The Princess and the Pumpkin - Remembering the Good Old Days

My brother and me 10 years ago...back when I was still super skinny... He hasn't changed a bit!

My brother and I used to live together in our 20’s. Before long-term relationships, we were each other’s go-to plus-ones, mostly because we were best friends and had more fun together than with anyone else in that era. Think Ross and Monica, the early years. 2004 was a magical time.

Many a Joburg night was spent driving from one hot spot to another in his black Polo, car-bar in boot and sights set on having as much innocently intoxicated fun as humanly possible in a single eve. Those days are long gone – both my brother and I are now happily married and living with our respective significant others in our respective homes on opposite ends of South Africa.

We speak about the good old days occasionally, but neither of us misses it, as we had our full of them back then and are both very happy in our new, more grown up lives.

While I’m not exactly tied down at home with 3.5 screaming kids and a sleep-deprived relationship hanging from a thread, I am in my mid thirties and married, and thus have not gone out on a bender in forever.

This past week was different. I was visiting my brother in JHB – the Vegas to my Cape Town suburban lifestyle – and there was a rugby game on. We had done the malls, we had done the kuering at home. We had driven around in his fancy new car being all grown-up’y and we had spent 2 fun filled family days with his wife and 2 little boys, complete with kid-friendly restaurant lunches, me playing with baby-blocks and play dough and jumping on the trampoline with my 3 year old nephew, and having his 5 week old baby brother puke in my hair.

What next? After deciding to join an old friend to watch the rugby at an Irish Pub we bundled ourselves into the faithful black Polo, just like the good old days, leaving his fancy new car out of the equation. (Only this time, because we are older and wiser, we had pre-booked a taxi service to drive us, and the car, back home afterwards.)

South Africa won the rugby game and spirits were high – the air was filled with an electric thumping thanks to a tented dance floor just outside the pub. Our little trio of mid 30’s to early 40’s fell into party mode as easily as we used to in 2004, and we threw back our first shooter for the night. A thunderstorm raged and we ran through the rain to get to the tented throng, only to find that we were about 15 to 20 years older than the rest of the patrons.

That didn’t matter, of course, because I was already sparkling with Satruday night buzz, and got a few approving looks and compliments on my general appearance, making my out-of-practice head swell with pride. The disgustingly self-satisfying conversation that went on internally sounded something like this: ‘I’m not 19 anymore, but look at me. I’m still the tallest girl here, and I’m wearing a pair of drop dead Pringle boots! 19 year old me could NEVER afford such a purchase.’ I know its shallow, but we all like to feel pretty and admired once in a while, don’t we? I accepted another shooter.

We decided to head across the road to one of our old drinking holes and join a familiar, more age appropriate crowd. I used to hate Billy The Bums 10 years ago, but this time, I fit right in. No longer the sapling who was on the lookout for arm candy, but the well dressed, well sozzled woman who ‘looks great for her age!’ Head swelling continued as pink-drink-swirling persevered.

But as they say, pride comes before a fall. Fortunately I didn’t actually fall (though I could have, in my fabulous boots running squealing through the rain like a little piggy let out for the night) but my energy levels turned from princess to pumpkin at precisely midnight. Time to go home.

SO much fun was had, but I am suffering for it. In the words of the great Marian Keyes, I felt ‘rough as a badgers arse’*. Unfortunately I had to come back home to Cape Town the next day and I was a little worse for wear thanks to our nostalgic good old days night out. A 48hour hangover is what I ended up with, and let me tell you, taking trains, busses and an airplane with a hangover is no joke. Especially to a woman in her mid-thirties, no matter how good she looks for her age.

Reality came to me in the sharpened hardness of the morning after, slapped me up side my head and shouted ‘What on earth were you thinking?!’ I took my medicine and invoked the customary saying ‘I’m never drinking again.’

So no, I don’t miss those days and I won’t be so eagerly rushing back for more any time in the near future. I blame it all on the shooters. Back home, I am fully capable of finishing off a bottle of good red wine over a nice long social dinner party, but I have not had the contents of a shot glass pass my lips for as long as I can remember. Tequila makes me feel pregnant, and not in a good way.

Today is day 3 post-party and I am only interested in a nice warm bath, a hot cup of tea, and a great night-in, reading from my Kindle till I fall blissfully asleep at 9pm.

All I can say is that ‘2004 was a very different time. 2004 was a very different me.’**

Love, lust and fairy-star-dust

Cherry Blossom

*This Charming Man, by Marian Keyes

**The Angel from my Nightmare, by Sim Sibanda

The Not So Spring Chicken

Happy Septermber all! Down here in the southern hemisphere, spring has sprung! The tree’s are budding, the birds are singing…but wait? What is that I see advancing over the ocean from my kitchen window? Another cold front? Winds so strong and grey that their life-consuming colour swells up and blasts the living sparkles out of all those well meaning early budding blossoms? Well how nice, given that I am sick as a dog in bed.

This dreary, ghosts of winter day has got me thinking. Spring this year, thus far, is a bit like me this year, thus far. Many still consider me a ‘spring chicken’ of sorts, but I assure you that lying here, swathed in the dregs of flu, my thirty-three years of spring chicken has found me a little less chickeny lately and a lot more old-farm-hen. My chicklet feathers are not quite so downy, my fluffy tail is not quite so pert and my cute little baby hen claws have developed the ability to not so much tickle adorably as tear the rooster a new one. I don't like being sick one bit, and so, what did I do? Deny deny deny.

I have realized that no matter how far from the chicken facade we come, we will always need a Mother Hen, even if that mommy is your own self (or Husband) looking out for you. Being sick in your 30’s is a great way to slap you up side the head and say ‘Grow up! You’re an adult now, act like one!’

You see, I did not act like an adult at all preceding my demise. Because sick isn't something that happens to me, sick is what happens to other people; People who don't live a balanced lifestyle; People who work too hard, people who don't look after their bodies or eat healthily; People who are too stressed, too tired - not me! I live my life-party on a daily basis, complete with mood-enhancing heels and matching sparkly dress, and the flu monkeys are not on the guest list. But now, the result is this horrible virus confining me to the gloomy dust-ruffles of my bed, and those flu monkeys are throwing their own party in my head!

I was feeling a ‘bit’ under the weather a few weeks ago, but not too bad. Not ‘too bad’ to simply deal with it the way I used to back in the day when I would pop a sinutab and drink a sugar free red bull and be ready to go again. Not ‘too bad’, to stop me from getting up and doing my CrossFit avidly and enthusiastically, and laughing off Husband’s heed when he warned me of all the germs going round like last seasons shoes at a half-off sale. Not ‘too bad’ to stop me from going off to teach my piano students, having after-work drinks, going out every night in the week, staying out way past my bedtime with a friend visiting from the UK, staying up all hours with Husband even when I was at home, never saying no to any offered event, taking myself with Husband fishing and wading in the ice cold mountain water, and walking around at home with no shoes or socks on, even though my feet were cold. The little voice in my head (my Mother, or perhaps inner mother hen) kept saying ‘Your feet are cold! You‘re going to get sick. Your head is sore! You should be in bed. Your ears are hurting from being in this loud place! Your lungs are hurting from being in this smoky place! You should not be here!’ But did I listen? Of course not. No, the spring chicken in me thought she could handle this snivel, this mere head cold that it surely was.

But as it turns out I could not. Perhaps when I actually was a spring chicken I could, but not anymore. Two rounds of anti-biotics, a course of cortisone and one big fat needle injection later, I have finally succumbed to the flu, and the voice in my head simultaneously. So yes Mom, you were right after all. I am staying in bed, allowing Husband to look after me in his sweet way. And the only spring chicken in my immediate future is the one in my soup.

Love, lust and fairy-star-dust

Cherry Blossom

Internet Har Har

To the person who posted this picture

after this article on GAWKER about lobsters eating each other... I salute you :)

I love the internet!

http://gawker.com/lobsters-are-now-ruthless-cannibal-savages-907820059?utm_campaign=socialflow_gawker_facebook&utm_source=gawker_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

Love, lust and fairy-star-dust
Cherry Blossom