Ladies Day... IN HELL

   I exaggerate, it was not that bad. However, before the morning was over I had been made to hold hands with a supremely bra-less lady I knew not from a bar of soap to pray for approximately 5 hours, so I'm going to at least put a pin in that word.
   Let me back up for a moment here, drop some context on ya. I was asked to go to a Ladies Do of some description at the military or airforce something with my sister, mother and mother-in-law once removed to be. Mother-in-law once removed to be was the one doing in the inviting, so I was slightly chuffed to have been thought of at all, other than as that large slightly out of focus streak of pink that zooms in and out of the kitchen for more food every so often. Allow me to preface my story by establishing very firmly that I am neither Afrikaans nor white enough to really gain any sort of enjoyment from these sorts of affairs, and mostly I just kept reminding myself how flattered I was to be asked as I dragged my fuzzy ass through a bath at a time on Saturday morning during which I could still be sleeping. Due to this overwhelming enthusiasm, my hair wasn't even dry when we left here, and I'm usually painfully ready and on all kinds of time whenever I need to leave the comfort of my house.
   When we got there, it transpired that the tables had been set by each respective hostess, mother-in-law once removed to be having done ours. She had laid out for us mini marshmallows, little skittles, those chocolatey little dinosaur eggs, koeksister balls and chocolate biscuits. I APPROVE OF HER LIFE CHOICES. A very chirpy lady with a black feather boa (no really) was the MC, and Freak The Mighty was the sound guy. She was deeply invested in her job here today, and whilst I envy and respect that energy, I just don't play when you're asking me to pull a lipstick out of my bag so you can divine my personality from its shape. I am not a team player.

   Now I had already braced myself for the worst, as it said right there on the invitation that there would be "lekker local talent" performing, and the gods know that never bodes well. What this meant was that four students from a local high school had been selected to perform hits from their iPods for us. I know how much of a cynical bitch I am, and I know that really it's just terrible and speaks badly of my character, but this is just another thing I don't do. Listen, Brenda, that brand spanking new kid of yours is all amazeballs in awesomesauce and whatnot- this is undisputed and irrefutable. HOWEVER, should your child ever ask me to sit still and smile while he self-importantly sings the director's cut of Jerusalem at me in a warbling little falsetto, I will be forced to exact violence upon his person. Also, the eldest boy took it upon himself to inject a little Steve Hofmeyer into our day, which I still have not forgiven him for. I love how, knowing to pick all of the slightly older or more easily impressed larger ladies, he came and sang at me at one point in Pampoen. We are not amused, young man. Do I look like I own a pantsuit in matching pastel pinks?
   There were little prizes to be handed out over the course of the festivities, and ladies, THIS IS WHAT I CAME FOR. I am unwaveringly dedicated to my single-minded materialism, and I'll freely admit that all I want out of life is as much stuff as I can carry. Do I care at all if it's some cheap-ass bath salts that I will never use and that will only sit in my cupboard slowly stinking more and more of patchouli? Not a whit. Gimme. Of course, since I'm sitting there wilfully shoving sugar into my mouth like a slightly slow blight on the collective integrity of the whole room, Murphy saw fit to deny me even the solace of a single citronella candle. My sister won some shower gel or something, which I shall be forced to resent her for for at least the rest of the afternoon.
   As I'm sitting there, figuring out how to reach over the lady to my right with the maximum amount of grace in order to kidnap the bowl of little skittles, I'm thinking that I have two problems. At any given time, I am both a) Fat, and b) Hungry. Neither of these are going away any time soon. And I swear if you put a bowl of offal flavoured Lays down in front of me it would take me several handfuls before I even realized my error and deciding 'meh' and reaching for more.
   Then, mercifully, after rather a lot of Afrikaans music had happened at me, it seemed to be over. The last of the really big parcels had been awarded to some other bitch sitting at the front table, and all of the chocolate biscuits within reaching distance were gone. I held hands with some complete strangers as Lady MC insisted on praying for a few years ("Aaaand, amen. Ok, amen now. Now."), and the fun was over. Look, really, the whole point of writing about this for any kind of audience of more than 1 is to make it seem worse than it was and the blow shit way out of proportion, so I want it to be genuinely clear that I was actually really flattered that I was asked to go and I my growth has not been stunted at all by the experience. But seriously people, would it kill you to invite me to a Jimmy Carr show every once in a while?

   I own cats. In fact, Sheldon would never come visit me for fear of dying immediately after stepping foot through the door, because several cats would immediately shed directly down his throat. To be more exact, there are six cats in the house, of which two are mine exclusively. Two belong to my sister, and another two are sort of house cats. One of those house cats is bat-shittingly insane. She is called Koshka, and her business card would read "I pee and vomit in more inappropriate places by nine AM than most people do all day." My dad has been bravely fighting the urge to murder her violently for years now, and he's running out of bravery. Not only do we wake up each morning to a cheerful game of 'find where that pee smell is coming from', but also (in increasing frequency lately) are we lucky enough to clean up after a grisly murder scene every so often. She's the only cat in the house who takes her bird hunting fucking seriously, and unlike most tame cats you've ever met in your life, she eats her spoils.
   If she has perchance supplemented her more than adequate diet sometime during the night, we will wake to find a scarce few feathers arranged in what amounts to a chalk-outline somewhere in the house. Of course, if you've truly been a good girl then Santa will reward you by allowing you to walk in on her still busy chewing the head off some bird that looks like it'll likely turn out to be on some endangered list tomorrow. Here's where it gets worse: she eats everything when she catches a bird. There are really only a few wayward feathers left, but other than that she eats the beak, the feet, the wings and everything she happens across in between. The only thing she leaves behind, is the heart.

   I probably should have warned you about that, my bad. And yes, astute readers would note that that is not a heart, but more likely a liver or somesuch. This is not better. Does anyone have any help on why the living holy fuck she would do this? It's creepier than that time "Waking the Witch" started playing just as I was falling asleep listening to some Kate Bush. It's not like she simply eats and eats and then loses interest or decides she's full and the bit she didn't get to just happens to be a heart. It's deliberate, and it's bloody skilful. I mean surgical precision, and it's shorn so close to the organ itself that it begs some questions. My dad suggested today that perhaps she's leaving little sacrifices for her dark demon overlords, and I'm inclined to agree. What the fuck kind of cat leaves a meticulously excised heart behind after slaughtering another animal? I'm starting to fear for my immortal soul when I lay my unsuspecting head down for the night- that bitch knows where I sleep.

 

Luckily, my two babies and at least one of Estelle's are awesome and then some, so they kind of make up for the mark of evil slinking around the house. Except for those two times that her cat Sabre pooped in my cupboard. And when he comes into my room and steals my packet of kelp pills like all the fucking time, man. That's awkward.

 
   Double rainbow, all the way. My room. Just thought I'd pop that in there cause it's kind of awesome.

 

The Time Has Come, The Walrus Said...

...To talk of many things.

   First, some house cleaning: I apologise for some hiccups with the last post- I initially wrote it in two broken blocks of time, both of them deliriously sleep deprived, so I went back and edited it for maximum awesome. This resulted in Blogger doing some interesting things and publishing the post like five times, and I have no idea if that means it send out the post five more times to the email subscribers. I hope not, but if so, accept my mea culpas and this springbok-colour glazed doughnut. (I had like a bunch left in the back of the fridge, so, you know.)

   Better things. I had a meeting with Brenda-Mom's offspring for the first time on Monday. That kid is seven kinds of adorable, even when he pees with sniper-like accuracy while she's changing him. Especially then. He's got more hair than I do- not that that's hard, since mine falls out like I'm Miss Chernobyl 1987, so your great-uncle has a decent chance of having more hair than I do. But baby Sam has like serious anchor man slash McDreamy hair action going on, and all of it divine. I even got to hold him while he slept serenely and I exercised my inner thigh muscles to keep both of us from sliding off the side of the sloping bed where we sat. It's like pilates, only with more butternut squash-coloured poop. Of course, I got to see Brenda whip a boob out at one point, and the people who know me well know that that's got me set for the month, yo.

  
   And yes, I know the angle you're getting here is boobalicious, but Brenda was in the bathroom and this was practically the only one that I could do one-handedly that got both me and the awesome-spawn's face in the picture. I shall apologise for no cleavage.
   Now here's something interesting: This child is Robin Williams after a breakfast burrito. Lying down or sleeping, he pulls these faces and contorts his little two-week old body as though Middle Earth was at stake. To look at it, one would quite reasonably suspect that the man had some seriously stubborn pipe to lay, and he was going to Little Britain the holy-loving fuck outta that monster or die in the attempt. Apparently, this is just him stretching or perhaps dreaming in his sleep, albeit like that dog that actually ran into the wall half asleep with manic determination. The faces alone are worth the price of admission.

   And he's Rambo, too. He's hardly older than the milk in my fridge, but he's already dying to be a part of the action. He lifts his head up under his own steam, but he struggles to keep it there. You can see him popping veins in his head as he bobs it around, and finally it falls back, exhausted, before he takes a deep breath and tries again. Valiant little bugger.

   In other news, I had a day of bowling. The twins and their mother took me out and put me behind a bowling ball, and like a rather plump meringue person I tottered up and down that lane. I had not done this in many moons, and the only memories I have of doing it before are vague and somehow black-lit, and even through that I remember being rather shit.

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

   It was beautiful. I *ahemhem* lost the first game, but won the second WINNING AT BOWLING, MOFO'S. I may have lost several fingers in the process, but I tell you, neither gold nor love can compare with the feeling you get from a strike in the last frame, except for gold. I did a fair bit of wiggly boogling when I managed to get spare, but then I'm back in a dancing sort of a mood lately. Had a good session two mornings ago as I put some music on to get dressed to, and broke it all the way down to some Hairspray tracks. I'm going to have to say this myself since there's no one besides my evil twin in the mirror (long story, I'll tell you someday), but I have some smoooooth moooooooves. I've forgotten most of them again, can't quite recall what any one of them may have looked like from the outside, but that may be a small mercy since it could render me completely 12 Monkeys. 

   I woke up this morning with the entire left side of my personal Australia- my ass- hurting like I'd been partaking in some medium-to-heavy BDSM last night. Fucking ow. As it turns out, one bowls with one's ass. I mean, I know that I was a sweaty red-faced monster by the end of the whole affair, but I just put that down to playing way too bodily and zealousy, and some of the more advanced modern dance moves. Nope. This shit, in addition to my above-mentioned pilates earlier in the week makes me feel like I'm just verging on way too healthy here. 

   I've also- massive accomplishment here- managed to finish A Game of Thrones. I know, I know, it took less time to write the Bible than it took me to read one little volume in a fantasy epic, but I'm all kinds of ADD, people. I swear I've been struggling for so long to get trough a book without simply chucking it one side (Hello, half of my room), that I feel like this needs celebrating. Luckily, tonight is Pizza Night, so I can both celebrate and also punish myself for my tardiness by feeling uncomfortable and self-hating once I eat my head's weight in carbs and cheese. It's inevitable. 

   I'm going to inflict my opinion of the book on you, since I know a decent amount of you have either seen the series or read the books as well. I actually dug it properly. In my little world, there are four kinds of fiction.

   One is the straight forward, by the books kind of story. This kind of writing uses most genres archetypes and forms fairly basically and doesn't veer too much from the expected. You pretty much know where the highs and lows hit, and who is in any danger of dying or proposing at any given moment. In genre fiction, that means that the fantasy world is developed mostly to the extent that you need it to be, so if your narrative doesn't come across something during the course of the story, it doesn't exist.

   The second is 180 degree fiction. This can be fine, if done well, but it seldom is. You can smell the desperation of the author trying to subvert your expectations and the usual course the kind of story he's busy with would take. Too often this ends up being a wild mess, and almost always over done. This fantasy world is frantically put together- the author went mad trying to impress you with how much detail he could cram into it, and he was obsessed with making everything unexpected. Expect superfluous detail bleeding everywhere.

   Then you've got your well balanced fiction, like Harry Potter. This uses mythology and archetypes of the genre much like the first kind, but subverts this just enough and is just original enough to be genuinely worth it. Here you should be able to see some of the really big arcs coming, but you shouldn't be able to tell how they're going to happen. You know at this point of the story you're coming up on the hero facing a setback of some description, but it shouldn't have been clear to you that that comes about when he finds out the mad serial killer was his godfather. This fantasy world is very satisfyingly detailed, but you get the sense that if you come across a piece of information that seems ridiculously well thought out and detailed that it belongs there, that it's right somehow.

   The last kind is what I call "2 degrees to the left." This is not someone trying to shock you, it simply is entirely different from anything you could have thought up or anticipated. It's brilliant or it's just flat, because it's genuinely born out of genius or some madman who has no idea how to plan out a long-form story. That's how it feels when it's done well, as though the hits you would expect from any other book simply aren't there, and instead you're struck when you're totally off your guard by things and in directions your mind simply would never have gone to. Diana Wynne Jones was the absolute undisputed master of this; she could weave a world that was absolutely perfect and somehow effortlessly assembled, and she never gave you more information than you needed at any one point. The result was an insanely crafted fantasy universe that did not feel like it was giving you exposition because the author felt like showing off, but simply because that's the way it was, and it would be silly to think otherwise. 

   A Game of Thrones felt to me oddly like a mixture between the second kind and the last. The world Martin has created here is dense dense dense, and at times it feels almost like too much, but the sheer beauty of it tends to just make up for the freshman-type enthusiasm immediately. The plot veers and careens in a 2-degrees-to-the-left kind of a way constantly, giving way to "anyone can die" and giving not a single fuck about the kind of plot structure any other book in the world would ask for. I love that about it, I love being taken by surprise in a very quiet and subtle way- again, as though if you brought this up to a character in the book they would look at you strangely and simply remind you that all of this really happened, and you can't expect life to follow format. But again, there really is an underlying sense that this dude has read a lot of high fantasy and has swung the bat blindly for the first time, and he gets very, very heavy handed with the medieval speak. You know, the whole pregnant girl touches her "belly" thinking of the "baby within." I admit, you need a certain language to make medieval fantasy not only believable but atmospheric and poetic, but it needs an exceedingly deft hand or it takes you out of the story entirely and you cringe a little bit. 

   But overall, truly excellent characters, world and story. Again, I love that when they mention in passing (for instance) Lysa Arryn sitting in the Eyrie with her son, you have this sudden sense that there's all of these epic stories happening in all of the high strongholds of Westeros unseen. Like even if you had not been this third person eye in the middle of this massive war and over-reaching story, these things would still be happening and would still be deeply affecting without you. 

   Night night, my lovelies. I am fading fast, and Rob Lowe is being disarmingly charismatic on Graham Norton somewhere more important in the house. I feel the need to follow up on this. And also, pizza is still making me very sorry that I need to breath regularly. 

   As someone very funny once said on Green Wing, the greatest UK comedy show of all time, "Please join us next week on Let's Make No Fucking Sense when we'll be waxing an owl."