The name game

Firstly I'd like to wish my mom a very very very happy birthday for today! I hope you had a wonderful day, mom. Enjoy your new blender :-)

When I got married I was under the impression that my troubles with my surname were over. I would automatically spell my surname the second it left my mouth. As my maiden surname is of German origin, often people would put an umlaut on every possible vowel. Not to mention the wide variety of ways in which my surname was pronounced. The minute I said those vows I believed these woes to be over. My new surname is rather English, only one syllable and pretty common.

When I reserved a table for my husband's birthday at a restaurant over the phone, I didn't dream there would be a problem with our surname. I said it 3 times, slowly. The guy on the other end said: spell it. OK. So I spelt it slowly. Even saying things like S for Sugar, T for Tree and E for Emma etc. I was shocked to see what had come out on the other end when we arrived at the restaurant. This was like broken telephone! I couldn't believe that the guy on the other end even thought a surname like that could exist. It looked like a bunch of letters thrown together haphazardly.

SROSP

I was just glad we got a table in the end.

Paw paw for lunch

Cake for breakfast automatically means paw paw for lunch.

Man, I sometimes hate the fact that I'm reasonably health-conscious. I always have fruit for breakfast - to give my body a chance to cleanse itself and get rid of all the toxins that I put in the day before. Fruit is best for this because it doesn't take long to digest - it just passes through - thus giving my body a chance to concentrate its energy on the cleansing process (move over Patrick Holford).

Besides, fruit for breakfast just makes me feel cleansed. I just feel good after I've eaten fruit. Too bad I also felt good this morning while eating a nice slice of pecan nut pie...

So here I am eating my carefully sliced paw paw for lunch. It's not bad, I really like paw paw. And, admittedly, I do feel good that I haven't overindulged, and managed to self-discipline myself to have fruit for lunch. Since starting this fruit for breakfast thing I've really gotten used to being hungry. From around 11 am, my tummy starts growling loudly. I quite like the feeling of being hungry. It makes me feel... thinner. This together with all the salad and vegetables we eat, and all the running we do, I'd say we're pretty healthy. And usually I feel good about that, and am very proud of how we manage to keep it up.

But sometimes, just sometimes (like today - wonder if this has anything to do with the pecan nut pie, lemon meringue pie and oreos waiting at home) I really irritate myself with this health crap. I'd love to just have a burger and chips right now, or a nice toasted sarmie with chicken mayo on it. Or a spinach and feta pie or a cheesy macaroni and cheese. Or bacon and avo bagel, or a savoury pancake or...

Happy birthday my angel

Just wanted to leave a little note here to wish my husband the most marvellous birthday ever. My angel, I love you so so so much. You've touched and changed my life in the most wonderful ways. I can't wait to spend your next 67 (at least) birthdays together. I can't think of a better way of living my life than living it with you. I love you endlessly.

Excitement

Remember how excited you used to get before your birthday or Christmas? Somehow that novelty seems to wear off as you get older...

In our home on our birthdays we used to open presents before we went to school in the mornings. You'd wait expectantly in your room until a family member would fetch you from your room, and lead you, with your eyes closed, to the birthday table. As you opened your eyes you would drink in a table full of presents and a delicious cake with a number of lit candles reflecting your new age.

My parents would read some passages from the Bible, sing a song and pray. I remember, when I was younger, wishing this could all go a little faster. I would peak at the table during the prayer, sizing up the gifts, trying to imagine what was in them. Could it be that barbie that I had wanted so badly?

I guess as you get older you know what to expect, thus deminishing the excitement. The chance that that square-looking thing on the table is that CD you wanted, is probably about 100%.

That's why I am finding it rather curious that both my husband and I are so excited for his birthday tomorrow. I am excited because I can't wait to see his face when he opens his gift, and when he sees what I've planned for him.

And he is in an oddly excellent mood today, considering all the stress that he's under. But, he told me, it's not that much the gift that he's excited about, but the fact that he is so special to me that I would make this much of an effort to make his day as special as possible. In short, I think he's a little giddy because he feels so loved.

And I'm giddy because he's giddy, and that just makes me love him even more.

Home affairs hell

After reading Mrs M's fury with home affairs today, I can't help but add my 2 cents to the mounting criticisms of this ridiculous department that even dares to call itself a department - as if it runs like one. More like an unorganised cattle market.

Home affairs has become like a swear word in this country. I've heard that here in Maritzburg you have to get up at 4 in order to even get to the counter to even get your hands on an application form for an ID. Everyone has a horror story to tell about home affairs. If it's not waiting in queues for hours, it's documents they've lost or didn't bother to let you know that they needed.

A colleague of mine had the wrong birth date printed in his ID. He went back to show them his birth certificate (imagine, he had to go through the whole process again) and when he got his ID 6 months later it still hadn't been fixed! So now he has to contend with the big boss phoning him in January instead of May to wish him happy birthday...

Probably one of the worst things I've ever done was loosing my ID (I should really stop beating myself up about it, but people keep reminding me of how I could be married off to some bloke in the Transkei by now). When I had searched high and low and finally accepted the grave fate that it was gone, I trudged off to home affairs and applied for a new one. This was one and a half years ago. Since then I have not laid my hands on a green ID book - having now gone through three temporary IDs.

When I went to fetch my ID the first time, they let me know that my fingerprints weren't taken correctly. But they didn't let me know. For 3 months my file had been sitting there with smudged fingerprints and they didn't even bother to let me know. And how do they get that wrong in the first place? I went back grudgingly, redid the fingerprints and prepared myself for another wait.

In the meantime I got married. So back I went to home affairs to apply for a new ID. The old application, they told me, had encountered a problem because my surname had changed. Fair enough, I thought, so I applied for a new one. Made sure the fingerprints were done carefully, got a temporary ID and thought the headache was finally over.

Now - about 2 months on - I haven't heard anything - despite their assurance that they will keep me updated with their new sms service. I entered my details on the website to find (quite horrified) that "no record of application" exists. I am slowly starting to loose my patience. Conveniently they have no email addresses that you can contact them on - probably because they wouldn't bother to answer. I've been trying to get hold of them telephonically for weeks now. I don't have time or money to be on the phone for hours waiting for them to get off their rear ends to answer the phone.

I think home affairs gives me a pretty good idea of what hell might be like.

The cellphone generation

Remember the days when you used to phone your parents and friends from your landline. Just a few years ago when I was still at school, there was no other way of reaching your friends than by picking up the telkom installed phone and dialling their 7 digit number. Now my preferred mode of communication is smsing.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing - it's much cheaper, and we can't stop the development of these technologies anyway, so why not just make use of those things that make your life considerably easier.

There are some things that do erk me (and my husband in particular) about cell phones though. Such as when we (usually my husband) are trying to type an English sms and the predictive text dictionary is on a different language (usually German). Suddenly "Hello" becomes "Helln" and "Hey" is "Gew".

Or when you've written a whole long message, by mistake pressed the wrong button, and erased the whole thing. Or when you've got a low battery and just as you send the message, the phone dies, thus erasing your message. Or the fact that we go into a panic when our phones die and we're not close to a charger (pretty sad isn't it). Or when you've sent an sms and you don't get a delivery report - even though the person got your message (that really grates my carrot). My husband in particular hates the sound of my cellphone alarm (but who needs an alarm clock or a radio alarm when you have a cell phone?).

Haven't we become a little too dependant on these things, though? I mean, forgetting your cellphone at home is a big deal! You feel isolated and out of touch - scared to miss something important. I also find it helps me to avoid interactions - how much easier is it to send an sms that says "I'm angry with you!" than to actually take the courage and say it to somebody's face?

Today our manager went out for a few minutes to get some food, leaving behind her phone to charge. During the few minutes she was gone, someone sent her a message, and phoned 3 times. As wonderful new technology goes, every minute or so, the phone would remind us that there was a message waiting to be read. After 10 minutes of this repetitive cheery tune, we were ready to chuck the thing down the loo. I remember the same thing happening during my studies - a housemate had left her phone at home while the battery was low. Every few minutes it would remind us of this, and to add salt to the wound, an sms arrived, thus sounding every 30 seconds for either low battery or unread sms. We ended up locking the thing in the bathroom (like a naughty pet) until the housemate came home - hours later!

At least I'm not one of those people who always need the newest, latest phones with the best features, those with the Internet, MP3 players and all that jazz. I'm quite happy when I can just sms and call, be reminded of important dates and woken up in the morning.

And most importantly I'm glad when I can switch it off. Without a guilty conscience.

Totally uninspired

I remember speaking to Mrs M before I started blogging. Being a seasoned blogger herself, Mrs M abated my fears about not encountering happenings every single day that would be worth blogging about, and she ensured me that there will never be a shortage of inspiration around me. Up to now, she has been right. For every day, I seem to find something interesting in the world around me to blog about.

Until now.

I have to admit, Mrs M, your job is a lot more interesting than mine, and your life seems a little more tumultuous at the moment than mine has ever been. I don't even (thankfully) have dogs dying in my street.

But nonetheless I have managed up to now to keep my readers interested, even evoking some positive comments from some of them. Which, mind you, seems to put a little more pressure on me to write something interesting or funny or controversial or unique.

I've always had backup plans in my head. Something that comes to me while we're jogging, or while I'm lying in bed. If something marvellous doesn't strike me on a certain day, I have backup plans A, B and C ready (my dad taught me to always have a backup - after I learnt the hard way). But somehow they just all seem so flat today. I mean, who wants to know about how one should behave in a movie (based on our irritating experience in the movies the other day - filled with people laughing at inappropriate times, rustling with their packets and unashamedly using their cell phones) or about my plans for the weekend or about how joggers and cyclists seem to belong to some elite brother/sisterhood? Somehow these ideas have never reached full maturity. They are still rather half-baked. They have potential, I admit, but it seems there's some crucial ingredient missing.

Friends suggested I should write about the interesting place we stay at (which I will definitely do some time), but I just can't seem to formulate something concrete and inspiring in my head right now.

Mmh.

And as I sit back and read what I've just written, I realise that I have actually managed to write something about, well, actually nothing at all.