Ebola Monkey

Today I look and feel like the Ebola Monkey. It's all because I went jolling too hard at the Kings of Leon concert on Sunday night and now God has smote me with a case of Man Flu (I grow weak and pathetic when ill, I take to my bed and demand sympathy in the manner of one with testicles). My Sunday night in Edinburgh is a story in itself but will be have to be shared when I don't feel like death warmed up.

Luckily I have the prospect of a new care job starting next week to cheer me up. Here are the details for my newest charge, as told to me by the Agency (who are always rather euphemistic in their descriptions):

- She has heart failure. (I had to ponder this turn of phrase, as in my mind that would make her dead. It's rather like the case of a friend who was telephoned by her elderly father's care home to be told that he had taken a 'turn for the worse,' only to discover that he had in fact died.)

- She is 90. (Read: Very cranky and set in her ways.)

-She is deaf as a doorpost and refuses to wear a hearing aid. (Should make for interesting conversation)

- She is continent, but may need some help with personal care. (Read: She will probably hide her used sanitary towels in coat pockets or worst case scenario poop on the floor)

- She only eats the same 3 ready meals on rotation. I will need to cook my own food and store it in a separate fridge in the pantry out of her view. (Read: She is shumbies)

-She gets rather tetchy if her cup of tea is not made just right. (Read: control and potential anger management issues.)

- She walks with a zimmer frame, but may need occasional assistance. (Read: She'll go down faster than cheap tequila in a student bar. Constant vigilance.)

With all these plus points you can see why I immediately agreed to do the job.

Death of a Tiger

There comes a time in a girl’s life when she has to say goodbye to her favourite shoes. In my case my gold Onitsuka Tiger trainers had become more perilous than practical - through many years of hard wearing the tread was smoother than Wayne Rooney’s head before the hair plugs. As such, going out in them in wet weather left me looking particularly unglamorous as I skidded haphazardly from lamppost to lamppost (the image of a giraffe ice-skating comes to mind). Reaching the decision that I am too young for a hip-replacement, the Tigers had to go.

But, I’m rather sentimental about my Tigers (obviously because of the name) but also because I bought around the time I met the Husband in Edinburgh and those shoes had a frolicking first summer. My fondest memory is of a secret garden party in Princes’ Street Gardens. I had carelessly kicked off my Tigers in order to slip into an inflatable sumo wrestling fat-suit and wrestle my dear, not-yet-Husband to the ground. Unfortunately whilst I was pummelling his face into the dirt (ah, the early days of dating) some heartless NED threw one of my shoes onto the marquee tent roof. Upon learning the fate of my shoe I ranted and raved and pulled a face akin to a bulldog chewing on a pissy nettle.

The not-yet Husband took this opportunity to be a manly hunter-gatherer and so shimmied up the nearest tent pole to retrieve my hijacked property. This not too subtle manoeuvre immediately alerted the party police. The dispatched security guard was then commandeered by one wild haired, red-faced crazy lady (moi), hobbling about in one shoe and demanding that he 'get her Tiger off the roof’. My tigers were eventually reunited after a bit of poking at the roof with a broom handle (and no that's not a euphemism).

Sadly despite their fabulous history my feline footwear is past its prime. Taking their replacement very seriously I have studied various fashion and gossip magazines until I spotted a well known British Radio D.J in a delightful pink pair of canvas shoes that I knew would look just peachy on my Tiger-less toes. Imagine then my delight in discovering the exact pair in a local shoe shop. I immediately tried them on and admired my new almost celebrity self in the mirror, aided by young and trendy shop assistant:

Trend-assistant: What do you think?

Me: Oh, I do rather like them.

Trend-assistant: We’ve only just started stocking them. They’re very popular all of a sudden.

Me: [Attempting to be hip with my up to date fashion knowledge] Yeah, I saw a pic of Fearne Cotton wearing them, I think that’s why people have COTTONED on to them.

Trend-assistant: [Looks at me with complete distain] Riiight.

Me: [Looking puzzled at Trend-assistant’s sudden coldness, mental replay reveals my error] No horrendous pun intended of course. Hee-hee [Annoying high-pitched girly laugh] I’ll take them.

Trend-assistant: [His facial snurtle indicates that despite the purchase it is too late, my innate geekiness has been revealed] I’ll box these up for you.

Documentary proof that I'm turning into that weird old woman who peppers her conversation with words like 'cool' and 'homie' in an attempt to be hip with the kids...but at least my feet look good.

Too school for cool?

Just when I start to think I’m a bit this side of cool I go and do something risible.

Today as I emerged from Kings Cross Underground station overloaded with far too much luggage (as per usual) I was totally unprepared for the amount of construction work taking place. My path around the building to the Overground train station was restricted at every turn. Eventually I spied a sign indicating the way and so followed it blindly down a narrow pathway between the construction barriers while being pushed and shoved by fellow commuters.

The path ended when we were all squashed into a pokey little box room. I took this opportunity to look around and realised that I was not in a lift as I had originally thought, but in a little prefabricated hut. I was also the only one in the room not wearing high-visibility orange safety gear or a hard hat. I seemed to have been herded into a construction workers meeting. Looking around in apparent bewilderment my eyes met the twinkling gaze of a grey haired, hard-hatted gent:

Bob-the-builder: A’right lovey? How’s your laying? [Chuckle, chuckle, dirty wink]

Me: I beg your pardon? [I get embarrassingly posh in circumstances involving builders and double entendres]

Bob-the-builder: ‘Ow’s yer brick laying? [Sizing me up using the glad-eye]

Me: Eh? [Staring mutely in rapid blinking wonderment at room full of yellow hard hats]

Bob-the-builder: I take it you want a job if yer in here.

Me: [Penny dropping] Ooh! [Uttered in weird pitch 3 octaves higher than my usual voice, followed by nauseating girly giggle] How silly of me. [I may have actually fluttered my eyelashes at this point] This isn’t where I need to be! [Embarrassing girly giggle again] I’m so very sorry, must run! [I think I did a weird toodle-pip sort of wave at this stage, before grabbing my wheeled luggage and trundling out of the prefab office as gracefully and quickly as I could under the circumstances.]

Bob-the-Builder: [To my disappearing form] Come back next year love. We’ll be recruiting then. [Cue guffawing laughter of the assembled construction workers]

I was feeling a spot mortified by my apparent transformation into simpering doe-eyed dear at the mere whiff of a room full of testosterone stereotypes but then I remembered that the actress Vanessa Redgrave once said, 'A girl should know how to play tennis and dumb.' I’m still a bit of a rubbish tennis player…

Bring me the Head of Papa Garcia

I recently posted a newspaper clipping on my face book profile. The clipping detailed a Scottish wedding that turned to a bar brawl after the kilted groom sat on his bride’s pristine white marital gown and left a nice fat skidmark behind. The bride was so incensed that she decked the groom and all hell broke loose resulting in 7 of the wedding party being arrested. See original article below:

Following said postage, I was accused of being a little poo-centric in my latest communications, a claim that I can’t really dispute. My very mature response was to comment, “Freud would say I’m stuck in the anal passage, I mean phase and actually this delightful little article was sent to me by my Father. Apples and Trees.”

Ah, yes apples and trees; my Dad knew the article would tickle my funny bone, being married to a Scot as I am. He has after all played a major role in the development in my twisted sense of the funny. You’ll find my old Pa’s jokes peppered throughout my entries (e.g. Amelia Earhart gag and Two Tramps). I think you’ll agree he’s a very funny man. His ever present joking throughout my childhood created the foundation of my wit. He taught me to appreciate the often-maligned pun and to season my language with words like ‘inclement’, ‘bonhomie’ and ‘spasmodic’.

Although I can’t blame him entirely for my potty mouth - I’m possibly just a little perverse. Despite attending a Private All Girl’s school I still think jokes about penises (I always feel the plural should be Peni) and flatulence are the height of humour.

In my formative years, my father regularly played chauffer fetching me from said expensive Girl’s school. He would drive up in his blue *Bakkie (*pick-up for non-South Africans), smiling sweetly beneath his moustache. I would grunt a teenage hello and swing my bag into the car. The moment I had gingerly settled one shiny shod foot into the passenger foot-well the car would accelerate forward causing me to clutch wildly at the door jamb and hop alongside the car, one foot in and one foot out. With a spot of unladylike muttering I would extricate my foot, gain my balance, moan “C’mon Dad” and try again. As soon as I had lain my foot on the rubber mat the car would lurch forward and I’d repeat my fitful hopping. The farce would be repeated a good 3 or 4 times (I think depending on the size of the audience) until finally I could get both feet into the car before it lurched forward again. The joke never got old, despite my advancing years; even in my final year of High School I was to be seen hopping down the school drive. Some might call it child abuse I say it taught me to think fast on my feet and not to take myself too seriously. I also learnt an appreciation of the phrase “twitching spasmodically” as I was oft wont to do.

But back to the original argument, if you think these blogs are a little too faecal centred, I’m going to have to blame a combination of genetics and environment. Old age is not called the Second Childhood for nothing; there really is an awful lot of bodily fluid involved. If I didn’t see the funny side of all this excrement I really couldn’t do this job, well not without ending rocking violently in the foetal position in a straight jacket somewhere. Thankfully my current G.A.P.E role with Eileen finishes on Saturday. There should be a poo-free window thereafter, but until then I’ll just put out a disclaimer, Caution: This Blog may contain scenes of extreme faecal content. Those with a refined sense of humour or weak stomach look away now.

Fox Mange

Lately whenever I have washed my hair in the bath I have had to remove hideous congealed hair-soap creatures (that would not go amiss in a Star Wars movie) from the plughole. My hair seems to be falling out in remarkable and frightening quantities; I could have fashioned a life-size Wookie by this stage. I’m afraid I may be in the beginning stages of early onset male pattern baldness as a result of my proclivity for hair dye.

Gripped by my fear of alopecia (ORIGIN late Middle English : via Latin from Greek alōpekia, literally ‘fox mange,’ from alōpēx ‘fox.’) I headed to the hairdresser with my fox mange. As I am in Wimbledon and not Edinburgh I couldn’t attend my usual haunt, which is just as well as they normally convince me to go blonde or red or cut a fringe. But they are lovely. They use little cue cards that they refer to when I pop in every 6 months or so. Referring to my cue cards Kenneth (who is not a gay – take that stereotypes) would eye my deranged quiff and then query, “Oh, so I see here last time we saw you, you were moving into an unplumbed bus in the country. How’s that going?”

As I was thrust into the scary world of foreign hairdressing I chose a branded chain that rhymes with ‘Pony & Pie.’ Inside ‘Pony & Pie’ I had one of the most relaxing hours of my life. First the divine hair wash and massage, if I weren’t already married I would have proposed to the little blonde girl administering the wash. Then I was whisked off to my cutter and stylist Ko, a diminutive Japanese woman with the most infectious smile. We gabbled on like old school friends, nothing was sacred: London, homesickness, my ticking Tiger mother clock, and her terrible housemates – including the African who monopolized the washing machine:

Ko: And then the machine started making a very sharp sound.

Me: Oh?

Ko: So we call the landlord in and he find a wire. A bra wire stuck in the machine - as big as my head.

Me: Really, I had no idea they got so big. [Which is a lie as I once put one of my old underwires under my chin and my entire face fitted neatly within its domain.]

Ko: Yes, so she say it’s not hers. But my other housemate and I are Japanese, we don’t have bosoms. She had [gestures to chest indicating cartoon sized melons] bosom.

Me: So did she move out?

Ko: Yes she move out soon. But then we get French girl. She eat so much cheese and never flush toilet.

Oh, how we laughed and what friends we were. At the end of the hour I was sad to leave my new mukka but greatly empowered by my bob of curly hair. I still looked like me only better and positively skipped out of ‘Pony & Pie’ smiling like a loon at everyone I passed.

For one hour of my life (although I did pay for the service) I was the most important person in the partnership and Ko was interested in me. Which makes a hell of a change to Eileen who in our 6 week partnership has asked me 2 questions: 1) Do you have a garden in Australia? (No, as I’m South African) and 2) Are the houses like this where you live? (Em, I suppose but I live in a bus).

But blow me down if Eileen didn’t compliment me on my hair when I got back.

(Picture is *Circus people, Duren, 1930. Photograph by August Sander)

Two Tramps walk into a wood...

The other day Eileen asked me if ‘I ever got so bored that I could cry’.

At the time I answered no, but things have changed. O.M.Q! (As in, Oh My Queen, as I’m mentally preparing myself for obtaining my British Passport and swearing allegiance to Lizzie) – O.M.Q, I’m so bored that I could...cry? Or eat. I generally only cry once a month and as it’s not that time I’ve embraced eating, with the effect that my work trousers are growing a tad snug and my middle is starting to resemble something rising in a muffin case. As Theresa (my parents’ lovely and now sadly deceased domestic worker) liked to tell me, “I’m coming nice and fat.”

Of course I blame Eileen for my weight-gain, it’s nothing to do with my self-control. You see Eileen (barring the depression and occasional smuggling of soiled sanitary pads) is quite normal. What I need is the crazy German Frau. She knew how to keep me on my toes. With her we lived in a state of constant post-war paranoia involving prolonged curtain-twitching; she would wake me at 2am to study the movement of cars travelling up and down the road and then phone up the local neighbourhood watch to report our findings.

Due to Frau’s anal prolapse I had to follow her around constantly on high alert for little nuggets of poo that would fall miraculously from the billows of her skirt and skitter across the floor to lodge themselves under an armchair or side table. The first time I met Frau I was totally unprepared for the parachuting poos that skittered towards my shoes (not so much ‘diamonds on the soles of her shoes’ round here). Being in the first days of the job I was eager and naïve and so thinking that Frau had dropped something important I bent down hastily to retrieve her rabbity-droppings. Luckily, my self-preservation kicked in and I recognised the nature of that dubious matter before I touched it, as Frau was rather slow to add, “Oh, don’t touch that dear…not vithout some gloves.”

It reminded me of one of my father’s favourite jokes: Two tramps are walking through a wood when come upon a giant steaming turd blocking their path:

Tramp 1: Hold up, I think that’s a shit.

Tramp 2: [Bends down, eyeball mere centimetres from the apparent excrement] Yes, it looks like a shit...

Tramp 1: [Bends down and eyeballs the potential ordure] Yes, definitely looks like a shit.

Tramp 2: [Studying the prospective turd intently, breathing in great lungful of turd steam] Yes, it smells like a shit…

Tramp 1: [Examining the probable faeces while breathing in great faecal lungful] Yes, it unquestionably smells like a shit.

Tramp 2: [Bends down and gently licks corner of the suspected turd] Yes [turning turd around in his mouth like an expert wine taster] Yes, it tastes like shit…

Tramp 1: [Bends down and gently licks corner of the ostensible stool] Yes, [licking lips] it certainly tastes like shit.

Tramp 2: THANK GOD WE DIDN’T STAND IN IT.

That’s what life was like around Frau, the constant fear of you (or her) standing in her goaty nuggets and walking them around the house. Initially I was more shocked at the idea of the old girl going commando (daring in your 90s) for how else would those turdles shit, I mean, hit the ground. I was amazed to discover the old girl wore not one, but three pair of undercrackers or grundies (as the Aussies call them). The sheer mechanics of it still amaze me.

And now, here I am reminiscing about the good old days with the defecating German and coming up with no fewer than 9 synonyms for poo. Dark days.

Shades of Eeore

Today is Eileen’s birthday. And she’s in a frightfully good mood for one just turned 97. Such is the excitement about the day we have just spent 15 minutes holding 3 identical knee length navy blue skirts up to a floral patterned blouse, while Eileen discusses the merits of each individual skirt. Having finally selected a navy, knee length skirt from amongst its triplets Eileen has popped in to her bathroom to beautify as we’re having the neighbours over for cake and champagne this afternoon.

What a tremendous difference a birthday makes. I was preparing for the worst as Eileen has been many shades of Eeore this week. Especially after as she discovered that her last remaining cousin in Switzerland has died and now she really is ‘all alone’, or as she puts it “All the people I liked have died and now I’m left with the rest.” (Thanks a lot! What am I chopped liver?)

Every morning since we heard the sad news (4 days running) I have been greeted at breakfast by the following conversation:

Me: Morning, how are you?

Eileen: Oh, (sigh) alright.

Me: Did you sleep ok?

Eileen: Yes, but I was a bit sad last night. You know my cousin died?

Me: Yes, I know.

Eileen: Took a cold, dead in 3 days from a fever. She was 85 you know?

Me: Yes, I know.

Eileen: Her daughter had just come back from holiday when she heard. She was 85 you know…

Me: I know.

Eileen: She was nearly blind. And now I really am alone.

Me: Ah-well, breakfast time, I’ll put the kettle on.

As the old girl is 97 today I am forgiving the repetition. But thank the Pope her mood has improved, it was all getting a little dire around here; especially when I brought her to task about having an excuse rubbishing every one of my (very good) suggestions. She responded with, “Well, if I don’t have my excuses I don’t have anything.” Pity party, table for two please.

I was seriously contemplating coshing her over the head to induce amnesia; it really would be much easier if she didn’t remember her lack of family.

I once had the opposite problem with Old (my first ever placement). Old had a memory like a goldfish and was proof that the deaf can do anything but hear. She also adored her son Austin, the apple of her stigmatic eye. One day whilst attempting to adjust her hearing aid we had the following exchange:

Me: I’m sorry that’s the best I can do; we’re waiting for Austin to make an appointment with the audiologist.

Old: Oh, so we’re waiting for Austin to make an appointment.

Me: Yes.

Old: Ah, yes he’s my brother.

Me: No, he’s not your brother; he’s your son.

Old: Oh, he’s not my brother…he’s my nephew.

Me: No, he’s your son.

Old: Yes, his mother was…

Me: No, you’re his mother.

Old: Whose mother?

Me: Austin’s mother…he’s your son.

Old: My what?

Me: Your son…your son, he’s your son.

Old: My what? Spell it?

Me: S-O-N, son, Austin is your son.

Old: My son, is he really? Who told you that?

Me: He did and you have many times.

Old: Really, how curious…

The conversation petered off after that as Old had to take a little lie down to ponder the fact that she was in fact a mother.

See so much easier living with memory loss; everyday you make new friends and discover you have children. One birthday conk on the noggin coming up… ‘Yes that’s right Eileen, you have two sons Samsung and Pervis and a lovely daughter called Magma, I hear she's quite hot...’

No I don't want to see your bottom!

Hurrah! It’s raining today, the heat wave is over! The British public will be appropriately dressed for town life and I won’t have to see white, wobbling flesh falling out of denim hot pants on the High Street.

The smallest of denim shorts are back in a BIG BOTTOMED WAY in Summer 2011. Henceforth on my afternoon stroll I was treated to the oracular spectacular of a range of milky hindquarters that appeared to have been targets at the wrong end of a driving range.

Now before you brand me anti-feminist, hear me out. I too own a pair of skimpy denim shorts and a pair of dimpled buttock - spreading down to dimpled thigh, but I am well aware of my faults and so my summer apparel has been chosen at the exact length that allows for fashion and dignity coverage. If my breasts wobble spasmodically with every step I strap them down and cover them up (see Majestically Mammaried). I employ the same philosophy with other flesh. It’s a secret long used by Hollywood stylists, beneath every red carpet derriere is a lot of gym time but also spanx and body tape holding that booty in.

If all else fails embrace leggings, they’re also back with a vengeance – much to my Husband’s delight; it reminds him of his youth back in the 80’s, a time when Casio wristwatches where cool instead of retro. Although, a cautionary tale, beware of the camel toe, we don’t want to read your lips! Moose knuckle is akin to flesh wobble – BAD.

When I think about all that flesh undulating untamed around the shopping district, the real problem is the location. Location, as ‘they’ say is everything and in this case it was the locale of the wombling thighs that caught me off guard more than the flesh itself. On a beach I am prepared for flesh in all shapes and sizes. I wear rose tinted sunglasses and have a novel to hide behind when urged to avert my gaze, but standing in the check out at Tesco’s with neon lighting emphasising each contour there’s nowhere to hide. And the same applies to men; I don’t want to see you topless in Tesco’s just because the sun is out. You may think you’re a gangster and be wearing more bling than Mr T, but put a top on will you.

I remember my great-grandfather getting quite upset about an advert featuring a young woman washing herself in the shower on T.V. It was all very tame; a hint of bare back, a flash of clavicle, but the poor man was beside himself he didn’t want this naked woman showering in his living room. Now of course, I totally understand. The next time my grandmother moans about my ripped jeans I’m going to be more empathetic – she doesn’t want to see my naked knees poking out anymore than I want to see too much milky corpulence in the supermarket.

Amazing the Victorian mores I’m acquiring with age.

Keeping the Love Alive

Here is another choice conversation had with the Husband (see Sounds of Mastication), just another way in which we keep the love alive:

Me: [Ringing Husband on way out the house to do Eileen's shopping at approximately 11.00am] Morning Darling, how are you?

Husband: Hii-iii, fine. How you? [Said in sexy groggy frog morning voice]

Me: Oh, fine. Whatcha doin’? [See how pedestrian married morning conversations are]

Husband: Nothing! [Pronounced very sharply and quickly, instantly arousing suspicion]

Me: HUS-BAND? What are you up to?

Husband: Me? Nothing. Why would I ever be up to anything?

Me: Because you’re always up to something, generally no good. Are you still in bed?

Husband: What? Still in my scratcher at this time of day! What do you take me for? I’m a changed man baby.

Me: Are you on the computer? Looking at oh, I don’t know, findafishingboat.com?

Husband: Damn, how did you know?

Me: Call it a sixth sense. Now [putting on my business voice] listen, I need to talk to you…

Husband: Oh, baby I have to go…

Me: Go where?

Husband: I have to GO! I’m turtling here.

Me: Oh, wait a mo; I just need to give you some dates…

Husband: No, really must run, touching cloth now. Talk to you later. Bye.

Me: B-Bye [Staring incredulously at now dead phone]

And I really wonder why whenever I try to have a serious conversation with the Husband his bowels seem to loosen instantly.

I bet Kate doesn’t ring Wills to have the conversation terminated by such dirty talk.