Dirty Dancing

The 14th marked one year since Patrick Swayze's death, and Sharon and I both having the same ideas decided to watch good old Dirty Dancing again - although not together as we are on separate continents. So I snuggled up in bed on my own and was drawn into a world where appearances still meant so much, where men were still gentleman and believed in opening car doors for women, and people took pleasure in something other than TV.

It's a story that has been repeated hundreds of times in different ways - people from different sides of the tracks fall in love and overcome the obstacles that confront them in a society where that still mattered, but this movie somehow managed to become popular with all ages and throughout the years. It definitely made Patrick Swayze's career, but unfortunately didn't have the same effect for Jennifer Grey.

For me, my first memory of watching Dirty Dancing was as a child in my Aunty 'Nita's house in Durban - her beautiful sprawling house where she lived with her family and my grandparents. It must have been when it was first released as I was very very young, and my Father was still scandalized that I had been allowed to watch it at such a young age as he felt it was hardly appropriate for a child to be watching - he was probably right.

The memories of that house awed me as a child - I saw that side of my family as worldly and glamorous; through a child's eyes they sparkled. My grandparents loved their dancing, and even though it is probably not true, I saw them as coming from that same age and time, my grandmother sparkling in her beautiful gowns and high-heeled shoes that she had in her cupboard and occasionally allowed me to play with and try on. To this day I still remember hobbling around in a pair of high-heeled gold shoes that the sight of Penny's in Dirty Dancing always reminds me of. 

I wonder if in 60 years time, people will look back on the "noughties" and think that they were as glamorous and sparkling as the golden years of the 50's and 60's, and I somehow doubt it.

Ball-less Bear ...

So the deed was done ... my poor baby had his crown jewels lopped off!

We took him in on Wednesday, and I was almost in tears at the thought of my poor baby being mutilated and very nearly backed out and said sod it, he can keep them! I think he must have known something was wrong, as he was as hyper and mad as always dragging me through the car park and vet offices. He also made his mark and peed on the table in the middle of the consulting rooms! I almost died, idiotic dog. 

He then had to have a thermometer stuck up his bum to his great disgust, and between climbing into my lap and almost sitting on said thermometer (I shudder to think what that removal would have been like) he spent his time snarling at the vet Saskia as if he was about to kill her. She even took a step back at one point and I had to hold his mouth shut whilst she listened to his heart (complaining all the while that she could hear nothing over the vicious rumbling) and then he got really mad when he had to have the first injection to dope him down slightly. 

The vet, Saskia, was probably pleased to chop off his balls after that.

I can only imagine he must have known what was coming to be in such a foul mood as he normally loves Saskia - well he just loves everyone really and doesn't have a vicious bone in his body. Well we then had to get him into the cage, which he adamantly did not want to do, and then I had to leave my poor child looking after me with big mournful eyes and no doubt dreading what was to come. 

In the meantime Kita was standing in the front chunking her head off as she hates being separated from her Teddy Bear so Pio had to take her back to the car. She was meant to be done as well but the daft cow picked the opportune moment to come in heat and so they couldn't operate on her. 

So Bear spent the day in lockdown, and I spent the day panicking over my child and counting down until I could go fetch him at 3pm. On arrival he was lying in his cage, all doped up and miserable, but when he heard my voice he was up and chunking in a shot, and launched out of that cage as fast as his still-drugged and very wobbly feet could take him, straight into my arms. He then took off out of the place dragging me behind him, bumping into walls and tripping down steps as he frantically sought for a way out of this horrendous place. 

Even whilst still drugged, he insisted on peeing on gutters and car tyres before jumping into the car and very nearly missing it entirely. He sat on the back seat, head out the window, still drugged and falling asleep, but once home insisted on trying to play with Kita and peeing on everything in sight whilst his wonky legs almost gave way beneath him - Pio and I almost died laughing at the poor thing almost falling over whilst desperately trying to mark his territory.

He was spoiled rotten that night with a huge meal and bones and I even gave him my lamb chops to try and ease the guilt I felt - no doubt he clearly knew this and those brown eyes got sadder and sadder as he eyed me, my plate of food and gingerly licked his non-existent balls until I gave him anything he wanted. 

He went for a walk on Thursday, and howled so much that he got his run behind the car as well, and by today he is back to his irrepressible and crazy old self - still jumping, biting me on the bum, and trying to hump Kita every opportunity he gets. It seems as if all the action in his nether regions (even though it was negative) has made him feel quite the stud and he is even worse at trying to get onto Kita that he has ever been, so not sure how long this is going to last!

Saturday Mornings ...

I think that Saturday mornings have to be the most peaceful and pleasant of the week. Depending on what we have done the night before we are up early unless there is really nothing to do and then Pio is allowed to sleep in and enjoy his time in bed watching TV - although as he does that all day on a Sunday he isn't really allowed to get away with it on a Saturday lol. So normally I will catch up on any cleaning and washing that is required or we will go to town and get whatever we need or want.

After that we do whatever needs doing around the house, work in the garden, clean the car, and Pio will potter with his pipe car and in the garage dreaming of what he could rather be doing if he had the money lol! Now that the sun is shining more regularly and it's beginning to feel like Spring it is even better, as getting up early with the sun isn't a problem (for me anyway) and getting everything done is pleasant instead of a chore. 

Although this morning mopping floors after dogs was a total chore - and then whilst I am still mopping they run over it with muddy paws and I have to start again ... they were locked out the house pronto dot only to have Pio let them in five minutes after I was done and there we start again ... I have now given up. I will never have a clean house what with animals and Pio around.

I love my Saturday mornings, be they peaceful or busy. By the time Sunday comes around it's just a count down to the rubbish week again so it's not pleasant at all, so Saturday mornings are here to be enjoyed as much as possible and hope that time drags and we get a lot done!

Farm Life

As it has recently come to our attention that we might like to buy a plot, build a house and attempt to farm, I have decided to do a list of Pros and Cons. This is because both Pio and I are too hopeless to ever make any concrete decisions and say "That is what we want!" It must have something to do with us both being Gemini, and is extremely annoying, even if I do say so myself.

So let's get the negativity over and done with first:

Cons:

• Traveling, as it is 15 km's out of Swakopmund
• Pio will have to drive to work instead of catching the bus or drive to town in order to catch the bus
• Not being able to just "pop to the shop"
• Having to plan all shopping properly (lazy me ... )
• No electricity
• No house ... (lol) 
• No fences
• No security
• Resale value is a concern according to Pio

Pros:

• I can keep animals!
• Have a real barn
• No traffic or cars or noise at night
• No worrying about my animals being run over
• Not having to walk Bear and Kita every day
• Grow your own veggies and fruit if possible
• Owning a large piece of land
• Building a home and farm up from scratch
• Potential for running his own little factory (Pio) 
• Small-scale farming

And that is all that I can think of immediately ... I reckon I would be happy on a farm and in that life and it is one more pro than con so it's all looking good. It's still a really big decision to make, and we can't really afford to make any bad decisions at this point in our lives so a lot of thinking still has to be done and a lot of things thought through carefully and written down in great detail.

Although as the house will have to be built from scratch up it will take quite some time to actually make it livable and be able to move in there and actually start this life and get it going. So here's to big and life-changing decisions ... let's hope we make the right ones!

Monday Blues ...

I definitely think that Monday has to be the worst day of the week, although on the other hand probably the most productive. Currently being in Swakopmund and it being winter, Monday's are even worse as you are forced to get out of bed and get going in the cold, miserable and gray morning after a weekend of doing as you please. People say the rain is bad - at least if it rains you know its cold and wet and miserable; living in Swakop is like hanging in the balance waiting ... it has the potential to rain but can't quite happen ... and your extremities are generally blue with cold, which is actually a total contradiction to "Summer All Year Round in Africa Wild" ... dammit. I have clearly acclimatized.

Although being a Monday and it being cold, I still managed to be up by 7am this morning after lying awake for ages and got going on a few bits that needed doing. The windows have been washed so I can see my garden once again which is great, and Johnny is scrubbing the front wall and all its years worth of muck off. This is definitely the week to clean, as hey, Wednesday it is officially Spring!

But, before we can officially say it is Spring and Summer is on the way, I am making a huge pot of soup to ward off the cold that I am sure will no doubt last long into Spring in this place. Hopefully it will be the last one that I make until next winter, but I do somehow doubt it. Nevertheless, I will enjoy my fresh bacon and vegetable soup with a dash of single cream, a touch of freshly ground  black pepper and hot toast topped with melted butter, even if I am praying it's the last time I eat it til next year. 

There is much to do this week and plenty to keep myself and Johnny busy, after which time hopefully the  garden will be sparkling, which it hasn't been in a long while as there simply has not been the time to get stuck in and get it done. Garages will be sorted out, walls washed, driveways swept, and it will hopefully take all week! Let me be off to start with the next task!

Bear's Balls

The decision to have Bear's balls removed was not one that I made lightly ... poor bugger, how cruel can we be to our animals? I have ignored all advice from friends and our vet, wanting to keep him as beautiful and nuts as he is ... also thought for a while that someone might like him enough to want to have puppies with him.

Anyway, living with a very horny husky has been quite difficult, and he has to be the horniest dog I have ever seen in my life. We had to stop taking him out in public as if he saw another dog, male or female, he would do his best to grab it and hump it, not worrying whether he had the right end or not, or if it was even male or female. He seemed to think that any other animal out there is for his pleasure only, which has caused rather a lot of embarrassment over time and in a crowd ... 

He has never really been a leg-humper thank heavens; although there are specific people that if very horny, he would try and grab, only to be smacked rather hard for his efforts poor sod. So then Kita came along, and being female, there was the concern that puppies would be on the way. So a month back we couldn't decide if she had come into heat or not as there had been no visible sign, and I also couldn't decide if she was just overweight or pregnant ... off we went to the vet and not even Saskia could decide if she was pregnant or fat. We are assuming she is just fat and I have been told to cut her food in half ... clearly Saskia doesn't know Kita very well LOL or just how much of a ginormous pig she is. 

So, Maya returned to Swakop on Thursday. Maya is Destroyer Number Two and the one that taught Bear to dig holes all over the garden - apparently she no longer does this whilst Bear still delights in digging holes to China. So we reunited them, and it was a rather joyous occasion for both of them once he had stopped trying to hump her and she had stopped biting him back. 

That evening, however, Bear went a bit loopy. Whether it was hormones playing up or just the fact that he desperately wants another husky to play with and Kita isn't good enough (being fat and lazy I am leaning towards her not being good enough for him) I honestly am not sure, but he went off his rocker. He spent hours in the front garden howling at the moon - and no, it wasn't whining like a normal dog, it was honest to God nose in the air, howling like a wolf. I wonder how many of our neighbors thought that there was perhaps a wolf loose somewhere. No amount of calling and coercing would shut him up either. 

He would dash inside to answer me, and then two minutes later charge back outside, howling on his way down the passage and out the window. For a while he actually sat next to my bed howling; this is rather loud and hysterical to be honest. The more he howls, the more I laugh, and the more I laughed the more he howled. He has always howled and talked if someone laughs.

So with this insane dashing in and out the house and howling, jumping on the bed then off, and looking at me as if I had murdered his best friend, I decided to do the deed and have him neutered. People in this town like huskies as they are pretty, and get them as they love the colors and blue eyes and fluffy tails, but have no idea what it takes to look after them and what high maintenance they are. So most of the huskies in town, unless behind very high walls, roam the streets, are given away, are murdered and poisoned. My biggest concern is that someone is going to get fed up of his howling and poison him - being Bear he will eat anything that he thinks is human food as well. 

There is also an old lady that lives two doors down that stops every evening to pet him and to interrogate me as to how I look after him. She doesn't seem to believe me when I tell her that he sleeps inside and on the bed if he chooses, he has biscuits and milk twice a day, chicken livers cooled in BBQ sauce with rice for dinner, walks for miles every day, a whole bag of bones every second day - well the list just could really go on. These two are the most spoiled dogs I know. I also have never worked more than half day so that I can spend time with him and walk him and care for him - this is the only thing that keeps him from wandering I am sure. Bear, being a total traitor, sits at the fence and cries like a baby every time she walks by, so am totally convinced that she is going to report me to SPCA one of these days for not looking after my animals. Little does she know.

So I am hoping that neutering him will calm him down, and he will earn to control his freaky and insane moods as he won't have what is clearly a ton of testosterone whizzing through his body. I think he is all testosterone and nothing else actually. So this coming week I will make arrangements for him to go to the vet and have the deed done - poor bugger, he doesn't know what is waiting for him just around the corner!

A Dining Room Table!

Well, I have decided sod it, just spend the money and let's get a dining room table that we like. We have the 7 chairs, and today I ordered another one to make it 8, and have spoken to the carpenter about making a table for us. 

Now if you don't already know, we live in a big 4 bedroom house with a huge garden and it is pretty much mostly empty as we have never bought any more furniture! Now I am getting rather frustrated with not having anything in the house and so it's time to start buying and making our house look like a home instead of a homeless shelter ... 

So, I am going to go home at lunch and measure my dining room and see what size and just how big I can make this table and the matching mirror. I also get to put a Lazy Susan in!!! I have always wanted one - sad I know - but so, so useful and hey, why not. Of course not if it makes it stupidly expensive ... here's hoping!

The wood that we want to use is Dolf - no idea how you spell it, but it is cut up in Zambia and shipped down South, and we are going to try and leave it as natural as possible, so no dark stains, just plain, simple and straightforward. The Teak and Rosewood are too red for my liking although we can get both here - just asked Seth for some advice re the wood as he is a carpenter obviously - pity he's so flipping far away!

Well wish us luck and maybe by the end of the month will have a new dining room table to boast about!! :-D

Back to School

Hopefully anyway! I have finally got my butt into gear and decided to do something worthwhile, as being in a pointless job doesn't satisfy me at all and is merely frustrating - we won't go into why it's so frustrating ... some people are just beyond help really. 

So, the course that I want to do is all to do with Design and building websites, so Adobe and everything that it is - Dreamweaver, Flash, CS3 and a multitude of other things which will hopefully not only keep me busy but also give me the grounding to get a better job or to do my own thing when it's completed. I am only really happy when being creative and building things so this could be just the right thing - only took me 28 years to decide! Not long at all really ... 

The only problem is, Swakop being so small, there is an instructor that can be used, but now they have to find enough people to do the course in order to employ her. In one way I suppose it's a good thing as that means there won't be a huge amount of people on the course - hopefully hopefully - therefore you have more interaction with the instructor and also the less people that do it the better - less people to compete with for work when it's done! Is that mean of me? Knowing my luck will be about 40 people on it ...

It also means getting the brain back into the swing of studying again which might be a wee bit difficult although with any luck it won't take too much to get back into the swing of things! It seems like a nice place, a wee bit scrappy,and the course is expensive, but it will be an international qualification at the end of it and so can only hope that I am able to go through with it and get the ball rolling. 

Wish me luck people!!! Am going to need it!

My Photo Wall

After running around yesterday trying to find all the stationary etc that I needed and walking the dogs out on the beach - was really misty and cold ugh - I decided to get stuck into my old photos and stick them all up again and make the photo wall that I had at Mile 4. 

Pio suggested that we do it on the glass sliding door between the dining room and the braai area so that when we are braaiing then we can look at them and enjoy them more which in theory is great but after I stuck them all up I didn't like it as the lounge is quite dark so this photo wall now blocks out the light that comes in from the sky-light in the dining room. It also lets you see the prestik and the backs of the photos from the other side of the door, so I think that a move may be in order!

This is rather sad, as it took about 2 hours to complete and looks quite good from the one side, but am sure that it will look just as good on the dining room wall. Ultimately it will move again anyway, as I want the photos in either the entertainment area or in my office, and when I get my office I already have the electronic photo frame Pio bought me, so might very well have to put them in the entertainment area that I don't have as of yet ... 

I will try remember to take a photo of the wall today and post it, it is really nice to have all my photos up again, always makes me smile, I just need to print more now and keep adding to it. There is nothing better than loads of photos of family and friends! 

Bear v the Feather Duster

Bear has an obsession with the feather duster. I think that this may stem from his obsession in general with birds of any kind - from chasing seagulls on the beach to the poor goose he caught the other day to my total dismay. That was rather amusing after although he did come off a sad second best after I caught him - although that did take half an hour. It must have been a rather amusing sight - low-flying over-weight goose, Bear right on his poor feathered butt, the poor goose-minder after Bear, and me after the goose-minder running madly down the beach which sadly doesn't end ... Needless to say the goose escaped minus a few feathers and Bear escaped rather depressed and miserable after his hiding, but he still has this insane obsession. 

On the beach its OK as he hares up and down after seagulls that are way too smart to be caught, occasionally taking off after them and plunging into the salt pans to no avail, coming back stinking to high heaven of salty dead water and bird poo after running about a mile.

The feather duster is just amusing though, he must think that it is a dead bird attached to a stick or something, and this means to him that he must chase it and will one day get the better of me and destroy it, to his total satisfaction. So when the feather duster comes out, Bear goes insane and will follow you and it as if his life depends on it, trying desperately to catch it whilst you are dusting, using any means necessary,which normally means that my furniture is covered in great big muddy paw-prints as he launches after the bird-on-a-stick, never giving up.

When the duster is then put away - locked in a cupboard to prevent him climbing the furniture or ripping cupboard doors off to get to it - he will then lie in front of the closed cupboard or door for hours in the vague hope that it might come waddling out on its own so he can catch it unawares. As of yet, it hasn't, thank my lucky stars, but I am very sure that one day he will win his war against the duster ...