It's been awhile

so it's been awhile since i've written anythin. life has been very challenging. a couple weeks after the last post i got a phone call that my dad had serious cancer. so april-june was about trying to get both of us to canada to see him as his case was terminal. long story short, they denied my husband's visitor visa application. it was totally heart breaking for all of us. i flew out the day before we knew the results. we got word that his passport was ready for pick up from the embassy. we assumed he got the visa. when i landed in canada, i checked my email and he said he didn't get it. his 'purpose' of visit was not clear. um hello? wanting to see dying father in law is a very clear purpose of visit!

10 days after i arrived, my dad passed away. he fell on father's day and hit his head. he had a bad hemorrhage (we didn't know that until 2 days after cuz the dr's didn't really do anything to check why he was suddenly unable to be fully concious and communicate. we had to convince them to do a brain scan). it was the most heart wrenching 3 days of my life. i still cry when i think about it. i harbored alot of anger towards this country in particular from preventing my dad's dying wish to meet his son in law in person. a prisoner on death row gets a final request, how come not my dad?

it's been a tough summer but august has been a bit better. downsized my mom to a 1 bdrm flat. it's bright and cheery. i go back in a couple weeks. starting to feel guilt and like i'm abandoning my mom. she's gonna be all alone. sigh. right now, my sweet husband is all alone. sigh. i'm looking fwd to getting back home to my boo bear. we'll still be poor as our financial situtaion hasn't changed. but i've come to realize that life is the same here or there. rich people thrive, poor people struggle to survive.

i'm reading a book on gratitude. i'm finding it helpful. i'm learning to live life like everything is a miracle and to focus on my blessings and to appreciate what i have. it's a challenge but a process i'll learn.

That Darn Cat

I'm having a secret relationship. Each day a special visitor comes by. The neighbor's cat. He is orange and as such I call him Archie. He is a gentle sweet young boy. He likes to sit in the empty concrete planter in the back area and he waits till I draw back the patio door curtains. Then he bounces towards our patio and meows one simple hello as I open the sliding doors. On laundry day he comes early cuz he knows there will be a cushy comfy chair for him to sit on- i bring out two chairs to balance the broom stick which holds up the twenty coat hangers with them under garments so they can dry in private. One day he was very cheeky and jumped up and thru the other neighbors bedroom window. He thought it was my room window cuz it is beside our sliding doors. Upon realizing that it was not my window, he high tailed it outta there! Today he is being very needy. He has not come by in two days and i think that is why his need for attention is higher today. So i was standing on the patio looking at the clouds, dont really get clouds here, and it reminded me of van on a clear day. Suddenly, archie reaches up, hooks a claw into the back of my shirt and gives it a tug as to say hey, i'm down here, pay attention to me please. Ya, like i didnt notice him kneading my feet and purring on them! I brought the grass mat outside cuz this sky called for some serious cloud watching duty. As soon as i laid down guess who was purring in my face. No, not freddy. . .he just got home. And now archie is making a run for the open sliding door my husband left open. He is very determined to go inside our house. Again not freddy but archie. Archie and freddy are indifferent to each other.

Racism

It's astounding that there is still such levels of racism. We went to check a flat on saturday. The lady who showed it to us was about fifty. She asked if it was for just me and i said no my husband too. Her face changed upon looking at my black boo. I asked for an application and she said she didnt have any. I asked how we could apply. She then said she is still running the ad and could email or fax us one. I said ok, here is my email. She said she didnt want it and will call me monday for it! Freddy was not suprised as he has experienced it before in this country. I dont understand racism at all. Not one tiny bit. Even in our primary one seven year old boy was sitting beside a sun beam and moved his chair over and said 'i dont like black people.' I was livid! I made it very clear that that kind of behaviour is disgusting and I will not tolerate and never again do I want to hear garbage like that. Imagine a child making such hideous remarks, in church no less! What are his parents teaching him? Sadly that boy comes from a not so nice background. My goal is to shower him with love and good example and sound teachings on Sunday. Growl to racism. WE ARE ALL PEOPLE FROM GOD!

ok, photos?

so I know some of you've asked for photos and seeing as i have one min on a comp here is a photo:)

Dis couraged

There's alot of poo raining down this week. Five sizable things of junk, dont feel like getting into details. I'm feeling discouraged. I just need to vent a bit about the cost of living here. I was told by a few locals that the minimum wage is about seven rand an hour (about one dollar) or about fifteen hundred rand a month. Rent for a safe complex is about three thousand. Or you can live in the ghetto or town ship-as a foreigner, you wont survive long there. Watermelon is twenty five rand. Bananas are eight rand a kilo unless on a special rare sale. Toilet paper is twenty two rand for ten cheapy rolls. The bus is ten rand during off peak hours or seventeen on peak hours, and you have to pay EVERY time you get on-no transfers or whatever. Plus you have to pre pay for phone and electricity. As you can see, it is impossible to live here. There is so much suffering! There are the rich people and the poor people. It stinks and is very dis heartening.

Summary of the past 4 months

Update

The past 3 months have seen fun and good times with my husband. Here are some highlights:

October- We had fun dates. We actually always have fun dates. We do this once a week. We saw Salt as movies come out 2 months later unless it’s a big big anticipated flick like Harry Potter. It was really good! On another date, we went for a two hour walk along Sea Pointe holding hands, talking, laughing and being silly. My husband is a comedian and I, a comedienne. It’s a lovely combo for usJ Freddy and I celebrated our one month anniversary with our fav ostrich ribs at a cute place called Driftwood Café. We spent an afternoon at Camps Bay, walking and playing games in the sand and other games like ‘I Spy.’ I discovered Nando’s chicken as Freddy said it is good. It… is… succulent! Not sure why I was so anti about giving it a chance in Canada? Maybe it was the price and I was imagining Church’s Chicken. We went to the Diwali festival one evening. It was ok. As Halloween isn’t too big here and Freddy isn’t into dressing up, we simply had a ghoulish meal-“bloody eyeballs on intestines” (which was actually spaghetti and meatballs). I got a calling as 1^st councilor in the primary presidency. I actually enjoy my calling in primary this third time around.

November- I swam a lot this month and we continued to get in at least one jog a week along the beach. Lately, however, I love to jog in bare feet right on the sea shore line so my feet get splashed with a few invigorating waves. It’s very euphoric for me to jog like that. Hubby wears runners and is beside me. He takes off more inland when a bigger wave comes speeding onto the sand. It’s cute and a bit funny really. So finally, we went to see Eat, Pray, Love. I had been wanting to see it since Aug when it came out in Canada. Such a good movie. I would like to read the book. We had our primary presentation at church. It was so cute! We also enjoyed 2 special conferences-elder Holland came to the Bellville chapel and it was so inspirational and spiritual. Best choir ever!! And we attended an Africa conference via satellite which included talks from Elder Oaks and Elder Packer. Very good also. (Emily, doesn’t that line make you think of Bridget Jones when she is introducing Fitsherbert at the book launch?)

The highlight of the month was attending my first football game live-South Africa vs USA. Sooooo fun!! Had a world cup feeling of excitement. I blew on that dang vuvuzela so much that my lips swelled up real good. I called them my vuvuzela lips, which stayed swollen until late the next afternoon. Super great crazy fans tooJ One young American guy had ‘Texas’ painted on his back. He reminded me of Phil Northcott. However, once he was drunk enough, he stripped down to nothing but a blue speedo and enjoyed the remainder of the game like that. We had some really nice fan waves going round the stadium too.

At the end of the month, we went into town for the Christmas light it up festival. There were no Christmas carols. Strange. You would think there would be some Christmas music at the Christmas light festival? Instead, bands were playing dancing style music etc. We sat in our lawn chairs on Adderley for 3 hours. Ate some chips, tuna sandwiches, brownies. We people watched. I was so cold from the wind. My jacket was failing me. My sweet husband refused to wear his jacket so I could wear it even tho he was cold. He said it is better for him to be cold than me. Sweet guy. Next time, I pack more clothes cuz I was sad that he was cold. There were 100,000 people there. I did the Christmas prep during the end of the month, like hand sewing 2 stockings and shopping for Freddy’s presents. I am way too excited for him to open them!!!! We bought a 90cm tree for 30 rand which is about $4.60 so we were excited about that price! One family home evening, we decorated our room Christmas-y, put up the tree, ate chocolate chip cookies, danced around to old school jazzy carols then watched 3’s co.

I love how much Freddy loves my fav comedy! He imitates Furley’s head shake thing and quotes various episodes. (Laura-he frequently quotes the part just before Jack elbow’s Furley in the eye “or you’ll what?” “I’ll get behind Jack, he was here first.”). And when he and I act silly, he makes reference to 3’s Co and how we are like an episode and I’m behaving like Jack. I love it! I love my goofy husband! I also love when we are listening to some P Diddy or Akon and start busting a move. Yo, Freddy is a gooooood dancer. Too much funJ Hehe, another funny thing is how obsessed he is with his hair. He is constantly combing it, looking at it, fixing it, fussing over it. It’s like being married to Jesse Katsopolis or Sam Malone, except his hair is about 1cm in length. He even dyes it black! That’s right, my black husband dyes his hair black. I only tell you this as I find it so fascinating and really cute and rather endearing. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love combing his hair and trying to make it a nice fluffy short afro. And to be honest, after being married to him for three months, I understand why he dyes it black. It does actually make a difference and it looks good. O, and I have to tell you about his laugh when I tickle him. It is the most intoxicating sound on the planet. I want it as my phone ring tone. Because it sounds so dang lovely, it makes me want to tickle him even more.

December- We attended a wedding the first Saturday. It started an hour and a half late. The bride wasn’t quite finished getting ready yet. Luckily, Freddy and I are good at entertaining each other. We bbq’ed some hot dogs and corn that evening as Freddy hasn’t had hot dogs bbq’ed before. For those that don’t know, bbq is called braai here. And it’s much more complicated than back home. You have to pretty much start a camp fire in a metal box. Yup, wood bbq. I must mention that Cape Town is windy, especially in December when the Cape Doctors blow hard. Now, I feel I’m pretty dang good at starting a camp fire, but here it’s a challenge. But we got it going. It was good. Have to shower right after as you do stink like bonfire. There was one day we were walking downtown and the wind was soooo strong that every time I stepped out with my right foot the wind would blast it in front of my left foot causing me to trip. It was quite a scene of me trying to cross the street in such a ridiculous manner. After we crossed the street, the wind gusted with such a strong gale force that we had to cling to each other to prevent becoming air born!

We went to the movies and saw Red. Also, delightfully good! Humor and the action stuff wasn’t predictable. John Malkovich’s character reminded me of Murdoch from A-Team. We decided to treat ourselves to a movie combo of a medium popcorn, coke and cadbury’s whispers. The popcorn was dry airpopped and they give you a seasoning to dust it with. I asked the lady if there is butter and she gave me a butter flavored seasoning. How can they not have any golden liquid fat to drench the popcorn in? That’s what makes movie popcorn MOVIE popcorn. Am I right or am I right? I can tell you that we’s a gonna be savin our money next time and skip the cardboard, er I mean ‘movie’ popcorn.

I’ve gotten into the A Team. It started this month. On every day at noon. Knight Rider used to be on and at first I was bitter that they cancelled my Michael and Kit with the A Team. What is this A Team business I thought? One afternoon, I watched and love-ove-oved it! I mean how could I not? Hannibal is too fun with his goofy plans that always ‘come together.’ And Face with his costumes. And grumpy Barracus. And crazy Murdoch. Yooo, this show. Ah, so clever. Now I wanna see the movie that came out earlier this year. Sadly, it has not been on the past two days cuz of the stupid RSA vs India Cricket 7 hour matches pre-empting my programs. How rude!

We went to see this house that has serious Christmas décor in the front lawn and home. It’s open for the public to go take a closer look at…not the home, just the front lawn. And you can make a donation to a charity too. It’s kinda bizarre to be walking through such an extravagant Christmas display on green lawn while wearing shorts and flip flops, but at the same time, the spirit of Christmas was definitely in the air.

The ward Christmas party was fun. They roasted a lamb on a spit outside. It was gooood. We had a dance afterwards but it didn’t last long. They were cleaning up and it was all over by 10pm and all cleared out. So very different from the ward parties and YSA parties back home. The next day we went to Parliament Gardens to enjoy the loveliness of nature there. We also quickly stopped at BoKaap. It’s in the northern part of downtown, Muslim community. We went to take a couple photos as ALL the houses are painted bright fun colors. Real treat for the eyes.

Christmas eve, I swam and we went to Nando’s for some grilled chicken. We got it as take out to eat so we could watch Christmas movies. Walking back from the car to the house with Nando’s in hand did not feel like Christmas eve. Felt like Canada Day eve. We watched Elf. Freddy really liked Elf. I love that he and I have the same sense of humor and taste in comedies. Next day was too fun. We opened presents and our stockings. Things of mention are cologne and tools for him, lamb-y pajamas and bracelet for me. Plus we had fun things from my parent’s parcel that arrived a couple days before. The old dutch ketchup chips were my fav J we had the elders and a few other guys who were family-less over for lunch. We had roast chicken, baked potato bar, beet salad, black eyed pea salad, deviled eggs, sugar cookies and a fantastic giant watermelon. It is summer you know so cooking a turkey for several hours with all the heavy trimmings and pie ain’t so desired in hot weather. We played many games including baci ball outside and spoons. Spoons, as always, was cause for much laughter plus the fatality of the 3 of Hearts. It was a brutal game with 5 guys and competitive little ole me. But it was a very fun day. I had prepared food enough for 7 but somehow ended up feeding 12?? In short, we had zero leftovers and the two of us went to get McDonalds for dinner!! So we ended the festive day with Big Macs, fries and milkshakes while watching Home Alone. Freddy really loved that one (thanks to Laura for buying it for me as a fab present last year).

New Years eve. We went joggin in the am along the beach plus I swam. Swimming has become a lot like eating. I can’t survive the day without it. We went out for dinner at our fav little place, Driftwood Café. Super cute ambiance and really good food for a decent price. We got the Serengeti platter. It had ostrich in a black pepper sauce, kudu in a raspberry compote, springbok in a mushroom sauce, wart hog in a mustard sauce and gemsbok in a sauce I know not the name of. Of that game, we’d only had ostrich and kudu before. I must say, I was quite nervous about wart hog. The waiter said that it is the strongest of the five on the plate. I took a bite and my palate did a cartwheel. Forget ostrich! Wart hog is my new meat. I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s white like pork. But it’s tender and I didn’t think it had such a wild gamey taste. When you come to visit, that’s where we’ll be taking you for dinner. After, we came home to play games and we had a bit of a dance party in our room as the new year’s countdown televised parties had swee-E-eeet music. South African dance music is it man! Youtube Professor Oskido-Jezebelle or Big Nas or DJ Cleo or Black Coffee to get a sampling. Then I fell asleep at 11:15 to the sound of Freddy talking (poor guy). But luckily his phone rang and woke me up at 11:50 (in time to get ready for the countdown). Then I passed back out.

This week had been a glorious heat wave of about 37 degrees. So many people were complaining. Not me!! You know I love-ove-ove heat waves!! I love that feeling of being so hot that the most you can do during the day is sit in front of the fan drinking icey water from a glass that has the condensation sweat beads dripping down your fingers. Just love it. Then jumping into the pool after the sun sets swimming in warm water under a starlit sky. So romantic. Freak, I LOVE LOVE SUMMER!!!!!! Sadly the heat wave is fizzling down. Today it was only 32. I went for a jog at 8am. So drenched in sweat from that. Had to jump straight into the pool (after weight training of course). The only thing I wanna eat is watermelon and toast with peanut butter. Ok, enough about summer. I promise, I’m not bragging. Your time will come in a few months. We’ll be in winter then. However, the winter here is not like winter there. But it’s possible that global warming may change that.

On Saturday, Freddy and I were sitting on the patio chatting. The neighborhood kids were on the grassy area and started showing us their dance skills. Suddenly, it became a dance off. It was good laughs let me tell you! The one boy (11 and the oldest) has some sweet break dancing ability and could be amazing with some formal training. Then we ended up playing football. Everybody wanted to be on Freddy’s team. Suddenly, I got swept in it and became the goalie. So it was Freddy, me and the two youngest kids. Twenty minutes into it, Freddy was sweating and said “I’m tired!” I only lasted about ten minutes as I had dinner on the stove. I was sitting in the lawn chair at this point and replied “come sit down and rest old man.” All in all, an entertaining evening.

Yesterday was our one year anniversary of our first date, to the day (Wednesday) not date. Today is the official date anniversary (the 20^th). We celebrated yesterday as Freddy had the day off. We did exactly what we did last year. Went to John Dory’s for some sushi and dinner (3 pieces of sushi is not dinner. It was half price Wednesday. Sushi here isn’t that great-supermarket standard-and expensive). We then walked around the Canal Walk/Protea Hotel Island club grounds. Then we saw a movie-The Tourist. So I’ve seen more Angelina Jolie movies in the past 4 months than I’ve seen in the past 4 years. Not cuz I’m a fan (I’m not anti either) but cuz it’s a type of movie we can agree on. Freddy does not like fantasy and I do not like extreme shoot em up, blow em up action. We both like comedy but there hasn’t really been a lot of option in that genre. So Angelina Jolie type movies it is. It was decent. It had a surprise in it that was not predictable which I appreciated. It was a lovely date with a lovely companion. I miss my husband, he’s be scheduled too many night shifts and he’s started training at a restaurant which takes up Saturday night. But that’s how it has to go now. First couple years of marriage are the financially tight ones. It is what it is. I try not to complain about it… everyday that isJ

Lastly, I was called as Primary President two Sundays ago.

So tell me how you are and what's new.