In Which I Play Fiddler On The Roof, There Is Anarchy, And Much Whiskey Is Consumed

   Oh, my lovelies! Such a long time has it been since I have disgraced the metaphorical porch and/or veranda of you cyberhome to force upon you my exploits in nothing-much-at-all-itness. Now I come back to you, albeit under the haze of some luverly drugs (legal, I assure you, a ha ha), to once again soil your internettic doorstep with a flaming bag of pie-diggery.
   So much has happened since I last shouted at you, I scarce know where to begin. Lessee, perhaps with a pathetic excuse as to why I've been so absent of late? They are apparently called migraines, and if you have kicked a puppy in a previous lifetime they will sit on your head like a very large Jerry Springer guest for four days without so much as the promise of leaving or of offering you some of its popcorn. I'd been getting these infernal things for years and like any good hypochondriac, had been worrying myself into an early grave over the liver damage the headache pills were inevitably inflicting on me. Went to the Doc on day four of this awesomeness, and was handed my official diagnosis along with a prescription for Topamax (once a day, to prevent migraines), and Maxalt RPD (emergency wafer things for a migraine-in-progress). Both of these things, I was promised, would make me somewhat dopey, but I would hopefully adjust to the Topamax over the course of a few weeks, and shouldn't need the Maxalt too often at all if the former does its job. Nou maar gaaf, as one might say, and off I'm packed to the pharmacy.
   I waited in the car while my dad ran in for the meds, but I suspect by now that the guy knows me as "That oddly-shaped chick with prescriptions for one of everything." I mean, I'm on pretty heavy sleeping pills too, plus some other stuff for other things (I'm terribly sickly. *cough*. See?) and here my dad walks in with a script for anti-epileptic fit meds prescribed off-label for migraines. I bet he's wondering what the hell else I'll manage to come up with, and in a strange way I don't want to disappoint the man. I shall have no other recourse but to simply be sick and poorly in new an interesting ways so as to keep him on his toes. Perhaps I can have erectile dysfunction next week.
   I took one of those wafer things (they really just look like a tablet, but dissolve super-quickly and taste of Gaviscon and ass) at an English lesson the next day (wasn't meant to start the Topamax until that evening) because I could feel a big ol' Springer fan getting the popcorn ready. I figured being a little tired or unfocused would be much preferable to not being able to lift my head up off the kitchen table and leaving ear prints on their furniture. Not five minutes later- Shaun was nowhere in sight, and I was The Dead. I couldn't lift my arm above my head if you'd offered me the chance to cut off Malema's balls personally, and would not even have been able to articulate that to you with so much as a simple "no" to such a kind offer. I swear it was like swimming through molasses whilst being equipped with the brain of a rather slow Labrador; absolutely everything was a monumental effort. Luckily most of the lesson was already done by then, so I just had to maintain verticality until such a time as I could be deposited back home where there was a bed and pyjamas.
   I tell you this to create for you a certain context. For weeks now, under the haze of pills that had neither the fun of the high nor the social kudos of illegality, I have done fuckall. Blue, blazing, blonde shiny fuckall of any artistic or productive merit. I've done a couple of lessons, true- but as it turns out the Topamax affects me in a much less radical way than the "emergency supply" wafers do, and I have found I am able to feign wakefulness surprisingly well when called upon to do so. There's been some physical sport- darts and a lovingly made-up game Estelle and my brother-in-law-to-be Barend made up using an old badminton net, two tennis rackets and a tennis ball of questionable origin. Sufficed to say, I have blown the minds of absolutely no one in either of these two endeavours. In fact, since the badminton net was set up in such a way that one person was constantly a fart away from falling into the pool, it's a small wonder I didn't end up swallowing a whole LOT of water that day. Also, although she never said it, I suspect Estelle of believing me to have been high as a mother-flipping kite while we were playing badtennis/tedminton. Such is the collective effect of my new and exciting Migraine Medication. Oh, to be young and doped to the gills with mystery chemicals that taste faintly of hangover. These so truly are the salad days, eh?

   Last weekend was something of an interesting one for my dad. He took two weeks off work, as he has been developing ulcers that have enough personality to place a drinks order in a bar from the stress at work. He celebrated by visiting a couple of his friends he rarely ever gets to see, and promptly disappeared in a whiskey flavoured haze for two days. I was visited on the first day of his flight by Cousin Carla on a mission: she is now befuddled and befucked by something called a Luda, whom I was to meet and somehow mind-fuck closer to accepting his inevitable fate as Carla's next lovebug. I went, and three beers later I believe I had achieved so much nothing in this noble quest, but had managed to pee more times than a 17-year-old St. Bernard with a bladder problem. I am not a beer person. This guy, Luda as it turns out being short not for Ludacris but in fact for Ludwig, looks like he fell straight out of Eastern Promises and speaks like Baltic Barney Stinson. I asked him where he's from, he replies "...Bloemfontein." Once I've managed to regain my composure, I clarify that I'm inquiring as to the origins of the accent, and I'm informed that apparently he spent a year in Germany when he was 15. I think I am now very properly confused.
   The whole reason I had not accompanied my dad to his friends (who are awesome, and thusly a fairly tempting prospect), was because I have a deep and abiding hatred of sleeping anywhere that is not my horrible bed. Carla, however, has a certain way about her, and through sheer persistence not unlike that of a small army of cherry bombs repeatedly char-grilling your ear, I ended up sleeping over at her place. I'll admit she might have promised McDonald's on the way home, I'm not saying that influenced me at all. Either way, I woke up the next morning with her foot lodged firmly in my kidneys and, much like Katherine Heigl waking up to the slow realization that Seth Rogen had happened to her the previous evening, already regretting sleeping out. This is not a condemnation of her company at all, simply my stubborn unwillingness to endure any kind of discomfort or removal from my creature comforts (and cats) for anything amounting to more than a few hours.
   The thing that woke me was Utana (the very friend my dad went to visit) phoning to let me know they were tying my dad to the kitchen table for at least another day, and not to expect him home for a while. Carla later told me the phone ringing was not the thing that woke her, but rather the maniacal tone of voice on the other end that did. Oh Utana, you are my favourite.

Context.

   When he finally got home on Sunday morn, I was dragged out of bed and told to put on my people-clothes, as we were off to a farewell party for Nola, another friend of the family since forever. Utana and her husband Eric would be there, as well as a few other excellent people, and as I had managed to miss what was clearly the hoot and piss-up of the year, I thought I'd be remiss if I didn't go. True, there was some country music and more often than not I take that very personally, but over all most excellent. A combination of country musicians, Kurt Darren's mother (quite a lovely woman, I assure you), and blues musos- I'm so sure there must be a joke in there somewhere. 

   Then this weekend happens, and once again I am beset by the biggest urge to do as much nothing as possible. The darts from last night proved once again that I would have been useless had I been called upon aim a weapon at an enemy with any kind of accuracy during a war, and Mr. Barend Visser scared the holy begeezus out of everyone by implying with no subtlety at all that he is actually working secretly as an underground sniper-assassin. But with darts. 

   Upon the insistence of Utana and Eric, my dad has taken up Sons of Anarchy- I'm watching it too, only at a more human pace. He's mainlining them like so many coke-lines off a mirror being passed around at a party in the 70s, and he's getting more or less as high.

   Oh, and also, you'll want to know: whacked on my own personal pharmacy last night, before darts but after dinner, I decided it was a good time to make some scones from a pre-mix pack. Somehow, looking at the big-ass Kenwood mixing monster, I managed to decide to make them in the blender. This was Not A Good Idea. When it became clear that a blender is not a thing meant to mix scone batter, I tried to unscrew it from the big blending machine thing, and managed only to unscrew it from its own base, and the liquid in the bottom of the blender (all of the dry shit having settled at the top) started leaking out over my hands. I ended up scraping everything out of this thing into a bowl, periodically cursing myself for the instinct that made me stick my fingers into my mouth every time I got raw batter all the way up to my elbows. It tastes like bicarbonate of soda before it's been baked, even if I already was.
   Yeah, they turned out more or less OK, I had two.

   So that's the official update, you now know as much about the last few weeks of my life as my mother does. I have one or two stories that do still need telling in the next few days, but mostly they are still in the process of being manufactured or are simply recollections of things that have happened hilariously in the past.
   I can promise you pictures.