Alma’s Blog

Driving Miss Dilly

The comment on my Ubuntu Girl blog begs explanation. Hopping into my car to go and pick up the Alien from school is not a walk in the park. I firmly believe that I take my life into my hands the same as people who bungee jump off bridges using dental floss instead of rope.

I live in Durban North. Unlike the notion that there are tea-rooms/cafés on every street corner in Durban – in Durban North they have schools. There are schools everywhere. 2 to 3 schools to every street. Seriously, if you want to go into a lucrative business, open a chassis company in Durban North. With every school comes hundreds of speed bumps the size of Table Mountain just waiting to stuff up your undercarriage.

Having said that, it blows my mind that I seem to be constantly stuck behind an old person every time I go to pick up the Alien. How is that possible? If Durban North is full of schools – where do these old people come from? What are they doing trawling the streets of Durban North? Is there a policy of old aged homes to school ratio published in some government gazette that I do not know about?

Don’t get me wrong. I love old people. I just don’t believe that they should be driving once Alzheimer’s has set in and they can no remember why they are in a car let alone the fact that they are actually the driver. Clearly senile dementia is popular amongst the Durban North senior citizens

I have a low patience threshold when driving. I have mentioned my propensity to drive like Schumacher hence being stuck behind antiques who have forgotten they are driving cars and not ox wagons, does tend to test my every red-haired nerve fibre.

Once I get to the Alien’s school (more than likely late thanks to the old folk not remembering how to get out of 1st gear) I face a different road rage challenge. Mothers of teenagers – I have news for you. Your precious, precocious brats ARE capable of walking more than 20 steps from the school gate to your car. There is absolutely no reason for you to block the entire road so that Her Highness does not have to walk too far to find you. Bus drivers – the vehicles you drive are very visible thanks to their size. You can park slightly further away from the gate. The Aliens will find you. You are hard to miss.


Yep – the afternoon school run is harrowing. The Alien always looks a tad nervous when she gets into the car as she is tentatively waiting for the cussing out of parents and the geriatric population in general.

When I manoeuvre my car into the garage after each school run I breathe a sigh of relief. I have dodged the bullet yet again. Or, maybe more correctly, fellow parents and the elderly have dodged my bullets. Until the next day….

p.s. – you may notice that my blogsite has had some surgery. A nip and a tuck here and a bit of botox there and voila! – My blog has done a Michael Jackson- like transformation. You like?

The UBUNTU Girl

Carte Blanche on a Sunday night has always been a must watch on my TV viewing schedule. Sometimes I am not sure why because it is generally very depressing. Not the light hearted frivolity that one needs to end a weekend.

They do feature happy or inspiring stories from time to time. One such insert was on The Ubuntu Girl – Sonja Kruse. She left her dorp of Eshowe with R100, a camera and a backpack to walk around South Africa. Bloody nuts, right? I agree.

So when I saw that she was going to be the guest speaker at The Inspiring Women Network banquet at the Riverside Hotel nearby – I immediately booked my ticket (besides – the dress code was traditional so I could finally wear my sparkly salwar again) I am not the jump out of aeroplanes or off bridges type of person. I see getting in my car to collect the Alien from school as quite adventurous considering how some people drive. I am therefore interested to hear what makes people do crazy things. Why do they do it? Isn’t a balanced life staying at home with a glass of wine in one hand and the telly remote in the other? What gene am I missing that these lunatics seem to have a double dose of?

Well, besides having inherited the red hair gene in abundance, Sonja proved to be the most normal, down to earth person I have ever met. Her infectious giggle and sparkling personality is undoubtedly what earned her an invite into strangers’ homes every night of her year-long walkabout.

My key take-out after listening to the Ubuntu girl? We Saffers are still a distrusting and nervous bunch even with people like Sonja highlighting just how much good there is in this country. I am a positive and optimistic person but underlying fears and prejudices, although for the most part buried and ignored, will always rear their negative head and influence my thoughts and actions.

So, although I won’t be catching a taxi to Orania any time soon – I will make a more concerted effort to keep my mind open and my fears based on fact and not on prejudice. I still believe that collecting the Alien from school is a justified fear by the way.

Links for the UBUNTU Girl:
www.theubuntugirl.co.za
ubuntuabundance@gmail.com
Blog
Twitter
Facebook Page

What Lies Beneath

I saw a competition on the Umhlanga Life blog just a day or so after meeting the charming Fred Felton. Always game to enter anything – I submitted this story. The rules where that the story had to be 100 words or less. Not as easy as you think or is it just me who likes to waffle on and on?

Nevertheless, this is what I wrote…

She moved cautiously but with purpose. She knew exactly what was lying beneath but her focus was on getting love and attention and she had finally pinned down the person she adored the most. She was prepared to stand on dangerous ground.

There was a stirring and a rumbling that grew louder and fiercer as she approached. She paid it no heed. She needed to feel cherished. Fear was not going to stop her.

The infuriated puppy eventually poked her head out from under the warm duvet and glared at the cat as if to say; “Go away, she’s mine!”

Word Count: 100

This is what I have to deal with every night by the way. Roxy the Foxy sleeps under the duvet and Cuddles knowingly steps on her as she makes her way towards me for strokes and loves. That cat likes to live dangerously! One day Roxy is going to make the effort to get more than just her head out from under the duvet and then there will be hell to play!

The Alien is Alienated

“I am a looser”
“You just don’t understand, my life is over”
“I am not going to have any friends”

All these passionate, sometimes hysterical pleas from the Alien have been getting the same standard response from me:

“Ag Shame”

I hear your gasps of horror from here. This mother has an emotionally disturbed, possibly unstable teenager and her response is “Ag Shame”? Relax! I did take the time to listen to the reason why her life was teetering on the brink of extinction.

The child does not have a BlackBerry.

Can you believe it? Even though she has a perfectly good Nokia somethingorother phone, a computer, the choice of 2 TV’s with DSTV and a DVD player, a pleasant roof over her head, a swimming pool, 3 adoring cats, 1 devoted dog plus a cupboard full of clothes – the child’s life is a misery because she does not have a BlackBerry Pin Number.

How sad is that? I am not totally heartless, you know. I was once a teenager and understand about peer pressure and all that psycho babble. It really is pathetic that a beautiful young girl can feel that life is passing her by because she does not have a particular make of phone. Talk about a fickle society.

Apparently all the kids who used to be on MXit have closed their accounts and are BB Messaging each other now. SMS is clearly so last week and actually calling a person and talking to them is what old people like me do. I suppose I could alleviate her misery just a tad if I allowed her to have Facebook but I see what some of these teenagers do and say on Facebook so question if I want to expose her to all that.

So, until her contract is due for an upgrade, I will just have to endure the endless whining and complaining. The advantage is that, because she no longer knows what is going on in the world around her because of her forced isolation thanks to her BlackBerry’lessness (cool new word that), the Alien can spend more time moping around me.
Hang on…did I just say advantage?
Anyone getting rid of their BlackBerry? Anyone?

“What’s for Dinner?”


The innocent sounding sentence that fills me with dread and gets me hyperventilating even more than; “Just listen to me before you say anything”
It is not because I want to reply “whatever you are making.” I like cooking, really I do. I just despise deciding WHAT to cook every night. I can rustle up a pretty decent plate of food if only someone would tell me exactly what to cook – and Chicken Man has purchased the ingredients of course.

Use a recipe book I hear you say. Problem with recipes is that they list ingredients that I have never heard of and they tell me to do things to food that sounds positively indecent. They also expect you to use more than 2 pots. For 1 meal? That is just excessive. Besides – if you have outsourced your shopping to your husband like I have, you cannot present him with a shopping list that has any variables to the routine. Crickey, I can’t even ask for coriander without him demanding a picture, full description and a rough idea as to what aisle he will find it in.

And then one has to consider what the family members eat and don’t eat. If I could find enough recipes for mince, rice and pasta and serve that every night for a year I would not get a word of complaint from Chicken Man. As long as it is accompanied by a salad, Chicken Man would be quite happy.

The Alien was such a dream eater. I started feeding her everything we ate from about 6 months old and she happily devoured olives, feta, calamari…basically anything except prawns. Since her abduction she suddenly doesn’t laik this and doesn’t laik that. Flippen hell, I am tempted to feed her what I never fed her as a baby. She can darn well eat jars of Purity baby food which all taste the same whether they are beef or chicken, pasta or dessert. I believe a lot of superstars are partaking in this baby food diet so The Alien will be only too happy to oblige. Imitating role models is important to teenagers.


And me? I’ll pretend I am rich and famous and eat what every self respecting South African celebrity eats. Nuke-able Woollies meals for one.

Great, my “What‘s for Dinner” dilemma has been partially sorted. Thank you. Now, what happens when I have guests over for dinner….????

Marriage is not Crystal Clear


I recently celebrated 15 years of marriage to Chicken Man. 15 years! That means that we celebrated our Crystal Wedding Anniversary. How apt to look back and reflect on just how opaque and fragile marriage is.

At our wedding 15 years ago, our guests were taking bets as to how long our marriage would last. I kid you not! Yes, them of little faith saw the vast differences in us and assumed that the marriage was destined to end in shattered glass.

It hasn’t though. Why you may ask? Ummm… not really sure but sometimes differences can be beneficial in a marriage:

He is crap at braaing (barbequing)
I love to eat meat that is not cremated or raw hence have become an expert braaier.

He loves making salads
I do not like fussing with leaves so whilst I braai – he makes salads.

He is a pushover with the Alien
I stick to my guns and instil the discipline a teenager requires

He feels guilty for doing minimal chores all week long so becomes enthusiastic about the most mundane of household tasks over the weekend.
Because I do it all week long – housework is not a priority over the weekend

He stresses about EVERYTHING
I’m a “every cloud has a silver lining” type of person.

He is thin
I am not

He does garbage
I do not

He will pick up dog poop
I will not

He can rid the house of snakes, birds, geckos and cockroaches
I do not do wildlife indoors.

He is a technophobe
I love computers and technology and even know how to backwash the pool, change a lightbulb and fix the toilet

He loves “slit your throat” country music with a smattering of Pavarotti for light relief
I love jivvy 80’s music

He drives like a Grandpa
I drive like Michael Schumacher

He thinks our dog is the queen of the household
I know that our cats rule the roost

He can’t tell the difference between a weed and a rare orchid
I can identify alien invasive species and everything I plant seems to grow.

He is a hoarder
I get rid of anything and everything when no one is looking

He compares price per Kg and knows what stores have what on special hence does all the shopping
I know where my nearest Woolworths is when we run out of necessities and luxuries

He wakes up at 4:00am because he goes to bed when the sun goes down.
I go to bed whenever so wake up as late as possible

He talks the hind leg off a donkey incessantly. He needs to share EVERYTHING in detail
I talk when I have something to say. I’ll tell you what you need to know, okay.

He takes long baths
I shower in 2 minutes flat

He watches crime and reality channels
I watch cooking and series channels

He likes hanging the washing on the line and taking it off
I like feeding the washing machine – I keep forgetting the washing on the line.

I have never seen him drink a cup of coffee or tea nor eat a sweet, chocolate or cake.
I survive on copious cups of coffee and enjoy the odd piece of milk tart or fudge.

He is dark – I am fair…and so the differences go on.

But we are still together after 15 years of marriage. I reckon those folk speculating at our wedding all lost oodles of money if they honoured their bets. Marriage is a gamble and the odds are against couples these days considering the statistics are that almost every 2 marriages end in divorce

So how have Chicken Man and I made it for so long? Friendship. Above all else, Chicken Man is my best friend. I look forward to his return from work every afternoon and love spending time with him (when he is not irritating me, off course)

Sure, we are not the couple depicted in fairytales but we make our lives together work.

One thing we have in common is that we share the same star sign. So as we 2 mountain goats (Capricorns) scramble over the rocky slopes of life, I know that we will eventually reach the summit. And when we do, we will be side by side. There will be no winner as we are not in a contest. We are partners and will hopefully be so “until death us do part”

Mothers Day Maudlin


Mothers Day is yet another of those pesky Hallmark holidays like Valentine’s Day, Secretaries Day and Bosses Day designed to sell cards, get rid of excess chocolate stocks and deplete the earth of fresh flowers.

Yes, I am a mom and I do appreciate the fact that the Alien does not backchat or whine at me on that one day of the year. She also makes me a card because she knows that I appreciate a personal card (and some semblance of tidiness in her room) more than any material gift. Her response to a comment I recently made that she should make a card for a teacher who was leaving was met with extreme horror.

“Ma, we just don’t do that sort of thing anymore.”

By “we” she was probably referring to the rest of the Alien population. Such a pity.

As much as I enjoy the perks of Mothers Day like “Ma, would you like some coffee” with absolutely no prompting or nagging, I do tend to get a bit weepy on this day.

I, like all moms, think of my Mother on this day. I lost my Mom when I was 15 and although I do not need a Hallmark Day to think of her, it is difficult to not dwell on her life and my memories of her and feel more than a little resentment. Why did she have to die so young? Surely the Big Man could have let us have a few more years of her down here on earth?

So this message is for all those mothers who have had the privilege of sharing all those “big girl” experiences with their Mom: Your wedding day, your pregnancy, the birth of your children, advice on how to deal with colic/teething/temper tantrums/hormones. Appreciate your Moms, cherish your time with her no matter how much she may irritate you or pass judgement on the way you parent her grandchildren.

Now, if someone can advise me how to make the Alien appreciate everything Chicken Man and I do for her and offer to make coffee for the other 364 days of the year, I promise I’ll make you a big Thank You card with hearts and kisses, glue and glitter and everything…

What is Love?


This, my friends, is what they call a guest post. It is a very special guest post as it is written by The Alien. For those new to my blog – The Alien is my 14 year old daughter. You can read about her here
She may not have actually experienced true love as yet (at least I blerrie well hope not!) but this poem is poignant and an interesting insight into Alien thoughts. I love you, my precious Alien. May your future be filled with Love.

Love is strong,
Love is not wrong.
Love is a light that switches off in fright.
Love can hurt,
When the boy’s a flirt.
You’ve got to stay strong,
stop listening to that love song.

Loves first kiss
Is truly the best.
Love is broken with words unspoken.
Love is not hatred,
Love is sacred.
Love is not set,
Love is not a pest.

It makes you fly
When you don’t even know why.
Love is amazing, graceful and true.
You will know it is love when it hits you

A Thought Shared

So, my last post was in February and I know that because the subject was…well… February. It is therefore clear that I have been remiss in blogging as we are now in mid April. Sue me if you will but no chastising from you will equal the self loathing. Okay, that is a bit harsh but I do get annoyed when I see the time that has past and I have not shared on my favourite vent platform.

I have been asked so often: “Why do you blog? Who actually reads your ramblings and do you care what they think?” Umm, yes – I do care and WHO reads my blogs is less relevant than WHY the odd stray on the internet reads my blogs. That is the joy of blogging. I use it as a vent, a channel to consolidate my sometimes deranged thoughts, a podium better suited to a lady than making use of swearing and cursing.

Through Facebook I shared an interesting article on a study regarding the use of swearing. The responses were fascinating in their diversity. From an anecdote from rural African culture, where people not seeing eye to eye would go on to a hilltop and exchange swear words to diffuse their frustrations with each other, to a discussion on the use of swearing in the sport of golf, to the opinion of a Christian willing to dive right in there to defend her beliefs based on her faith. What was so intriguing was that each person who shared had an opinion on a matter that we do not give a second thought to (until our offspring use a word that is not quite what we expect to hear from our beloved progeny, of course)

Now that is why I blog. Blogging is like an invisible friend with whom I can share anything. It is the equivalent of standing on a hilltop and screaming every arbitrary thought or profanity that would have me committed or rebuked should I express them out loud in polite company. Blogging does not judge or criticise. It does not question my reasons or ask me what my motivation is for making outlandish comment.

It can’t. Because it is not actually real. It is just a thought shared.

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