Two Boxers and a Golden Retriever

These are our children. I do not currently have human ones of my own making and maybe someday I will but in my mind and my heart, I am just as fortunate for these three and they are no different to your human ones. To say I am obsessed with animals, dogs in particular, is somewhat of an understatement. I often say I prefer them to people.

Dexter is our oldest Boxer, he is a Saggitarian like me and turns 7 at the end of this year. He is big, and noisy, and boisterous but he is a gentle giant. If he could he would sleep on your lap. He insists on having some part of his body touching yours at all times and must sleep under a duvet in winter. I shudder to think at how he will react to the snow in Toronto but I laugh at people when they ask me if we are taking the dogs with. Of course we are, are you taking your kids?

Jessie (Jessica Anne, when naughty), is our chatty kathy. She mumbles, and groans, and whines constantly for no reason. She is a typical Libra, can't make up her bloody mind! Jessie was diagnosed with a form of canine cancer last year and went through 7 weeks of surgery and radiation treatment. She is absolutely fine now and has a hairless patch of skin on her chest as a gentle reminder. I honestly believe that she took on some form of energy, be it our stress or as protection from something happening and I thank her every day for that. Jessie is 5.

Troy is our baby. He is the gentlest dog that you will ever meet. I've grown up with Boxers so am used to their energy and expect all dogs to be the same. Sometimes I look at him and I wonder if he is truly canine or if there is a human trapped inside there. He amazes and amuses me. Troy is a Virgo. He is 3.

We long for an affection altogether ignorant of our faults. Heaven has accorded this to us in the uncritical canine attachment.

~George Eliot

Exercising my option

I've really had it. This morning I got a call from someone that works for me, an hysterical call because she and her husband had just been held up, beaten up, and he had been shot. What was she screaming at me about? The fact that her laptop and some confidential work documents had been stolen. Naturally I told her to forget about the work stuff and asked if they were ok. For all intents and purpose they are and that means "thank god you weren't killed". This is what we do, we thank god for allowing this bullshit to continue to happen, as long as we are not killed. There are hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of stories just like this one, but I'm going to tell it anyway...

The couple were at home on a public holiday. She was hanging up the washing and he was somewhere in the front of the house. Their baby was at her parents and her car was parked outside; his had been stolen a month previously (but luckily nobody was killed). She looked up and saw her husband walking towards her, one man on either side of him and a gun at his neck. He told her to "just get down" and he lay on top of her whilst they screamed, kicked, hit and demanded money and valuables. The youngest of them kept on saying "can I kill them?, can I kill them?" but an older one told him no. When they were finally done the youngest one could not hold it in anymore and fired a single shot. She felt her husband go limp on top of her and she rolled him over. The bullet had gone through his shoulder and exited, narrowly missing her head. He told her to push the panic button and that's when she saw all the blood. The police and armed response were there within minutes, the ambulance took their time. The robbers got away with two cellphones and a laptop. They would have killed for much less.

I don't begrudge the people that choose to stay here, I worry about the ones that have no choice. I still read all the overly positive emails and reports that get sent around like chain letters telling us why it isn't so bad and almost berating the people for their negativity or for wanting to leave. I sign the petitions to the President, but I know that they are never going to make any difference. I have been to more funerals than most people, I have listened to the stories and YES, IT IS THAT BAD. The good stuff is just not good enough anymore. I have been told that I am overly-emotional, but dammit I have the right to be. The crime rate and the lack of concern about the country's failing infrastructure is not acceptable. It just isn't.

I no longer have any desire to enjoy the things about this country that are good, and there are a lot of those. It is incredibly painful to see how much damage can be done and how little regard there is for life. It's not even a white thing anymore because just as many black people are subjected to this kind of violence.

Each day I ask that we make it through the next few months without becoming a statistic, so that we can get the hell out of here. And at the moment, I don't ever wish to come back.

I choose to opt out and leave. Please don't hold it against me.

Reflections

I have been wracking my brain for something witty, and enlightening to write. I've started a few times and then given up because to be honest, all that I hear about, and talk about at the moment, is the terrible state of the country we live in and our impending move from South Africa. But here's the thing. I don't want to talk about that. I'm not joking when I say it's all we discuss and it's tiring. At some point I am sure I will rave on about it so I still reserve the right but for now I have something much more fun!

It rained this weekend, non-stop, and it's still raining. I'm getting used to the idea of living indoors (read...Canada) and Dexter, my very large but very wimpy Boxer is going to have to give in at some point and go outside. He point blank refuses to put a toe on anything that has dropped below a certain temperature or seen the likes of a drop of water. The poor thing hovers like a ballerina a few centimetres above the ground when he has no option but to go out and do his business. Last night he refused to go to sleep until he had been totally wrapped up in a duvet.

Anyway, I decided to lie on the couch with a cup of hot coffee and read some of my old school magazines, the ones that they put out at the end of each year. I came upon some of my writing that had been published. Damn....I was a miserable soul, you should read the depressing shit I wrote. But there was one piece that made me giggle and here it is.....

"To Pee or not to Pee"

To pee or not to pee, - that is the question:
Whether 'tis problems of the bladder to suffer
Or the pain of stones of the kidneys,
Or maybe to take help from a group of Urologists,
Who by treating pains end them? - To sleep, to suffer,
No more, and by a sleep to say we end
The pain and the thousand natural ills
That flesh is heir to 'tis a Cystocsopy
Devoutly to be wish'd. To end - to sleep;
To sleep! perchance to dream; ay, there's the doctor
For in that sleep of anaesthesia what dreams may come.
When with his sharp knife an incision he makes,
Must let him look: there's the stone
That for so long did block the pipe;
And who could've bore the pain and anguish or obstruction?
The surgeon's deftness the stone's release,
The pangs of despised surgery - my worries ended,
The fair surgeon! - Genuis in all your incisions
Be all your operations remember'd!

Std 9 (Grade 11)

P.S. Mother is home, well and high as a kite. Go mania!!