Reviewing my words for 2011on 11/11/11

In February this year I put together my “11 words for 2011”. Being the eleventh day of the eleventh month I think it timeous to review these. After all – there is still time to work on any issues I have strayed on. As I said back then, these would be ‘a list I can refer back to through the year and check that I’m still heading in the right direction’.
So … here are my “11 words for 2011” – in no particular order, just as they came to me – followed by my thoughts on how well I have done thus far:
1) CALM – oh yeah! Done good! Yes! Calm. Yeah right … calm like a jitterbug on uppers.
2) PEACEFUL – as per number (1) – didn’t quite get this one either … about as peaceful as a Jack Russell with a squeaky toy.
3) THOUGHTFUL – oooohhhmmmmm … still thinking about this one…
4) GENEROUS – I have a newly acquired generous spread around my middle – does that count? Generous with my thoughts though! Actually, I think this one I can give myself a thumbs-up on.
5) SUPPORTIVE – hey, now I’m 50, supportive means underwear – got that. Have had to do quite a bit of supporting this year, more than expected.
6) UNCOMPETITIVE – what was I thinking? Do any of you actually know me? That was dead in the starting blocks – right?
7) MENTORING – yip, but room for improvement.
8) CONSOLIDATING – have managed to keep my head under the parapet this year … next year will be time to move and shake a bit!
9) KIND – kind of. My thoughts often escape out of my mouth before I have time to hammer them into a softer shape though…
10) FAMILY-ORIENTATED – done that, got the T.
11) FOCUSSED (on my 11 words.) Don’t think I’ve done too badly – plenty of room for improvement too. My focus has had balance, evidenced by growing my work portfolio, growing the CSI initiatives at work, getting my mother through discovering her cancer has returned, joining our local neighbourhood watch and actually getting to blog, see friends, spend time with our six wonderful animals and loving my beautiful girls and incredible husband as often and as much as possible. 2011 has been great so far – let’s head off and celebrate it this festive season!

Springtime

I noticed – when was it, and why?
That Springtime only comes with age.
The abundance, the fertile flamboyance
An unseen life delivered in another room.
It unfurled around me
And announced its green arrival in silent notes
To ears too young to hear.
Now it seems the air aches with the
Desire to send its fresh, green message full.
To widen my eyes and captivate me,
To distract me with its daily bouquet
That once noticed is astoundingly everywhere;
And an awareness that I can softly bring
To those once sprung from me.

(23 March 2000)

What goes around … comes around!

I was chatting to some friends this morning about camping – and the merits of enjoyment, rather than survival, in this regard. I am all for enjoyment! I want a nice big tent with a veranda/afdak in the front in case of rain or too much sun, fold out chairs and table, a blow-up mattress and a great big lantern. Don’t put me in a two-man tent (see … it tells you – no room for a woman in there!) with a spork and varkpan, and a spiky log to sit on.

During the conversation I recalled a ‘camping incident’ from my late teens. A friend and I went camping one holiday, and the tent that we had belonged to my parents (the one they bought for the Bazaruto trip – see my blog: http://simmelman.wordpress.com/2011/03/07/paradise-island-…-not-for-me/ ). It was HUGE, extremely heavy and difficult to erect. The tent bag took up more than half the boot, and then there was a great big bag of poles to go with that.

We arrived at the campsite in Hermanus in the middle of a stinking hot summer’s day, and immediately set about putting up our shelter … much to the amusement of four young men sitting next to their Golf on the campsite next to us – boot open and music blaring.

Between the two of us we managed to heft the bulky tent bag out of the car – and that already had us breaking a sweat.

The chaps grinned and cracked another beer each.

I volunteered for the dreadful job of burrowing under the canvas whilst my fair-skinned friend braved the burning sun and fed the framework of poles through tiny holes in the top corners of the quadrilateral tent to me.

After enduring the sauna created by being sandwiched closely between heaps of solar-heated canvas and the plasticky built-in floor, I was very grateful when the centre pole was finally introduced and the structure lifted to let in some air. Only to discover the poles were not correctly assembled, and we would have to break down the frame and start again. I dragged my sweat-soaked, soggy self out of there and swapped roles with my friend – who by now closely resembled a boiled crayfish.

The guys smirked, nudged each other and stretched out with another icy one.

I scowled, lit a cigarette and got back to work.

What a relief it was when we finally got the tent up, moved in our table, chairs, lantern, sleeping bags and refreshments … lots of ice-cold liquid refreshments. We needed them to replace the litres we’d lost in getting our shelter up! In no time our campfire was ablaze and we settled in to enjoy ourselves.

As it turned out, it was just as well we started our fire at sundown and didn’t wait … because by 9pm the heavens had opened and the campsite was soaked. We were comfortably ensconced in our wonderful, weather-proof tent – lantern shedding a warm glow, whilst we quaffed red wine.

Our peace was interrupted by a hesitant knock at the tent door, followed by a pitifully damp request for shelter. Apparently our lazy, unhelpful neighbours had no tent … and nowhere to sleep …

My friend and I looked at each other with raised eyebrows. With one unified roar we told them exactly where they could go … and it wasn’t anywhere near our tent.

The next morning we emerged, blinking sleepily in the early morning sun and stretching our well-rested limbs in the fresh, rain-washed air. Alongside our site was the Golf with two of the men sleeping uncomfortably in the front seats, one six-foot-somethinger curled on the back seat, and the fourth was shivering under the car.

We smirked, nudged each other and sipped our steaming mugs of condensed milk coffee…

Catch-22

How’s this for a Catch-22? (Do you know where this expression comes from? Ask Joseph Heller …)

My mother has been diagnosed with early stages of dementia (apart from metastatic cancer) which means that her shrink has prescribed Ebixa (much like the Aricept my Dad was on for his Alzheimer’s). This is not only to delay the onset of Alzheimer’s, but to improve her current mental health, and also to protect her from rapid deterioration.

BUT – the medical aid has deemed this to be ‘Acute Medication’ … like what – she’s going to get better next month and not need it anymore? As it is fairly expensive and my mother’s Acute Medication limit has already been exceeded, we are hoping that the medical aid will reconsider their decision, and move this on to Chronic Medication.

Since my mother will need to take this for the rest of her life if she wants to maintain some independence and limit her confusion – and since this medication would be prescribed as Chronic Medication if she had already deteriorated to the point of being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s (which comes with plenty of other medical costs – such as full time care), one would think that the sensible thing to do would be to agree to fund this protective and delaying prescription. One would think …

Her psychiatrist has motivated for this previously, but the request was rejected. So yesterday my mother went to him for a re-assessment. Here’s where it gets really odd. On one hand we were hoping that her mental state had declined sufficiently for the medical aid to deem her need “Chronic” – but at the same time hoping that she has actually retained her mental faculties, and that the medication has, in fact, been working.

I tried to tell her to mess the tests up … but you try telling someone who is already confused that she needs to purposefully come across as confused – when she is trying hard to prove that she isn’t! The shrink called me after the appointment to report that she was actually better than last time – which is great news! Only he fears that now our chances of getting the necessary medication covered by medical aid are slender-to-nothing – but no one wanted the results to be worse in the first place!

So like I said … a bit of a Catch-22, or what? In order get the medication required to stop my mother from losing her marbles, she actually has to lose them first … and since she has only lost a couple of them, she is not capable of convincing anyone that she’s lost them all already, and thus get the marble-retention meds!

[Wikipedia says: The archetypal Catch-22, as formulated by Heller, involves the case of John Yossarian, a U.S. Army Air Forces bombardier, who wishes to be grounded from combat flight. This will only happen if he is evaluated by the squadron's flight surgeon and found "unfit to fly." "Unfit" would be any pilot who is willing to fly such dangerous missions, as one would have to be mad to volunteer for possible death. However, to be evaluated, he must request the evaluation, an act that is considered sufficient proof for being declared sane. These conditions make it impossible to be declared "unfit."
The "Catch-22" is that "anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy."[1] Hence, pilots who request a mental fitness evaluation are sane, and therefore must fly in combat. At the same time, if an evaluation is not requested by the pilot, he will never receive one and thus can never be found insane, meaning he must also fly in combat.

Therefore, Catch-22 ensures that no pilot can ever be grounded for being insane even if he is.]

Eeny meeny miny moe…

It was lovely to bump into an ex-colleague of mine today who asked me why she hasn’t seen one of my blogs for a while. She said she missed them – and hoped that this would inspire me to get back to blogging again.

And it did.

The problem has been head-space. First I got sick, then my mother was diagnosed with metastatic cancer, and I just did not feel in the right frame of mind to share. The one blog I wrote was censored by my diplomatic husband – and that kind of put a damper on my writing for a while.

The subject I have decided to explore here is one that has arisen frequently over the last couple of months – that of whom one should invite to what. Many of my friends are having big birthdays this year (as in marking the beginning of a new decade), there have been friends’ children’s 21sts, farewells, weddings and even funerals.

For major events there seems to be a different criteria with regards to who should make the guest list, compared to that of a more low-key celebration – like when you turn 28 or 43. If you are turning 30, 40 or 50 – who should be there?

Big families make it difficult to invite many friends without bankrupting the birthday boy or girl – but in some ways that makes it easier. Just a few really select, close friends are invited – those who almost count as family anyway.

Small families mean that you may want to invite a few more friends to make the occasion suitably festive. Herein lies the nub of the issue – how far open do you want to pry that can of worms? Someone I know suggested that you should only invite people who would come to your funeral.

On reflection, people who work with you would probably come to your funeral – but that doesn’t necessarily make them friends. What about people whose house you’ve been invited to (how recently?), or people whose cell numbers you have saved on your phone? Or do you weed out the ‘not necessary to invites’ by identifying which of those people you would call at 3am if you were stuck?

Once you start with x – someone you like, someone you’ve kept some kind of contact with since you last worked together, then you have to invite y and z … then there’s a, b and even c (who you don’t really like and would never phone – not even if you were stuck outside their house – not that you would know it was their house, since you’ve never been invited there). After all, we were all in the same department. Or all went to the same class at college, or we all attended that wonderful quilting bee together. It would be impossible to leave out just b and y (the ones who make you want to eat your own underpants as entertainment) … so wouldn’t it be easier not to invite x in the first place?

Do you decide on the ideal number of guests for your party and then add people to the list until you reach the perfect quantity (and then start cutting and substituting when you remember closer friends that you left off by mistake – or Aunty Fanny who you simply would not be forgiven for not inviting)? Or do you just write down everyone you can remember, then work out if your budget and venue can accommodate them? Or if the list looks a little on the thin side, do you need to bulk it up with some second-grade choices (like a, b and c – whose house you hope you never get invited to)?

Hang on … was I a second-grade bulk-up invite to that last party? Or did I get on the A-grade, number 1 list right up front, and survive all necessary cullings and substitutions?

Hmmmm – I think we all know deep down which list we were on. And that makes the creation of your own list simple. Only invite the A-grade, number 1 friends. Leave off the rest. Don’t cut down the original list ever – they are the people you want to share your special moments with – and the people who would want to share them with you.

I had fun with AMASA last week!

Mainly I felt like doing something different for a change. There was also the fact that I haved worked in media for the past three years, but have very little idea about actual media planning, strat and buying. And of course, I felt that it was time the company spent a little money on me too.

So I requested inclusion on the June 2011 AMASA (Advertising and Media Association of South Africa) Workshop. The itinerary looked interesting, and I was keen to spend some time with creative folk from other companies, with a common interest.

I was pleasantly surprised when my boss agreed to my attending, and the company booked me in – I was off for two days to have some fun and learn something new!

The Workshop started on Thursday morning with registration at the beautifully appointed Spier conferencing facilities. Sitting at my table waiting for everyone to arrive was a young lady from etv in Johannesburg, another one from a BTL agency in East London and a student from Red & Yellow. Cool! After a necessary caffeine kick-start we seated ourselves in the conference venue and eagerly looked through our ‘goodie bags’! These, we found out, were actually survival packs for that night … one during which there would be much work, and very little sleep…

The lectures were fascinating – even for an old duck like me, who has spent more than two decades in the advertising industry. Then we were given the client brief (a B2B requirement for increasing Son’s ad spend over a limited period with a fairly generous budget) and split into five groups – each with five or six members.

A couple of hours before dinner we had ‘free time’ to work on our assignments in our groups – then dinner, another lovely talk by industry doyen, John Cooney, and we were off to crack our briefs – survival packs in hand. Copious lashings of red wine, Red Bull, caffeine, nicotine and chocolate ensured that by 2am, when I finally crawled into my bed, there was no way I was getting any shut-eye!

Breakfast was at a harrowing 7.15am since lectures commenced again at 8.15. The delegates looked decidedly worse for wear, and rows of fizzing Berroca tablets, cokes and coffee cups were evidence that I was not the only one feeling a tad weary! Of course, we all failed Gordon Muller’s recall experiment when he asked us to remember a list of words in the vein of: doze, blanket, bed, moon, sheet, snore, yawn, etc. By some strange co-incidence, although not all of us remembered all of these words, we ALL remembered ‘sleep’ … which apparently had not even been on the list! Strange that … I think Gordon is aware of one of my favourite philosophies: “The outcome of a rain dance has a lot to do with timing”.

A couple of nerve-wracking hours after lunch for polishing up our presentations, and each group took their turn in the spotlight, giving their all. I was amazed at the confidence and ability of some of the youngsters – still students, yet presenting with such presence.

Our industry certainly has some delightful young talent coming up the ranks … and with the mentors that I saw so generously sharing of their knowledge and experience – this varied, complex and fast-paced world of advertising and media will certainly continue to evolve and fascinate us!

The Big O

Time to be a bit more risqué … ?

I was thinking about orgasms last night and wondering if I should even bother to blog about them, seeing that every female magazine has rabbitted on about them for so long, there can’t be much that hasn’t already been said.

Never mind in mags like Men’s Health – which obviously not many men in our country read. Or maybe they do – but they either don’t comprehend, have memories that make goldfish look smart, or simply choose not to take note.

There must have been 100 maps to the (seemingly) illusive G-spot, countless lists out on exactly how to make even the most frigid woman orgasm, and “how to” sex tips abound in every issue. Yet still there are women out there who have never experienced the ultimate sensation that only a true orgasm is.

Take me for example. For the first three decades of my life I had no idea. Granted, more than half of those were not years that count. But I was nearly thirty before I found out what I had been missing out on.

Imagine finding out that what everyone else was eating was double-thick, extra creamy, luxurious chocolate ice-cream with toasted almonds and caramel – and all this time you were gobbling Bulgarian yoghurt and thinking you were ordering off the same menu?

What I can tell you, is that the chap who served me my first double-scoop had to go into hiding …

The question I have is – if you have never had chocolate ice-cream, how would you know that it didn’t taste like natural yoghurt? I mean it’s not like you can eat someone else’s to find out! You read about “earth-shaking tremors” and “waves of delight” and such like … and I thought that was kind of what I was experiencing. Until the real thing. And I must have been brilliant at faking it too – because no one ever seemed concerned that I wasn’t having as much fun as I should be.

Oh well – at least I know now. And at least I found out while there was still plenty of time to indulge in nature’s biggest kick. I only hope that all the women I love are eating decadent, double-Jersey, Death by Chocolate, caramel crunch, luscious ice-cream. And lots of it – it’s not fattening – it’s good for you!

We’re on the road to nowhere …

It all started at a New Year’s Eve concert on a farm on top of Sir Lowry’s Pass … many, many moons ago [whoa – stop that - I sound like an Indian oracle…]

Anyway – that’s where we were – my friend and I. Welcoming in the New Year in style, with a cellar cask of wine, a bonfire of smokes and hours of head-banging live bands. After two or three days (no one was counting) of jumping in the river in our clothes to get clean, and sleeping on the grass next to our car (yip – we’d gone for the evening and stayed, and stayed) we were filthy, exhausted and ready to head on home.

All the way back my friend raved about some exciting stud she had scored … which was good news, because she had just broken up with her long-term boyfriend, and I thought it was great that she’d jumped right back into the saddle, so to speak.

A bath and nap later, and my friend was itching to go and find Concert-man. Back then – before the rinderpest – there were no such things a cellphones (our funkiest techno-shit was a walkman) so all we had was the knowledge that he and his buds had headed up the coast towards J-Bay looking for some gnarly surf. No problem – only 800km of coastline to cruise …

We packed a change of underwear (seriously prepared this time), a bag of potatoes and a bottle of chutney (all the supplies we could rustle up), bummed ten bucks off my folks and another ten bucks off her gran … and off we went in her little, rusted Renault 5. Luckily we had copious amount of wine – my friend worked in the industry and the recent launch of wine in 300ml boxes meant easy transport and easy access – as well as some serious sounds on our walkman (one earphone each).

In high spirits we raced towards our destination – stopping off at every known surf spot to look out for possible sightings (although we were not altogether clear as to what vehicle they were in – but we figured we’d recognise them somehow … or her pheromones would alert her once we were in reasonable proximity).

After dark we pulled into J-Bay and slowly circled the quiet town. Nothing was open, we were seriously hungry (and starting to feel hung-over from all the cheap wine we’d fuelled our journey with) and the raw potatoes did not seem too appealing – even with chutney. We also had nowhere to sleep. I guess we had counted on finding a bunch of happy campers with a combie and tent along with Concert-Surfer-Dude.

We parked on the beach front and sneaked into the campsite across the road to use their bathrooms. After another pile of cigarettes and a few more cartons of wine, we sadly switched off our funky music and fell asleep sitting in the front seats of the car.

Blazing sun and chirpy early-morning surfer slang woke us up. Grommets surrounded our car and jeered as we peeled our faces off the plastic-backed seats, wiped trails of sleep-spit from our chins and pried open our mascara-smudged eyes. Blinking resentfully like two hibernating racoons in a spotlight, we surveyed our surroundings and realised that our quarry was nowhere in sight.

Having surreptitiously freshened up in the campsite ablution block, my friend decided that it was time to phone her ex-boyfriend. So we tracked down and old tikkie-box and she blubbed into the phone for about 15 minutes, until she was convinced that he was actually the guy for her. So we turned around and drove straight back home…

To some our quest may seem like an epic fail – but for me, it has always been one of my favourite memories, captivating that care-free, crazy time in my life.

‘I want to kill myself’

Yesterday I got a call from a nursing sister at the Retirement Village my mother resides in … apparently my mother had written a letter to the long-suffering handyman who services the units there about the rattle in her roof (which he has investigated six times, and my husband has looked at twice) … but this time she topped it off with a threat to kill herself.

Understandably they were concerned, and had already contacted her Doctor and Psychiatrist.

There was a strained pause in the conversation when I chuckled at this news. This is something that I have lived with my whole life. Every time my mother finds her desires thwarted in any way, a tantrum is visited upon those not bending to her will … and the final thrust, if the required results are not forthcoming, is a threat of suicide.

I calmed the Sister down, phoned the Doctor and emailed the shrink. No need to panic. No action required. My mother is way too narcissistic to ever harm herself purposefully. When I called her to tell her not to write messages like this again, she ever so innocently informed me that it was merely ‘an expression’ – and that of course, her religion would prevent her from ever committing such an act. I explained that other people did not view such “expressions” in the same light, and that it was not a good idea to do this again.
I am sure this will make no difference whatsoever – they will just have to get used to her histrionics, like I have.

One of my mother’s more memorable assaults was when she used this cruel method of manipulation on my daughter who was only 16 at the time, and visiting her grandparents – some 700km away from me. Apparently they had had a disagreement about what to watch on TV, which resulted in the grandmother stomping off in a huff, and the daughter disappearing in damp misery to her room. About ten minutes later my mother arrived in my daughter’s bedroom to tell her that due to my daughter’s actions, she had taken my father’s gun out of the safe and wanted to shoot herself. Not exactly the kind of loving and protective interaction one dreams of with one’s grandparents.

Suicide is something we have all thought about at some stage. How to do it, who we think would find us, what reaction we think we would evoke. However, threatening to commit suicide is not something that should be taken lightly. Cry ‘wolf’ too often and people will stop taking notice. My mother has cried wolf, tiger, lion and a host of other predators … now I simply shrug and ignore her – or in moments of anger, invite her to get on with it …

I wonder how I would react if she actually did?

Sharing the load

Household chores … the mention of which sends a shiver down most of our spines. Especially parents’.

With the advent of children comes the increased workload around the house, and we wait impatiently for them to get tall enough to reach the kitchen sink and take over their share of the household tasks.

But they grow, make more mess, attempt to camouflage their room floors with discarded clothing and leave a trail of destruction behind them. A conundrum arises for concerned, exhausted parents. At what stage can they expect their little darlings to take over which chores? Is it really necessary to wait for them to get a college degree before we are convinced that they have sufficient macro co-ordination to make their own bed?

In some families (especially those with multiple off-spring and no domestic assistance) chore allocation occurs early on. Hell – if they’re too small to master the opposing thumb thing, try strapping a duster to their diapers to get them cleaning from year one. In others, it never happens.

Chatting to a friend the other day, she complained of getting home from a hard day’s work and having to cook for five or six people every night, and wash up after them. So far she has only managed to train the boys to get their plates on – or close to – the kitchen counter. The dishwasher being loaded is the next step, but it seems this task is one that males manage only after extensive training (and sometimes the threat of starvation).

Another friend of mine casually mentioned that her 12 year-old daughter does all of the washing up on the weekends. Great idea! We instantly introduced that in our house. Our daughter’s sole contribution to keeping the household from collapsing into complete disarray would be washing up the dishes on a Sunday.

It didn’t take us long to realise that we needed to put a time limit on this … otherwise the mess was not addressed until Sunday messily sneaked past, and she was off to school on Monday – scot-free. So 10am was the deadline – and things went well for a couple of sparkling-Sunday-morning months.
It was only when smugly passing on this nugget of parental guidance to my friend with the empty dishwasher that I realised that said daughter had managed to sleep over a friend every Saturday night since March.

We as parents have a responsibility to bring up decent human beings that will not burden those around them, but take on their share of cleaning and tidying. Here I appeal especially to mothers of sons … please make them into useful husbands! Ironing and vacuum-cleaning do not make you sterile, despite what most boys think. And I for one have no idea as to how to successfully accomplish these tasks, thus relying on a well-rounded partner to take on these fulfilling jobs (along with emptying the trash, mowing the lawn and washing the car).

Making kids do their share (or at least a portion thereof) is not mean. It is necessary for their healthy development. And being too short is not an excuse they can use forever!