How to degenerate into a lump of sadness and boredom and crave the company of goats.

Onceuponatime there was a person who used to laugh at everyone's misfortunes because they grew up in a home where being mean to people was regarded as funny. Their parents would shock them with electrical cables as tiny children and laugh at how they cried at the pain. To stop the crying, the parents would then tell the one child "Go and fetch you sister and let's do it to her too!" You can understand that children like these who regarded their parents as incapable of making any mistakes might turn out a little, well, unbalanced.
So one day this person grew up and moved out of home and ended up living with other people and spending all their time in their room making videos of themselves telling people how to do various things in the hopes that it would enrich their lives as well. I watched a few minutes of each clip, including their song about a goat sung in a bad, fake American accent and then just stopped it. Sounds funny, doesn't it? It had potential to be funny, yes but honestly it was just painful. It was like watching someone who is a drug addict teaching people how to stay clean and sober.

I'm not saying that if you laugh at people's misfortunes and are mean that you'll end up lonely and making Youtube videos in your room by yourself singing random rubbish and telling people how to love others because nobody loves you anymore because you were so mean. No, hang on, I am.

We're all on drugs. Yep you too, did you know?

Apparently. Yes, apparently having any sort of anxiety or going to make coffee or to the bathroom or blinking too many times or having a cold or anything whatsoever that isn't regarded as 100% "normal" means that a person is on drugs.

I am so annoyed and sick of this. How can a person, who probably is on drugs themselves, or most certainly was, accuse everyone else who is carrying on as any other person would or are responding to the circumstances in a way that they feel best, accuse others of being on drugs?! Behind their backs too!

It's projecting in my opinion. Projecting what they themselves are/were guilty of because they cannot fathom any other reasonable explanation for the absolute normality of the situation.
Today, I said something back. I said "Person blah blah, you think everyone's on drugs!" and they just said nothing.

Maybe we should all go on drugs, it would certainly help us to cope better with these wild accusations! Then again, maybe the accuser should go on drugs; Psychiatric drugs that will prevent the paranoia and delusional behaviour we're all subjected to every day!

Bullying disguised as "I'm just trying to help you."

Have you ever experienced one of those people who will point out all your faults, mistakes, flaws and make a big deal out of nonsense because they're "just trying to help you?" Do not be fooled! Do not stop and think "I am so pathetic and useless and awful and so-and-so is so wonderful because they have all the answers and are so nice because they're really trying to help me!"
If you start thinking that way, stop, take your hand, lift it up, move it as far back behind your head as you can and bring it around hard and fast and land it on your cheek! Sore? Well, it's just the literal version of what they, and you, are doing to you.

I've said this before, but deleted it after 5 minutes and now after some consideration and discussion with many people who seem to face this problem day in and day out, I can no longer keep quiet.

We all make mistakes, we all have flaws, we are human. It's not a free pass to mess up as often as possible but it does warrant a little something called encouragement and motivation. Through this, we tend to focus more and feel more enthusiastic about what we're doing and make fewer errors.

Motivation is a driving force behind productivity and productivity is what we're all, essentially, aiming for. How one is motivated is different to how another is motivated but there is one way that NOBODY is motivated and that is by screaming, name calling and overwhelming someone. This builds anger, resentment, unhealthy stress levels and a complete lack of motivation. It's obvious, why would anyone want to do anything for anyone who is horrible to them?

Trying to scare the living daylights out of someone to get results seldom ends in a good finished product either.

If you're subject to someone like this, don't get upset and annoyed and angry at this person, instead take some refuge in the fact that they know no better than to bully others to get their way. You should feel sorry for them in their lack of social skills and lack of common sense. Nobody likes a bully, shame they're so unliked. And then you move on and realise that while you may/may not have to tolerate them, you can control how much they get to you with their rubbish.

If you really can't handle it and have tried to explain how their behaviour is destructive and upsetting to no avail, move on, cut them out, change your phone number and never look back.

Punished for your existence

I am most annoyed. A while ago, a friend of mine attended an event where she knew nobody but Alan and her boyfriend. She was looking forward to going because she gets along well with Alan and they were bound to have fun.

During the course of the evening, the organiser and my friend were getting along well until the organiser asked her name and realised that she was a friend of mine and then things changed.
Later on, my friend got up to come and fetch Alan's housekeys in the parking lot from me and during that time, the event organiser jumped up from her seat and squeezed in between my friend's boyfriend and another guest. My friend returned only to find that there was not enough room at the table for her anymore and the organiser just looked at her and said "Sorry, I stole your chair" and left my friend to go and sit at a completely different table behind everyone by herself for half an hour. Talk about being a good hostess!

I have spoken to the organiser and if she reads this, I am making this very clear: I like you, you can be very nice but be mean to my friends one more time for no good reason and I won't be very nice back to you anymore! Just hold your nasty ways in, please when you're around people who don't deserve it or else you can get lost out of all of our lives because I don't want to put up with troublemakers!

The same thing for ages

I'm a follower of this one blog, not any of the ladies, and man alive, I want to pull my hair out. It's a really funny blog and I really enjoy reading it but it's hardly ever updated. I've read about dogs and horses and complications and country songs about cats for ages now.

I used to be friends with this guy. In fact, he was a very good friend for ages but we lost touch and he became angry about stuff and now I follow his blog to sort of keep up to speed with how he is but it doesn't help when the posts are few and far between.

C'mon you person who blogs! Write summing else. I can't be the only person who goes to your blog to read your hilarious posts! Give us something new!

Blindly listening

A while ago I heard some vicious rumours about a friend of mine. Now I know this person and I know what sorts of things they do and do not do and so I dispelled it as people causing trouble and as nonsense. If I needed to consider it, I would've approached my friend first to see if it was true first before jumping to conclusions.

What worried me though was how many people didn't bother to think about the accusations or ask her about what was said, they all just blindly jumped to the wrong conclusions because it was what everybody else was doing. Well, everybody else was wrong. It wasn't fair and it wasn't right but these things continue to happen.

If you're one of those people who starts the vicious rumours, what are you gaining by causing trouble? Does it make you look better? Not really, no, if anything it probably makes you look worse. Does it have any benefit for anyone? Probably not.

And if you're one of those who listen to the vicious rumours and then believe them blindly without thinking or questioning the validity of what's been said, put yourself in the shoes of the person you're believing bad things of and imagine how you'd feel if nobody bothered to ask you if it was true. It's not always easy to go against the grain and it isn't always the answer but when it is, I hope that people will use their heads and stand up and not be afraid to go against the grain if it is the right thing to do.

Hilarious death metal

This past weekend was my friend's 30th birthday. Her name is Melissa.

Mel wanted to do something fun for her birthday and suggested we go out somewhere where we can dance. Mel isn't into the music they often play at clubs though, she's more into the alternative scene and older music and so she found a club in Centurion that promised to play alternative music.

Upon arriving there, I was most shocked to see that this alternative club was situated exactly where I once was offered a job at a dancing studio but couldn't accept the job as my car had just broken, I didn't have my new car yet and I just couldn't get there. Just as well, I guess they didn't last long.

When we walked into the club, we realised that it was far from alternative, they were playing what is termed as "death metal." It was hilarious! It was some guy standing with a microphone and long hair that needed a serious bout of conditioner and his band each playing different songs by the sound of it, and he put on a deep voice and screamed "Yo yo yo yo yooooooooooo!!" into the microphone and swung his hair wildly. It was most entertaining. You couldn't dance to it barring when the drummer coincidentally played a bit of a cha-cha tempo and then later a swing tempo but it wasn't long and he changed back to taking out his frustrations on the poor drums at un-rythmic intervals.

The entire band needed conditioner actually and they swung their hair around wildly and they probably sounded so bad because they couldn't see their instruments through all the hair. I suggested to Mel that we run up to them and ask if we could give it a try but she wasn't game for that and so I gave the "Yo yo yo-ing" a try in the car on the way home and hey, it's not that hard actually! It just hurts your throat!

So, need some direction? No skills? Start a Death Metal band! It's a form of comedy for sure!

Teddies - Our great protectors

A friend sent the above pic to me a while ago when I told her that I'd changed life insurance policies and they were sending a nurse over to draw some blood for their standard testing procedure.

When I was 4 or 5 years old, I had Encephalitis (similar to Meningitis) and was hospitalised. During my stay they had to do a lumber puncture. This is when they insert a needle into your lower spine and extract some of the cerebrospinal fluid to test for various things or to lower the pressure on your brain (hence the terrible headaches with Meningitis or Encephalitis). So ja, pretty scary.
Generally you lie in a foetal position and while it's sore, it's not so sore you want to die. Being little, however, I was scared and when I saw the needle, I totally freaked out. The dr's then kicked my parents out of the room and held me down while I screamed. It was SORE!

Although it's so different to a blood test or an injection, I'm still really scared of needles. I emailed a few of my friends to tell them how nervous I was and mentioned that I may bring my teddy in to work just for the blood test. I'm sure the nurse will think me insane but I don't care! Teddy is coming with me to work tomorrow!

Clarens - The jewel of the eastern Free State - pictures!! Oooh!!

After a conversation with a friend yesterday telling her how awesome Clarens in the Eastern Free State is, I decided to share my immense love of this place with everyone else as well as continue to tempt her to take a trip there to have some R&R.

If you're in Johannesburg, Clarens is a short 3 and a half hour pleasant drive away.

You'll know you're there when you see the rock formation below. This is called Titanic Rock. Doesn't it look just like the Titanic? So cool!!



The moment you get into the town of Clarens itself, you will notice how quaint and small it is. Unlike any place I've ever been to in South Africa (and I've been to quite a few places in SA), the effect of this totally different and sweet, little world is both calming and energising. It's like you've had a month's holiday after a weekend there.
The idea though is to appreciate Clarens for being so different in that you should find your accommodation, park your car and walk wherever you want to go and not use the car at all, even if it's raining.



What is there to do in this little town? Well, there are various things. The main attractions I suppose would be the amazing scenery, the art galleries and the food.

Being near the Lesotho border, the Maluti mountains are like...right there! If you're into taking hikes and walks or riding horses or taking pics of scenery...hang on, we've been called for pizza...and I'm back so anyway, if you're into the whole nature thing, this place is phenomenally beautiful!







Other than that, there are art galleries galore and restaurants that will have you dreaming of their food for years to come.

My personal recommendation is to go and have supper or lunch at Street Caffe (their burgers and fettucini alfredo are like no other that I've ever experienced) and then head to Clementines for dessert which should unmistakeably be their Lemon Meringue Ice-cream cake. It's R35 a slice (or was in December 2009) but is so worth it! Clementines also have a very good Ostrich Medallion dish! Yum! Yum!





The art galleries are not dreary and dull and you don't need to be one of those arty people to appreciate them. There's also a wine gallery if that appeals.


There are sports pubs and ice-cream shops that have decadent and interesting flavours and a few pancake shops too. Absolutely no chain stores when I was last there and I hope it stays that way.

If you're more into holidays with some sort of educational value, you can go and visit the Lesotho Highlands Water Project. It's very interesting and those pipes are so huge that it would take three of me (at 1.69 metres tall) on top of each other to touch the top of the pipe.



Clarens is the ideal place to get married if you're having under 50 guests and want somewhere beautiful and unique to have your special day.

One of the nicest wedding venues in Clarens is the Castle. It accommodates 20 guests for an intimate wedding and the decor is very 18th century and well, castle-ey.


If we didn't have so many people invited to our wedding, I'd have chosen to get married in Clarens in the one church in Main Road with food from Street Caffe and dessert from Clementines and then have the reception in the Castle.



Sigh! Clarens is my favourite place in the entire world thus far. I love everything about it. It's such an escape, the air is so clean and the water so sweet and the place filled with beauty and happiness and the chamomile tea better than any other in the country. If only there was a thriving job market there...

What should I do with my hair, dol?

No, it's not like a vain post where I want to know how I should style my hair for my shopping for Alan's wedding shoes tomorrow thing, it's what happened this morning.

I am anal about my hair. Yes, you may look at it and think "You are?!" and well, o.k, I was. I'm not so much anymore because I just couldn't be as bothered because you know what, it's hair, it's on my head and it's a nice colour and it doesn't resemble clown hair too much and I can sort of kind of control the frizz and so it's fine. Whatever. But I used to be anal about my hair.
I would pull my hair elastic out of my near-perfect plait that my sister had just spent 20 minutes doing because there were "bumps" and it had to be bump-free. Eventually, she taught me how to do the various plaits myself and told me to do it myself. I did. It was fine. Bump-free!
But anyway, that is not the story. In fact, it's not even part of the story. In fact, I don't even know why I told you that. I now look like a prissy cow who demanded bump-free perfection every day and subjected her poor sister to her rantings. Ja, ok, it was like that but then I once ended up with pink hair, way too short hair, hair falling out and you kind of just get over your hair in time, I suppose. But ANYWAY, on with my story:

So last night I washed my hair and could not find my hairdryer anywhere! I don't sleep with wet hair generally as I get cold and don't sleep well but I decided to crank the heater up and just do it because I was too tired to look for my hairdryer after investigating Alan's wrinkles on his face for half an hour. It's most fascinating to look at someone's wrinkles really close-up. I'm straying again. Ahem.

So this morning I woke up and my usually wavy hair was a mass of mad spiralling curls that were all standing straight up in the air! Now my hair is half way down my back in length so it was hectic! I looked like Medusa! No, no, this could not happen and tying my hair up was out as I had a whopping sinus headache to boot. So I reached for my straightener whilst still in bed and when it had heated up to my desired temperature, I started the fixing process.

Now when you don't see very well, your other senses develope to compensate. My sense of touch is very good and I often rely on it a lot at night when trying to unlock doors, etc. So, I decided that I couldn't see the detail from so far away and so i would rely on my sense of touch as I usually do when straightening my hair because you can feel the waves, or mad curls in this instance.

Unfortunately, my sense of touch failed me. In patches. I ended up with one side of my head having wavy hair at the top and straight at the bottom and the other side having a patch of mad curls and straight around them and well, it just looked like I just couldn't decide what I wanted to do with my hair today so I did a bit of everything.

I have since taken headache tablets and tied my hair up. I may not be anal anymore about my hair but I'm not attention-seeking either!

Change

Last night Di and I were joking about not stopping dead at the stop street. I did this the other day and was spotted doing so and got my first traffic fine in 4 years. I was most grumpy about it but it was my own doing so I couldn't complain really.

So we were joking that I could just tell the traffic officer that I didn't believe in stopping dead because nothing ever truly stops and stays stagnant, it's constantly moving. We went on and on for about 20 minutes with an elaboration on our insane theory that could get someone out of a traffic fine for not stopping and we were giggling away (we're so good at talking rubbish) and then today I thought of it again but differently. Not about trying to convince traffic officers of why they should not fine me but rather about things moving all the time.

My psych book said that there are theories of what shapes us as people, our genes or our experiences. Are we born with certain traits and we react a certain way to experiences or do we experience things and these experiences help to form part of who we are? I'd like to think a bit of both.

I am one of those people who can embrace change as long as it is good change. I don't like it when people change though, which I suppose is silly because they too cannot stay stagnant. Should I say, I don't like it when people let experience change them for the worse. Those that are strong in character seldom seem to fall prey to this but those who sort of flutter along and go with whoever says whatever generally do and it's very sad. I call them "wishy-washy people" because there's no stability, no true sense of self. It bugs me. I want to take them by the shoulders and shake them and say "Wake up! Who are you? Just decide already!" but they would probably think me most strange.

It was just irritating me lately as I've recently had an experience with a wishy-washy person who has surrounded themselves with nasty people of negative influence and they have thus absorbed this attitude as their own. Pity. They could have swayed the other way just as easily. Moving on...

The Phantom Puppies

My dog, Fats, is going through her second phantom pregnancy. It is awful and really hard on her. We thought we'd just let her have a litter of puppies this time around to let her experience having the pups and then sterilise her but alas, the sausage dog just couldn't, well, um, figure it out. He just didn't know what to do. He had a rough idea but well, it just never happened and I don't intervene in, um, intimate relations between any species at all and so fat Fats failed to fall pregnant.

Unfortunately, she has started lactating and spends hours every night trying to make a bed for her imaginary puppies on Al and my bed, always involving the pillow my head is on. As a result, we are both exhausted every day and I never get the full use of my pillow.

The last time we bought her a teddy in the hopes that she would treat it like a puppy but alas, she's had a teddy since she was tiny and she knows that they're just there to play with and so she slowly pulled poor teddy to pieces.

We give her lots and lots of attention usually but even more so when she's going through this. I let her sit on my lap while I watch TV and rub her tummy and talk to her in a soft tone and I play catch with her every weekend and run around the garden with her and spend ages just rubbing her tummy and feeding her biscuits or other doggy treats to distract her, but this time she seems quite adamant that she's having puppies.

So I was wondering if we should get her to foster some puppies who don't have a mom for whatever reason or if, when they had to be given back or re homed, she would pine even more.

Does anyone have an answer to this? She is such a sweet and loving doggy and seeing her so sad and depressed is really upsetting because I can't say to her "It's just your hormones, Fatness, you'll be ok" and so the poor doggy is left thinking she's having pups and then later that she's had them and that they're missing. It's awful.

The joys of drill-free dentistry

I went to the dentist today. It was the most pleasant visit I have ever had to the dentist! In fact, it was so great, I have absolutely no pain and no numbness at all!

I went to one of those dentists who advertise themselves as being "painless" because they don't use a drill or injections. It was fantastic! Why was it so fantastic? Because she sent me straight home and didn't do a thing besides violently yank my mouth open. She sent me home because I have a cold and a sinus drip and she was worried that the bacteria would be trapped in the cavity she needed to fill...using a drill! Yep. Are you totally confused? I was too. I mean, I read the website more than once, three or four times even all about how they have this amazing new technique which makes using drills and injections unnecessary for fillings! Wow! I'm not sure who it's unnecessary for or what those dentists deem to be fillings but when I got there, she was all about the blasted drill and injections.

Luckily, she didn't want to risk doing the filling with the cold germs lurking because she was really rough just having a look in my mouth and seemed to think that I wasn't opening my mouth when it really was as wide as it could go. I was worried that she was going to dislocate my jaw!

I then came back to work and spent 5 minutes looking online to see if there truly was a drill-free dentist out there, anywhere in Gauteng, let alone Johannesburg. I found a few! They used some sort of water abrasion system! Bingo. I phoned but this time, I asked if they even kept drills at their practice and how frequently they used them for fillings and they answered "We always use them for fillings. You can't escape the drill." But that, my dear readers, is not true according to many, many dentist's websites abroad. It just seems to be true for us here in South Africa.

This disappoints me very, very deeply and terrifies me even more deeply. I hate that blasted little drill and most dentists just can't administer the anaesthetic at the right pace to make the injections painless. So, I can either just cut back on the sweeties and brush, floss and use mouthwash 3 times a day, take copious amounts of calcium and wait until the technology arrives here or can wait for my cold to clear up, get Al to take some time off work and find a dentist that deals with little, terrified children and go to him with Alan holding my hand!

Various interpretations for "I see things that other people don't"

One of my friends told me that a guy had told her that he sees things that other people don't. I asked her what he meant and she said that she didn't know. We then started to delve, like most women do, into reasonable explanations for this. These were some of the most likely explanations for what he could possibly mean:

1. He sees creatures or dead people or invisible rainbows or beings from a distant land.

Perhaps he's trying to reach out for help. Or perhaps he just feels that he can trust her immensely and is confiding in her. At least he realises that something needs to be said if nobody else can see these things.
He's rather touchy so if we're wrong here, asking him if these things he sees communicate with him and tell him to do or say or eat things might be a bad idea.

He also might be on drugs and he might be reaching out for help to get into rehab, in which case, she should offer to go with him to be checked in.
It also might be some sort of religious experience where, well, you have to just nod and say "O.k, you see things that nobody else can see" and hope that it all just works out.

2. He sees events that other people don't get to see.

He does a fair bit of travelling and so maybe he meets people or sees weird things that other people don't get to see. Either they are troubling him or he is bragging.

3. He experiences a situation in a way that other people don't experience it.

Perhaps he feels very unique in the way he experiences things or people and assumes that nobody else could possibly experience what he does.

4. He has a very rare and unusual eye condition

He sees everything in an obscure way because there are green dots/pink elephants/giant daggers across/next to/in everything he sees. This could be most unsettling I suppose but in time, he'd probably get used to it and even switch off to it.

Those really seem like the only possible explanations for his statement and i'm guessing that it's most likely the first one. The poor guy!

Wedding = $$$

I am very much a D.I.Y person when it comes to this wedding planning. There are some things you simply have to outsource to have a decent wedding but the things I am able to do myself, I do.

Some of the people involved in our wedding happen to be friends with particular skills. We requested a quote from them as we would with any supplier as they are pro's at what they do but they were insistent that they wanted to offer their services as a gift to us.
We were really, really lucky here and are very, very greatful to them as they're not just any old someone throwing a cake together or "playing DJ", they either have extensive training or have had years and years of experience, or both.

What I like most about these lovely people is that even though we were very willing to pay them for their services, they didn't see money-signs and decide to exploit us simply because the word "Wedding" was mentioned.

This sadly can't be said for everyone.

Getting married is meant to be exciting and fun and a wonderful experience and while it is, it can also be very stressful when you have a strict budget and you have people try and take advantage and it takes away from the experience. It makes it so much worse when it's not people who have any sort of valuable skill but just try to take chances. I encountered this very situation on Friday and I varied between extremely amused and absolutely horrified the entire weekend. Oh well, I suppose there could be many reasons for it but I don't feel like being subjected to exploitation for any reason and nor will I allow people of that calibre to ruin the experience for us. "Off with his head!" ;)

On the plus side, we chose the flowers this weekend and went back to our venue to look at the lighting and table size again to get some centrepiece ideas. It is so beautiful at night! I absolutely cannot wait!

A pant-less generation

I'm not big into the clubbing scene. The music is often monotonous, the DJ drunk and annoying, the room filled with smoke or drunk people holding lit cigarettes way too close to my clothes or hair and people just shove you aside to get past you on the dance floor.
This weekend, however, a group of us girls decided to do a girls day and ended off by going to a club in Fourways. The dress code for women was like cocktail dresses which we happily donned as we seldom get to wear our more formal clothing in normal society.

As I mentioned, I don't frequent clubs on a regular basis and so I was somewhat surprised when I saw all these women with their long-ish tops stretched as far as they could go, some of them held in place with a belt, and that was it. The poor girls had forgotten their pants and nobody had bothered to actually say "Um, you forgot to put your pants on."

At one point, a piece of shattered glass from the floor managed to get into my shoe and I had to hop over to the edge of the dance floor and bend down to remove my shoe. I made the big mistake of looking straight ahead of me as I was crouching there and beheld many a buttock cheek protruding for any midget to see. You couldn't really see them when standing up but they were there alright, sticking out shamelessly. I felt violated.

I started thinking about younger women walking around the mall or the street, etc and it dawned on me that it really was just considered normal to wear your long top and no pants. Even the guys are exposing their bottoms by wearing their pants so low that they reveal their "cleavage" to everyone.

When I was a teenager, I used to walk around with my belly button exposed which is perhaps what they are doing in a sense but still, I don't want to see people's bums! It's gross! Things have gone from "I are wearing a pant" to "I are not wearing a pant" and I fear that soon it will be "What are a pant?"

If you read this and are a bum-exposer, please spare a thought for your fellow human being. Maybe your bum is awesome to your partner but it isn't to the rest of us. Just put some pants on!

Alan

There was a bunny and he used to hop everywhere at a speed unknown to anyone, except him and really, really fast people. He even hopped in zigzags! It was incredible!

This post has no meaning or relevance, except one, to see if Alan will read it. Alan is the bunny in question. He is my bunny. My very precious and sweet bunny and I love him to bits but I know when he is lying and I know when he pretends to do stuff or read stuff and give me feedback :D

If you are reading, Al, I love you so very much and can't wait to hop in those speedy little zigzags with you forever!!

Lots of love
NutoftheBun
xxx