Travelling write along…

Writing my Godmother

I wrote a post for the blog on Wisdom has a Voice: Writing my Godmother.

I'm fascinating, apparently

1. Friday my son managed to get his foot trapped between the slats of our small garden bridge. There is no point to this bridge. It is of the previous owner era and we left it due to the love The Things have for it. Son was fine. Just stuck. I tried to maneuver it out with no joy. Thing 2 gave her 2 cents, which mostly consisted of 'let me stick my face where it would be most unhelpful.'

At one point it looked like Thing 1 was going to be there for a good half hour. Upon hearing this he sent his sister into the house to fetch books. 'I may as well read to you,' he said.

Aw.

Then, after all of that insanity, his foot magically freed itself.

Of course it did.

2. I went to the Home Office today and phoned an immigration lawyer. The short story is that my temporary visa runs out sooner than we thought, but it seems easy to fix. The permanent residency has progressed no further than it has in September 2010. But now is not the time to bug anybody about how annoying and unfair all of that is because the Head Office in Pretoria is mid-move, they've let off a bunch of staff and this is causing chaos. Therefore, perhaps look into it more in February.

3. I returned home to find people working on my property. They were polite, but frustrated because I had not been home. I wasn't home because I thought they were arriving tomorrow. This miscommunication was due to them saying, 'We'll be here on Tuesday.' But today is sunny. So I should have known better.

4. As weird as this all IS, I prefer it to nobody showing up at all.

5. However, all these people coming over to cut down trees, put up fences and so on is doing a number on my arm. Unlocking the door and gate is near impossible with my left and is killing my right. I have resorted to telling people, nicely, that I can no longer let them in that way and to please come through the garage.

6. This is significant because The Physio  phoned. She is very happy with the surgeon I shall be seeing on Thursday. She'd also like me to see a sports institute in Cape Town because I could find it useful and they'd find me fascinating.

7. I'd prefer to be less fascinating. Nor do I think random trips to Cape Town are in my future. Just trying to arrange child care should I actually need surgery is going to be fascinating enough, thanks.

8. Then we locked horns over martial arts. She is not convinced this is very good for my arm. She is correct in many respects. The true MMA moves are utter crap for my arm. This is why I don't do them. However, I can still punch you and I would be fine (you, not so much). Different muscles and ligaments.

9. It is very hard for people to grasp the finer details of my problem. Holding hands, the mouse (I'm trying to use it left handed...trying), knitting, turning a lock, picking up a pot, peeling a carrot, working a cloths pin, sending an sms - these things all hurt like Hades. (Frankly, my arms just hurts these days.)

My shoulder IS something that I must watch. But to just say 'find another activity' is missing the point. I know there are many people with only 1 arm out there. But it is rather hard to find activities that don't bother my shoulder / arm. Even running causes my shoulder to ache at times (yes, look at a runners, their arms and shoulders move).  As do arms move and / or take weight in yoga, pilates, ping-pong, pool, swimming, climbing, surfing, aerobics classes... people can be very clueless how much most activities do use an arm until one is not supposed to. Think we are down to walking, spinning and stairmaster. No thanks.

Here are the facts:The rest of me is very fit. I go mentally bad when I don't blow enough steam off healthily.

So I phoned the Sensei. They already know I'm not their next great hope. If all I do is kick a bag, they are happy to let me 'train.'

Perhaps I should just get a t-shirt that says, 'I kick like a donkey.'

 

Today I am grateful for (in honour of USofA's Thanksgiving)

D.

A wonderful woman whom I am privileged to know and employ.

 

██ ██ ██ █ positive ██ █ ███ thinking

████ ██ █ ████ everything ███ ███ is███████ ████ fine ████ ███ love, ███████ ███ your █████ ████ government

I went back to martial arts practice last night and oooooooooooooh my goodness did it feel gooooooooooooooood to be moving. Yes, I'm on a load of drugs which have finally started to work. Yippee! Because last week I couldn't even contemplate jogging, the jarring action just made right arm ache too, too much.

Rest is good, but life needs balance. So I went to practice and it was mostly a sparing night. I need to fight somebody about as much as I need my wrist twisted. So me and the punching bag became good friends. I had a great time, worked off a ton of stress while mostly keeping my right arm clamped to my side (because it is still a wee bit sore AND just because the drugs make one feel better does not mean one IS better - see, figured all that out before my 34th birthday. Hope for me yet).

So what does the above have to do with the title of my post? Well, my dojo wears black on Monday nights. And today is Tuesday; South African peeps are supposed to be wearing black this Tuesday. (Not to be confused with the USofA's Black Friday.) I simply like to be ahead of a trend.

Yes, we are back to the censorship, Secrecy Bill and privacy debate. There was a big ol' upset last week over an issue that is far from cut and dry. But given RSA's past with censorship people are very jumpy. (Yes, the black out blocks above are exactly how newspaper articles and cartoons used to be censored during the apartheid government.) AND, the fact that today is the day that the government votes on the Secrecy Bill.

I know, you thought they withdrew the Secrecy Bill.

They did.

And now they are voting on it.

Do keep up.

Worse than Pavlov's Dog

Dum, de, dum, dum, dee. . . off to buy a book for kindle...kindle one click....ooooooh, what's that? I have an email? Hmmm.... wonder whose it from...dum, de,dum, dum, deee...Oh, it's Amazon.

Fall for it Every. Damn. Time.

Somebody needs to set up a match-making service...

Writing bff sent me a very good link: A Match Made In (Critique) Heaven by Charise Olson. An excerpt:

Don’t forget their story is THEIRS, so it is your partner’s prerogative to ignore you. However, before you ignore something, think it over and make sure you’re not being defensive. You need to be open to learning.    

Editing is important. But there is a lot more to the writing game than just 'writer' and 'editor.' A writing bff helps close that gap. Not a cheerleader (although both editors and writing bff's sometimes do temporarily that on that role in order to keep the writer from sobbing ceaselessly). Nor does your writing bff necessarily have to be in your genre. My writing bff and I have a common overlap, but veer off into separate lands. The key is having mutual respect for each one's style. It is a thoughtful relationship of tactful honesty. The person that really will tell you, kindly, that yes, your proverbial writing behind does, in fact, look unflattering in that.    

In the trees with Rachel Zadok

Our holiday proved many things, not least that my new found fuzzy feelings for arachnids does not extend to rain spiders indoors. I know they cannot hurt me. The local establishment even provided much info on why one should be nice to rain spiders. And we were. Well, Husband was. He made creative use use of a feather duster and a french press in order to re-home the creatures.

Not that I was shocked by them. I was staying in a tree house. The fact that the tree house was more cabin-wrapped-around-tent* meant I actually dealt with less indoor wildlife than expected. Even so, there will be memories. There was our bird thief, who had its own ways of getting in. That sucker could catch moths in a way that had both Husband and I highly impressed. We were less enamoured early Sunday morning with its ability to bash around dishes. Sounded like a monkey had broken in.

Then there were the ants. The children informed me that they'd discovered some ants in my bedside table drawer.

'Hmmm...' I said, refusing to be pulled away from my book.

'Big red ants,' they insisted.

Eventually I looked. The red and black ants were rather large with equally shocking eggs. The children had disturbed their nest, which had gone undiscovered given I'd never made use of the drawer.

To Husband's great credit he eco-dumped the majority over the rail to make new homes somewhere else. Sadly, the same can not be said for me, as the remainder scattered, headed straight for Thing 2, now trapped on the bed. I used Doom. I apologised to the establishment for doing so, but made sure to sweep them up and toss each sprayed ant into the bin so no other wildlife would eat them. Establishment forgave me, a wee bit embarrassed they'd over looked the nest themselves. But there we are. Indoor / outdoor living provides wildlife in all forms.

I'm making the holiday sound rather unpleasant. It was not. Thing 1 declared Saturday 'The best day of my life.' I saw two Knysna Louries, which made me very happy and each morning, just before dawn, I listened in awe to the amazing range of bird songs the Knysna Forest has to offer.

I also learned how to use a composting toilet. Not hard. Far less hassle than I feared, nor is it really that odorous.

We had many adventures planned for the holiday and accomplished some. Thing 1 and Husband more so than I or Thing 2. Thing 2 was having...well, she is now four. And as records show, I was also ready to kick four in the arse by the time Thing 1's fifth birthday came around. An interesting age, but with a distinct attitude. An attitude we decided only naps could alleviate.

So I read. I'd brought books, of course. But the place boasted a social area near reception with books, games, jungle gym, pool, trampoline and so on. I like to see what other people read. Glancing through their shelves I was dismayed. I couldn't stop moaning that it would be rather nice if South African B&Bs, resorts and the like actually had South African books available other than identify-the-wildlife. Especially in places frequented by international tourists. But it did not seem to be so, until...

I squealed. Then said something like, 'OMG, it is Rachel Zadok's book. Look [Husband]! It's Rachel's book.'

Husband gave me a rather perplexed look.

'The lady who basically created and organised Short Story South.'

Then Husband smiled very pleased and interested. Then he was concerned, 'You going to be able to finish it before we leave?'

Of course I could. Especially when I was trapped in a tree house with a must-have-a-nap-because-I-am-being-a-pill small person. The rural setting of the tale was a good fit with my outdoorsy mood, although unlike the story, we are not in a drought (thank goodness!). Gem Squash Tokoloshe is sorrowful, yet beautiful. It kept me company from stoep to stoep as I chased the sun, drinking tea, coffee and wine (not at the same time). And somehow it just seem perfect, to read it there, on a holiday that was both very restful, wonderful, a bit weird (ants!) and difficult.

And just to prove I really did find the book in the land of the tree houses:

*From what we saw, most of the tree houses were very open, with only the sleeping quarters tented. The rest were a series of platforms and one would have to secure food very carefully or find themselves under siege from monkeys, birds and so on. But we were in the uber-safe-child-friendly one. Although I given the children's behaviour I think we could be a wee less cautions next time. However, given our history with Thing 2, I do not regret being tentative on this one.

Trees produce oxygen, ya know

1. We are headed off to spend two nights in a treehouse.

2. This was Husband's doing. On the way back The Mud Run he saw a sign and said, 'I've heard good things about that.'

3. When he got home he began to describe it to me. What I heard was: 'No need to pack tent, sleeping bags, and there is indoor plumbing.'

4. When booking the accomodation Husband noted that they come with safety ratings. Recalling Thing 2's spectacular fall off a loft ladder which resulted in a cracked skull,  he selected the one they recommended for insane toddlers. This may mean that rather than staying in a treehouse, we are actually on a platform amongst the trees.

5. I'm okay with that.

6. Speaking of trees, we are having those palm trees taken down, along with some trimming and pruning.

7. It is going slowly due to the great quantity of never-ending-wind we have been experiencing.

8. The tree cutters seem like a nice bunch of people.

9. However, in the spirit of Mossel Bay's 'No hurry, no worries,' they just pitch up with no warning and without a ring of the doorbell or an sms to the phone, begin to do things. The first time they came by I thought it was next door causing all the racked until my house shook. Then I looked outside to see 2/3rds of a palm tree down.

10. Let us all be grateful it was the correct one, as there are more than two out there.

11. Not that I'd have actually been that upset. But I may have pretended to be so if it made not having to pay for the oops.

12. Not sure I should have told you that.

13. However, I think this is the perfect opportunity to inform you that palm trees are not actually trees. So really, we are not actually having trees cut down, but having somebody mow them with a chain saw. (It's true! Google it.)

14. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

15. I shall leave you with a quote from a George Monbiot article that has been all over FB and various parts of the world wide web:

If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire.

 

Art vs Entertainment

The other day a friend and I were going through my various short stories to see what would best fit an upcoming submission. After we sorted through the pile, eliminating those that did not fit the rules (like word count), we had a mere handful remaining.

'The problem is,' I said, 'that I think they are looking for fairly high lit. That would only leave this one. The rest are more what I would call lit-lite.'

'You mean readable,' my friend said.