reintroductions

thursday 10th:

the cost of uber would have been totally worth the hour and a half i ended up waiting for my mother to pick me up, then drop herself off and send me over kloofnek into the setting sun for my first drive in a year

walking in on mr smear putting on a show for my niece (the first cousin he's met), feeling down but a drink and a visit from shadowslight doing me good, finally getting gd's phone backed up (hating android like crazy)

friday 11th:

two night wakings that took forever to recover from, a rushed morning, nothing vegan at gardens centre, getting my neck sunburned on the short walk to pick up the car

you know you're in cape town when you're going over de waal drive in a rattling four speed citi golf that's older than the idea of power steering

grabbing great coffee instead of walking in halfway through the first talk, an excellent second talk but somewhat distracted by trouble at home; just getting interested in the third before having to rush out for an urgent phone call

"vegan no cheese" means they still don't understand what the word means; at least i didn't have to scrape anything off, and i did get the last XL conference shirt

properly passing out to the low drowsy monotone and waking with a start and the hope that i hadn't been snoring

a great last talk, the end of the complementary coffee from vida, a pleasant drive home, big shopping at checkers and major dischem disappointment: they had good hair products, but a terrible supplement selection and buying b12 and vegan d3 online turned out to be a nightmare

farm visit surprise generating discomfort

saturday 12th:

an inexplicably unhappy night

banking: why did gd sign papers for a joint account if they don't do joint accounts?

train station cellphone hacking part i: "no, it's fine" is not the response i expected when asking for a receipt

introducing gd to truth coffee

train station cellphone hacking part ii: no, the usb port does not need to be repaired, you just wasted an hour trying to swindle me

a sore and angry little boy sitting in his poop and screaming while we were stuck in traffic

train station cellphone hacking part iii: of course it was going to take another twenty to thirty minutes. and of course they were at a point where disconnecting the phone would brick it

new york bagels: the queer guy overusing my name after he overheard it was beginning to get irritating, but the beetroot, ginger and carrot juice was as amazing as the humus and grilled vegetables bagel (montreal bagels can't touch these)

train station cellphone hacking part iv: rescued by my very angry mother, these slimy fuckers had gd's phone hostage and when we eventually got her phone back i found out that they were planning to continue to dick us around for at least another hour.
new policy: never dealing with indians or pakistanis again if i can help it. it's a culture of liars, which i learned before when i was travelling india*, and i don't know how to deal with that level of shameless dishonesty

* they're the only people in the world who have managed to make me racist; partly because of the dishonesty but primarily because they are themselves the most overtly racist people on the planet (in my experience, at least) and are only too happy to take advantage of cultural differences

our first time alone since we arrived followed by an evening of call-a-pizza with friends that stretched into the morning

sunday 13th:

slow day, apparently getting over the jet lag, learning just how badly nedbank stuffed us around (we'll be moving our custom elsewhere as soon as possible), learning about MVNOs, an appreciated call from my cousin about his wedding, introducing mr smear to another cousin, a 7-11 experience and discovering that there's a decadently delicious dark chocolate tv bar, dirty hands and ginger beer and jelly tots and yet another waterfront mission

from pleasant to unpleasant in one easy step, then unpleasant to confusing to revelatory

monday 14th:

sleepless night followed by an 8.30am bank mission that left me feeling somewhat satisfied but still deeply distrustful

surprise stop streets on ocean view drive

a pretty good day in the office, effectively working on my own stuff, walking out into a beautiful late afternoon then getting stuck behind traffic that took me ten minutes of going nowhere to understand that i didn't need to be behind

parking behind a smartcar at all the wrong angles, a walk along the promenade, big shopping, mr smear meeting his great great aunt, two of us too tired to eat dinner

tuesday 15th:

a better night, a rough start but a pretty decent day (confusing the office manager's stand-in)

the big chunk at the bottom of the notably small "large" rice milk smoothie that i suspect wasn't rice milk (it felt like yoghurt)

heavy winds on the way home through town, meeting my brother-in-law's (daughter?), the rush to the waterfront to find that all the major stores are competing to sell the ugliest shoes and they're all losing (another guy with the same problem), actually buying crocs for the wedding (did *you* know they make pretty decent formal-wear?), R1000 to R500 to R400 and sold! one plain white button shirt

the babies-don't-go-to-weddings stress explosion

playing with me&you mobile and being rather impressed overall, spending an inordinate amount of time discovering just how messed up samsung and android are - i backed everything up before unlocking gd's phone but now the backups are incompatible. also, two of our gmail accounts are locked because we didn't update our phone numbers in time

wednesday 16th:

not a bad night, a fairly smooth morning managing bank accounts

the shame of having caused a company-wide network outage due to incorrect dropbox settings

the long, unproductive morning followed by an obz meal mission; jerry's chickpea burger is a serious, serious burger and watching cricket or staring out the door at the lack of wifi was quite a nice experience

aircon fixit, end of the day scope reevaluation

gorgeous promenade stroll, observing aged drama at the checkout

our own drama, mr smear's phenomenal development, his refusal to go to bed

thursday 17th:

a long and difficult night, failing to sleep late, gearing up for the department of home affairs, truth coffee not allowed in, the greeter sending us to wait in the wrong queue, another wait only to have the validity of my citizenship called into question

stress turning into despair

awkward pre-wedding drinks

chasing a badly driven porsche through unknown streets in the CBD

a beautiful wedding, a very chilled mr smear and a lot of love from all around

parenting 101: always keep ear protection in the ready bag, you never know when "cocktails" will turn into club volume disco

locked out of the parking, an angry mr smear

friday 18th:

a chilly, foggy morning
a quick and pleasant chat with a recruiter
a fun shared ride with the physics student
family values, company values and presenting scaleconf
a big, suspiciously eggy lunch with the B.I. guy

a beer just as i pushed a decent version of the code i've been working on, some team fluxx, and hitting heavy traffic in a shitty car for the second day in a row

skipping the post-wedding dinner to take care of gd and mr smear, correctly handling an anti-vegan troll, dropping $40 on regaining access to our google accounts, successfully introducing gd to adventure time

saturday 19th:

very little sleep due to an unhappy mr smear, but some interesting dreams nonetheless

the 7am car move: waiting a minute to warm up the engine just to drive for half that time

the joint couch nap in the middle of the cleaning operation, my sister's visit and filling out forms at the discovery store

some time with a cousin, comparing nutrition notes and ordering a nutribullet

a long evening trying to relax and failing, mr smear being wholly uninterested in going to bed

sunday 20th:

a nightmare night with mr smear in pain and throwing up at every attempt to give him something for it; guilt + stress = blame

a relatively easy sunday morning, inspiration to address my brother and my mom's cough taking a nasty turn