AA

Sitting at my desk, very busy and important...

VIBTRATE VIBRATE VIBRATE .... VIBRATE VIBRATE VIBRATE

Me: Hello mother.
Mother: Darling! Are you busy?
Me: Believe it or not these are my working hours...
Mother: Well I've just booked our flights for December. Now get a pen, Darling, and write this down...
Me: Can we chat later? I'm going into a meeting.
Mother: We land on the 16th at 12.00 so maybe you could fetch us from the airport and we can go straight to lunch, or you can take us home to drop our bags and then we go for lunch? Or we can get a taxi and you fetch us from home and then we go to lunch...
Me: I really can't talk about this now... I have a meeting.
Mother: Then on the Saturday I thought you could fetch us at 12 and take us all to your sister's wedding and...
Me: I'm sorry, what???
Mother: You can drive us to the wedding...
Me: There's been some mistake.
Mother: But then we don't have to pay for a taxi. It's a free ride!
Me: There's also free Champagne!... And I intend to take full advantage of that.
Mother: Are you an alcoholic?
Me: If you keep asking me that I soon will be.
Mother: Maybe you should go to an AA meeting.
Me: Maybe you should let me go to my work meeting!

Silence.

Mother: Oh bugger.
Me: What's wrong?

Frantic rustling in the background.

Me: Mum? Are you ok?
Mother: Oh God. It must've been stolen...
Me: What?
Mother: Oh no. Oh dear.
Me: Mum?!?!
Mother: I just had it?... Christ!

Mother becomes more frantic. She even drops, God forbid, a small swear word.

Mother: How could I be so stupid?
Me: WHAT'S HAPPENED!?!

Mother: I've lost my cell phone!

 Me: Mum... You're on it.


Mother: Oh.
Me: Looks like someone else needs to go to AA. Alzheimer's Anonymous!

Ps: I did it again. I went to gym this morning. See what happens when that happens...

'Friendship isn't a big thing - it's a million little things'

Sorry about the quote. Am feeling very appreciative of all my irreplaceable friends today. Heart you all.

Arrived at the Hussar Grill last night early. "Another rib craving?"  says condescending waiter, who holds a remarkable resemblance to Napoleon Dynamite. Oh God. I wanted to melt through a gap in their pooh-coloured tiles. It became obvious right then and there, as I shrivelled with embarrassment beneath his judgmental gaze, that I frequent that Rondebosch haunt far too often. Given, I have been there once a week for the last month and a half. But who cannot agree that they have THE best ribs in Cape Town? Why not treat myself to a little ribilicious night out every so often (with friends of course. It's not like I go alone. That would just be sad).

But then again – what is less attractive than a chick, face smeared with rib sauce, bits of rib stuck under her fingernails, sticky hands, basting in hair (yes, that happened)... A real dude magnet!

"The usual then?" he continues.
"I'm waiting for friends," I quickly respond.
"Friends?" he looks around, as if my only friends in the world can only be the rack of ribs I consume on a weekly basis.
"Yes, I have friends."
"Whatever you say, Missy. Passion fruit and water?" 

Sanctimonious shithead.

Crapballs, he evens knows what I drink. This is beginning to mirror my visits to the freezo shop. I don't even need to place an order at Caturra anymore, they start making my freezo before I've even paralelled parked.

Missy? I don't like this guy anymore, or his misshapen goatee, and am glad when my friends file through the entrance and we slot into a cosy table for 5.

Next time I'm getting takeaways...

Vivi&Lola and I are planning a monsterous Saturday night out, starting with a very professional, very formal company Loeries afterparty at The Reserve in town. That's just for the free drinks and food, naturally... Then we shall trail Cape Town with our other tag-alongs for the best d-floor on offer and old, seedy men to buy us Champagne. That's normal, right?

 "We need old friends to help us grow old and new friends to help us stay young"

Chick's pick

Heart my job... Yesterday morning, when everyone else was eating sad cereal at their sad desks moaning morbidly about their miserable monday morning blues, puffy eyes and pile of work, I was in the car oen route to one of my favourite spots in Cape Town for a launch: The Twelve Apostles. After pretty drive along coastal road, Ray-bans on, music blaring, the wind in my hair, sea glistening splendidly, I arrived and was chaueffered from parking spot to marquee, whence I had the above view. Realised immediately I a.) had no friends, b.) was totally under-dressed and c.) still had a stamp on my arm from the club on friday night (totally unclassy amongst a swarm of media representatives). Must've missed the dress code on the launch invite – surely along the lines of: 'Heels, highlights and nine layers of make-up. Boob jobs welcome.' Alone and famished, I proceeded to stuff face with mind-blowing mini brunch goods (which no one else was touching lest it spilt on their designer outfits... or, God forbid, went to their hips!) and stood roasting in the sun inhaling orange juice. (Sensibly decided to forego bubbly. It was 11am on a Monday morning. And I may have visited Caprice the night before. Enough said. Plus the amount of articles at work I would've edited that afternoon would've gone into the minus.) Left with a teeming goodie bag, a boep and a sunburn.

Have been invited away on luxurious retreat at 5-star resort/game farm end of this month. Five days. Eight girls. Unlimited bubbly and chick stuff. 1 x yoga instructor. 1 x masseuse. 1 x chef. 0 x men. Quad bikes. A boat. A pool. A bar. Pool tables... Sounds like some sort of woman's wonderland, a chick's heaven, a gal's pearly gates, a female's fairyland, a dame's dream world...

Before I'd even looked at the price (first mistake) or the fact that I'd have to somehow take a whopping three days' leave (second mistake), I clicked 'attending' and am now a surefire sojourner on said weekend, despite my bank card snarling nastily at me from the depths of my handbag. When I did discover the cost was a small fortune, I skipped lunch today and stashed the R20 in my new '5-Star Fund'. It's a start.

Am so excited. Am so SOoooo excited. Am picturing girls, sunglasses, bikinis, tall glasses of pink bubbly, lazing by the pool with books, gossip and hot tunes. Massages, early-morning yoga, the sounds of nature, the ocean and nail files. Health food, moisturisers... No time. No agenda. Man-free. Bug-free. Traffic-free. Preservative-free. And the best part of it all... A TAN!

Might have to sneak a couple of these Chocolate Cake Pops in my suitcase...

Viva la Diva

There has been no internet all morning in my office. This is an epic fail in a publishing house for many a reason, but it certainly does nothing to help a fact checker (such as myself) check facts, let alone play on Facebook and update my tweets. So have been remarkably unproductive over the course of the morning, of course using the ‘free’ time to BBM friends about what’s going down this weekend. Incidentally, I must make sure that absolutely nothing is going down. When I go to Jo’burg I get a mild (okay, severe) case of FOMO and would much prefer if Cape Town somewhat froze in time for the weekend to avoid anything unforgettably bodacious occurring in my absence. Especially since I have become Cape Town’s spontaneously-social, slightly-unhinged, devoted and dashingly daring diva over the past couple of weeks. Anyway, thankfully it doesn’t seem like much is happening – I’m actually taking the party with me and have already organised an agglomeration of drinks, dinners and one night on the Jozi town with my Gauteng crew (yes, as much as I renounce the place, I do have a ‘crew’).

The trail run and the mortifyingly monumental night out last Saturday, plus a highly advanced and straining dance class on Tuesday has left me battered, bruised and exhausted, with a bad knee. Have spent the week wrapped in Transact (I look like a burn victim), which is so not cool when it’s so cold. Essentially I’m sitting in 13 degrees wrapped in ice patches, and I smell like a strip of spearmint chewing gym; am blue, shivering, limping and swollen. Can you say ‘attractive’?

Actually looking forward to being at home. What I love about my big family home nestled amongst the lilac jacarandas in Lower Houghton (and the murderers and thieves lurking on every Joburgian corner), are the heated carpets. I don’t have that luxury here in Cape Town, and probably never will... unless I marry a suit. I spend most of my day embedded in a fleece blanket, since Joburg refuses to budge from below zero, snuggled on the heated floor next to my boxer (best dogs in the world I might add). That and a glass of wine, along with the mindless chit-chat of my wonderful yet categorically crazy family, will do me just fine for a few days.

Managed to snag me a voucher on CityMob for Vaudeville next Friday. And somehow (and I’m still in disbelief considering Capetonians display phenomenal expertise in an inability to commit) I managed to get a whole six people to buy one too. For R130 we are off for a 3-course meal and show at the fiendish Fez. And I can’t wait. Yes I’ve been before but I would go every night of my life if I could. Talk about my dream night – I am obsessed with food. I am addicted to Champagne. I love my friends. I love the stage (hopefully this time I won’t attempt to actually climb onto it clutching a half-empty bottle of Pongracz mid-performance). And dancing is my life (the tappers are excellent). Put it all together and what have you got? Spectacular-spectacular – a shindig, a night of pure revelry, fabulous entertainment, drool-over food, breaking down on the d-floor post-show dressed in masks and adorned in feathers cabaret-style, inspired by the on-stage acrobats! Note to self: must drink less before the show even starts this time so can actually remember said performance. This will be difficult when I’m at a table with http://viviandlola.blogspot.com/. We share a similar passion for (or should I say dangerous infatuation with) rose champagne. Us two together = lethal combination.

Ok that’s all from me. I’m off till next Wednesday so I’ll see you then. Hopefully in one piece. And with some great stories.

Thoughts and things

Yikes. You would think being excessively emotional would come with a keen hand and a mind teeming with creative ideas. But it's the complete opposite. Coming up with a suitable topic for a blogpost has proved particularly difficult since I decided to start writing again. 

Why not just take a break from it all, I say? Am currently coming up with cunning courses of action to escape for a short time and have shortlisted the following options. Some of them rational, well-thought-out realistic plans, some of them... well, not quite so much:

• Depart for the romantic city of Florence and take it upon myself to complete a TEFL course. Then teach English to little bambinis and big tasty passionate desirable Italiano businessmen in Rome, and while away my evenings visiting the sites, trawling the cobbled streets eating tubs of Italian ice cream, and inhaling pasta. I have a friend who wants to join me – this is great news as it means someone to share my pizzas with. At least we can get fat together.

• Get a job on the US's Disney Cruise Ship as a Disney character lookalike. I wouldn't quite make the cut for Rapunzel for a number of reasons: I don't like small spaces so a tower definitely wouldn't do; my blonde hair stubbornly refuses to grow any further than mid breast, at which point it begins to fray so wouldn't be near strong enough for my prince to cling on to anyway; it is about an 11th of the thickness of Rapunzel's and not quite as golden. So am thinking: me as Sleeping Beauty (except with a tan), strolling around deck gracefully in a blue gown and dazzling princess crown, flushed cheeks, red lips, singing to bluebirds and talking to owls etc etc

• Go waste away on a remote island in the Mediterranean, work behind a bar in hot pants and a bikini top and a striking tan, whipping up creamy pina coladas and eating olives, until a young, brave and dashing Australian/Irishman/Kiwi/Canadian sweeps me off my feet and takes me home with them to live in the lap of luxury.

• Go live at home (in Joburg). Actually... I'd rather stay here... (There are no good images of Joburg that don't contains guns, knives and robbers.)

• Teach dancing in London, live off Heinz tomato soup and Starbucks frappucinos, and couch surf for a few months until I've exhausted my options, or have lost all my friends... 

• Sell my car and depart for India. And do... I don't quite know what. Eat samoosas, do yoga, wear saris and a bindi and learn to bob my head.

• Take a French course in Montepellier and ride to class every morning on a red bicycle adorned with strings of garlic, a basket of fresh baguets, myself in a beret and floral dress chanting 'Au Clair de la Lune' and drink wines with rude Frenchmen in the evenings in the vineyards. And waitressing at un petit cafe serving cafe au lait in order to afford all of this, of course... until I get bored and long for Vida muffins and Caturra freezocinos and Hunters Dry and Table Mountain.

Er, I think that's about it. But on the other hand I heart my job, I heart my friends, my dancing and Cape Town's scenic, magical, unparalleled beauty and all it has to offer... like freezocinos. And Hunters Dry. And the promenade. And weather like today! So if something's going to pull me away from it all, it's got to be good!!