Larcy

Dear audience of twelve ,

You’ve heard me speak and write of Larcy before. Larcy, my 99percenter, shoe-swapping, mad mate who left me for a year to sojourn to the UK. Yeah, you remember those emo posts now don’t you? Heh.

Anyway, the truth is, Larcy is clever. Larcy is funny. Larcy can tell by the tone of my voice on the ‘phone that it’s a good/bad/middle of the road kinda day. Larcy can get me totally in a two-word email.

But. Most of all, Larcy has an eye for things. Pretty things. strange things. Wonderful things.

And she puts them here

Go take a look!

pleasefindthis gets me every time

Every time. A cupcake.

 

This had me in tears, again, and reflecting on a conversation I had last night.

 

It’s more than true.

 

Thank you.

 

 

i don’t do this often.

have a good trip.

tell the world i said it better be good

or i’ll kick it’s arse.

just as soon as i get some of this sleep

and get my ass kicked. heh. in the good way.

you’re right

i don’t get this back.

and i will probably never look this good ever again.

no matter what I think now.

so i should stop whining.

what i do get…

what i do get…

is every day of my life

in all of it’s crazy and beautiful.

and i thank you.

Udobo School Needs Your Help

Dear my fabulous audience of twelve (and more…)

Udobo School is a school very, very close to my heart. It’s run by a group of people who REALLY care, and aims to empower little ones in need, with school readiness schools.

The sad part? They’re running low on cash and support. If you can help, please help.

Please help these children and their School friends.

These children and others like them are facing the possibility of losing the hope that The Udobo Grade R School (Durban) brings to them.  The school is a privileged school for the underprivileged.

The idea behind our vision for the Udobo Schools’ Project, is to provide a quality Grade R education to children from low-income families in preparation (R – Readiness) for their formative years of education.

Our mission is to provide the children from these families (many of whom are victims of HIV and/or are AIDS orphans living with impoverished extended family members) with a Grade R education equivalent to any found at the schools within more financially flush sectors of society.  We have provided a privileged school environment with qualified teachers and we offer a NCS Grade R programme for the preparation of these children to enter their formal schooling phase at Grade 1.

We believe that our programme not only prepares our children more than adequately within the three learning areas of Life, Numeracy and Literacy skills, but also instils within each child a greater sense of self-worth, adequate fine and gross motor skills, adequate emotional and social skills, keen sensory perception, adequate mega-cognitive processing skills, self-discipline and motivation, creativity and planning, execution and evaluation skills.

Our goal is to lower the risk of future school failure and to give our children confidence and hope for a better future.

We also provide these children with 3 nourishing meals every school day. These are, in many cases the only meals these children will receive in a day.

Our school has been in operation now for 5 years and the need has been such that our numbers increased from 3

children when opening our doors in April 2004 to 100 children in 2008 and a waiting list of 56 children in 2009.

This has resulted in an enormous increase in our need for sustainable and committed funding to assist us to retain the high quality of education and care we offer the children.  The crisis in the global world of economics has caused great difficulty in our fundraising endeavours and we have, unfortunately, lost some major sponsorships because of funding now being unavailable.

Please, please would you try to find it in your heart to help us to save our project by giving whatever you can to us as a monthly commitment – anything from R50 a month will go a far way to helping us to continue reaching into the lives of these little ones.

(R50 = 10 loaves of bread

R100 = 20 loaves of bread – a loaf a day)

Udobo is an approved public benefit organisation under section 18A of the income tax act.  We are also registered as a NPO (Non-Profit Organisation) and we are able to receive donations from you which would then qualify for certain tax deductions in terms of and subject to the limitations prescribed in the act.

Please contact me for a debit order instruction which will make your monthly donation effort-free, or contact Kathy Mercer, the School’s principal on .

Please could we ask you to assist us with this appeal by forwarding this mail to your contact lists in the hope that there will be those who are in a position to help us.

Thank you so much for the time you have taken to share our vision and burden with us.  We look forward to your becoming an integral part of the Udobo family.

Always Fishing

Kathy Mercer

(Director of the Udobo Schools Project)

udobo@polka.co.za

www.udobo.org.za

 

About a year ago…

About a year ago, I took a hiatus from blogging.

In fact, I took a hiatus from everything.  It was what I would term the worst time of my life. And I’m not being dramatic.

Today, in conversation with Cam, I realised and was informed that we were okay. Really okay. Sure, what happened is not over, it never will be, but my daughter wins through.

This short blog post is a thank you to those people (and they know very well who they are) who held our hands at that time and still do so today. All the way.

My heart in gratitude to you,

Cath

When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won – Ghandi

the gifts of my life

Last night, Cam said, as I put her to bed:

‘mommy, you are the gift of my life. you are the only mother i ever wanted, and i love you’.

The truth is, Cam, I’ve had the two biggest presents of my life come to me on other people’s birthdays.

The first was you… you born on your day of birth. You are the greatest gift of my life. Thank you for choosing me to be your mama.

The second was…given to me on my best friend’s birthday a few years back. They know exactly who they are.

Every day, I am thankful for the greatest gifts of my life, given to me on other people’s birthdays.

Thank you.

inexplicably linked but entirely untangled

and on a random note…I don’t often, in fact, ever, I think, talk about friends lost. tonight i am going to.

do you think that, sometimes, people are just inexplicably linked?

i have a friend. it’s a friend i lost.

the strangest part of losing each other’s friendship is that it was the right thing to happen, for both our lives.

but, last night, i heard this cover version of a song for the first time, and whilst the content of it is seriously romantic, the connotations we both hold for it don’t linger there at all. they linger on some good memories of me in my orange boots and us laughing at each other’s lives. of me moon-walking out of a club one night, after meeting each other again after many years. We’d known each other since very little and once, once this now-gone-friend had saved my little girl soul from crucifying embarassment. I’ll never forget that.

the end came down to…my friend willing my life to change, and me being unwilling to change it at that time. Me willing their life to change, and them being unwilling to change it at that time.

The madness was brought to light, and things changed. We lost each other’s friendship in a mish-mash of aeroplane trips, trans-atlantic instant messages that went wrong, 2am phonecalls we didn’t make anymore and not acting on some pretty strange signs we both saw.

When this song came on last night… I knew. I knew that the time had come to acknowledge the madness, acknowledge that it’s over, honour the time we had and keep moving on. That this friendship is indeed over, and that the fact that we don’t miss each other, says more about just how mad it all really was.

When this song came on, I knew something was up. Something had gone wrong in their lives. The Universe doesn’t send up a flare of this magnitude without good reason.

So, I stopped what I was doing this morning for a second, summoned up all my courage, and typed a short email to this now-gone-friend.

They responded. I had been right. At the exact time that I had heard this song, they, on the other end of the world, in their well-chosen and destined life, had been what we’d have called, mockingly to each other, “having a drama”.

I guess the Universe wanted me to check in. To get over my own self, and just check in.

So I did. And I’m glad I did. We don’t miss each other, we don’t feel any great desire to chat again. We don’t feel the need to continue beyond this email send/receive session. We are okay with the past and that it should stay there. We stunted each other, and have grown beyond our greatest trees of dreams since letting go.

Tonight, though, I am thankful for the time we did have together, for the friendship we did have, and I am thankful that we let it go. Moreover, I am thankful that we were able to check in on each other, without agenda, and without hope of going beyond this little exchange.

So, here’s that song.

Tonight I dedicate to my now-gone-friend. To a dusty, hot freeway and driving so very far for no reason. To a bird that poohed on my head. To coming home from work today to find an anonymous package on my doorstep and knowing that it was going to be okay. To a good little pig in a box that once arrived in my life. A present for Cam, she rode that little pig bike thingum for ages. Now she has grown much too tall for it. I look at that pig and I think, whilst the pig may be of little use now, it’s still a good pig. Heh. I don’t even know if you’re reading this my now-gone-friend. You probably are. Thank you for the time we had together. It’s still a good pig.

This line for you:

“and I dream your dream for you and now your dream is real”

Adieu.

sunday’s random thoughts

Okay, I can exhale now.

Last night, Will and I celebrated our eleven year anniversary of best-friendshipness. Eleven years. There are marriages that don’t last that long.  If you wanna know about it, you can read about it here

We laughed, we bleaked out about our clear aging processes. Swapped eye cream tips, laughed about our horrible choices in music in a past life. We reminisced about our mutual stories of our frondship (this is codespeak).

Something about Will and Grace. You know, it is possible that over the last year, we’ve disagreed. That sounds weird to say, especially considering that we never had any real disagreements until this, our eleventh year. Sure, Will has vehemently held  back on commentary on certain choices I have made about where I place my heart in my life. But, this year we truly disagreed for the first time ever, to an almost awkward point.

But, we got over it, we got by, and I think we both realised it was actually a sign of our strength that it happened.

How did it happen? Will was worried about me. We ended up talking about how maybe we care too much. Turns out though, it’s not that at all. It’s when other people get involved and mixed up in the middle of what makes us a terminal team of madness and sanity, that something happens. We worry about each other. It’s what we do.

/One of the eight million and six reasons why I respect you so much, is that you’ve always been so careful not to intrude on it. Even to the point of us calling you ridiculous. The truth is, you fit with it. You’re okay to go with it. It means the world to me that you’ve never told me to choose./

And at 2am today, whilst we were laughing under the stars, having avoided crowds, ugly ex-boyfriends and irritating much-younger people who prompted me to ask the usual “Er, Will, do their mothers know they’re out? And no, I’m not paraphrasing ABBA”…I remembered how it is that my best friend and I met.

On a sunny Sunday. In a driveway. Neither of us feeling particularly social. And ultimately shy. I believe I was wearing some atrocious misconception of an outfit. It was not a red, tiered skirt, though. And I can confirm he was not wearing a polka dot shirt.

I keep in a file in my house. In it, the emails we used to write to each other. Termed the “spleenvent mails”, they got us through the years where Will lived in a different country, and I lived in another mental space. Those long-winded epistles made me laugh and cry every time. Were it not for those, I doubt I’d be the person I am today. By the time he returned on holiday, we were closer than anyone really knew. I think it was a bit of a shock for some people – we were okay with that.

And when, over a box of life-defining cigarettes, Will decided to return home, it was with my greatest heart that I felt okay with the world again. Will fast became the person I would run to, in real life, for everything. Will stood by me in everything. When I would cry about pain, he would put his hand on my shoulder and say “you know, these things will pass”. He would let me cry, never berate me for it. He would make me laugh. He would fish me out of life’s swimming pools, literally and figuratively. When the bottom fell out of my mind, shortly after Cam was born and my Dad died, it was Will who shuffled me into his house and said “here is a plate of food. eat it. this is a hot bath. wash in it. this is a pillow. sleep on it”. It was Will who got me through that time. When something in my house breaks, he brings his Big Jim toolbox and I laugh at his clearly butch nature. He has a tool cupboard in his kitchen. He’s like Bob the Builder, but Bob sings along to ABBA whilst he re-tiles people’s roofs or something. When my kidney broke, he rushed to hospital. Heh. Bjork, be damned .

The truth is, nothing ever changes between us. No matter how much life throws at us, candle holders inclusive, the texture and easy laughter flows without obstruction. I am blessed to have Will.

He is Cam’s godfather. That means more to me than you could know. To me, godparents aren’t there to ensure a child sticks to a religious principle. They exist to be another support to a child as they journey through the world.

I’ve had Will in my life for every critical turn in the journey, and every straight and easy road. I couldn’t have chosen better. I couldn’t ever have asked for a better partner in un-crime and oprah glasses. Knowing that Cam has that for her too, means the world to this mama.

Happy Anniversary, Will. Thank you for eleven years of everything we are.

Let’s go do the big block and the helicopter on the dancefloor like the crazy kids we still are. Just as soon as I finish my crossword

Cammertime

I’ve not seen Camster properly this month. With all the to-ing and fro-ing and flying around, tonight’s the first night we are home together, properly.

She’s walking around in her mermaid costume, telling me how much she loves me.

Tonight, she said…

“mommy, i didn’t miss you while you were away. you were in my heart all the time”

In everything that’s going on right now, in the world at large and the flurry of deadlines, meetings and general trying-to-stay-afloat, my daughter leaves me breathless.

Thank you, Cameron, for choosing me to be your mama.

Correction for WebAddict

Sunday 25 October 2009

Rafiq made an error this morning, talking about HIV-911

I  immediately contacted Rafiq as I am the IT Manager for HIV-911

To correct:

We make all our database information freely available to everyone. The only time we charge is when a printed directory is ordered – this is to cover printing costs.

All organisations, public health facilities and doctors receive a free copy of their provincial directory and our referral services telephonically operate on a ShareCall number, and we make our entire database searchable for free via our website. We are also embarking on a variety of mobile projects to further enable empowering access to the HIV-911 database information

Rafiq has since amended the post and updated it with correct information.

The lesson here is to always be clear, and make sure that you’ve checked your facts – I learnt something today and I know alot of people did too.

I have closed comments on this topic as it’s a work matter and this is my personal blog.