Owie. Yuck. And also, yay!

It's been a torrid few days here in the Ysabel-MadCat household. Apart from the big announcement at my work and the rush to wrap up the last few days at the office (and the consequent cramming of a month's worth of communication into less than a week by my esteemed colleagues in the other city, less said the better), my department was also introduced to our new manager, who'll be starting at the end of January. We all knew she was coming, of course, but it's nice to finally have official confirmation.

Then, last Monday, 13 December, the department went out for our year-end lunch. Nice enough, although - unlike every single other department in the entire company - we had to fork out of our own pockets because our acting head doesn't want to run foul of the compliance department. Which sucks, quite frankly.

It was a tasty lunch, quite filling, not too expensive, and we followed up with a stroll around the shops that dot that particular restaurant's precinct; not to my taste, fairly whitebread, I'd say, all French Provencal and fake-rusted garden ornaments, that sort of thing - pretty enough, just not my kind of style. I wasn't enjoying it very much, frankly, because I was feeling rather over-full - quite Christmas-lunch-full, in fact, which was rather odd, considering all I'd had was a lamb roast, mash, a glass of wine and a few spoons of chocolate mousse. After a final cup of tea, we headed back to my colleague's house for a couple of cocktails, which I mixed (quite weakly, as we still had to drive back home that night) while we chatted and kuiered quite convivially in the balmy evening air. As MadCat was on night shift last week, he saw to the animals and when I got home at 9pm, all I had to do was go straight to bed, to toss and turn uncomfortably all night.

Tuesday was a bit of a nightmare of discomfort, as my chest hurt all day and I was quite the moaning Minnie, annoyed with my arrogant colleagues from that distant port city and snowed under with silly bits of work that, quite frankly, were streaming in because people had only thought of these items at the very last minute. That night I lay alone in bed, thinking I was having a heart attack, the pain was so excruciating. I tried to phone my mom - as I tend to do in all such situations - but the phone just rang and rang, unanswered. So eventually I got up and wrote my funeral wishes - rather dramatic, I know, and thank goodness I didn't post them to my blog, but really, that's the sort of thing that makes me feel better - writing out my will before a long journey, or setting out my funeral wishes when I'm all on my own, or something else devilishly superstitious.

Wednesday was sheer hell. I just couldn't muster the strength to do anything. In between bouts of getting ready for work, I had to keep lying down. It was sheer torture. Eventually MadCat came home from work, and convinced me that I needed to go to the doctor. I called both my bosses, and they were both sick as dogs, too - both had been vomiting all night. In total, four of us had been struck down by some virus at that restaurant. It wasn't the food - that had been delicious, and perfectly cooked; someone was carrying a virus on his or her hands, and passed that to us through the meal, either through cooking or delivering.

But there was more. Before heading to the doctor, I'd taken delivery of Deafboy and Adventure Girl's pups - because it was bucketing down, and the pups needed a dry spot for the day, as there was nowhere else for them to go; they couldn't spend a third day outside in the rain. You can imagine what awaited me when I came home from the doctor, with four excited dogs stuck in the lounge and the patio, sleeting rain driving in and the four of them rushing around dragging water everywhere. Poo piles. It was lovely.

Eventually I managed to drag my carcass through to the bedroom, order the dogs through to my room and passage with me, and pass out. And that's how we spent the day, with me occasionally getting up to let them all out for pee breaks, then back into bed,. then out again when MadCat awoke, then out again when Adventure Girl came to fetch them, and back to bed for me for the rest of the night.

So it's gone since then, with the occasional foray into the world to test the waters for Candlewick's kitchen tea, and a fabric shopping expedition with BellyDiva. But I still haven't recovered, and in fact had a relapse this weekend - this time with added puking. Wonderful. I'm still queasy, and very unhappy. I hope this does not bode ill for Christmas Eve, and Day, and Boxing Day, too.

Tomorrow (today?) I'll post about the quite nice afternoon we had on Friday, with the geeky photographers, and how that perked me up somewhat. It was good. A ray of sunshine in an otherwise awful week. And there'll even be pics! It's a plus.

Just don't

Wittier people than I have written about the hell that is Facebook, its neediness, the stupidity of friending all and sundry, the banality.

All I want to know is: why do my friends - my real-life friends - have to mention me to EVERY DAMN FORMER ACQUAINTANCE? Now I have an ex (whom I've been avoiding) and a former ... he wasn't even an acquaintance! I drove him home once when he was drunk! ... wanting to be my friend.

Why don't people just FUCK OFF?

The easy way out

It's hard for me to fathom the reasoning behind suicide. I understand certain situations, the ones in which abuse and terror can weigh on a soul so heavily that the only way out, the only way free, is to choose death. I have never been in that situation, so I can't begin to try and understand.

But suicide as a method of fleeing one's problems, leaving behind people whose lives will be devastated - that's something different. I've thought about it at the darkest times of my life, yes; a glib statement, I'm sure, to those who have been deep in the thrall of that compulsion, but true nonetheless. Anecdotal evidence is so passé, after all.

MadCat has tried, twice, and the only reason he failed was because the pills he took just didn't have the effect he thought they would, the effect for which they were designed. I've never been a TLE, I've suffered depression but not the deep, black pools of self-doubt with which he and Ferret have wrestled, the urge to end it all and remove themselves as obstacles from the paths of those they love, the conviction that doing so will suddenly make everyone else's lives better.

We went to a colleague's husband's funeral yesterday. They had been together for 30 years; he killed himself - shot himself - on the eve of her birthday. My initial reaction was - and to some extent, still is - that it was an incredibly selfish thing to have done. He left behind a 20-year-old son who hero-worshipped his father and a wife who loved and supported him through the trials and tribulations of the past few years, from being retrenched to breaking a hip to watching his new business suffer through the economic crisis.

I can understand the worry, the concern, the embarrassment of failure for not being the breadwinner as men are supposed to be, especially in our super-macho South African society. I can see MadCat's concern as he worries about the past six months of retrenchment, the past 18 months of being in and out of work, slowly depleting his savings and financial backups until here we sit, relying on one salary and struggling almost beyond our capabilities.

But I can't understand what he hoped to gain from killing himself, I can't understand what it is he thought would make life better for his wife and son. Suicide - automatically no life insurance payout, especially something as final as shooting oneself, no accidental overdoses here. So there she sits, without her helpmate, without the one she thought she could lean on, soon to be struggling even more as she tries to keep a roof over their heads on a salary lower than mine, struggling with the guilt and the grief and the anger and loss. The betrayal.

MadCat has often turned to me over the past two years, and told me that I've been the only thing that's kept him here, kept him alive. Now that he's back on his meds, it's becoming less likely that he'll feel the urge, or that he'll ever get to that point again. I have been depressed, but not to the extent of being medicated for it, so I'm not fully cognisant of his reasoning, or lack thereof, for as he often tells me, his logic is not the same as everyone else's. I try to understand, but I don't fully grasp the despair.

All I know is that, no matter how much I try to understand, no matter how much I support him, if he were to leave me in such a fashion, his memory would forever be tainted in my mind with the shadow of coward. I know it's a harsh indictment, I know I'm generalising, but in so many cases, especially the running away from one's problems - I feel it's cowardly. It's selfish. It's the easy way out.

It's so much harder facing up to the things that make one want to cower in the corner, hide away from the world, be taken care of. You know the clichés; you know it's a tough life, for all its beauty. This life is not for sissies. So yes, to me, it's a weakness to have done what C did.

I talked to Candlewick last night, I found out the horrors of her childhood, of what was done to her for so many years and how she reacted by turning to the wild side in a desperate bid to prove that she was worthless and thus deserved what she'd been put through. She went through things that would have made strong men weep. And yet she lived; she tested herself with a razor, considered the possibility, and decided to live instead. I told her I was proud to be her friend, I was amazed at the person she is, that she has become, in the face of the terror with which she lived for 25 years. I couldn't find the words to say it properly, to tell her how much she means to me, how wonderful she is with her lightheartedness and gaiety, her love and warmth and strength and encouraging nature (and the way she's such a competitive, sore loser).

I say to MadCat, too, how proud I am of him for pushing through, for being optimistic in the face of his crushing despair, for trying and trying even when things go wrong, putting on the best face he can and just being the odd, offbeat, kind and loving and crazy person that he is. The preacher said yesterday that South African men don't talk about their problems, they keep things to themselves and let them fester. I'm so glad that MadCat and I have a non-traditional relationship, that we do and say things to each other that would make a "normal" run screaming for the hills, that we can tell each other anything, no matter how disturbing. It's the only way I've been able to keep track of what he's going through, of when the danger is near, of when I need to be firm and let him know that any suicide attempt would be grearded with anger and grief, yes, but also with a measure of contempt, because damn it all, I've made it this far, I've struggled and fought, and I want someone who is worthy of my struggles, who is worthy of my time, who is a man and not a coward, who faces up to his problems with me right there.

I grieve for my friend and her loss, I grieve for her son, I am sorry that her husband is gone, but he's fine wherever he is now, he took the easy way out and for that, I don't feel an ounce of sympathy.

Battle for little girl, 3, rages on

News - Front Page: Battle for little girl, 3, rages on

Justice bosses have been left embarrassed about their costly bungling of an American man's child abduction claims against his South African wife.

But the justice department is unrepentant about its failure to take the American's three-year-old daughter away from her mother, whom the little girl has lived with in South Africa for more than two years, and send her to an uncertain future in America.

This really gets my goat. Isn't the Family Advocate supposed to be looking after the child's best interests? How could they be prepared to send her off to parts unknown, to someone who hasn't seen her more than twice in two years, without even bothering to check how she'll be travelling there?

In addition to ordering that the Family Advocate pay a hefty legal costs bill for its urgent bid to take "Jenny" away from her mother, Van Oosten criticised Family Advocate Renay Kathawaroo for ...

Giving little or no attention to how "Jenny" would be transported back to the US, should the Family Advocate succeed in its application.

Unbelievable! Not only should the judge be applauded for his attack on their incompetence, this "Advocate" should be charged with child abuse for his attempts to ruin this child's life in a bid to exercise his power incorrectly!

Dammit

Stupid pipes. Thanks for ruining a day I've been anticipating for almost two months now. Sometimes I hate my house. Nice way to fuck things up.

I suppose at least there's a tank cake.

Eviction notice

Attention, black widow spider sitting in a corner of my house (outside, thankfully).

Please remove yourself from the premises, or I shall have no option but to evict you with maximum force.