All I Want For (Before) Christmas

As of Friday 13th (oh fortuitous day) I am single. I actually did the lamb dance from court all the way back to the car park as soon as the Judge smacked her gavel down. This is not to say I was happy about being divorced, because the word I am looking for is closer to ecstatic. And it's not to say I don't have regret, because I do. My ex is a lovely bloke but we were just not lovely for each other. Heaven knows we tried hard, through two marriages in fact, but we were like anti-marriage for each other and the more time that passed, the more horrible we became to ourselves and each other. And now, after a year of separation, I am me again, and he is himself again, and we can both, with grace, move onto new chapters. So I did the lamb dance.

And move on I have. I am dipping my toes in the dating pool. Some may feel going from divorce court directly to a coffee date is a little extreme, but at 43, I don't have a whole lot of respect for standing on ceremony. I am emotionally intact, not in need of rescue spiritually or financially and what the hell. Problem is that I live in the arse end of beyond where the local entertainment is limited to one very dodgy pub called "Pistol's Saloon and Wild West Museum" that attracts the kind of clientele best avoided. And all my friends are heavily married and very very much younger than me so a fix up will brand me as a Cougar and that is so just not my style. Which leaves dating, in the old fashioned sense of the word, with limited scope. In fact, none at all.

The thought of dragging myself through another freezing, wet, Natal winter on my own is just abhorrent. Not that I want to be someones girlfriend, but a companion would be fabulous. Companion, did I actually just say that? But that's precisely what I want. Someone with enough oomph and intellect to have funny, interesting, thought provoking but not exhaustive conversations and to share life's special pleasures with would be marvellous. And that can eat with a knife and fork and get on with my friends. With his own home to go back to. So how to get this right when the night life here is limited to the wailing of feral cats and the rutting of the over population of wild pig in the forest over the road.

Since my internet connection has been fully restored, the answer is simple. Internet date. What could be easier than filling in a little questionnaire about likes and preferences and waiting for a clever computer to filter out the dross and provide a list of potential companions for winter? Despite being brutally honest in my profile, and using really big difficult words like eloquence, capability, chivalry, courage, raconteur and bon vivant (yes, my dream man is a cross between James Bond, McGiver and Bruce Willis, sort of like Robert Redford's character in Story of an African Farm), I attract peaches from Pongola who "want 2 kiss and hug U stukkend". For my limited international audience, "stukkend" is Afrikaans for "broken". There are odd bods from Limpopo Province who would like to be showing me their tractors and various other bits of machinery and yet more, closer to home alarmingly, who are bold enough to admit their marital status (married) who suggest discreet hook ups in local hotels. This in a town where even the petrol pump attendants know every customer by name. Discreet? I think not. And to crown it, a call from my ex to say that one of his friends (and a very married one at that with a lovely wife) had called him to tell him he had seen me on the dating website. The mind boggles.

But date I did, straight out of court and nearly collapsed at the hilarity of it all. Two forty somethings completely inept and incapacitated by nerves. The Date almost fell in his swimming pool so anxious was he; he could not sit still, and I could not stop laughing. And we get on really really well, except he thinks he isn't ready for a relationship and I know I am not in need of a relationship, and like a pair of idiots, we have flip flopped into a friendship of sorts that has its cornerstone clearly marked with big writing "SELF DENIAL". His, not mine. It's a bitter irony.

Wading through the detritus of what constitutes a single South African man has lost its comedic appeal and has actually become a little alarming. Consequently, my profile is now permanently disabled. So short of moving a few hundred kilometres north, I am afraid I may have to take up knitting and start rescuing cats. I haven't, however, completely given up hope - watch this space.

So In Love

It has to be said, I have to confess, finally, that I am totally utterly, completely in love love love with Greys Anatomy. On so many levels. This astounds me somewhat, that I could be so besotted with a crowd of narcissistic, self obsessed, immoral, horribly opinionated, serial sexaholics, but I am. There is not an ounce of moral fibre in any of them but in love I am. And it doesn't stop there. No, I have allowed Greys to infiltrate so much of my life that I use "Greys Speak" often in my normal everyday conversations. Corinne is "my person". Unless you are a Fundy yourself, you won't get it. I do, and I have a person. It gives me the warm fuzzies that finally there is a perfect description for a best best best friend. I have a person, people.

Since being Greyed, it is so easy to voice my upset at silly, annoying, stupid, thoughtless or cruel people. No longer do I have to plumb the depths of my backbone to find the courage to voice my dissent. No longer do I have to think of words that fit together to say something in defence of the situation or to slap the idiot down. No, thanks to Greys all I have to do is arch an eyebrow (which took some practice in front of the mirror to get it perfectly ironically arched) and say "Seriously?". And this word is amazing. You can say it flat like a statement, lilt the end like a question, bark it out like a command. It is the all purpose shut up and think command. I love it. Seriously.

No more for me evenings of morbid self pity, no. I dance it off. Thanks to Christina Yang, I have the perfect pick me up for a shitty mood. I dance it off. The fact that I dance it off to the Greys Anatomy Soundtracks I, II and III is a little tragic, but it is so, so good. And most of the music from Greys is by militant anarchic chic bands. Nothing better to dance off an "all men are idiots" mood to a song called "Lifespan of a Fly" or "Your Head's too Big".

Monday nights for me are sacrosanct. Between 7:30 and 8:30 I am mesmerised. And what a perfect combo. Hot thirty and forty something professionals all chasing each other round the doctor's lounges and sneaking in and out of utility rooms, a bit of blood and gore and snapping of bones, human angst and a wry look at the human condition. I am hooked.

So hooked that one evening I worked out that its only Miranda Bailey and The Chief who haven't vicariously slept with the entire staff. They even chuck a few patients into the mix. Its a Petrie dish of human emotion and raw, unanaesthetised pleasure seeking.

I have decided if I were ever in the position to be hospitalised at Seattle Grace, I would never leave. They would have to get an eviction order. Ooh and that is such a provocative thought; hot steamy doctors and unemotional, feisty lawyers. What an episode!

Loving Telkom

My Internet connection has been intermittent to non existent at home for almost a year now. A year. There are many and varied reasons for this and none of them, nary a one, involve non payment of an account. The problem started it seems when the line up the road was upset off the banana tree holding it up by a pack of adolescent monkeys, delinquent little sods, and the line was touching the ground in places. I phoned the technical faults department and was assured of a call out within 24 hours. So far so good. This was followed up with an SMS confirming the call out. "Wow", I think. The technician arrived at the house and Rosie Gogo informs me that she, yes the technician was a woman who can climb up ladders with power tools, respect, had been here and advised us that we needed a new modem.

"Did she look at the line lying in the bush Rosie?" I ask with amazement. Only to find that she hadn't.

What is incredible is that the technician would have to drive over this line in places to get to our house. How that translated to a burning need for a new modem I will never know.

I decide to phone the technical faults department and advise them that my modem is fine and once again explain that banana trees are not the most reliable alternatives for telephone poles. I pick up my phone and the line sounds like there is a swarm of rabid African fighting bees in mating season frolicking in the exchange. Plan B. I phone on my cell phone and while on the line to Telkom, they send me an SMS telling me that the fault on the line has been cleared. Clearly not. In fact the situation has deteriorated quite considerably.

The technician comes out again about a week later. Once again she fiddles in the little wall plug with her magic screwdriver and departs declaring the modem fine and the fault cleared. I come home a drive over the telephone line wondering why in the name of all things holy the technician even bothered.

I pick up my phone line. Incredibly, as I wait for my call (that is important to Telkom, please stay on the line) to be answered I notice that the red light on the modem has gone green. Quick as a flash I log onto my email and whaddayaknow I have an internet connection. I report the line on the road, again, in a very good mood (because I am multitasking and browsing FaceBook) and hang up. Lo and behold, no sooner do I end the call than the modem drops.

Now being a bit of a MacGyver this intrigues me no end. I discover after a few experimental phone calls, that if I phone my cell phone from my land line and whistle a little tune, the modem comes to life. Result! I have a short term solution. The following morning, I phone Telkom again and report this phenomenon. They didn't seem that impressed or bothered and said a technician would be out.

Fast forward another fortnight and while slaving away at the office I get a phone call from the Telkom technician, this time a chap, who tells me he is at my house and could I please explain the issues to him. "well, did you drive over the line as you approached my house?" I ask him to which he replies in the affirmative. "Do you still need me to explain what the problem is or is it now reasonably obvious to you?" I ask. He again, very tersely asks me what the issue is.

"Wander down the drive and have a look at whats holding my telephone line up," I reply. He says he will phone me back. Which he never does. I get home that evening and drive over the lines with a rising sense of outrage. I also discover that my whistling trick only works if there is no wind and no rain. I am once again marooned in the bush with no internet.

The next morning I take my trusty Blackberry and photograph the line. I get to work and email the head of the Port Shepstone Business unit at Telkom with the evidence of the failed banana poles. I write a suitably terse diatribe. I additionally report the line fault, again, by phone.

Fast forward a fortnight. I get an email from this business unit bloke saying how desperately unacceptable the situation is and to stand by for a technician. The lady and her power tools return. Rosie Gogo phones me to tell me that she gave the nice lady tea and a peanut butter sandwich but that the technician says we need a new modem. "Did she put the line back on the poles Rosie?" I ask hopefully to which Rosie responds that she didn't.

I get home that evening and discover that the bees have returned to the exchange but they obviously have learned to whistle because the modem is up. I use this opportunity to Google for every senior management email at Telkom that I can find. I email everyone and attach pictures.

Fast forward another two weeks and I get a frantic call from Rosie Gogo to say there are tree fellers in our road. I rush home. Lo and behold it is Telkom, dropping banana trees by the dozen. And a technician up the pole with a pair of pliers reattaching the lines. I almost weep with gratitude. That is until I discover that the line at home is now dead and no amount of whistling will resurrect the damn thing.

I report the line fault. Over and over. Like that movie Groundhog Day. I have been on the phone to Telkom so often that I have even composed lyrics to the brain numbing on-hold tune. They are good lyrics. My line and internet however are still about as temperamental as a crack addict in detox. I have discovered that whistling the on-hold tune from Telkom gives me enough time online to check email and update my Facebook status but precious little else. I still cannot make phone calls where people actually speak to each other.

This weekend I discovered to my delight that I have an internet connection. It's intermittent, but its enough to read the Blog and write something. And on Monday I will be phoning Telkom again. If only to wish them a happy anniversary. And whistle a little tune.

A Dry June

That is was, June. A dry month creatively but a very wet one emotionally. I have cried a river. I have cried all the tears I have in me and still there are more. And I have flu. Delightful.

I started processing the realities of my life as it now is and the realities my future. It all took me a bit by storm. I started processing the last few years and got hauled back into the horror of the years preceding those. I had one of those ghastly "look back at the whole bang shooting match" experiences where you come down on yourself like a ton of bricks and regret comes barging in like it does with no respect and no regard and no holds barred. And I beat myself up badly. So badly in fact that I berated myself into a funk. So June was a dry dry month.

However, being me, survivor that I am, I also took a firm grip of my own collar.  Which is a step in the right direction.

The horrific dreams of bailiffs banging down the doors will stop and I will be able to see wood for trees.

Because the reality is that it is not all as dire as it could have been and it is not as ghastly as I think it is and that, if anyone is reading this, is the truth of any seemingly terrible situation. It is a resounding truth that where there is a will there is a way.

So here are some of the things I have learned in my dry month.

BE GRATEFUL

No matter how appalled I am and appalling the situation, there is always a long list of things to be grateful for. Some big, some pathetically small. I started a gratitude diary and I write it to God. And God is mighty and wonderful to me. In writing every day, in this gratitude diary, blessings have showered on me, totally unexpected blessings which are the best kind, and that in turn makes me more grateful and so on and so forth and so the wheel of the attitude of gratitude turns.

BE GIVING

It is so easy to be bogged down in my own misery, walking along plod plod plod looking at my own feet. The other day at the super-market, I lifted my head a little and saw a man on a bombed out typists chair. The legs of the chair had been sawn off and the seat was tied to a skateboard with a piece of rope. The man had no legs but the widest and brightest smile you could ever imagine. I was at the till and had just won a R20 note in some in-store promotion. I had to run let me tell you to catch up with the happy man on his home made wheelchair. I gave him the money looking right in his face. "I just won this" I said. "I want you to have it". "I am so lucky!" he said to me. "God bless you." And you know He does, daily. He blessed me with a fit and able body. And so back to my gratitude diary.

BE FORGIVING

It is also incredibly easy to blame the situation and circumstances on some other party. It lets me feel self pity and it lets me feel justified in feeling bummed and resentful. However, in my dry month I have looked at my part and what I allowed and didn't allow and said and didn't say and where my behaviour contributed to where we are now. And blaming everything squarely on someone else is not realistic or truthful anymore. I have to take my portion of it squarely on my shoulders. I discovered that when I did this, my first prayer to God was "Forgive me Father" and therein lies the crunch. How on earth can I expect forgiveness if I cannot first forgive? So the healing process of forgiveness starts first with me. To process and to forgive and to let go.

BE ASSURED

Now this is a fun one. Being bogged in it is easy. Being bogged in so deep that I can barely breathe and can't keep treading water. That drowning feeling is overwhelming. It would be so easy to let the waves close over my head and just give up. Problem is, that by giving up, I stay put. I would stay in this horrible place forever. I have to keep moving forward and in this comes the assurance. Look back. Looking back over my life I saw that there have been many times when I thought I was in an impossible situation, when my heart was broken or my finances were mangled or my life was too chaotic to manage. And I realised, I got through it. Every time. So I assure myself, minute by minute if necessary, that this time will pass and I will get through it if I just keep moving forward. On my desk is a great coffee coaster - it says "If you're going through hell, keep going". Wise words, sage advice.

BE KIND

This is a hard one because it involves an action that does not come naturally me to me; self love. But, in my dry month I have realised the value of being kind to myself. Taking care of the littlest things that I didn't really feel like doing much. Simple things like sorting through my wardrobe and making up new outfits. Giving myself a facial, a mani and a pedi. The big things too. Seeing my counsellor when things were closing in on me, talking my real feelings through with a trusted friend, being kind and gentle with my own heart. The upside of this kindness shown inwardly is that the patience I then as a consequence demonstrated outwardly,  paid unexpected dividends. More people cared. Kindness was shown to me in the most unexpected ways. My chemist knocking more than half price off a scarf she thought would look gorgeous on me and brighten my day. She was right and she all but gave me the scarf and I know she is battling herself. Friends who rally around me despite the chaos in their own lives. And I feel better about myself knowing that I have taken time to feel better, comforted myself without indulging in the dross. Somehow having smooth shaven legs while having a good cry is so much better than a cry feeling manky and unkempt. By being kind to myself I build my self esteem in the subtlest of ways. From within.

BE FULL OF FAITH

This one for me is easier to embrace because I am a saved God server. I am not religious in any way but I do have a deep and meaningful, loving and assured personal relationship with God. And that for me is good. I have found that understanding faith when you are up to your eyeballs in the pit with alligators chomping around your ears is not always easy though. Faith is living by what is unseen. And if all you can see are the alligators, faith is a little tough to hang onto. However, I found in my dry month that faith moves mountains. Alligators or not, faith is the assurance that not everything is what it seems to be and that waiting on the other side is something new and different. God promises us that He has plans for us, plans to benefit and prosper us and never to do us harm. It is this assurance I hang onto and this assurance that feeds my faith that tomorrow will be different and better and not the same as today.

EASY DOES IT

Rome, as the saying goes, was not built in a day. And likewise, my situation is not going to change overnight no matter how desperately I want  it to. The magic fairies are not going to sweep in and wave their magic wands. This is a one day at a time life we live. We have no control over tomorrow and we have no way of changing yesterday. All we have is today and each today comes with it's own set of circumstances and issues and pluses and minuses. In my dry month I have learned to take very deep breaths and just take things one step at a time, one day at a time, little by little. Suddenly the feeling of being overwhelmed leaves and I can cope. It's when I try and run at it like a bull at a gate that it all goes horribly wrong and I find myself drowning in a sea of anxiety and fear. So easy does it.

ELEPHANT STEW

Yes, put altogether, my circumstances are enormously overwhelmingly hugely frighteningly massive. However, to make an elephant stew, you start by cutting the elephant into bite size pieces. Try it any other way and there will never be either a pot big enough or an elephant small enough to make that stew. I found by breaking the whole sorry mess down into its parts, the mess is easier to work through. Bite size elephant. Each part can be dealt with individually and it's no longer so hard to work through.

WRITE IT ALL DOWN

I have also found that writing it all down works. Not the mess, but the solutions. Not the current scenario but the desired outcomes. This is part of the visualisation process, the part that we can be assured about and be faithful for. By writing it down, it keeps me focused, keeps me assured and keeps me faithful.

And it is incredible to see how, when combined with my gratitude diary, all the little blessings add up to the place I want to get to. Every today is so much better than yesterday and so it goes, step by step, little by little.

PRAY AND SURRENDER

I pray, all the time. And it is amazing the comfort that comes from this. My gratitude diary, acts of kindness, giving, even listening to music, in my heart us a prayer constantly. For me again, this is a simple thing and I realise it doesn't come to everyone as easily. However when I was a new Christian, still battling with concepts and bogged in childhood ideologies learned through religion, prayer for me was tough. Until I started acting "As If". I acted as if someone loving and kind was listening. I acted as if this loving entity knew all my hearts desires and all my pain and all my fear already. And prayer became easy. What is not so easy for me is surrender. Being a survivor means doing things my way and at my pace. Surrendering means leaving it to someone else to do at their pace and in their way. This is the trust relationship with God. In my dry month I am learning how to surrender my will and my way to God. I am acting again, "as if" and through assurance and through faith, trusting the outcomes to God. And God keeps on delivering.

Dry creatively, yes but far far from uneventful and a month of profound growth; profound highs and profound lows. I have learned so much and I am not where I was the month before or the month before that. My pain is still palpable but I am not so raw anymore, I am not so afraid and I am not so alone anymore. In all, a good month.

Clever Old Dames

Okay so this week went by in a flurry and before I knew it Friday was here and I was all kerfuffled. And my hair! This entire week has been a hair event from hell. I love a short choppy style, easy and no mess no fuss and cannot see wood from trees to get an appointment to have it cut any time in the near future. So guess what? Being a hoarder of old magazines and postcards has its advantages. Somewhere in my magic box of tricks I remembered seeing an article about hair-do's written in the forties. You guessed it, how to cut your own hair was a big thing during the war and if those frugal old dames could get it right during a blitz, why couldn't I? Why not indeed.

I have all the advantages; alligator clips from my GHD kit, bright lights and very sharp scissors and almost perfect vision with my glasses on. Add to this no interruptions from air raid sirens, falling mortars or rabid gestapo and my chances of success were much much better than my predecessors.

I set up shop in my bathroom and laid all my equipment out carefully. About 7 seconds into my preparations, I realised that my dress making scissors were much too big and much too clumsy for the job. This sent me scouting through the boys bedrooms for any other sharpish scissors that would do the trick. My eldest came to the rescue with a lovely pair of bright orange scissors with a classy Ben 10 motif on the sides. Perfect.

Preparations now complete I notice I had attracted an audience of 2 small boys, 2 kittens and Victor the Mutt. All in my very small bathroom. Victor was the only one smiling at this stage in that vacuous way of dogs complete with his tongue lolling and tail wagging. The kids on the other hand were wide eyed with anticipation and my eldest in his sage way voicing his concern at the sensibility of this latest foray into haute coiffure.

Let me add at this point that my preparations did not actually involve finding said article on how to do this. No! I relied on my perfect recall for all facts trivial and was absolutely dead sure I remembered each and every step verbatim.

I began by wetting my unruly mop and combing it through into neat rows on my head. The article said (and I am sure of this) to section the head into quarters and then twist each section into a bunch and cut through at even lengths. This I did, repeatedly, all over my head until I resembled a startled hedgehog. So far so good.

By now my audience was in disarray. The kittens were eating my shorn locks, Victor was asleep and the kids were once again falling about laughing and pointing. It is at this stage that I started to worry about texture and decided to add a new millennium twist to my new found hairdressing talent. Taking each clump of newly lopped hair in one hand and the Ben 10 scissors in the other, I proceeded to chop into the top of each clump to give definition and texture to the cut. Clearly I was still on a roll.

Then for the moment of truth. I ran my hands through my hair to separate the clumps and see the final result and discovered I had given myself not the perfect Sixties Pixie sported by Hepburn et al, but a perfect trailer park Mullet!

Back to the drawing board I went, this time working on the back of my head and without glasses which kept getting in the way. This of course reduced visibility forward to near zero and despite my kids total belief to the contrary, the eyes in the back of my head were seriously out of order. Being the trooper I am I however persevered and I have to say the outcome is not half bad.

I did wake up this morning wondering if I would have to make up a story about the hamsters going nuts in the night to my long suffering (properly trained and qualified) hairdresser but no; my Pixie is perfect. With the right amount of moulding mud, texture goo and wet look gel, you can't see any sign that the Do is DIY at all and I am righteously proud of my new locks.

Clever old Gals those war brides.