The Incredible Journey - 17 June, 1994

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1994, I did what most white South Africans my age saw as a right of passage. I went on a tour of Europe with a schoolfriend and her girlfriend. I was in my early 20's.

These are the letters and faxes (this was before everyone had email, Children) I sent home. They are all real. I couldn't make this shit up.

The trip started in January 1994. To read the posts in order, go the Itinerary Post.

17 June - Toulouse

Arranged to see the rugby with one of the guys in Alexandre's troupe so I went to his place.  We ate cherries while watching - different to the normal braai with rugby.  He was very sweet.

Listened to an interview on the radio with Alex about her show.

On Sunday I took the train out of town and was met by my Tante D - Oncle R's ex-wife.  Had lunch with her and her new husband and my cousin Cedric, who barely spoke to me.  

Tante D and Oncle R are very childish and when I called Oncle R to pick me up he said he would not drive into her yard.  I told him he could park at the bottom of the drive and hoot but he wasn't having it.  Eventually Tante D said she would take me to his house and we got lost and spent 30 minutes getting me to a place 10 minutes away.  

She kept saying to me: "Do you know which way from here?"  

A rather stupid question of a foreign family member, I thought.

18 June - Toulouse

Alex said I could get a lift back to England with her boyfriend and his friend who were taking their act to Glastonbury.  I had to meet them at the chateau where they were rehearsing.

So I was going there from Oncle R's house.  I went to the train station with Oncle R and the train was late.  I was majorly tense because I had only 20 mins to change between the train and the bus.  When I got to Toulouse I had to run to the bus station next door and I just made the bus by the skin of my teeth.

Eventually got to the chateau, which seems to be a big artist/loser community.  People were not very friendly.  I got funny looks when I said I was from South Africa.  

I had a look around the chateau and found a loft filled with sculptures.  Amazing except I had to tread carefully to avoid falling through the rotted wooden floor.

There was also an old courtyard which still had an amazing old carriage in it.   All overgrown so I had to stamp the ground furiously before going in to scare off any snakes.  

I also found some rooms just left to rot, with paintings falling apart on the walls.  

It was sad to see what had once been a beautiful chateau falling apart.  It was basically a squat.  

I just wanted to get going.  I was sick of France and stressed because I still had to find somewhere to stay when I got to London.

Someone was working on the old bus which they have kitted out with beds, etc. because  It wouldn't start.  I was planning to get off the bus at Dover because they are not going to London itself.  

Eventually someone got the bus running and we left at 11pm.  The crew was me, Alexandre, her boyfriend, Vincent, and his partner in the act, George.

19 June - En route to England

Slept late.  We drove through the night.

We got to their friends at Le Mans at 11am.  We had lunch - again a fabulous meal created seemingly from thin air - and the guys cleaned up!  This is not South Africa, that's for sure.

They began to explain to me what the Glastonbury Festival is, and I began to think seriously of going with them.  I presented the idea tentatively but it seemed it was OK as the two we were picking up, Jean Luc and Nono, had an extra tent.

Left for Caen at about 8pm.  Did some shopping along the way.  When we got to the ferry they decided to crook it and only paid for three adults and the bus.  

Alex, Nono and I had to hide on the bed at the back of the bus when they went to the ticket office.  Then they needed money so I had to try to get off and withdraw from the ATM without being seen by the ticket people.  God.

Once we had parked the bus on the ferry, Alex's boyfriend Vincent told us three hiding on the bus to get off and pretend we had all been paid for and walk out of the car park with them.  I didn't want to do it.  I wanted to hide on the bus for the whole ferry crossing.  

It must have been very obvious, or they saw us on the CCTV or something, because even after we split up and had been walking around on the deck for a while, an official came up to us and began freaking out and wanting to throw us off the ferry.  He led us down to the gangway.  Alex was begging him all the way and eventually he let us pay for the three extra tickets when we were standing on the shore with the ferry revving up to leave.

More stress than the potential saving of cheating was worth, in my opinion.

6 hour crossing.

Very uncomfortable.  I wasn't meant to be a sailor.

The trip started in January 1994. To read the posts in order, go the Itinerary Post.

The Incredible Journey - 11 June, 1994

 

In 1994, I did what most white South Africans my age saw as a right of passage. I went on a tour of Europe with a schoolfriend and her girlfriend. I was in my early 20's.

These are the letters and faxes (this was before everyone had email, Children) I sent home and entries from my diary. They are all real. I couldn't make this shit up.

  

The trip started in January 1994. To read the posts in order, go the Itinerary Post. 

 

 

 

11 June - Toulouse

  

Tante M took me to Paul's house to say goodbye to everybody again.  Leontine cried when she realized she wouldn't see me again.  I'll miss them. 

 

I took the train to Toulouse and was met by Oncle R.  He had arranged dinner at my cousin (his daughter), Alexandre.  He also arranged for Sabine, my cousin from my mother's other brother, to come with her husband.  

 

I would never have recognized Sabine.  I met her when we came to France when I was a kid - about 7 years old.  Her hair is bright red and she is clearly in the whole on-the-dole*-while-I-make-art brigade.  But she was real cool and we got on well.

 

[ * Dole = welfare

I have to say that my view on this has changed considerably.  I envy artists the courage they have to live a poor life to pursue their art.  We should spend a lot more money on the Arts and support them.  We are, as a society, becoming too technology focused and forgetting to use our right brains.  Bring languages, music and art back into schools! ]

 

Sabine, on the other hand, looked much the same as when I'd first met her in 1977.  She's clearly living the picket fence life.  She wants to return to her home town.  Good grief!

 

Drove back out to Oncle R's house, which is pretty far out of Toulouse in a small village.  His house is directly on the street - there is just a curb in front of his front door - and his garage is cut into the rock face and the graite forms the back wall.  You turn directly into the garage from the street.  I am sure this was all safe when all that was passing was the odd horse, but nowadays if you open the front door for air, you might find your arm ripped off by an articulated lorry.

 

 

 

12 June - Toulouse

  

Oncle R has satellite!  Watched Farewell my Concubine, which was amazing.  I even found a late night adult channel!  Confirmed my suspicions - seen one, seen 'em all.

 

Yesterday Oncle R took me to visit his friend, Daniel, an opthalmologist because I made the mistake of mentioning contact lenses.  You have to learn to avoid medical topics with relatives who are retired surgeons.  I could not offend Oncle R by saying there was no need for me to go.  When I asked Daniel about disposable contact lenses I was told they didn't exist for people with astigmatism, so I told him about the pair I had tried back home.  He was flabberghasted.  So I taught HIM something.  Perhaps South Africa isn't so far behind the rest of the world after all.

 

We went out for lunch and I had a real cassoulet.  Yum, except they did not serve it with anything.  No rice, just by itself.  I miss my mom's cooking.

 

Oncle R and I argue constantly.  If I say black, he says white.  I think he just wants to debate.  Perhaps it is because he lives alone and he is relishing having conversation.

 

[My uncle said something to me during one of these debates which I didn't get at the time.  I can't remember exactly what we were talking about but he made the point that people are not productive for the full eight hours they are at work.  I was saying that when you are at work you are at work and he was saying that you are lucky if people are truly productive for half of the working day.  

  

It was years later that I recalled this conversation and finally got the point of what he was saying.  People do waste a lot of time in the workplace.  Meetings should be work, but they are often a waste of time.  People chat.  They stand and gossip at the water cooler.  They surf the net.  They make calls for their personal administration tasks - doctor, dentist, etc.  

  

This realization has also freed me from the tyranny of the eight hour, 9am to 5pm day.  I am very productive, and I get what I need to get done, done.  So I know when I get can in at 10 and when I can walk out at 4.  I also know when I have to stay till 7.  And I never take work home with me anymore.

    

For that freedom, I owe my Uncle R. ]

 

 

 

14 June - Toulouse

 

Oncle R took me to the opthalmologist to have a retina test.  He put a glass thing up against my eye and then shone a light right into the retina through it.  I thought at one point I was going to kick him in the goolies as he bent over me, it hurt so much.

 

I went up to Toulouse and went to see La Haine, which had been on at Cannes.  It was excellent although, without English subtitles, I know I missed a lot as they were speaking argot (slang).  

 

I met Alexandre at a little flat where she was working on some costumes for a production.  I went with her to a rehearsal of her play which the troupe were going to take to a festival at Avignon.  It was a workshopped piece, very well done and very funny.

  

At one point she is in a plane and the pilot is flying over Barcelona and she points and yells "SAGRADA FAMILIA!" and he pulls up on the throttle to climb above the spires.  It's the kind of humor that you get in a play that those troupes would bring to you when you were in primary school, but that kind of humor is still fun.

  

We had a very late supper at a restaurant opposite her flat.  As a full time actress, she keeps strange hours.

 

The next day she had to run off somewhere so I arranged to meet her at a friend's flat.  I took the bus there and managed to find it.  It was clear that Valerie is poor and on benefits but the atmosphere was amazing and dinner for all and sundry seemed to materialize out of thin air.  The only thing is that Valerie is pregnant and I think that its sad and irresponsible when you have no money.  These are not circumstances to rear a child in.

 

We were supposed to go out to a chateau where underpriveleged people live and are encougaged to get back on their feet by participation in the arts.  Alexandre was pissed off because the bus had broken down and we could not get out to the chateau so she went home and I went out with Valerie, her boyfriend Laurent, Frederic (Laurent's partner in an act called Les Scouts - street theatre), and some of their friends.

 

We went to see a live band.  The group was from Paris and they were very good.  There were 3 guys, the first of whom played accordion, synth, pianoflute, recorder, trumpet, trombone, guitar, drums on pots and the violin on a saw.  The second sang, played accordion and various other home made percussion instruments.  The third guy played guitar, banjo and double bass.  I enjoyed it, and slept the night at Valerie's.  

 

The next day Valerie was very sweet and did her best to make me feel at home.  Alexandre met me there in the morning and then rushed off to do something or other.  I went back to her flat and showered then my cousin Cedric (Alexandre's brother) came and fetched me with his friend Nicholas to go to Alexandre's play.  Les Scoutes were on first and they were very good.  

  

Alex's play was very good.  Seriously.  A lot better than I expected it to be.

 

Afterwards we sat around chatting and we got a lift home with Laurent.  Alex went to bed and I went to Laurent's to play cards with him and his friends.  We played a game called Troup de Cene (Arsehole).  I don't remember the rules.  I got home at 4am.

 

 

 

 

The trip started in January 1994. To read the posts in order, go the Itinerary Post. 

The Incredible Journey - 1 June, 1994

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1994, I did what most white South Africans my age saw as a right of passage. I went on a tour of Europe with a schoolfriend and her girlfriend. I was in my early 20's.

These are the letters and faxes (this was before everyone had email, Children) I sent home and entries from my diary. They are all real. I couldn't make this shit up.

 

The trip started in January 1994. To read the posts in order, go the Itinerary Post.

 

 

 

1 June - Brissac

 

In the afternoon, after Fifi went back to school after lunch (kids in France come home from school for lunch), we went for a drive in the country.  First we went up to Tharaux - a tiny village at the top of a hill, overlooking a flat plain.  One has to park one's car outside the village and walk up the steep, narrow roads.  It is centuries old.  Move of the houses were closed up and we met a lonely old man who said they were mostly owned by Germans who came in the summer.

 

There was a small church, beautifully decorated but falling into disrepair.  The town's chateau was owned by a Swiss man as his holiday home.

 

These were the feudal villages of the past.  Up on a hill for defence, cultivated lands in the valley below. Now they are dead places.  So sad.  

 

 

 

 

 

After that we drove to the Pont D'Arc de Vallon, a part of a the river with many lovely spots to swim and so on.  There were stacks of campsites and canoes for hire.  It is canoe country.  We wound up the mountain and saw the Arch, which had been cut out of the stone by water corosion.  The mountains were very pretty in a Gorrillas in the Mist introductory sweeping shot kind of way.

  

 

7 June - Letter home

 

Hello Family!

 

Can't figure out when I wrote last so if I repeat myself - sorry!

 

It was really nice to speak to you on the phone, Dad.  Sorry if I was a bit short but I felt really bad using Caroline's phone.  I hope you got the fax OK.

 

We took the kids to the Feria at Ales.  There were tons of fetes all over this area in the summer.  It was a typical fete - Spanish influence clear.  But the whole experience was marred by losing Fifi and a 20 minute panic.  After she was found we saw a few bands and were amused by Leontine dancing.

 

Caroline took me for a drive after dropping Fifi back at school after lunch.  We went up to a small village called Tharaux.  It is really small and most of the houses are closed up till summer.  We met an old man who retired there and he told us that the houses are owned by foreigners who throw open the shutters and make the village come to life.  He seemed very lonely.  The chateau, such as it is, is owned by a Swiss.  The tiny village is on a hill overlooking a flood plain and has a river at the foot of it.  As you wind up you park your car in a parking area and walk up to the village - you can't take your car up there.  The narrow walkways between the houses are sometimes composed of steps.  A quaint little place, but I couldn't live there.

 

Nick came home from the oil rig.  He seems like a really nice guy.  

 

On Sunday Paul came up with his two kids for lunch.  Aimee didn't come because she wanted to clean the house in peace without the kids.  It was a nice family lunch but you just can't relax with kids around.  The kids are the same age so they play well together.  It seems to me that Caroline's kids are more developed.  They speak better, etc.

It was a nice family day.  We played cards in the evening.  

 

Paul is a nice guy - very simple and straightforward.  He is very proFrance and antiChirac.  He is very nice to me so we get on well.  He left early to go fishing.

 

Monday was a public holiday so we took the kids to river.  The river here is like going to the beach back home - same mentality.  It wasn't too hot so I just sat under a tree and read a book all day.  Jean was sulking because he couldn't swim - he fell off his bike and has 5 stitches.

 

They have a blow up crocodile (like a lilo) and next thing Maxine was sitting on it and floating off down the river.  Nick waded in to get her but she was completely calm.  She didn't cry or panic.  She just watched him come to get her.  

 

Last night I babysat the kids while Nick and Caroline went out for the first time alone in years.  Apparently the first time since they got to France - 5 years!  Ridiculous!  (I'm never having kids.)  The children weren't a problem and even Jean went to bed when I asked him to.  He can be very difficult when he wants to be - very cheeky.  

 

Friday we went to Montpellier with Nick getting tense in the back seat.  He does not drive but has an advanced license in criticism.  I had a hard time with first Fifi then Leontine on my lap, the latter finally covering me in chewing gum.  Remind me not to have kids.

 

We got to Paul's and I said goodbye to everyone and Caroline took me to Tante M's house.

  

I have spoken to Caroline about it and I think I'll come back to her for Christmas.  It'll be nice to spend Christmas with family.

 

Lots of love and kisses....

 

 

 

The trip started in January 1994. To read the posts in order, go the Itinerary Post.

The Incredible Journey - 23 May, 1994

 

 In 1994, I did what most white South Africans my age saw as a right of passage. I went on a tour of Europe with a schoolfriend and her girlfriend. I was in my early 20's.

These are the letters and faxes (this was before everyone had email, Children) I sent home and entries from my diary. They are all real. I couldn't make this shit up. 

 

The trip started in January 1994. To read the posts in order, go the Itinerary Post.

 

 

 

26 May - Brissac

   

Took the girls for a walk while Caroline got some sleep. 

 

We got to a field covered in flowers and Fifi picked some.  I'm still amazed at how girlie she is.  She said she would have flowers like that when she married her father.  I nearly fell over backwards.  Maybe I should've believed Freud a bit more and not got a D on that essay at University.

 

Babysat the kids while Caroline went to Ales.  All fine until Leontine peed in her pants the second time.  She fought with me while I showered her and, exactly two minutes before Caroline came home, everything turned to chaos.  Typical.  Must happen to au pairs all the time. 

 

In the evening Caroline's friend, Jo, came over.  She is really nice.  The face and body of a child.  You would never say she was in her thirties with two kids.  

 

 

 

27 May - Brissac

 

Went down to Paul and Aimee's house outside Montpellier.  They live in a modern design estate.  The house was one of the most messy I have ever come across.  She has two kids to deal with, a cleaning job in the early mornings and all her housework to do with no help, so I guess I could understand it, but I didn't have to like it.

 

We went to the park with the kids and then to Tante M's house.  The kids picked the massive cherries off her tree.  We visited with her for a while and then had pizza at a roadside stand on the way home - the easy way out with kids.  Paul met us there and he and Aimee had a fight so it was all a bit tense.

 

Back home he showed me photos then disappeared to go night fishing.  I wonder how true that is.  The little ones went to bed and we played cards - the mothers, Jean and me.  Jean was being an absolute pain and, for the first time, I saw him behave like a kid.  I guess he plays the man of the house at his place in his father's absence but can be a kid when he is with his cousins.  

 

 

 

28 May - Brissac

 

Mother's Day in France.  We left Paul and Aimee and headed towards Avignon.  We had lunch at MacDonald's.  We had no choice because every time we passed one on the road the kids yelled "MacDoh Maman! MacDoh!"  Eventually Caroline had to give in.

 

Just before Avignon we turned up to the North West and went to Port du Gard, an old Roman aqueduct.  Many people were there as there are wonderful places to picnic nearby and you can swim in the river.  

 

 

 

We sat on the river bank a while, laughing at Leontine who kept plonking herself down on other people's towels.  That girl is fearless.  A real Leo.

 

Back at Caroline's I saw the awards ceremony at Cannes.  

 

 

 

 

29 May - Brissac

 

Went out with Fifi's school on an outing to an educational farm.  The mothers were invited to come.  

 

When we got to the school, Fifi refused to get on the bus with the other kids and insisted on coming with us instead.  She spent the whole day hanging out with us, separate from the other children.  Interesting to observe.  I couldn't figure out why.  She is so pretty and should be very popular with her classmates.

 

Watching the kids was a little like watching a Petit Nicholas book come to life.

 

While the kids were taken around the farm I sat in the sun and read The Celestine Prophecy.  Great book.

 

We all had picnic lunch and I began to see how the women excluded Caroline.  It was such a typical southerner rural area attitude to "les etrangers."  The teachers offered all the mothers coffee except for Caroline and I.  Utterly amazing.

 

The farmers put on a little demonstration with a horse in a small round corral, and all the kids and mothers sat in a circle to watch.  Everyone except Fifi, who spend the time chatting to, and performing for, the elderly man who was playing the music on the record player.  She is absolutely incredible.  He was the only adult man there and she was all over him.  At that age!  Scary.

 

I sat in the car after the performance and Caroline sat a little with the mothers while the kids were taken on carriage rides.  She saw with a woman who used to be a friend of hers and apparently dropped her when she married her neighbor.  This woman is an etrangere too but is accepted by the community now.  She told Caroline that her kids were "capricious," which hurt Caroline.  But I have to admit that both Fifi and Leontine spent the whole day off by themselves, separate from the other children.  I can't decide if this is a good or bad thing.  They are difficult to discipline and perhaps they are not learning as much about relating to others as they could be, but they are also not conformist and have strong individual personalities.  

 

 

 

30 May - Brissac

 

Caroline is suffering from bad hayfever.  I took Jean to a movie.

 

 

 

31 May - Brissac

 

No school for the kids.  Caroline took Jean to the hospital for his allergy shot, then to the dentist, while I stayed with the girls.

 

Found Zen and the Art of Motorocycle Maintenance which we had looked for when we were at Playa de Piles, because everybody seemed to be reading it there.

 

Saw a TV programme on Naturalists.  It's amazing how many nudist camps there are in France.  It also spoke about the different attitudes to nudity in Europe.  People tan nude in public parks in Germany and, in Scandinavia you have the right to go nude in public.  No arresting streakers at cricket matches.

 

It was interesting because, as the show went on, I got less and less interested in looking at the people's bodies.  It became a non-issue.  I guess that's the whole point.

 

At half past midnight they had a programme on TV called Cercle de Minuit.  They were discussing Africa, and began with Johnny Clegg and Sipho Mchunu from Juluka playing a song.  They are in France for a festival of African Art.

 

Some doctor on the TV spewed a bunch of BS about humanitarianism and then Johnny Clegg said something with a lot of "Ums" in it.  Then the presenter said to Sipho: 

 

"And what do you think about the war in Rwanda?"

 

What a pathetic question!  If you are black, Europeans think you must know about all the issues in the whole of Africa.  So Sipho says:

 

"I don't know anything about that."

 

Which was no doubt true.  Hell, I don't either.  Stupid presenter.  I switched the TV off and grumbled my way to bed.

 

 

 

31 May - Letter home

 

Hello Family!

 

Sunday was Mother's Day here so HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to those of you who qualify.

 

I have decided to stay here until Nick (Caroline's husband) returns from the oil rig, so I'll get to meet him.  He works one month on and one month off.  I'd like to work like that - it'd be perfect for traveling.   I don't know if they need administrators on oil rigs.  I'll ask Nick when he gets here.

 

Caroline's house is part of the original Hameau (hamlet) so it's an old stone building with a central courtyard.  But the building has been split up to create different houses.  So you walk into the arch and in front of you is a walkway under another arch which opens into the little courtyard.  The caves (cellars) open onto this.  Caroline and Nick don't use their cave except for storage.

 

Back to the entrance arch...

 

The arch to the courtyard is on the right and on your left stone steps going up.  At the top of the steps is an entrance to another house on your right and directly in front of you is Caroline's front door. 

 

This opens up onto the kitchen / dining-room / lounge, directly behind which is Fifi and Leontine's bedroom.  To the left of that is Caroline and Nick's room.  

 

On the right of the central family area, which has a huge fireplace, is a doorway to the passage, toilet, bathroom and Jean's room.  

 

So the old stone building has three divisions (houses) on Caroline's part of it.  Outside the building extends round the central "place" where the older people sit every day and play cards, like true Europeans.

  

It's a lovely old stone house and you could do a lot with the cellars underneath, but renovation would cost a fortune.  Also, because of the way it's built, it has no garden for the kids.

 

It's kind of strange this old building because it forms something like a set of duplexes.  It takes a while to figure out which walls belong to which houses.  It's unfortunate that it would cost so much to do up, because it really has potential.  

 

I am slowly beginning to feel like I am really in Provence.  Have you read "A Year in Provence" by Peter Mayle?  If not, make sure you do.  When we initially drove from Montpellier to Cannes I tried to find a place to eat in Aix en Provence, wanting to capture the atmosphere Peter Mayle talks about.  It didn't work because I was coming down with flu, it was raining, we couldn't find a restaurant and Carrie and Varla didn't understand what I was on about.  We ended up eating pizza in a takeaway.

 

In fact I really don't think Carrie and Varla benefited fully from their trip at all.  As I've said to you before, they kept wanting to go to the beach and tan.  They'll go back to South Africa and they'll be practically unchanged.  I don't regret leaving them at all.  They might as well have spent their money on a holiday in Cape Town.

 

(This is a bit harsh.  But this letter was written at the very low point of my relationship with Carrie and Varla.  Well, let me clarify.  I have no relationship with Varla.  Carrie and I are still friends - we always will be.  But I recognize that Varla was an 18 year old child who chose to go to Europe with her teacher turned girlfriend and was leaving home for the first time in her life.  She didn't want to come on a cultural trip to Europe - she just wanted to be with Carrie.

 

Carrie spent the whole time torn between the two of us.  This was her first real relationship having discovered her true sexuality so she was also just trying to be with Varla vs. travel and see Europe.  We had conflicting priorities.)

 

Anyway...  When did I write to you last.  Let me catch you up on the news.

 

On Thursday we went into the town of Ales to la Feria.  Apparently throughout summer there is always some kind of festival/fair going on somewhere in the south of France.  The Spanish and Italian influence is glaringly obvious.  They even dress up in Spanish dress some of them.  Borders really are unnatural.  The progression is gradual as you go through Europe.  The landscape changes, the weather, the crops, the food, the dialect... Who cares where the line on the map is?

 

At the Feria they had stalls along the pedestrian walkway.  Lots of food and bands competing for attention.

 

And the next thing we know, Fifi had disappeared.  It was hell.  I stayed with Leontine and Jean while Caroline searched.  My stomach was so knotted I was nauseous, especially since Fifi is so pretty.  She's the kind of child that the kind of person we prefer not to think about would find perfect for their purposes.

 

Eventually she was found with the Police to whom she apparently refused to say a single word.  This is a worrying thing as Fifi is usually extremely vocal and one would hope ones children would be able to say their name, parents' names, etc. in these situations.

 

After that drama was over we sat and had paella at one of the stalls.  I made the mistake of ordering tripe at the last minute - bit of a yen for mom's cooking, I guess.  Well, it was awful.  nobody makes trip like you, Mom.

 

After supper we strolled back down in the direction of the car and passed one of the bands.  They were five young people, all dressed up in 60s gear (wigs, sunglasses and all), and they were playing really well.  

 

Tennis at Roland Garros is on the TV and Wayne Ferreira has balle de match against Mats Wilander.  

 

GO WAYNE!

 

Mats is holding on.  Damn.  Amazing how patriotic you get when you are away from home.

 

Anyway, back to the Feria...

 

We stopped to watch the band a while and little Leontine did her nut.  Try to imagine a thin, find-boned 2 year old girl, with curly light ringlets, dancing completely unselfconsciously.  She bounced around, hands in the air, laughing.  Then she'd come up to us with her hands over her ears moaning about the volume, then back she'd go to dance again.  

 

There was this old gypsy guy there (leather pants, scruffy hair), who started dancing with her.  They were an odd couple.

 

Ferreira is losing.  He's throwing temper tantrums as usual.

 

I took the girls for a walk and the other day and Fifi picked flowers.  Beautiful red poppies.  They just grow wild in the fields.

 

Forgot to tell you... I watched the opening of the World Cup.  The ceremony wasn't bad except for flippin' PJ bloody Powers.  WHY do they keep on using her?  Why?  She is old, she is fat and there are TONS of artists 10 TIMES better than her.  She is dead.  Where we Johnny Clegg, Claire Johnson, Ladysmith Black Mambazo?  The people who CURRENTLY are appreciated by both black and white!  

  

I enjoyed seeing South Africa win, though, even though I'm not a big rugby fan.

 

We went to stay at Paul and Aimee's house.  They have a small modern house in a development thing.  There is a small back yard where they have jungle jim - come - swings and one of those shell sandpits.  In summer Paul puts up a portapool.  He's also starting to build a Wendy House out of a crate for the kinds.  Very much the hand man.

 

We took the kids to a park.  The four young ones get on well, especially since each pair of cousins is the same age.  Jean is a bit left out, being older.  I felt sorry for him.

 

After the park we went to Tante M's house where the kids and Aimee picked cherries from her tree.  Aimee is tiny and she climbed the tree with the kids.  The cherries were big and black...yummy!

 

I was telling you before how I tried to eat Provencale food when we were in Aix.  I lost my train of thought.  It is now that I feel I am in Provence.  The cheese is wonderful.  The fruit is amazing.  Apart from the cherries we picked at Tante M's, 2 neighbors have given Caroline cherries from their gardens.  I'm gaining weight, I'm sure.

 

Back at Paul's house, he showed me photos of their holiday with Nick and Caroline in the mountains and the time they went to Martinique.  Then he went fishing.  Apparently he goes fishing all the time - he has a little rowboat.

 

We fed the little ones and put them to bed and played cards.  We slept over at their house. 

 

Sunday was Mother's Day in France so Aimee packed up her kids and took them to see her mother in Avignon.  She is one of ten kids so Mother's Day is a big deal in their house.  

 

We headed North and had lunch at MacDonald's then went to Pont du Gard. It's a Roman Aqueduct, still intact, and now a tourist attraction.  It's a nice place to spend the day because you can swim in the river.  

 

We spent the day there with the kids - there were tons of people - canoeing, cycling, sight seeing, swimming.

 

Leontine was hilarious again, plonking herself down on other people's towels which they had left on the river bank, stretching out and having a rest, no problem.  Fifi - la coquette - swam with her talking Barbie, which now gurgles. 

 

Fifi's preschool went on an outing to a farm, and invited the mothers to go with, so off we went.

 

Fifi refused to get on the bus with the other kids and, in fact, spent the whole day with us rather than playing with the kids in her class.  Why, I don't know.  She's not a shy child and she doesn't strike me as a mummy's girl.  Apparently she's been doing this for a little while now.  Maybe it's "a stage."

 

The school trip was to a farm nearby.  While the kids were shown around, I read a book quietly under a tree.  Bliss.

 

I saw proof of what I've heard about the people in the South of France.  They don't accept "les etrangers" even if you live amongst them for years.  There were 5 mothers and 2 teachers.  After lunch, flasks of coffee appeared and they offered all the adults coffee except Caroline and I.  So childish.  Pathetic little women living in a small town with tiny minds.  

 

Well, I'm traveling the world and they're stuck here with their sexist husbands, their kids and their tiny  lives where they have to be bitchy to occupy themselves.  Shame.  Screw them.  From here I head to Toulouse and to London and I've done the whole of Spain.  It's a safe bet that I am having more fun than them.

 

For Caroline, however, it's different.  She lives here and, with Nick away every second month, it must be difficult for her.  She lives in a small town with no theaters, clubs, etc.  Tante M and Paul are over an hour's drive away.  And she's restricted by having 3 kids.  There are no maids here.

 

The last thing she needs is a bunch of old hens being bitchy to her.  I hate narrowminded people.  

 

I'll be here another week or so then heading out.  I aim to be in London by the middle of next month.

 

Lots of love...

 

 

 

  

 

The trip started in January 1994. To read the posts in order, go the Itinerary Post.

The Incredible Journey - 19 May, 1994

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 In 1994, I did what most white South Africans my age saw as a right of passage. I went on a tour of Europe with a schoolfriend and her girlfriend. I was in my early 20's.

 

These are the letters and faxes (this was before everyone had email, Children) I sent home, or entries in my trip diary. They are all real. I couldn't make this shit up.

  
The trip started in January 1994. To read the posts in order, go the Itinerary Post.

 

 

 

 

19 May - Cannes

 

Went to Nice for a day trip.  Separated from Carrie and Varla and met an Aussie called Vicky on the beach.  She was so cool.

 

Arranged to meet her later at her hotel and went to the Modern Art Museum.  It was amazing.  I discovered an artist called Ben and was blown away by his sense of humor.

  
 

  

  

Met Vicky and told her about the situation with Carrie and Varla.  We basically can't stand each other.  She invited me to travel with her but she was going down to Spain - the opposite way I was headed.

  

I went on to Monte Carlo and was amazed at the number of expensive cars.  Saw the casino but could not go in because I was not dressed up enough.  Went up to the palace - no big deal.

  

Met Carrie and Varla by chance at the station in Monte Carlo and Carrie said she had tried her bank card and they were out of money.  She had budgeted wrong.  They had decided to go back to London.  I said I might stay, thinking that fate had now given me the chance to do what I had been too afraid to do - break away from them.

  

Back at the campsite we played pool again with Christophe, Fabrice, Medhi (the latter two were staying at the campsite).  Carrie and Varla won consistently. 

  

Carrie and Varla went to bed and I hung out in the bar with the guys and met Helena, an Englishwoman living in Barcelona.  I told them the situation with Carrie and Varla and Christophe said that, if I stayed behind, I could stay in his bungalow.

 

I drank too much vodka and ended up in one of the empty bungalows with Christophe.  Not the best I've had, even if he was pretty.

 

 

 

20 May - Cannes

 

Carrie and Varla left, having decided to drive though to England as quickly as possible - not that it could be that quick in our old geezer of a van.

 

I did some washing and sorted my stuff out - threw away a lot of it because I couldn't carry it in my backpack.

 

Went to Cannes with Helena.  She went up to Security and spouted some bull about losing her pass and having to get something to her Producer and managed to get us into the enclosures and we saw some of the exhibitions and the mobile phone brigade making deals.  Went down into the pit of the Palais where all the porno stuff is.  Interesting.

 

There were people dressed up in costumes promoting things and tons of street artists on the waterfront.  Amazing atmosphere.

 

Left Helena and, back at the campsite, met Simon (Aussie), Gisella (Brit), two Danish au pairs, Thierry (French mime artist), and Patrice (French bodyguard who had some amazing stories about protecting French porn stars).  We all had supper together, joined by Fabrice and Medhi, sharing stuff in the campsite and managing to communicate through much translation back and forth.

 

We all went into Cannes together, which turned out to be a total abortion.  It was full of people and you couldn't get in anywhere.  All the bars and restaurants were full or closed for private parties.  

 

People on the street playing the part of the power Producer.

 

Got home late and Christophe waltzed into the bungalow demanding payment for the free accommodation.

 

 

21 May - Cannes

 

Vicky, the Aussie I met on the beach in Nice, arrived at the campsite and we walked along the beach to Cannes.

 

She told me about a girl in her hotel who had met a great looking young guy on La Croisette who invited her for a drink on his yacht.  She went with him and then asked if she could go to the toilet.  When she came out, the hatch was locked and she was stuck inside the yacht and there was an old naked man in front of her.  She had to use her bag to break a window to get out.

 

We got into the Kodak pavilion and, having learnt well from Helena the day before, I managed to bullshit my way in quite well.  Actually, I was interested to learn how it all worked, and played twenty questions with a Producer from Paris.  Vicky said I was a supreme bullshitter.

 

Vicky and I decided to move on and go sit on the beach where we saw a bimbo - unbelievable! - doing the on-camera frolic on the sand.  Vicky went back to Nice and we arranged to meet there the next day.

 

I went back to the campsite and hung out at the bar.  Back on the vodka and orange.  Met some producers from Belgium and had a fascinating conversation.  They were explaining to me that the competition at Cannes was not at all the important part.  It was a trade fair, with deals being made, primarily with distributors.  This was like all other festivals but Cannes was unique in that everything was concentrated on La Croisette and the public were involved.  Most festivals were completely closed to the public.  Although you do have to have a conference pass - so actually be in the business - to get into the enclosures. 

 

I found out that movies take years and years to make and that there can be two years between the time the movie is finished filming and when it hits theatres.  I didn't know that movie distributors weren't the ones who actually made the movies - I thought that the movie studio just did it all.  Also ideas can be sold to distributors before they are even made if you have a big enough star signed up to do it.  It was fascinating.

 

Met three guys who had arrived at the campsite who were traveling by bike, and spoke to them about South Africa.  Rudiger and Emannuel (more campsite inhabitants) came back from a screening at 2am with Laurent, a journalist for the Air France in flight magazine.  Emmanuel gave me a ticket to a screening at 8:30 the next morning because Rudiger didn't want to go to a film that early.

 

The official screenings of movies go on in the Palais all day and the 8:30 ones are unpopular because people have been partying the night before and don't want to get up.  Rudiger's loss, my gain!

 

Christophe suddenly started warming up to me at the end of the evening... payment for free accommodation again.  Men are so predictable when it comes to sex.

   

 

 

My memories of this time

 

Staying alone in France when my friends decided to drive back to the UK was a big deal for me.  But we were so sick of each other by that stage that we were ruining each other's experience of the journey.

  

The trouble with me is that I am an anxious person.  I didn't know that back then, of course.  So I did stuff on my own but I didn't necessarily just take a breath and relax into the whole thing.  I have very few memories of this time because when I am anxious my brain spends all it's time dealing with that, neither enjoying the present nor storing the memory to enjoy in future.

 

This is one of those classic examples where you think to yourself "If only I could go back and do it again..."

 

If I could beam back to my 20-something body and be in Cannes, in summer, at the Film Festival, I know I could find a way to end up with one of those "power producers" and, if I had to pay for accommodation with sex, at least have it be in a five star hotel.

  

 

  

22 May - Cannes

 

Woke up and went to the screening - Ken Loach's "Land and Freedom," about an idealistic young Englishman who ends up fighting against Franco in the Spanish Civil War.  Went with Emmanuel and Laurent.  Ended up crying my eyes out in the movie with no tissues in sight and having to sniff.  Disgusting.

 

There were people standing outside the Palais in the morning, before the screening, yelling "Any extra tickets?  On a des billets?"  Apparently a lot of people have extra tickets because the people they were going to come to the screening with haven't got out of bed yet.  Pity I didn't know this before because I would have been at the Palais at 8am every morning.

 

After the movie we had coffee in some computer graphics special effects place (Goddammit, it really pisses me off that I have no memory of this at all), and I thanked Emmanuel and Laurent and left.  I went back to the campsite and got the stuff I wanted to post to myself in London.  Pascal - Christophe's sidekick - kindly came with me to La Bocca to post it all.

 

I brought some Guinness for Christophe to say thanks for the accommodation and went back to the campsite to give it to him.  He was really offish and said he didn't like it.  What a shit.

 

(As I look back on this now I realize that I was, and still am in many ways, a victim of my own insecurity.  It never occurred to me back then - and I am still not sure about it now - that there may have been the chance that Christophe really liked me.  That he came to me every night because he wanted to, not because I was staying for free and he was "demanding payment" and that he didn't like my gift because he didn't want me to leave.)  

 

 

I got my stuff together and said goodbye.  Saw Helena as I was leaving and Pascal walked me to the bus stop.  I was sorry to leave them all behind, but these groupings of people are transient, and you just have to have fun with them while you can.  

 

I went to a hostel in Nice - traveling on my own for the first time and really nervous.  Vicky wasn't there.  I found out she was at the other hostel in town.  I had screwed up.

 

 

23 May - Nice

 

Got up and arranged my stuff.  Tried to get hold of Vicky and couldn't.  I got scared being alone and decided to leave Nice. 

 

I called Tante M but she said she was going out and could not collect me, bla bla bla, so I said I would go to my cousin Caroline.

 

I couldn't get hold of her either so I went to find out about a train to Ales.  The guy at the guichet told me it was leaving in 2 min so I just got on it.   The train was delayed so I had to run for the next train at Nimes so I couldn't call Caroline there either.

 

(Remember, this was before cellphones.)

 

In Ales I called her and said "Hello!  Guess where I am!"

 

She was amazing about it and came and picked me up right away.

 

Jean, Fifi and Leontine, her kids, accepted me right away and I felt so at home.

 

Watched the opening of the World Cup Rugby in South Africa.  Not particularly great.  They had PJ Powers singing which I thought was mortifying.  For God's sake!  Isn't she dead yet?

 

 

( There are so many different paths I could have taken on this trip.  I could've got a job in a bar and spent the whole summer in Cannes with Christophe, saving money to travel more after that.  I could have chosen to find the right damn hostel and go back down to Spain with Vicky, experiencing the same country but in a different way.  Not making the effort to find Vicky is one of the top ten on my lifetime regrets list.

 

This is why we say youth is wasted on the young.  When we are young and free enough to do these crazy things, we are too stupid to really appreciate them.)

 

 

The trip started in January 1994. To read the posts in order, go the Itinerary Post. 

 

The Incredible Journey - 16 May, 1994

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1994, I did what most white South Africans my age saw as a right of passage. I went on a tour of Europe with a schoolfriend and her girlfriend. I was in my early 20's.

These are the letters and faxes (this was before everyone had email, Children) I sent home and entries from my diary. They are all real. I couldn't make this shit up. 

 
The trip started in January 1994. To read the posts in order, go the Itinerary Post.

16 May - Cannes

Went into Cannes to the Waterfront.  Saw the Palais des Festivals and went to the tourist office there.  Found out that the Cannes Film Festival starting next day!  BONUS!

Found a campsite and I slept most of the afternoon - still knocked out by flu drugs. Carried and Varla played pool with some guy who worked at the campsite.

We decided to go to dinner and ask the campsite people where we should go.  They told us about a suburb down the road called La Bocca and we decided to leave the camper in the total mess it was in and go there to eat.  This was unusual for us - we would usually straighten it up - but it turned out to be a Godsend.

When we got out of the restaurant - and we had parked not even 200m up the road - we found we had been robbed.  The small triangular window pane was on the floor next to the car - not even broken, just taken out.  They had not found much in the mess but had taken Carrie's blue bag with all the films of her photos taken during the course of the whole trip, souvenirs and Varla's air ticket.  All they had taken of mine was my backpack attachment wit my clean underwear in it.  I would have loved to have seen their faces when they opened that!

We went down to the Police and filled in a report just like the other three sets of people standing there.  We brought them the window pane - which had fingerprints on it.  They were not interested: "We don't do that - this is not America!"

Obviously Festival time is a major crime time and they just didn't care.

Carrie was furious and took us driving around the area where we had been robbed in the hope we would find our bags dumped somewhere by the roadside.  She kept driving up alleys and shining the brights while Varla got out to take a look around.  I was getting tense, thinking this was a waste of time but I guess if something more important than my underwear had been taken I would have felt the same.

When we got back to the campsite we saw Christophe and his sidekick and he said that La Bocca was a bad area and that he had told us not to take our car.  What a crock of shit.  IF it was so bad, why did he send us there in the first place?

17 May - Cannes

Went into town and tried to sort out all the crap caused by the robbery.

We went to the Police station to report what was stolen.  They said we had to go to La Bocca Police Station because it had happened there, and that that only reason we had been able to report it to shit station the night before was because the La Bocca one had been closed.

Went to the travel agent to ask about Varla's plane ticket.  They said they could not help and we would have to call KLM.

We went to the Post Office and, when I finally got to the front, I was told air letters were sold at a different counter!

Went to the Automobile Club and - finally! - met someone helpful.  She really went out of her way for us while we were trying to sort out our International Drivers Licenses.  She could not issue new licenses though, and said we would have to travel with our photocopies of our licenses with the Police Report to prove the originals were stolen.

(One of the best pieces of advice we were given as travellers was to photocopy everything multiple times and to even leave copies with a trusted friend who you could call if you had to have copies faxed to you.)

I decided we should have something to drink and that I would treat Carrie and Varla to a drink at one of the excruciatingly expensive sidewalk cafes amongst the festival crowds.  Varla was not interested in trying to have a nice moment in the face of all of this and only Carrie and I had something to drink.  Two drinks cost 7 Pounds.  Ripoff supreme.

We went back to the Police Station to find out about Lost Property only to find the station was closed!

Went to the train station to call KLM about the plane ticket.  They said they could issue a new ticket in Nice but that it would cost 300FF!

We went back to the Travel Agency to find out why they charge 300FF and met 3 Aussie girls in worse straits than us.  They had been on their way from Italy and had decided to come off the motorway to drive through Cannes just to see it.  They had got caught in Festival traffic on the waterfront and got a bag snatched from the back seat.  They were also trying to sort out their stuff.

At about 6, we went down to the Palais des Festivals and joined the crowd to see the guests arrive for the premiere.  We did not know it at the time but found out later it was Cite des Enfants Perdus so none of the starts meant anything to us.  The crowd was what made it worthwhile.

People were shoving each other, some had brought stepladders to stand on, 5 young boys just behind us were testing the strength of the branches of a tiny tree, people at the back where shouting "Qui est?" and getting answers passed back from the people in front. There were also hilarious comments being shouted out like, when the stars got out of the cars in front and did not turn around to acknowledge the crowd, some guy kept yelling that it was because they were ugly.

We did not know the French actors, but I did recognize Jean Reno from the Big Blue.

We went back to "le camping" and played pool with Christophe.  Same situation as always - I thought he was cute but he only had eyes for Carrie and Varla.  Well, please - who wouldn't?

The trip started in January 1994. To read the posts in order, go the Itinerary Post.

 

 

The Incredible Journey - 13 May, 1994

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1994, I did what most white South Africans my age saw as a right of passage. I went on a tour of Europe with a schoolfriend and her girlfriend. I was in my early 20's.

These are the letters and faxes (this was before everyone had email, Children) I sent home and entries from my diary. They are all real. I couldn't make this shit up. 

The trip started in January 1994.  To read the posts in order, go the Itinerary Post.

13 May - Montpellier

We were staying at my aunt's house.

Carrie and Varla cleaned the campervan and I showered.  How wonderful to be clean again!

Manette (cousin no. 1) came with her boyfriend.  They are involved in a direct marketing company which sounds like a pyramid scheme to me.  I didn't tell them what I thought of their chances of making any money.

Paul (cousin no. 2) popped his head in to say hello. 

Pascal (cousin no. 3) arrived with his girlfriend.  Nice to see him again.  He used to be such a beautiful boy but adulthood has not been kind to his face.

Tante M (my aunt) offered to take us on a tour of Montpellier and she showed us around the old and new part.  The new stuff being built by the council is wonderful.  (I was later to hear that this development had almost bankrupted the town.)

In the park we had a stroke of luck - we saw Pascal's two kids who live with their mother and just happened to be in the park that day.  I would not have got to see them otherwise as it was not P's weekend to see them and apparently relations with the mother are not friendly.

(As I transcribe this now, I wonder if my aunt didn't engineer this meeting in some way). 

That night Manette took me to la boite (disco) at a touristy place.  Carrie and Varla didn't want to come.  It was a club where J worked as a bouncer.  I had a reasonably good time (the people there were all kids but I did dance to some techno in a way that is sure to be recounted at the next family dinner), and it was nice of M to take me out.  

We got home around 4am, so it can't have been bad.

I have absolutely no memory of this evening which is a pity because it sounds like I had a good time.  

As I typed this entry I realize that my aunt and cousins must have planned logistics to make sure that I had a chance to see everyone in the family, which is no small feat considering all my cousins were adults and had left home.  

Of course I didn't see this at the time.  If I had, perhaps I would have been more appreciative.  Instead, I am ashamed to see that I judged them - with the arrogance and ignorance of someone in their early 20s.

14 May - Montpellier

Caroline (cousin no. 4) and her kids Jean (massive for a boy of ten), Fifi (very much the coquette and God knows where she gets it from - not her mother) and Leontine (an adorable typical Leo with a mane of curly blonde hair and the soul of a true feminist), came for lunch.  Caroline's husband is away at work on an oil rig.  Paul and his family came too:  wife A and kids F (4) and L (3 years old).  It was a lovely family day and I felt a small taste of being at home again.  Of course this made me as homesick as it did happy but that's life.

Caroline is really cool.  She reminds me so much of her sister, who lived with us in South Africa). 

Paul had a look at our camper.  He seems to be Mr Handyman of that section of the family.  He was polite and tinkered around a little but I got the impression he would be telling them in privacy that he doubted the thing would get us around Europe.

I think possibly Carrie and Varla were feeling very left out as they kept to themselves so much it bordered on rudeness.  I understand they were perhaps finding it a pain to visit my family but, at the same time, this was the first time we had slept in real beds in weeks and had access to decent plumbing.  Certain things are worth a little sacrifice.

In the evening we watched a movie with Tante M.  Nice to have a normal day at home again.

The trip started in January 1994. To read the posts in order, go the Itinerary Post.

The Incredible Journey - The Itinerary

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1994, I did what most white South Africans my age saw as a right of passage. I went on a tour of Europe with a schoolfriend and her girlfriend. I was in my early 20's.

 

 

These are the letters and faxes (this was before everyone had email, Children) I sent home. They are all real. I couldn't make this shit up.

 

I have peppered these posts into my blog, so if you want to read them in order, here's the list:

 

• 16-18 February: London
  • Hard Rock Cafe
  • Picadilly
  • Harrods
• 19-20 February: London
  • Buying the campervan
• 4 April: Paris
  • La Defense
  • Pere Lachaise cemetary
• 7 April: Northern France
  • Chatelaillon la Plage
  • Mehirs in Camaret
• 8 - 11 April: Northern France into Spain
  • San Sebastian Donisto
  • Santander
•  13 - 14 May: Montpellier
  • Visiting with family
• 16 - 17 May: Cannes and Nice
  • Robbery!
  • Cannes Film Festival
• 19 - 23 May: Cannes
  • Nice's museum of modern art
  • I get to see a film at the festival
  • I hook up with the campsite boy
  • I split from Carrie and Varla
• 23 - 31 May: Brissac
  • Pont du Gard
  • Street Feria
  • Picking cherries
• 1 - 7 June: Brissac
  • Village of Tharaux
  • More time with the cousins

That's Life - Fetish smetish

 

A friend of mine told me the other day that he had wandered into the Folsom Street Fair by mistake.

I would have loved to have been a fly in his brain at that moment.  I can't even begin to image the thoughts that would have raced around in his head.  He comes from a place very far away which has three very old and strong religions and a culture that is steeped in tradition.  And there's not a scrap of leather in any of it.

We went to Folsom a few years ago with friends who live in San Francisco.  Luckily, they had prepared us for what we were going to experience.

Don't get me wrong.  I've been around the block - so to speak - and I am far from being a prude.

Quite the opposite.

I have nothing against any fetish - foot, neck wattle, rubber, enema - do your thing.  As long as no one gets hurt, all involved are consenting, and there are no minors present, get your freak on and let your flag fly.

To quote the goddess Madonna:

Poor is the man whose pleasures depend on the permissions of another.

And so we went to Fulsom.  There was leather - a lot of it.  There was nudity.  There were handcuffs, whips and - you guessed it - chains.

The most beautiful thing we saw - which, for obvious reasons, made Fluffy Bear's day - was a pony girl and her mistress.  She was very pretty and her leather harness, bit and saddle were stunning.  There are some real artists making this leather stuff.

Her harness went around her boobs, squeezing them up and out.  She wore nothing but the harness on the top half of her body.

There was a small group gathered around her because her equipment was just as stunning as she was.  I was transfixed.  Until I saw the guy on the other side of the crowd.  He was naked apart from a leather cap, and he was looking at the pony girl and wanking.

I know your first reaction is to say that someone should have bopped him on the schnoz, or at least told him to stop but, here's the thing, that's probably exactly what he wanted - public humiliation - so the best thing to do was ignore him.

He wasn't the best looking specimen of a man.  I have no issue with nudist but Folsom is about leather, not leathery, flaccid skin.  

I don't have a delete button for that image of him in my mind.  

Next to the pony girl, he was like a white blob of bird shit on a shiny red Ferrari.

Thankfully, there was one other highlight of the day, and it was guano-free.

We were walking along when we saw a guy spread-eagled up against the wall of a building.  He wasn't tied up or anything, he was just choosing to stand there and be dominated.

The whip kept swishing through the air, expertly connecting with his skin at varying intensities, from bite to kiss.

And the dominatrix in question?

She was standing sideways, not even looking at her slave, having a very boring sounding conversation on her cellphone.

To read more in this series, click here.

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Being a Doggy Mama - The Elephant

 

A few days ago I went to a toddler's birthday party.  

If you know me at all, you know I'm not that into snotgoblins.  But they emerged from a good friend of mine, so I thought I'd suck it up and take advantage of the chance to catch up with her, and perhaps get a slice of cake.

I spruced myself up a little, spent a full five minutes at the local gift shop finding something rugrat appropriate, and headed over.  

So there we are, outside in the yard, balloons aloft and - thank God - margaritas for the folks who met the minimum height requirement.

I'd just put my paltry little gift on the table when some guests arrived bearing the children's party equivalent of a offering by the Magi - a Nieman Marcus box.

My friend duly opened it and oohed and aahed over the contents.  There was a book with a padded cover, in bright colors.  The story was about an elephant.  And so the book came with a little soft toy.

It was a stylized elephant shape, the shape a child might draw, making a flattish plush toy, in bright fluffy fabric.

Now... you know those times where you do something stupid and your body is ahead of your brain?  

It takes a moment for your brain to catch up and, by the time it has, your body is already engaged in idiocy, in full view of all those around you.  All you can do in these situations is come up with some self-depricating humor to cover up.

And this is how I found myself next to my friend, squeezing the soft elephant with both hands, all over its little soft body, and sheepishly saying:

 Oh, right!  It's not a dog toy is it?  I guess there's no squeaky!

To read more in this series, click here.

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Divided by a Common Language - Ethical ignorance

I've had a lot of medical expenses this year.

Some were perhaps due to my own stupidity - like slitting my throat with a potato chip - others seemed to be caused by capricious gods toying with me - two bumps inside my lady lumps - and, last but not least, The opportunity to morph into a human pipette while we try to figure out what chemicals will still my sea of insanity.

And so we find ourselves balancing bills.

So many factors to consider. How old is this bill? How high is this bill? How soon will I be seeing this doctor again and therefore need to pay to avoid being unable to look them in the eye?

I've never had to do this much juggling... while walking a tightrope at the same time. And I've definitely never had to do it with medical bills.

I spent over ten years living in England where, apart from paying £6.30 per prescription I got filled, I never received any medical bill at all.

Flash forward to the now.

I'm sick. It's not flu or a cold or a migraine where all I need us bed rest and to not think about the meetings I've had to delay to the following week. No. This us viral. This keeps me from sleeping. This hurts at night.

So I call the doctor to get an appointment.

"Before I make an appointment for you," chirps the Receptionist, "I just need to transfer you to billing!"

"Why?" I ask.

I know why. I owe them $150. But I don't see how that's relevant to making an appointment.

"I just need to transfer you to billing to talk about your account and they'll transfer you right back and we can make an appointment!"

I know that my chances of getting an appointment today are diminishing with ever three minute window as the second receptionist cycles through calls.

"I'm sick. Please can I just book an appointment, and then you can transfer me."

"Don't worry! We'll be able to book you an appointment, I'll just transfer you to billing!"

And so my humiliation is complete.

Those of you who are in the US may not get why I'm even telling this story. Those of you who live in Europe will be either bemused, confused or appalled.

And herein lies one of the many things that widens and deepens what we affectionately call "The Pond" betwixt us.

The Receptionist definitely wasn't, in what, for her, were annoying moments with me on the phone, able to bridge that cultural gap. And I think that's what - once the embarrassment has abated - irks me the most.

She doesn't get it.

She doesn't get that healthcare should be a right. She doesn't get that, if someone really is sick, you should consider their welfare over 150 fucking dollars. And she definitely doesn't get, at 22-some years old, what it's like to sit and look at blisters on your stomach and legs and have to stop and think about what other expense you can avoid this month and, if no obvious candidate springs to mind, whether you could just get through this thing without racking up more debt at your family physician.

She doesn't get where I'm coming from at all.

And I'm coming from way, way across The Pond.

To read more in this series, click here.

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Being a Doggy Mama - FCE Recovery Day 6

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just under a week ago, our lives changed.

 

Puppy Dog went out to potty and, five minutes later, came limping up to his dad, his right front paw held close to his chest, and his gait severely damaged, causing him to tilt over and almost fall at every step.

 

We rushed to the vet and he sent us directly to a neurologist.

 

Turns out he has suffered an injury called an FCE - Fibrocartilaginous Embolism.  It happens when a dog is running and comes to a rapid stop, or jumps awkwardly.  Essentially a small piece of the disc comes off and gets into the bloodstream.  It then causes a blockage and the spinal chord is starved of blood.  The blood reroutes through other vessels but, in the interim, there has been something like a stroke to the spinal chord.

 

The result is paralysis.  

 

Some dogs are completely paralyzed.  The good news is that it's a neurological injury so it's about the messages getting to the right place which means that, with rehabilitation, a complete or very good recovery is possible.

 

In fact, you can usually see a small improvement in your dog each and every day.  There are videos online, like this one, that show a dog's progress through recovery.

 

Luckily for us, this is the very best prognosis it could have been considering his symptoms.  Other options would have been an exploded disc, or even cancer.

 

Still, as you can imagine, it was incredibly scary.  

 

And it has changed our lives significantly.

 

I was catching up with the second season of In Treatment the other day, which is based around a psychologist and the patients he's treating.  One of the characters said that her life had been rerouted, and that's what I feel has happened to us.  

 

Things have changed, and that's just the way it is.

 

We have to do physiotherapy with Puppy Dog on his right side four times a day, along with massage. We also have to massage his left side, because he's using that side to stay upright, walk, etc.  There is a danger that the overuse could cause a blown out knee or some other injury, so we have to keep the muscles loose.

 

Each bit of physio and massage takes about 20-30 minutes if you do it well, so consider the time out of your day.  

 

I am not complaining about our darling dog here.  What I am trying to do is describe how our lives have changed.

 

Why?  Because if you came to our house you'd see a dog limping, who is walking a little better each day.  No biggie, right?

 

Nope.

 

Finding ways to make life easier for him, and stop him trying to do the things he always has - like jump up and run to the door when there's a knock - has meant he has to be constantly supervised, and we've had to come up with processes and mitigations.

 

We now have 8 rubber-backed rugs all over our wooden floors, because he slips and can't walk.  We've built a ramp down the steps out of our back door to the yard.  There are pee pads on all his beds, because he's had accidents.  

 

Getting into the car to go anywhere is a melodrama.  Carry him to the car, try to get him to pee on the grass easement before we leave, he won't (he likes privacy to go potty).  Lift him into the car, he poops.  Take out the towel in the car, take it to the porch, get Nature's Miracle, pour it on the towel.  Get another towel and take it to the car.  Rearrange the pee pads and put the towel on top.  Decide we should have some Nature's Miracle in the car.  Go back to the house, get the Nature's Miracle.  Go back to the car.  Try to get him to sit.  Try again.  Force him to sit.  Finally leave.

 

I am loathe to mention it, but we have to also consider the costs.  Vet, emergency vet, rehab vet evaluation, water therapy,  massage.  This is going to wipe out the money we managed to squirrel away over the last 6 months.   

 

The stuff above is bad, but there are two things that make this really difficult.  

 

The first is the pressure on us, which manifests as bickering.  One of us forgets to bring X to the car, or holds him a way that the other doesn't agree with, or steps away for a moment and that's when he decides to get up and falls over, and we snap at each other.  We're both scared and angry and stressed out and tired and sad... and we take it out on each other.

 

The second is the grieving.  

 

Our boy, our beautiful, vibrant, uberfit boy, who swam and ran and jumped, is lying on the pee pad, towel covered bed in the house and he doesn't understand what's happened to him.  Will he fully recover?  You want to stay positive, but the question is in your mind anyway.  It's heartbreaking. 

 

And our little girl.  She doesn't know why everything has changed either.  She doesn't know why she can't play with him, why her humans are displaying emotions that she is tuning into, and they are not happy ones.  Her energy is down, she's tentative and much more tired than usual.  

 

 

This is hard.  This is ugly.  This isn't fair.

 

The silver lining is seeing him get a little better each day.  It's seeing his gait improve after his first water therapy session.  It's seeing him finally get over his privacy issues and pee outside with one of us holding him up by his side.  

 

It's each little thing that shows it's getting better.  

 

But, for now, it hurts.

 

And that's our story.

 

 

To read more in the Doggy Mama series, click here.

 

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Memory Lane - Dad to the "rescue"

I've written about my mother more than once on this blog, but seldom about my father.  It's because, I suppose, my relationship with him was more complex and problematic.

But today I was catching up on the 2nd series of HBO's In Treatment, and watching a character called Walter, a high flying CEO, talk about having just gone to Rwanda to try to convince his daughter to come home.  He felt that they had a special relationship, they spoke every day, he was so proud of her.  But she'd started emailing her mother instead of him, so he suspected a problem and took six flights to go and get her to come home.  

She was furious that he had come, and refused to leave, then sent him an email once he left the camp she was working and living in, which he read back at the hotel in Kigali.  

The email said that he was domineering, obsessive, the cause of all her anxieties, that it was impossible to grow or thrive around him, that she had to get away from him and now he was ruining her only chance to free herself from him.

In Treatment is never an easy show to watch, but I am fascinated by psychotherapy - I intend to make it my second career - and watching the characters go through the process of self-discovery is gripping.  But there are times when the show reaches in and rips my heart out, especially when a scene resonates with my own life.

And this one did.

It reminded me of the time my father came to get me from Johannesburg.  

I grew up in a podunk town in South Africa and I moved to Jo-eez to study.  After that I was a bit lost, couldn't find a job and ended up taking an admin position in one of those pyramid scheme places.  It was a crap job, but it paid.  I became good friends with the other admin - let's call her Cassie - and she found us rooms to rent in a flat.

We inherited the third tenant, who turned out to be a bit of a weirdo.  He'd shower in our bathroom instead of the en suite in his room, and then walk around naked.  We just ignored him, and made sure we were never home with him without the other one present.

So one day I come home from work and, sitting on the stairs in front of the flat are my father and my cousin.  It was late, and they totally freaked me out.

My father looked like he was at a funeral.  My cousin looked exhausted.  They had driven 8 hours to get to where I was.

They took me out to dinner and I was completely stunned.  Why were they there?

My cousin told me that he had come to the flat a few weeks before, when he was on a business trip.  This was long before cellphones and we didn't have a landline in the apartment.  He hadn't left a note or anything, so I had no idea he had even been there.  

My cousin said that our flatmate had let him in and told him that me and Cassie were smoking (that was true), taking drugs (that wasn't) and that we took turns to use our shared bedroom to sleep with random men (that definitely wasn't).

My father didn't say a word throughout the whole thing.  He just sat at the table, crying softly, refusing to eat.

Instinctively, I knew that this was a defining moment in my life and that, if I went home with them, I would regret it for the rest of my life.  I would be like a broken colt, forever tamed, forever a pet.  

I explained that our flatmate was a bit nuts, told them about the naked thing, said I did not take drugs (that experimentation came much later) or sleep with random men and that, in fact, I was starting to date a really nice young guy who was an architecture student.  He worked nights at a local record store and, if they liked, we could go there together and I could introduce him to them.

(He's the only guy I ever broke up with, and it broke my heart, but that's another story.)

Frankly, I have no memory of the rest of the whole thing.  I was so stressed out until I started therapy at 25 that huge swaths of my memory are a complete blank.  My first therapist told me that that's a sign of the brain's way of coping - repression.

What I do know is that I didn't go home with them.

Oh, and one more thing.  My father refused to overnight in a hotel so he made my cousin drive them back home and I was worried that they would have an accident because my cousin was tired.  

Oh, there's another thing too.  I thought my cousin was a total Fuckwit.  

He is one of those men who likes to give other people advice in hushed tones.  Until then, I had thought that he was a good person for people to seek out when they needed mentoring, because his calming demeanour and Catholic-inspired advice may really be of help.  But I saw another side to him in that moment.  

He didn't just deal with drama, he created it. 

At no time had he given me the benefit of the doubt.  He hadn't told me he had visited, he hadn't told me what Nutjob Flatmate had said, he hadn't asked for my side of the story.

Instead he did the worst thing he could possibly do under the circumstances: he told my father.

My father, the man who told me that I would get raped if I went to the beach with my friends to watch the boys from our school surf on a Saturday.  My father, who managed to find a reason to get overemotional and cry at every family gathering, subjecting us all to some ridiculous speech about how he loved us (yes, yes, it sounds sweet, but wait till you've heard it for the 10th time).  My father who, after watching an episode of McGyver where Richard Dean Anderson went into Russia to rescue a young girl, came into my room in tears to tell me he loved me.

Now that I think about it, that was one of the very, very few times I ever challenged him.  I asked him to tell me what subjects I was taking at university at the time, and he couldn't answer the question.  Yeah, he really loved me.

My cousin reported this utterly implausible rubbish to my father, a man who watched cop shows and believed that the carnage of the streets of New York was just outside our door.  A man who shook with fear at the thought of his daughter on a beach with 15 year old boys in broad daylight.  

My cousin was a pathetic little tattle-tale.

Unbelievable.

As I write this, I realize that he deserved to have the hell of driving 16 hours with my father sobbing next to him.  He caused the situation, and it's absolutely right that he should suffer the consequences.

The only regret I have is that my mother may also have believed the ridiculous accusations made against me, and been really worried.  And even if she knew in her heart it was all bullshit, she would've been worried about the 16 hour round trip, just like I was.

So I guess I am most angry about what this trumped up drama did to my mother.

But I also know that, when they got home and she saw that I wasn't with them, her heart must have leapt.  She brought me up to fight, to get free of the tyranny of my father's strict and sexist attitude, and she must have known that my refusal to capitulate was a victory not only for me, but for her, too.

I didn't write my father an email saying the things that Walter's daughter wrote.  But each and every one of those words rings true to me.  

I ran away, like so many daughters do, to get free of my overbearing father.  It's not a particularly original life story.  Men of my father's age were "of their generation" (part fact, part excuse), but I suspect that, until we have more gender equality in our society, girls will still feel they have to run, even the ones who are young today.

Young women in my family have run into the arms of other men (marrying far too early), into the arms of volunteer organizations accross the country and even, in one case, into the arms of an aeroplane that took her to study half a world away.

Perhaps there are some boys who have to do this too.  But I think it's mostly girls - and gay boys.

We have to find a way to escape, to get out of our father's negative shadow, so we can find the sun, and blossom.

To read more in the Memory Lane series, click here.

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Hello from Puppy Dog - I did a very silly thing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

Hello friends!

 

I'm not having a very good time right now.  It's all very confusing.

 

I was running in the yard with my sister the other day and then suddenly my leg went funny.  I hobbled into the house to tell Dada that something wasn't right, and he put me into the moving den and took me to see the Jab Man.  You know the one.  The one that you go and see and then he jabs you with something and it hurts.

 

The Jab Man moved my leg around and talked to Mama and Dada and then they put me back in the moving den and we went to this strange place.  When we got there they put me on a strange log and put leashes around my body!  I didn't like it.

 

Then some other lady moved my leg around and my neck from side to side and she put some weird cold silver thing on my chest and there was a very bright fake sun and lots of hairless apes all around me and I really, really didn't like it.

 

Then they took me to see Mama and Dada who looked very scared.  That's when I got really scared.

 

The lady told my Mama and Dada that I have Eff See Eeeee.  She said that I was running or jumping and a small piece of cart eel itch broke off and went into my blood and then it blocked something and then blood didn't go to my spine and then my legs went funny.  I don't really understand all that.  All I can tell you is that my right front leg won't work and my right back leg feels very weird too.

 

So then I thought it was all over and time to go home.  When I go to the Jab Man and he moves me around or jabs me, we always go home afterwards.  But, no!  Mama and Dada said goodbye and they were crying and the hairless apes took me away!  It was horrible!  I was soooo scared!

 

They took me to a big room with other dogs and I had my own cushion and pen and water and I stayed there for aaaaaaaages!  There was so much fake sun in the room and so many dogs and the hairless apes kept coming inside and taking me for potty and talking to the other dogs and taking them away somewhere.  I got no sleep at all, and I was reeeeeally tired!

 

I was freaking out.  Where were Mama and Dada?  Why was I in this horrible place?  Why were other dogs crying all the time?  I wanted to GO HOME!

 

I don't like pottying in strange places so then I had an accident which was so awful I don't even want to talk about it.  I just tried to think of nice things like swimming and big bones and my lil sis, who suddenly didn't seem so annoying anymore.

 

It felt like I was in that place for a very long time.  But then a hairless ape took me to a new place and Mama and Dada were there!  I was so happy!  YAY!

 

I couldn't walk properly and the lady was holding me with some strange thing under my tummy to help me but I tried to run to Mama and Dada anyway.

 

Then the lady hairless ape made me lie down and she talked to Mama and Dada and she moved my right front and right back legs around, which was annoying.  Then Dada did the same thing to my legs and they talked and talked and talked.  All I wanted was to go home.

 

Then Dada put some weird thing on me that goes around my middle and he stood up and somehow it helped me get up and walk.  Then Mama and Dada took me to our moving den.  I was even more happy!

 

I was so tired when I got home.  Mama and Dada moved all the stuff around in the house and put two beds right next to the soft logs where they sit and watch the bright box.  I just collapsed and slept.  

 

So now it's the next day and I don't feel right at all.  Walking is very hard and Mama and Dada walk next to me all the time and hold the thing around my middle and I don't want to go potty with one of them standing right next to me.  I waited till I reeeeeally couldn't hold it anymore.  

 

I really don't know what's going on.  My legs are there, but they don't do what I want them to.  Actually my leg is listening to me a little bit more today, but not much.  Mama and Dada keep moving my legs around - which is annoying - but they also massage me, which is nice.

 

Sometimes Mama cries.  I don't know why.  They both seem very upset.  

 

My lil sis just comes over and sniffs me and keeps asking me where I went and if it was for a long walkies and what did I see and sniff?  She's very annoying.

 

I'm very tired all the time.  So I'm going to go now.  

 

Life is weird.

 

Lots of licks and woofs, 

 

 

Puppy Dog

 

 

 

To read more in this series, click here.

 

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Puppy Talk - Ball

 

Mama!  Mama!  It's ball time!

...

Mama?  You just got out of bed.  You're in the waterfall room.  You're doing the bzzt thing in your mouth with the white stuff.  That means it's time to kick the ball for me while you do it! 

...

Mama?  Come on!  The ball is there!  Let's go!

...

Why aren't you doing ball time?  IT'S BALL TIME!

...

What do you mean 'go get the ball'?  The ball is right there!

...

Stop asking me to go get the ball!  The ball is there!  THE BALL IS RIGHT THERE!  Come on!  Soon you'll finish with the bzzt thing and our morning routine will be all wrong!

...

AAARGH!  You're finished with the bzzt thing!  You've ruined it!  You've messed up our morning game!  I HATE YOU!

...

Oh now you open the closet.  Oh, now you see the ball.  I was telling you where it was all this time!  You better kick it now!  You better!

...

YAY!  Chase the ball!  Grab the ball!  Bring it back!

...

Mama?  I brought you the ball.  Time to kick it again.  Kick it, Mama!

...

What?  You're stepping into the hot waterfall?  THIS IS SO UNFAIR!  I HATE YOU!  I'm going to walk away now and get back on the bed with Dada!  SO THERE!

 To read more in the Puppy Talk series, where Puppy Dog and Puppy Girl chat, click here.

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Workplace Personalities - Parents Lil Princess

 

Parents Lil Princess is called that for a reason.  

She isn't Mama's Lil Princess, because that would make her more about being a cutie pootie who expects doors opened, finger draping diamond rings, Jimmy Choos and generaally to be kept in the manner to which she would like to become accustomed without her having to do regular blow jobs.

She isn't Daddy's Lil Princess either, because that has an Oedipal connotation, and would make her more about finding a man to protect, worship and look after her who reminders her - consciously or unconsciously - of her father.

No, this is Parents Lil Princess, because they are both equally complicit in the fantasy that moulds her.  

To get a clear picture of this woman, imagine her at 5, or 6, or 7 years old.  She's at the annual ballet show that the teaching school puts on for the paying parents, allowing them to swoon over their little darlings and commit to another year of dance class fees.  Parents Lil Princess is dancing, in a line, with her classmates.  Of all of them, she is clearly not naturally talented.  This will not be another Darcey Bussell.  She's gangly, stumbles, perhaps even bumps the poor little girl on her left.

The Parents see none of this.  Video camera in hand, they are the only ones in the audience standing, and they're crooning loudly.  Mummy is probably crying, and Daddy is utterly smitten.

They firmly believe - with a faith stronger than a member of a suicide cult - that their daughter is a prodigy.  And it's not just about ballet.  Piano lessons, drama lessons, field hockey - name your poison -Parents Lil Princess is always the most adept child on the stage/field.  

Worst of all, they pass this belief onto the little girl in question.  Her indoctrination into the cult of her unquestionable ability is deeply ingrained over years and years.

Once Parents Lil Princess enters the workplace, her self-belief is entrenched.  Now remember, this is in no way proportional to her ability.  This combination renders her possibly even more difficult to deal with than The Paper Flower, because at least the flower knows she's incompetent while trying to hide it.  Parents Lil Princess, on the other hand, is blind to her limitations.

And so, the day comes when you ask her to do something for you.  Maybe it's Parents Lil Princess that needs to execute the task, maybe it's her team.  Either way, you are not going to get what you asked for.  Worse still, if you try to communicate that your needs have not been met, you are faced with utter incredulity.  I mean, come on, Parents Lil Princess is never wrong.  Her work is purrrrrrfect.  So how on earth did you not get exactly what you needed from her?  Does.  Not.  Compute.

If you feel annoyed by this, consider how bad it is for her team.  Her disproportionate sense of expertise and entitlement means that she can treat people however she wants to.  After all, her parents - supposed to be the authority figures in her life - gave her whatever she wanted and constantly made her feel uberspecial, so she sees everyone else as being not only less able than she is, but also in her service.  

If her team question her, she explodes.  If her team asks for guidance, she is incapable of giving it.  They are stuck between a rock and a hard place.  Worst of all, when they are working their asses off, Parents Lil Princess is spending the entire team budget on training or conferences in exotic places because she's the best, she's the most important and she's the designated Star.  Parents Lil Princess tends to have a high staff turnover on her team.  She doesn't see that as an indication of her being the problem, of course.  Every one else has the issues.  

The last thing to know about Parents Lil Princess that she has a very strong knife and she doesn't hesitate to stab it in anyone's back.  This is simply because nobody else can be right so, if they get in her way, they must be got rid of.  She feels perfectly justified in killing someone off.  They aren't, after all, as good as she is so there's no loss, right?  

To summarize...

Key signs:

• Confidence multiplied exponentially, to the point of narcissism
• Incomprehension when performance is questioned 
• Disproportionate sense of entitlement
• Screwing other people over with no sense of guilt, or even a sense that there should be a sense of guilt

Catch phrase: Of course I can do that!  I'll have it you to right away!

Your strategy: 

You have these choices.  If you can't go with No. 1, the others work best when combined:

1. Avoid
2. If you have to engage, try to make her feel like the expert - suck it up and be humble 
3. Make your instructions on the task as simple as possible - think Idiot's Guide
4. Cover your ass - all specifications and agreements regarding work must be in writing, preferably in email which she has to reply to, thereby confirming her commitment
5. Make friends with her boss so, if you ever have to escalate, you'll be believed, because her boss has had months, possibly years, of her telling him/her how wonderful she is

Their comeuppance:

Sadly, it'll only happen if her whole team finds a way to leave at once.  Only then will Parents Lil Princess' boss realize she's been bullshitting him all this time.

To read more in the Workplace Personalities series, click here.

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Workplace Personalities - The Paper Flower

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Like Lil Miss Congeniality, the Paper Flower is always a woman in the workplace.  Why a woman?  Well, for the same reasons Lil Miss Congeniality is always a woman.  The Paper Flower is the product of years (a minimum of 18 years) of indoctrination.  

 

Unlike boys, who are taught to be strong, to confidently clarify requirements for the task at hand, and to have a sense of entitlement, she has been taught that she has to make herself attractive to get attention and to get what she wants.   

 

The attractive part, though, isn't just about physical appearance.  Once she enters the workplace and is confronted with the reality of being expected to actually get things done, she transfers the skill to a sense of needing to always seem capable.

 

And so you'll ask the Paper Flower to do something, and she will never, ever refuse.  She will never ask clarifying questions and, most of all, she will never, ever admit that she needs help, let alone that the task is beyond her capabilities.  

 

And so, overwhelmed by something she does not know how to do, and has no experience of, she does four things:

 

1. She delays
2. She ignores assistance
3. She turns to Google
4. She hides her work in progress

The fourth coping mechanism means, of course, that there is no way you can help her.  She won't ask for help and she won't let you see her work because you may then realize, on your own, that she needs help.

The third ensures that she won't take any coaching from you even if you give it before your realize how crap she is, because that would also be an admission of her lack of capability.  Your emails which contain guidance on the task are steadfastly ignored.  

The second coping mechanism results in her spewing TLAs* and buzzwords which, in the context of the sentence that contains them, are just slightly left of center of how they ought to be used.

This is the only way you can confirm that you are dealing with a Paper Flower.  All the other habits described above can make you suspicious, but once she's in a meeting and says something that really shows ignorance of the root concept at hand, you've got her bang to rights.**

And that's when you see it.

The pretty flower isn't real.  What seemed like a strong stem is a thin dowel rod, the petals are expertly folded origami and, if you wanted to, all you need to do is stretch out your hand and you could crush this little flower in seconds.

But, of course, you're in a professional workplace, so you can't destroy her.

And so you suffer her on your project, knowing that her first coping mechanism is going to compromise your deadline, her second and third coping mechanisms are going to compromise your quality, and her fourth coping mechanism is going to ensure that you cannot mitigate any of it.

You also can't dob her in*** to her boss, because her tactics are so shrouded that you have very little evidence to support a request to have her removed.

Key signs:

• Volunteers for any task
• Once the task has begun, radio silence
• Any advice you give is ignored
• TLAs and buzzwords used excessively and incorrectly

 

Catch phrase: Sure, I can do that!

 

 

Your Strategy:

 

What to do?  Frankly, I wish I knew.  If you have any advice, let me know

 

  

Their comeuppance:

 

The only way I think The Paper Flower will start to wilt of her own accord is when deadlines are passed and she has to present her work to her peers or management.  Trouble is, if her work is part of your project, you're going down too.

 

 

 

*Three Letter Acronyms

 

**  To have enough proof to show that someone has done something wrong e.g. "I was driving way above the speed limit and the police radar caught me bang to rights"

 

*** Inform on her

 

 

 

For more in the Workplace Personalities series, click here.

 

You might like:

• The Ninja
• The Teflon Kid 

Workplace Personalities - Lil' Miss Congeniality

Beware of Lil' Miss Congeniality, for she is not what she seems.

It's easy to be fooled by her, I know.  After all, she's so sweet and bubbly and smiley and perky and she laughs, laughs, laughs all the time because - presumably - she is so very, very, very happy.

Miss Congeniality comes from the midwest of the United States.

Now, maybe you think I'm being unfair.  After all, surely all the Workplace Personalities that I have described in this blog could come from, and be found in, any country in the world.

Well, here's the thing.  I just don't believe that any other country on our little planet has as big a swath of land populated by as many down home, God-fearin' folks waving as many red, white and blue flags in their yards as the United States of Ah-mehr-ee-kah.

And these lands, these people and their God breed some very particular kinds of people. 

And then those people come to the Big City.

And then they get a job in a Big Company.

And they have to figure out how to survive in a world of sushi and opera and Democrats and meetings and networking and office politicking.

They're in a strange land.  

Gay people are out in the open, teams gather over cocktails at Happy Hour, colleagues quote Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann openly over the water cooler and nobody - nobody! - ever starts a gathering of any kind with a prayer.

And so Lil' Miss Congeniality, she finds a way - for we are a strong people, Lord, and we always find a way - to function, to cope, even to thrive.  And, most of all, a way to hack people down with a sweetie pie smile and walk, head held high with absolute decorum, over their bodies to the top of the ladder.

Now why, I hear you ask, is this workplace personality necessarily a "Miss"?  Why a woman?  

The answer is simple: Lil' Miss Congeniality is a product of her upbringing.

Yes, we've come a long way, Baby, but women still have a long, long way to go.  With each generation we have tried to shed our shackles but here we are in the Noughties, and we find ourselves, as Senator Kirstin Gillibrand said recently:

"... literally fighting the same battles of our mothers and our grandmothers."

Knowing your Value special edition of Morning Joe on MSNBC

And so, even though she was born in the 60s, or 70s, or even 80s, Lil' Miss Congeniality has, immediately after exiting the womb, been warned off taking risks, brought up to be task driven rather than strategic and taught that she should be a nice, polite, sweet little girl.  Because that's how you get rewarded, and that's how you get attention.  

Of course, you can also attract attention through your sexuality, but that would make you a slut, and we all know how that ends, don't we?

And so we end up with a monster cunningly disguised as a charming lady.

Key signs:

• Tinkling laughter
• Long hair - either prom or pageant queen style
• Home baked goods brought into the office
• Wearing pastels
• Constantly interrupting you
• Long stories holding you captive at your desk in a fake show of bonding
• Disguised put downs 

This last key sign is the is kicker.  It can be very hard to spot.  But it's the one thing that you need to watch out for, because it's the peek behind the mask to the evil beneath.  

Remember, Lil' Miss Congeniality will stab you in the back with a winning, whiter than white smile.  She was taught to rub Vaseline on her teeth to force her to hold that picture perfect grin, so looking friendly while she slits your carotid artery is child's play to her.

So watch carefully for:

• Sentences that, on first hearing them, sound like a compliment but aren't, always followed by the tinkly laugh:

"My goodness you type our meeting minutes so fast!  Are you sure you're not the queen of the admins?  Tee hee hee hee hee hee!"

• Undermining you in front of others, followed by a tinkly laugh e.g. after you've sent feedback on a colleague's document that he sent to the team for review, announcing across the cube farm:

"I just saw the feedback email from [insert your name here] and I was just thinking that you've probably had just about enough feedback on that report now, haven't you Steve?  Tee hee hee hee hee hee!"

Here's the very worst thing about Lil' Miss Congeniality.  She is the most vile perpetrator of anti-female sexism, because she freely undermines other women in the workplace.  

Catch phrase: Tee hee hee hee hee hee!

Your Strategy: 

Don't work with her if at all possible.  Do you think you're capable of becoming a snake charmer without being bitten?  Exactly!  Get away from her.

Their comeuppance:

It's unlikely to happen.  People are generally fooled by her down home saccharine and consider her to be a darling little country girl.    

To read more in the Workplace Personalities series, click here.

You might like: 

• The Stalker
• The Arsonist

I'm jus' sayin' - Toilet rolls

You know when toilet rolls are squished and then the middle is oval and then when you pull the paper the roll turns and goes KADONK-KADONK?

I hate that.

Jus' sayin'

For more vignettes of bullshit in this series, click here.

Hell is Other People - Passive Aggressive Bitch

 

I am currently working with a new colleague who - and this is a euphemism - is a fucking stupid bollocking bitch.

She is so passive aggressive she needs to be medicated for it.

I was asked to lead a project because I have the skills and the experience to do it.

But she wanted to run it and they didn't ask her to because - shocker! - she does not have the skills and the experience.  

That's not to say she's dumb.  Trust me, she isn't.  She has skills that I don't have.  But she's very young.  She's two years out of college.  Just two years!  She just isn't at the stage where she can lead this thing.  Not yet.

But she doesn't seem to get it.

She thinks that she's the shit, that she can take this thing and run with it, and that I am in her way.

Ah, the arrogance of youth.

I knew she'd be a problem immediately.  I could feel it in the first meeting we had as a team.  So I decided to reach out to her, to get to know her a little, to bond.  

So I invited her to go out for coffee.  

I have never in my life - I am not exaggerating - had to spend so long eating so much shit and smiling so hard as I did it.

The San, a nomadic tribe from the Kalahari desert in South Africa, hunt with poison darts.  The sneak up to the buck, hiding in the long grass, till they get close enough.  Then, slowly and silenty, raise a little tube to their lips and blow.  The arrow hits the buck in the rump, and it thinks it's been stung.  Never mind.  Shrug it off.  But then they start to feel a little woozy and, before they know it, they're dead on the ground.

I felt like I was that prey.  Every now and then, in the middle of conversation about our previous jobs or whatever, she'd shoot a little poisonous dart at me.  

At first, I wondered if I was crazy.  She seemed to be prepared for us to get to know each other.  Her smile was a little cold but, still, did I just hear that right?

But they kept coming.

When we were discussing our education...

"You must get so irritated with people who haven't worked in different countries like you have..."

When I was describing a local political issue that I felt strongly about:

"You are like that in meetings! [Fake laugh].  You have such passion that we can't convince you!"

When she was telling me about her gap year helping a charity in South America and I expressed admiration, because she'd done something I'd always wanted to, but I hadn't had the guts to fly so far from home when I was fresh out of high school:

"Oh, come on!" she said.  "You have guts.  You're lying."

By the end of the half hour coffee, I needed a stiff drink.  It was 5pm and I immediately called my friend Barbara and met her for Happy Hour.

Even as I told Barbara what had happened, I was still debating with myself... was I being paranoid?

But the examples above are less than half of the poisonous things Lil Miss Passive Aggressive said to me.  I don't remember all of them, but I did keep count.  There were at least 7 of them.

Within a half hour period.

So, what to do?

Well, she clearly felt pushed aside by me, so I suggested that she would be the best person to manage a specific element of the project, giving her clear responsibility for this area, and making clear to her that this was because she had the expertise and knowledge of that element, and I did not.  And it wasn't a small thing.  This was a major chunk of the work we had to do.

Perhaps, I thought, making it clear what we each had to do would fix the problem.

Nope.

A few days later, we were in a meeting.  We were all discussing her part of the project.  I asked her if she'd like to go up to the whiteboard to lay out what we were all thinking. 

"No, no," Lil Miss Passive Aggressive said.  "You should.  You're leading the meeting!"

By this stage, I was starting to get pissed off.

But, again, I ate shit and smiled.  And smiled, and smiled, and smiled, all through the two hour meeting.  I made eye contact with her, I asked her opinion, I made sure that I dared not interrupt her when she spoke.

Perhaps... just maybe, I thought, it would be OK now.

Nope.

I created a document, I sent it to her for review.  The document was stored on a shared drive.  I basically told her to go into it and change it if she wanted to.

She emailed me a separate version of the document.  

Her email was cringeworthy.  It included:

"I hope you don't mind this feedback... :-)" 

"I know that I haven't created a [type of document] before, but I think that..."

"IMHO..."

Then, even though I'd sent her the document I'd created immediately, she created two documents and sent them directly to the project Sponsor, without having the courtsey to let me review them first.  

Remember, I'm the one leading this project.  Anything that goes to the Sponsor reflects on me.  And the stuff Lil Miss Passive Aggressive sent to her - a  very senior person in our department - wasn't ready to be sent to anyone.  

And it still goes on.  And on and on and on.  

If you have any ideas to help me deal with her, let me know.

In the meantime, all I can think is...

Hell is other people.

To read more in the Hell is Other People series, click here.

You might like:

• The idiot woman in the elevator
• The time I had "a Fall"