Wheeee!!!!

of course i'm running late! but i had to take a shower and have a chocolate croissant before i left. so now i'll be high on sugar and smelling decent at the beginning of the flight. no guarantees about what happens after.

i got my dramamine

i'm wearing natural fabrics and loose clothing

i've got the sneakers on

i will read the emergency folder thingy

then i'll have wine and vodka and be too knocked out to think about anything else

and my stomach will catch up with me in about a day...

Seedless Watermelons?

you know what we need? great innovation and invention. i know exactly what needs to be invented - a no packing method of travel. forget about moving people through space and time - move my wardrobe and bathroom cabinet. then i wouldn't have to stress about airline weight rules or whether or not i am going to break the zipper just before i have to leave for the airport. oh man, then i wouldn't worry about forgetting something because it would all just be there when i got there. lovely! i am getting excited!! i mean, someone invented sliced bread. this can't be too difficult.

such an important invention needed to be innovated. go for it geniuses! i leave tuesday!!

okay, okay, maybe finding a cure for aids might be a little more important.

She Ain't Heavy...

to those who complain about the long stretches of silence between my phone calls, emails or letters, i have decided that my excuse is that it is genetic. yeah, my sister may blame the slow connection from the farm but genetics is my story and i'm sticking to it. my sister sent an email on saturday. before that she sent an email in september 2006. but, she does me right by giving me something deep and meaningful to share. she has a Revival - a book of african poetry (available in bookstores in zimbabwe and, i'm sure, around the world). from it this piece from zimbabwean poet, samuel chimsoro...

Waiting and Longing by Samuel Chimsoro

I sat on a stone
Untwisted tendrils
Of emotions
And combed curled
Memories
Till fingernails broke
And the head was bald

I sat on a stone
Till tears fell on sand
And washed away
Silt of circumstance
From the crystal of yearning.

I sat on a stone
Till plans piled like wreaths
At the foot of my statue,
Commemoration of longing.

I sat on a stone
Petrified by your absence:
Stone deaf, benumbed,
Weathering without wincing
In timeless waiting
For the comforter

she is giving us time to "recover from the power of this poem", and then, she promises, she will share with us a poem called - i speak for the bush.

Still Working On The Leg Warmers

it's all the rage and once again, i am behind on the trend. i swear, i don't know why i can't be more with the times. i have no excuse. i am not out there finding a cure for aids, though i did have grand ideas and put forward a proposal incorporating gas chromatography when i entered college as a chemistry major. ah, the i can conquer all naivety of youth...

yeah well, so now i really have no excuse. apparently everyone is blogging about zimbabwe and me? i am wasting time talking about inordinately long bus rides. the shame of it all. i tell you, if i had known i would have chosen yesterday to put forward some deep theory substantiated by super-long words. instead, i read a historical romance while trying not to get motion sickness. i hang my head.

but i will own this - before the bbc reported about kubatana blogs, i sent a message to a friend in zimbabwe when i spotted bev clark's view of the people of zimbabwe as birthday cake. i asked her how it feels to be cake (vs. icing or blazing candles). so, even before it was hot, and even though i was not blogging about zimbabwe, i did happen to stumble across a zimbabwe blog.

so does that make me a trailblazer? a woman always ahead of the times? did i somehow wear leg warmers while in diapers but i just don't remember? is this why i am so sensitive to the cold? i'm going to think about it, while i eat some cake.

It's A Long, Long Road...

so i decided to beat the storm on friday and left work early to head out to boston. a 4 hour ride, i thought, if i get out early, i could miss the ugliness of the winter storm and maybe it would take 5 hours to get to boston.

at 4pm i was still a little optimistic. i called my friend and said, maybe i would be 2 hours late. even though we had just spent over and hour going so slowly i could have jogged next to the bus.

at 6pm we were still somewhere in connecticut.

i think we hit massachusetts at about 8pm.

a little after 9, the bus died. 30 minutes out of boston. something had frozen and there was snow packed around some supposed to be moving parts of the underside of the bus. how do i know? because the bus driver pulled open parts of the aisle, right next to my seat and i could see right through to the road.

bus came back to life at almost 10 and i FINALLY made it to boston at 10:30 pm.

nine and a half hours later

i have to take the bus back in a few hours...

Home, Home On The Range

well, actually the farm. but yeah,
i'm going home! in a little less than two weeks i am off home for a little less than two weeks.

and where might that be, perhaps you wonder?
ah, just some small country you've probably never heard of.
zimbabwe. well maybe you have heard of it - it is after all the last country in the alphabet. so you can say i want to travel the world, from afghanistan to zimbabwe.
but you know, nothing ever really happens in zimbabwe, young landlocked nation with a massive ego. no, wait, sorry; the ego is just mine. zimbabwe... it's not like you can mosey over to the beeb on any given day and find a story there about it. puhleez!
so i am packing my sunscreen and empty stomach and, for the first time ever, i am going to sleep on a farm. be one with hectares of domesticated nature. perhaps on the first day of jet lag i'll watch my sister do the morning milking. maybe i'll convince my little brother that i am cool enough to be seen running with him. and i am pretty sure i'll spend at least a day watching golf with my mother. and a little time - never enough - sitting with my father. and when the allergies hit out there in the tamed (yet pollen-fileed) wild, it'll be fine because, well, because it's home. and those who witness the swollen eyes, rashy reddened skin and manic sneezing - they love me for who i am on the inside not the scary beast i appear to be. right?

i am psyched! i am going home.

Dazed And Confuzzed

wow am i tired and worn out. it may have a little to do with the fact that i am still at work and it is almost 8pm (added to the fact that i woke up at 5:45am and lost count of the number of times i woke up during the night). perhaps it has to do with the taxes that i have been working on for the last few days. nah. it's that oh so ambitious spring upgrading mission i embarked upon on saturday. i must have been still riding on my runner's high (woke up at 6:30am to go running in the park - my first outside run since physio... woo-hoo!!!). i was in the city at 10am to watch a french film. yep, that was me on saturday morning - reading subtitles before i was even officially awake. then it was off to home improvement stores to pick up goodness only knows what kind of nonsense before i staggered home, dragging bags in my wake. up four flights of stairs and then out the door again to go to staples for stationary. i don't know what i needed the stationary for but i went out and got some anyway. staggered home carry boxes and dumped them right inside the front door. and now? now i am like half-way through an completely unthoughtout project and completely clueless about the next step forward. i cut my foot, hurt my back and inhaled all manner of, i'm sure, toxic dust. runner's high? gone now and replaced by very sobering reality check.

this is what i get for thinking i could do anything just because i put together two bookshelves.

7 March

today is international women's day.

thanks goodness then that it was yesterday that i read about the three 16 year old girls who were suspended. for what, you may be wondering. well let me tell you. up in westchester county, new york, these three high school girls were at an event where they recited a reading from the vagina monologues. and, shock, horror, dismay, these girls said vagina. i would love to have been a fly on the wall in the biology classes of those girls. i wonder what they do when they study the reproductive organs.

not to be outdone, a theatre out in atlantic beach, florida, had a marquee advertising the vagina monologues (i am sensing a recurring theme here). a woman complained because, as she was passing by with her niece, said niece looked up at the marquee and asked - what is a vagina? the aunt was offended she had to answer the question. so now the marquee reads - the hoohaa monologues. i couldn't make it up if i tried.

i'll just wait for international men's day to tell you about how the award-winning children's book the higher power of lucky is being banned all over the united states because it contains the word scrotum. i wonder what that is. i hope my aunt is not offended when i ask.

A Kinder Gentler Me

so yesterday a friend of mine asked when i had become "so militant". so i thought about it for a moment, trying to figure out what has changed in my life recently that might taken me from the laid back california surfer dude that i used to be (except that i am not from california, i can't surf and, last time i checked, i am not a dude) to the alleged militant somebody i am now. and i know what it is. high fructose corn syrup (and even the regular strain too). i decided to try not eating products containing any form of corn syrup. yeah... that was before i discovered that it is just about EVERYTHING! yes, the devil is everywhere. and it all started with the chocolate, where the difference in taste is very very obvious. a corn syruped chocolate bar is all sweetness, no flavour. sorry... i digress. corn syrup. militant. me.

well it takes a lot of work and dedication to avoid corn syrup in these here united states unless one shops exclusively at whole foods, aka whole paycheque. but i do try. i try really hard. but perhaps all this passionate avoidance along with a real sugar high has me boucing off the wall, just looking for things to have opinions on.

i find myself itching to walk up to that person in a fur coat and say to them - hey, that's not cute. if you didn't spend a whole lot of time and money removing every piece of hair from your body, you wouldn't need to wear someone else's hair. where's my red paint?

i read about non-binding resolutions against the war in iraq and a symbolic ban of the n-word in new york and i think - yes that really makes sense. you leaders who represent us, you come out and tell us that yes, you feel really strongly about this. apparently, it takes a lot of courage to tell us that you don't like it and you are going to do nothing about it.

i wake up to opinions on the mistreatment of injured soldiers at the walter reed medical center - unless i missed the fda determination that mouldy rat infested rooms are supposed to help speed up the recovery process. then again i am sure if a person was in a room like that he or she would really try hard to get out asap. and then i hear that the contract for support services at walter reed was awarded to iap in january 2006; a company headed by a former halliburton officer, a company that is best known for having trouble delivering ice during the response to hurricane katrina. stretch, yawn and reach for a sugary cup of tea. very sugary.

i've been told it might be a good idea to cut hydrogenated fats out of my diet...

Quirks?

a fellow magnificent blogger, dodos was tagged the other day. the mission? to list 6 "weird" things about yourself. shy person that dodos is, he still managed to put himself out there and thus tagged me. so in a lesser artistic fashion. pandave exposed...

1)

i used to have an awesome disco hula hoop but i gave it away to a lovely young lady, leaving me with red, white and blue. I LOVE TO HULA WITH THE HOOP! roller blading and double dutch are next on the list.

2)

apparently i tend to have the attention span of a gnat. i find myself starting many many things at the same time. i tell myself, focus, focus but last night these were 4 of the things i started... jill of many trades, apparently.

3)

i give my plants names (they are all girls) and i sing and talk to them too. but look at the results. chimoto is growing like a weed! wait a minute...

4)


i adore fabulous tights. the more fabulous the better for stepping out my 8th floor window onto the roof of the building next door!

5)

no plastic bag is safe around me. they are all folded into triangular submission. i can't help myself.

6)
well... apparently i own too many pyjamas. well, naysayers, i couldn't find a pair to take a picture of so i don't know what you're talking about!

TAG!!!