Heil die Leser! Oh I love saying that. Oh and I had a birthday (whimper)

Hi there all my beloved faithful readers and those bloggers who follow the link to this poor sad offering after I comment on their excellent blogs. This is a warning - I am about to start up again. I have stuff to say. My friends are tired of telling me - Oh Princess Charmy you are sooo funny you really should write a book - or just write your bloody blog Giovanna! Ha! there.... I gave away a secret name... Giovanna...she goes out and does a lot more of the wilder things I simply wouldn't do. She drinks too much red wine (a lot & eats too much too) and she's been known to smoke cigarettes (a thing I would never ever do!!). All in all she's the girl I want to be but whenever she's out I stay home - it's better for the two of us. We would definitely clash. The last time she went out with my buddies she sang old army songs that her grandfather taught her (LOUDLY) to make them laugh, then serenaded them with old jazz standards. She danced Salsa with strangers and stayed out till the booms on the parking area were opened and she didn't have to put her ticket in the doohickey to get out the parking. Had she known the booms were up she probably wouldn't have paid for her parking.

I have been off work with a bad dose of the sh..... Acute Gastro Enteritis it says on the doctor's certificate. I guess that's because every time I think about work I feel shitty. It's not that I don't like my job - I actually enjoy it. It's just that the company I work for is family owned. Dad's the MD and he's ok - just as mean as catshit. I think I got a salary increase this month - it is a year since I joined the company so I guess the extra R37.82 will really come in useful - unless it was just a bookkeeping error and they take the extra cash back next month. 8% now there's a dream - I'd more likely win the Lotto. He's been trying to get a pound of flesh and all the blood out of my veins every since he accidentally agreed to my salary in a moment of weakness. I joined the company for exactly what I was earning in my last job - I just liked the sound of the job and the fact that it is 20 minutes from home. So I could really use an increase by now. Leave would be lekker too..... hahahaha I am such a dreamer.

However, he has a daughter - who is sort of the office manager - except her idea of management is to scream a lot and when all else fails - sulk. I don't respond well at all to screaming and I have had a teenage daughter so I can deal with all this and the sulks - I ignore her - totally.

She only talks to one person in the office, the rest of us are apparently not worth her notice. And she doesn't allow interpersonal chatter (or private phone calls - on your mobile that is ), so some days if I don't talk to clients, the only time I open my mouth is to drink my coffee and tea. Ah yes, that is the only real perk of the job - I too am a manager so the tea lady makes me tea and coffee (copious amounts - she really likes me) in fact, she makes me tea and coffee whilst ignoring little bossy offspring. The only good thing about this girl is she takes lots of time off for post party recuperation and "appointments" that happen from lunchtime (or noon) and end too late for a return to the office. Well every cloud ya know....

Yikes, while I've been sitting here griping in a most unroyal fashion, the corgis are whimpering softly for their dinner - so I better heat up the chicken breasts and caviar and feed them before they turn into a moth-eaten Maltese and a German Shepherd/Labrador cross and the food turns into that stuff that is supposed to keep them slim and young from the vets. At their age I'm doing all I can to keep them looking their best. After all, Lola will be 16 in November (people years) and I think Hobie may be 14 but he lies about his age and never lets me photograph him in profile so I can't be sure.

Soon I will tell you about my visit to Nobu for the Doctor's birthday dinner (ahhhhh) and my birthday lunches (at the Ocean Basket - see the irony - or is it just bathos? and Braza - yummy)

Here's some stuff that's on my mind

For quite some time I have simply had nothing worthwhile to say. Also I am somewhat nervous of offending those so sensitive that even though they remain nameless in this space they feel the whole world is watching their every move when I comment on their behaviours when they tick me off. But that having been said - here are a few bah humbugs that I can't resist (sorry for offending those more sensitive souls, but frankly I could not care less):

Why do fat people amble from side to side, rocking, very slowly, when they are walking down St George's Mall. Or for that matter any main thoroughfare in Cape Town? Their slow, rolling, amble is in direct proportion to the hurry I am in to get to my lunch spot. They become correspondingly slower the later I am to get back to the office. And why do they hang out in sludgy, rambling groups of at least 3 which leaves the only part of the pavement free the bit which has broken paving stones, red and white police tape (why is that there anyway), large dongas, or an old lady with a zimmer frame and similar ankle-wrenching, progress-preventing obstacles.

Which leads me to my second grouch - why is our office clock set 4 minutes fast, yet I can only leave for lunch at 1.00pm on my watch but must return at 2.00pm on the office clock?

Which does a neat tango into - why is my boss' daughter such an unmitigated, miserable bitch with serious anger-control issues and such poor interpersonal skills at the age of 30? Also, and I only ask this because she believes she has vastly superior intelligence to the rest of us mortals, how can she believe that we fall for her food poisoning stories, when we all hear her arranging her booze-ups and parties in tones usually reserved for regimental sergeant majors bawling out raw recruits on the parade ground. Some of us have seen her drink, she'd be lucky to have food poisoning - it'd surely be less painful than the hangovers she must suffer. On the topic of her telephone voice - is it possible for someone who has grown up in the era of cellphones to believe that she needs to bellow like a deaf old fart when she's having one of her multiple daily personal phone calls. We wouldn't mind, except she drips this fake syrup over all her conversations reminding me of Cruella DeVille trying to charm a puppy into the limo (only louder and less convincing). Naturally, no work is possible during these calls based on the brain freezing, mind numbing noise - and the lack of worthy content. Of course, we are all not permitted to make, receive or even consider personal calls even if it's to call the Fire Department to hear whether they have successfully extinguished the blaze that used to be one's home. She then commands poor, long-suffering daddy to go and stand by the miscreants desk and hover there till they finish this rule-breaking, commerce threatening 3 minute call. It's a good thing I'm a world champion at anger management and self-control or I'd have knocked her silly Olive Oyl head off it's block - so far so good......watch this space ....I could be looking to borrow bail money soon.

Did I mention that I count people's toes? Oh yes for the slower ones amongst you - I just changed the subject. So did I? Well I do. I don't know why I do it but I have done this since I was in my early teens. It's possibly part of my mildly compulsive nature, I'm not sure, but it has been interesting and scary but I can't stop. For example, you'd be surprised how many people have six toes on each foot. Less people only have four toes on one or both feet. Many people have very ugly feet (not really their fault - this can happen to anybody) but why do so few people realise that if they must wear sandals, then a basic requirement should be clean, neatly-trimmed toe nails, scrubbed heels and if they want to wear nail polish on their toenails (men or women - I don't wish to appear in the least bit sexist) please, puleeeze, take it off when it chips!

Here's the odd thing - if a man has feet I find unattractive, I am totally turned off him physically and just can't bear to have any part of his foot touch me (really, any part of anything attached to his foot either - like legs, butts, luncheon meat, hips...etc,etc - you're getting this anyway - I don't have to labour the issue).

And lastly, ok it's hardly the last thing I'm going to grumble about, but lastly for today, Saturday, 7th March 2009 - Why do Capetonian pedestrians stand and stare at the little green man at the traffic lights like it's a martian, but when the lights are NOT in their favour, they step boldly into the traffic straight into the path of oncoming cars and don't even flinch at the squealing of tyres etc. Why do they cross all roads as if they have a death wish? I'd like to oblige them, but I hate the sound of bones cracking and skin splitting, and I am trying to preserve my no-claims bonus. Not to mention it could really put a damper on the rest of this otherwise interesting life knowing that I have, in all innocence, squooshed a pedestrian.