Kachasu

I have been unfaithful… Fooling around… Flirting with something…

Yes folks, I have been posting on blog24. Along with a few others of you, i notice.

They are a bunch of lamers.

They use the “secrets” function to write things they don’t like about a blogger. Unlike us bunch, who are just viscious and unpleasant, but in an honest way.

This blogger Slurms, our very own dear bovinerebel, has been posting some very funny stuff about some total wanker called Angelor. Nobody calls him on it. Instead they post to “Secrets” how they really feel.

*vomit*

but what is cool about that blog is the flexibility with pics etc. customisable… if only this place had some of the functionality.

the bitch is nobody can see what’s going on. you have to trawl through endless shit to find a blog you like. the layout here is better. more personal. and we are smarter. like waaaaay. the most useless blogger on here makes most of them look like Rainman.

anyway, i love you guys.

Parkhurst is a fairly grim little neighbourhood. I used to live there, back when the highest price for a house was still under a million rand. Over-priced, postage stamp size places, with far too high a crime rate. I always laugh at the massive walls people put up around their shacks there. Anyway, one thing I love about Parkhurst is the shops. Have spent the afternoon trolling and trawling with the Purple Dot.

People assume, incorrectly, that Parkhurst is over-priced for antiques. The twee little shops are horribly expensive, but the antique places aren’t. Trust me.

I do a fair amount of antique shopping and am appalled to find that Long Road is more exhorbitant the the hurst. So is Parys if it comes to that.

The bonus about the hurst is that the people there generally know what they are doing, so you are not buying ghastly reproduction stuff with a high price tag. There is some of that, so you need to be educated, but generally it is what they say it is.

I didn’t buy anything, except for a vintage scarf. And I got hit on by one of the owners. That always feels good.

Am always tempted to buy some giant dead animal for our entrance hall, but don’t. I am waiting for the big black stuffed bear and then I will get one.

I had a brief moment of excitement when I saw a beautiful deco lamp. Looked like one of the brass and ivory ones, but within about four feet I could see it was resin. They made no bones about it, the affront to taste cost about R200.

Then there is the trudge past the Jolly Roger (aka den of sin) back to my car.

I think it would be very cool if they closed off that main hurst road and turned it into a proper walk-around open air mall. They could knock down Solly’s and turn it into a parking garage.

Rambling now…

While I am a garden variety alcoholic, there are so many other twelve step recovery programmes based on AA that is is baffling and sometimes amusing. The success of AA spawned a whole lot of other groups. I could be wrong, but the first real spin-off was Narcotics Anonymous, then Overeaters Anonymous (this is bulemics and anorexics and other varieties of food disorders), then they got specific and there is Marijuana Anonymous, Cocaine Anonymous. There are also what I consider to be fairly humorous groups, but they have been created because there are things that can be substituted for Alcohol in the first step which reads: “Admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable.”

So, there is Gamblers Anonymous, Internet Anoymous, Messies Anonymous, Sex and love addicts Anonymous – all sorts of them. I haven’t bothered to google, these are just the ones I know of and that meet in Jozi. So, no Mica, your earlier comment on my Are You An Alcoholic blog is not facetious. It’s actually quite true.

I think that the success of these other groups depends on the seriousness of the problem. With things like booze, drugs, food and gambling, life gets unmanageable in a fairly spectacular way and can have very serious health implications. But it doesn’t change the fact that if you have a serious mess problem, it can make your life totally unmanageable and unbearable.

The thing that works in twelve step programmes, is the steps themselves. I know people who come in, go to meetings and never bother with the steps. They drink again. Why? Jung said that for alcoholics to recover, they needed to have a psycho-spiritual shift. AA promises that if you work the twelve steps, THE result is a spiritual awakening. This doesn’t mean born-again Christian. It means that shift that Jung talks about. I know people in my fellowship who are 40 years sober. Fuck – I made it to four years in Feb this year. Unthinkable. But it is because I had a shift. A very big one. One guy I know is 44 years sober, he does not believe in God. The requirement is a higher power, he made AA is higher power.

These anonymous programmes do not claim to be the only solution. But they work for anyone who follows the path properly. The ones it doesn’t work for are people who are not yet capable of taking the steps – and some of them are terrifying things to undertake. So instead of facing themselves they go back to drink.

Anyway, that’s my recovery thing for the day.

My Artist has asked me to blog about his tree carving, so I won’t use a whole lot of words – he is sending me pics tomorrow. Might start his blog with some stuff about the politics.

My Artist is in the Karoo. Prince Albert to be precise. He is carving five ancient blue gum stumps into impossibly beautiful figures on the main street. The funding came from Absa and he is training four locals to carve as well. They will be beautiful, art aficionados will know of the Burghers of Calais these trees have been dubbed The Burghers of Prince Albert by local residents. Yet, there are two ancient Germans who are threatening to chain themselves to the trees and are sticking up posters everywhere saying Absa and my artist are desecrating the place.

Bizarre. These are stumps. Dead trees. Have been for a couple of decades. Most of the town is thrilled, they are hoping to pick up visitors to the KK’nK art festival and have been hugely supportive. Then there are these two miserable krauts making his life difficult. They won’t be chaining themselves to anything today and, besides, the trees are seriously marked with chainsaws already. He carves with a chainsaw and then refines. When you are working with huge trees you can’t sit with a chisel it would take years.

Last night our conversation went like this:
Artist: ‘I have been calm, but if they chain themselves, they had better have keys because they will want out of there when I approach with a chainsaw-’
Me: ‘Just go to the police and tell them this is what is planned and they will stop it. Take your council approval and deal with it-’
Artist: ‘Ya, oh well, must go to supper.’

Then today he went to the police. Not because his girlfriend suggested it, but he had dinner with some ex-diplomat last night who told him to do that. Aaaargh!

Anyway, the trees will be lovely when done. He is leaving the tops alone and only carving about two thirds of the way up. They will be a combination of male and female figures. Long flowing dresses and dainty legs, then fat arses and men dancing well that is what he planned but the trees have a language all their own when you start.

There has been some media coverage of this thing already and there will be a whole lot more. I am sort of hoping they do chain themselves to trees fabulous publicity.

Might head down there next week.

I have been watching all this techno-kid stuff with interest. After my kids’ school found one boy distributing porn via bluetooth they want to ban all phones that are not straightforward voice and sms. I violently disagree and will be dealing with it with the headmistress in the hopes of getting her to see sense. I mean, c’mon, boys in my day were swapping their dad’s Playboys or whatever at school. Boys will find a way to get their grubby little hands on porn whether or not they have technology.

So, here is the deal as I see it. My girls both have ipods, phones and laptops. They are seven and twelve. The problem is not the technology, the problem is their tech-smarts. Which I suppose is the same as what we would have called street-smarts. My seven year old has a big clunky Nokia that is sort of water and shock proof. No chance of anything dodgy there. It’s a crusty old black and white thing. She needs a phone like that. And her ipod is in an indestructible metal case… Twelve year old has the best gadgets.

I don’t buy them much airtime and they have no cash. *evil laugh*. But I can phone them. And their internet stuff is quite closely policed. No chat rooms. But they love messenger…

It is my job, as a mom, to get my little critters ready for the world as it is. In the same way it was my parents’ responsibility to warn me about getting in cars with strangers or taking sweets from them. So, we teach these little people about AIDS and kiddy-fiddlers so why not teach them technology?

Tell them that not everyone is nice, that there are some dodgy motives out there. Make sure they have reasonable values and judgement systems. Encourage them to talk to me.

Technology is there and there is good and bad in it, in the same way that there are bad people loitering on streets or in malls as well as good folk. An example, my twelve year old gets a kick out of leaving her bluetooth on and seeing who she can spot at church. I told her it’s fine, but she must turn off her ability to be seen. She is amused by the names people use. Now she does that and has learned only to connect with people she knows. That is tech-smarts.

To be honest, I am more concerned about their abilities to judge when someone is drunk and not drive with them when they get a bit older. Booze and drugs are a scary place.

Ipods are wonderful. It means I am not subjected to Christina Aguilera or whatever the twelve year old is listening to. And the seven year old and her Mandoza or Mafikizola is not perpetually invading my space. They also learn french off those things. I listened to music when doing homework, except I was always being told to turn it down. Ipods are cool in another way as well, they have volume limiting. So my girls simply can’t turn them up loud enough to screw up their ears.

Anyway, like anything, the trick is to know it yourself and teach them the right tools and etiquette so they can get along with minimal harm.

Having decided not to take Tripartite’s security advice because of the obvious disease risk, amongst other things, I had ADT come and do an evaluation of my security system. It can get a little scary with the three of us girls all alone. I detest heavy burglar bars and that prison cell feeling when surrounded by it. The other flaw in Tri’s plan was the dog factor. Vile creatures, they eat everything and crap everywhere. Then there is the barking. Anyway, I like electronic security. Wow there are some cool things out there.

I already have an alarm system, but we are quite slack about it. And quite a few windows aren’t alarmed etc. Good cat sensitive beams etc. Cats are the only civilized pets to have. Possibly snakes too, but the cats would eat a small snake and a big snake would eat the cats. Bad idea. So, ADT gives me the usual ‘ag, this is such an old system, you need to upgrade-’ Bollocks, I tell him. You people installed this a year ago when I moved in. ‘Seriaaas?’ This is followed by some tsking and head shaking. I don’t like ADT.

To cut a long story short, my whole place has been totally upgraded with minimal time. Quite a lot of money, but minimal time. Time is important for an instant gratification bunny like me. Delayed pleasure? WHAT?!

They put in these really groovy little units that are wireless- small things that hang out in the garden. You set the radius, like ten metres or 20, height and all that jazz and they are little motion detectors. I can move them around! They connect, via something or other, Bluetooth I think to the house alarm system.

Just got home and switched everything on. Not doing anything tonight, so I am testing to see if one of the four cats sets it off, or that nasty little daschund that slinks through the palisade to crap on my lawn.

What I really want, one day, is a huge mean looking security robot. I should be able to programme it to eat that daschund and, maybe, laser to death the mielie lady-

Ok just kidding about the mielie lady. She is cool and I always buy some.

This is the core of my belief system. It’s not as easy as it sounds. Often it can be an excuse for me exercising my selfishness. But I am learning to differentiate between the voice of my own petty needs and that of what I choose to call God. It may be unimportant for many people to pay so much attention to a God-voice, but I, as a recovered alcoholic (not cured!) have to be aware. When I drank I was a classic case of what the Big Book of AA calls ’self-will run riot.’ I trampled on people, I did whatever I wanted to and I did not care about the consequences. There was one person in the universe and that was me.

I find it interesting that many people have the perspective that drunks or addicts in recovery are ‘victims’. Nothing could be further from the truth. You see, in order to be a victim, you have to blame someone or something for your state. In AA we are taught that we are responsible. I AM RESPONSIBLE. Nobody can do anything to me that I don’t want them to, in an emotional sense.

We go through this 12 step process. The fourth step is key to understanding exactly where we are at fault. It says ‘made a fearless and a searching moral inventory of ourselves.’ This is not the same as a list of all the things we have done wrong. Those are just actions. In fact, the way we are told to do it is write a list of resentments in one column. Alongside that, what it affected in us (so, fear of financial insecurity, need to be loved whatever) and then our part in it. Then the root cause.

I was amazed to find that fear was the ultimate root cause of everything bad in my life. I am not a fearful person. At all. Not in actions, words, career, relationships with others- Yet there it was. Fear. Most often fear of emotional pain. Which leads to wall-building, discounting others etc. See, if you don’t give a damn and don’t let them in, people cannot hurt you. Big lesson to learn.

Thing is that this process is ongoing. Figuring out who you are and what your values are, is a lifetime commitment. I hope I never reach a point where I think I know all there is to learn.

Take my mom as an example. Since I got sober, my mom and I have a polite and affectionate relationship. But it has always felt like there are big black boxes of STUFF between us. Boxes we both choose not to open. I made amends for some of my more extreme behavior and see my new relationship with her as a living amend. Then I went on this retreat on the weekend and the topic was relationships, with a heavy emphasis on the ones we have with our mothers.

I learned that there are not many boxes filled with actions. There is one box. I got home on Sunday and immediately got hold of my mom and unpacked it. The simple truth is that for a reason I don’t understand, at some point in my life I rejected my mother as a mom and as a woman. I began building a wall. It’s a big solid chunky one, by the time you reach 37. I realized I had done this and that her role in it, who started it first, was irrelevant. I had done it. My part in it was in putting up my wall. So I told her that is what I did. I apologized. Can you imagine having a child you just want to love but won’t let you? I told her I didn’t care what her side was. I just needed to sort out my side. It’s been a surreal few days since then.

I feel cleaner. It’s not like suddenly there will be some sort of Hollywood relationship. But I can let her in. And she knows my truth. More importantly, I told her my truth.

In light of this, I am re-evaluating all of my other relationships with family and my lover. Where are the walls? What did I do? This growth is not without pain. But I like doing the right thing. I like picking away at my stuff. It leads me to a place where I can be happy, joyous and free.

It also shows me who I am. That’s important when trying to be true to myself.

No, this is not a result of filthy habits involving any combination of the above body parts. You can’t catch it from sending dubious and smutty text messages or having phone sex, while doing strange things with your feet. I am not sure what sort of strange things, but I am sure there are possibilities for a fertile imagination. This is not that sort of blog.

My Purple Dot (seven year old daughter for those who don’t know me) has this disease. It is quite revolting. My initial good-humour when she was diagnosed I mean c’mon, this is a disease someone like bovinerebel would get has evaporated. It’s a coxsackievirus derivative and has led to bright red, very hard hands and feet. But the palms and soles, which is bizarre. Plus a nasty thing around her mouth.

She is not in pain, but the fever spikes occasionally. I am seriously hoping I don’t get it. I have plans for this week that involve the use of hands, mouth and feet (who doesn’t?) and don’t want to look like a boiled lobster. However, I might. She has been crawling into bed with me in the small hours of the morning. I love that. She has a very cuddly little body, so we hang together, all snuggled up. Plus I have this kamikaze approach to my kids germs and insist on kissing them a lot and hugging. This is how I ended up with chicken pox when I was 27. That was horrendous. But, I would rather get the bug, than let them wallow in misery without mom-cuddles.

Anyway, this is a K Chasu medical information alert. This thing is highly contagious amongst young children, so keep an eye out for high fever and tummy pain, followed shortly by a nasty red rash.

On my weekend spiritual retreat in Parys I found a few things in an antique shop. There is always time to shop, what can I say? Shopping is a great joy. Anyway, I was looking for some vintage clothing, but ended up buying a beautiful art deco mirror and a solid brass cherub. Not deco, Victorian, but, hey.. it’s cute.

We agreed, My Artist and I, that the house I bought would be restored, not renovated. And that, just in case we had differences on style, we would stick to 20s and 30s furniture and fittings. Great. All renovation has been in style, from replacing the light fittings to the gorgeous Catholic shrine he built me in my study. And the gargoyles, yes, proper ones, are extraordinary. Made by him.

I knew the moment I stepped in the house I had to buy it. Everything is original 1930s with the exception of the kitchen and one of the bathrooms. Something I am working on resolving. I particularly loved the strange whirled paint/plaster technique in the main lounge. In fact I spent many weeks when we first moved in adoring the house. But gazing at it. I have a hundred photos of its curves. Art deco is a strange, restrained thing. There is no free-form, but lots of lines and curves. It is like a house wearing corsets. Many lines, steel, steps, designs, carved wood. God and I love the dado rails!

We have had a few arguments about restoring the ‘natural wood’. NO. Deco was not built to be natural wood. The Victorians can have that. Deco was chrome and white. My house has some rooms with yellow-wood floors and others pine. I am neurotic about termites as a result.

Anyway, back to the paint stuff in the living room. I want to repaint, because it is a bit tired, but every single professional painter has said he can’t do it because of the design. One had a lovely idea to glaze it and make them pearlescent. My Artist vetoed that. He said it would make the house look like an Indian brothel. Humbug!

So, yesterday, I got home, pulled down one of his canvasses from the entrance hall and was about to hang my mirror when I noticed the paint was cracking badly- I am actually distraught. It probably means I have to strip that wall back to bland nothingness. And if I do that wall- the others will look bad. So I could end up with an ordinary entrance, lounge and dining room! NO!

So, does anyone on here know of a really brilliant, skilled, painter? Preferably some ancient Portuguese man that actually learned to do this? Otherwise, I am going to sand back parts of it and leave others in some sort of art deco design, in swirled relief. I love this house. It hurts me to think of losing some of its uniqueness.

My beautiful house with its corsets.