Pajama drills and annoying livestock

I like pajamas. In fact pajamas are my favourite pieces of clothing. Silky, satiny, flannel - depending on the occassion - I love them all.

Now having said that I wasn't a fan of "all purpose wear" - that rather ill-fated idea of a designer a few years ago thinking that pajamas can by styled in such a manner that it can be worn in public as well - it still looked like pajamas, no matter what you did with it.

In winter I can spend long evenings in my pajamas without feeling slightly style-less (now that I have given up on the ridiculous pink-doggie-slippers).

But having said that I never venture into public with my pjs. I will sometimes go chase away bunnies from the vegetable garden or confront errant members of the neighbourhood watch in the middle of the night but otherwise when going out I put on real clothes.

I am not sure why I am still surprised when humanity proved time and again that there usually is no end to bad manners and inconsiderate behaviour. So when I was drove past a rather awkward scene in Bird Street the other day involving a girl in very ill-fitting satin pajamas and very pink slippers, a man wearing pj bottoms and a rather amused policeman, I was surprised. In fact I stopped and enquired only to be entertained by a long tale of infidelity, larceny and something weird about the last cigarette in the packet before the conversation descended into a domestic dispute of such nastiness that the policeman had to intervene.

Since then I realised that there are quite a lot of people in Port Elizabeth who think it is ok to wear pajamas on the street. The other morning I saw an old man going to buy the paper in his robe, two women with the whole pajamas, robe and curlers ensemble chatting on the street corner, two women in pajamas popping into the cornershop in their pjs and one memorable woman who was driving a very fancy car and obviously didn't bother to get dressed before she dropped the kids off at school. Really people? What is wrong with a tracksuit? Or a t-shirt and jeans. SInce when has it become applicable to wear pajamas in public?

Now this doesn't annoy me on the scale that I am about to embark on a new law enforcement campaign similar to the great stop-peeing-in-public-law-enforcement-effort of 2006 when I testified in no less than 8 public indecency cases and won 8 convictions (I am a very good witness, haha ) - plus one guy got convicted twice when he, after being fined in an unprecedented act of defiance peed in the dustbin outside the court.

And honestly, this just doesn't happen in Cape Town. Cape Town might have flashers, people without teeth spitting in the street, strange drunken advocates pushing each other around in shopping trolleys and judges who sometimes wear feather boas but nobody I know who would possibly commit the social sin of wearing pajamas in public.

I guess it is better than wearing nothing - and it won't get you arrested, but for now I will just wish that people will have better manners and continue to stare hard and snort with derision - and continue living in the country where, even if people run around naked outside with their pants on their heads, I just wont see it or I will at least pretend not to because I have to deal with things like pigs having very loud piggy sex on my doorstep. Again. Despite my pleas to the neighbours about their slutty pig. For goodness sake. 

Mean Cows and the Ungoogleable Camel Man

I hate cows. I really do.

What type of person hates cows, you ask?

The owners of infinitely stylishly fabulous gumboots, who have a penchant for rugged camel man types who have no fear or scruples to deal with cows, do.

Some of you will remember that a few years ago a fantastically bright designer hit on the idea that gumboots did not have to be dreary at all. It was a truly happy day. I got red ones with little white polka dots. They were in a word: fabulous. They made playing outside fun. They made walking around farms in the Cape Town winter fun and stylish. They made me love shoes all over again. They were even better than chocolate for a while.

Until the unfortunate cow incident.

At the time, my much beloved sister and dad had hit on the idea of keeping cows. Many of them. Until today I am not sure why.

I was dating the ultimate un-googleable Camel Man at the time . Un-googleable Camel Man offered to bring the cows home. Yes really. Hahaha. I, foolishly offered to go with him. Ungoogleable Camel Man got side-tracked fixing a fence. The cows - and there was a particularly nastly looking one with a mean expression on its face cornered me at the tree - and one licked my boots. It wasn't glamorous. I cannot honestly say that my life flashed before my eyes. It wasn't even bloody terrifying in an urban terrorism kind of way. I just felt trapped by animals who have surprisingly long tongues.

Instead of rescuing me Ungoogleable Camel Man was literally holding his stomach bent over in uncontrollable mirth. No he wasn't really the type to laugh out loud. Guess he still is, but since he refuses to get a Facebook profile I have no idea of his new humour-habits. He was more of a snorter - that is why this was even worse.

So in my never-ending relentless search for news, I happened upon a support group for people suffering of cow phobia. This is part of their support literature: "'A cow is a domestic animal and it is an essential part of human life. In reality, a cow is a meek and docile animal and it is not at all aggressive in nature. Therefore, phobia of cows is quite unnatural and somewhat irrelevant."

What the hell? Let one of them chase you into a tree and lick your boots, lady, and then you tell me it is irrelevant.

Next I had to tick a few boxes to see if I am a genuine cow-phobic and not some wannabee.

Breathlessness (Jip. Might however have been presence of Ungoogleable Camel Man - he had that effect on me)

Excessive sweating (No, that is just gross)

Nausea (slightly but was definitely due to hangover)

Shaking (Only in feet department and might be due to excessive licking)

Heart palpitations (See above comments on Ungoogleable Camel Man)

Fear of death (Uhhh, not really)

Sudden madness (What the hell? Unless meaning mad as in really, really angry at sight of Ungoogleabe Camel Man doubled over in mirth)

Sense of detachment (Nope, unless fear of them actually ruining my fabulous boots count)

So it turns out that I don't really have a phobia - more of a justified avoidance-coping-strategy - except that there is a particularly nasty-looking one that I have encountered on my last few morning runs and it looks like she has a penchant for Nike...

The agony of a boring stalker

We are all frozen in this little corner of the world.

The avian friends are limiting their conflict to sunlight hours. The bunnies are not happy. I have moved all the lettuce plants to the kitchen so now I am only getting accusatory stares and no longer have to run outside in my pajamas to chase them from the vegetable garden. Even the frogs and the spiders are quiet. The owls, Clive and his family, are back. Happy days. However, their stoic refusal to get involved in the goose fight, is slightly disappointing. I thought their beautiful imposing presence would solve the problem but somehow they only sit in the pine tree and look, somewhat amused at the WWF-inspired avian wrestling matches.

One small thing that did happen this week is that my stalker is back.

Now I am one of those people who always feel slightly left out when it comes to criminal fads. Nobody ever tried to spike my drink. Nobody even cloned my Facebook profile. I had a stalker once for about a week in my twenties who sent me bouqets of flowers, choclates and invitations to the opera - until his ego got in the way and he announced himself. 

 

And now, it turns out, while nearing 40, I finally got a stalker again. Cue evil laugh here.

 

Unfortunately he is very much middle aged and way too short to be considered tall, dark and dangerous and even drives a dull car. I am sure, I have to say in his defence, that I am sure he will be a perfect spouse for someone but not for me.

 

I have a feeling that he might be a transvestite as the only thing he ever comments is that I have washing on the line. It is possible to see my washing on the line but I don't hang frilly bras and lacy undies there, I hang those out of sight - unless the wind accidentally blows them all over the yard.

Yes, I did actually have a date with this man once. And yes, confession time I faked a breaking news story to leave after 30 minutes because frankly his company was so dull that it was unbearable.

 

Now if I was a stalker, I would go to all sorts of lengths to hide my identity and use unknown numbers and those 10 minute emails that I could stay anonymous, but mine smsses from his official phone, I would wear the subject of my affections down with presents, and beautiful love letters and joyfully funny smsses. What I am getting are smsses about the state of my laundry every month or two - he is not a particularly enthusiastic stalker.

 

I don't mind really as the smsses usually say: I drove past your house and saw you had washing on the line. Glad to see you are home. 

Have been tempted to reply: Am not home at all but please don't steal the Princess Tam Tam underwear as really like those - but I restrain myself thinking that he will get tired soon and go away or send OMO and Sta-Soft.

Eensy Weensy Spider: The SNVL 18-version

I try to be tough - but actually I am not. As a result life is sending me all sorts of creepy crawlies to test my resilience...and no despite popular opinion this is not a blog about my love life.

I have devised a special frog catching tupperware-sequence (patent pending) that is remarkably effective. Have perfected the broom and spade beating a scorpion to death routine and otherwise date men who doesn't mind catching spiders or at least pretend to remove them from my house with minimal emotion and probably scream in the car afterwards. Otherwise I just leave them to my domestic worker who usually beats them to death with an encyclopedia, despite my pleas that they be helped out into the garden in a gentle way. It is always great to give instructions from the lounge if the spider is in the bedroom.

Last month when there was a spider in my room and Liefie was out saving really sick people instead of me, I just locked the door and went to sleep in the guest bedroom until help arrived. I am not sure why one needs to lock the door, but you never know.

 

This week I saw a whole health forum on the internet (am the health reporter so can do this in working hours) that dealt with people whose sleep is disturbed because their brains wake them up and make them see spiders in their beds. It was a disturbing read. I have a feeling I might suffer of this - better not to tempt fate though - some of them might be real.

The next day as I was lying in the bath I saw a spider on the ceiling. I thought it would be fine. The next minute I heard a plop as spider dropped into the bath. I am now the proud new holder of the landspeed record for getting out of the bath, into a towel, locking a bathroom door and trying to calm self down in the bedroom. It was fairly tough to explain the whole situation to Liefie a bit later especially as he could not stop laughing.

The house has now been fumigated. Have temporarily forgotten that I care about the environment.

O yes... local news updates for those of you who asked:

The Neighbourhood Watch has stopped with their flashing. Now I only have to reform ADT.

The avian warfare is continuing. One of the main instigators have lost a leg. Not sure how but I swear I will move if I find it in my garden.  Am contemplating if appropriate to ask new love interest to do scouting for foot before I venture back into the garden.

Feathers are flying

Last week I was having a slightly romatic little supper with Liefie when an Armageddon-like noise and scuffle, errupted on my roof.

Liefie, alert farm boy that he is,  impressively wielding a steak knife, bolted for the front door, stormed out and returned about half a minute later.

"It is your bloody geese again," he said with a rather murderous glint in the eye. (Quite a significant achievement for a very gentle spirited man).

Turns out on further, slightly drunken inspection of the situation on the roof, that a small turf war has erupted between the resident geese and the refugee geese from across the road where people with dogs moved in recently.

See, for a long time we had two families of Egyptian geese living in peace in my little corner of farmland. My geese lived on my roof and the refugee geese lived across the road on the empty house's roof. I imagined them seeing each other in flight and politely tipping their little geese hats at each other every morning. Then the neighbours moved in.

Now the neighbours have so far been perfectly pleasant, apart from the small roving spotlight incident, but due to the large number of dogs that moved in with them their geese suddenly found themselves without a home.

Not surprisingly it turned out that they then decided to move in on the other end of my roof. My geese didn't like it. In fact they protested rather vociferously. The refugee geese temporarily backed down and retired to an old pine tree where they protested their plight rather loudly as well. Suddenly my cottage felt like a Home Affairs office.

Unfortunately the refugee geese has taken many, many opportunities to unseat the resident geese from their little spot on my roof. And they are not lightfooted creatures. Usually the fighting - WWF style - continues on the front lawn. However dramatic it is to watch, no amount of shouting or putting the sprinklers on can dislodged the birds from each other's throats.

I have stopped setting my alarm for 5 am as this, it has turned out, has become the refugee geese's favourite time to dive bomb my resident avian friends.

To add insult to injury the resident hadedas now regularly line up on the roof in the morning either to watch the action or to simply annoy the other warring parties.

It is like living in a war zone. I think I need a dog. Or a shotgun. Or maybe both.

Missing Darling Street and my lovely Auntie M

As you might have gathered it is raining in Port Elizabeth. Lovely icy Cape Town weather - making me miss the spice shops of Darling Street. Yes, before you all tell me you can find all the secret curry spices in PE, but buying spices at the supermarket and buying at the spice shop is not the same thing.

In Darling Street you first had to introduce yourself, explain your cooking, ask nicely and perhaps bring a sample of your bobotie to make sure that you are a worthy buyer.

If you walked into the dark little shop with an umbrella and a big handbag there were space for nobody else. Auntie M behind the counter would first ask about the news of the day, demand a detailed explanation of the state of my love life, look for any signs of a ring or possible pregnancy, wanted to see if the shoes were suitably fabulous and then and only then would you be allowed to request spices for a dish. She taught me to make boeber - lovely rose-water flavoured melkkos, that made you cry if you were sad, bobotie, the best possible chicken and lamb curry and along with it came advice, little bits of Bo-Kaap skinder and mostly warnings about men. If you started the conversation with " I am in a hurry" you were summarily dismissed as "decent people never buy spices in a hurry."

To get her to give you chicken curry spices you first had declare that you are quite sure that the chicken would be on standard and that you have enough of the right sort of vegetables, promise to several multi-cultural gods that you will use brown sugar and agree to never ever ever serve your curry on anything but basmati rice and agree to several threats that you were likely to drop dead if you ever brought a metal spook near your pot of curry. I often feared that she will arrive unannounced at my house for curry inspection. And of course you had to come back and sometimes when we were trying something new bring leftovers. However she was always delighted when there were none.

The last time I was there her shop was closed up and Auntie M had died. I realised that I never once saw her feet and that if anything I hope that when I am older my eyes will have the same laugh lines, my kitchen will be filled with the same beautiful fragrances and more than ever I will have enough people to threaten, interrogate and advise on their cooking.

There is a lion at the Town Hall and other thoughts

I have been going through my Ouma's papers, neatly preserved pictures and letters from a forgotten age, the writing faded, edges slightly curled, postmarks almost disappearing - a beautiful, gentle world of good manners, adventure and the inevitable social custom that was the postcard. So much better than a Facebook update.

So in between the small family scandals, there are stories of visits to the Zimbabwe ruins, the north of Namibia and tons of notes from my great uncle who "had to go north" during the second World War coupled with heartbreaking pictures of young boys in military gear, a lost British woman whose paths had crossed that of my Ouma's family and countless pictures of weddings, funerals and christenings.

The one series of postcards tells of one adventurous brother of Ouma who caught a lion cub and brought it home for his daughter. A few followed showing the cub growing up. Another shows a beautiful young lady with a beautiful lion at the Ladismith Town Hall (nogals) posing in front of the fountain casually noting: "The lion bit his her twice and her dad had him shot." That was the end of the lion story.

One must wonder why this photosession did not cause great uproar and drama in town. Or maybe it did. Must plan adventure to go study the local newspaper's archives.

Today there is just a whiff of a lion possibly escaping into the great wild that is the urban spread of Port Elizabeth and the whole town is suddenly a flutter with fear. Clearly it is escape season for the kind of the jungle as reports were also coming in of one being  on the loose in KwaZulu-Natal. Annoying morning person that I am I sat at my desk at 5 am this morning watching the pouring rain and thinking of my Ouma's niece and her lion. Then I suddenly realised my bunnies have been missing for a day or two but am hopeful that it was just the bad weather...

Bubble Bubble Toil and Trouble

My hairdresser, who I am not naming as am about to share a whole lot of skinder, is one of my favourite people in the world. Apart from the fact that he makes me look pretty he is also my beloved source of news presented in such an elaborate, no doubt exaggerated and highly detailed fashion that it often makes me, as a journalist, wish that all informants were hairdressers.

As a result I don't really mind that it takes for ever to cover all my grey hair and between tint and treatment and trim it takes all morning, as it turns out that this is time perfectly spend witnessing life's little dramas.

So the other day my hairdresser and I am in a passionate discussion about new hairstyles, colour and so on when two women walk into the salon. Loud women. Women who are wearing gym clothes to the salon (my ouma would be upset) but show no sign of having worked out. They are here for their "up-do", they say - in very loud voices - it is a small salon but their collective very nasal, high-pitched voice volume would also have made it audible in Builders Warehouse,

By then we had forgotten our discussion and we were watching what was later referred to as " the drama." (with appropriate handsigns)

"I think they are prostitutes," my hairdresser mumbles. "And she is definitely not 35."

The reference to age followed a loud discussion with the older one wishing for her hair to be done in what in the 1980's was euphemistically known as "a bubble."  Her hairdresser subtly suggested that an ... ahem ... older woman might look more elegant with something less girly. Frankly I would think that anybody aged 35 would know better than to try "the bubble" again but who am I to judge.

Lucky for us, as I would still have been there otherwise, there was a lull in the action with the suspicious duo were ushered to the basins to have their hair washed and treated and blow dryed.

When this was done they proceeded to put on roughly about 20 layers of make-up including fake eyelashes.

By now the two's beautifying routine had captured all eyes in the salon so when one of the other stylists suggested that they might have a problem to take off their tightly fitting gymtops without messing up hair and smudging make-up it prompted a lively discussion under the clients about how exactly to proceed.

The scary 35-year old however assured everyone that she had done this "thousands of times" which of course prompted the hairdresser and me to giggle uncontrollably.

And then the battle of the bubble started. First the delusional woman made the poor stylist do the bubble about 11 times. He politely points out that she had fine hair which, in the absence of possibly a cementlike hairspray, will likely refuse to be bullied into a bubble roughtly the height of the Twin Towers. She then grabs the brush and "works on the bubble herself."

Eventually after filling half the earth's atmosphere with hairspray, her arms also got tired and she sourly declared that "this would have to do."

As she turns to leave, my lovely much adored hairdresser said in what we both call his "theatrical voice": "Have a bottle of complimentary hairspray. You are going to need it..." This prompted her to give him a dirty look and a stare.

"It makes you look at least 40, he said as he turned and ran for the safety of his scissors.

I don't like going to gym. I go because I read all the scary statistics and I like having chocolate every now and again - so I run, and cycle and do circuit trading.  Also the resident geese wake me up at 5 am and there isn't much else to do that early in the morning when you know the avian neighbours won't let you go back to sleep. Also, as my dearly beloved ones are well aware, I am one of those annoyingly cheerful morning people - better to channel all that energy into exercise and to avoid bloodshed in the household that early as I seem to attract those who are decidedly not at their best at 6 am.

However, before I get mistaken for some bouncy, extatic gym bunny - I don't like sweating and I really don't like exercise, therefore to facilitate the process I have to put great music on my MP3 player. Music that speaks of great love, walking on sunshine and other joyful moments in life. Beautiful jazz. Happy classics and what is generally known as running music. Fantastic happy hormone-inducing stuff.

As I can rival any 2-year old in lack of attention span I have to change these playlists regularly to avoid boredom.  So this morning, in the middle of my workout I realise that Carmina Burana, Carl Orff's great masterpiece had slipped itself into my list of happy music. Now those of you who have heard it would know that it is not an endorphin-stimulating piece of music. It is beautiful... but decidedly fall more in the category of revenge music - a soundtrack for making plans that are slightly left of legal and moral.

So if you are suddenly confronted with all 8 minutes of it in the middle of the gym you realise that that the health club can indeed be an evil place. It also makes me think of Old Spice and crows but that is besides the point. So in the Old Spice aftershave smelling health club, the guy next to me suddenly looked like a deranged hairdresser from Nigel who could kill someone in the sauna. The bouncy blonde (who is always there) like a cunning, though benign con-artist out to get men and take all their money. The poor fat guy who always complain to all that he has gained 10 kg since joining the gym like a scheming mafia boss ready to kidnap people from the car park for ransom.

It was the most interesting workout I had in a long time. Have been googling revenge music all morning.