At what age do our values make the switch from one structure to the next?

Recently Neen and I have been through some incredibly difficult challenges as a family. Today as I was on the couch (the couch in our lounge, as opposed to the psychiatrist’s battlefield) worrying about various issues, and important ones at that, about work, life’s purpose etc, I caught myself inadvertently ignoring my son. He was drawing, and chatting away, and I was mmm’ing absent-mindedly and not paying attention. He was absolutely riveted and thrilled by his ability to mix colours and create brown, and engrossed in the different effect other pencil crayons and crayons had.

(I had been drawing robot ants with him; I was just taking a break). There I was puzzling about existential issues, and there he was, deciding that pink was not a favourite colour. Sometimes we do wonderfully exciting trips with our children, and ask them afterwards what their favourite thing about the day was. More often than not, it is the seemingly least important segment of the day that leaves the greatest impression.

Go to beach? ‘I liked the dead seagull’.

Visit the Botanical Gardens? ‘I liked it when we saw the moon in the sky in the day’

Go to expensive restaurant? ‘I liked the onion rings’

I would be rhapsodizing about the crashing waves, the glorious flowers or the succulent steaks, so what makes us so different? We try to communicate, but why does it feel as though we are lacking a good translator?

Sometimes we go through issues as adults that we try to avoid letting James and Hannah hear about. They demand the truth. It is upsetting for them to see us cry, and difficult for us to articulate the truth in a child-friendly way. I could say that we are sad because a friend has died, and they are ‘Oh…. Can we play soccer now?’

They lack the sentimentality of adulthood. We expect them to miss us when we are not around, but give them something to occupy their minds and they are blissfully happy. Is this true joy? Is it fickle? Is it just being a child?

Me’n James

I’m so depressed (I like the red crayon too),

I would get dressed (Why bother, there are other things to do),

But I’ve nothing to wear (Who cares if clothes match, or if they’re new?)

Doesn’t anybody care? (I think I’ll paint… No wait, I’ll glue)

I’ve lost my job (Can I have a biscuit, can I?)

I’m such a slob (Can you make a sandwich with apple pie?)

I’ve just heard my friend is dead (Can I go outside?)

I’ll take to my bed (Then you count to ten, I’ll hide)

I got a raise! (Daaaad! I grazed my kneeeeee!)

Work really pays! (Look, there’s blood, can you see?)

I’m ill! Too ill to work (I’m not tired, really, I’m not)

I ache, everything seems to hurt (I’m cold, I’m hot, I’m cold I’m zzzz)

Thank you for indulging me.

Don’t you wish you could be innocent again?

What a week. After I had bad news at work, I had to go to ‘Mike’s Miserable Emporium’ and buy a new set of sackcloth. Not being a very tidy sort of guy, I had some ashes left in the barbecue from the last braai we had. I spent a few busy hours rending my garments, and then I plucked out my beard with some rusty tweezers.

‘Mike’ also had a special on sad pan pipe cover versions, so I bought ‘Leonard Cohen’s Greatest Hits For Solo Pan’, and some morose wall hangings. They were tapestries of children weeping, and finally I got some brass rubbing replicas of medieval graves to line the passage. Dimming the lights, I shuffled haplessly from room to room, keening quietly to myself.

Brief outline: (No real names, as I really need that salary…)

The bookshop I manage hasn’t been doing too well for the last few months, and it appears that the mall is quieter, since a Huuuuge mall opened up fairly nearby. I was trying various things to reverse the trend, but nothing worked.

Monday, my boss came to me and said that I would be swapping with another staff member at a different shop, as she was ‘keen’. He did say that it wasn’t a demotion, but that it was to happen virtually immediately. So Tuesday I left the place where I have been working for five years, and Thursday I started at the new shop. I discovered that my challenging mandate was to ‘tidy the shelves, and just kind of help out in the shop’.

No more responsibilities. I was in shock. I came very close to picking up my bag and leaving, but having a family and bills, I had to paste on an ‘I’m here to serve’ face, and spent the day eating an economy-sized portion of crow. I’ve worked through that, and I believe that God put me there for a purpose, and that I should work as hard as I always do. I don’t believe in the what-goes-around philosophy, so I’m just going to have to keep my head down and trust that ‘all things work together for good for those that love the Lord, and are called together for His purpose’. (Romans 8 vs 28)

Sure I was angry, and depressed and I guess in shock. But ultimately I spend a lot of my day at my job, but it is not my sole defining role.

Got me thinking, if a nutso employee at a firearm factory went postal, would he attack everyone with a mail cart?

Kindly note: I own no CDs with the suffix ‘classics on the pan pipes’. Those meditation compilations with sounds of babbling brooks make me want to go to the loo. Give me some amps and drum solos, and I will relax better than the Dalai Lama on Prozac.

And the winner is….!

Lou.:   “

What would we do without you?

Our dear blogging friend known as ‘Lou’?

That may not be your name,

But we love you all the same,

For you cheer us up when we’re blue.

Though you wrestle with being a mom,

You’re amazing, you’re truly ‘da bom’

And just so that you know,

When you use the word ‘ho’

I’ll know where the googles came from.

So when I am feeling capricious

I’ll chew on that word most delicious

When I’m tired of the piffle,

The bilge and the twaddle,

I know that its all skankaliscious.

But seriously, Lou is someone I’ve recently come to enjoy reading. She comes across as normal, but when you least expect it you get these wacky asides. I love the way that she manages to express herself honestly, and yet not in a self-absorbed way. She’s a greta writer, and I hope we continue to hear more from her…

Really, give her a visit.

Booby prize: Chrysalis. While he had me laughing idiotically at his word, I felt that it was unhappily directed at the panel. The panel, (me) couldn’t render an impartial judgement, therefore.

Plus, Lou begged.

Not related to the above bits:

This week I suffered the ignominy of working my way to the bottom of the company. I went from being a manager to being a tidier. I will write more about this shame later, If I can figure out how to do it without punching the keyboard, and mentioning names of any sort. I guess being fired is just taking that last step off the bottom of the ladder, so maybe I should name names…

It was Mr aaaaa

                        Aaaaaaa

                                  AAAAAAAA

                                                    Aa

                                                       Aaaaaaaaa

                                                            Aaaaaaaargh!

                                                                 THUMP.

Having held forth at length about wild creatures as disparate as sloths and cockroaches, I have realized that something akin to manic obsession creeps into my thoughts when I try to make a point.

Today I will make an effort to relate human experience to humans. To quote Jonathan Kellerman form an old thriller he wrote: “anthropology is voyeurism” (I hope my memory got that right). Although I don’t spend my waking hours trying to see as much as I can of the naked human form, I do watch my children closely, and learn lots from their behaviour. I observe people, but do get involved, so I’m not really an anthropologist. Or a voyeur.

Hey! today is your chance to appear live on this blog! If you can bear the shared burden of fame and attention, you could be a featured guest.

As I was buying books for the shop today, I had a conversation about dictionaries. Every year new words crop up, and are deemed sufficiently significant to warrant an entry in the latest editions of dictionaries. The sales rep threw in the word ‘bootylicious’ as an example, saying that everyone uses it nowadays. I hastily corrected her, saying that rarely does the word bootylicious cross my lips…

I thought to myself… Hmmm… I could do better than that. I could coin whole phres, sentences and booklets. But the challenge is this: Can you come up with a new word, one that helps us to express who we are, where we are or what we are? Can you? Of course you can.

Leave your word, followed by a short definition in the comments, and the highly qualified panel of expert (me) will choose a favourite. I will then write an entire entry dedicated to you. Your name will go out to the nations, as one whose fame shall endure for as long as you float around in the ether ready to be googled.

The rules, although these may be rapidly discarded, are that you may not use an existing word as it stands, although a combination word may work, and that it must be relatively easy to pronounce.

(Start preparing your acceptance speeches, and remember, we are all winners J )

Did you know that, according to the National Geographic: (the baby sloth) slaps at its mothers face. The mother does nothing in return. “They never respond to their babies,” whispers Chiarello, adding that mother sloths neither play nor get angry with their offspring…” (Nat Geo March 2004)

Chilling words. I guess veterinary social workers are fairly rare in the Amazon, but you would think something could be done. Can’t a genetic engineer splice a few playful genes into a breeder sloth? Do they just internalize their anger? It is said that bottling up your anger can immobilize you, and what better evidence of that have we than the sloth?

It is difficult to imagine parenting luminaries such as James Dobson, or Judith Warner clinging to the jungle canopy full of pent up rage, doing droppings onto the dank leafy forest floor. (But I know some will at least enjoy trying to do that). Is a sloth childhood, or cubhood, or whatever an infant sloth is called, a happy one? One could argue that growing up in an unbalanced way, when your life is spent shuffling through dangerously thin branches, is perilous.

Sloths need balance. They need lots of leaves, and could do with a good shampoo, but we anthropromorphicanthropologists may not interfere: we merely observe.

I put it to you: A sloth could hardly be worse off for a rousing game of Monopoly, or Scrabble. ( Yes, another ten points for the word ‘leaf’). Come on, mother sloths!

Note the absent father sloths in the above quote. Are they out gathering foliage, or are they seeing some doe-eyed slothette on the side? Do they get angry? Do they play games? (Naturally ball sports place them at a disadvantage with only three toes).

One can learn many things by observing nature, and today’s observation is:

I may not be the best parent in the world, but at least I am not covered in algae, and unable to get miffed. I am playful, and therefore somewhat better at raising children than a jungle-dwelling creature with no sense of humour.

On tenterhooks: Those of you who have walked this lonely road longer than four months. Way back then I mentioned the possibility of our traveling as family to the States for a vacation. Sorry I kept you awake at night, wondering, wondering…

Neen is going there in April, leaving Africa with all its hustle and dust, and going to a small American village called Washington DC. She has been sent on business to an archiving/digitization conference, and the boss of some little village library, the ‘Smithsonian’ (nice cute provincial name) is going to schlep her around.

I will remain, to protect the children from 1^st world temptations, and we will likely feast daily on all the flavour varieties of instant noodles.

We were preparing for her trip in all sorts of ways. I brought home a book called ‘Speak American’, a Survival Guide to the Language and Culture of the U.S.A. several useful words and terms are explained.

For instance, in South Africa, if you ask someone to ‘Zap your weenie’, you will likely meet with violence of the crudest sort, but the book leads me to believe that in the States, it means nothing more pedestrian than to microwave a hotdog.

In so many books and movies over the years, I have heard references to the (apparently) edible ‘grits’. As Neen will also be going to Atlanta, we figured a Southern education may come in handy. Finally, I discover that grits aren’t made of meat, but are some kind of nasty corn dish eaten at breakfast. I prefer toast. For you Americans, that is a slice of bread grilled in a specially designed machine, the TOASTer, smeared with marge, and pretty much whatever else happens to be lying around.

I am going to take some time off to be an acronym. I will be a temporary stay at home dad, or TSAHD (pronounced as if you hit in the solar plexus with a fishing rod)

While Neen stays at a 5* hotel in DC, I will continue the character-building work of removing various bodily fluids from the walls, and trying not to cry in front of the children. I know the US is a teeny place, so if any of you would like to glimpse Mrs Anon as she passes through, you are welcome to wave a small banner at the airport.

I would love to have traveled with her, and stalked some of you, but my balaclava is being dry-cleaned. Next time I shall look you up (although only if invited!)

A good day: One where you invite some friends from church over to pray, and don’t make the mistake of putting your new Rolling Stones cd in the cd player, the one with ‘sympathy for the devil’ on it, instead of a worship cd.

(This hasn’t happened yet, but it is the kind of thing that does happen to me, the kind of thing I live in anxiety of doing).

A bad day: when something really horrible happens while you are listening to your favourite music, and you are doomed to associate it with that event forever. Neen still gets nauseous when I play a particular song in memory of her morning sickness days…

Recently, I bought two cds I’d been eyeing for ages, and when I took them home to play, found out a friend had died.

An ambivalent day: Your colleagues catch you inadvertently singing ‘Row, row, row your boat’ quietly to yourself, because of the power of infant indoctrination, and you have to carry on singing the entire song as if you really meant to, and you realize that all that separates you from a lunatic asylum, or rest home as they are euphemistically called, are a macramé kit with safety scissors and a knitted Napoleon hat.

When I was fifteen, and dying to grow up and be privy to the privileges of adulthood, nobody warned me about days like these…

Imagine for a moment what it must be like to be a cockroach…

Role reversal. There you are inside a huge cavernous temple, vast items of furniture bought at roach IKEA, looking like something designed by Geiger, the guy who designed the ‘Alien’ sets. A dark kitchen where tantalizing buckets of trash are boiled up, huge crusts falling to the floor to be picked up by any opportunist who happens along.

Naturally, you are hungry, as you have two children to feed (not ten thousand of the little tykes, but it is all relative), so you stick to the greasy cupboards, edging ever closer. Suddenly, a shadow falls across you, you squint upwards, only to be blinded by the glare of the spotlights (do you also have spotlights in your kitchen that make you want to make an acceptance speech every time you turn them on?) Six bristly legs tower above you, there is a faint shriek followed by the ‘SKOOOOSH’ of a gigantic aerosol. Immediately, your chest closes up. You feel the desperate urge to dash around in circles, except your foot is wet and stuck to the smooth linoleum. You start to lose your breath, and fall on your back, your two useless legs pedaling furiously in the air. Another shadow approaches. The last thing you see is a million bristles. The broom of deliverance. You perish, thinking of the orphans you leave cowering under the sink.

Or a mouse.

You cower daily in your hole behind the TV cabinet. You shake constantly with mild seizures, and the terrifying world beyond must be interpreted through your heightened sense of smell. Mom always said you had a cute button nose, but now that you live in the house belonging to the giant mouse family, your nose is your lifeline.

Wait! All is quiet. The passage light is on, in case anyone needs to wee during the night (we know how unpredictable a mouse bladder can be), but they have all retired to their nests. Your receptors tell you that there, just beyond the bin, is a feast waiting to be had. Taking your time, you advance tentatively. The carpet catches your tiny feet, but you skitter around the skirting boards. Paydirt. A huge plate, festooned with hamburger and fries, and a giant chocolate shake lie on the floor as if by design. You pause. Drool seeps over your lips. The unpredictable nature of meals means that this is an opportunity not to be overlooked.

Sniff. Seems fine. You reach out, grab a chip, and as you do you feel the tension in the plate shift. The whole feast shifts, as a massive spring is released, and a vast iron bar shoots down towards your neck.

Footnote: As you lie there, your feet twitching, you are still glad that they didn’t keep cats as pets.

May I close by quoting Dr Seuss?

“But then a strange thing happened:

Why, those pants began to cry!

those pants began to tremble:

they were just as scared as I!

I never heard such whimpering

And I began to see

That I was just as strange to them

As they were strange to me!

(From: What Was I Scared Of?)

Is there such a thing as being too sensitive? Sometimes I am so paralysed by the fear of offending people that I am rendered speechless.

I wish I could be brash and abrasive. Bandying about phrases without fear of recrimination. Stomping bullishly through the china shop of social intercourse. I have met people that can do things with their eyebrows that intimidate and express. I could leap up and down on the spot flailing my arms like a windmill in a hurricane, and people would look straight through me.

I will now set out to offend half of you reading this page, deliberately.

I will show you the new edgy me, the me that takes no prisoners. I will make you step back and think… is this the floor-tile we visited yesterday? Is this the man whose anger is as impotent as a genetically modified strawberry?

Hey you! Yeah you! Bet you have trouble putting on your underwear without falling over… Are you one of those ridiculous sock-rollers? Do you in fact take a fresh pair of socks, and with no regard for the sensitivities of others, roll them up with vigorous twisting movements before you put them on? What kind of a hosiery reprobate are you?

I mean they are socks! Ya just pull em on! Are you afraid of pulling a ligament in your misshapen foot-digits? Do you suspect that if you do it a different way you will graze an ankle? Somebody has taken the effort to bundle the things up in pairs, but that’s ‘acceptable’! Oh no! You have to take them and unroll them, and then squidge them up individually before you guide them over your over-protected feet. Live a little!

I bet you even sit on the edge of the bed as you do it! What is your problem! Hopping around the room not good enough for you? I hope your drier causes a major sock-divorce, and that you end up with disorder in your foot-wear shelf. Singles. Holes. Ridicule in the office. May your shoes seem not to fit, as you stagger around in mis-matching cotton and wool non-pairs!

I can’t continue.

I feel so bad. I picture you all weeping and vowing to alter lifetimes of dressing habits. I am just not actively aggressive. I enter a week filled with so much potential for confrontation and negotiation knowing that I am too polite to say what is on my mind. I am the guy who gets to apologise when I am the one being maligned. I am the one whose ‘socks’ are mocked, and who lacks the courage to stand up and say “ Hey, pal, these socks may be different to yours, but that’s the way I like em”.

What are your ‘socks’? Do you also wish you were more vocal in your defence? 

On James’s ‘healthy’ snacks that he is allowed to take to school, the words “Bite-sized” appear. Urm, yes, that would be the point of a product geared towards a snack market, and packaged in snack-sized packaging. Bet it took their product development team weeks to come up with a reason for the failure of their ‘As-big-as-your-head’ range of snack products.

I walked past a shop today that promised bargains ‘in-store’. Just in case I was looking for their products lying in the gutter with little red ‘reduced’ stickers.

I did a two-year advertising and copywriting course a long time ago, and part of me is thrilled not to working in an agency, if only because you have to write lots of exciting things about lots of mundane things. My personal unfavourite at the moment is competition copy that promises prizes that are ‘UP FOR GRABS!’ Grabs sound like something mean kids do to smaller kids with odd haircuts and sensible shoes.

Maybe those greedy prize-seekers could form an orderly line, and then politely say ‘you first…no you….no really…’.

(Note: this attitude could come from being a sore loser. When I enter a competition, I expect to win… I entered the national lottery once only, and fully expected to beat the statistics. Oh well, maybe being a multi-millionaire would have made me lose my calm and rational way of coping with life…)