Zoo-bi-doo

I went to the zoo this past long weekend and felt that, since you were unfortunate enough not to have come along, the least I could do is share some of my photos with you! Enjoy!!

[Isn't he gorgeous on that green green grass! There where whole flocks of them about, they looked like little blue supernovas!]

["Oh man! I gotta go to the bathroom!"]

[Of course right after wards he stood and turned his back on me so that a second shot was out of the question! Humph, no wonder lions eat them!]

["Dude! You got like a smoke or like some pot?" Look at that eye! It freaks me out! He does Emo with a style those kiddies can only dream about!]


[Even asleep you want to walk by this guy QUICKY and QUIETLY!!]


["So I accidentally went in our water trough and I guess I shoulda told you before you drank from it..."]

[Wow, isn't he magnificent?! He just looks so big and cuddly and squeezy! Still, sorta glad there's a nice friendly sheet of solid glass between him and me!]

[Another big kitty that looks deceptively cuddly! You know that, just like upper management, lions sleep 18 hours a day?]

[White lions being about as active as the origional coloured variety.]

[Looks so harmless. yeah right! Still bet he'd make a nice watch dog! Do jackal's bark?]


[one a crocodile, two a crocodile, entirely too many a crocodiles!]


[Want one! He can eat all the bugs in the garden and I'll watch him and roll on the floor in the throws of a cute-out rapture!]


Sigh, the zoo is just fantastic, I never get tired of it! Please do come with me next time, I'll give you the guided tour! ^_-

RAMMSTEIN JOHANNESBURG!! 11-02-2011

So Friday dawns and I’ve been up since 3.3am waiting and itching and over excited and ready!
Ready for RAMMSTEIN!!!

Eeeek!!!

Now see I didn’t know I was going to go until the very last week before the concert so when I realized I was going to go! Oh my! Excitement central!! I was actually annoying myself! (And probably a few other very diplomatic people…)

My partners in crime were Brendan and his sister Anthea, whose daughter had canceled and thereby freeing up a ticket and making me her eternal fan forever and ever or close enough!

The event was held at the Coca cola dome in North gate. I’d never been there so visiting it alone was mighty interesting. We didn’t even hit that much traffic there, which was really nice. Swimming upstream in crowds or trying to find parking on top of a tree isn’t one of those pearly memory moments.

Walking along to the concert we could pretty much tell who was going and who wasn’t. Not only by the fact that every second guy had a Rammstein shirt on, black of course but mostly by the phenomenal amount of black people were wearing in general. This turned out to be the colour of choice for pretty much 100% of the audience.

And yes, I wore a black dress, but at least it wasn’t jeans! The concert goers clothing of choice. AND I was the only brightly red head there, everyone else being bottle black or shades of brown and blonde and boring. So there!

Waiting was the worse part. Esp as we were trying to find a place to stand where we could actually see the stage! Of the three of us, Anthea was the shortest and guess who had every tall guy in the room standing in front of her? I swear she was an absolute magnet! Like she had a sign saying, “If you’re 6ft or taller please gather ahead of me”

The other thing that wasn’t kosher were the smokers. Geez they stank! Ciggies and weed! And no one offered me any! Um…. Which was a good thing! Kids, just say no!
But then the lights went down and the crowds roar went up!
The music built, the black curtain fell, and there they were RAMMSTEIN!!


[The opening of the Concert! Can they build tension or what? Those little lights all over the place? That's people filming with their cellphones! The 80's had people swaying lighters above their heads, we have blackberries!]

OH
MY
WORD!!!

Did they deliver?! Awesome pounding music (that didn’t rip your ears to shreds), flames, fireworks and a vibe that went right down to your bones!!!


We didn’t stop moving and bouncing along for the entire show! Magnificent!! I’ve never shouted that loud ever!!!
[Pyromaniacs rule!]
[Yes, that's a flamethrower!!]
[Just W O W!!]

[Because you deserve it! Enjoy!]


When it was over we ended up leaving, dazzed and confused, like refugees who sort of got used to being squashed in the dingy. We were dripping with sweat from the dancing and flames, we were tired, we were groggy and we were elated!! HOW FRIKKING AWESOME WAS THAT?!!!

I only have two complaints:-
1. The show was too short! Only an hour and a half! I was hoping it would be a full 3 hours. Boo!
2. For a first concert, that’s set my bar pretty damn high for what I expect from now on! How will anyone else hope to compare?!!

So next time they come round to South Africa, who wants to go with me?! ^_-

Because you never know!

So I snapped this photo at the Joburg zoo. It's the first red squirrel I've ever seen. I really had to zoom in to even get this foggy, blurry shot and of course, the second I had him in focus, the little beastie had to go and turn his back on me, so that now I have to reassure you that yes, this is a squirrel and not the back of a cleverly shaped stone that’s ignoring me.

But you have to wonder what a red squirrel is doing there in amongst the dustier brown squirrels native to South Africa?
Obviously he's up to something.

We suspected he could well be an arms dealer.

No think about it! Ground squirrels dig tunnels all over the place, which they certainly have in the zoo. There’s holes all over the place that the general public tend to find with their feet at awkward moments.
Red squirrels don’t tunnel however. They usually climb trees and gambol about fancy free. So why is this one down on the ground? What nefarious reason could he have to be on the ground with the “lesser nut-munchers?” Sure he could just be stretching his wee, fuzzy legs.
BUT!

What if it’s really leading a resistance movement? Cleverly coordinating the building of tunnels that could stretch as far as Israel or Iraq or other stupidly war torn nation! There’s no telling what sort of dog tunnels he might be organizing there! Full of ammunitions and supplies and clever booby-traps that have taken out more then one unsuspecting zookeeper in his time.

I wouldn’t know why a squirrel would be a world renowned arms smuggler. It could be he’s a misguided freedom fighter? Perhaps he lost someone close in the war? (I don’t know which war but there’s always a number to chose from), or perhaps he just had a bad childhood experience? (There’s nothing worse for a young squirrel then having someone inappropriately touching his nuts…)

I can’t pretend to know the story of this little enigma. His world is his own. (Heck it could be her world, it didn’t’ exactly flash me…) So let’s continue on with our lives, knowing these brave little fighters are out there, eking out their own little place in the world.

Mr Squirrel – I salute you!

Vaguely moist

Frak.
Frakkitey Frak Frak Frak!!
It's raining again!

Look I've nothing against rain, it's really quiet lovely, and it waters all the plants and makes pretty flowers and looks like silver diamonds falling from the sky onto a world wrapped in a gray cloth of mystery etc etc.
But come on already!

It's been raining continuously (with just small interruptions here and there to get my hopes up and then break them brutally) for the past heading on 3 weeks! It's like god put it up as his South African screen saver and then forgot to turn the monitor off!



I know our country often needs rain, we're famous for our droughts, step right up, best in the southern hemisphere! But see, I live in Johannesburg. We have tar roads. And sky scrapers. And too many jerks in jeeps who think it makes them look cool but really just helps you pick out who the jerks in jeeps are.
We don't need excess rain! It just makes pot holes, bumper bashings and Kelly next door's hair frizz!

A light sprinkling ever now and then? Sure thing!
A thunderstorm to make us appreciate nature and how we've over come and subjugated most of it? Okay sure, why not?
But this continuous down-pouring? Heck no!

Send it out to the Free State or Natal ... or... damn I can never remember all the provinces! Once it got past 4 I just stopped bothering.

But send the rain out to where it's wanted. Where there is corn waiting in need of water. Where there are grapes and watermelon and all those good things I want to eat! Send the rain to them, they'd be happy to have it. (Only not too much, because it's the little people, aka me, who suffer when crops get ruined!)

My poor walk shoes. They're disintegrating from all the rain. And I can't go getting a second pair because they'll end up copy catting the first pair! My feet have long forgotten what it means to be dry. Evolution is webbing my toes as we speak! And my umbrella is beginning to resemble a crushed, mutant spider. I didn't know prongs could bend that way?

I think I also just miss the sun. Sure it burns me and beats me into submission with excess heat and UV rays, but there is something very uplifting about a clear blue sky.

Well I guess there's not much I can do but accept it? Oooooooooh!!! Bring back sunny skies! All is forgiven!!!

Day tripping for fructose

Now I've always enjoyed going fruit shopping. For me it's a thrill that is only beaten by two things - eating the fruit after you buy it and something else I can't publish as kids read this blog as well.

I thought you might like to come with me to my favorite fruit shop and do a little shopping with me? Non-South Africans, you can do a quick calculation on some of the prices and let me know if you think they're good or not!

Shall we go then?

Fruit Lovers Market indeed! Just pulling up outside it gives you such a thrill of anticipation! You never know what's going to be available when it comes to fruit and vegetables, ooooh hope there's something we'll love!! Race you!!!

First order of business is to find a shopping trolley worthy of being the chariot that bares our bountiful goodness! Generally the trolleys here are well behaved. No rogue wheels sending you into the tomato display or anything, but you do get a lot that seem to twine about each other, giving you a fabulous arm workout as you try to separate one from the other. Pull damn you, pull!!

GASP! Look! Watermelons right outside and looking so wanton! Shall we adopt one and give it a home? The trick is to listen for the THUNK. Um really that's the best way I can explain it. People do look at you a little weird when you're putting your ear to the melon and tapping away, but so far my success rate has been pretty awesome! Please hold your applause.

As to the pumpkins right next to the melons, lets pass on those. I'm not keen on pumpkin myself and you don't look like the sort who could polish one off on your own.

Time to chose from all the fruit! There's loose stuff, bagged stuff, packaged stuff, bunched stuff, and stuffed stuff! It's like a small heaven on earth! (The 'having to pay for it all' bit keeps your feet on the ground, but only just!) What will you be having, litchis or plums? I think some litchis for me, they're looking so lovely today!

This fruit shop even has a section for you to buy some groceries if you need them. Like if you have a sudden craving for baked beans and watermelon, or sardines with sugar and apples!

Look at all the nuts! Holy smurf! How do you chose? Well I'm allergic to pretty much any nut that starts with a 'P' (Peanuts, pistachios and Pecans) but the raw cashews look good, and I think some almonds would go down a treat!
Oh! Where did you wander off to?

Aaah I see you found the sweeties! There's a vast range to choose from, most are pretty much like the nut display only slathered in chocolate. But you're so sweet already, do you really need more?

Oh this sushi table gets me! You can sit down for a minute and chose what you'd like to eat from the little, brightly coloured sushi bowls that go past you on the conveyor track. I could use one of these to put different bits of fruit on and munch randomly from! Would you like some raw fish to nibble on?

If not then perhaps you'd like something fishy to cook at home? The shop comes with a meat section (I forgot to take a pic of their red meatiness, so lets skip that part) and a seafood section for you to chose what oceany denizen you want to fry up tonight. Calamari, squid, crab, mussels, oysters... you name it, they're there for the taking!

Seriusly any sort of seafood you could want! (Humph, that smear on the glass is ruining my squid viewing! Someone should get a rag on it!)

Mmmmh! Can you smell those spices? I love this part of the shop! The curry and coriander and allspice smell so fantastic! You want to take it all home and pour it all over your supper and just inhale!! (I used to over do it a lot so inhaling the scents was about all you could do, eating them was not an option.)
Want some cinnamon?

Ah baked goods. Cant eat them myself but I like the smell, it's a very warm and friendly one. Hey don't you think that assistant has cute buns? Okay okay it was a cheesy joke!
Speaking about cheese... There certainly is enough variety! Farm fresh or old, blue and moldy, a cartoon mouse would be in raptures! If it stinks to high heaven, here is where it's to be found!

And finally, after all that, why don't you pop on over to the dessert counter and get yourself something chocolately. for blood sugar of course!

Fruit shopping is never boring! It's far, far too entertaining! My eyes just can't get enough of these awesome goodies and I don't eat 90% of the stuff!! Alice can have wonderland, I've found my magical place!

Did you enjoy your trip to the fruit shop? Would you like to come again? Want to buy me something next time, I have a list...

A red letter day

Do you keep a diary?

This question is largely to anyone who isn’t a teenage girl, for whom diaries are almost an essential tool of emotional expression or items of blackmail by younger siblings often of the male variety.

For the last ten years I’ve been keeping diaries. The urge to write is so compelling in me that if it’s not a written diary then it’s letters or blogs or thoughts on the computer. There just always seems to be so much to comment on and not enough time to get it all down and tell the world so that they can experience it as well!

When I was unpacking I found 6 full, over 2kg each, diaries and 8 half, to 1/36^th, diaries, full of chatter and nonsense and cartoons and stuff that sometimes makes me wonder if I did drugs without me knowing? I seldom go back to read things I’ve written. I mean to, of course, but somehow everything from chores to staring blankly at the ceiling seems to come in the way. (My room has a very nice ceiling, it gives it a sense of space…)

So after my move, I decided to stop this habit. I had all these diaries full of things that in essence had become null and void. It was an odd sensation to look at these things I’d put all that time and effort and thought and creation into and thinking… “meh”.

So come a few days before New Years I decided, bugger it, let’s get down to some serious destruction! I sat on the bed, diaries on one side, big black garbage bag on the other and proceeded to tear up the old diaries with very satisfying ripping sounds. Even the hamster seemed to find it interesting, sitting in his wheel and probably wondering if he’d get any of it as nesting material. (I didn't give him any, he's too easily corruptible!)

In a way it was sort of fun. I got to see and relive a lot of old, fun memories. Photographs, old movie tickets, photos from Gold Reef City, enthusing about my FIRST EVER TATTOO!! Spewing affection for my ex, my long dead pets or places we used to stay. (And yes, fruit. What? Some things never change!)

Of course it was sad as well. But a good sad, not the ‘it's-slicing-up-my-soul-with-a-blunt-spatula-god-it-hurts’ sort.

It makes you realize how life can change and change so damn fast! (Even when the signs are all there that change is coming, it’s still a shock when it shows up and tells you to move your ass out!) Things like this always make me marvel. It’s so awesome it’s hard to comprehend. Both beautiful and scary somehow.

Oh that’s nifty, I should put that in a diary!

The person I was then, is not the person I am now, and it was hard for the person I am now not to feel a mix of tenderest sympathy, and absolute scorn, for the younger me. I mean holy cheese, if you’d asked me 1, 5, 10 years ago what I saw for my future, this would not have been it. (For starters I thought I’d own more cats…)

But in the end I had a nice pile of recycle-able shredded paper and a deep sense of satisfaction. At that moment I realized I’d probably never keep another written diary again.

So of course I have a brand new one and will just have to write about this irony in it as soon as possible!

Sandton Exploration 2010!

Thursday was such an adventure day!

It started out looking very bleak, It was the third day of solid rain here and the third day of me having no walk at all, which meant that I was three ways to totally and utterly loony from lack of exercise. I was… yes, I’m afraid this does happen…grumpy!!!

So Rob, my esteemed housemate, suggested we go to Sandton mall for a walk. It’s nice and covered and large enough to get the kinks out of twitchy, twitchy legs. Needless to say I was in the car so fast we were half way there before the engine even started!

[So many BMW's! this was taken at the petrol station before the mall! Sheeple car of choice ne? ^_^]

Sandton is another world. One of which I must say makes me a tad nervous. The area is all full of funky looking statues and clean lawns and unnecessarily tiled buildings. I always get the feeling someone is going to stop me there and tell me to go home.
[The view from the parking section! Look at those buildings!!]

And what a mall!! Oh my word! It’s freaking huge!! I had no idea! And the shops! They sell all those ghastly, hideous, tummy churning stuff only rich people want to buy! "Why yes we must have the 100 year old, gold plated yak poop for the guest wing bathroom dah’ling!"

It’s also fully decorated for Christmas in the usual garish way that only a mall can pull off without being burned to the ground by right thinking citizens.
[I donno, somehow, if you don't think about it too much, it works!]

The highlight was definitely the Checkers there. Usually a somewhat dodgy store, this one was Fruit Mecca!!! Seriously and no jokes, by the end of it I was so utterly hyped that I was trying to keep tears back behind my eyes! So many goodies! If civilization is ever subjected to chaos or zombies or anything that in anyway requires rioting and looting, I’m so going back there!!
[OH!!!]

There were also two huge book shops – Oh my! And a giant music and video shop, and, and, and!! You really can find anything there! (That Yak poop will be mine dammit!)
[Jo making new friends!]

Still it was also awfully overwhelming! People, noises, smells, shoves, sticky dead things in the middle of the walk way, small elevators… < - - Jo’s hate elevators and only use them under duress, but I was transporting a watermelon and for that…
(Rob once ‘joked’ that I should have the classic 2.5 kids and train them up to walk with me to the fruit shop and carry watermelons. The 0.5 kid can carry one on his wagon…)

In the end, it was fun to visit but I don’t think I’d want to live there. It’s too much, and me in my jeans and hoody with excess paint splotches on it, well, we’re not too keen on socializing with the tie and heels crowd.

Still… wow.