Dirty dancing

 This week's entry is a picture post. Finally! you can all meet my lovely Filmmaker house mate and see what the view looks like from our awesome stoep (above). So let me talk you through it... but be prepared - it was one crazy week in my life, and it just got crazier as the weekend went on. Some clues: dinner party, dancing with wild abandon, a dressmaker called Fifi, a cakemaker covered in glitter and 21.1 kilometers. Am tired, wired and happy. Goals? I killed them! Hope you enjoy it :)

Friday night: the dinner party.

The Filmmaker! Doesn't she just look like a person you'd like to know? Here she is with a pot from her friend Auntie Patty. There is a pink ceramic cat in the kitchen window that's also from Auntie Pattie, whom I don't know at all but it seems she's got good taste in ceramic/pot-like stuff. 

 

 

Post dinner party: 'Coz I've had the time of my life... 

I've never felt like this before, I swear...

...and I owe it all to YOU! (fiance on other side of camera...)

  All I'll say is I take no responsibility for that which happens under influence of Johnny and Baby magic. After all, 'nobody puts Baby in the corner'!

 By Saturday, I was ready to take on the wedding planning. Stop 1: my dressmaker, Fifi. She is a Zimbabwean woman living in Woodstock. She took my measurements while her husband (clothed in robe) and kids (three beautiful girls - Patricia, Melinda and Gloria) were watching a comedy show in the same room. She says I should send you all a hello. So here it is! 

damn I'm sorry I can't get this pic turned around... 

 Next up cake shopping! From Fifi's I met up with fiance to go to the lovely Charly's Bakery I mentioned in an earlier post. Just look at their goodies... 

Meet Jacky, our cake maker. You can't see it on the pic, but her face is covered in glitter from all the cupcakes on the counter in front of her. 

Aim....

...and scan!!!

Third stop: registries. Enter fiance, the scan king:

Saturday night is when things got really interesting. You can put this part of the entry under 'learning things'. I kind of agreed to go to a two hour full moon dance class with live music while still under influence of Dirty Dancing awesomeness. While under these influences I did not consider what it was that I was letting myself into...
I don't have any pics to tell the tale, but the class was on Saturday night and they play all kinds of ethereal, deep music with drums and hums and things and you just have to move as your body feels like. Much to my disappointment, it's in a school hall and not under the open night sky as I imagined it to be and there is no-one teaching you any steps. You just have to feel the moves... 
Now I could go on to tell you how weird it was, but actually it was one of the most difficult things I had to do this week. I found that to let go and stop caring what other people think (also known as connecting with inner self/being hippy) is in fact not such an easy task, maybe one of my biggest challenges. I stood frozen while people around me flowed, rubbed, twirled and jumped. I was stuck in a big fat cringe.
I realized I had two choices: I could stay freaked out and be judgemental, which would leave me with an hour or two of torture ahead while everyone around me did their swirly moves, or I could get over myself and join in.
I joined in. In the last half an hour, I even found myself jumping up and down and holding hands with strange men. At the end I joined the group in giving thanks to my feet and the earth and the energies around us. I haven't done that since I was in varsity, when I was also into crystals and aromatherapy oils.
Now I must admit the dancing and letting go makes sense, a lot, but even towards the end when I was getting really into it, I kept wishing I was curled up in front of TV with very shallow Hollywood film (like Dirty Dancing), or that they would just stop with the hummy sounds and put Britney on already! (was also worried about the fact that I had to get up just after 5 the next morning for my promised half-marathon).
My final thoughts on the class are important, though: I think it was very necessary. On the way back, Filmmaker and I agreed that sometimes you have to revisit all the people you used to be to know who you are now. And now I know: I still think aromatherapy is useful and crystals can make you feel good, but my days of doing swirly moves was over even before it began. It's just not me.

Lesson of the week: let go, but be yourself. (I DO still like the full moon and I WILL dance like headless chicken on Dirty Dancing songs again, after all).

Then... the run! I leave you with a few pics to tell the tale:

people as crazy as me... who'd have thought there'd be so many?

ah, the bliss of fresh mountain air... 

As Marian Keys would say, Cheerios Amigos!!! 'til next week... 

Breakfast in bo-kaap!

Sent via my BlackBerry from Vodacom - let your email find you!

excitement/drama

That was the theme of the past week. It was so up and down, I need a grid by which I can explain it to you. I don't know WHY in the world I decided to move into a new house for some excitement, because between my wedding, my family and my work, I get enough of that.

Anyways, I will try to do this post through my progress report:

1. Planning a wedding: Does crying your eyes out because there are too many people you have to see that want to see you and thinking your boss hates you because you're always scatterbrained, stressed, underprepared or on your way somewhere, count as part of the planning? Well then I've been planning very hard.

2. Making friends: More like rediscovering existing friends - who are all LOVELY! My kitchen tea was this weekend! It was a tea party with cake, presents, lovely caffe-latte flavoured rooibos tea and one cousin that even drove halfway across the country just to be there. I just want to thank every single person involved for doing so much for me. Life may be crazy, but one thing is sure: I am blessed. See pictures.....



me, cousin (not the one who drove all the way, but she did do a whole lot of organizing), cousin's little girl and ouma in the back. Ouma is 84, doesn't she look great? And look at that smile!



me + good friends

more friends, good ones

some more good friends

3. Running a marathon: can I skip this part? No? Oh shit. Well fine then: I only ran once last week, it wasn't very far, today is Monday and on Sunday I'm supposed to run a 21km. I think I've said enough.


4. Learning something: If a filmmaker likes what she sees, she won't think twice about working right through the night to make the video.The result is one stunning video of my nightingale cousin, Zaria, and all I can say is wow... Let me explain.

I lied when I said I don't know why I moved into the house - I love my new house! I had quite a bad day on Tuesday. Was stressed at work, had a thousand things to do and then cousin had mini drama when her musician ex-boyfriend showed up at her house unexpectedly. So I told her to stop stressing and come spend the night at my house. Only to get there and find oh! it's the German's (one of the house mates) birthday party! And what a lovely bunch of friends he has. They are from all kinds of strange countries, one of which I've never heard of. Lots of wine was consumed, awesome food was eaten, and then Filmmaker appeared from her room (this is the third housemate, whom I haven't introduced properly yet, so keep reading).
Cousin Zaria got hold of guitar and her voice charmed it's way into everyone's hearts. As one of my colleagues accurately puts it: "she's just in her own little world there, you can see it. And if you listen, she takes you right along...". All the while fiance was chopping branches off at my second-floor bedroom window, because the bougainvilla tree has taken quite a fancy to my window and as a result the window can't open.
Filmmaker - us still being at the party downstairs - liked what she heard from Zaria's mouth, got a wave of inspiration and before we knew what we were doing, fiance was dragged away from cutting branches and ordered to rearrange lighting and electrical cables. Filmmaker appointed us makeup artist, creative director and props and lighting all in one. At one point, Filmmaker even had Zaria in an old fashioned bathtub and for that shot I 'stole' electrical cables and a candle from party below.
It was extremely fun, but most of all, very successful. At 4am the next morning (we finished the fiming at about midnight), while we were sleeping soundly, Filmmaker posted the video to Facebook. We are all in amazement. Personally, I just can't believe that someone has finally done my cousin's music justice. Yay!

So BIG thanks to Butterfly Films for this video - Enjoy!

Click here: ZARIA'S VIDEO

First week in the house

Two things happened this week. I started feeling very insecure about myself, thinking I am really boring person and actually unpopular.Couldn't for the life of me figure out why all my friends are still friends with me.

The other thing that happened was that I was suddenly overcome with guilt because my house mates don't know I'm writing about them. Technically I haven't said a lot about them yet, but I had kind of planned to and now I don't want to.

The first problem solved itself automatically – I realized it had all been PMS and hormones and got over it. The second problem I am still grappling with. Don't quite know what to do but have resolved to start off by confessing to them and am feeling a bit stressed about that. Will let you all know how it goes down.

Progress report:

1. Planning the Wedding: I finalized my bouquet and the lighting at the venue! The lighting people are same ppl doing the bouquet and I had to send along the quotes they offered to fiancé without him finding out anything about bouquet, so every time I hit forward I first had to delete pictures and descriptions of the flowers. I don't know if this part of the wedding should also be secret along with the dress, but I've decided to keep my whole look secret and it's fun. Yay.
2. Making Friends: yes! Well, kind of. I made an unexpected one this week – at work! But think I may have scared her off already. I met her in the extremely long trek between the free parking space and the office block and was so eager about the friend making bit that I emailed her immediately once I got to my desk (our company has internal database with everyone's names and contact details on). We promptly made a Friday lunch date, which I had to break before Friday even came. Then, because I believe rule number one about making friends (and keeping them) is to stick to appointments, I made big fuss of meeting on Thursday. But then on Thursday our schedules clashed and it's all a little complicated, but I ended up looking very much like stalker. Showed up at her office (one floor below mine) looking v anxious about not finding her at designated spot and, upon finding that she had already left for lunch, attempted to get her cell phone number from lady at front desk. This is nothing strange, but front desk lady gave me strange look (why?) and instructed assistant to call on my behalf, all the while still giving me the look. Assistant gave me an apologetic smile (or was it a pitiful smile..?) and once she'd gotten new friend on the line, handed the phone to me. I gave front desk lady a nasty look as soon as new friend acknowledged that yes, she knows me and yes, we had a lunch date. But then I stormed off to go meet new friend at the company cafeteria before she had a chance to tell me that there was actually only ten minutes remaining of her lunch hour. So when I finally got to her I watched her eat about three chips, learned that she had some car trouble this week, joined her in the walk to the elevators and then said goodbye, feeling like royal idiot. Have resolved to in future refrain from appearing like person who is starved for company when in fact I have several work colleagues and friends who would love to have lunch with me and does not appreciate being stood up for the sake of a blog.
3. Running a Marathon: Can't believe this, but have actually committed another idiotic act this week. See section on 'Learning Something'. Can at least say that I ran a total of fifteen kilometres and swam 30 laps in gym on Monday.
4. Learning Something: Do not, I repeat, do NOT, forget socks on day you plan on running ten kilometres with colleague. Esp if you are too proud to say your feet are hurting and then proceed to run the whole ten kilometres anyway. This same pride will be the cause of much pain later in week (in fact whole week) when the four blisters burning like hot coals of fire on the back of your feet are not enough to get you to say no when another friend suggests a five kilometre run two days later.
5. Writing this Blog: couldn't even do that right this week. This entry is almost 400 words longer than what I promised each entry would be. I apologise. Must still be the PMS that is making me so wordy.

PS: just remembered that I did do one thing right this week. Followed colleague's advice about a birthday cake for fiancé and went to Charly's Bakery in Roeland street where I bought most awesome chocolate cake ever. It is covered in real, melted chocolate and is solid, heavy and moist right through even though it is only one layer. Think will be looking into Charly's as wedding cake provider...

First weekend!

So, I've moved in. Whoohoo! What a busy house. Have met about seven people already, and that was just in two and a half days, excluding all the people that showed up for the movie screening on Friday. Movie screening? Yes! this house is the best.
Don't have pictures yet, but promise to post. Think I've already found my favourite spot, too: the dining table. More on that later...

Details on two of the people I met:
1. The artist. It's his room that I took over. He let me in on Friday night, handed over the keys and gave me a 'quick' run-through of the house. (the alarm system is v complicated, esp because the setting all depends on where the cats - queen Manon and William - are.) Artist seems shy. He draws with charcoal and he is TALL. He nearly knocked his head against the (very high) doorway on his way out ("ah! that happens often but-" he ended his sentence as soon as he realized he was looking down on me and I would, in fact, not be needing advice on how to avoid high doorways). My feet turned pitch black within taking one step into the new room - all the dust from his charcoal pencils has settled on the floor, making its way between the floorboards and forever marking the room as that of an artist. I don't know why, but I am quite chuffed by this.

2. The german. Lives in the big room downstairs. Not sure if he is filmmaker, photographer or sociologist, but he takes a keen interest in the ppl around him and is a quiet soul. Has dark, beardy look. He organized the movie screening and the movie (from what I've heard) consists of scenes he shot in and around Bo-Kaap. He welcomed me to the neighborhood by saying there are all kinds of lovely sounds in this neigborhood.
"But good sounds, you know? Children playing, people talking. The people here live out of their houses and onto the street." 

I didn't join them for the screening, because I was dog tired and worried about finding space for all my stuff. But I fell asleep with a smile on my face as the sounds of clinking wine glasses and laughing children wafted up the stairs. A Cape Town wind pushed through the window. 

Progress report:
- Running a marathon: ran 7km on Saturday and another 7km on Sunday. Going swimming today and thinking of joining the Distance 4 Difference charity. More on that later, still recovering from the runs so not really lus for thinking up my next challenge quite yet.
- Making friends: see above and to be continued.
- Planning wedding: went to venue, chose menu and looked at lighting options. Cards to be printed at end of month. 5 Months to go!
- Learning something: You need to either feed the cats before you go to bed, or close your door when you go to bed. Else they will wake you with tiny, sqeaky miaaw-like sounds, poke you with their wet little cat noses so you open your eyes to find life size whiskers and bright, hungry eyes mere millimeters from your face at exaclty 4am.