12/10/03

this entry was intended to be more of an outline, as i'm pressed for time, and inclination too. i haven't had much opportunity to get online this week (she's REALLY not impressed), and i've been totally drained to boot.

*** 7th ***

woke up feeling slightly better, and had a chilled cup of coffee with my mom at her work. i had a slow drive back to sea point - my goggles ROCK (MGR from now on). parked the car outside, and on my way in had an american beauty scene as the wind was coming up.

i needed to get my israeli keys cut, in order to give my niece a copy. i couldn't find them ANYWHERE, and my second mom and i pretty much ransacked the apartment in a desperate search for them. we searched, and re-searched THREE times, and i know we didn't miss a thing, before giving up. i even phoned anyone i could think of who i may have left them with accidentally.

i went to cavendish, and met up with dirk diggler. he organized me a battery for the cellphone, which cost R80. talk about being connected. also, the battery has a little blue torch on the underside, for those moments when you use your cellphone as a mini-torch in the dark.
beat that.

i got a call on cellucity's land line, from my mom, informing me that my second mom had found the keys. in a place where we'd both already looked...

we went to mugg 'n bean. in light of firstfallen and synkronos' experience, i was extremely explicit with the waiter about the amount of time he'd take serving us. i think he set some kind of record. dirk diggler and i talked for a while, and he gave the waiter a R20 tip. stupid bastard, shoulda given ME the money.

i then rushed off to sea point (i was late, having to take my niece to the airport). so much for the rush - i made it just in time to witness the beginning of the invasion of the retarded monkey drivers.
i got home eventually, picked up the keys, told my niece to be ready in ten minutes, and rushed off to get the keys cut.

i parked really impressively on regent rd, ran to the key cutters, and after five minutes of hanging around, was told that they couldn't cut the keys, and would have to go to the place in adelphi centre.
so i legged it back to the car, screamed off to the centre, where i had to park around back. so i RAN to the place, was informed that nobody in south africa can cut an israeli key (WTF?!), and so i ran back to the car, only slightly pissed off, and flew back home.

to discover that my niece hadn't finished packing.

we had a long argument about being in a hurry, and so on, which didn't help. eventually, we managed to get on the road, without too many tears.

we arrived at the airport, got a parking, and a really cute tourist ride to the terminal. the check-in went smoothly, and then my niece and i sat down and had a "talk". about respect, and obligations, and other facts of life. i hope my kids won't be this difficult.
but it seemed to go smoothly.

my sister arrived just at the tail end of the conversation, and there was much frantic scribbling of important names and phone numbers, before the long goodbye (snot, trane, maar sonder videotape).

drove back home, saw someone i hadn't seen in YEARS (she was our maid when i was a teenager), and had a really arb conversation with her.

i had a quick lunch, and had a well-timed drive to milnerton. MGR. some guy pulled up beside me as i was going off to rage against the machine, with my goggles on. he burst out laughing, and we were driving alongside each other for most of the way. every time he saw me he got the giggles.

when i got there i had to go shopping for something to drink, and i saw a tabloid with a picture of cameron diaz and justin timberlake. now, i can totally understand demi moore going for ashton wossname, but #@%$ing justin timberlake SUCKS ASS! life isn't fair.

driving towards the mountain on the way home, i was enthralled by the cloud covering it. so very pretty.

i played my nephew tekken, i with the broken control, and i still kicked his ass - he must have just been getting lucky during the tournament.

i was forced to watch smallville, which i despise (it's so NOT superman), and then my other niece got really unpleasant, so i left.
i had a salady supper, and some munchies, and watched some tv.

a friend of my mom's came over, and then my sister as well. i went with her to her apartment, where we talked about our israeli experiences. she had a really kak one, and while talking about mine, i realized i've had some really shit things happen to me too (shitty flatmates, and getting screwed by my partners for around NIS 200,000).
she got a phone call, i was exhausted, so i went back home to bed.

*** 8th ***

i drove my mom to work, had a cup of coffee, and filled out the application forms for an idc scholarship. i then had a pleasant system of a down drive back to sea point, where i stopped in at tkd to drop off some papers, and talk to the guys (and explain why i wasn't training, my back was / is still screwed).

i went home, had a shower, and then went off to uct. MGR, i got some funny looks when i got on the jammie.
first stop was moonflake's office, where she was doing some rediculously complex (for us mere mortals) astronomical problem, and i read my book (terry goodkind - wizard's first rule) until she was ready. we got us some brunch, and moved off to sharpe and campey's office. i introduced them to xkobo (really good game - wkobo for windows), and we watched sharpe fail abysmally with a bride-building simulation.

back in freedom square, we ran into sexual-frustration man and a few other CLAWmembers i hadn't seen in years, and we spent a couple of hours catching up, and talking other crap. i started itching for taekwondo (four days without training). i introduced some more people to my goggles. MGR.
one of the guys brought some subtance that combusts with any organic matter, which proved quite interesting.

at one point, a really beautiful black girl walked past. she was wearing a tight green tank top, and white pants (both of which suited her), but her pink boxers were sticking out. FASHION POLICE!!

i found moonflake in her office, and we went off to take the jammie to my car. in the queue we got into a group discussion about fashion, like pointy shoes and other evils, which was quite entertaining.
and i discovered that one of sandman's friends is gay. she's really cute, and i suppose it wasn't so unbelievable, but i was surprised anyway. and a little disappointed too, i might add... :)

off we were to milnerton, but my mom was out, so we amused ourselves with loud music and much head-banging, and then went into the centre for some bottomless coffee and hot beef (on rye).
and i got a lecture on cooking, which was interesting, but it remains to be seen whether any of it will stick in my mind.
the hot beef. yes, we sucked down on the hot beef, almost inducing my gag-reflex, with me dribbling bits all over the table.
can't they just make it so you can actually bite through the damn stuff? it was very good, all the same.

my mom came back, and then dropped us off at shadowslight's, for an attempt at catching up on the monday night tv madness which we missed on monday.

we watched undeclared, citizen baines, and a bit of friends, before my mom came past and i had to take her to sea point in order to get the car for the night.

moonflake and i then went through to her place so she could get some warm clothes, and she showed me her stylised version of zenstar's finger-pose.
damn impressive, that is.
we went off to obs. too early for the firedancing, we took a look in at a second-hand bookstore, and i found a beautiful, leather-bound collection of rudyard kipling's major works, for R90, in great condition.
we went to this little chinese place for take-out (i had the pork chop-suey), and we walked through obs, with a warm wind, eating out of styrofoam cups using chopsticks. a perfectly cape-town moment.
the firedancing was too cool! i saw a few people i hadn't seen in a long, long time, and my buddies are a hell of a lot better than i expected - they really know what they're doing! i was just a tad annoyed though, 'cause i didn't have a camera with me.
i dropped moonflake off at home, and then returned to shadowslight's, where we watched ed (which gets better every episode), played a good game of munchkin (less is more, so i win again!), and he helped me put my email on cd (before our server gets cleared). by the time i got home, and got to sleep, it was about 3am...

*** 9th ***

i awoke at 07.30 (as usual), and did the standard drive to drop my mum off. i went to taekwondo - it was my first training since i screwed up my back, but it was just forms, so relatively relaxed and not too damaging.
plus i NEEDED to do something physical.

i got a call right after training, from aeroplane, and rushed home to grab a towel and camera, and made my merry (yet slow, behind-crappy-drivers) way to clifton 4th. there was parking right outside, which never happens for me. i got down to the beach, and it was very, very pretty.
also, very, very empty.

as i hadn't showered, i went for a dip in the ocean, which wasn't NEARLY as cold as usual. and the water was all blue and stuff, too.

i arbed around with aeroplane and a friend of his (ours?) on the beach until around 2 / 3pm. we played with a mini-american football, and stared at some gorgeous woman (must have been a model), and talked crap for a while.
MGR. some guys walked past, staring at me, and told me they were admiring my "visor". also, i discovered that the lenses are as good as advertised: really comfortable, even when looking almost directly into the sun, and you can still see all details around you. NICE.

when we left, we agreed to meet at the kfc in sea point. i had the streetwise two - big deal combo, which consists of a roll, two pieces of chicken, chips, and a coke, all for R19.90 (NIS 14). and it was GOOD.
i had a crumby observation, though - i think it was moonflake who'd commented on the stuff between the crumbed layer, and the actual chicken. it's all gooey and gross, and that's what makes kfc taste the way it does. it just looks SO unhealthy.

we all followed up with coffee at erte, and then went across the road to the new tattoo parlour to check out their artwork. some nice stuff, but mostly quite arbitrary and lacking coolness.

we split up, i went to obs to buy the book. very freakin' cool book. and me 'n my goggles (MGR) fit into obs perfectly.

i then went to milnerton to pick up my mom. i was still a bit damp, and covered in sand... i was a bit tired (too much sun), so i had something to drink and read a bit from wizard's first rule. i passed out while reading it. i woke myself up by sliding off the chair, and managed to arrange myself with my head on the desk.
five minutes later my mom made me get up so we could go home.

i started waking up in the car, and we were almost home when i saw two of the girls from our tkd class walking to training. and i thought, "i have no reason not to go right now". so my mom waited outside while i ran up to our apartment, grabbed my gear, and ran down again, and then dropped me off with time to spare.

i have my own groupies! some very sweet girls, we talked for a bit before the lesson began. the lesson itself was similar to the morning session, so once again i practiced the forms, and tried to help the others.

i got home, went downstairs to say happy birthday to my sister (44!), and then returned upstairs for an absolutely wonderful, much needed, long, hot shower.

everything feels better after exercise.

i got out the shower at 20.15. i had to pick up my cousin from rondebosch at 20.30.
figures.
i almost made it in time, though. drove her to constantia / tokia / wherever, which wasn't a hassle at all.

after dropping her off, i went through to shadowslight's, for "mists of avalon". i think i got there about an hour or so into the movie, so i hadn't missed much. that IS a long movie.
i got in just when all the weird shit started happening, and the guys were MST3King it to shit. hell, after a minute or too, even i joined in - this is one movie that just begs for it! so we had lots of fun, even though it was about two hours too long.

we then played a munchkin game from hell. i was wasted (although, quite frankly, i'm always wasted), and it went on, and on, and on. there were some great moments, but i was so tired i can't even remember them.

i got home, having missed supper, to an urgent slab of cottage pie, a pear, and some guava juice. we don't get guavas in israel. that sucks.

*** 10th ***

i missed tkd, in the morning, as i was woken around 10.30 by a call from protoplasm who'd gotten the whole day off. he arrived around 11.30, and we went off to erte for milkshakes.
he's driving a standard nissan bakkie. #@$% me, that thing can TURN! apparently something to do with no lock on the steering column, but that thing turns like it could rotate on a pinhead. i was shocked and awed.

the milkshakes were great.

we then went off to town. parked in bo-kaap, and took a walk to rugged vinyl. on the way, we walked past a subaru impreza for sale. stunning vehicle, really sleek and sexy, and all hooked up with rockford-fosgate and so on.
aaaaaand not too expensive.

the visit to rugged vinyl didn't last very long. the dj i'd gone to see wasn't in, and the other one was busy teaching some guy to spin. so i got some contact details for shippers (wanna bring some real shit to israel), and got outta there.

on the way back, we stopped in at bloomsbury's. i had to take care not to slobber all over their shiny, silver lamborghini diablo vt, for R1,450,000. convert that to dollars, bitch.
i reckon if i owned that vehicle i'd spend half my time just sitting and staring at it in my garage (with floodlights, obviously). the thing is, it's all a question of style. lamborghini have it, in quantities no one else can touch.
that's all there is to it.

we headed off to milnerton, to swap cars, and my mom showed us the developed prints from my camera. two of the sunset photo's are so beautiful - i'm so proud.
we then took the car, and moved on out to access park.

i like access park. the shop we went to was a bit confusing - their fitting room is a curtain around the door for the toilet. so when the attendant pointed at the door, i thought she meant inside, and the last thing i wanted was to change in some dodgy as hell toilet.
i found the pants i've been looking for. seriously styling, pockets for africa, and in orange and blue.
my favourite.
and for only R75 per pair. another reason to stay in this city.

we had massala steak sandwiches for lunch, and then headed off to a friend's (one of the fellow firedancers, a guy who came with to the party two weeks ago).
now, it has to be said that cape town has produced some of the laziest people on the planet (lazy, chilled, same difference). but when people here set their minds to something, they do it properly. two cases in point: one, the firedancing. i mean, these guys decided it was cool, and they've become really, really good at it. two, music. they started fooling around with software like fruity loops and reason, and the music they're producing now is getting to professional quality. i am way impressed.
the two of them jammed for a while, i had some coffee, and we then returned to milnerton, where we said goodbye.

the sunset was incredible - but no camera. oh, pooh.

on the way home, while waiting for my mom, i took off my shoes and put my feet up on the dashboard. my feet were just a little warmer than the glass, and i spent a good ten minutes making little patterns on the window. funny how one's mind can so totally become absorbed in something so meaningless.

went to pick 'n pay, and ran into some guys i haven't seen since high school days. traded numbers, then had to run off to check out. my mum can be most impatient.

got home, started writing this log. i spent about an hour on it, and got nowhere, which says something about my state of mind...

we went to cousins for supper, which was quite pleasant, and the food was good. i was tired when i got there, however, and most of the evening was as if in a dream.

*** yesterday ***

i got to bed around 1am. i woke up at 06.15. i don't know why. i left the apartment at 07.10, and picked up moonflake and firstfallen around 07.30. the drive to paarl took around an hour, and i was driving at an average of 160km/h. it was very, very pretty - as we came down one of the hills, we had an excellent view of a valley swirling with mist and rays of sunshine... quite magical.

we got to the training facility at 08.30, said hi, took a two-minute tour, and then went back to the main road for a quick bite to eat.
to a place called "trust cafe". bit of a let-down. moonflake rated the pie as a dysmal failure, but firstfallen's sandwich made the car smell of toasted breakfasty goodness - pity i was about to train, so i couldn't eat anything.

training was gruelling. two months ago, when i got here, i wouldn't have been able to handle that first five minutes, but now i made it through pretty much the whole training. i damaged a finger during warm-ups, but that was about it. we trained so hard that i felt quite sick afterwards, and there were all sorts of goodies to eat in honor of one of the guys' birthday. a pity, because i couldn't even bring myself to LOOK at the food.

the drive home was quite uneventful. loads of retarded monkeys, but that's the "civilised" world for you. one of the better moments, for me, was driving with two girls in the car, all three of us singing along to nine inch nails - closer. this is a wonderful world we live in.
it only served to remind me, however, that i'm slightly deviant, and she's not at all. there has to be some kind of middle ground.

dropped the girls off, then went home for a shower and a nap. i could barely move, so the nap part wasn't by choice.

my mom and i went to my aunt's place for coffee, which was pleasant. on our way out, i took a bunch of photo's of table mountain and lion's head by sunset, which was fading from light blue to red and purple. the strange thing is when we got to sea point side, the colours had gone and everything was blue. eh?

did some quick shopping, bought really cheap film (three rolls of kodak gold with 36 exposures: R60), and then my mom went home i went to firstfallen's.

mmmm. sushi. there were seven of us, and the entire meal cost about R150. and it was GOOD sushi. and, i have to admit, i have never eaten that much sushi in one sitting.

afterwards, panda made us some coffee, and then moonflake, firstfallen and i went to gandalf's.
gandalf's was empty. arad joined us at some point, but the music wasn't really inspiring and moonflake and i needed an early night, so we left around 11pm.

*** today ***

i got home, and immediately started working on these logs. she sent me an sms to tell me that she's upset with me for not calling, but when i called her, her phone was off, so i had to leave a message.
hmmph. figures.

i'm really exhausted. and i gotta be up early in the morning, so i'm just going to post this, and then fall asleep.