the random story of how micky ate dicky.

yesterday was horrible. i don’t even know why but everything brought tears to my eyes and in the end i just ended properly crying for no good reason. i decided that i shouldn’t be amongst people so in the question of wine or yoga, wine with pasta and dvds won. though it may not have been the healthiest choice, it seemed to be what i needed as today i woke up with lots of energy and the drive to get things done.

after editing some stories for a travel blog that i would love to contribute for, i went through my pictures to select some to go with the stories. i stumbled upon some old ones that i haven’t shared here, so i thought i’d make a little picture post.

i give you random pictures that have nothing in common but make me happy:

 my wonderful friend marie and i at noordhoek beach. that’s what happens when the photographer tells you to make a scary face and jump. marie just had the most beautiful baby girl and named her anni, which of course i am totally claiming credit for. i cannot wait to meet her.

i was a hipster taking shoe pictures long before instagram. i may start a series. i have another one where my shoe is dangling over a volcano.

this was taken on my first real solo trip to the seychelles. since i like travelling on my own i have the unfortunate tendencies to take selfies, also pre iphone and screen turning options. here i luckily opted to ask someone. i have since realized it is actually nice to have a decent picture of myself in a place that i liked, touristy or not. have i mentioned i used to have baby turtles? micky and dicky were they names and within a week of getting them i already regretted it and wasn’t sad when micky eventually ate dicky and we returned him/her to the pet store (we returned micky only as they didn’t want to take half eaten turtle remains). the only surprise was that micky ate dicky as he/she was half the size of dicky (dick = fat in german). however the little one in the picture i liked lots.

my dad and i on christmas two years ago. we are both total suckers for christmas as you can see. and though he is not getting any younger - his words not mine - he has just booked a flight to come down again. i am beyond excited for family christmas and a trip to zanzibar with him!

drop your hip, annika! but besides this technicality i love this picture. yoga in the desert, pucci scarf in the hair, prada on the nose.

there is a guy who has a picture taken of him doing a split jump in front of famous buildings and sites all over the world. i think i want to do that too from now on, only with standing bow pose as i am much more a standing bow poser than a split jumper in general. first up is the reclining buddha and then angkor wat . till then find me at the yoga studio where i practise dropping my hip…

relax, don't do it.

i’m still getting used to the south african winter. after a few winters of being incredibly cold i learned my lesson and got a good duvet and started to wear proper shoes and a jacket. before i was one of those grumpy, cold people, stomping my flip flop clad foot: but this is africa, why do i need to wear a jacket?! but now i learned and the weather and i are fine.
however the work seasonality is still a strange one for me. like so many other people here, i too work in a seasonal job – production. that means long, work filled days during summer and short days, filing and picking up three phones calls per day in winter. i know i should enjoy less work and while still in summer i do look forward to the winter season. before i usually come up with a list of all the incredible things i want to do with my newfound freedom free time. last year’s winter list included:

give my flat a make-over.
give my wardrobe a make-over.
lose 5kgs and make my abs visible.
learn french.
blog every.single.day. and spellcheck too.
learn to cook new meals that do not include pasta. okay, that would never be on any list of mine.
write the novel. oh yes, i too have that plan, don’t we all?
write real letters to friends and family at home.

guess what is on this year’s list?

an un-pc fashion.

i try to be a pc person, i don’t like to offend on purpose, but sometimes it just doesn’t work.  sometimes i too say things and then i want to put a foot or two in my mouth afterwards.

the fashion industry is definitely not known for being pc either, but unlike me they really don’t care and only when sales numbers are in danger, will they issue a public apology and suck on a louboutin. remember that i was part of this industry? that’s my only excuse i have for this story…

i have written about how my obsession with hole-y tank tops started. and yes, for the sake of the story i will continue to call them tank tops and not vests (south african for tank top), because otherwise the americans will get confused and as the story happened in nyc i think it’s fair to humour them. my obsession however is not exclusively with old, rugged, dirty tanks with holes. no, i love them all and i have in my days paid shocking amounts for perfect versions. people will only shake their head slightly when you tell them you paid a month rent for a pot of la mer or said louboutins, but tell them you spend it on some tank tops and they will use terms like loony for you. in my defence these tank tops have lasted me way longer than a month’s rent and quite a few have made their way to cape town. however lately i have noted that it might be time to replace a few. you know when end up wearing something with more holes than fabric? we are there. 

now you need to understand if you are like me, finding the perfect tank top is by far not an easy task and money is not even an issue here. there is a fine line between perfect looking and perfect looking when worn. a line, if crossed, condemns a tank top unworn in my closet for eternity.

by far the hardest to get right is a wife-beater. you say lbd, i say a white wife-beater is a quintessential item in any girl’s wardrobe.

there. ups. i said it again.

how a peacock squashed my nose.

as per usual i started to make a list of all the things i wanted to do on the long weekend. luckily i almost immediately ditched the list. i have been very good at list making lately, but not so good at ticking things of said lists. nothing makes me feel less productive than just making a list, but nothing that’s on the list. and when your productivity is already low the last thing you really need is to have it rubbed in your face by with the accusing look of an uncompleted to-do list. so i stayed away from the list, but just allowed myself to be genuinely excited for the three days off.

and though exciting might not be the term for some to describe the type of weekend i had, for me it was definitely a good and a busy one. i went mushroom hunting with some friends and turned into a photo snapping, maniac tourist when we saw baboons back at the car park (which was fun at the time, but unimpressive after my friend told me later that she just saw koalas and kangaroos at a graveyard (!) in perth). on sunday i had a lovely father’s day dinner with my south african dad thanks to his daughter thekla who cooked up a storm for her papa and then got further spoiled with my friend making oxtail pies from scratch for us yesterday.

i took a nap every day, which – call me old – was a highlight!

i also spent a few hours each day at the studio, teaching and practising and found myself with very sore arms this morning after surprise! surprise! a few vinyasa classes. if you want to know one yoga related thing about me it is that i only like bikram yoga. as far as all other kinds go, i know different people like different things, but for me i couldn’t care less about them. however with the way local studios are structured i don’t get enough bikram practise, especially when i teach myself, so i decided that i needed to give vinyasa a chance again.

a lot of people say that they feel intimidated by bikram yoga, that everybody who does it is insanely fit and toned already, an a-type personality, etc. this may or may not be true for some, but for me it is not. however it would describe how i feel about vinyasa. plus it adds an element of speed that always reminds me of an aerobics class when i am the person who is always a step behind because i can’t coordinate my arms and legs in a timely manner.

but we all know the little drawing with the circle and the dot, the comfort zone and where the magic happens and since i need some magic right now, i braved a few classes. it wasn’t quite magical, but i did enjoy myself a little, that was, till i attempted peacock pose. with my legs in full lotus, because that’s apparently easier (ja, right!), and my face flat on my mat i had all of a sudden nowhere to go and no idea how to get out of it. if you don’t know what i am talking about - i made a little drawing so you can picture it - how it should look like and how i look like:

obviously i was a bit embarrassed, not so much because i couldn’t do the pose, but because i couldn’t even get out of it slightly graceful and under what i perceived the watchful eye of other students around me, who know me as a teacher. it was only with a sore nose that i somehow wiggled my way out of the pose and then just sat on my mat and laughed.

and so here is what i learned this weekend:

magic is overrated.

if you can’t get up gracefully, opt for just getting up.

laugh at yourself before others do.

turning an experience from i failed at something into i tried something and only squashed my nose a little is something you can call an accomplishement.

reasons to jump out of bed and stab your toe.

 

this morning i woke up, jumped out of bed with excitement and stabbed my toe. why?

it was pouring like crazy outside!

usually this would entice me to stay in bed, but for some reason today it made me want to buy wellingtons and jump in puddles.

i am going to asia in a month and a half!

this is not news, but once in a while it just hits me that it is really going to happen.
 

i remembered the quail that tasted like waffle i ate at dear me last night!

yes, you read correctly – a quail that tasted like waffle. the sad thing is that after eating something that amazing you really don’t want to eat anything else ever again. and definitely not a measly banana for breakfast.

it’s friday and we are having three days off!

enough said. have a great weekend.

the story of how i killed my fridge with stillness.

i'm not particularly good at sitting still. this is one of the reasons why i never go to the movies and why i don’t meditate. i have tried a few times unsuccessfully to do it and still body and my mind. i either end up with roaring back pains which seems to make the semi-still mind not very worth it or i fall asleep when i attempt to do it lying down. bikram yoga was probably made for people like me as it is also called a moving meditation. however even with all the movement, my mind still manages to go elsewhere; think about cupcakes or how cute the boy behind me is and how i should pull in my tummy  more or how i envy the girl in front of me because she doesn’t have a tummy to pull in. so all in all not very meditative either, but at least i’m working up a sweat.

on sunday i came out the shower to find my yoga mat on the floor drenched in sun and i had the sudden urge to just sit still for a moment and also drench myself in sunlight. even though the german in me is enjoying the cold and the rain and uses the weather as reason to stay gemütlich inside, the sunlight appealed most to me about the idea to sit on my floor and do nothing. i needed sunlight on me immediately. i am not sure if it deserves the term meditation yet, but i enjoyed sitting quietly for about 25 5 minutes, didn’t mind my wet hair dripping and had fewer thoughts than i thought i would. overall it made me feel quite peaceful and just when i started to rethink my whole approach of meditation-is- stupid-and-for- eremites-in-caves-who-have-nothing-better-to-do-only, the fridge died. i basically meditated the fridge kaput. so much meditative energy  coming out of me and boom! – electricity tripped, me still and fridge still. great.

i conclude: meditation – good for you, bad for your home appliances. just like the bacon which set my oven on fire last month.

bikini karma.

the other day while i was driving to get lunch i was thinking about my recently re-found resolution of being a nicer person when the driver in front of me was behaving like a complete ass and i started yelling “you fucking asshole”. the irony of this timing wasn’t lost on me and i thought thanks for irony to give us inspiration for blog posts.

so i started writing and then i stopped. it wasn’t a post i wanted to write and definitely not one i wanted to share. it felt way too personal. i don’t mind personal, you know that, and i guess i share things that other people would never share in a million years so each has a personal comfort zone of sharing. last year i challenged myself to be a nice person for one week and i wrote about it here. after searching my own blog (as i do these days since i seem to repeat my stories) i realized i did the exact same thing again a mere two month later. this time the challenge was to be a nice person for two weeks, do yoga, write a story, and learn french every day. so i can officially say my memory sucks in addition to my ability to be nice or to speak french.

whether i failed or not, sharing it back then was fine. it felt like sharing an unsuccessful diet attempt. you are just mildly embarrassed while you write, munch on kfc, and tell yourself that you actually don’t need a diet, you are okay just the way you are. 

sharing now that i am trying again feels different. it feels like sharing a picture of me in a bikini under fluorescent light after said kfc lunch – really, really uncomfortable.

but uncomfortable or not i have decided to do it anyhow and share the bikini picture: 

ain't no martha stewart.

i’m not really a sweets person. except for the occasional pms induced snickers i always prefer savoury over sweet for comfort food. i do like gummibears, but if some relative from germany is coming and ask me what i want i still prefer a stern to haribo. this year i found christmas chocolates in my fridge at easter and whenever vida e wants to give me a lindt i want to ask them if i can rather have some chips with my coffee. so no, i am even a fan of chocolate. gasp! what? the horror! i know, what kind of girl am i to not like chocolate? insert shaking head here.

the one thing i always did like was cake. probably because i was a bit deprived as a child when it came to cake. we would only have cake occasionally for a sunday afternoon treat.  my dad and i usually shared a slice of fruit cake. today we have tart, back then we had fruit cake and it usually involve canned fruit drenched in colour coordinated jelly. he ate the fruit and i ate the dough. it was perfect as we each got the part we liked best. for a big birthday party of his he once ordered crates of little fruit cakes with vanilla cream and berries. i do vividly remember that i ate all the left over ones including the fruit, they were just that good.

so moving here i fell in love with cassis not only for their macarons, which i still declare the bestest ever (i have yet to have ladurée), but also their little fruit tarts which are perfect for a single person’s appetite. the other day i was very excited to have gotten the last one. getting the last one of something always makes me feel special and extremely excited. even better it was a random wednesday and they told me i could pick another little cake. it was 2-for-1 day and yay for me. now i didn’t feel so excited anymore for getting the last fruit tart as there was no other. only chocolate left. i almost refused my free cake; this shows you just how little i care about chocolate.

cupcakes are also quite uninspiring to me, after all it is just dough and icing…bleh. i almost cried with disappointment after finally going to magnolia bakery in nyc to have one of their famous cupcakes. one does wonder how they ended up starring in so many movies and tv series when it was more icing with cupcake than a cupcake with icing, too dry and overly sweet; something my mum would refuse with the words i’m not spoiling my figure for junk. 

smiling in the rain.

as you can see i had a little face lift. i also finally added a facebook page and i am also working on a whole bunch of stories and ideas. i must admit that though i have the time, this weather is making me quite lethargic, so posts are not coming along as quickly as i would like them to. so while i trying to nap write i just wanted to leave you with a little monday inspiration.