Who Are You Calling A Princess?

Daisy’s sixth birthday is three months away, but she is in the stages of advanced planning. We are talking about the party, the guest list, the cake (chocolate with Smarties) and the presents. Following an intensive workshop with her sister, she presented me with this list of potential gifts:

A Sleeping Beauty crown

A butterfly dressing-up dress

A Barbie Cinderella

A dress of Aneka

A new bike and a new helmet

(At this point, Lily’s hand got sore, so she handed over to a grown-up, K, who could write quicker)

A hairband with shells on

A necklace – purple and pink

Some more pretend wings – not broken

A dress with pictures of shells on

A clip with a rose

A crown with a star twinkling on top

A Swan Lake crown

Some Princess and the Pauper shoes

A Barbie Swan Lake dress

A sparkly dress with the moon and the stars on it

A Disney ball

A bracelet

A watch

A new crayon

A Sleeping Beauty book

A Snow White DVD

A Snow White dress

This is a girl who knows what she wants. Most likely, she’ll be getting a new bike and a new helmet. The budget might also stretch to a new crayon.

Housekeeping

Is what I will NOT be doing for the next six days because I’m off to Berlin and Dresden with my friend, K. We’ve got an apartment, a show and a bike tour booked in Berlin, and a hotel booked in Dresden, and the rest is up to chance. You can’t plan too much. My main goal is not to cook anything for six days, not to fold anyone’s clothes apart from my own, not to worry about anyone’s sleep or nappies or vegetable intake, or having to find a babysitter so that I can go out for dinner and stay up ridiculously late and be as silly as I need to be. I also plan not to touch a computer.

When I get back I would like to do some housekeeping here at Charlotte’s Web. If there’s anyone out there who links to me or has me on their blogroll, and I don’t link back, please let me know. Leave a note in the comments.

With that I wish you a big Tschuess. Berlin, watch out, the Pietermaritzburg girls are coming!

The Name Game

In the story I am busy plotting, names are very significant. Some of the characters have intense relationships with their names. So when I woke up and found this fabulous meme at Kate’s blog, well, I felt it was a worthy exercise. And since I have never knowingly ignored a great meme, let me get to it:

1. My rock star name (first pet and current car)

Muffin Renault

2. My gangsta name (ice cream flavour plus cookie, or biscuit)

Peppermint Choc

3. My fly girl name (first letter of first name, first three letters of last name)

C-Ott (That is singularly lacking in attitude, isn’t it? And with my birth name it’s no better: C-Jam)

4. My detective name (favourite colour, favourite animal)

Turquoise Dolphin

5. My soap opera name (middle name, city of birth)

Elise Pietermaritzburg

6. My Star Wars name (first three letters of your last name, first two of your first name)

Ott-Ch

7. My superhero name (second favourite colour, favourite drink, add “the”)

The Purple Gin and Tonic

8. My Nascar name (first two names of my two grandfathers)

Neville David

9. My stripper name (favourite perfume, favourite sweet)

Crystalle Fudge (this one is my best)

10. My witness protection name (mother’s and father’s middle names)

Antonia William

11. My weather anchor name (fifth grade teacher’s name, a major city beginning with the same letter)

Stephen St Petersburg

12. My spy name (favourite season/flower)

Summer Peony

13. Cartoon name (favourite fruit plus garment you’re wearing, with an “ie” or “y” added)

Lychee Knickery

14 Hippie name (what you ate for breakfast plus favourite tree)

Oatmeal Baobab

15. Your rockstar tour name (favourite hobby plus weather element, with “the”)

The Baking Sunshine Tour, featuring none other than Muffin Renault.

Feel free to play too. It’s fun.

The Soundtrack to My Novel

I have been having a fabulous time of late, plotting the narrative of my novel, with the help of my stupendous writing group of two! If these two were bloggers, I could link to them, so you could go and give them some bloggerly love. They have been working far beyond the call of duty, given that one has a very responsible job and the other is writing a PhD, responding to my mails with brilliant ideas and warm strokes.

I’m also frantically trying to meet a work deadline, so most of my creative writing is being done very late at night. At midnight, in the bathroom, with the laptop. Anyway, the early part of the story is set in the late 80s and early 90s, so I have been steeping myself in the music of that time.

Hands up who misses REM? I do. My lovely husband and I once made a pilgrimage to Athens, Georgia, to try and sniff out Michael Stipes, but I believe he’s moved to New York or somewhere a bit more cosmopolitan. Also, our two babies and their grandmother weren’t too keen to hang out in student dives inhaling the very air he once breathed. Funny that. Here’s a little something from YouTube to make you sniff nostalgically (and if you are too young to remember or care, I’m sorry, I am really really sorry for you).

Warning: Could Result in Silly Dancing!

Also, since it’s set largely in South Africa, I’ve been listening to Zulu music. If you have some time, this is a brilliant documentary from Afropop Worldwide, with excellent commentary and great music.

I had no idea writing a novel could be this much fun.

Glitter, Glitter

That’s what the end of the week is doing. It’s glittering at me. In five sleeps’ time, I’m collecting my friend, K, from the airport and then we’re driving to Berlin (I can’t stay away; I’m addicted) for a week of sightseeing, shopping, eating and non-stop talking. Since we have seven children between us, and they will all be far far away with their daddies, there might also be a little bit of sleeping, reading in bed, working on novels, and stopping off for chai lattes at any moment of the day or night BECAUSE WE CAN.

K and I have known each other for 26 years. I got a little weepy when I worked that out. Twenty-six years is a long time to know someone. Two other friends are supposed to be with us, but can’t for various reasons. One of them I have known for 32 years and the other for 20. Clearly, I am someone who is hard to shake off. Once I find you and decide you’re mine, then we’re friends for life.

Remember what it was like to make a friend at the age of 12? You spent long afternoons together, and then phoned each other as soon as you got home. You discussed every detail of your life minutely. My family lived out of town, so I made it my habit to spend nights at my friends’ houses. They really couldn’t get rid of me. I partook in their family lives, sat around their dinner-tables and listened to their parents talk. I became a bit of a fixture, like a wall-hanging or a lamp. While my parents’ marriage was falling apart and my mother was slowly finding her feet again, both K’s family and that of my friend who I have known for 32 years became my replacement families. They both offered me a place where I could feel secure. So they are more than friends, really. They are sisters.

Last week, someone I know told me that I have let her down, that I have not been a good friend to her. That gave me pause for thought, because I have always considered myself a good friend. I have been known to forget the odd birthday (sorry E), but generally, I make my friendships a priority. It’s much harder now to give my friends the time I used to be able to give when I was 12, given that my life has become exponentially fuller.

My mother always said that you have friends for different reasons and different times of your life. I have old friends, new friends, German friends, expat friends, friends whose children are my children’s friends, blog friends, book friends, writing friends, friends my husband found for me, friends I have stolen from him and friends whose husbands or wives are his friends. Usually friends fall into more than one category, and the more categories the better. I think what happened with this friend who is disappointed with me is that I haven’t allowed her to rise above a certain category in which I’ve pegged her, and she would really like to defy her category and be more to me. I’ve been a bit rigid with her. I see that now.

Now, all you category-defying friends, I need to get back to work. I may manage to post before Berlin, but I may not. Forgive me if I don’t. I’ll be back soon, with stories.

YogaMum’s Confessions of a Blogger

This was invented by YogaMum, who posted it as Confessions of a Blogger, and taken up by (un)relaxeddad, who turned it into a meme. It’s the perfect thing to post right now, while seventy-three five children tear up my happy home. All I can say is, “It’s only three hours till I can leave for writing group. Roll on 6pm!”

1. Do you promote your blog?

No I don’t, except to occasionally mention it to people. I say, “Oh and I write a blog” and if they get excited, I give them the URL, but if they come over all glazed, then we move swiftly on. I tried joining BlogHer last year but was a little intimidated by the very American, very Mummyblogger focus. It’s not the right place for me, and maybe I don’t need a place. Maybe Charlotte’s Web is becoming a tiny little place all of its own, a little oasis along the information superhighway (remember when we used to call the Web that? back in about 1995?).

2. How often do you check hits?

Embarrassingly frequently. A few times a day. I’m not obsessed though, really I’m not. It’s just that I have a slight competition going with my blogging husband.

3. Do you stick to one topic?

No. It’s my blog and I write what I like. Sometimes it’s books, sometimes it’s parenting, sometimes it’s silly posts about my shoes.

4. Who knows that you have a blog?

Lots of people, but not my neighbours.

5. How many blogs do you read?

I subscribe to 107 and read them daily. They are divided roughly into three groups: friends’ blogs, where we have built up a relationship and comment on each other’s posts, blogs where I am merely a fan not a friend (Dooce, Confessions of a Pioneer Woman and I Can Make You Rich) and writing/publishing blogs where I read for information and occasionally comment.

6. Are you a fast reader?

Yes.

7. Do you customise your blog or do anything technical?

Err, no. I’m still struggling to put up my Rocking Girl Blogger and Thinking Blogger thingies. (Kate, thanks for the step-by-step tips – I worked through it once, failed miserably and must try again.) I can upload a mean photo, though.

8. Do you blog anonymously?

No, but I wish I had thought about doing so when I started. Since most people know I blog, I can’t really rant or mine other people’s lives for stories. The flipside of this is that I have to keep my blog friendly, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It suits me that this blog is generally a happy place to be.

9. To what extent do you censor yourself?

I do self-censor and keep things private. I also don’t publish any photos of my children. Part of me would love to since they are so damn adorable, but having identified myself, I feel it’s my responsibility to allow them their privacy.

10. The best thing about blogging?

Always connecting. I’ve made friends, have a new and surprising support network. I’m inspired daily – to write, to read new books, to think. I love the window that blogging gives me into other people’s worlds. It has turned my relationship with the print media upside down – I no longer need it. And when I do read a magazine or newspaper, I find it thin, empty and dissatisfying. Give me someone’s own story in their own words any day.

I tag anyone who wants to reveal their blogging confessions … Come on, you want to. You know you do.

Red Shoes and Happiness

Today, I went to some meetings at the company where I used to be an employee. I walked its grey corridors in my red shoes. A small part of me was slightly envious that I no longer work there – there’s always an amazing buzz, the employees are young and trendy, the buildings are modern and stylish and the coffee is excellent. Despite all this, most of me knows that the last thing I need is an office, a boss and an access card. Where I am right now is exactly where I need to be right now.

Instead of my being an employee of the company, the company is now one of my customers. I work for various departments, doing different writing-related jobs: a bit of editing here, some white papers there, an online article or two here and there. Today I met with three different people who have work for me. They all have tons of work for me. I am trying not to hyperventilate.

There’s so much work.

There’s so much work.

There’s so much work. And I have three kids, and three hours four times a week free to do the work in, unless I want to do it late at night, in my pyjamas when all the world has gone to sleep. Not to mention the house I need to maintain, the friendships that require time and commitment, the novel I dearly would like to get bloody written, the handsome man who occasionally would like me to look up from my computer and acknowledge his sweet presence, the blog posts that need to be composed.

Luckily though, I was wearing my red shoes:

My red shoes, like those of Mma Makutsi, assistant to intrepid lady detective Mma Ramotswe in Alexander McCall Smith’s lovely Botswanan detective series, pinch. But, like Mma Makutsi’s blue shoes, my red shoes give me courage. If I can wear these and walk all over the company’s campus, keep smiling and nodding and saying “yes” to all the work they want me to do, then I can find the time to do the work.

I feel panic, but when I look at my red shoes I feel happy. They are coping shoes, getting-it-together shoes, working-all-night-and-meeting-that-deadline but still-getting-up-the-next-morning-to-feed-the-children shoes. If nothing else, I have to live up to my shoes. They are shoes with panache, with gusto, and with attitude.

Bring on those white papers! Bring on the 170-page editing job! Bring on the book chapters! My shoes and I are ready.

Rock On, Melvil Dewey

One of the classic stories my husband loves to tell about my utter uselessness in the domestic sphere originates from when we first lived together in Johannesburg. One Saturday morning, we decided it was time to address the mess that was our home. He took the kitchen and I floated vaguely in the direction of the sitting-room. After about an hour of muscular and manly cleaning efforts, he came to see how I was doing. He found me idly flicking through the bookshelves, with the sitting-room still in a state of disarray.

“What the f****** hell are you doing?” he asked, all sweaty from his labours and justifiably irritable to find me reading.

“Oh,” I replied airily, “I’m alphabetising the books.”

He dispatched me forthwith to the bathroom to do some real work there.

I do love a displacement activity: baking when I should be working, reading when I should be working, writing blog posts when ditto. To me, alphabetising the books seemed like a perfectly logical and useful way to disburse my time. To my husband, understandably, it was less so.

So you can imagine his delight when, on returning from a recent business trip, he discovered that my friend from Dubai (let’s call her G) and I had spent a pleasant wine-fuelled evening doing this:

That’s right. We decided to colour-code the books. Oh, and the CDs. I can’t find anything but I think it looks fabulous. So does G. Thomas, on the other hand, is bemused.

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In other news, I need to acknowledge Kit, who awarded me this:

I’m a girl, I blog and apparently I also rock. Thanks Kit! If any WordPress users could tell me how to upload it to my widgets, then I’ll really be a rocking blogger. Also, I may want to colour-code my side-bar.

Let’s Talk About Food, Baby

It’s clearly autumn. I’ve got visiting owls and the bakery’s got Zwiebelkuechen. When I walked past yesterday and smelt the delicious scent of baked onion, creme fraiche and bacon, I had a vision of all the festivals and seasonal foods that lie ahead of us – the Zwiebelkuechen of harvest time, followed by the pumpkins that may or may not mean Halloween, the November Laternefest and its cakes, and then all the delicious smells and spices of Christmas. In about three seconds’ time, I’m going to be sipping Gluehwein at a Christmas market, wondering what the hell happened to the year. Wasn’t I in Tuscany on the beach, like, yesterday?

Now it’s harvest time and the German new wines will be appearing soon. These are bottled – with screwtop caps – as soon as they reach 4% alcohol, but continue to ferment inside the bottle up to 11%, so they are deceptively strong. Germans serve their Neue Wein with a good hearty Zwiebelkuechen in order to counteract the unknowable amount of alcohol in the wine. We have to be cautious, you know? It’s apparently a very good pairing, if you like Neue Wein, which I don’t. It’s far sweet for me and brings on an instant headache (not the the fun kind that you earn after hours of drinking, but the depressing kind when everyone else is having a blast and you have to go home at 9.15pm).

When I started working in Germany, the first team after-hours get-together I attended was trumpetted as a “Neue Wein und Zwiebelkuechen Party“. The guy who organised it got quite excited about his party theme. You could have sworn he was going to be serving Moet and Beluga caviar, he was so thrilled. (Have you noticed that it’s always the same people who organise parties? Some people are party helpers, other people are party goers, and then there are the special souls who like to organise parties. They don’t seem to spend much time actually enjoying the parties; they are not usually the ones seducing the intern on the dance-floor or arranging group down-down sessions. Instead, they are restocking the drinks fridge, making sure there are enough knives and forks on the table and doing the music. I love party organisers. They provide the excuse for me to make desserts and then do a lot of dancing.) So after all the Neue Wein and Zwiebelkuechen PR from the party organising guy, I got quite excited about these exotic new foodstuffs and was looking forward to trying them. Sadly, they were not great. Zwiebelkuechen turned out not to be some fascinating kind of cake, but Quiche Lorraine (easily found in South Africa) and the wine was sweet, feathery and gave me an instant headache. I was underwhelmed.

However, the Zwiebelkuechen, with its crumbly crust and salty-sweet combination of bacon and onion, has grown on me. Today, passing the bakery, I was lured by its siren smell:

Zwiebelkuechen with feta and pepper salad

Now I don’t drink alone and I seldom drink at lunch-time, even at weekends, but somehow it was not possible to eat Zwiebelkuechen without drinking wine. I’m not so German that it had to be Neue Wein, so instead it was a tiny little glass – really, a tiny, tiny little glass – of rose.

I needed something to help soak up all that Zwiebelkuechen, after all.

And I wasn’t alone. I had three children with me.

Procrastination 201

So here, after special request from Bine and Trousers, is a rather blurry photo of one of our six resident Uhus:

Now that the sun has come out, they have woken up and are doing a spot of leisurely preening.

Today, apart from owl-watching, I also perfected the fine art of procrastination by doing this:

You will be happy to know that both the making and the eating thereof was very satisfactory. Then I went and played on Facebook for a while, adding some photographs to my albums there.

Hmmm, baking, bird-watching and Facebook. I am so bloody middle-aged.