Happy Birthday

6 June 1980

It's my sisters' 6th birthday.

My mom has made the day very special for us - lots of baked treats and lots of love.

But my father said that we must wait for him to come home until Bob opens her presents.

At seven o'clock...he still wasn't back from the office .

We had supper.

8 o'clock.

9 o'clock.

10 o'clock.

My mom eventually told her excited six year old that she could open her presents.

At eleven o'clock he returned from Beelzebub's boardroom.

Aggressive, and more antagonistic than usual.

"Where the fuck are the kids ?"

"In bed. they have school tomorrow. We waited. It just got too late".

THUD

It was the sound of my mothers head hitting the wall.

He started laying into her.

"I thought I told you to wait for me...you fucking bitch? "

THUD

Miffy my dog, came running into my room, followed by a hysterical (newly) 6 year old.

Both jumped onto my bed.

Shaking.

The bedroom door was now wide open and we had a clear view into the passage.

I was too frightened to close it and draw attention to us - so we mutely stared at what unfolded before us.

Blood was running down the walls.

My mom had stopped screaming.

I didn't know if she was alive anymore.

I grabbed my sister and dog - and we lay under my bed - huddled closely together.

We could see everything that was happening from this vantage point.

My father had picked up my mother and stated bashing her against the wall again.

I covered my sisters eyes in an embrace.

Mom was limp and lifeless.

Every time her head hit the plaster - it would leave bloodstains - which would trickle down the wall in bizarre little patterns.

I remember those patterns so well.

Eventually he dropped her to the ground, where she lay still,  in a limp ball - and went into the garage, without a further word.

The sound of his revving motor cycle filled the night air.

Loudly.

Once my nine year old mind was convinced that he was sufficiently engrossed in his new activity - we crawled out cautiously from under the bed to go check on mom.

We helped her clean up.

We told her how much we loved her.

It's a bitch to get blood off walls, let me tell you.

Sunshine cleaning ain't easy.

"I can manage, darlings", mom said.

"So to bed, girls - its school tomorrow."

The cacophony from the garage suddenly went silent.

We scampered like mice back into my room - Bob, me and Miffy  - all got back into my little bed.

Bob crying.

Miffy shaking.

And I was on alert.

Waiting.

I hate waiting.

Bomb Scare

Yesterday I was in a bomb scare.

On the way to breakfast with my sister on Saturday morning, we stopped at the chemist so I could quickly fill a prescription.

While the cashier was swipping my bank card - I heard the sound familiar to the sound of the wildebeast running across a plain in the Kruger National Park.

Then I heard a woman scream.

I turned around, and an old lady said , " Get out of the building, dearie, the police are evacuating, there has been a bomb scare!"

I signed my bank invoice, grabbed my prescription and gapped on out of there as fast as I could.

As I got out of the building, I saw the sniffer dogs jump out of the back of a police van.

There is a hospital in this building ?

I got into the car and said to my sister, "Lets get out of here fast, there has been a bomb scare. "

"That hasn't happened in a very long time" , I thought.

What a strange thing to think at a time like that.

What scares me more than the bomb scare is me.

My apathy.

Friday Nights

It was Friday night. 

My father has been invited to friends for a braai.

Which of course just meant that they were going to have a piss up of epic proportions.

My sister and I had both bathed and we got into the back of the car, dressed in yellow matching pajamas – my mom in the front holding a basket with her braai pack and her potato salad. 

And Beelzebub’s Bottle: White Horse Whiskey.

I looked out the window as we drove, in my own little world – as my silence had come to be called.It’s not that I didn’t want to go – I was really happy that I would be seeing the other kids. One of them is still a very best friend of mine today – in fact, a soul sister is a better way to describe our relationship. No, it was that I knew how the evening would pan out.
 

The same way every Friday evening panned out in my 13-year-old universe.
 

Joviality would culminate into a nightmare of epic proportion.
 

I was scared.
 

The kids would all scamper off to play – and the parents would share jokes around the fire, smoking cigarettes and swapping stories about the week gone by.
 

And the whiskey and soda’s were gulped desperately  … and I knew that by about 10pm – the trauma would start.
 

My father would scream for me.
 

Compliant, I would always go.
 

“Get me another drink, you fat bitch,” he would splutter, his obvious inebriation evident in the slurring of his words, and by his condescending and aggressive demeanour.
 

Quite to my surprise, I looked him in the eye and said – “You have had enough."
 

His fury immediately ruptured…”What the fuck did you say?!”  he screamed at me.
 

“Daddy, I am scared to go home with you when you are like this”
 

He lunged toward me.
 

“How dare you speak to me like that in front of my friends?" , he spat.
 

“You had better start running, because tonight I am going to kill you.”
 

I ran.
 

I knew he wasn’t lying.
 

He had killed a part of me almost every night since I could remember.

He got up – went to the kitchen, to get his own drink, of course. 

One of the kids was in the kitchen, and he told him to go find me and tell me, that tonight was the night that I would die.
 

I was no more terrified than usual.
 

I waited.
 

Soon it would be time to go home. I would have no other choice but to to get into my fathers car.
 

And then the next ordeal would begin.
 

It was two o’clock in the morning – my mom, slightly less drunk than my father would finally say :
 

“ Give me the keys Brian.”
 

 And then the shit hit the fan. Drama would erupt as my father, without a words warning,  punched my mom, nearly hitting her to the ground. She got up in silence and wiped the blood from under her nose.
 

“Get into the car, girls.” She would say to my sister and I.
 

Eventually, all packed in the car, we reversed out of their driveway, my mother crying as my father admonished her for calling him drunk.

I was relieved.
 

Maybe this incident would take his mind off killing me tonight.
 

He looked at me in the rear view mirror.
 

Perhaps not.
 

Perhaps I would die a little tonight anyway.
 

If we got home alive.
 

As he swung onto the main road, my mother gave a muffled scream. I looked up into the front and saw the oncoming traffic swerving to miss us. My heart started beating furiously, and I grabbed my 9 year old sisters hand and squeezed it tightly.
 

“Brian “ she cried “please”.
 

He swerved over and abruptly brought the car to a halt on the side of the road and got out, shouting expletives to anyone and everyone.
 

"You think you are so fucking clever, Diane – I’ll walk home”
 

“Please Brian don’t”, she whispered softly to herself.
 

He left, swaggering off into the night.
My mom drove us home in silence.

We got home and went to bed. No one said a word.

I went to fetch my dog Miffy and we got into bed. 
I locked my bedroom door.
 

I narrowly escaped dying tonight.
 

Twice.
 

What a lucky girl I am.

Sometimes Friday night reminds me of those Friday nights.

My 15 year old self

* 1 9 8 5 *

Guerrilla Attacks - Explosion Damages - Mandela rejects Pik Botha’s offer of conditional release - Limpid mines - grenade attacks- twenty-fifth commemoration of the Sharpeville - protesting for the release of Mandela -a leading anti-apartheid newspaper, The Rand Daily Mail ceases publication - explosion rocks - bomb damages - petrol bombs - insurgents raid - Suicide Squad - ROADBLOCK - shootout - Trevor Manuel detained Bill Mentoor necklaced - Ronald Reagan - Israel withdraws from Lebanon- Aids - Mikhail Gorbachev - South Africa ends ban on inter-racial marriages - Famine in Ethiopia.

And all I could think about was bloody Mark de Klerk.

The sounds on my Sony Walkman (my most treasured possession) Smooth Operator - Relax - Careless Whisper -Take On Me, You Spin Me and of course Madonna– drowning out the screams of the world around me.

I actually looked forward to watching Dallas (Yes, I was totally committed to get to the bottom of who shot JR) The Facts of Life, Moonlighting, Dr Belvedere, the Gummy Bears, The Golden Girls, Growing Pains, MacGyver, The Thundercats, Magnum PI.

Don’t you sometimes miss your 15 year old self ?
The days when things grossed you out or where seriously up the pole. The delight at the A-Ha video, which was, by far, together with the BETAMAX, the pinnacle of modern technology.

I coveted a sodastream, for godsake. How delightful.

My 15 year old self.

I miss her sometimes.

I wish I could tell her that she wasn't fat.


She was going to be OK.

That she should not spend so much time worrying about boys, because she was gay anyway.

That she shouldn't try so hard with the girls that didn't want to be her friend - because actually - they were genuinely not worth it. That the only reason she never connected with them, was because they are truly from a different planet to her.

That she must stop letting her nose bug her so much, that I would sort it out as soon as possible - and that while she felt ugly and fat - she would be asked to model for magazines when she grew up.

She wouldn't have believed me - she would have thought that I didn't understand her.

That the boy standing on her right - would be her friend for life. And she would still be hanging out with him when they were 40 years old.

If she were to know this , I wonder if it would have made any difference to her ?

What kind of world do you want ?

Got a package full of Wishes
A Time machine, a Magic Wand
A Globe made out of Gold

No Instructions or Commandments
Laws of Gravity or
Indecisions to uphold

Printed on the box I see
A.C.M.E.'s Build-a-World-to-be
Take a chance - Grab a piece
Help me to believe it

What kind of world do you want?
Think Anything
Let's start at the start
Build a masterpiece
Be careful what you wish for
History starts now...

Should there be people or peoples
Money, Funny pedestals for Fools who never pay
Raise your Army - Choose your Steeple
Don't be shy, the satellites can look the other way

Lose the Earthquakes - Keep the Faults
Fill the oceans without the salt
Let every Man own his own Hand
Can you dig it baby

What kind of world do you want
Think Anything
Let's start at the start
Build a masterpiece
Be careful what you wish for
History starts now...

Sunlight's on the Bridge
Sunlight's on the Way
Tomorrow's Calling

There's more to this than Love

What Kind of world do you want
What Kind of world do you want

What Kind of world do you want
Think Anything
Let's start at the start
Build a masterpiece

History Starts Now

Be careful what you wish for
Start Now

Five for fighting - World

QUARTERLY REPORT

I have had, to say the least, the most interesting quarter.

I resigned from my job on the 29 January 2010 - after having been of service to the company I worked for for nearly six years.

I worked hard - be under no delusion - but - it was - to all intents and purposes, a gravy train opportunity - with very high pay to buy allegiance to a very fucked up organisational culture, driven by greed, crack cocaine and ego.

People were flabbergasted at my choice - just suck it up - it's a shit load of money.

Well, for those that know me -I do not suck anything up.

So it has been 4 months since I packed up my lucrative career, and hence my quarterly report.

I have still not found full time employ.

Whether that has anything to do with the charming letter my ex CEO sent out, implicating that I was fired - I will never know.

That is no longer of any concern to me.

What is of concern to me is the following :

1. My friend Eleanor, has given me EVERY short term assignment that has come her way. In addition to this - she has given me a computer and internet until I find my feet.

2. My friends, Alex,Amanda, Isme, Barbara,Glenda, Craig, Eleanor and my sister - have invited me for meals over this period, nourishing me with love and compassion.

3.My good friend and hairdresser Karen has come to my house, every week, to blow & /or trim my hair - and will not accept a dime in return, because she believes in the concept of paying it forward - and that it is now her chance to pay it forward to me. Her boss allowed Karen to colour my hair in return for designing a party invite for her.

4. My sister - knowing how pedantic I am about what I feed my dogs - has presented me with a bag of dog food for the month.(Yes, the good stuff)

5. My friend, Craig (an amazing attorney) has written emails to my previous employer - always offering pro-bono - to protect my name and my soul, because he cares about me.

6. My amazing girlfriend, Ali, before she left for a working vacation in New York - ensured that I was fully stocked on all the things I needed in the house. She also asked her friend, to contact me with regards a part-time business opportunity - which I am working on now - and LOVING !! (Plus it covers my bond repayment)

7. Even my previous boss and COO brought me a months supply of groceries to ensure I was ok this month.

8. My ex girlfriend, Adri, organised a HUGE discount for the operation my dachshund, Sprite needed over this period. My sister contributed significantly to this medical cost too.

9. My friend Monique phoned me everyday - came over every other day - did Reiki on me - loved me, fed me, healed me.

10. My friend Lebo came and brought drinks one afternoon - and just was kind and dear and held my soul.

11. My friend R, came to my house, every fortnight, to help me maintain my garden and home. And would not accept ONE cent. His reason. Love. He still does this.

12. My friend Fiona, tried to help me find a job.

13. My friend Isme, typed stuff for me and visited me and had me over for dinner.

14. My friend Alex comes over and fixes all my things that have broken, from light fixtures to lawnmower - and shown me how to angle grind - with patience :-)

15. My mother has been special in so many wonderful kind ways.

16. My loved ones always offer to call me back on my phone - cause they know I am counting pennies right now. Even my maid :-)

17. My friend Tarryne has sent me endless mails on useful information to assist my journey.

18. My dogs - shower me with love every day - but like shitloads of it.

So, to summarise, my quarterly report is this :

While I am fully cognisant of how hard life can be - and how SHITTY human beings can be - I tell you this : The world has some amazing souls.

If you ever doubt that. Read this story again.

It's the ultimate proof of beauty. And yes - I do live on the planet earth.

A testimonial to hope.

The death of Integrity

Integrity is a value system.It means you stick to your personal code of conduct. You stick to what you decide is right and wrong.

When you live with integrity, you are open and honest.When you have good integrity you have no reason to lie.

You can look at yourself in the mirror.

You have nothing to hide.

Integrity as a concept has to do with consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations and outcomes.

People use integrity as a holistic concept to achieve their own goals (if any).

As such, one may judge that others "have integrity" to the extent that one judges whether they behave according to the values, beliefs and principles they claim to hold.

What happened to this currency ?

It saddens me to announce - that integrity is so rare - you might say it has gone insolvent.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ?