Recession!!!

Now I know we’re in a recession….

Nestlé is now producing a ONE-FINGER kit-kat.

One Fingered Kit Kat

DAMN!  How is ONE-FINGER supposed to give me “a break?”

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Six degrees and 30 Somethings

I was at a dinner party/birthday braai event last night. I was surprised to be called by a friend that I’ve known for 13 years to come over to her new house for a braai. Initial surprise later made way for thought about ulterior motives and I slightly suspicious about the call out of the blue. (It’s quite complicated, her family links were aiming to procure my services for a venture they were undertaking, and I thought that this may have had something to do with it.) But I quite happily discovered that no-one talked business at all, and it was really just a bunch of 30-somethings having a nice social evening.

I usually love these things, cos I meet people whom I would ordinarily not have met, and yesterday was no exception. There were two couples, married with 1 child each, and then two single guys, and two single ladies.
Did someone say set-up? But actually it wasn’t like this at all and she is not that type of person anyways.

What was unnerving though was that I had to watch my tongue all evening, to prevent divulging too much info about myself and getting myself into some serious kaka. See, one of the single ladies, turned out to have met me many years ago, (I didn’t remember), but worse than this is, I used to date her sister. She didn’t know this, because she had been abroad for a good few years. And I only realised they were sisters halfway through dinner when she mentioned where her parents live and what her last name was. So there I was all evening, like, biting my tongue!

I so much wanted to tell my friend “….uhm….you know your friend from so-and-so, well you know, uhm, I used to date her sister. And then I stopped dating her, because well, I didn’t really see it going anywhere, and well, frankly, the driving the 1 hour to get there, uhm, seemed like too much effort.”

I’m not sure that would’ve gone down very well.

Then the conversation turned to Facebook. Apparently no self-respecting 30-something uses facebook mobile. Or updates status on Facebook. And Facebook is for voyeurs and exhibitionist, BUT, it’s a great tool for reconnecting with people. And did you hear about the guy that divorced his wife, because he found his ex-girlfriend on facebook?

I also discovered there were 30 somethings that had never heard of Wikipedia. Can you imagine that Nooj?

POSTSCRIPT!

OMW!!!!…..I just discovered she (the sister) got married 8 months ago……facebook pics and everything!

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Hideaways.

Hideaways are not supposed to be public knowledge, but I’ll let you guys in on a secret. My hideaway is in the botanical gardens. That’s the picture in the header. One of my favourite places in the city, a garden that I enjoy, but don’t have to maintain myself! I’ve been enamoured by the place ever since childhood. I once even got lost in on one of the pathways.

Getting lost is easy for me. I do it all the time. As I was explaining to a fellow blogger once, who herself seemed slightly directionless, the problem comes because I have to think about which side is left and which side is right. It’s not a natural instinct. The way I do it is, I know that I wear my wristwatch on my left hand and so therefore the side with my watch is left. In my work it causes a bit of disorientation though during annotation of clinical findings, since my left is the patients right, (if the patient was facing me). I knew it was such a problem for me, so when I had to operate on a certain limb of a patient, I would use a thick felt marker and write on the other “Not this Leg”. That’s how escaped lawsuits.

But getting back to lost, I get lost so easily, when I visited a friend who lives in a security village I got lost inside the village. 3 times. It was only on the 4th visit that I found their house without them having to look for me. So on my recent trip to a city I had only ever been to as a child, I was glad to be able to get a Garmin.

Of course none of that helps if all the streetnames have changed. Or if the city just happens to have more slip-lanes than any other South African city, so if the Garmin says turn left in 20 metres, it neglects to say that you should have entered the slip lane 50 metres back. Thanks Garmin.

How about finding the Marine Parade Holiday In Hotel? I had to pick up my colleague there. The Garmin said there were three Marine Parade Holiday Inns. Or how about finding UKZN Howards College? Yep. Prepare to drive around in circles, Garmin or no Garmin.

Oddly enough, getting lost has a certain sense of freedom to it. As soon as I had returned home, part of me wanted to be back there. A beeg thank you to everyone who helped me feel welcome there, and who introduced me the “lindt hot chocolate place”.

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