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.

JZ is not even half guilty! How about a third? A quarter?....

Well it's a little bitsy and bobsy sort of a day today.
News 24 has been a source of giggles in no small measure.
The headline that caught my attention was the highjacked vehicle found in a living room. Yep you read that right someone parked a stolen vehicle in their living room. Or their lounge if you are not so very posh. Holy macaroni! I thought I had heard just about everything but that's a good 'un. Ok it's not as good as all that, the living room had a wall on hinges (omigoshalooly did I just say that without falling on the floor laughing?) and the whole wall opened up and behind the real-looking windows and curtains etc - was parked - one Toyota Runx.
I am impressed at the ingenuity.
I almost feel that if some dude goes to the trouble of building a whole fake room in a house with walls that open out on hinges then he should maybe get to keep the car. Of course I hope that the car gives him endless mechanical problems and keeps leaking oil on his living room carpet, but he can keep it! Just think, if he stole my Hyundai Atos he would only need to build such a teensy guest toilet to hide it in.
Motorcycles could be hidden in built-in cupboards.
Then, if that wasn't funny enough the next headline said that Jacob Zuma says he is not guilty. He goes on to state that he is not even HALF-guilty. Yup, I guess a man who can protect himself from HIV Aids by having a shower - bloody hell I can't even get rid of a cold with a shower - can be guilty by fraction. Or not guilty by a fraction as the case may be.
I got to wondering how he came up with the half-guilty option. Did he, by omission, admit to being perhaps one third guilty? Or maybe just a quarter? One fifth? I am now alleging stuff and I do apologize to JZ if he indeed is only one tenth guilty. It does make it easier to accept that he may be fractionally guilty, than not guilty at all doesn't it?
I'm starting to think that JZ as president may be just what we need in this country. After all, crime won't go down that much in the near future unless we change much more than just our president, neither will unemployment, the petrol price, the cost of electricity, pollution, DSTV, a whole host of stuff - but at least he'll have us all falling about with laughter on a daily basis. That and a good walk daily should help the constant depression.

Dear Diary I had oats for breakfast

I am not a proponent of the dear diary type blog - I suppose it is mean to say this, but I am of the opinion that most of us are not the least bit interested if you had boiled lambs' tongues for dinner last night and gave your boyfriend a blow job of epic proportions. Listing all the tv programs you watched and your favourite pizza flavours may be a thrill for you but I am waiting to be charmed not lobotomised. You may rate your day as being totally newsworthy but really - no real interest happening here dahling.
But there are days when it really is just too hard to think of something scintillating to say so you are stuck with my day thus far.
I fell asleep on the couch last night and forgot to go to bed. Well, I didn't forget, so much as neglect, to go to bed. It's all the fault of Eskom - they keep insisting we turn off all uneccessary lights and I did just that which left me in the dark on the couch and snoozing turned into the next morning. I have to say, in my defence, Wednesday night tv, including DSTV is Dire! I would rather have tea with my MD than stay awake through that.
Then I woke up more confused than normal (my Maltese was sleeping on my head) and found that I had overslept for an hour and a half. Nonetheless, I fed my dogs, gave my parrot his share of parroty treats and made my oats with seeds and raisins as if I had all day. And I made myself a nice cheese sandwich with fresh bread. I just don't do hurried. I was late for work and had to sneak in on the slipstream of the tea lady's trolley. It was undignified and uncomfortable and I bumped into my manager who gave me the speculative look of a boss who's planning your next performance appraisal. Aw shit - yet another 3.5 and no increase ahead.
When I got to my desk, someone had raided my coffee pot and there was only one cup of coffee left for me. My coffee pot people! Raided and left almost empty. This day has been going downhill steadily since last night!
To add to all this sad horribleness is the fact that my office is situated next to the stoep/balcony/veranda where the smokers go to smoke. This "office" is a well-lit all glass, fishbowl and has the most powerful air conditioning unit in the building with only one temperature - winter or summer - freezing. The fresh air intake for this aircon - you guessed it - is just above the smokers balcony. So by lunchtime my eyes are watering, my nose is running and I have a sore throat and smoking headache and eyes like a serious ganja queen. Today, it's raining and cold and wet on the smokers' balcony. This is no form of deterrent for smokers; so, in and out they go like a tinkers whatsit (there goes another as I write this) and every time they open the door all the papers on my desk lift and flap and land on the floor. I have on a suede jacket, a woolly scarf, a sweater, a cardigan, thick socks and a rain hat! Plus this mornings original sweater and skirt and boots underneath all that. I meant to wear something else, but the something else seems to have shrunk! I plan on taking some of this clothing off when I go to my car - I'll be a bit warm in the outdoors.
At lunch, my hurriedly made sandwich fell apart and the cheese landed on the floor.
I forgot to say: on the way to the office from my car this morning my expensive umbrella blew inside out and my hair got soaked - now it has the frizzies and for some reason my knee hurts. I probably injured my knee creeping through the reception behind the tea trolley.
I could manage this all with my usual Charmy calm - but my faithful Principessa is going out to dinner and won't be meeting me after work for our usual post work drinkies so I'll have to deal with my depression sober.
So I'm off home shortly (I plan on sneaking out behind one of the fat girls - some of them are double-wides) and I'm going to take drugs! and drink a lot! so there.......

Goonie Gertie killer of snakes!

It had to happen. Eventually I would have to show you a little of where I come from and why I am like I am. So today I will introduce you to my late, maternal grandmother. She was a woman of real substance in a world where women were submissive, sweet and concerned about their image.
She was born in Johannesburg at the turn of the last century (I'm guessing because she habitually lied about - or just wouldn't tell - about her age).
The daughter of an immigrant who came from a place in Germany called Memel (which no longer exists or has been sold to defray expenses). Her immigrant father started out life as a smous complete with a tray on straps and ended up a friend of Paul Kruger and owned a town which was named after his wife and which later ended up with a name that although it sounded triumphant was in fact quite shameful. Enough clues there? More information can be found at the Apartheid Museum I'm told. This is not a work of fiction but I don't have to spell it all out to you do I?
After the Anglo Boer War (the second one of course) my great-grandfather left South Africa - apparently he couldn't / wouldn't live here under the Brits - and went to Germany. It is rumoured that he was the person who transported the famed Kruger Millions out of the country and family history has it that the British soldiers arrived at their house shortly after he had left (wife and children were still here and were to follow him later on) and dug up the floors etc searching for said Millions. Natch they weren't found and I sure don't have them!
So my Ouma lived in Germany and England as a girl, wore ermine-trimmed cloaks and bonnets trimmed with guipure lace, had a governess and had her picture taken by the German Royal Court Photographer. The family later returned to South Africa and my grandmother went to a convent school where she learned useful stuff like embroidery, singing, painting etc.
Whatever her education and her early life she ended up the funniest woman I have ever known from a family of very funny women. She had cousins who could start you laughing at breakfast and keep you in hysterics till bedtime.
My Oumie was definitely NOT a linguist but this never stood in her way. She always spoke to her domestic in Afrikaans - she couldn't actually speak Afrikaans, but she just made it up as she went along and the domestics never ever laughed either. They probably thought she was talking Russian. She knew a smattering of Yiddish - most of which she twisted and abused and used the rudest of the rude words at the most inopportune moments. She made up words that we all thought were real and gave us what she insisted were the "dictionary" definitions if she was challenged. To this day my family ALL use sayings and words that my Ouma simply introduced as unassailably part of the english/afrikaans/yiddish/german/french language. Incidentally she learnt French at the convent school and my Oupa* always said that the nuns should have refunded the money they never earned.
She had a nickname which had been shortened to Goon or Goonnie which came from the Zulu word for mouse - she was deathly afraid of mice - and had been given to her by the workers on their farm (more in a later post).
She was a lady to her kidskin gloved fingertips but could be utterly vulgar with the sweetest most innocent smile on her face.
She refused to eat, wear, drink or contemplate anything which was not imported. She simply got urticaria and bumps from anything that didn't come from France, Germany, Switzerland, England etc.
She was my shopping mentor and could spend the day (with me in tow) finding the perfect pair of gloves, or having her french-made corset and bras fitted by a special bra-fitter. Her corsetry was like a suit of armour and it was all linked together by a series of teeny hooks and covered with silk french knickers and cami's. Pinching my Ouma's butt was pretty much impossible. Bumping into her could give you bruises and she had the best posture - who can slouch with that much whalebone! She told me that ladies never counted their change - a rule I followed faithfully for years - till I realised she made it up because she never had any idea what amount she should be getting - those nuns had a lot to answer for.
Apart from mice, she was absolutely fearless - she once was accosted by a snake - in her living room (or was it the drawing room - no I jest - it was the lounge). She beat the poor reptile to an early death. With a FLYSWATTER.
Once, during one of those holidays where the entire family was staying over at my grandparents' house, my aunt was passing by their bedroom door where my Oupie was giving my Oumie a rather passionate goodnight kiss - auntie heard my Ouma's clear and beautiful voice saying "Alec stoppit! The children will think their mother is a prostitute!"
She took up smoking in her 70's because she felt she needed a hobby and thought it would look stylish if she smoked - whilst turning out dainty little pastel drawings!
Oh I am so lucky to have known this fabulous lady! And she had 3 daughters who are all eccentric delightful dames in their own right.
*My Oupa was a remarkable linguist and learned languages with frightening ease. He was a phenomenal man and I will tell you about him one day too.