me a moment. Thank you, by the way, for eventually replacing the door handle into our office, finally allowing us to get rid of the makeshift-screwdriver-door-opening-contraption. I do apologise for the honey on both your office door handle, and car, for that whole week-and-a-half, but after my fifth request was ignored, I had no choice but to resort to more serious measures. Water under the bridge though, I hope? It certainly is for me. They say honey is very good for the skin, too, so I hope you had beautiful soft hands after that whole palava...

Back to my reason for writing. I have a small request to make, which I think might be in the best interests of, well, everybody. I'm sure that you, like the rest of us, enjoy your lunch hour to the full and indulge in the delights served up to us in the canteen (the stew today was good, didn't you think? Admittedly, my mother makes a better one). Thing is, after such delights, one tends to get a little weary. My suggestion is this: I think you should install a bed in each office. Just for a short afternoon nap. Nothing fancy, just a plain wooden base, nice mattress (back health is so very important). I'd be happy to shop around and send you prices because I'm sure you don't have time to do that, what with going to lunches and meetings and looking importantly busy or busily important.

I suggest we bring our own linen because, I don't know about you, but, personally, I'd rather not share bed linen with my office mates. We could put name tags on them, like at boarding school, and send them down to the laundry, when necessary.

Let me know what you think. There's no rush, but it'd be great to hear back from you today, then I could get started on shopping around, and choosing linen.

Love,
Shiny x

P.S. Shall I bring you some of my Mum's stew for lunch tomorrow? It really is very good. And it doesn't contain any honey - I do remember how vociferous you were about honey.

I wonder if he'll think it's a good idea?

Kreativ Blogger

I got given an award by the delicious Tamara, of Fleeing Muses. I've never been given a blog award before, so I feel a bit like a Sub A girl, with a gold star on my forehead, and want to puff my chest out and call my mother to tell her. Thank you Tamara. I kind of like this one, really, because it's made me write, and, as you've probably noticed, I've been a bit slack with that, of late. I'm ignoring point 2 because I don't really understand what it means, and I quite like my uncluttered page. Unlike my house filled with hoarded goods from a million years ago, it's nice to keep the lines clean here.

The award is the Kreativ Blogger award and the rules are:

1. Thank the person who nominated you for this award.
2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
3. Link to the person who nominated you for this award.
4. Name 7 things about yourself that people might find interesting.
5. Nominate 7 Kreativ Bloggers.
6. Post links to the 7 blogs you nominate.
7. Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know they have been nominated.

Seven things people might find interesting about me:

1. My house is full-to-overflowing with 'things' - most of which have names. I am pretty damn sure inanimate objects have feelings. Reading that, I realise I might be showing some sure signs of slight (note, I said slight) madness. I'd like to think I'm just vaguely kooky. It's genetic.
2. In the same vein - I can NEVER leave one pea (or corn, or piece of carrot) on a plate. It has to be two, or none. In case they get lonely.
3. I won the smallest trophy ever made, at school in 1991, for hurdles. It was the only sport I ever did and I was ever-so-proud of the mini-trophy (even though I had to give it back a week later so it could go back in the trophy cupboard for the next year).
4. My great grandfather was a professor of music and collected African instruments. I am sad I didn't have the chance to know him.
5. I believe that when we die, our souls separate into little silver pieces that float into everybody we ever came in contact with - the people we loved, the people who smiled at us on the street, everybody. That's why your character grows, as you grow older.
6. I think I might be falling in love, for the first time in years. I said I think. I'm not committing to anything yet.
7. When I close my eyes, I swear I can see stories playing on the inside of my eyelids. Like a drive-in.

And now I'm supposed to nominate seven people, but I think most of mine have been taken. I'll try though:

Family Affairs, because she makes me either laugh or cry, in virtually every post.
Frank, because he grows flowers, and I've missed his posts of late.
Clive, because he's witty, and clever, and real.
Muplustwo, because she, too, makes me laugh and cry.

Sorry - the others I'd like to nominate, have it already. I wonder if I can get away with just claiming kookiness, and blaming it on my genes?

Knots snap

I have been slack at writing. Things are happening in my life. Good things. They're taking up my head space and making me grin while I swirl and whirl. Sometimes I stop and get scared and think I should run back into the cover, behind my barriers.

I spent the weekend in a cottage in a valley outside The City Beneath the Mountain, which was surrounded by mountains (I guess the valley bit gives that away), coloured in above with the bluest of blue, children's-drawing-clouds scudding by, and below, emerald green interspersed with purple fields of lavender. Idyllic. In the silence of the valley I hear the sound of another one of the millions of tiny knots that make up my barriers snap and fly off into the fresh air breeze, and I know this is a good thing and I must not run.

No, sirree, I must not run.

Can I nibble on my finger?

I'm still staying with my mummy and daddy while the floors are fixed. It has been quite fun actually. There is nothing wrong with freshly squeezed orange juice each morning, and a home-cooked packed lunch every day. I did, however, have to phone home to complain yesterday. Reason being that we looked in the fridge yesterday morning before work to find nothing. Well, ok, not nothing, but no neatly packed tupperware shouting: "I'm Shiny's lunch! Take me! Eat me!"

On receiving my complaint call, my mother explained, that, due to the fact that I had gone out the night before to The BFF's birthday, she didn't think to pack me lunch. WTF? I was horrified. Almost wordless, except that I find wordlessness, well, impossible. I had to have a word with my father about it when I got home from work. He, too, was shocked.

This morning, as I drank my freshly squeezed orange juice (yum), I noticed a new bottle of hand cream on the counter. And you know what that's like. New bottles of cream just shout out to be tested. Which I did. My hands now smell like marshmallows, it's wierd. I keep having this unsupressable (is that even a word?) desire to chew off my baby finger.

I'm sure that'd be okay, wouldn't it?

The lion, the crocodile, and the wardrobe

I went to dinner at D and B on Friday, them who are the parents of the delicious Maya, who turned three, two weeks ago. I sat in the kitchen, at the kitchen table with Maya while D made salads and Maya 'mixed' the salad dressing. This entailed me holding the bowl, D adding each ingredient one-by-one, Maya stirring after each addition and then dipping her finger into the dressing and proudly proffering said finger for me to taste.

I can now tell you what changes salad dressing goes through on addition of each ingredient. I won't go into detail, other than to say it's best to wait until they're all in, and then taste. After we'd finished 'cooking' and tasted the dressing about twenty-three times, this conversation ensued:

Maya: There's a lion in Zeida's bed. (They're Jewish, Zeida = Grandpa - B's dad is living with them at the moment)
Shiny: There is? Do you think you should warn Zeida?
Maya: No, it's okay, the crocodile's fixed it.
Shiny: Oh, right, phew. How did he fix it?
Maya: He put him in a box. And then strapped the box up.
Shiny: Thank goodness for the strapping.
Maya: Yes, and then he put the box in the cupboard. And then he strapped the cupboard.
Shiny: Wow, what a clever crocodile. But, Maya, where's the crocodile now? I'm a bit scared.
Maya: Don't worry, the crocodile's gone back to the pool.
Shiny: Oh, of course, yes.

She then went off to bed in her sweet pink pyjamas that are getting too small, and we had dinner. I swear though, when I looked down the passage to the glass back door that leads out to the pool, I saw two glinting red crocodilian eyes.

Maybe it was just the Shabbat wine?

Back Home

Ah yes, you see? That's what happens. I do myself proud, writing every day, and then, wham, slack off because I've done it. Thing is, though, that I have been ridiculously chaotic. I now live with my parents again. Where my bedroom was, is a large, gaping, hole. It's time, right now, if anybody wants to take me up on The Offer. The Nothing is being removed, the entire household has moved in with my parents who, luckily, live just down the road. It's chaos. But I got freshly squeezed orange juice for breakfast, and I have a packed lunch in the fridge. Of homemade food. I have also, thus far, managed to hold back on regressing into a 13-year old.

It was close though. When my mother 'snuck' into my room after I'd gone to sleep, with a torch, to rootle around in her linen cupboard looking for a certain blanket, I had to really hold my tongue and remind myself that they're doing us a favour letting us live in their house. Honestly, though, my tone probably wasn't the most friendly when I asked her what she was doing.

The Big Black Dog was instantly settled and thinks she's living in heaven, because there's a pool in the garden, and she likes water, alot. The Siamese Princess, however, spent the day cowering in my jerseys but got a good night's sleep last night. I know this because I heard her snoring. It's full moon, I was, of course, awake. The Big-Boned Babycat is settling in at The BFF (or so I hope), and I have managed to keep my calls down to only three (and an SMS) since dropping her, oh, 16 hours ago.

So that was Day 1 out of The House in The Middle of The Street under the belt, and my parents are planning a two-week trip (probably to India) so I will then be able to run wild in their house. And the builders promise me it'll be over in four (maybe five) weeks...

I wonder if I'll manage not to regress?