Welcome Home

So, turns out that I am very supremely pleased to announce that the previous Disruption in Service warning was unwarranted. I got the CNAMES set up correctly and I'm up and running on the new domain already :)

Welcome to www.gladtobeagirl.co.za- All who link here or receive my rss feed, please update accordingly. Although the old blogspot link will continue to work just fine.

I am thrilled by this :) It has made for a very exciting morning :) And now I'm set for my day away from my desk!

Last night I went for drinks with Band, I haven't seen her since she left book club last year sometime and we had plenty catching up to do :)

Disruption in Service

Okay, here's a quick heads up. Glad to be a Girl will probably be unavailable from tomorrow morning (Friday) 8am CAT till Monday morning 8am CAT.

Firstly, I'll be off on yet another team build tomorrow, this time trying to get to know all these new people who are still not talking to me very much (okay, it has only been 4 days). And secondly because I am in the process of attempting to make the gladtobeagirl.co.za domain name (that I've owned for a lot longer than this blog) actually useful to me. Previously I haven't used it because the service provider I'd owned it thru didn't offer a vital thing called CNAMES that you require to use your own domain for a non-ftp blogspot blog. Yeah, I know ... this is way overly technical and who cares anyway, right?

But here's the point. I've spent 24 hours going thru the process of taking back my domain name and subscribing it elsewhere (somewhere that offers these much needed CNAMES) and setting up said CNAME ... but still blogger.com says: If your new domain isn't taking you to your blog, wait another day or two, to make sure all the DNS servers have been updated.

A day or two? Who here has a blog that could be unavailable for that long? I mean really. So this is why I've choosen to do it a) when I won't be here to post anyway and b) over a weekend. But I must admit I'm scared as hell to do it now, right smack in the middle of SA Blog Awards voting. I mean what will people think of a nominated blog that you can't even access? Probably not much :( Hence my advance warning ....

On the completely other hand, my CNAMES may be up and working within a matter of hours (if you're actually reading this on the weekend, it must be true!) and the blog will be completely accessible thru it's usual blogspot address (which theoretically should just redirect you to my new domain home). Fingers crossed big time! Unfortunately there is a whole other flip side to that coin ... which means that I might've done something completely wrong with the CNAMES and hence will have to revert manually to the good old blogspot address on Monday morning when I get back into work. Double cross those fingers, people!

Sepia-toned Memories

Last night, my first spent entirely at home this week, was quiet. Varen got home late (nearly 7-ish) from work since he'd lazed in bed yesterday morning.

I spent the afternoon finishing Weeds Season 3 and then started going thru some really, really old photographs. I got boxes and boxes of old family documents and photo's when we saw Dad's Dad in Maritzburg. He's moved and they're basically getting rid of all the un-necessary stuff. Which thruout your life you may not believe to be photo's, but once you're done with them, there aren't too many other people who would be interested in all those random shots from your life.

I guess I'm different like that. I want the old family photo's. Yes, and I'd love to know who's in them :) So last night I started going thru it all and I must say, I've ended up throwing away a lot - that was the deal, keep whatever you want and toss the rest ... no one else is interested. But, I've also kept a lot. It's nice to have some of those photo's of young grandparents and of Dad as a teenager ;)

I wonder what'll happen to all my old photo's one day? Especially now that they're mostly burned to CD and kept electronically. Although I am also a big fan of albums so I print out the really special ones. That said, I have quite a backlog of "Pics to Print" ... from about June 2005, I think. But it's all worth it because I think there's something special about paging thru an album with it's bright colours and great memories.

However, I am not one for scrap booking. But I don't keep typical albums either. I especially can not stand those ones with plastic slots for photos. I like to buy those old fashioned photo-corners and stick them into plain papered albums (what normal people would probably call a note- or sketchbook).

Dance For Joy

OMG I am soooo happy right now :)

Yesterday I was actually almost devastated ... I saw two posts go up regarding certain blogs being finalists for the SA Blog Awards. I hurriedly checked the the site ... nothing. Not a word. Just their previous message saying the finalists will be posted on Wednesday the 5th (not yesterday!). Weep. Clearly these people must've received a congratulatory email from the Award people announcing their finalist status.

Obviously mine wouldn't be arriving via my work email, so I headed to gmail to check there ... maybe I had made it? Not an email notification in sight. Bugger.

Okay, phillygirl, suck it up ... clearly you hadn't made it this year. Last year you were only a finalist in Best New Blog. And yes, you are a finalist in an international blog award right now, but maybe you just didn't get enough nominations. It'll be okay. The world does not end. There's always next year, right?

This morning, as I switched on my laptop, the first site I headed for was naturally the SA blog Awards ... just gotta make absolutely sure, like any normal person.

I made it, I made it :) I'm doing a little finger dance at my desk right now. Not only did Glad to be a Girl make it, I am a finalist in two (count 'em, 2) categories ... South African Weblog of the Year (the first category on the voting page) and Best South African Personal Blog (the last category on the voting page, a category the Expensive Mistakes & myself worked damn hard to get added to the list!)

Okay, so that has made my morning and there's not much else to say, really. Last night we had dinner at Pianogirl & Vori's ... it was Vori's 28th birthday on Sunday :) Pianogirl slaved away over a hot oven making us a truly delish spinach & ricotta lasagne (must get the recipe!) and a baked cheesecake ... now there's dinner dedication for you :)

The Minor Details

Last night was Book Club. Good to see the girls again. It was at Loulou's and kinda weird to be visiting my old home. But great fun and a good night was had by all :)

Other than that not much of note happened yesterday. My new job has started much the way they all do ... slowly and quietly. I'm still going to meetings from my previous department till end of March, but I won't actually be doing any work for them, I'll be there in a consultant capacity since I have 2 & half years of knowledge on the product and there are still too many newbs in the team to be making the long term decisions. TheBrad really has his work cut out for him and although I feel dreadful that I've left him in this position, sometimes you just have to do what's right for you at the end of the day.

Although as I said, it's still early days and who can tell yet how this position will go. I'm still getting login details and having the systems explained to me. Not much real work. Oh, and I have yet another team build (this time with the new team) on Friday - woo hoo :)

Oh, and I forgot to mention, I got to drive the MPS on the weekend. Not too shabby but hell it's hard to drive slowly! I forsee a spate of speeding fines in Varen's future! But the thing that would annoy me most is yes, blah blah boy-stuff, you've got the speed and the fast acceleration and the climate control (pretty awesome!) or whatever. But your car doesn't lock it's own doors! And there was something else ridiculously minor that they left out too that's also pretty standard ... unfortunately I just can't remember what it was :P

The Madams by Zukisa Wanner

Oh and I finished my book last night. While we were enjoying our Midlands Weekend, I read The Madams by Zukisa Wanner.

Thandi loves her life. She loves her cute son Hintsa, her witty husband Mandla, her comfortably challenging work with the tourism board, and her best friends Nosizwe and Lauren. But she has to admit – it's tough being Superwoman in South Africa today. Try being the perfect traditional wife and African mother at home, the perfect promotable black woman at work, and the perfect foil for her 'Benetton' friends (one black and Xhosa, one white and English)! Thandi admits defeat and decides she needs that great South African bourgeois accessory: a maid. And since she doesn't have the heart to boss about a 'sister' in her own home, she decides it must be a white maid. Marita joining the household seems to disrupt the comfortable space Thandi, Siz and Lauren have settled into. The secrets of the three women's lives are dramatically exposed and they are forced to confront their assumptions about relationships, history and each other.

I freely admit that I am generally a sucker for South African fiction. I don't really know why ... it's not generally any better. Actually, to be honest it's usually worse but, that's purely because I read South African fiction from genres I wouldn't ordinarily consider.

So, based on the above description, you'd think we were looking at a fairly funny girly sort of novel, set in sunny SA with a local topic of interest. I for one was interested in hearing from "the other side" ... I mean how do Black women feel hiring a "sister" to clean up after themselves?

Sadly although the book started out based on this simple premise, it didn't really fulfill my requirements. It wasn't particularly amusing and every adult male in the book turns out to be a complete dog. Someone poking fun at ye old standard South African Male? Not quite. It's more sad than anything else really. *Spoiler Alert* The White Husband is a Wife-Beater, the two Black Husbands (one of them an ex-jailbird), cheat on their wives ... But the women rally thru. Siz taking her man dutifully back and Lauren finding herself an Indian Yogi instead, while her husband turned to Islam (yup, there was no BEE stone unturned!). Far-fetched, I think so.

Anyway, it's a pretty quick read, so if after that you're still interested, by all means ...

Meandering in the Midlands

This weekend Varen & I left work early and headed to the Midlands for a weekend away. We managed to get out of the house by 3pm but only managed to get out of Joburg by 4 ... that's typical Friday afternoon traffic here! And then just when we thought we were on our way, having managed to pass the first 2 tollgates, we came to an abrupt halt. Seems there'd been a pretty serious car accident and traffic was stopped in both directions ... so that they could fly a plane off with the injured, using the N3 as their runway.
Was pretty hectic stuff watching the plane take off overhead ... unfortunately I didn't have my camera out at the right time :( But this did delay our journey even further. (Oddly enough I can't find a single mention of it in any online news this morning ... how very South African!)
We finally navigated our way in the dark, sans gps and with a pretty indescriptive map to Millford Farm for our 2 night stay. It's quite a lovely little place on a dairy & horse stud farm high up in the hilltops. The room was nice and they brought breakfast to us each morning. But mostly we just used it as base-camp for our Midlands Meander.
We spent Saturday driving some more and managed to hit 12 of the little craft stores on the map. And believe it or not it turned into quite the shopping spree. We stopped for lunch at Swissland Cheese and enjoyed the Taster Platter while watching the goats high up in the middle of nowhere. And yes, luckily the MPS can manage dirt roads after all :)

I found a chest of drawers that I'm crazy about ... unfortunately they're a mere R8500. I left them there while I debate their neccessity and my actual craziness (this is how it is with me & furniture!). And we managed (on our last stop) to find some lovely dining room chairs at Sterling's Wrought Iron :) And at bargain prices compared to what we've seen up here in Joburg! So once they arrive, there's just the bubbling wooden floor to get fixed and the cow-hide carpet to get made and it's House Warming time :)
We ate dinner at the very nearby Tanglewood Country House, distance after the day's driving being a priority! It looks like a lovely little place although there didn't seem to be any guests eating there with us. Just us and strangely enough our hosts from Millford Farm with some friends. The food was sadly un-amazing, but served it's purpose.
On Sunday morning we stopped off so I could buy myself a lovely Mexican Chimenea from Dargle Valley Pottery ... it may sound crazy but I've always wanted one and I think evenings on our balconey, with a fire roaring and a mug of hot chocolate on those dry cold winter nights in Joburg will be fabulous :) And then we headed South to Maritzburg for a whirlwind visit with Daddio's Dad who had been in hospital there for the weekend. He's okay now and it was really good to see him :)

And then we turned ourselves around and pushed home to Jobur where we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing, glad to be out of the car for a change and watching the end of Prison Break S3. All in all, a good weekend with some unexpected buys :)

And now it's my first morning in my new department ... I'm trying not to let all the emails I'm still copied on from my previous department irritate the hell out of me. Not because I'm receiving them, but because their content epitomises a large part of why I felt the burning need to leave!

Happy Leap Year

Oh an I almost forgot ... Happy Leap Year :) I'd love to hear if there are any girls out there planning to propose to their men (as is tradition). I'll let you know right now & upfront that it certainly won't be me :)

Eep, The Nerves

So, today is officially my last day in my department ... and I'm not even sitting in my good old desk. The team I'm leaving was re-located to a completely different floor yesterday afternoon. Luckily with a laptop, all the move requires is a network point :) Although I'm currently sans-phone ... how to survive the day??

Needless to say my nerves are kicking in about my move. I'm going to miss a lot of these people and this environment I've come to know and understand. For someone who is generally a huge fan of habit, this is quite a difficult thing for me. I've left jobs before, I'm usually pretty good at it, I'm not sure why even with my gut-feel that this is absolutely the right thing to do, I'm still freaking nervous about it.

At least I'm off on a lovely weekend away to distract me :) But I must quickly mention here that I'm not too sure what effect my department move will have on my blogging. Make no mistake, I'll still be blogging, but I might be a little erratic next week ... alternatively in the chaos of a move and starting in a new role, I may have even more time than usual to blog in the first week? I guess we'll just have to play the waiting game like with everything else :)

Yesterday evening was very quiet, Varen made us some yummy ostrich for dinner tho - the yummy admission is quite major for me because my usual red meat intake is fairly minimal.

And now I have a question ... ? There's this person who currently (till I walk out of here this afternoon) reports to me. I've generally been nice to her and she's a nice enough person. It's just that she walks sooo slowly. Okay, I know that sounds insane but it's been driving me nuts! And I'll admit right here that I am a fairly speedy walker. But whenever I have to walk to meetings or whatever with her, even with me trying to slow my pace to let her keep up, she ends up miles behind. She does not seem to be making any effort in this regard, hell I don't even know if she's noticed ... but I feel bad every time. Because mostly I just *cannot* walk as slowly as she does. I'm dying to quiz her on this ... does she notice that she waddles miles behind every one? Does she care? Does she think it's rude when people she's walking along with leave her in their dust? Does she even bother trying to speed up to bridge the gap? Seriously, driving me mental. Woooosah. One more day :)

The End of The Stalker-Story

So, the ex-Office Crazy mailed back this morning ... How is it people don't know when to let things go. Although I guess the same can be said for me since I did reply. It's a matter of honour. But I hereby pledge it'll be my last reply :)

So, to fill you in on what should be The End of The Story (I hope). Here's her reply:

phillygirl*, if I was not that interesting you would have never remembered me when I said that you have so much to mention about me on your website…
Or maybe your life and website is so boring that you had to add some light to it…
Its good to know what you where thinking…. Maybe you should have been more direct than going and asking the boss about me…

Hope you find some kind off new gossip to BRIGHTEN your life… :)

HAVE FUN!!!
Bye bye :)

For the record, the "Asking the boss" was clearly misunderstood by her. I was having a conversation with her boss (someone who I get on really well with), long after she left the company while we were actually at the Action Cricket (that she continuously came to watch even tho she no longer worked here!). And I mentioned that it was strange she was still coming ... since she didn't really talk to anyone there except the Hopefully Separated Husband. And so the conversation and exchange of observations began. I guess people get really defensive when they're trying to hide something they couldn't have made more obvious :) And I have to ask right here, if all it was was a really super-amazing friendship, surely they would've just laughed off anything anyone said because they & the people that actually mattered (I hope) knew it wasn't true.

So I sent my last email to her. I edited it quite extensively in keeping with my opinion that I don't really have any interest in keeping this communication with her going. And to be fair, I don't really care what she thinks about me or about whatever she thinks I was thinking (hello?).

This is all so completely irrelevant. Really, do you care *that* much what I think about you?

How long since I last saw you ... 5 months, more? I barely remember. Seems you do tho, enough to bother pretending to be someone else and making contact after so much time. I can assure you that although you fueled the office speculation for a time, that time has *long* since past.

Kindly let it go. If you're going to do things to warrant speculation or to ask questions about your antics, don't get bent out of shape when that's exactly what people are doing ... in front of you or behind your back.

I hope you've got what you wanted out of this little email exchange ... although I must admit that I'm not at all sure what that must've been?

But, I do wonder, is "Tammy" mailing everyone else at the office who was speculating 5 months ago too?

ps. Varen is doing really well. Thanks.

And I hope that's the end of it right there. Because seriously, why does she even care 5 months later what was said about her. And mine, I'll remind you, wasn't mere office speculation ... Varen & I did in fact see them out together, arm in arm, in public on a weekend. Sheesh. Thank goodness South Africa doesn't have those ridiculous "Cheaters" reality shows, she'd probably kill the cameraman :)

So, in closing, I'll repeat. All of what I said (yeah, the minimal amount) has always been clearly labeled as speculation and / or my own opinion. None of it is based in any more fact than one girl's (me) interpretation of what she saw with her own eyes.

Can someone please tell me what drives someone to do this: email an almost complete stranger (seriously she's one of those people I'd pretend I didn't actually see if I ever bumped into her again) about something that was going on 5 months ago? I'm not expecting a straight answer from this Crazy.

Don't Let The World Dumb-Down

Okay, so in retrospect, I could've handled yesterday a little better ... if only I'd known who was harassing me anonymously before I'd mailed back the first time. I would've played it completely differently, innocently and given nothing away.

Although, she has yet to bother responding, I'm hoping that since I let on that I know exactly who it is, she'll give up on her nonsense. It's kind of amusing ... don't people realise that if you do stupid things and moan about being mentioned (especially in such an elaborate manner), you're bound to get another more detailed mention ... I mean hell, now she has an entire post dedicated just to her :) I'm convinced some people do it for the fame ;) Paha.

Anyway. Varen and I had another quiet night at home. We watched Idiocracy.

Idiocracy is a 2006 American dark comedy directed by Mike Judge, and starring Luke Wilson and Maya Rudolph. The two main characters sign up for a military hibernation experiment that goes awry, and they awaken 500 years in the future. They discover that the world has devolved into a dystopia where marketing, commercialism, and cultural anti-intellectualism run rampant and dysgenics have resulted in a uniformly stupid human society.

A mildly amusing literally idiotic movie. I would die if this is what the world turned into ... but I guess I wouldn't be around to see it :) In ways that other movies are contraceptive, this was a go out and have babies trigger ... Don't let the world dumb-down, people.

Oh, and I also finished reading The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas.

When Ariel Manto discovers a copy of The End of Mr Y in a second-hand bookshop, she can't believe her eyes. She knows enough about its author the outlandish Victorian scientist Thomas Lumas, to know that copies are exceedingly rare. And cursed. The novel tells how to enter the Troposphere - a place where all consciousness is connected, and you can surf other people's thoughts. But surely the whole idea is just fiction? It is in a novel, after all. Ariel would rather have fiction than reality - which is just poverty and bad sex - anyway. But soon she's running for her life, surfing both fiction and reality as she tries to escape from the people who want her secrets. The End of Mr Y is a thought experiment wrapped in a contemporary adventure novel that asks questions about thought, language, destiny and the very limits of being and time.

This was a bizarre and interesting read. A bit like the matrix, I guess ... I don't think there's much else out there I could manage to compare it with. Although admittedly it lacks the super cool special effects that got us all hook on the first Matrix Movie, it does have an interesting concept. And although I thought hte book started out very slow, by the end I was hooked :) Hmmm, would you try the formula to enter the Troposphere?

Welcome To Stalkerville

So, today has been interesting. I received an email at my work address from Tammy Triangle at Netcare. I have never heard of Tammy Triangle in my life.

Hi phillygirl*
Hope you keeping well..
I have been reading your website for a while...
But unfortunately my computer crashed a while ago and I lost the website address...
Please can you be so kind enough to forward it to me...


Have a wonderful day...
Please say HI to Varen* from me...

Many thanks
Tammy

* - imagine our real names here!

Okay, even aside from the number of ellipses [...] she uses in an email, you can see how I'd be confused. Firstly, I have never to my knowledge referenced my own or Varen's real names (not that they're impossible to track down, but still ... other than myself I know few people willing to hunt that hard) and certainly not my work email address on this blog. And how can I not have any recollection of this person who got my name & Varen's spot on ... surely spam hasn't progressed to quite these levels of intuition just yet?

So I phoned Varen and asked him who the hell she was. And he had no clue either. So, being me, I Googled the bitch. Nothing. Facebook? Yup, there she was with no photo and no friends and no help!

Eventually I caved and mailed her back, being my sickly sweet cynical self.

Hi there.
Sorry, but I'm a little confused about how you know me (or Varen*) and got this email address .... ?

Hope you have a wonderful day too :)
phillygirl*

Nice and neutral and certainly not containing this url.
So after that, frustrated and curious, I proceeded to mail 50 of my nearest and dearest to see if the name rang any bells. No one who replied had any better ideas. Oddly enough, and thanks to the status bar in my Google Talk window, a girl I work with told me that someone I did indeed know was using Tammy Triangle's email address.

Someone is currently temping at Netcare and filling in for Tammy Triangle and using her email address for evil. Luckily said person had mailed this girl I work with for a catch-up also using Tammy's email address but had signed the email from herself ... and not from Tammy as she'd done with me.

And this is where it gets really interesting :) If you've been reading for long enough, you know Tammy Triangle's Address Thief too. It's the Hopefully Separated Husband's little bit of fluff.

Apart from being mildly amused at her attempt to fish for my blog address, I was annoyed that she thought she was smart enough to be playing these games with me. So I left it ... although I desperately wanted to let on that I knew who she really was. But I figured if she let it drop when I didn't take the bait, I could too.

But, naturally, she didn't. I got another reply (she still none the wiser that I now know exactly who is posing as Tammy Triangle!)

Weird... YOU don’t know me but you had so much to say about me on your website...

Again with the ellipses godammit. And people please ... it's not a website, it's a blog. I maintain there is a difference here, although perhaps not to the uninitiated. So, she thought she was clever did she. Well not so much. Firstly, she was never even raised to the privilege of her own Nickname. And I barely managed to mention her 4 times (oh, 5 if you include this one) in the course of my, what, 325 posts so far. It's too small a number to even bother working out a percentage for. Clearly she had never read it if she thought that was me saying much about something :) But now she's just asking for it!

So I had to reply, as only I can, dripping with disdain:

Tammy Triangle's Address Thief*, I really didn't mention you much at all, I assure you (You're just not that interesting). And hey, freedom, of speech, right. I can write or speculate about anything I *see* ... and since I don't use people's real names (I assume Googling your name didn't help you find the URL which is why you resorted to a more direct approach), the rest of the world remains completely unaware :)

Nothing like impersonating someone to brighten your day :)

And now I wait in anticipation ... is she brave enough to reply again?
Oh, and if you're really interested in the very brief history of her mentions on this blog, follow the links:

1. The Initial Mention
2. The Very Brief Follow-up
3. The Time We Saw Them Out
4. A Mere Conversation in London

Hardly worth the effort, no? Amazing what some people get bent out of shape about ... but then I imagine after reading those 4 excerpts, you must all know exactly who she is and be planning to rush out to confront her :) Meh.

This is almost as much fun as the Email Conversion Campaign :)

Down with the Population Growth

Yesterday I managed to get home fairly early ... these early morning schedules of Varen's are turning out to be really handy. Except, let's say, on a Wednesday after Tuesday night dinner. This morning was not an easy jump out of bed for either of us.

We had a yummy dinner at Hammi's and generally some really good laughs :) No, Hoi Polloi, sorry to disappoint ... no details or gossip here.

Anyway, so this morning was not as early as we'd have liked and I for one paid for it in the traffic. These sorts of mornings lead to me sitting here at my laptop with my earphones in and iTunes blaring. This is my work-bubble. Do Not Disturb. Why? Well because incessant traffic makes me hate the world and the people who drive in peak traffic and insist on leaving a kilometer gap between themselves and the next car - how is it that it's always me who ends up behind these dunces?

And don't get me wrong, I'm all for letting in your neighbour car with the indicator flashing wildly ... if a) the road allows for it and b) they haven't been completely inconsiderate going up the lane they're now desperate to get out of in order to get ahead in my lane. Which brings me to my other annoyance ... can no one in Joburg tell the difference between a one and two lane road? Seriously ... Fair enough if there's enough space to allow the people turning right (who would otherwise block up the traffic flow completely) to inch to the right and out of the way of those of us going straight. But why oh why do the Moronics going straight zoom up this (obviously shorter) lane and then try and barge in front of our nicely formed queue the instant the light turns green.

It's mornings like these that I wish I had a loud-hailer and could tell these people just how annoying and inconsiderate they are ... and that they didn't all have a weapon of some sort to use on me when I did :)

Which brings me to my latest thoughts on The World. I'm slowly wondering if the wouldn't be a better place if in fact there were less people. Not only in an environmental way like using less fossil fuels, requiring less rain-forests to be decimated in the search for more farmland etc. But more in a less people means less annoyance for me personally sort of way. Sigh.

I'm sure there's someone out there who owes me a large mass of land off the coast of somewhere :)

A Usual Monday

Last night was a usual Monday ... quiet and at home, just Varen & me. We made ourselves some dinner and settled in to finally finish House Season 4. This Writer's Strike has really screwed with our series watching!

We went to bed early to accommodate Varen's newly decided 5:30 am wake-up. It's good for me too cause it means I can get myself out of bed a lot easier if he's not all warm and dozy next to me :) And we're started having proper breakfast again, which is good :)

The only problematic thing, and I'm blaming it on my uncertainty about the new job I start on Monday, is that my brain starts attacking me as the lights go out. It's something that has been happening my whole life, on and off. It's pretty hard to fall asleep when your brain is concocting all the worst case scenarios that could possibly ever happen. Blegh. Let's just hope it passes soon :)

All Aboard the Furniture Bus

It was another pretty busy weekend. Friday started out with a fabulous massage from Jeanius :) And then Koet & Nambi came to our place to check out Varen's new car (oops, I forgot to take more pics this weekend!). After a drink with them at our house, we headed out to Doppio Zero in Greenside for dinner. I had their very yummy Paesano salad (Herbs and greens, tomato, cucumber, avo, nuts, roast butternut, spring onion, croutons,
peppers and feta with extra chicken). After they came back to our house again for some coffee and a little hubbly.

It is really nice now having a home that is close enough to do this ... Varen's previous place in Bedfordview was just way too far away!

Saturday was fairly busy. We got our new TV cabinet delivered in the morning. It's not really a cabinet for the TV (which will be wall mounted above) but more for all the TV peripherals. I'm also hoping to find boxes or baskets to put in the bottom three spaces :) I think it'll look pretty fab when it's done.

And we have decided on a D-Day for the House Warming. When a) we get the TV Cabinet (done) b) the carpet has been made (Varen's got two cow hides that we're going to have patch-worked together ... it doesn't sound very exciting, but I think it'll look good when it's actually done) c) we've bought dining room chairs. So yes, we are en route to the House Warming and at least we've set ourselves a goal.

He, sadly, is back at work this morning ... sitting there since 7:30am in the foyer waiting for his new boss to arrive. I think he's excited :) I'm just worried about all the rest of the house stuff that didn't get finished ... Oh well, I guess that's what our weekends will end up being for!

After the cabinet arrived, we rushed around doing admin type stuff. And then headed to the Homemakers Expo at The Coca Cola Dome ... ordinarily I wouldn't go near this sort of thing with a barge pole, but I figured we might be surprised and find something of use. Wrong. Although I'm sure it's very helpful if you're planning to build your house, the mostly bathroom & kitchen fittings stalls were not much help for us. We did find some companies that did doors the way Varen wished our patio ones were done ... but at R11 000 (not including all the extra work we'd have to have done to get it done), it's just not looking viable. Sheesh, developers do not really seem to think long and hard before they build, I'll tell you that! We also found some decking ideas that might be worth considering. But for the most part, it was hugely disappointing.

Later on Saturday, Hammi & Zej came over and we all headed off to a movie. We saw Jumper.

Anywhere is possible. On discovering he can teleport, bright Davey uses his power to leave his harsh family life in New York City behind him as he uses his gift to track down the man who murdered his mother years earlier. On doing so though, he manages to attract the attention of not only the NSA, but also that of an evil and immoral man of his own age, who shares the same ability that he does. It soon becomes a game of cat and mouse between the two exceptional men.

I enjoyed it :) It's a pretty fun concept, aside from the people trying to kill the jumpers. Although if I weren't one of them, I'd be hugely jealous! Good to have something worthwhile to visit the cinema for. Although I think once Varen has bought the TV, I'll just be staying home and watching there ... who needs the whiny children, yakking idiot adults and over-priced popcorn while you're trying to enjoy a little escapism.

They also came back to our place after the movie for coffee ... we are becoming quite the entertainers, even with a half empty house!

Sunday equally busy. With a trip to Sandton to spend my La Senza vouchers (a gift from Varen when he bought his car - so sweet!) And a visit to the Design Quarter in 4ways to look for new beds (need one in the spare room before Mom can come visit!) and dining room chairs. Luckily we found a new bed for both the main and spare rooms ... now we just have to buy them. And we even found chairs that we both love, except in the wrong shade of wood :( They look like that -> with leather upholstery on the seat. Sigh. If anyone knows where we can get this in a almost black wood (as you can see from the pic, these are far to brown!), please let me know!

In the afternoon, Varne went to his folks for a visit and I stayed home. I wasn't feeling up for more company ... I still need some weekend time just to chill out and do nothing. I think he's been getting too much of that during the week for it to bother him :)

Ps. And can you believe I only got a mere 200 Rond for my bed (single, admittedly) and chest of hideous pine drawers (both were purely functional items I bought from Nix when I moved up here as she was heading to UK)!

A Serious Six Months

So Varen, with a giant grin on his face, came past my office to pick me up for lunch yesterday in The New Car. It really is lovely ... and boy does it drive. Accelerating feels a bit like being in a rocket where you get thrust from behind and go whooshing forward. Let's hope he won't need to start a new savings account for the traffic fines! Will hopefully post some pics soon, but I forgot to take any last night. Maybe Varen will oblige and send me a few sometime today :)

10:41am Update: He sent thru this shot of the new car ... I promise to take a few more this weekend!

He is at home now enjoying (?) his final day of freedom. He decided to start his new contract a week early. Shooo, it's been quite a hectic past 6 months for the two of us: 1) my new car 2) his new house 3) moving in together (more on that later) 4) his new car 5) his new job 6) my new job. Eep.

When I got home from work (and he was still smiling!), we headed over to Loulou's to collect the rest of my "little stuff". All that's left now is my bed and chest of drawers (fingers crossed that Cash Converters will take 'em!) and two tables. Varen has arranged with his brother to move all that this afternoon. And the I will be Officially Moved.

Last night we went for dinner at Pomodoro in Morningside with JofH and YogaCherryl. It was a lovely evening although the service was dismal to start with, it did improve. And my food was mixed. My Melanzane starter was divine, one of the best I've eaten! But my main, Prawn Ravioli was not that flavourful ... next time I'd stick with an old faithful like the Spinach and Ricotta Ravioli instead. Although the rest of the table seemed to really enjoy their mains :)

No Car But a New Job

Yesterday was fairly uneventful, aside from the fact that Varen, disappointingly, did not get the new car. Strange that the banks will suddenly freak out about you buying a car because you're a contractor (his new job will be ... which he'll be starting on Monday btw.) ... even tho you have a million rand home loan already with them and they don't seem worried about your continued monthly payment of that!

Oh well, apparently it's a mere formality and all he needed to provide was a letter from his contracting house (now done) so he should be collecting the car this morning and coming thru to pick me up for lunch and "the first drive" :)

In other news, my departmental move here has become official. I am leaving this team and it's politics behind and let's hope it's on to greener pastures. Except I do have one minor concern to deal with today, one of those ones that wake you in the middle of the night and won't let you get back to sleep. The whole point I'm doing an internal move is so that I can keep my increase & bonus ... this company is pretty dodgy (and downright unfair in my opinion) with that sort of thing. If you resign before the money is safely in your bank account, you lose it. Forget about the fact that you've already put in those 12 months of hard work and effort that the bonus should be rewarding you for, they zap it. Again, as I said, unfair. But my plan was to avoid that sort of childishness with an internal move ... and I woke up in a panic wondering if I had in fact dodged the bullet? Anyhoo, some serious investigating to be done today. But barring any surprises there, I should be moving on 3 March. Fingers crossed!

Quick mid-post update: The bonus is apparently secure :)

We had a very nice and quiet night last night, my first sushi since I went to London :) And a new series TheBrad has been insisting that we watch called Damages ... two episodes in and it's piqued my interest.

Another New Car

Yesterday I rushed home after work so that Varen could take me to our local Mazda dealer and show off the new car he's been eyeing. Ever since the issue with his Turbo charger (he got the Polo back yesterday), he's been planning an upgrade (probably even before then, he is a boy!). He's decided on the Mazda 3 MPS. All you boys can ooh and ahh later. But I will say that it is a very pretty car on the outside. Although the inside will take a little getting used to for me, but I've seen worse! He's thrilled because apparently it's as powerful as 4 of my little C2s.

Sadly we couldn't test drive it, they'd already packed it away. But he had already taken it for a spin earlier in the afternoon (oh the perks of not having to spend your days at work!). I did get to look around and sit in the floor model tho. And, the best part for him is he'll be taking delivery this afternoon :) Now he can't wait till our weekend away in the midlands next weekend to really give it a run!

After all that excitement, it was off to Tuesday night dinner at Hoi Polloi's. He has a very fancy pad, I must say. Dinner was a lovely chicken pie ... not quite made from scratch :)

Lovely Long Weekend

Friday started out well with the arrival of our bonus & increase letters. Let's just say I'm smiling :)
Later we flew on 1time, 20 minutes late (apparently they've only been on time one time - pahahaha :P) only to land in Cape Town and be told that the everyone's luggage would be arriving on the following flight. They'd left it behind in order to carry more fuel for their next flight. Not impressed.
But we did eventually get settled at home in Cape Town. Saturday was a fairly relaxed day. I visited Gum and he was quite chatty. Everyone gets fairly nervous and tries their best to prepare me every time I see him. I guess because I see him so seldom that the changes in him are more drastic. But I guess that's what happens as someone slowly deteriorates due to Alzheimer's and old age.
Didn't do much more on Saturday but prepare for Mom's 50th Birthday Party in the evening. She'd booked out the Acanthus restaurant in Kalk Bay. It was a beautiful evening with a stunning view over Kalk Bay Harbour. There were loads of people (50 or so) and plenty of good food and wine and some crazy dancing to all the golden oldies :) Hope you had a blast, Mom!
Varen & I gave her a paid for flight to Joburg for her birthday ... now I just need to get moving and buy a new double bed for the spare room so she can actually come and visit. Can't wait :)
Sunday morning we were up as early as possible (admittedly not very!) and Varen & I set off on a whirlwind drive of the Cape. He was moaning that the last time we visited Cape Town, he didn't get to see much more than my folk's house. We drove over Ou Kaapse Weg to Noordhoek and around Chapman's Peak to Hout Bay, enjoying all those amazing sea views! We stopped at The Lookout Deck in Hout Bay for some calamari and seal-spotting in the Bay. The cocktails were good, but the food was an extreme example of Cape Town's overcharging.
After that, it was back home over Constantia Neck for tea at our house with the family. Man, do I realise every time I visit how much I miss Mom's baking :) And truth be told, Varen & I spent a lot of time this weekend discussing the merit of moving to Cape Town.
After that, I took Varen for sundowners at La Med - no good Capetonian could leave this off a weekend visit, but usually we're flying back by this time on a Sunday. La Med was just how I remember it, crazy busy with those Out-to-be-Seen typical Capetonian folk and bad service but, with it's huge saving grace ... perfect sea and sunset views. Admittedly we didn't stay for the whole sunset, it happens kinda late in Cape Town and we were getting peckish (since the service wasn't obliging) so we decided to move on.
And so, after an un-scheduled wee-stop at The Peeb's place, we ended up having dinner at one of Cape Town's best restaurants (in my opinion), Five Flies. The food was divine and unfortunately we were a little alcohol-ed out from the few drinks at La Med in the sun. I had their pan-fried scallops with home made linguini and saffron veloute as my starter and Varen had the even better Norwegian crawfish with avocado, baby leaf salad and seafood dressing.
Oddly enough we stuck with seafood for our mains as well. I had their rosette of Sole fillet with shrimp thermidor, creamed tatsoi, sweet potato mash and basil beurre blanc. It was divine, I was completely amazed at the way the basil and sweet potato flavours complimented each other. Would definitely recommend this :) Varen had their seared Scottish salmon with lemon risotto, mange tout and light thyme jus. The salmon was cooked more perfectly than I've ever tasted! All in all, completely delish but, no room for dessert after tea earlier in the afternoon!
Monday was another designated Cape-oriented day for Varen. Mom took us out to Franschhoek for some Wine Tasting and lunch en-route to the airport (after a quick breakfast at home and a surprise hello for Lovedalia) :) We stopped first at the Hillcrest Berry Orchard for a drink and some scones (to line the stomach and taste some of their various jams). It is a beautiful setting over looking the mountains and highly recommended for breakfast (apparently it gets pretty busy over the weekends tho so booking in advance is advisable!). We tried 4 of their jams: 4 Red Berry, Blueberry, Hanepoot Grape and Cape Fig & Walnut. I stuck to the Red Berry and Fig & Walnut (divine!) although Mom & Varen seemed to really recommend the Grape ?!
And then it was on to the Wine Farms. First we visited Plaisir de Merle. We tried 4 or 5 of their wines, but only really enjoyed (most surprisingly!) their Sauvignon Blanc - ordinarily I'm so not a white wine sorta girl!
And then we moved on to Mom & Daddio's favourite, Lynx. I've tried their wine before and generally enjoy it. Mom & Daddio generally stick to their Blanc du Noir and I was surprised how little I liked their Reds, except for their Blend. Varen really enjoyed their Cabernet Sauvignon tho, so we ordered 6 of each :)
And then it was time for some lunch. Lunch was supremely un-impressive because we were starting to be pressed for time. We ended up at a little coffee shop across the road from Reuben's (they were fully booked) called Essence.

And then it was off to say goodbye to Daddio at his new work before being dropped at the airport in time for our flight - in retrospect we could've hit another wine farm on our way home tho. Yup, you guessed it, 1time was late leaving again. I'm thinking of writing an email asking what exactly the "More Nice" they promise in their by-line is ... and suggesting they update it to be a more honest reflection: Less Nice, Less Price. But as they say, you get what you pay for. Although my flight ticket price should in no way affect the general running of the airport and them sticking to their own schedule :P Either way, we arrived home and got a good night's sleep back in our own bed after a fairly exhausting but super fun weekend visiting the folks in Cape Town.

And We're Off Again

Last night was lovely ... I arrived home to find Varen completely to whip dinner up and the snap of a finger and also banned from the fridge to keep dessert a surprise.

Since I left work a little early, we had plenty of time before dinner, although he was so eager, we did end up eating at about 6:30pm. He had slaved away making us Ostrich fillet with a Chili Chocolate compote, creamed spinach (not handmade) and veggie skewers (also not handmade). But the dinner was delish :)

Dessert was even better! He'd prepared us each a dinner plate filled with creme caramel, raspberries, mango (which I love and he can't stand!) and chocolate drizzled kiwi's. The chocolate was Lindt so you can imagine how decadent it was :)

Sigh. I think he'll have to take leave every Valentines Day :)

And this afternoon, we're jet-setting off to Cape Town to celebrate Mom's 50th birthday (next Tuesday, but the party's on Saturday evening). Am so looking forward to it and will only be back here on Tuesday. Four day weeks, gotta love 'em! I realised that since I've gotten back from London, I've had 3 four-day weeks in a row. Couldn't have planned it better myself!