Ombrel.

At the moment, I sit here listening to the sound of Gloria cutting her nails using my nail clippers.  I assume this is punishment to me for not letting her have my handbag.

Gloria: Sheentjie, I love this bag.  I can take it home with me? For my son? She will love it also.

Me: Um, no.

Gloria: But why, marra?

Me: Because Gloria, I use this bag.  It has my things in it.  Why does your son want a hand bag?

Gloria: For her school.

Me: Gloria, sorry, but I can’t give you this bag.  I gave you two black bags full of things last week when I cleaned out my things!  There were bags in there for you.  Lots of them.  What I have left in this house now is stuff I want to keep.

Gloria: Okay.  I can have this ombrel?

Me (getting irritated at having to look up from my computer again): what is an ombre– oh.  My umbrella.  Sigh.  No, I’m sorry, you can’t have this ombrel, damnit, UMBRELLA.  It was just given to me!

Gloria: it’s fine.  The milk she is sour, I make you tea.

Me: No, no, thank you.  I don’t need tea.

Gloria: The milk she is sour, give for me R50 please to go buy the milk.

I handed the R50 over, with pleasure, so that I could get a 20 minute break from Gloria.  Honestly, it’s not worth staying at home sick if she’s here.  Especially since I’m sitting here listening to the sound of her cutting her nails using my nail clippers!

PS: My first Memeburn article went live today, check it out here.

Obsessions

Am totally obsessed with Vampires. I always have been. I’ve read pretty much every book there is to read on vampires, it was the first genre I downloaded on my Kindle. I watch all the movies, series and make sure I’m up to date with all the myths.  It’s something that gives me pleasure, much like other people taking pleasure from studying Buddism, I like to study how creative writers can get with diversifying vampire literature and screenplays.

So imagine my utter delight when I found someone in SA who claims to be a “Real Vampyre”!  She spells it with a ‘y’, and although I’m not going to argue with her, I think her spelling is a bit strange.  Her name is Octarine, and she drinks human blood and has very sharp canine teeth apparently.  She also has invited me on Facebook to become a “donor”.  What she’d like to do with my organs, I have no idea, but oooooooh!  I have a real life vampyre friend on Facebook!

Aside from her becoming friends with Cody Wolfman yesterday (Could it be?  A real life werewolf too?  Must friendship request him immediately!) my real life vampyre facebook friend talks about her coven, her otherkin friends and always links to Vampyre Rights websites.  And once a week, I generally stalk the fuck out of her.  Yesterday, I took the “Are you a real Vampyre?” test, and I pretty much passed. So did a few of my Twitter friends when I tested them.  You should too.

So yes.  I have a new pastime to relieve my stress.  Some people drink, some people do sport, some people ohmmmm with crossed legs during yoga.  Me?  I stalk real life vampyres on Facebook.  Because honestly, what’s more stressful than knowing there is a lady out there in my country who claims to have sharp canine teeth and is willing to suck on my blood?  Not knowing and being jumped on in the night!

Gratitude.

I have no energy.  I’ve used this year’s quota all up and now I’m finished.  I could barely string a sentence together when Jon and I were driving home from the airport.  Yesterday, I sprawled myself out on the couch and moaned when I had to lift a finger to click buttons on the TV remote.

I desperately need my holiday, I desperately need December – I don’t remember ever feeling this amount of exhaustemacated.

Saw Cath on Friday.  First time in over a year.  We squeezed each other hard and stroked each other’s hair.  Met her Shmooshy.  Spent time with my mom.  Saw my dad.  Met mothers new toy boy.  Rolled my eyes at my brothers.  Stayed in awesome hotel rooms. Slept like the dead every single night.

But, despite all of the above, or maybe in spite of it, I am really, utterly, ridiculously happy with my life.

I love my boyfriend, my mates, my family and my job.  How did I get so lucky?

*Just wish I could find where Gloria has decided to stash my work note book, it is my brain, and it is GONE.

You don’t stalk to me anymore :(

Dudes.  I’m in Cape Town today.  Back in Joburg tomorrow, then in Durban on Friday, then back in Joburg again.  Sigh.  Too many flights and although I’m not a nervous flyer usually, I actually nearly wee’d in my jean pant this morning.  Either the pilot was on ritalin and couldn’t stop bumping the controls, or he didn’t know how to fly.  Bumpiest. Flight. Ever.  Felt like we were gonna drop out the sky at least six times.  Not cool.

Work is insane at the moment, really.  Although the project I’m currently running around for is Spud: The Movie.  Met John Cleese last Friday and hung out with the cast of Spud too.  Going to see them all again tonight for the premiere in Cape Town.

Crap, have to run, work issue.

Will try finish this later.

xx

There is just so much happening!

I’ve been asked to lecture 4th years from time to time for a nearby University.  It’s hilar, considering I didn’t officially do tertiary.  I’m very honoured though, and it seems that it’s not just one mistaken individual either, the organiser of the conference I went to recently asked to fly me down to CPUT and do a once off lecture there next year.  I am beyond chuffed.

I featured in The Sunday Times this weekend, I tried to upload the PDF versions for you guys to read, but it didn’t work.  So I deleted the post and will instead ask you to email me if you’d like to read the article, it was on the topic of my profession on Facebook – I was quoted by the awesome Dr. Sarah Britten.  Cool!

I start writing for Memeburn this week, how rad?  My first article should be live soon, I’ll let you know the link as soon as I have it.

This weekend I decided I was sick and tired of having to dive under broom sticks and over buckets in order to grab the pepper and oil, and then not being able to get the oil because it was stuck to the cupboard thanks to an oil spill.  So I ripped every fucking thing out of the pantry and got stuck in with a bucket of warm water, a cloth, handy andy, a duster and disinfectant and cleaned the shit out of that pantry, literally and figuratively.  It now smells of lemon sorbet and is shiny clean.

The Pretty Pantry

And more so, it will NEVER look like that again – because it inspired me to finally get my A into G and give Gloria a schedule!  See here:

Gloria's List

What do you think, is she going to hate me? Is it too harsh? Too much work in the day? I’ve never done this before, and I reckon if I was the one doing all those things I’d get it all done, no problem, but it’s easier said than done.  So gimme your input please?

Cool, chat soon.

xxx

Calling all Spud fans!

MTN really does do such fun things sometimes, I’m lucky I get to have a hand in some of the projects.

The latest one is the Spud Premiere, MTN is sponsoring the events which are happening soon, and even going as far as bringing John Cleese to the Joburg event!  These events wouldn’t have happened without MTN’s sponsorship, and the MTN division responsible for all of the above is the MTN 1-4-1 Loyalty program.  So thanks, Loyalty dudes! I’m gonna meet John Cleese!

The fun news is that you can too, the events are happening on the following days, in the following cities:

1. Johannesburg Saturday 13 November 2010 @ 17:30 Nu Metro Montecasino
2. Cape Town Wednesday 17 November 2010 @ 18:30 Nu Metro V&A Waterfront
3. Durban Friday 19 November 2010 @ 18:30 Nu Metro Suncoast Casino

There are a couple of tickets available to the general online public (For yourself and three friends!).  All you need to do is blog about what I’ve just told you, and then end off with your favourite high school or boarding house story.

Email your blog post to sheenag@aquaonline.com, along with your contact details and which city you live in, and hold thumbs until MTN Ayoba pages on Facebook, Twitter & their blog announce the winners!

Anyone with a blog can enter, and if you’re not a blogger but are on Facebook or Twitter, there are individual competitions for you guys too!

Here’s the link to the Facebook compo, the Twitter compo, and even a competition for people who use none of the above, but know how to navigate to a website (or don’t – here, have some instructions): CLICK HERE NOW.

The blog link for all the consolidated info is available here, you should probably link back to this link if you’re going to enter through your blog, as it has all the destructions <http://www.ayobamtn.co.za/blog/2010/11/01/competition-spud-movie>.

I’ll be at all three events, so I hope to see you soon.  Come say hi if you spot me first, but only if you’re buying the drinks

I realise it’s a little bit daunting…

This weekend I got a removal company to pick up my stuff and move it to Jon’s house.  It cost me a minor fortune, but I figured that it would be worth it in that all I would need to do was pack the boxes myself and let the dudes do the heavy lifting.  Only, I kind of forgot what a nightmare the old place’s driveway is, and I didn’t factor in the fact that the electrical gate has wires above it that only allow vehicle’s up to a certain height through.  SheBee Fail.

So Jon and I spent Sunday afternoon carting boxes in and out to the removal van, down the road, very far from the effing driveway.  The movers helped, of course, but I had visions of us sitting in the sun on the grass sipping on iced drinks watching sweaty topless hunks moving boxes to and fro.  Instead I got a very skinny dude with chicken-chested canary muscles and four porky mover helpers.

Once the stuff arrived, we literally piled it all in the corner and shut the doors and windows just in time for a massive rain storm.  So this morning when Gloria arrived, her bottom lip dropped below her feet the minute she saw the mess.

Jon, being the ever polite, nice guy, immediately feels the need to placate her.  Unfortunately he used big words and from the bedroom I heard her brain’s confusion.  He says to her “Now, Gloria, I know this looks rather daunting.  But don’t worry, we don’t expect you to solve it all in one day, there’s still some consolidating to be done and once we’ve discarded and kept and organised into sections, we’ll ask you to take care of the rest”.  The reply he got: ”iYes”.

As soon as he got back to the bedroom I decided I better go in and do collateral damage.   I walked in to Gloria with her hand on the back of her head.  She looked at me, dead pan, and said with all the energy she could sum up in the world, “Eish!”

I had to explain to her all over again, that she mustn’t touch anything that’s new.  She must just clean around it and I’ll sort it out during the week.  She didn’t look too happy when I asked her to repeat what I said though, but thank goodness I did because she somehow, God alone knows how, came back with “I must clean it all and you will give it to me next week”.

WTF? Her sense of entitlement rivals that of even the Queen of England!