Birthday Loot Revealed!

I guess that after listing all the presents I wished and dreamed for this year, you will all be panting out there in the blogosphere wondering what, if anything I did get for my Swiss national birthday. For newcomers I will explain again: I was kind enough to agree by means of an entente cordiale to share my birthday with the Swiss who wanted to have their National Day on the same day. Being the optimist I am I foresaw opportunities for good party activity if my birfday had a dual purpose.
Ok so in the interests of brevity and because I can't think of much to say today, here's what I got: Oops - if I forget to list your present please do drop me an email and I'll add it by postscript,

• A beeeyoootiful print of one of Betenoir's photographs - it's a seagull about to take off - or maybe it's landing? - I love, love, love it. I am planning to own lots of her work - now I just need the Pavilion print, the "Waiting" print.....(are you taking notes Bete dear?) it is printed on canvas and was one of those pics that was shown at a recent exhibition of her work - at a real art gallery!!! Proud Mommy Moment here people.
• Scrumptious toffees covered in dark chocolate - from Betenoir - eaten I'm afraid
• An excellent CD - a fab mix of new stuff (I have never heard that is) from the Bete
• Body Shop Brazil Nut Cream Body Wash - from Panic Embryo - Betenoirs gorgeous hunk of a sweetie pie man - Erm... Panic sweetie dahling if you are reading this - you too have some excellent photographic work I would like to own. Apart from the stuff I already mentioned on Sunday, could you also think about the one with the slightly ragged washing hanging on the line - B&W one???? hmmmmm?????
• Lindt Dark Chocolate, also from Panic Embryo - haven't eaten it yet - showing much control here people (also the nausea from what I have already eaten is slowing me down a bit)
• A book from Principessa - Very funny indeed.
• A rather posh white fake croc wallet with a buckle on it from Moony Moonbeam - I will use it to impress when I have real money - mostly I use my debit card which is very raggedy and sad-looking and a very impressive Gold Card which smokes it's so overworked.
• A very huge Designer Make Up Purse - you could be forgiven if you thought it was a handbag - from my Aunt - who thinks that I should keep all my make up in one place (I have three make up bags full)
• Money - from my mom of course - she knows what I really need hey?
• Chocolate - Lindt Poire Intense - from my mom - eaten already - urgh - that is a greenish tinge you see around my gills
• A bunch of Freesias with the longest stems I've ever seen - Mom too.
• A Woollies gift card thingy - from Dubai cousin & her mom Graneevonnie - I am still in the planning stages of how it will be spent - maybe it will join forces with my mom's money and buy me lotsa stuff
• A hot pink enormous bag for the beach from La Lue - very sexy and totally perfect for other stuff too.
• The biggest candle I've ever seen - Ylang Ylang scented - from my boet, Billie the Kid.
• A bottle of red wine (I wonder how he knew?) from Billie the Kid
• More books - from my Aunt (the make up purse one) including but not limited to Spud - The Madness Continues - by John van der Ruit - Yaaaaay!!!!!!!

I think that is about the lot? Sadly, I continue to long for my Roman Holiday and the Japanese shopping trip isn't happening. All my other longings are unrequited, and I am still burning my fingers on my non-GHD hot iron.

Sorry if you thought that I was going to tell you the names of my laundry maid, butler, chauffeur, ladies in waiting and chef - until further notice their work will all be attended to by a certain Charmskool. Er sorry - the butlering is done by Hobie who has been answering my front door for the past 8 years odd - the visitors rather like the part where he sniffs their butts and leaves his hair on their clothes. Lola Claudine is currently on trial as a lady in waiting, I'm quite pleased considering she's had no training and not that many scruffy Maltese dogs with dreadlocks ever make it in this field.

Gustopher the Senegal parrot will, as usual, take the part of the grumpy man in my life - unless Joburg hunk wants to visit Cape Town and not wait for my irregular visits?

Oh and here's a p.s. to my wish list & a recommendation to anyone who loves great nail colours - for next birthday - but the list will do for Christmas - you have 4 months to start saving towards the Roman Holiday - OPI nail polish in Russian Navy and Caviar & Vodka - hot, hot colours. I'm wearing the Caviar and Vodka now and had Russian Navy on last week. Thanks Petra Nail Lady. And as for Euphoria by Calvin Klein - still top of the smells I like on my body list.

On gifts, red wine, chivalry (that's dead for sure)

Well, Swiss National Day has come and gone and it was fun. My birthday gift list went largely unnoticed (or studiously ignored) so I unpacked the suitcase which I had readied for the trip to Japan, called Bonni and told her Italy was off the agenda yet again for the two of us and in the absence of the butler, laundry maid and chauffeur I answered my front door and let Betenoir and Panic Embryo in for Sunday tea, dropped my dirty washing in the laundry basket for the laundry fairy to deal with and drove myself to work (something I am forced to do in the absence of the unlimited credit platinum card) on Monday with a heavy heart and a lingering headache - Swiss national day was well celebrated on Friday night with La Lue and Blondie and a cast of hundreds at the Italian Club in Rugby and there was a lot of red wine consumed with the veal limone. Incidentally, the Club was packed with birthday celebrants and there was a party in the hall for the Swiss community - am I the only one who thinks it odd that the Swiss celebrated their National Day at the Italian Club.

I will admit that I did have one enquiry as to whether I really did want the GHD flatiron - jeez louise only dead people don't want one of those! I live in hopes tho' har har de har.

So what's this about chivalry you ask? I thought I'd tell you a story that Principessa (who is madly in love at the moment so not all that present in the corporeal sense) loves. It's not a new story. In fact it happened about 7 years ago - which is just about a lifetime............

Picture this, Sea Point, sun, (wintery) and me looking quite fine tho I say so myself. I was all dressed in black; black jeans, black blazer, black suede shoes, black sweater, waist-length blonde hair newly-washed and gleaming and I was on a mission. Not a really important mission, not even worth discussing here, but I was carrying out this mission on foot. At this point I should have turned around and gone home because Sea Point pavements are treacherously full of potholes, tree roots, badly-laid brick paving etc but I am an adventurous spirit and my eyesight for the nearby is not all that hot so I don't see the ugly, just the pretty trees, and the pale sunshine and I love to walk.....

So, I strode briskly downhill (it's always downhill in Sea Point except when you are tired or injured - then it's uphill all the way) towards my dressmaker and later on coffee and kaboom! I put my dainty size 5 into a pothole, lost my balance and went sprawling face first into the gravel pavement. And there I lay....totally winded, bleeding from hands, knees and boompsy daisies and with a suspicious feeling that my right foot wasn't where it outta be. I tried to get up but nothing wanted to work. I noticed a steady stream of blood flowing from my hands onto the gravel. There was a large patch of red forming around my shin area and both knees too (I know, I know, it was a wet patch but it had to be blood, so the red part is me using some sort of literary device ok?) I gratefully noticed a group of workmen in painters overalls loading tools into a van right next to me. In fact two of them had to step over my body (literally over my waist) to get to the van without having to make a detour. "I guess they are still shocked at the violence of my crash landing" I reasoned. I tried to sit up but with the bleeding hands and lack of oxygen in my lungs (which were at this point still deflated from the heavy landing) I remained face first on the gravel. Another gentleman came down the stairs from the building in front of which I was gravel surfing. He stepped over my head and said loudly "you guys must please fill that hole! That's the second person whose fallen in it today!!!" I grunted in agreement, gazed at the blood on my broken fingers and whimpered a bit. At this point one of the workmen asked "can you get up?" He seemed genuinely interested, but his interest was entirely of a scientific nature because when I answered "sob, sob, sob no" he said "Oh, ok" and carried on packing his tools in the van. I maneuvered myself to my bum and tried to stand up, all the while dripping blood from various torn and partially dismembered body parts only to discover that my right ankle was pretty much the size of my thigh and wasn't going anywhere unaccompanied. I cried a little more and the guys at the van all chorused "Shame hey she really fell badly that girl". Just then from out a window in the flat above, the rest of the maintenance crew called out "hey lady, can you stand on your foot?" I gathered all my strength and managed to bleat a teensy little "nooooh......". "Jislaaik hey that must be badly hurt...when you get home you must get someone to rub that for you".

At this point I simply refused to spend another minute on my butt on the pavement waiting for the emergency services to answer their phone, so I dragged myself up using a wall and my superpowers (which tend to let me down in times of public humiliation), phoned my mommy who came to fetch me and took me to the hospital. The doctor was most kind and the nurse barely hurt me with that syringe.

See, that's the day I came to believe that chivalry is dead.

p.s. It did lift it's head in a last ditch attempt to survive when a 90-year old man in Japan offered to help me haul my suitcase up a flight of stairs from the tube station in Tokyo. I tried to take him home with me but he was on his way home from a 16-hour work day and couldn't stop.

Happy national day to you happy national day to yooo happy national day dear Switzerland....

I'm off to celebrate the Swiss National Day with much eating, drinking and dancing.

I may also celebrate my birthday while I'm out there.

Back on Monday - I may have a headache tho'

Have a good weekend (I'm still hoping for the GHD flatiron)

My birthday wish list - once you start this list thing...

It is my birthday next week. Switzerland shares it's National Day with me and I'm ok with that, as long as all my Swiss friends continue to understand that my birthday is the really important event. I think at this juncture I should point out that I love my birthday. I adore getting presents and being feted as the birthday queen of the day (or longer if I can spin it out - which I generally do). I don't like getting older and age is not a thing I mention on my birthday. To me birthdays have blow all to do with aging and everything to do with getting as much undivided attention from all and sundry as possible.
You have obviously worked out from this self-absorbed waffle that I am a Leo and whether you subscribe to the theory that sun signs have certain characteristics or not is up to you, but if I don't attribute my need for attention and adoration by my friends, family and subjects to my sun sign then I would simply be a rather self-centred, luxury-loving, attention-seeking sybarite and I'm not that at all. I'm simply a princess living in a world where princesses are not always recognised for the value they bring to their world. I'm the sweet, adorable kitten version of the Leo and not the roaring, man-eating lion-type - well, unless you really stand very hard on my tail - then just stay out of reach of my claws for a day or two and buy me some catnip to distract me.
However, in my usual fashion, I digress!
I am now going to list, in a simple and easy to store/copy into your notebooks for ease of reference fashion,my wish list for birthday presents - a trick I learned from my sweet Betenoir. However, my list will only include items I am pretty sure I will not be getting from anyone. (I will however follow that with the really short list of the presents I am likely to receive). My mom told me that a good girl never ever asks for presents, and I must NEVER ask for presents from anyone, and that's why all the bad girls get the huge diamonds, the fur coats (not that I'd wear one I'm an animal lover), the Mercedes sports cars, ......while us good girls - well, we get vacuum cleaners, coffee makers, tumble driers, washing machines, cosy pyjamas, books, cd's etc. Incidentally, that rather prosaic list of gifts that good girls get.... you guessed it .......those are all gifts I have received from my two husbands. Actually, except for the coffee maker, they are all gifts I received from husband no. 2 (a Leo himself - so he should know better).
Here's the list - in no particular order of preference:

1. A two week stay in Tokyo, preferably in the Harajuku district, so I can go shopping at all the designer stores, jewellery stores, shoe stores, toy stores, stores, stores, stores. This gift should, of course, come complete with a platinum credit card and unlimited credit or there is no point in the gift in the first place.
2. The largest bottle ever made of Calvin Klein Euphoria perfume (I'll settle for eau de toilette if I get the matching body lotion. Actually, I don't know whether I should think of this gift as unachievable, the universe may hear me and just give up on me for thinking too small.
3. A trip to Italy for a month, for two, so Bonni can come with me, and of course the platinum card would join us for the entire month. The gift should include Business Class travelling costs, hotels, car hire etc
4. A simply wonderful, perfect, all bells and whistles camera and as many lessons that it takes from the best photography teacher till I can take acceptable pictures with it.
5. A lifetime supply of Jimmy Choos
6. A leather doctors couch for my lounge (Hobie leaves hair on fabric)
7. Cobblestone paving for my garden and beautiful olde fashioned wrought iron furniture to be tucked in the little garden rooms and nooks and crannies because:
8. The services of the best landscape designer to make the garden of my dreams, complete with the plants, pots, water features etc that will be needed
9. A butler
10. A full-time chef
11. A laundry maid
12. A lady-in-waiting - NOPE - make that at least three ladies-in-waiting - what kind of princess only has one lady-in-waiting.
13. A gorgeous handsome man who thinks that I am the most beautiful, shapely, funny, clever, kind, passionate and all round wonderful woman he has ever met, who dotes on me and is at the same time protective, funny, strong, clever and so wealthy that it makes your eyes water just to think about that big a number.
14. As much plastic surgery as I deem it necessary I need to whatever body part that needs it and the most perfect results ever seen.
15. Lipstick that stays on all day that isn't that dry gross strange stuff that they make at the moment, and also while it's staying on all day it makes my lips as full as Angelina's.
16. A laptop that is so good that I can even play computer games on it. One that is the fastest, strongest, cleverest, most up-to-date with all the bells and whistles that any laptop can have, and strangely, it's as light as a feather (yeah really).
17. A chauffeur.
18. Good health (well I thought I'd throw one in that I would have to get from my Creator)
19. A platinum card with a limitless amount of credit that magically pays itself in full at the end of every month.
20. A beach chair that doesn't make my back sore
21. Ditto for a bed - Ooooo yes a new bed

Now here's what I will get for my birthday:

shower gel, bath gel, body lotion, maybe a cd, chocolates (like I should be eating chocolates!), more bath gel, maybe a strange plastic dish (from my aunt), some cash (my mom knows what makes me tick), more body lotion.

How do I know this? Because it's what I've been getting for years for my birthday. I am divorced from husband number 2 or this year I would be getting a new kettle - mine's sprung a leak - or if he was feeling especially flush, a food processor.

Toodle pip all and have a lovely weekend!

Ok that's it - you asked for it - go blame Don't Believe a Word I Write

I am so bored my hair is falling out for want of desire to live! So following a challenge from Don't Believe a Word I Write (click on the blog roll and read her - she's fantabulistic) to reduce her boredom here are a bunch of lists - no one ever tags me to do any of those dreaded memes thank goodness but this is for your total entertainment or boredom - whatever!
First List:
10 Things I would rather be doing right now
1. Drinking coffee with Bonni my fave rave cousin in Jozie - at any place she chooses and doing nothing but watching the world go by.
2. Sitting at a pavement cafe anywhere in Rome doing the same with the same person.
3. Lying on the beach (Queens Beach) in summer
4. Reading Spud the Madness Continues by John Van Der Ruit and eating pretzels.
5. Drinking red wine and lazing around at Brazza with my friend La Lue for the entire afternoon and evening - eating whatever she picks - she's got impeccable food smarts.
6. Trying on shoes - anywhere, any place, any time.
7. Testing perfume and buying every single one I like (ok this assumes that I have suddenly become immensely wealthy by some quirk of fate).
8. Sitting around drinking anything and chatting to Kyknoord - no time constraints for this one - he is just so much fun and the cleverest person on the planet!
9. Trawling around the shops in Harajuku or anywhere else in Tokyo or Osaka or even Sapporo with Betenoir my perfectly wonderful daughter.
10. Snoozing in the perfect sunbeam I know is falling exactly right on my comfy sofa in my lounge right this minute.
Ok so that's one list done.
Next
7 Quirky things I haven't yet told you about myself
Hmmm this one is less easy - I am not all that quirky mwhahahahaha
1. I am obsessive about "stuff" and need everything to be exactly where I put it and all lined up, but I have the untidiest desk and I have a cupboard in my flat which I regularly throw into total disorder to find stuff and then slam the door on all that mess as if it wasn't there at all.
2. I often don't answer the telephone because I hate it so much.
3. I buy groceries that I don't use because I panic if my food cupboard is empty - then I sit and admire the full shelves and feel calm for a bit.
4. I adore being a mum but would hate to have more than one child.
5. I lived in a house that had a ghost and he used to keep me company when my ex left me alone with the baby and went to the pub. The ghost and I watched tv together. The ghost still lives there - my brother lives in the same house and I occasionally catch a glimpse of him (the ghost silly, not my brother).
6. I have conversations with all sorts of people I have never met in real life - in my head - not out loud I'm not crazy you know.
7. I love making my friend Principessa laugh. She has a tendency to be very serious and grown-up at times and I love seeing her collapse in a heap of giggles when I demonstrate some of my less dignified behaviours for her.
and here's a bonus:
8. I hardly ever swear in public but often swear at the newsreaders on tv and talk radio and such when they misuse, mispronounce or just mangle the english language.
and my favourite one is the extra performance bonus you have all earned for being such good readers:
9. My nickname in my last year in high school was given to me by our English teacher (she worked part-time at our school and lectured at UCT the rest of the time) - I was called the "Premier Grammarian". I am inordinately proud of that one. Ok I'll admit my one and only fault (mwahaha) I am incredibly pedantic at times.
Here's another list - bear with me it's really short
Stuff on the back seat of my car
One copy of an out of date Big Issue.
That's all - I told you I was obsessively neat - the map book is in the pocket at the back of the passenger seat and all the other stuff is neatly packed in the glove box/cubbyhole. I hide all my cd's - thanks Bete baby for all the lovely compilations - I love Indie music - in the special drawers under the seats.
Tuttie bye all you little diddy people that's all for today.

Did you notice I wasn't around? And did you miss me?

I'm back! I guess you all didn't really care one way or another, but I've been somewhat distracted for a while so haven't posted - honestly - nothing moved me enough to write about it. I was thoroughly bored with JZ, Bob M and Thabo and my life slowed down to the point where the most exciting event was when they acid-washed the tiles in my office and recoated them after that with a foul-smelling goop with a stink that burned the skin off the inside of my throat, my nose and my mouth and the tiling men told me I couldn't use my office for the rest of the day - yay enforced half-day - I went shopping...well what did you think I would do with spare time? Then tararara I got the flu! Not ordinary flu, but astounding body racking, lung infecting, sinus-blocking, ear-wrenching, stomach-aching two weeks off work with delirious fevers flu. I couldn't blog because my poor old computer at home has died. It went blip, blap, blink, glurrgh, flash and breathed it's last. I did read all your blogs however, on my amazing Nokia E51 cellphone, but resisted commenting because it's major work for the thumbs trying to comment on a blog using a cellphone.
So, all I have done in the last two weeks is watch daytime tv - well actually daytime tv is so putrid most of the time and DSTV floods you with repeat after repeat so I actually just slept on the couch in front of the tv. And I read Spud by John van der Ruit - stunning!!! By the way I realised that boys (and by extension men) are bizarre.
And ate sweets and biscuits till the maternal one visited and confiscated them - the cheek of it - she took away my sweeties and gave me a lecture about sugar and flour and caffeine (I drank about 6 gallons of tea). She may have been right - my pants feel a trifle tight around the middle this morning.
Oh yes and I watched daily episodes of a fabulous programme on Animal Planet called Monkey Business. I guess that this was probably a repeat of the series (knowing DSTV) but for me it was a first and really worth it.
Wow am I boring or what?
I was going to tell you stuff about myself that you don't know but I guess that can wait for another day. Well.....maybe a teaser or two to tantalise you....?
I am commitment-phobic and the thought of being in a relationship with anyone fills me with fear and trembling - maybe it's those two failed marriages?
I have skin that is as white as snow and soft as velvet and look like a blonde snow white in winter and then when I get two minutes of sun in summer I go brown as a berry within days. It really pisses of most of the people I know.
I am a shoe addict. I absolutely love shoes and have dozens of pairs each in their own see-through plastic box with little sachets of that stuff that shlurps up damp that they put in pill bottles. I have so many pairs of shoes that I am thinking of having a special shoe cupboard built as they take up the bottom half of my built-in cupboard and have an entire wall alongside the cupboard for the overflow. I actually don't know how many pairs I have, and have many that I have only worn once or twice.
I make jewellery by the ton - especially large noisy bracelets and chunky necklaces and can't sneak up on anyone because of the jingling. I make loads of jewellery to sell, but then can't part with it so have to make double so I can have my own copy of the piece I'm selling. I make jewellery for colleagues and friends - especially for weddings etc and get performance anxiety before I make every piece.
I was abused as a child (physically not sexually so don't start fretting about my sex life) by my nanny and had a fear of oats porridge for most of my life - maybe one day I'll explain that one.
I have a brother I adore and a sister who I don't adore. She bit me when I was a newborn baby and she's been doing similar one way or another ever since.
I am the world's biggest chatterbox and generally there is lots of laughter around my conversations although I have been accused of being very wise - my daughter sends friends with problems to talk to me - I have that child so well brain-washed she thinks her mom is smart. Cool hey? But talk the hind leg of a donkey I will - except when I'm around a certain Italian man I have known since I was in high school - around him I am reduced to a burbling, mumbling idiot who keeps saying stuff like "so how are you?" "you are looking well" over and over again. Sad, sad fool ...... well in my defence the man is HOT and Italian and kind of connected if you know what I mean.
That's enough for now. More when I have the time and the inspiration - I hope you are all still going to read my rubbish and that the absence hasn't been just what you were waiting for.
Oh yes, I imagine I am a fantastic singer and belt out jazz and ballads at the top of my lungs when the feeling takes me - not always when I'm alone in the bathroom either. It scares the doodie out of the folks in the cars next to me at the traffic lights I reckon.