Cocktails lead to 'cock-tales'...

Last night I had biiiiiig plans to chill out at home with said bottle of wine, a long bath and my book... but it was all hijacked by my boss suggesting we all go out for cocktails! We ended up at Pakalolo's on the beachfront : not entirely well-behaved ambassador's for Gymboree in our branded uniforms! After 3 drinks, we were at that stage of the evening where stories get told - and last night, it was 'most embarrassing moment'. By the time we got to my turn, I actually couldn't think of one - because there are just so many!! Where would I begin?
Amazingly, I didn't have the vaguest shadow of a hangover this morning (though I did wake up TERRIBLY thirsty at about 2am fantasising about an ice-cold glass of water!) Normally I only drink red wine - and this cocktail business is not at all my thing: but when your boss is buying, it is very, very hard to say no! It all started off with an icy Savanna. And then another. Then it was a huge Mai-Tai -- and I think because I'm friends with the barman, he threw in more Stroh rum than is required...
The evening could still have been salvaged and turned into something constructive and productive in terms of either painting or writing, but when it was decided we were heading upstairs to Primi Piatti for pizza and more cocktails, I knew then that I had to just surrender myself to a few more hours of mindless and very tipsy chit-chat.
And so my Porcupine Ridge Syrah sits on the kitchen counter waiting for another quiet evening.

PS. I have just found out that I can continue staying in the flat I'm in : and for a slightly heftier rent than I anticipated - but I could never imagine going to stay back at my parents...

Double Trouble

I've just come back from the Spar across the road - having devoured a little box of Astro's along the way (loving the early spring sunshine!) I also bought a bottle of Porcupine Ridge Syrah for tonight. I'll plonk myself down on the floor in the living room with a deep glass of wine to watch the sun set in pink, salmon, lilac, pale indigo, gold...
One of our younger moms (23 years old) arrived a few minutes early for class looking very frazzled and red-cheeked : and when I asked her how she was, she replied that today has been the worst day of her life! And why? Because she was told this morning that she's pregnant with twins! And they weren't even planning another baby, let alone twins!! It makes me think of my mom giving birth to my identical twin sisters when I was 15 months old...
Anyway - I have to get ready for my next class.
Ciao

Fur in bed

{I really REALLY need to get myself organised with an HSDPA or whatever it is modem-thingy so I can write at night... I've found that filling the ether with my words consumes less of my physical living space than when I used to keep piles of journals of pen and ink. I write to write - and not to be read, I guess.)

A colleague just walked past behind me as I type these words here at the reception desk at work and blanched - audibly shocked at the title of 'Fur in bed'! And so, I better launch right into the 'fur' thing! A few months ago I walked past Vee's Video and saw a film poster in palest dirty pink and greys; the iconography so much my own. I remember my painting professor talking once about 'resonance' - how a certain image (whether in words or picture) evokes such deep-seated tremors in your heart and memory, that meaning and value are immediately attached to it. And this 'Fur' poster did just that to me - it stirred my heart (so much so I went inside the video store to ask them if they could put it aside for me...)
After work, I popped in there to get a DVD to watch (had plans for a bottle of red wine, popcorn and me in bed) and saw 'Fur' on the shelf! After a lazy nap where I woke up to a pink 7 o'clock sunset, I opened the wine, popped the buttery popcorn and set my laptop up on the bed - speakers and all! Sitting cross-legged amidst a bed of pink and orange silk cushions, red wine and --- oh dear: I have to go: boss calls... (PS. Watch 'Fur' if you dare!)

Meat-Markets and Cocktails

I've managed to grab a few minutes on the Net before my first class starts this morning at 10am - and I'm ENDLESSLY grateful that I didn't have more than one cocktail last night... (two friends from work whisked me off on a girl's night out in an attempt to inebriate/anaesthetize my 'loss' : I ended up at Pakalolo's at about 8pm, sipping a glass of of slightly too cold shiraz, wrapped in the warm music of strangers' laughter - while my friends arrived almost half an hour late. Then it was off to the meat-market next door -- Cubana. Lizet ordered a 'Secret' cocktail for me (sickly sweet and bizarrely colourful) at a bar chockful of middleaged men and bottle blondes. Three married men wanted to buy us drinks - which we gracefully declined (simultaneously asking where their wives were... Guilty, sheepish smiles were their replies.)
By 9.30pm, I sipped the dregs of my Secret and decided it was time to go home. (There is NOTHING worse than teaching little children with a hangover. I did it once : NEVER again!) Today with my 16-22 month olds I will be climbing through tunnels and then with my 2 and a half year olds, we will be pretending to be dogs and cats: lots of running around and woofing and miaowing... So nausea and a pounding head are not conducive to exuberant play!
Time to get into my 'teacher's head' ...

Jilted!!

I have gone from being a divorcee to being a fiancee to being single in the space of a year! Yikes! No wonder all I could see were forests of raised eyebrows!
It's incredible what restrospect affords one... I feel wiser than I did even 24 hours ago! And yet I know I have many more lessons to learn.
Lesson Most Recently Learned: one cannot 'get over' an eleven years of emotional abuse in 365 days! (I have done far too much random, thoughtless dating and not enough heart-work and alone-time...) And so, I begin a new journey, heading towards a place where marriage is not something to be achieved - a husband is not a trophy. (This comes from years and years of growing up amongst oceans of white silk and frothy tulle veils and the sounds of brides' voices punctuating the incessant thrumming of my mother's sewing machine.)

This is me - raw, and ... blunt (unedited)

Lisa