Dear Diary

I had a lovely walk home from work last night.

For some strange unknown reason, I got a 2nd wind at around 4:30pm - after feeling tired and drained all day - and ended up working till almost 7pm.

Now that I no longer work in the Hellhole, leaving the office that late is a rare thing.  But it's summer in the Northern latitudes, and that means a light sky and a balmy breeze at 7pm.

iPhone streaming the Beatles Pandora station in my ears, I headed across the bridge to start my journey.

I try to enjoy my walk.

There are a myriad of routes I can take home, and I try to turn a different way each time.  I slowly wend my way through semi-suburban blocks and parks, heading in a vaguely diagonal direction.

I stop to gently sniff roses hanging over people's fences, and try to pay attention to the rainbow of flowers along the way.

I look up to see the pattern of the day painted by the clouds.

There are many grasses and hedges that people use to border their properties, and I let my hand stretch out to feel their spiky stickiness, or soft woolly touch.

Sometimes life surprises me and I get to see a hummingbird, or a butterfly.

And, of course, I smile widely at everyone's dog.  

Sometimes I forget that there is an owner attached... one notable moment being me saying "Hello Handsome!" quite loudly (remember I'm plugged into Pandora) to a Golden Retriever attached to a man who was somewhat taken aback by my greeting - until he saw I wasn't looking at him.

Walking home is the perfect way to unwind from a day at the office.  Annoying meetings, empire building colleagues and the ever growing task list melt away when I pass two women in downward dog on a grassy hill, or smile at a little boy with a flaming shock of red hair waving shyly back at me when I flap my right hand at him like a crazy lady.

Sometimes, life is good.

Today was a horrible day.  

Well, not the whole day.  There was work, just like any other week day.  There was fun with friends, just like any evening that involves a social event.

But the day was defined by fear.

I was out at lunch, walking back to my office, and a man a few steps away from me had a heart attack.

Now it seems narcissistic for me to be talking about my reaction to this event.  But I only experienced from my point of view.  I feel for the man, and I feel for his wife, but what I am going to tell you about is what I experienced today.  That's all I can do.

I heard a half-yell, half-scream.  I don't know if it was the man or his wife that it came from.

I wasn't sure if someone was messing around, like school kids or something.  It was a little unsettling, but I went about my business.

But then I heard her.  

The wife.

She was wailing, but I distinguished these important words!

"CPR!  SOMEBODY!"

In one of those brain flashes that lasts a millisecond, I evaluated how I could best help. 

• Do the CPR?  
  • I did a course on first aid decades ago.  No, I'd probably fuck that up.
• Run over and get involved, taking up space and adding to the panic by getting in the way? 
  • HELL NO.  I am one of those people who utterly refuses to slow down and gawk at road accidents.  If you can't help, get the fuck outta the way, as far as I'm concerned.
• Call 911?  
  • YES!

So I hit the phone.

Thank God, they answered right away.  That hasn't always happened when I've had to call 911.

"911.  What is your emergency?" she said.

"Heart attack."

"Putting you through."

"Fire Department and EMT. Where are you?"

"Corner of B----- and P-----."

"Outside the Starbucks?"

"No, other side of the street.  To the West."

"I've dispatched them.  But I need to ask you some questions.  Is the person male or female?"

"Male."

"Is he conscious?"

"I don't know."

I turned to a concerned bystander and asked him to go and check if the man was conscious or not.

"I'm checking," I said into the phone.

"OK.  They're on their way.  If he isn't conscious, you need to call me back, because we need to send a different kind of truck, OK?"

"Yes."

Click.

The rest of it was about trying to comfort the wife, encourage people who weren't helping to bugger off and mind their own business and make sure there was a clear path for the ambulance.

It was interesting to observe who did something useful and who stood by, watching and asking whether the man was OK or not.

It took all my control not to lash out at the bystanders.

Fuckwits.

I didn't go close to the man and the group around him.  There were people there who knew what they were doing.  I didn't go near the EMTs when they arrived.  I didn't ask questions.  

I made sure that I turned away when the stretcher went by me and walked away.  Men are taught from birth to be brave, to be strong, to be the providers, to rise to the top of the herd.  The last thing a sick man needs to see is faces peering at him in a time of vulnerability, weakness and - although they shouldn't feel this, they do - humiliation.

In these moments we are reminded sexism is suffered by men too.

After I had done what I could, I tuned into how freaked out I was.  Fear was sitting at the top of my chest, like a weight, like a vibration, like a hole hidden by the fact that I was wearing a shirt over it. 

I know that the fight or flight reflex pumps adrenaline into the muscles to enhance physical performance and, unless you actually DO something physical, it just sits inside you like a poison.

What I could have done was walk fast for half an hour before going back to the office, or just jogged for ten minutes.  

But I didn't.

I know from when I was grieving for my mother that I should let myself cry when I need to.  When a child falls down or gets a fright, they cry, then it's over.

What I could have done was go into the bathroom in my building, let myself feel what I felt, and sobbed for three minutes.

But I didn't.

What I did do was try to talk it through with people.  People who didn't want to listen.  And, even if they did, they were more interested in hearing what happened to the poor man rather than me blathering on on about my feelings.  

Then I tried to eat.  This is a classic reaction for me to stress and suppressing feelings.  First I tried a latte with 2 pumps of chocolate.  Then I tried raiding the snack basket on our floor.  M&Ms.  Almond Joy. 

After work, I tried alcohol and distraction at Happy Hour with friends.  

None of it worked.  

Even while listening to entertaining stories over a Margarita, I felt a soft, strange sense of doom.

I kept thinking about my husband, about how we're trying to get fit, but we're not quite there yet.  About how he was away from me on a business trip.  About what it would be like for me to get a call that he was sick.

If felt like Death was stalking me and, although he wasn't here to swing the skythe yet, he was toying with me, reaching into my chest and squeezing my heart, purely for his own amusement.

When I finally got home I put a tacky reality show on TV.  It's called the OCD Project and it follows a group of OCD sufferers as they go through a program to get control of their disorder.  A young woman who is obsessed with staying clean, who washed her hands repeatedly, was going through exposure therapy.  The other people in the group, including the doctor, were taking turns to touch her face.

Her terror and distress was palpable.  She was sobbing her little heart out, clearly completely petrified at the simple touch of fingers on her cheek.

And then I found myself sobbing with her.  

The lid came off the volcano and all my anxiety came pouring out.  

What if it was my husband?  What would I do?  What if it happened when he was far away from me?  What if it happened when he was right next to me and there was no-one to help and I didn't know what to do?

It was about feeling my fear.

As I allowed myself to feel, my chest slowly opened up.  My breathing slowed eventually and I was able to wipe my eyes and blow my nose.  It wasn't a pretty moment.  

Then the second eruption.  It was my grief... for my mother, for my father, for my childhood friend, all of whose deaths were sad and final events in my life.  

No mommy to rub hot camphor oil on my feet when I have a cold.  No daddy to explain finance to me.  No Ellen to share childhood memories with, reminiscing about how we used to play princesses in her swimming pool.

It was about feeling my loss.

After ten minutes, I was able to come back into the here and now, to feel relief.

Then I was brought back down to earth by Puppy Girl licking my ear and dumping half a ball - a triumph of her chewing prowess - in my lap, with a little squeal that is her way of asking me to throw it across the room so she could chase it.

In that little chocolate lab kiss, that little whimper, a reminder that I have love and fun in my life.

And so I threw the ball.

 To read more in the Dear Diary series, click here.

Dear Diary

I had a very vivid dream this morning.

I was at the house of a former lover. 

I have never been to this man’s house in real life, and the relationship with him was over a very, very, very long time ago.  So, although I thought, at first, that the dream was about me and him, it wasn’t. 

All you misguided romantics out there who think that there is some kind of love that should be rekindled… chill.  That's not what's going on here.

Anyway.

Let’s call him Bob.

Bob’s wife was there.

She knew about us and she was furious that I was in their home.  I totally got where she was coming from.  In her shoes, I wouldn’t have liked it much, either.

A young, single mistress is not what you need in your face at dinner time.

What the wife represented was a sense of threat. 

I kept waiting for her to explode, to attack me.  At one point, she was holding a dominatrix whip, which I thought was simultaneously scary and amusing, because of what it said about their sex life.

Their children were also in the house. 

I remember a little girl looking at us, trying to understand.  I felt sorry for her, but she wasn’t really my concern and, if the wife would just let me talk to Bob for five minutes like I wanted to, I’d leave and it would all be over and the kid wouldn’t have to see any of it.  The very fact that the wife was MAKING a scene had involved the child, which irritated me.

There were three African American boys in the house.  Stoic and quiet, they were foster children and they just sat at the dining room table, ignoring the fracas, eating their dinner.  I felt sorry for them too.  They seemed to be grateful to have a nice home to live in, and would put up with anything, holding their tongues, not causing any trouble.

Meanwhile I was trying to talk to Bob, to say goodbye.

This was the end of our relationship and I was never going to see him again.  I just want to talk to him for five minutes alone to end it, once and for all.

The wife kept asking me to leave, so I walked out of the house without being able to talk to Bob.

As I left, I looked back, and he was wearing a soccer shirt.  Soccer is something we used to share and, by doing this, he was telling me that there was hope that our relationship will continue.

So I walked away, with closure unresolved.  

It didn't feel good.  I wanted it to end... or did I?

What does this all mean?

Well, I thought about it on my journey to work today and, sadly, it’s not a romantic thing.  It’s not even a personal drama thing.

It’s a work thing.

This is about getting a promotion. 

The young daughter, trying to understand what is going on, represents my colleagues.  My boss solicited their opinions on my potential promotion without asking or telling me, and so brought them into the drama in a way that was, I feel, in appropriate.

My boss is the wife, yelling at me. 

She told me that I can throw my hat into the ring for the promotion, but there are no guarantees.  In fact, she has expressed some doubts about me.  Mostly she talked about the way I express myself… that I’m too direct and use phrases that aren’t PC enough. 

Unfortunately, looking and sounding like a WASP doesn’t help me in America.  People forget that I am foreign, and they don’t make allowances.  Where I come from, the way I speak is the way everybody speaks.  I lived there for the first 28 years of my life.  I try to moderate my expressions, adapt my style, but it’s hard.  I’m still working on it.

Also, my directness, openness and sense of humor are a big part of who I am.  By asking me to moderate my self-expression, there is a part of me that fears that my personality will be stifled completely.  THAT is what Bob represents.

He represents a time in my life when I was young, way down the corporate totem pole, footloose and fancy-free, crazy without consequences, embracing emotion with abandon. 

And I have to say goodbye to Bob.

I have to stop making jokes, asking questions in a challenging way, expressing my opinion strongly.

The foster children are what I am afraid of becoming.  Sitting quietly while everything goes on around them, not saying a word, just grateful to be safe, to have a home.  Part of me wonders if I should capitulate.  Be grateful to have a job.

But then there’s Bob, wearing the soccer shirt, standing in the window.

Because I can’t say goodbye to who I am.

I am funny.  I am sarcastic.  I am witty. 

I am warm.  I am open.  I care about people I work with, in a personal way.

I am intelligent and brave.  If something isn't right, and it's affecting our business in a negative way, I not only see it, I ask questions about it... I expose it.

So how do I walk away from Bob – this presence in my life that is inappropriate, that is causing trouble for me, that has the woman of the house (my boss) yelling at me and is part of creating a whole situation scaring the children (my colleagues)?

I don’t know.

To read more in the Dear Diary series, click here.  

Dear Diary

I am a mean person.  

It's my sense of humor.  

Direct, outrageous, provocative.

Basically, if I say something utterly ridiculous, you ought to know I'm kidding.

Little by little, over the years, Fluffy Bear has got used to my wacky ways.  But, now and again, I can still get him.

A year or so ago, I put a very sad, concerned face on and sat down next to my husband on the couch.

 "I really didn't know how to tell you what I have to say," I said softly, "so I bought you this."

Quietly, I handed him a greeting card.

He took it out of the envelope, and turned it face up.

"I'm pregnant" it read.

He didn't say anything.  

He didn't look at me.

He slowly opened the card.

"Just kidding!" it said on the inside.

He didn't move.

At that moment, I was gripped by fear.  

Maybe, for once, I'd gone too far.  

What if he jumped up and hugged me, bursting into tears of happiness?  I mean, holy shit, I didn't want kids!  He didn't want kids!  Did he?

He let out a half-yell, half-guffaw, and whacked me on the arm with the card.

I breathed a sigh of relief, starting to laugh too.

I'd got away with it!  But, maybe, a little less nutty next time.

Then again, whoever designed that card is also clearly a bit of a nutjob, so I'm not alone...

Dear Diary

Two people close to me are very, very pregnant.  Well, I say close to me.  One is physically close - I see her every day.  And the other is close to my heart, but oceans separate us.  And so I use Mrs WorkMom as my fix for my BFFMom, so that, in some way, I can feel I am sharing in my her pregnancy.

I think WorkMom's baby and I are going to get on very well after he's born.  He's my kinda guy.  He's causing trouble already.  Never mind the false labor and the tossing and turning... every time a monitoring strap or ultrasound is put on her stomach, the baby kicks the shit out of it.

My attitude to my colleague has been confusing for some of my team at work.  On the one hand, I make it clear that I don't like or want (human) kids but, on the other hand, I get her to IM me when he's kicking so I can run over to her cube and feel it.  I've never felt a kid kick in the womb before.  It's weird.

This morning, I started to think about my love-hate relationship with children.

I say I "hate kids" because it's simple short-hand that everyone can understand and the vehemence of my tone leaves no doubt in their minds that they should never - never - show me their ultrasound or camping trip photos or annoy me with those revolting Girl Scout Cookies.  It gets me out of a lot of tedious conversations and saves me the energy expended by pretending I care.  Oscar winning actresses get paid to do that shit.  If I have to slap on a smile and say "Aw!" ten times in a row, all I get is drained.

Show me pictures of your dog... then see me melt.

Hating kids is not really the issue though.  I mean, they're cute (in small doses) and, with extensive aunty and babysitting experience, I know how to handle them.  Toddlers are fascinating to observe, from a psychological/sociological point of view:  watching how they learn, how they perceive the world, how they move within it.  Even revolting teenagers can be like watching a nature documentary.  I mean - hell! - the little shits aren't mine, so I can just watch and be entertained, like a live VH1 reality show.

So why my antipathy?

If I break it down, there are 3 key reasons:

1) My mother

My mother was a product of her time.  Having children meant staying at home, being financially dependent on my father, not having the chance to get out into the world, to spread her wings, to fly.  

And then, when her third child was a teenager and she could see the light at the end of the tunnel, beckoning her to an empty nest, charity work, time alone... I came along.  She never said it to me - she probably never said it to anyone - but I could feel that I messed up her life.  She was almost 40 when she had me (common now, not so much back then), and I took the shackles of suburban motherhood, which had rusted and were going to fall off, polished and oiled them and snapped them shut, even tighter than before, around her ankles.

Don't get me wrong - my mother loved me.  Very much.  So much so, in fact, that she didn't show resentment.  Instead, she wanted a better life for me.

We lived in South Africa of the 1980's.  Best known for Apartheid but also, in other ways, very conservative.  My mother wanted to make sure I didn't end up not realizing my potential like she did, and she encouraged me to study, to travel, to question - never to marry, and never to have kids.  I don't fault her for this in any way.  Perhaps we both knew human procreation wasn't for me.

2) What I saw

Recently, more women have been honest about fallacies like the one of golden "bonding" moment when the baby is first placed at the mother's breast.  Brooke Shields was vilified by some for writing about her postpartum depression, which included thoughts of suicide and imagining her baby smashing into a wall.  It's not like they show it in the baby product ads on TV.

I knew all this a long time ago.

I have seen motherhood up close - my sister crying with fatigue while my nephew was wide awake playing at 3am, my brother dealing with his son's tantrums, my friend (who I lived with for 3 months) taking three times as long as normal to get a cake baked or a dress made.  

My sister had four kids in four years and I was 11 when the first one came.  We lived close by and I was the aunt who played with the kids, ran the birthday parties - hell! - even changed a few nappies.  It was fun, but it was also exhausting.  I would spend 3 to 4 hours with my nephews and nieces and be wiped out.  How my sister did it all day long was a mystery to me.  And, to her credit, she has brought up four of the most amazing kids in the world.  Now adults, they are strong, intelligent, loving and able to face the challenges in life as well as embrace sports and activities which bring fun into the day to day.

But I saw the work that went into that.  And it was too much for me, thank you very much.

3) It wasn't meant to be

Physically, the signs have always been there that I "didn't have the hips for bearing children," as they used to say.  My menstruation was always minimal, and three years ago a grapefruit sized growth had to be cut out of me.  My womb was never baby-ready.  

Sometimes I wondered whether, if I couldn't have kids, I wasn't supposed to.  

Now, that's completely unfair to those women who have suffered through IVF, and also to all those children out there looking for adoptive parents.  Of course you should try to have kids if you want to, in spite of biology.

Adoption has taken place in my family, and it was one of the most joyous and precious things that happened to us - to all of us, not just the adoptive parents.  I told the child in my family a few years ago what a gift he had been, how the moment he was brought to my parent's house was just joyous, and I'm not sure he really got what I was saying.  He seemed confused, even perhaps skeptical.  But I was telling the God's honest truth.  There was a glow around my family that day.  I'll never forget it.

But, for me, I personally feel that my womb was simply backing up what my heart told me.  It's not for me.  No thanks.  No way.

So I'm that bitch at the girl's night who, once we've been watching new baby videos for ten minutes, turns to the new mother and says:

"OK, your baby's adorable, but I'm done.  It's time for dessert."

In spite of all of this, I can understand the wonder and strangeness that is childbirth.  I mean, imagine a separate individual growing inside of you.  Imagine some minuscule thing in your bollocks starting the process that creates a whole new being!  How utterly bizarre.  How completely amazing.

And so I connect with the experience BFFMom is going through - something she has been wanting for so, so long, and something that has made her happier than I have seen in our 22 years of close bond - through WorkMom's huge belly, her slow, swaying progress to meetings, and even her ultrasounds.

I ask questions, and I contribute to gifts, and I regularly check in on how she's doing.

And most of all, for both of them, I wish and hope and pray for easy births, and healthy children.

Dear Diary,

I went to my first Seder last night - the feast that marks the start of the Passover holiday.

My friend had invited about 20 people - quite a feat considering she moved into her new house recently and we had been round to help her smash walls and tear down ceilings.  The progress they have made with doing it up was staggering.

The Seder retells the story of the Hebrews' exodus from Egypt, where they were enslaved.  When the Pharoah would not let the people go, God visited ten plagues upon Egypt.

By going through the Haggadah - which contains the narrative of the exodus - I was reminded of the wonderful Old Testament story of the ten plagues.  

As Catholics, we learn the Old Testament stories - as good as compendium of Hans Christian Andersen stories - as children in Catechism classes.  But, as you get older, the focus seems to be more and more on the Jesus stuff, and the wonderful stories of the Old Testament - like Abraham, Job, Cain and Abel, Noah's Ark - are largely forgotten.

It was great to be reminded of the plagues: 

• Dam (blood)—All the water was changed to blood
• Tzefardeyah (frogs)—An infestation of frogs sprang up in Egypt
• Kinim (lice)—The Egyptians were afflicted by lice
• Arov (wild animals)—An infestation of wild animals (some say flies) sprang up in Egypt
• Dever (pestilence)—A plague killed off the Egyptian livestock
• Sh'chin (boils)—An epidemic of boils afflicted the Egyptians
• Barad (hail)—Hail rained from the sky
• Arbeh (locusts)—Locusts swarmed over Egypt
• Choshech (darkness)—Egypt was covered in darkness
• Makkat Bechorot (killing of the first-born)—All the first-born sons of the Egyptians were slain by God

At the last, the Hebrews were instructed to mark the doorposts of their homes with the blood of a spring lamb and, upon seeing this, the spirit of the Lord passed over these homes, leaving the first born unscathed, hence the term "passover."

I have a great respect for the Jewish faith... I always have. 

Growing up as a Catholic, it was clear to me that the Jewish and Catholic faiths have a lot in common.  Strong family values, strong faith and the imperative to help others.

Of course, there is one major difference between Judaism and Catholicism.  In the Jewish tradition, one is taught to question.  Not only is the Torah to be discussed, but the writings and interpretations of major scholars are open for debate too.  I greatly envy this fact.  At church I simply had to listen to the priest's endless, droning interpretation of the readings in the homily (the priest's lecture during the Mass).

I mentioned this to one of the other guests at the party (we were the token Goyim) and she said she knew someone who'd converted because of this very fact - he wanted to be able to question, think through and form his own opinion in his faith.

Frankly, the lack of questioning and feeling free to debate issues of faith - or any issue at all - is a great loss in our modern society.  The book we all worked from during the Seder made it clear that this was a dinner party where story telling and political debate is encouraged.  Fluffy Bear and I were ecstatic.  

I can't remember how many times we have tried to start a political discussion with friends or acquaintances or colleagues in the US and had them smile sweetly at us, take a long pause, and then change the subject.  It's tedious and boring and cowardly.  Not only is it OK for us to share, it's also OK for us to disagree, and to talk about it - even loudly.  

People not questioning can have disastrous consequences - like a nation believing that Saddam Hussein should be punished for 9/11.  Something our poor soldiers are still paying for.

And so Shulchan Orech - where the prayers and readings stop while the main meal is eaten and the wine can be poured in large quantities rather than in the small Kiddush cups - Fluffy Bear launched forth.  Healthcare, education, politics... we left no PC stone unturned.  It was great fun.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

The ritual and prayers leading up to the main meal were fascinating, and I was struck by how inclusive it was.  Different people contributed readings and questions were encouraged.  When the origin of a specific element was debated, various people contributed their explanations which were then debated again.

The hostess - thank God! - kept corralling us all to keep the pace going.

Fluffy Bear and I tried our best to sing the prayers - we must've sounded pretty funny, because we didn't know the tunes!

I love matzot, so I couldn't stop eating it, in spite of warnings of how much food was to follow.  I had my very first bowl of matzah ball soup - which was yummy - and, in spite of my allergies, I let myself have one, delicious, soft, chewy deviled egg.

I had an emotional moment when dessert was served.  My friend had made flan.  

"Flahn."  

Such a horrible sounding name for such a wonderful dessert.  My mother used to make Creme Renversee or Creme Caramel.  The flan was almost - almost - as good as my mother's signature dessert.  I had to stop myself from crying.

It felt like a family evening - which is precious to an ex-pat whose family lives far away.  There was a lot of food, alcohol, lively conversation...

What a wonderful evening!

Dear Diary,

Happy St Patrick's Day!

I heard the BEST St Patrick's Day story today.

I know that some people out there may know about this, but it's the first time I've ever heard of it!

Fluffy Bear, having an Irish father and having actually BEEN to Ireland, scoffed at the Colonial interpretation and embellishment of the day dedicated to Ireland's Patron Saint, but I thought it was adorable.

A friend told me about what her daughter does with her kids on St Patrick's Day.

She tells them that you have to try and catch a Leprechaun.  If you succeed, he'll tell you where his pot of gold is!

To do this, you have to first turn a cardboard box upside-down and - of course! - prop it up with a stick to make a trap.

Second, you have to tempt the Leprechaun - wily lil' fella that he is - into the trap with food and drink.  And it has to be appropriately presented.  So the kids took a plate and cup from their tea set and set out - what else? - some mashed potato and a little beer.

Third, you have to make sure the Leprechaun finds the trap in the first place, so little clovers are strewn in the house, leading to the trap.

Last, you have to protect your school shoes, because Leprechauns were once cobblers, and they like to take a shoe and hide it.

Once the kids are asleep, the food is disposed of, one of each of their shoes is hidden (get ready to be late for school in the morning!), chocolate gold coins are put under the box, the traps are put down and green glitter boot prints are put down where the Leprechaun ran away.  Under one corner of trap, a little hat is placed because the Leprechaun got away, but we managed to get his hat!

I couldn't help but imagine the kids rushing to check the trap in the morning, rejoicing at the gold coin candy and then frantically searching the house for their missing shoes!

GENIUS!

Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig!

For more Dear Diary, click here.

Dear Diary,

Fluffy Bear is off at his yearly conference again, and I get to indulge in my Slobby Valentine.

Yes, dear Diary, it's pretty bad.

I have cute pajama pants on - red and white pattern with a little bow at the waist - bought about two years ago.

But the shirt that went with them stretched in the wash and frayed and was basically a reminder not to buy cheap sweat shop shit.

So I'm wearing some freebie T-shirt Fluffy Bear got from a local brewery with it.  It's too big and too baggy and it has a picture of a fat guy drinking beer on it.

It also has a nice orange stain on the chest area, from some curry some evening where I decided to share dinner with my clothes.

My dressing gown (robe) has seen better days.  Even hot washes don't get it to look white anymore.  It's a slight grey/pinky color from dirt and an unfortunate wash with something red.

The belt thing has a big hole on one side due to a misunderstanding with Puppy Girl.  I was walking along, robe open, with the belt hanging down, flapping at my side, and she mistook that for an invitation to play tug.  The puppy piranha teeth did the rest.

Last but not least, the hair.

Styled by 8 hours of turning this way and that on the pillow, it defies gravity in ways mohawked punks would envy.  If I could bottle whatever it is that makes my hair go all Medusa, I could put all hair gel manufacturers out of business.

Never one to not complete a look, it's acessorized with hairy armpits, hairy legs and toenails that haven't seen a pedicure in over a month.

How can I stand it?  

It's simple... As long as I avoid the bathroom mirror, I can't see myself.  Ten minutes after brushing my teeth, if I'm alone and I don't have to get ready to go out, I forget what I look like.

You're probably wondering why I'm telling you all this, dear Diary.  You didn't ask to know, you don't need to know and you probably really, really, really don't want to know.

Well, I had to.

It's all about setting the scene.

The background.

The context.

The milieu, if you will.

For what?

For the look of pure, unadulterated horror on the face of the Chugger (charity mugger) who came to the front door.  It was probably the worst spiel he's ever given.

But, on the plus side, I didn't have to do much explaining about why I can't afford to contribute right now...

To read more Dear Diary posts, click here. 

Dear Diary,

I am making two types of New Year's Resolutions this year. 

I read a post the other day about changing one's thinking on resolutions.  It was all about giving oneself gifts rather than rules.

And so, for 2010, I am going to give myself the following gifts:

• The gift of exercise, to help me manage stress, increase my energy and improve my health
• The gift of clear lungs, through keeping up the Nicorette gum.  I am also not going to pressure myself on this point, so that I can keep chewing as long as I need to
• The gift of relaxation - time to read, long hot baths, switching off the laptop, fun with my furkids, dates with my husband
• The gift of experiencing and seeing new things, taking walks and trips with my Fluffy Bear and the furkids
• The gift of friendship, making time to spend with my wonderful friends (my surrogate family) 
• The gift of family, making time to talk to my relatives overseas through Skype, email and IM
• The gift of success, by making an effort to do my work to the best of my ability
• The gift of extending my networking, through meeting colleagues and making the time to attend events held by the organizations I am a member of
• The gift of learning, through training courses, reading and job shadowing
• The gift of treats - chocolate, massages, dinners out
• The gift of fun - Flash Mobs, singing in public and other silly things
• The gift of self-expression through dance and, of course, writing this blog!

The second type are actual resolutions, but ones I know I have a 100% chance of being able to keep:

• I will shout "Batter up!" every time I burp out loud

Happy New Year!

Dear Diary,

I want my Mojo back!

It's been a few short weeks since I started my new job and I have no inspiration to blog.  I have nothing to talk about.

I mean - come on! - everyone on the team is so nice.  

Yes, I know I'm still in the honeymoon period, but seriously, there isn't one person I don't like.

We have none - count them: none! - of the usual suspects.

We don't have a Mr Step-On-Your-Head who tries to take over every meeting, take credit for work other people do, or take over the coolest projects.

We don't have a Dead Wood Guy, who is a complete waste of space, has been doing what he does for years, doesn't want to change or improve or think, likes his simple life and is gone by 4pm every day.

We don't have a Chatty Cathy Time Warp, who comes over to your desk, asks inane questions and somehow manages to take up 30 minutes of your time discussing absolutely nothing.

We don't have a Preggie Peggy, clomping around, sitting down slowly and getting up while panting, touting her ultrasounds and interrupting meetings to say her baby is kicking.

We don't even have a Sneaky Suck-up, who talks a lot without saying anything and repeats whatever the boss has said when asked for his opinion. 

Crap.  

I hate having nothing to complain about...

Dear Diary

I walked past the Nordstrom shop window yesterday and there was Santa taking photos with families and kids.  

I stopped to watch.

A family with little kids came up.  Santa, whose mike is broadcast outside the store so you can hear what he is saying, said hello and made reassuring noises but, of course, the girl baby started to scream.  

Her older brother, originally fascinated and quite comfortable with Santa, became suspicious when his sister started to wail and took a step away, putting his right hand in his mouth and looking a bit freaked out by it all.  I didn't see what happened, because I went to buy coffee, but I was thinking that Santa must have the patience of a saint.

When I walked past again, Santa was chatting to two pre-teens, who were clearly forced to be there by their parents and were totally DYING, Dude.  Like, Oh.  My.  God!

They looked like the only thing that could be worse would be water boarding, and they were both standing as far away from Santa as they could, looking at the cameraman, willing him to get this damn thing over with.

It reminded me about a story a colleague once told me about a friend of hers who made her kids go every year until the youngest was 25 years old, at which point the children ganged up against their mother and flat out refused to co-operate.  

On the other hand, it must be nice to have that yearly chronicle of how the kids grew up.

Maybe we should go see Santa Paws with the puppies...

Then again, I don't want to be the bitch whose dogs killed Santa...

Dear Diary,

I am watching Bucket List on TV and, apart from reminding me to update my own list, it's making me think what I'd do if I was told I had 6 months to live.

Here are a few ideas:

 

• Take up smoking again
• Drive an American muscle car round a racetrack
• Have a lot of sex with Fluffy Bear
• Hire a female prostitute to give Fluffy Bear a threesome
• Walk my dogs a LOT
• Throw a big party for all my friends - 80's theme, of course
• Get one of those massages where 4 people massage you at once
• Try smoking pot
• Try Ecstasy
• Skydive, tandem of course (fuck taking all that pre-learning crap)
• Go back to South Africa and throw another big party for my family and friends there
• Go on the scariest rollercoaster I can find
• Hire a professional dancer to dance salsa with me at a club (I know enough to be led in a fairly decent dance)
• Sit on Fluffy Bear's lap and be held.

 

 

Dear Diary

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I suppose I should think about the things that I am thankful for:

• My wonderful, master chef husband, Fluffy Bear
• My handsome Puppy Dog
• My cutie wootie Puppy Girl
• My new job!
• Any person out there who doesn't dock their dog's tail or mutilate it's ears
• Any person out there who has a pit bull as a loving, family pet
• My warm home (even though we don't own it)
• My family who keep me in their hearts, even though I am far away
• My friends nearby, my surrogate family
• My friends afar, who keep in touch
• Nordstrom, where I can go to experience real customer service at any time
• My blog, where I can express myself
• My therapist, who helps me see the connections and lessons in my life
• Anyone who fights for gay, women's, or race rights
• Anyone who works or volunteers for a charitable cause
• Nelson Mandela and FW De Klerk, for transitioning my home country without bloodshed 
• The Queen, for consistently giving us an example of dignity
• Cable TV, for entertaining me
• Books, for transporting my imagination
• Anyone who knows how to drive round a roundabout properly
• Anyone who has a hands-free cellphone kit in their car instead of holding their fucking phone to their ear and driving with one hand
• My fellow bloggers and twitpeeps
• Anyone who serves in the military, doing our dirty work for us
• Military families, who sacrifice so much
• Anyone who works in one of those jobs that's badly paid, not respected enough, yet vital to us all: Police, Firemen and women, Ambulance people, Nurses, Doctors and Psychiatrists who do public or charitable work
• My parents, who watch over me from above.

Dear Diary,

I broke down about a week ago.

I just couldn't stand it anymore.  

I called our cleaning company.

We aren't earning like we used to (OK, so I'm not earning at all), so we had stopped our weekly cleaning services.

When you have to economize and get rid of the cleaner, you say you'll do it all yourself, but it just doesn't work out that way.  Sure, you clean, but you do bits here and there, and the whole house is never completely dusted, vacuumed and mopped.  

And then, one day, you sit down on the toilet, humming a happy tuneless ditty, and make the mistake of looking down.  You see the kazillionth dusty little hairball and the camel screams in pain while the straw roars in triumph.

And so, dear Diary, our dear cleaner came back to us.  Just once.  Just today.

In the time that she would normally clean the whole place and do washing and ironing, she wasn't even able to get to Fluffy Bear's office.  And she fucking worked.

The microwave was unplugged and put on the floor to clean the counter.  The sofa was moved away from the wall to get to the radiator.  The bed was stripped and she probably was totally freaked when the linen marched off the mattress on it's own.

And so we came home this afternoon to a foreign place.  

Air smelling the way it should.  Linoleum the color they made it. Throw pillows on the sofa where they ought to be.  A spotless kitchen sink.

And then, dear Diary, the Crap Creep began.

It doesn't take much.

A Coke can put next to the microwave to go into recycling, my purse emptied onto the dining room table, the dogs shaking vigorously and sending their hairs flying in every direction.

By tomorrow, we'll be untidy again.

By the end of the next day the paw print collage will stretch from the back door to the living room.

Before a week has passed, there'll be gunk behind the bath taps.

But - guess what? - this isn't tomorrow, dear Diary. Not yet.

This is today.

And a clean house is pure blissssssssss...

Dear Diary,

I am pissed.

In the American sense (pissed off), not the English sense (drunk), unfortunately.

Although I'm about to head for the Vinho Verde and correct that.

Why am I seething, dear Diary?

Well, here's what happened.

I read a blogpost on a California newspaper website.  It was about another blogpost by a Virginia man who had taken his 11 year old son to Hooters.  Mr Virginia said on his blog that he had taken his son there to see how he would react to the women. 

I left a comment on the California newspaper website.

If I remember correctly, it went something like:

If there was a restaurant chain called Shooters, where tanned, handsome men with six packs waited on tables in Calvin Klein tighty whities and leather chaps, then this would be OK.

But there isn't, so it's not OK.

If Hooters had male waiters in orange shorts and tank tops stretched over their pecs, this would be OK.

But they don't, so it's not OK.

If this man had taken his son to another part of town to "see how he reacts to black people" would that be OK?

If there was a restaurant called NIGGAS where all the waiters were black and you could call them “boy” would that be OK?

If you are ever confused about whether something is sexist, substitute "black" for "women" and see if it sounds wrong to you.

And by the way, Hooters' hiring practices are something Mrs Palin, on her bookpushing Magical Mavericky Tour, believes in -- "profiling."

The reason I said that the above was what "I thought" I wrote, is this:

THEY DELETED MY COMMENT.

Here's their very nice email:

Hello,

I am one of the managers of [The Blog] on [Website]. While we
welcome comments to our posts and try our best not to censor anyone, I have
to ask you to revise a sentence in your comment before we can publish it.

Here is the sentence: If there was a restaurant called NIGGAS where all the
waiters were black and you could call them “boy” would that be OK?

I understand the point you are making, but it is our policy at the [The Newspaper] not to print the N-word except if it is necessary in the context of a news
story for news worthy purposes.

I really do like the points you made. Could you please re-send your comment
without the use of that word?

Thank you,

[Name]

[Job title]

I guess they don't have a very strong sense of irony.

Dear Diary,

Yesterday I had lunch with a good friend.  Like us, she and her husband have two dogs.  She was telling me about how much her dogs like routine, and how theirs worked.

She gets up in the morning at 6am, walks the dogs for 15 minutes, feeds them, then gets ready for work and is out of the house to go to work by 7:15.  She said that the walk in the morning gets her blood going and wakes her up, which sounded like a really good idea to me.

Well, Puppy Girl wakes us at 6am anyway, so I decided to give it a try.  I got up at 6am, let the dogs out for potty, brushed my teeth, got dressed, caught Puppy Girl so I could get her harness on her (she hates it), tried to get Puppy Dog to calm down and stop bouncing when he saw his leash, and finally got out of the front door.

Puppy Dog is on an extendable leash, and Puppy Girl on a thin nylon normal one.  He doesn't like her first thing in the morning - who would like a baby jumping all over them nipping their ears before they'd had breakfast? - so I have to keep them apart.  She can't differentiate his play growls from his I-am-going-to-bite-you-if-you-don't-stop-it-NOW growls.

So she spent the entire walk pulling at the harness, whimpering, trying to get to her brother.

We walked for about five minutes before I realized I had made a mistake not putting my gloves on.  I wrestled one from my pocket, held both leashes in one hand, and wrangled a glove on.  Puppy Dog immediately decided to squat and have his morning ablutions, so there I was, two dogs straining at the leads, taking the glove off again, shining the little torch on my keyring on an neighbor's bush, trying to find the poop and scoop it.

On we went.  Puppy Girl strained against the leash all the way around the three blocks, and I became concerned that she was learning the wrong thing about going for a walk - pulling.  No better time to deconstruct bad behavior and replace it with good behavior than right now with a puppy, so I put Puppy Dog back in the house and took Puppy Girl out for another walk, with treats in my pocket, trying to get her to walk at my side.

Giving her treats with gloves on was a mistake.  She thought it was a new biting game.  We got halfway up the block with her jumping up at my side, trying to nip my gloves.  Then she saw another dog coming down the street and started barking her head off.  I turned back and went home.

I put Puppy Girl in her crate - after I managed to catch her - when we got home, and fed Puppy Dog, then put her breakfast in her crate.  She wasn't interested, and kept barking and whining.

I figured maybe she needed potty - she had only peed on our walk - so I took her outside.  But all she wanted to do was play. 

I got her back inside, herded her back into the crate, suffered the crying (you have to ignore it) till she ate.

Thank God.

Potty time again.  She ran straight to her potty place (yay!), and peed.  I knew she must need to poop by now, so tried to get her to do it.  Nope.  She barked and barked.  I was confused. 

And then I saw it.  She had obviously pooped first thing this morning - outside the enclosure - and I had stepped in it.

I scooped it, then got the hose to clean off the bottom of my shoes.  Of course the water got into my socks.  I squelched my way inside, seriously contemplating a cup of tea laced with whiskey.

It was 7am and yes, dear Diary, my blood was pumping.  But I didn't feel awake.

I felt exhausted.

Dear Diary,

My online friend, Snooty Primadona, asked herself - and all of us - why we blog.

And, as they say, she got me to thinkin'.

Why do I blog?

I think it's because, deep down, I'm a creative person, and that creativity has always expressed itself through writing.

Languages, and the way people express themselves using them, has been an endless source of fascination for me.  When I was a kid at school, English was my favorite subject, closely followed by French and Afrikaans.  

The fact that people chose to assign gender to nouns interests me.  La table is feminine, whereas le chien (dog) is not.  

The fact that you have to say no twice in Afrikaans interests me too.  They use a double negative.  Ek het dit nie gese nie (I didn't say it).  

How people expressed themselves through words - the art of prose - was something I grew to love.  Dickens' humor, Shakespeare's prose-poetry and Judy Blume somehow getting into my head and helping me work through the difficult parts of being a teenager.

The more I read, the more I realized that writing can be as much about working through things for yourself as about telling stories.  I never had a diary as a kid - I'd start one and then not take the time to keep doing entries - but I wrote a book when I was about 12.  It's somewhere in my stored stuff.  I seem to remember it has something to do with a boy and my transformation when my braces came off.

After High School, when studying English at University became about analyzing the writing of others, I never wrote creatively for years.  I guess I didn't need to.  I was having fun growing up, getting out into the world, travelling.

But then I got into the corporate machine.

I was working in a large company, dealing head on with a matrixed hierarchy, 15 hour days, business travel, working on weekends, useless meetings, yearly goal-setting and reviews and a curve on which my team-mates and I were graded for bonuses so we were effectively in competition with each other to get our projects noticed by our managers.  Bureaucracy and office politics seemed to stifle any creative or artistic thought.  

Even emotions had to be regulated - one had to appear enthusiastic and be PC at all times, no matter what you were feeling or what was going on in your life.  This was particularly difficult for me after I had major surgery and went back to the office too early.  Consequently, I was labelled "a bad fit" and my work life became even more restricted.

It was all looking a bit bleak, dear Diary, until my therapist suggested I find a way to write again.

I'm not the kind of person who can set up a story outline, develop characters and have the self-discipline to produce a novel.  I admire the people who do.  My creativity comes to me in little bursts: observations, jokes and the need to vent.

And so, the blog.

And that, dear Diary, answers the question.

Update on Sunday, November 15, 2009 at 4:41PM by Ittybittycrazy

 

You might find this article interesting.  

The article is from the UK newspaper, the Sunday Times.  You can find it here:

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article6896061.ece

 

Extract:

Women's blogging: the new home front

November 1, 2009

By India Knight

From the trivial to the titillating, the hilarious to the heart-rending, women are spilling their most intimate secrets on the internet — and revolutionising their lives

We know about Facebook and Twitter, about downloading free music, and that the current crafts explosion started online. We know about forums and celebrity gossip; about sinister blokes “grooming” pre-teens in chat rooms; about funny clips on YouTube, online gaming and techy nerdery. But it’s a mysteriously under-reported fact that the internet has also dramatically changed the landscape for “ordinary” women. Many people still view technology as off-puttingly masculine and the joys of the online world as geekily blokeish — either that or a tiny bit sad. That’s certainly true at one level (there’s the overwhelming preponderance of porn, aside from anything else), but it ignores the seismic — and I don’t use the word lightly — difference the online world has made to women’s lives, by holding a mirror up to them and celebrating the minutiae of their existence as if it mattered.

 

Dear Diary, 

I RESCUED A DOG TODAY!

No, I don't mean that I went to the Humane Society and brought a dog home.  I mean that I found a dog that was lost and took it home again!

It was so amazing!

I want to share the story with you, dear Diary.   

I was at the coffee shop, walking to the car, balancing a latte and a cappuccino in one hand and fumbling with my car keys in the other.  I saw a dog out of the corner of my eye.  

I had no reason to react to it but somewhere, in the back of my mind, I knew something was wrong.

So I put my coffees in the car, grabbed a bag of dog treats and walked down the block to where the dog was.  I saw that he didn't have a leash and watched him run into the yard of a house next to the coffee shop.  We have sat at outside tables next to that yard very often, and I have never seen any sign of the people who live there being dog owners.  

I threw some treats into the yard and then walked in, closing the gate behind me.  The dog was obviously scared, so I gave him more treats, and slowly walked up to the front door.  I rang the doorbell.

The dog looked at me, looked at the closed gate and immediately knew what was going on.  He wriggled under the gate and took off, crossing the street and running up a hill.

Shit!

I ran back to my car, backed out of the parking lot and followed the dog.  I found him in front of a church.  I pulled the car onto the sidewalk, made reassuring noises at the dog and started luring it with treats.  

I eventually grabbed its collar and it was petrified.  The ears were all the way back and it was quivering.  I knelt down and stroked it, petted it on the head, massaged its ears.  It seemed to calm a little, but still tried to pull away a few times. 

This was clearly someone's pet.  He was well fed, well groomed and had a collar and tags.  Just no name tag with his owner's contact details on it.  

More treats, more soft voice, more petting.

Then I started to put the treats on the car bumper, and then in the back of the SUV.  The dog jumped inside.

Success!

I got in the car, cranked up the heat (the dog was wet and dirty and it was cold out) and headed home.  

I called Fluffy Bear out of the house and he brought water and more food.  We checked the tags, but only the pet license one was readable.  I had my laptop and tried to find a place online where I could look up a dog from the pet license number, but I couldn't find anyway to do it.

So we drove across town to the Humane Society and they were amazing.

We met a lovely lady who looked up the pet license, told us the dog's name was Jim, and called the owner.  As soon as she said she was calling from the Humane Society, he must've asked if they had her dog because she said:

  "No, I don't have your dog, some good Samaritans have him."

Then she passed me the phone.  I can't tell you how good it felt to talk to this man.  

Life is full of challenges, irritations, sadness interspersed with little moments of comfort, times with friends, love from puppies.

But, when you live in suburbia and work in corporate America, there are few opportunities to really do good in this world, unless you are one of those amazing people who regularly give their time and effort as a volunteer.  

Fifteen minutes after that phone call we were giving Jim back to his family.

He had crawled under the fence in his own yard (we saw the hole), somehow made it across a very busy road, and run 5 blocks West and 4 blocks South before I found him.

The smile on his owner's face, Jim's wagging tail... What a lovely sight. 

I rewarded myself later, dear Diary, with a Babe Ruth bar and a nice cup of tea.