that time I met my writing hero...

(Original undedited image via LA Times.com)

By now, regular readers of my blog (yes, I see you five in the back row there) will know that we have a guest cottage that we rent out. It brings in a penny or two over the short summer season and brings entertainment, in the form of unconventional tenants, for the rest of the year. 

You might remember our last tenant Jason, a.k.a Druid of the Magical Herb, who somewhat corrupted my view of people who are looking for an impermanent abode. But such is life that there are bills to pay, children to educate, and caviar to be purchased for the dogs. 

As usual, I recently posted an advertisement on various platforms for the cottage. As I’m sure you can guess, people who are interested in temporary accommodation are normally between something: jobs, cities, marriages, girlfriends, crimes… that sort of thing. This, surprisingly, doesn’t deter me in any way. I kind of like hearing people’s stories and how they end up staying with us. 

We’ve had high-powered executives (OK, one of them did flood the cottage, but it wasn’t on purpose. He’s now a Buddhist somewhere out in the country, I think.) We’ve had writers who don’t write, we’ve had documentary makers who don’t vacuum (like, not even once, in 6 months), we’ve had couples who do shedloads of washing, turning the cottage décor into “Chinese laundry chic” (pre-drought, you understand). And we’ve also had an unusually high number of single guys whose girlfriends insist on them securing the lease – and then break up with them literally the week after they move in (which is just weird, if you ask me. Could there be something in the ether down there?)

But this year, someone famous came to check out the cottage. Someone who also happens to be one of my all-time hero writers. 

I should backtrack here a bit. For the longest time – probably most of my life – I didn’t know that there was such a thing as “humour writing” or a job called “humour columnist”. Sure, I’d read my share of Laughter is the Best Medicine in the Reader’s Digest magazine, but I don’t think I’d really read any actual humour columns. 

But then, all of a sudden, in probably the same month, I discovered Dave Barry and said hero writer (I’ll call him Al. Al Lias). A whole world of writing possibilities opened up to me. One where things like made-up words were possible. Where on-point grammar wasn’t the point. Where you could cuss if you like. Where research was optional (eschewed, even!) And where you could write with your tongue planted firmly in your cheek.  

Dave Barry is American, and primarily known for his colonoscopy piece that did the rounds (and continues to do so, years after the fact). His other writing is just as hilarious but people just seem to find colonoscopy writing funny on the whole.  Al-my-writing hero, is a SAFA and is both eloquent and mirthiless (see what I did there?) with his humour. He slays at satire and is a master of Irony. My brother introduced me to Al’s writing and I’ve never looked back. In fact, I think for the longest time, I thought he was the ONLY humour columnist in the country (that’s if you don’t count Barry Ronge’s movie reviews – but I’m still not sure whether Barry meant to be funny or not.)

Anyway, back to Al. He messaged me while we were driving back from Cape St. Francis (Mmm. St. Cape Francis in Winter. Now that’s a blog for another day.) Had I not been prone to vast amounts of napping in the car, I would have taken the time to Google Al before we met. Also, I just wasn’t arsed to do my homework. I figured I’d just suss him out when we met. (After all, my track record with snap judgments has been smashing up till now.)

The minute we met, he looked very familiar to me. Shit. I should have researched (i.e. stalked him on social media) him. Did I know him from the gym? Was he a parent at one of my kids’ schools? Did he work at AP Jones? My mind computing slowly - as it tends to do - I flicked through my mental Rolodex, hoping that it would magically stop at the right place and that the identity of the person would jump out at me.

We exchanged polite conversation. It came to light that Al had read my blog when he said that I had no need to worry as he was “no Jason in the weed growing department”. I have to say, sometimes being a writer is a very shy business. On one hand, you want people to read your stuff, and on the other had it horrifies you that they will, incases they think you write like a doos*(or worse, that they think you actually ARE a doos). I was struck with a case of the latter. It was when Al said “I dabble in writing myself a bit” that I suddenly realised who it was that I was talking to.

I immediately become flustered and over-animated and a little sweaty and it should also be said that I regretted my choice of outfit (stinky gym tights and a scruffy hoodie that literally has stains on it from the ’80s). I felt super self-conscious about my orthodontics and tried to hide them as I talked and smiled - which just made me look constipated, I’m sure. (Side note: I’m going to start telling people that I have orthodontics because I got into a really bad bar fight which wrecked my teeth. Far more interesting than the truth.)

Lucky for me, Al is nice-in-real-life and didn’t seem to notice me being especially weird and overly chatty. Of course, he may be writing rude stuff about me as we speak. But you know what, I’ve had that coming because we all know that writers deal with weird stuff and weird people by writing about them.

Al didn’t lease the cottage. He found somewhere nicerer I think – somewhere with a less weird lessee. I’m a bit bummed to be honest, because when I discovered who he was, I confess that my mind ran away with me a little. 

I imagined an exciting life where Al and I would go shopping in charity stores for jackets with elbow patches together. We’d go away on humour-writing weekends, drink loads of wine and whiskey, and come up with made-up words. He’d be Hemingwayesque and I’d be the literary equivalent of Melissa McCarthy. I’d take up smoking and he’d make tea. He’d be my new best writing friend and we’d go to Havana and pretend to speak Spanish. And we’d laugh and we’d laugh. 

Damn that it’s not true. Still, there’s always next year.

*doos: South African slang for idiot. (Not as bad as Cee U Next Tuesday but worse than poephol.**)

**poephol: South African slang for a harmless idiot. (Not as bad as arsehole but worse than silly-billy.)

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never trust a vintage dress...

(Original unedited image via Pintrest)

By now, you’ll know that things are hotting up for my 30^thReunion back home. My google search has progressed to “How to lose 30 kgs in 3 minutes.” I have a feeling I’ll still be doing squats and sit-ups on the plane in a frantic attempt to look, well, better. I do feel a certain sense of triumph, however, as I’ve come up with a cunning solution to deal with the aging “smoker’s lines” around my mouth. (I don’t even smoke, which makes me wonder if I’ve spent my life puckering up my lips a lot?) Yesterday I gave it a trial run. I’ll be keeping a stash of orange rind slices that I can wedge underneath my top lip. Works like a charm until you have to speak. 

All kinds of weird feelings and insecurities have popped up with this impending event. Things I normally never really think about. Like what I should wear. What’s the perfect outfit to communicate that I’ve made enough of an effort but I also kind of don’t give two fucks? Most folks go with jeans and a T-shirt but when I wear jeans it feels like I have a straight-jacket on my legs. Considering that my daily outfit is normally smelly gym clothes, appropriate reunion attire has kept me awake at night a bit. Looking at the weather forecast, one thing is for sure: My primary accessory will be my hot water bottle. 

One of my other main concerns is around tiredness. As much as I’m really looking forward to seeing everyone, I kind of also feel tired at the thought. 11pm is a late night for me so the thought of staying up till an unknown late hour is a little like telling me to run on the spot till you stay stop. It reminds me of the first time I went to a rave in London. 

Exotica and her man, Rasta, were already well into the rave scene and it was not their first rodeo, so to speak, with using a little help to stay awake. I, on the other hand, had not been around this particular block yet and had the usual concerns about my partying staying- power. Consequently, I decided to prepare myself.

As it was, the woman we were housekeepers for, needed to get her car from the country to London. I was to drive with Exotica and Rasta, drop off the car, and then head to the rave. Poor Exotica and Rasta were subjected to my constant babble for the hour and a half long drive it took us to get to London. You see, I’d decided that, in order to bypass my natural ability to be struck down with unstoppable tiredness, by sipping on mug after mug of coffee for the entire day. This left me acting like the character Spud from Trainspotting who drops speed before an interview to “give him the edge”.

There’s more to the story though. The weekend before, Exotica and I had gone pottering around Camden Town. I’d bought a black sheer swing top from a 2^ndhand vintage shop and decided to don this for the rave. Just like I’m experiencing the same stress about reunion gear, I had similar concerns about rave gear. And although I knew that ravers generally wore tie-dyed, crocheted kinds of kit, I didn’t think I could pull it off because, having just arrived in London, I wasn’t “Ecstasy Skinny” yet. Accordingly, my kit of choice was: black caterpillar boots (the only shoes I owned), black cycling shorts (good stretch for big dance moves, no chafe, no chance of my butt showing) and said sheer swing top. 

There’s a couple of things I didn’t know about raves and vintage swing tops which I know now. Firstly, if you decide to imbibe in staying awake substances other than coffee, you’re going to dance your arse off. And, if like me, you’re quite a sweaty person, you’ll get pretty dang slick and wet. Secondly, vintage swing tops can be made out of a fabric called “Georgette”. Wikipedia describes it as “originally made from silk, Georgette is made with highly twisted yarns.” 

Now, logic would dictate that when yarns become wet – especially twisted yarns – they’ll stretch. Not so. Apparently, it does the opposite. In addition, I discovered that my Georgette top wasn’t made from silk, but rather a blend of something and rayon. Rayon, I discovered, likes to shrink.

As each new trancy track was played, I danced and sweated and danced and sweated. And the seam that once sat neatly beneath my bustline, now found itself somewhere mid nipple. My hemline was no better. My swing top had gone from mid-thigh to  - as my dad would call it – a fanny pelmet. 

Never have I been so happy for short leggings. 

Needless to say, I’ll not be taking any chances at my reunion. I’ll play it safe with trousers and a sensible top. But I will imbibe in coffee. E for the over 40’s. (I’m hoping they’ll also be serving morphine pie for dessert. Where do all these inexplicable body aches come from?)

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30th reunion and other musings...

(Original unedited image via www.masterfile.com)

For those five of you who regularly read my irregular blog posts, you’ll know that my 30^threunion is looming. The prospect of seeing a whole lot of people who last saw me with 80’s hair and legwarmers is a little daunting (oh those aerobics leotard days!) Consequently, I’ve been pondering how I can present the best possible version of me, aged 40-something. 

The problem is that my other attempts at any aesthetic improvements have gone horribly awry. Need I remind you about the time that I decided to wax my top lip and lost the courage to rip it off due to the ungodly pain? (I’ve subsequently found out that you’re not supposed to let it set hard before you RIP it off – alas, information I could sorely have used before!) Ah yes, who could forget me walking around for weeks afterward with little flecks of wax on my upper lip.

But there’s a few past improvements we haven’t yet explored. I should start with my hair. By way of introduction, I should by rights put “hair taming” as a unique skill on my CV. Since I can remember I’ve been wrangling my hair – with little success. The wild curls and frizz manage to assert themselves no matter what. 

When I was in Standard 7, I was invited to a Matric Dance. The fellow in question was a hot surfer and quite frankly, I couldn’t believe my luck. I stumbled upon him when Exotica, my two cousins and I developed a fool proof tactic to meet hot guys. We’d eye the chap in question, decide on a name, and rush up to him saying “Steeeeeve! How awesome to see you! What are you doing here? It’s been so long!”. The bewildered fellow would then insist he’d never met us in his life. We’d then fake our apology, claiming that it was all an innocent mistake but that it was nice to meet him anyway. And voila! Thus, we’d made our introduction. (In retrospect, it was more an ambush than a tactic.) 

Anyhow, the night of the matric dance came about and I asked my mom take me to have a blow-wave – which was the only way to get the curls out. She obliged (bless her), but we both forgot an important detail. The matric dance was in Hillcrest, a part of KZN that is known for heavy mist.

Those of you with straight hair will never be able to contemplate the risk that precipitation poses for someone with frizzy hair. As we pulled up to the school hall, the mist was thick as can be. And while Matric-Dance-Boy insisted that we hang around outside the hall to wait for his friends to arrive, I felt both my hair and my panic rising. The result was way, way worse than Rubenesque curls. It was beehive in height, and rather than curls, I had kind of straight, frizzy, poofy hairstyle going on. I’d have been welcome in a band with Diana Ross. To make matters worse, it would seem that ALL the other girls had gorgeous, sleek, obedient hair. It was a long night.

My next Version 2.0 effort saw me getting fake nails for my best friend’s wedding. For the life of me, I have no idea why I thought it was a good idea. I think it was an attempt to look more feminine as I’d recently cut my hair super short and looked like my brother’s brother. What nailish people don’t tell you, is that there are a whole ton of things you can’t do once you have long nails. Opening car doors becomes a nightmare because they hook underneath the bit that hinges. Grabbing anything, for that matter, becomes a subtle art. Because you can’t use the tips of your fingers to grip, you have to kind of lay them flat. (On this note, scrunching up and holding a wad of loo paper becomes almost impossible – but we won’t get into that.) I spent the night alternately dropping things and tapping on my wine glass, well, because it was such a novelty to have tappy nails. The very next day I was found ripping them off one by one and nibbling on what plastic was left in an effort to get them off. (Side note: Like a bad boyfriend, I gave fake nails one more try. I put DIY nails on and went to dinner. As I was squeezing lemon on my fish, one took flight. I still don’t know where it landed.)

More recently, I thought I’d give the fake eyelash trend a bash. I’m not even gonna tell a lie – I think they look awesome, even if they do look fake. Anyhow, I spent fifteen million hears of my life getting them put on and they were irritating AF! It felt like someone had dropped a ton of mascara on my eyelids, but scratchy mascara, with little knives. Almost immediately, I started pulling them off – which left me with a truly awesome look as some remained and some came off. I looked like I’d been in an unusual bar fight where you have to randomly tear eyelashes from your opponent’s eyes.

Then, this morning, just as I thought I might get myself some fillers in my lips, I saw a lady in the gym which reminded me why I shouldn’t. Lips, it seems, are defined by definite lines. As we age we lose pigmentation which means that even if you plump up your lips, it just makes your top lip look kind of puffy. Like you actually don’t have lips. Like you’ve been injured, or just been to the dentist. So ja, fuck that shit. It ain't gonna fly.

Of course, I still have one last trick up my sleeve: weight loss. Though I must be honest here, as time draws near my google search history has switched from “How to lose 30 kgs in 3 years” to “How to lose 30 kgs in 3 months” to “How to lose 30 kgs in 3 weeks”. And if you watch this space carefully, I might even share how I successfully lost 30kgs between the time that I left Cape Town to the time that I arrived in Durban. But don’t be too hopeful. I know I’m not.

P.S. I feel my current orthodontic braces are the cherry on the cake. In order to limit lacerations made by the metal braces, I’ve not only developed a list but also now possess the special skill of “spit-shower speak”. Lucky me. Wear your raincoats to the reunion folks.

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bare truths and bear tattoos...

(Original unedited image via www.thevintagenews.com)

Over the last week or so, I’ve been looking up images of bears in every nook and cranny of the internet. I won’t lie, it’s been a bit frantic. But you see I have a goal: a new tattoo. And I have a deadline: my 30^thschool reunion.

So why the bear obsession, I hear you say? To answer this, I need to backtrack a bit. Ever since left school I’ve actively avoided all my school reunions. For the 10^threunion, I still didn’t have a degree or diploma. I think I was pregnant and looking rather “swell”. I’d really done nothing noteworthy and literally had no accomplishments to my name, other than I could speak a rough, sweary form of German that I learned from a dodgy ex-boyfriend.

Then my 20^threunion rolled around and, well, things were pretty much the same. I still hadn’t accomplished very much and while I wasn’t pregnant, I still kind of looked that way. I did at one stage consider robbing a bank just to make some kind of name for myself but thought better of it. I hadn’t taken up any brag-worthy sports like surfing or marathon running. I still hadn’t nailed a new skill, like playing the banjo or cello. I still hadn’t gone through a magical transformation and did not look like a swimwear model or a body-builder. I hadn’t even been on drugs so I couldn’t even do motivational speaking on how tough it was to recover. 

Truth is, I was ashamed at my failure to win at life. To make matters worse, all my siblings and seemingly everyone else on the planet was busy with noble career choices like nursing and teaching and inventing cures for people with two left feet. 

But now my 30^thschool reunion is looming and while the status quo more or less remains the same regarding my lack of looks, fame, success, and fortune, I do have a hankering to meet up with old friends and share some memories. 

This is not to say I haven’t been practicing imaginary conversations about why no-one has written a book about my life. I’ve considered bald-faced lies like “Oh, I’m a spy and can’t tell anyone about it. This chubby-mumsy look I’ve got going on is just a disguise.” I’ve even considered more outlandish lies like “I work in a secret laboratory and can’t talk about my work. You wouldn’t understand it anyway.” The most believable lie I can come up with is that my job is to shave male Olympic swimmers. (Might also be a secret fantasy. Hard to know.)

Anyhow, back to bears and tattoos. I thought that, seeing as though I’m not going to be able to pull off the image of being a beautiful, svelte, well-preserved, successful, famous, rich, highly-educated, math-nailing woman of the world, I’d better go for something else: A devil-may-care (= overthinker), don’t give-a-fuck (= actually, I give too many fucks), anti-establishment (= don’t sign homework books), minimalist (= poor), freelancer (= mostly unemployed), heavily-tattooed (= a few naff tattoos) persona. But see the problem is that I don’t have enough tattoos to be convincing enough. 

So, I Googled “bear tattoos”. Big no-no. All the bear tattoos I found were these fierce, growly, teeth-bared tattoos. So, I Googled “bear drawing”. Mmm. Getting there, but lots of illustrations that looked like they belonged in a kid’s picture book rather than on my skin. Nope, not hardcore enough to match my New 30^thReunion Persona. Getting desperate, I searched “bear sketch” on Instagram and I found that, between the images of sweet teddy bears, vicious bears, baby bears, polar bears, and koala bears, there were sketches of men, mostly hairy and often posing suggestively.  Who knew that “bear” was also slang for a hot, hairy man?

Anyway, I finally found an image I liked and set about emailing a few tattoo artists I follow on Instagram. Can we just take a moment to lament the what-the-fuckery is up with some tattoo artists? On my quest to find the perfect tattooist to execute “bear”, I was reminded of a story my niece told me. (Um, and just to clarify, she’s in her 20’s. She’s not, like, ten.)

She’d wanted a tattoo for a while. I think it was of a wildflower. She found an image she liked and made a booking with a tattoo artist that was recommended to her. Dunno WTF his name was but we’ll call him “Gary”. As she’s a self-confessed, not-good-at-maps kind of person, she arrived a little late to find a very disgruntled, surly Gary. To make matters worse, his tattoo parlour wasn’t so much a parlour as a home, and he didn’t have a tattoo bed, but rather a drab, brown couch that lacked both cushions and cleanliness. 

She showed him the tattoo image. Gary then proceeded to lecture her about “how can you expect me (*harp sound* an artiste!) to copy someone else’s tattoo?” and “don’t you have any pride?” and “why would you want to have someone else’s tattoo on your body?” Understandably taken aback at his rude tirade, she gently tried to explain that it was hard to tell a tattoo artist to tattoo something without showing them what it is you want to have tattooed. He wasn’t hearing any of it. And she left - tattooless - but with the comfort that she hadn’t parted with any cash and that she didn’t bear the indelible marks of a madman. 

Anyhow, what brought this story to mind was that – armed with my bear-sketch - I approached a tattooist who had done a tattoo for me a few years ago. At the time, she was a junior tattoo artist and had no qualms about taking my money, copying someone else’s art, and using my skin as her training canvass. Fast forward a few years to when she’s honed her craft, developed her “style” and now won’t “copy someone else’s art”. Oh, the shifting sands of morality! She’s happy to “change the sketch”, but here’s the thing: I won’t get to see the sketch until I’ve paid the deposit. Erm. But what if I don’t like your sketch and I’ve paid you the money? And also, isn’t this a bit like reinventing the wheel as I already have a sketch that I know that I like? 

Isn’t insisting that someone accept and pay for your art a bit like saying to your client “I know you want that yellow blouse, but here, have this black one that by-the-way also doesn’t fit you."  Or, it could be like me telling my clients, “Ummm, ja, I know you want me to write about your work in your website, but I’d rather just write a fun story.”

To be perfectly honest, I have a problem with “artistic sensibilities” on the whole. If you want to puke paint on Lady Gaga and call it art, bully for you. Just don’t expect me to call it art. And if you want to poop paint-filled eggs out of your lady bits onto white paper and call it art, go right ahead. Just don’t ask me to buy it, love it, or call it art. And if you want to insert wool into your hoo-hoo and knit with it as it comes out, well fuck that shit. I mean really. That’s just taking the piss. 

But back to copying. If you go with Mark Twain’s theory that “originality does not exist”,you might accept that everyone (yes, including “arteeestes”) has drawn on others people's images, works, looks, ideas, and processes to feed their creativity. And hell-lo, this is especially relevant to tattoo artists! For the love of all things that are holy, tattoo parlours have endless tattoo books and poster references in their waiting rooms from where you can select your tattoo. So duh! Don’t give me this preciousness about “copying” and your “art”. Maybe I can explain it by way of a fashion analogy: We can’t always be designers. Sometimes we have to be the seamstress who simply executes the design.

On that note, one of the words that’s bandied around a lot by tattoo artists is “trust”. I have a problem with this. There, I said it. See, telling your client that they need to “trust” you with something that you will have for the rest of your life (but that they will never see again), is like saying “Hey! Let’s have a baby together. But I only want to make it. You the one who has to live with it forever.”  Also, jaaaaa, and um, sorry to hurt your feelings but what if I don’t like your doodle and now I’m stuck with it. Like forever. 

Lastly, WTF’s with the heavy-metal? I get that you have to maintain your “cool” tattooee image but honestly, I can take the pain of the needle better than the pressure of having to pretend that I like men-screaming-in-pain kind of music. (I have a secret suspicion that when all the clients leave, the tattooists switch to Tchaikovsky or Carly Rae Jepsen.)

You know what the irony behind all this me-trying-to-look-cool for my reunion shit is? It’s that I can’t even claim that there’s some “deep meaning” behind the bear tattoo. It isn’t my “spirit animal” or "totem." It doesn’t remind me of a teddy bear I loved as a kid. And it certainly doesn’t reflect the constellations in any way. I only chose it because like a bear, I’m also big with soft edges, I love to sleep, I like eating fish and berries, and I also look really awkward when I run.

... 

(As a side note, if we chose, say, a “Circus” theme for the reunion I could go as both the tattooed lady and the bearded lady at the same time. What can I say, perimenopause has a way of stimulating chin whiskers.)

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one kiss is all it takes...

(Original unedited photo via Pintrest and www.thechive.com)

Years ago I saw someone wearing a T-shirt that said “It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt. Then it’s hilarious.” How I laughed at that shirt at the time. But today, I write to you as someone who has been on the receiving end of the joke. 

I suppose I should give you the backstory. We have a guest cottage on our property that we rent out to lovely guests in the holiday season and rent to absolute trolls in the Winter months (OK, OK, some are really cool and there are just a few trolls who have rented it.) Our favourite and most long-staying guests are from the UK – a retired couple that sound a little like they could be related to Jason Statham or at least have a minor role in a Guy Ritchie flick. 

A few years ago, we noticed that three tortoises had made their home down at the little garden at our guest cottage. Well, we didn’t so much notice as the guests brought it to our attention. You see one of the tortoises was tormenting our guests every time they went outside to hang the washing up on the line. They claimed he would race up to them and ram into their feet. They feared for their toes lives.

I must confess, at the time I thought, well that’s a bit naff, innit? (To be fair, Brits don’t exactly enjoy the reputation of being the world’s most robust nation, now do they?)  Although I didn’t take their word on the viciousness of “Terry” (the name they gave him, derived from “terrorist”), I thought it best to keep the peace and bring him up into our garden so he could stop harassing the guests. And there Terry has stayed, pottering around quite happily. Hibernating, waking up, getting fed, hibernating, and so on. 

Now, I’m not entirely sure when the “shift” happened, but I can say that Terry slowly but surely became bolder and bolder. At first, we thought it was a fluke when we would arrive home and he would greet us at the gate. After a while we realised that he could probably feel the vibrations as we walked up the stairs and was deliberately coming to greet us.  OK, I realise the word “greet” might be a stretch – he was probably hankering after food rather than affection. To confuse matters, sometimes he would stroll up to us casually and other times, he’d take a full-on run up and ram into our feet. Turns out our guests weren’t lying after all. But he did have me wondering what the hell he was after. Food? Water? Friendship? A new tuxedo?

Until this point, we’d been leaving food in the garden for Terry and he’d eat it at his leisure. Now, a kind of intimacy had developed between us and I found myself hand feeding him, no less.  What can I say, over time Terry and I had become even closer. I picked him up when I come home and stroked his head and shell for a second or two. When I put him down, he came back for more. 

So, last Friday it wasn’t unreasonable to assume he wanted to take the next step with me. After all, I‘d seen quite a few videos of people stroking and cuddling tortoises and the little buggers (or in some cases big buggers) seem to enjoy it. Don’t take my word for it, just google “Do tortoises like being cuddled” and you’ll see the videos for yourself. 

Anyway, BK and I were on our way out to a drinks party and Terry seemed particularly needy. Running, ramming. You know the drill. I picked him up like I normally do, cuddled him and then brought him up to my cheek. You know, to nuzzle a little. 

The little fucker bit me!  Yup. Drew blood and everything. And because we were running late I had no time to clean it up and had to arrive at the function with tortoise bite marks on my jawline. I was a little concerned about getting an infection so cleaned it by dipping my finger in someone’s gin and tonic and wiping it down.

My family did little to allay my fears when I told them about it. My mom said “Little shit. Get a tet injection tomorrow. Never know what bacteria he’s carrying”. My brother (always the comedian) said “Yes, get cleaned up proper. Later we can get back to how he noshed you on the cheek. What was he standing on?” and then added (unhelpfully, I thought) “He’s a reptile.” My Sister-the-ICU-Sister not-so-calmly suggested that I “be very careful and clean the would very, very well” because “tortoises carry salmonella and other infections so watch out…”  Righto. So no need for alarm then.

And while I did have a few dreams that I turned into a tortoise (you know, like after a vampire bite), I can happily report that the wound has healed, I don’t have salmonella and Terry and I are on good terms once again. 

But I won’t be nuzzling him any time soon. Ungrateful little fucker.

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Mary Jane and her tent...

(Original unedited image via www.wvpublic.org)

Something funny happened to me the other day. Granted, it was not the kind of funny that had me bent over double in laughter, but it was funny all the same. Funny in a kind of WTF-holy-crabcakes kind of way.

We have a guest cottage. We built it after TFTF was born and the idea was to rent it out to holiday makers and make a bit of income after I quit full-time work. The cottage has been good to us and we’ve been lucky to have some pretty awesome guests. The holiday-maker market however, is very seasonal, and so we decided to rent out the cottage during the Winter months to get a regular income when bookings slowed down.

We’ve had some really awesome tenants and we’ve had some total oddballs. One thing I know for sure is that a) even if people look clean, they don’t necessarily live clean and b) no-one, not ever, cleans an oven. Sies!*

Our very first tenants were very religious. Super Christians, if you like. We know this because 24 hours after moving into the cottage, they arrived at our front door with a box of “evil” things they didn’t want in the house during their rental period. These included: the spiral finials from the curtain rods (apparently they were “serpents”), a candle holder (that I thought looked like the kind of statues you see of Mary in a Catholic church - I think the tenants found it blasphemous - though they never really said), and, most of the book collection we leave there for guests to read (who knew Philippa Gregory and John Grisham were so evil? Not me, apparently.) When these tenants finally left, we deduced by the damp streaks left on the wall that they hadn’t opened the windows oncethroughout their lease period (Would it let the evil in? I had to wonder.) There were also remnants of notes that had been fastened to the wall with Prestik. Hundreds of handwritten notes that very much reminded me of the journals that the serial killer wrote in the movieSeven.It was creepy AF.

Then there was the skittish single woman who was convinced she was a target for crime. She would hint – sometimes discreetly, sometimes directly – that we needed to install a state-of-the-art security system in the cottage because burglar bars, locks and keys just wouldn’t be sufficient. 

There was the seemingly nice young couple who broke the shower and then split up. The dodgy girl disappeared in the dead of night, never to be seen again. She left her boyfriend to cover the rent. Which he couldn’t, so he also left. Sayofuckenara.

There was the other single lady who made films and seemingly, did little else. For one thing, she never vacuumed the carpet. Like seriously, not even once. When we had the carpet cleaned after she left, it was like those advertisements you see on TV for Verimark where they show a filthy, stained carpet and then contrast it with a now-sparkling clean section of carpet. She was also very religious and once asked me darkly - after spotting me with my yoga mat - whether I did yoga for the exercise or the philosophy. Before I could answer, she suggested, in a rather cryptic voice, “You might not want to do yoga.”

Last year’s tenants were a lovely missionary couple from the USA. Oven cleaning is either not big in the USA, or it isn’t a big thing with missionaries. I used an entire can of oven cleaner and 16 million rolls of kitchen towel to clean the oven after they left. Heaven only knows what they cooked in there but it sure as hell spit a lot of grease. I didn’t hesitate to pay them their deposit before they left as I automatically assumed (them being missionaries and all) that they would have declared any major breakages and filthages. Won’t make that mistake again. They totally trashed the shower and we had to replace the whole thing. (WT living F do people do in the shower?!?!? I should add that they took up the tenancy unpregnant and left pregnant. Maybe that’s down to our awesome shower?)

But other than that, all our tenants have been rather nice. And so is our current one. Well, for the most part.

When Jason* (not his real name) came to view the cottage he was clean shaven, dressed in a smart-casual shirt and chinos, smelled of soap and aftershave and was chatty and personable. He explained that he was self-employed and had his own security company. Private body-guard stuff is how I understood it. After chatting a while and doing what I thought was some super-sleuth work, I decided he was the right candidate for our Winter rental. 

We see Jason from time to time. Mostly we chat in the driveway about random this-and-that. Our dogs love popping in to see him and he loves petting them. There are, however, a few curious things about Jason. Things that, in retrospect, were signs.

For one, he has two phone numbers. One number, he explained, is only for work. Fair enough, I guess, if you’re in the security/body guard/spy industry.

Secondly, one of the first questions he asked, is whether the cottage has a safe. While this is a common question for holiday makers who wish to stash their visas and forex safely, I can honestly say that no tenant has EVER asked this before. Jason said it was for safe-keeping of his firearm. OK, so ja, fair enough, security and guns go hand in hand.

Thirdly, Jason has no car. Well, he sort of has one now (it’s borrowed) but it seems to mostly stand in the driveway and he tends to get lifts. This is odd. Especially for someone who might need to, you know, secure something or someone.

Jason is either at home a lot. But like, for days at a time. Or, he is away a lot. Like, for days at a time. He likes to make fires in the braai area at mid-day during the week. Sometimes he actually cooks on the fire, sometimes he just sits next to it. And while this is kind of nice, it’s also kind of odd.

Jason has visitors who pop by for very short visits. True, his parents did come for a braai in his first week, but since then it’s mostly been young men who pop in for anything from half an hour to several hours. 

But here’s the thing. Jason always pays his rent on time. And while he occasionally has a boisterous braai and a spot of trance music playing, he generally keeps to himself. He’s friendly and chatty and though he was sporting a rugged stubble for a while, he recently shaved it off and went off to work in a suit, looking smart and smelling good.

Fast forward to an enquiry I got for a holiday rental in December. The prospective guest had had some bad experiences with AirBnB and asked whether I would mind if his daughter popped in to vet the cottage. 

Of course, I emailed back to him. No trouble at all.

I firmed up a time with Tara* (not her real name) and let Jason know that we’d be accessing the cottage. 

Shortly after Tara arrived, I received a phone call from Jason. 

“I’m so sorry”, he said “I’m running late but I’ll be there in 5 minutes.”

“Oh, don’t stress”, I replied, “I have my own set of keys and I’m just about to open up.”

Tara and I enter the cottage and although I’ve already explained that we have a tenant and that the cottage isn’t arranged to Five-Star standards, I’m eager to demonstrate to her how lovely the cottage is. Or at least, normally is.

At first glance it looks fine. Sure, Jason has moved the furniture around in a boxy kind of way – chairs up against the wall, the TV cabinet squished into a corner – but it looks fairly neat and clean. At the very least it looks like a doctor's waiting room.

We walk through the lounge into the open plan kitchen. I glance down the passage that leads to the bathroom and bedroom and then notice that the bedroom looks all closed up and dark. Dark that is, except for a purple light that is coming from quite near the doorway. My first thought is “LAVA LAMP” – standard bachelor decor.  But, on closer inspection, I see that the purple light is coming from inside a tent that has been erected in the bedroom. 

My second thought is “ALTITUDE TENT”. Aaah, I think to myself, all this time dear Jason has been hypoxic training for a hike in the Andes. Impressed by his commitment and drive, his staying-at-homeness and car-lessness (Duh, he’s a hiker!) now makes total sense to me.

I had literally JUST been telling Tara how lovely our tenant is, when I noticed that the Jason’s altitude tent wasn’t an altitude tent at all. Tara and I notice - at the same time - big, FAT shrubs growing in the tent. The light, we now realised, was actually a grow light.

I was speechless. You could have knocked me over with a feather. Jason had pushed the beds right up against the opposite wall and the bedroom looked nothing like the light, airy bedroom it was born to be.

It was at this moment that Jason made his entrance. 

“Jason!” I say, a little took loudly. “Welcome to the set of Weeds!” I add a little awkwardly, eager to make light of the slightly horrifying situation I now found myself in.

Jason is sweating profusely and blurts out in a loud, sheepish kind of voice “Hehe. Erm. It’s legal.”

And though I want to add “Sure it is! Like my plantation of poppies is for flower arranging,” I don’t say anything at all. And though I’m dying to ask him just what the living fuck he things he’s doing, I am also super conscious of keeping cool for the sake of Tara. 

Jason stammers from sentence to sentence, blurting out in discordant order how he’s “getting into cannabis oil” and that it’s “medicinal”. But his overall demeanour belies the truth.

Suddenly everything makes sense. The safe. The being at home. The timeous payment of rent. The no-more visits from his mum and dad.

I had to think long and hard about what to do about Jason and his sweet Mary Jane. You see, it’s not really something about Mary Jane, it’s more about trust. But it’s also a little about bedrooms in general and about how, whether you’re growing tomatoes, basil or Kush, bedrooms aren’t the right place to do it.

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent as well as the guilty.

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chip and dale and dallas...

Over the past two weeks I’ve received “signs” of what this blog post should be about. The first sign was when I spotted a chap at the gym who I used to know from my youth. I had an almighty crush on him which was only made worse by the fact that he had a super cool name: James Dallas. When your name has “Dallas” in it, people immediately associate it with the word “Cowboy”. Needless to say, James Dallas wore his name very well and was very cowboyish in that hot-in-blue jeans kind of way. 

The second sign was when a Facebook friend posted a video of cowboys dancing in a field. The group of dancers are from a group called "Magic Men" and given the lil’ hip thrust they managed to sneak into their routine, I reckon they don’t generally dance in fields. 

Anyhow, both incidences reminded me of something that happened to me in the 80’s. 

I was all of 15 years old when we started seeing advertisements on the TV for a troupe of dancers from the USA. They were called The Chippendales and from what they showed us on the TV ad, they were an all-male group of dancers that toured the world. 

I need to back up a bit and remind you of where South Africa was historically with regards to “dancers”. The apartheid era was known for seriously cramping everyone’s style, not least of those who like to “dance” in public. Accordingly, if you wanted to see a “dancer”, you had to go to somewhere like the Wild Coast Sun, where “dancing” was allowed. Of course, there was tons of other things that weren’t allowed, but “dancing” was definitely one of them. Accordingly, the advertisements we saw only showed the Chippendales dancing, like for REAL, and not “dancing”.

To be honest, I’m not sure if my mum and older sister put two and two together, but if they did, they certainly didn’t let me in on it. Although I was curious to know why the chosen performance venue for the Chippendales was The Wild Coast Sun, I was not about to put up a fight when my mum (also known as The Queen) and my older sister (Liza Minelli) told me I could bunk school and join them to see one of the shows. They also booked a ticket for Exotica and before long our gaggle of girls was on their way to the Wild Coast. Exotica and I felt very grown up because we were the only teenagers included in the foray (which in retrospect should have been a red flag). 

We arrived hours before the show was due to start and The Queen let us mill around on our own with R20 in our pockets till the show kicked off. As Exotica and I strolled around, taking in the sights of gamblers, slot machines and card players, we stumbled upon a movie theatre which stated STRICKLY NO UNDER 18’s. Mystified as to what might lie within, we slowly got the gist as we saw man after man after man entering the theatre. As the realisation dawned on us, a discussion ensued between Exotica and I about the dynamics of watching a Blue Movie, and in the company of strangers to boot. Did they all wank off together? we wondered. Or, did they all rush to the loos immediately after the film to sort themselves out? Either way, we decided that it was a grubby, soggy business (“Ew, imagine the chairs!” we both exclaimed) and we wanted to get as far away from the theatre as what we could.

To ease our nerves, we decided to spend our R20 on a drink. I’d heard that Sambuca was a thing and had seen people in movies lighting their shot glasses and then downing it while it was still aflame. 

Eager to test whether this could actually be done, I assured Exotica that I’d done it many times and that she shouldn’t be nervous and should “just go for it”. The flame was hotter and bluer than I anticipated but by now there was no holding Exotica back. To this day I’m not really sure what she did wrong, but I think she went in for the kill a little too slowly. Once her drink was downed, she said “Your turn”. As I looked at her, something seemed different about her. Kind of odd. Off. Then I noticed. Where her eye lashes were supposed to be there were now little white balls of singed hair. I decided against lighting mine and downed it cold instead.

Even if Exotica and I had finished an entire bottle of Sambuca each, we would not have been prepared for what came next.

After being ushered into the theatre, we noticed a group of rather rowdy women in the front row, just a little along from where we ourselves were sitting. We weren’t sure what the reasons behind their rambunctious behaviour was, but we decided it wasn’t very orthodox to behave in such an uncouth way in a theatre. After all, the only other theatres we’d been in were The Playhouse in Durban and The Hexagon in Pietermaritzburg, and that was to watch ballet.

The music started. There was wild cheering and applause. Whistling even. A man, let’s call him “Chip”, sashayed onto the stage. He was wearing black trousers, a white collared shirt and a bow tie. Mmm. Smart, I thought, though a little impractical if you’re about to dance. Before long there was more sashaying, and hip wiggling and stroking of chests and flicking back of hair. Exotica and I sunk low into our chairs. 

After what seemed like a VERY long time, Chip started removing his clothing. I’m not sure who was in charge of garment construction but I confess, I did think it was a stroke of genius that both his trousers and shirt could be removed in one quick, snap-the-snappers move. The heat from both Exotica and my cheeks was radiant. There was nowhere to go. No way we could escape this nightmare. 

As number after number was performed, the rowdy ladies got rowdier, and Exotica and I started to look like we were actually grafted into the red velvet upholstery. To make matters worse, I was seated RIGHT NEXT TO THE QUEEN the entire time.

The pièce de résistance unfolded as follows. A man – let’s call him “Dale” – sauntered onto the stage wearing a beach towel and carrying a little basket of, well, we weren’t sure yet what was in it. As the music progressed, Dale removed his towel in a rather dramatic way and laid it on the stage floor in the manner that a gentleman might lay down his coat over a puddle. Standing in a speedo swimming costume, and despite there being no threat of sunburn, he took a bottle of suntan oil out of his little beach bag and rub it suggestively over his chest and thighs. 

 

To more cheering, whistling and applauding, he sashayed down the stairs and off the stage, and strolled slowly, in a very hips-forward kind of way, past the front row. By now my embarrassment had left me and I was left with a faint feeling of nausea. This only got worse as I saw Dale stop RIGHT IN FRONT of The Queen.  

 

Putting one foot and then the other on the armrest of The Queen’s chair, he proceeded to gyrate in The Queen’s face. It got worse. His Speedo was a snapper-Speedo and in one swift move, he whipped it off to reveal a very scanty G-string. My mum sat there, as a queen might, utterly unruffled. I’d been at the receiving end of one of her withering looks many times and I wished she’d shoot him one right now.  By now Exotica and I were utterly dead. We could not wait for this blasted “dance” show to end. 

 

It was a long, silent, awkward drive home and to this day I have never returned to the Wild Coast Sun. And neither shall I.

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