Hindsight is an Exact Science!

Fear is a nasty thing.  Fear of standing on the edge and jumping off because you could possibly crash and burn.  Regret is a nastier thing.  Regretting you hadn’t stood on the edge and jumped off because maybe, just maybe you would have sprouted wings and flown off before you crashed and burned.

Eons ago there was a time when I remember being terrified of making that decision to stand on the edge and jump.  The decision I was faced with was whether or not to ditch my life and career and move to a farm in the armpit of civilisation.  However, I sucked it up, tied a very tenuous rubbery cord to my ankles and I jumped off the edge.

Did I grow wings?  Perhaps I should say I grew winglets.  Wait, even that sounds too glamorous, or cute.  I grew wing stubs.  Horrible, gnarled stubs with a few ugly little feathery attempts.  You know, like those yucky things you get on badly plucked chicken wings, reminding you that what you are about to cook and eat was once a fully living, feathered creature*

Moving down to the idyllic countryside practically tore me in two.  The blog entries I nuked in a fit of self-recrimination attest to my difficulty of trying to find my feet in the cow pat infested, garden munching insect world of the farm – because horrible, gnarled stubs are pretty useless at helping you stay upright.

And now, lying in bed, thinking (because this mind never switches off), I wonder if those horrible gnarled stubs didn’t perhaps strengthen in something more and perhaps prettier than that what they were originally.  You know, with proper feathers and all.

Life in The Big Smoke hasn’t been easy.  There is no denying that there have been good things – my job hunting successes for one.  Looking back though, I can’t help but wonder if I haven’t traded those fledgling semblances of wings for the horrible, gnarled stumps again.

Take for example my reasons for moving back to The Big Smoke – all my friends are here.  Well, the irony is ‘all’ amounts to one, and I don’t get time to see him.  Life just runs away with you here.

Another reason – I need to work.  Well, the irony of that is all I do now is work, 24/7.  Oh, not in that way, I’m not at work for that amount of time.  However, I have been known to go from a state of full slumber to wide awake at 03:00 on a Thursday morning, panicking about the fact that I was supposed to book someone a bus ticket from one part of the country to another.  Once the brain started functioning again, I realised that I had in fact booked the ticket and said person was on the bus, probably snoring their head off, and on their way to their destination.  That’s my point, I can’t switch off from work – my brain is constantly working, reminding myself of things I haven’t done and still have to do.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely adore the company I work for and the people I work with.  But this job is driving me stark raving insane.

And why, please tell me why, did The Big Smoke have to welcome me back by putting my camera and laptop under new management, forcibly?

There are so many things that haunt me every day.  The great outdoors… the closest I come to the great outdoors is when the furry brings in a half dead rodent.

My beloved Houndus Maximus… I’ll probably never see him again.  And if I did, it would break my heart.

Perhaps, if I hadn’t jumped, my feline soul mate would have been able to die peacefully in her sleep instead of being driven over in the driveway.

I miss the farm, I miss the smells.  I miss being able to look out my window and watch the sunbirds build their nest and eventually carry food to their little ones.  I miss being able to see the humour in the fumblings of a misfit trying to cope with the squishy odds and crunchy ends of farm life.  I miss the inspiration the uncluttered spaces and sounds gave me to write.

Many people will disagree with me but cities are just dead.  Of course they are teeming with ‘life,’ traffic, people going somewhere, doing things, important things.  But the city remains dead.  Spring doesn’t bring the smell of flowers.  Bird song is drowned out, killed.  Life passes in a flash, by the middle of the year everyone will wonder what happened to January because it was ‘just the other day.’

So, hindsight being an exact science… I can say maybe… it wasn’t all that bad.

*I mean, if we are going to eat chicken, could they at least remove all evidence of life and not make us feel guilty?

Signs of the Times

New Years Resolutions are something which, in my opinion, are intended to eventually drench the resolver in guilt when they fail to live up to those goals they set out to achieve.  Well, this is my outlook anyway because, I am a Virgo and tend to set impossible goals, only to allow myself to indulge in yet another life long guilt trip.

I do however have ONE RESOLUTION – yes, in capitals because it is important to me.  Without fanfare, I reveal my RESOLUTION:  To try and blog more often.

Did you notice the ‘try?’  An escape route is such a wonderful thing but necessary when you are a perfectionist Virgo.

It’s been just over a year since I moved up to Jo’burg, a decision which was met with mixed reactions all around.  To date, I still suffer from mixed reactions.  The fact that I was yet again the victim of a house breaking hasn’t spurred along any feelings of Big City euphoria.  I’ve always wondered, does it qualify as a house breaking when you are asleep in your bed while the intruder helps themselves to two of your three most valued possessions?  Sadly I said goodbye to my beloved camera and my laptop with all my photographic memories.

However, there have been good things.  I have someone very special in my life, I have a furry feline to lovingly annoy me and, despite a global economic recession, I went for exactly two job interviews at different times of 2009 and I got both.

So what’s in store for 2010?  Well, if Old Years Eve is anything to go by, lots of much needed sleep.  The process of bidding farewell to the old year took the form of the traditional South African braai with a whole bunch of people to share the occasion.  Sign of the times?  Well, by 23:00 we hard working, underpaid, fatigued professionals* were staring at the clock and whining, “Is it time yet?”

2009 had left a bewildering batch of imagery in my head though.  Has anyone purchased a box of condiments** recently?  You know, for party balloons of course?  The box now has a wonderful little statement, “Improved smell,” or something to that effect.  My mind is boggling at the thought of different applications… condiment potpourri…  Just imagine the guests’ reactions when they walk into the living room and spy a bowl of fresh, newly scented condiments.  An arrangement of condiments on sticks, in a vase… that would make interesting conversation piece.  Party balloons with ‘improved smell’… although that might create the wrong impression of what kind of party you are hosting.

Is that a sign of the times?  Probably not, just that my mind is still overactive.  The year might change but some things don’t.

Wishing all and sundry an “Improved” 2010.

*That sounds so much better than “boring old individuals with no energy.”

** Also known as prophylatics

On the Smaller Things in Life, Part 1!

Why, oh why, does blogging inspiration hit late at night when I am supposed to be getting ready for bed?  I mean, come on, tomorrow is Monday.  It’s a school night, technically speaking.

To be honest, I really miss my blog.  I miss the benefits of blogging, like comments.  There is nothing like that thrill when you are notified that someone took the time to not only read the crud you wrote but also commented on it.  Admit it, that is what bloggers live for, despite the many protestations of “Oh, I blog for myself.”

Over the passed few days, I’ve been hit by the reality of life – work, which is draining me to the point where I have no time to do the things I love, like blogging.  It’s not so much ‘blogging’ but writing.  However, I have discovered a wonderful author who has sort of inspired me.  Remind me to tell you about her – every blogger should at least read her because she explains so well what we, bloggers, are doing.

So yes, work is draining me.  And, to be honest, the work I do work isn’t all that it is cracked up to be.  To add insult to the hitting, tomorrow is Monday, the start of another long working week.

While I sat here in the throes of Sunday night morbs, I decided to play around with a new software programme that I should get to grips with but is mostly beyond me.  It involves me going through photos on my crummy laptop.  These photos are ones I have taken since I have relocated myself to The Big Smoke.

Going through these photos made me realise something.  It made me realise how easy it is to lose sight of the ’smaller’ things in life, especially when you live in a city and don’t have the opportunity to walk down a dusty farm road and suddenly notice a brilliant flower.  Going through the photos, seeing a special person and myself getting silly with a pink feather boa on his birthday made me laugh, and it struck me how a frozen moment caught in digital format could suddenly make me so happy.  It made me realise that life is about those special moments in time, not about the rush and routine to get to work, pay the bills, etc, etc, ad nauseum.

The thing is, cities and work and life just crowds in and pushes those smaller things out.  You forget those small, special things when you enter robot mode.

Well, I’m going to try, very hard, to recapture the feeling I had for the smaller things in life, those little bits of beauty that would probably go unnoticed if you didn’t look for them.

So, without further ado, and long overdue, I need to say thank you to the brilliant designer of my blog header and perhaps explain its meaning.

This blog hasn’t gone through many changes in terms of blog headers.  The first true blog header was designed primarily by the famous Kyknoord and given as a much appreciated gift.  It morphed into the final product with inputs from ShutterJane.  The second one was a photo I took that I plonked up there in sheer desperation, I was in need of a change because I had become a different person and I suspected my blog was about to become different too.

Moving to Jo’burg signaled another change in my life and probably in my blog.

You see, being a girl with extreme champagne tastes and beer money, I did the cheapy thing.  I pounced on a graphic designer who happened to come in the form of The Highlander.  After having seen samples of his work (you should see his car!), I decided I had found my quarry and seductively threw him the pitch.

I wanted something simple: black background with a green outline of the Jo’burg skyline and a kitty (maybe with a box) along that skyline.  Simple!

One day, out of the blue, months after I mentioned it to him, I received a stunning blog header in my mailbox.

The basic concept is there, Jo’burg skyline, kitty, black, green… you get the drift.  But, it was the little personal touches and the little bits of extra that blew me away.

The ball of yarn, wool as we know it… well, cats love wool.  It’s a fact – I know this because I just have to whip out my knitting bag and a cat will appear out of nowhere and try and climb into it and shred the poor unsuspecting ball of sheep fur.  And I have started knitting again… or at least I was until work killed me and my inspiration.

And then there are the stars.  Well, it’s pretty much impossible to see that many stars in the city but, it sort of reminds me of the farm I guess.  And the best part, there is a shooting one amongst them.  Perhaps a gentle reminder to keep dreaming, and wishing.

Of course, there is the kitty.  That’s me, complete with comfortable haunches. 

How did he know what to do in terms of the extra bits and pieces?  Well, he knows me better than most and probably not at all.

Did I forget to mention that The Highlander continuously wails “But I can’t draw!”  If you look carefully, you will see his signature which I am proud to have up there, mixed in with the green and black.

Thank you, Red!

Perhaps I should warn you but the blog entries from now on are more than likely going to be cheesy as hell but, to hell with that, I’m concentrating on the smaller things in life in an effort to maintain my sanity which is tenuous at the best of times.

On Sale: Thinking Caps!

Well, not really but they should be.

One has to be careful when blogging about work related situations – we’ve all heard the horror stories about bloggers who have lost their jobs because they a) blogged about the horrors of their daily toil and colleagues or b) took a photo of themselves in their work uniform and used it as a blog header.  So, if this, and possible future entries, are rather vague, I apologise.  However, I know that the last few Katt Box readers out there are intelligent enough to figure it out.

First a bit of background.  When hunting for a job, in desperation I applied for a position in the retail industry.  This is a first for me, retail is an unknown world.  When I got the position after the standard set of interviews, I took it as an omen.  “It was meant to be.”  And for the most part, I really enjoy what I do.

There are of course, as with any kind of formal employment, hazards and unpleasant obstacles which have to be dealt with.

Hazard:  The fact that you are on your feet for most of the day.  When you arrive home the only thing on your drained mind is lying on the couch and being fed morsels of Lobster Thermidor by some scantily clad toy boy.  Reality however does bite, hard!  I suppose now would be as good a time as any to mention that I have just scoffed down a plate of corned beef and Smash.  Oh stop puking!  Corned beef really doesn’t deserve the bad rap it gets.

What was I saying?  Oh…

Obstacles:  Most commonly these walk through the doors and seek your assistance in some way or another.  More often than not, the said bipeds are pleasant people who engage you in a bit of witty banter, pay for your pleasant (most of the time) services and leave.  But, there are of course the odd few who unsettle you and make you wonder if they fell out of bed and forgot to put on their thinking caps.

One of the services we offer is to allow you, the valued customer, a safe haven to deliver your precious missives, after which we redirect it to that place which promptly loses your precious missives, SOAP.  Because we are relying on SOAP to play middle man, we have no way of guaranteeing SOAP’s service.

So, enter Interesting Obstacle with carefully wrapped missive.  Obstacle states that he needs the missive to reach a local destination within the next two weeks (throw a few public holidays into those next two weeks to complicate matters).  Your smiling face informs him that you can indeed offer him the option to have his precious missive hand delivered to the door with yet another smile.  Obstacle is not prepared to pay for the hand delivered service and would rather take his chances with SOAP.

How do you avoid looking like a landed guppy when the same Obstacle walks through the doors a week later and asks “Do you have any news about my letter?  Has it arrived?”

What you don’t say is “How the hell should I know” but what you do say is “But sir, you chose the option of sending it with SOAP.  We have to hope and pray for the best because there is no way we can trace its movements.”

*sneak one thinking cap into his bag*

Or the time yet another Interesting Obstacle walks through the door and asks you to please perform that amazing technological miracle whereby you send a piece of paper or 20 to a machine at the end of a number.  Dutifully you go about your duties and enter the number the Obstacle has given you.

15 minutes later the same Obstacle is back with his cell ‘phone attached to his ear, giving you a foul look and telling you the piece of paper never reached its destination.  With infinite patience you explain that it was trying to get there but it didn’t seem to want to go through.  Obstacle then confirms the number with the poor soul on the other end of the cell ‘phone call and discovers that he did indeed give you the wrong number.

Correct number, re-enter number, etc, etc.  Obstacle then glares at you and says the person on the other end of the cell ‘phone call is standing at his machine and he has not received the paper.  Your machine however tells you otherwise.  In fact, it tells you the exact time it was delivered and of course you pass this information on.

Obstacle’s conversation with cell ‘phone, “Oh, it is there.  You did get it.”  Inside you seethe and want to say “So much for standing at the machine!”

What you don’t say, “In future, if you give me the wrong bloody number in the first instance, don’t treat me like I am the imbecile and hang around impatiently as if you think I am not doing my job properly.”  What you do say is “Thank you so much.  Have a nice day!”

*throw the Super Charged Thinking Cap at Obstacle’s retreating figure*

Another one of the services we offer is the luxury of being able to have missives, thin and important, or lumpy and precious hand delivered not only within the boundaries of our fair country but also within the boundaries of any other fair country.

This service has however been slightly thwarted by the fact that the folks who convey these missives have decided they are entitled to more money and are not going to convey anything until they have it.

Enter Interesting Obstacle with missive wrapped in dull, brown paper.  It needs to go to fair shores way on the other side of the planet.  “That’s fine,” you say but being dutiful, you feel the need to inform Obstacle that alas, his poor missive is without conveyance until someone gives in and ends the Battle for More Money.

Ah, he understands.  And then duly asks you, “So when do you think the Battle will be over so my missive can be sent on its journey.”

What you don’t say is “Give me a moment, I will go and consult my crystal ball which has all the answers to situations political, financial and esoteric.”  What you do say is “Well, sir, it depends on how long the Battle wages for.  Rumour has it that it should be over by then end of the Easter weekend.”

*Don’t bother with the Thinking Cap.  Some Obstacles just don’t deserve them*

It wasn’t all bad though.  I got banana bread at work today.

The Last of the Bad and Ugly…

Okay, I don’t care if I get tied to a stake and torched but, Jo’burg is a dump.  Big time!

For starters, in my ten year absence, someone rolled up the streets and rearranged them.  And gave them other names!

Driving on the highway has become an ordeal in which your memory and navigational skills are put to the test.

Imagine a long stretch of tar, you are on it, driving from south to north.  The hallowed off ramp goes by the name of Modderfontein and said off ramp is the Holy Grail of your journey.  You know it is there, it was there ten years ago and it’s a main arterial road.  Voila, it appears, like a beacon of hope (because your doddering mode of transport has decided to test your nerves and cut out while being pushed to 120km/h by a rather large truck).  The white letters describing a muddy spring smile out at you from its green background and you can almost feel it beckoning to you from its vantage point on the side of the bridge.  Relief seeps through the very marrow in your bones when you finally turn off the ignition at your destination.

Now, imagine the same journey but going from north to south (because you were forced to take the wrong off ramp because the one you were supposed to take has either mysteriously been relocated or now has an unrecognisable, unpronounceable name).  The Holy Grail of your journey is still the Modderfontein off ramp.  But alas, there is no longer a muddy spring off ramp, not from that direction anyway.  Your options are now Kempton Park and something somewhere else, somewhere else you really don’t want to be.

Throwing a tantrum in the middle of the highway in a car that is not entirely a viable option at that point but it would more than likely bring some welcome stress relief.  You clench your jaw harder and continue on your no longer merry way.

After coming to an off ramp you do recognise, only because it got left behind in the Let’s Rename Everything and Anything Flurry, you do the standard up the off ramp, across the highway, down the off ramp manoeuvre.  And find the off ramp you were looking for, only to realise it was the one you thought it was but it has a different name, depending on which direction you are coming from.

Fun, I tell you.  Did I forget to mention I drive like a farm girl?

If any of my old blog readers still visit here, you might remember how I used to whine about the shops in the Eastern Cape – the poorly stocked shelves?  And the shoddy supposed 3G internet connection?  And the terrible service in restaurants?  Well, I always thought that the Eastern Cape was sort of cut off from the rest of South Africa but, I was wrong.  I’ve now realised that the Eastern Cape has been infecting the rest of South Africa.  Apart from the weather, the fact that I have no idea where I am going and get lost a lot, the scenery, the smog, the….  Okay, it’s entirely different from the Eastern Cape but what I was going to say is that sometimes it feels like I never left.

Leaving the Eastern Cape of course meant I had to leave many precious creatures and things behind.  The things are not really that important but the precious creatures are.  I suppose a part of me was consoled by the fact that Houndus Maximus, Hades Cat and Ciller Cat were safe in the home and environment they all loved and were used to.  Deep down inside I knew I could always see them again when the opportunity presented itself.

That much is true when it comes to Houndus Maximus and Ciller Cat.  But sadly, not for Hades Cat.

You see, despite making her promise to me that she would one die day of old age, peacefully in her sleep, she couldn’t keep that promise and not because she didn’t want to.

A week and a bit after I arrived in Jo’burg, I got the news that my beloved feline companion had gone to the Kitty Palace in the Sky.  She was having a sand bath in the driveway.  And one of the local landed gentry was at the house, fiddling with the newly installed borehole pump.  As most awareness challenged people do, he got in his vehicle without looking around before he did so.  And promptly reversed over my feline soul mate.  She was a bit blind and a bit deaf from age and so didn’t get out of the way.

What breaks my heart and riddles me with guilt is that this wouldn’t have happened if I had been there.  Whenever there was a car in the driveway, I always checked to see where she was when the car started up.  She was getting on in years, she needed a bit of looking after, a bit of watching over.

Cally would have been 17 this month.  I still remember the day I got her.  The sign in the varsity cafeteria said “Free kittens.  Will go to the SPCA if homes aren’t found.”

The lounge in her parents’ home was a swarming mass of wild little balls of fur.  While the majority of these little balls slunk away when I entered the room, there was one tiny striped terror that sat upright on the back of the couch and eyed me with absolute hatred and arrogance.  She was the one I picked.

Her life with me got off to a bumpy start.  Cally was wild and vicious but that might have been because she was rather angry at me for assuming she was a he and naming her Calvin.  Her first run in with being ‘in season’ quickly saw her name being abbreviated and girly-fied.  The first time she was in season was also her last.

My baby girl was a bit of a feline ball of hell.  She terrorised the neighbourhood dogs, stole biltong from the neighbours (across the road) and chops off the unguarded Sunday braai grid (three houses away).

Since my student days, I have been a bit of a gypsy, a gypsy with a cat because she travelled with me from one side of the country to the other.  So much so that car travel became something she really enjoyed.  If a car’s door was opened, Cally was in it.

Cally also had a soft side, demanding attention and affection because it was her right and she knew I wanted to give it.  Biting my arm, hard, was her way of asking me to stop crying on the rare occasions when I did.  Morning routines usually involved her sitting on my chest, hooking one of my fingers with an extended claw, lifting the finger up and ducking her head under it for a head scratch.

Until the day she died, she still actively moused, ratted, shrewed and terrorised.  Although she would never have admitted it, she absolutely loved Houndus Maximus, when he lay still and let her lie on top of him in winter.

Some days I wonder if it has sunk in, the fact that the day I hastily said goodbye to my beloved companion, with the promise that I would come and get her as soon as I could, was the last day I would ever see her again.  I had just given her and Ciller Cat breakfast and, instead of eating, she stood on the top of the chest freezer and wanted loves.  Did she know something I didn’t I wonder?

Flyboy graciously offered to plant a tree in the garden where he buried her.  I think she would have liked that, especially since for the first year of her life she lived in a concrete jungle and didn’t know what a tree was the first time she encountered one.

Saying goodbye, whether it is to a friend, a family member, a place, even a life, is never without consequences.  Sometimes they are happy consequences, sometimes they are sad.  Mostly we learn to live with those consequences but the scars and smiles remain.

Cally

March 1992 – December 2008

Rest in peace, my beloved friend!