touching cape town

monday:

relatively smooth check-in and security, the wrong choice of shoes making it offensive to take them off

tuesday:

the worst take-off and flight ever, everything plus hormones, back and neck pain, metal boxes in lieu of legroom, seat dividers that don't raise and inconsiderate leaners; general discomfort, no vegan meal, reading myself to sleep and waking up a short while later holding a giant book, gd's bag on my lap, dry lips, airplane gas and rls.

when 4am becomes 9am 

a landing so bad that *i* felt sick, and gd was feeling nauseous from the get-go

well, i promised gd i would find her a place to rest and it was my bright idea to pack our jackets and nobody informed the unhappy pregnant couple that there's a "slow lounge", so we were in london, i dropped a large chunk of our rent money for next month on a hotel room next to the airport and we weren't going anywhere until our flight boarded.

an expensive, but incredibly good sleep, an utterly ridiculously expensive lunch that gd couldn't get down, a return to bed for another while

meeting my niece for coffee, rushing through security and the elevators and train to make our gate just in time; seat rearrangements,

wednesday:

nausea from a to b with and without the overpowering smells, nothing remotely vegetarian (for me), exhaustion giving me daddy practice and scoring gd a few hours' upgrade... sore necks and general discomfort, but a couple of emotional daddy-club moments. not getting any of my reading or gaming done.

super-fast airport clearing, which could have been even faster. a great start to our visit, emotional chicken, resting, my sister and her son and pool talk and my uncle and a walk and AMAZING postacino pizza and gd's appetite returning

thursday:

great sleep, ice-cold canadian, beautiful slow morning, mr price is right, a long i-told-you-to-put-on-sunscreen sunny walk with great lunch and ice cream and a super awkward "black like me" followed by my super-wrong not-witty-at-all response

picking up the car, picking up the girl and her new dress

my sister's big mouth to the rescue, good vibes all around, resting

the sunset drive, a raucously great, long night with gd in her new onesie and protoplasm (our boy's godfather) and his girlfriend and my mom

friday:

late to bed, late to rise

a day of passover preparations

some great fun and positivity followed by some real negativity in the form of my aunt

absolute exhaustion

a reply from k-twang: i was sorry before, with reservations, but now i'm completely sorry and grateful for his clarifications. i have learned a lesson in the ugliest way.

in spite of all that, a wonderful seder and gd receiving a warm welcome into our fold. a good walk after everyone left.

yesterday:

a draft response, straight to bed

waking up from a dream about being a campus failure, getting involved when two thugs tried to terrorize the students.

...

ugly start to the day thinking about the boar at the beginning of princess mononoke, bringing bread into the passover home and gd distraction

shadowslight visit and meeting airplane for a great long lunch at van hunks

totally wasted, the pasta dilemma; big route disappointment and returning to the pizzaria restaurant which was excellent; gd's all-in on (most of) my family and on cape town in general

finally sending k-twang a response, leaving out the following:

i must admit that i'm grateful to hear your side in all this. regarding my knowledge of your plans, i wasn't planning on officiating at your wedding without being registered as an official authority and we clearly had a misunderstanding about that. i'm not old-fashioned, and i couldn't give a rat's ass if you're actually married or not as long as you love each other but to my mind a "wedding" is about celebrating the official moment and i felt - rightly or wrongly - very strongly about it being celebrated along with or even after the fact. it may not be of much consequence to you that i'm conflicted about that after what you've written, i do see where you're coming from even if i feel that things could've / should've been represented differently somehow.

this morning:

i'm not reposting pictures of the kenya attack, they're simply horrific. what was the victims' crime in this case? where's the noise? if i haven't seen any outrage on my feeds, i call "hypocrisy". or "cowardice".