A list.

This week I haven’t been feeling particular happy and definitely not very grateful for pretty much anything in my life. Grateful for stepmother’s throat? Please! Then I stumbled upon the blog of Moorea Seal and her 52 Lists project. Just because I always leave my grocery lists at home, doesn’t mean I don’t love a good list, so I was immediately intrigued. Especially since this week’s list was about things we are grateful for and that gave me something to think. And I realized that once again the devil is in the details and sometimes in the small things, the old, and the familiar.

So here is my little list:

¼Diamonds, almond croissants, and rosé bubbly.

I went to Cassis last night and there was a whole basket of sad looking almond croissants left from the day. My I-love-ugly-kitten complex almost won and made me buy them all. Almost. Sanity prevailed. Annika, an almond croissant is not a kitten, no it is not looking sad, it’s not looking at you at all. It is a croissant which has no eyes!!

¼The wonders of modern medicine and a GP who calls me angel, though god knows I don’t deserve it.

And anyone who knows me, knows how it would usually annoy me to be called angel, but for some reason he is the type who can get away with it, leaving me even feeling special. I blame the English accent.

¼Lonely Planet’s The Travel Book.

¼My new neighbour who looks like Antonia Benigni. But with a sixpack.

Antonio. Of course. I had to make the one typo a gender defining one. Sorry, but I don’t actually like girls with six-packs.

_¼  Having a family and actually liking them. _{Most of the time.}

¼My yoga mat a.k.a. lightsaber for inner demons.

¼My courage. Especially my courage to drink green juice.

I have come to the realization that green juicing is not for the faint hearted. So yes, I need courage to down that stuff.

¼My crappy, little camera which despite its crappiness has managed some of the most amazing pictures.

¼A non-windy Cape Town.*

*Which it isn’t. So that makes me also grateful for my never waning wishful thinking.

Pretty please, dear weather man – no more broken windows and basil blown off my balcony!

¼The tingling anticipation of planning a new trip.

¼Steve McCurry pictures.

Looking at his pictures feels like falling in love to me.

 

All pictures by Steve McCurry. Find more here: stevemccurry.com

Thank you, CSI.

I have watched more CSI episodes than I care to admit and the guy at DVD Noveau cares to give to me. To my dismay I have learned if a bit involuntarily, that most of the stuff they do on the show is not really real and the police don’t actually work like this. When I first found out I was shocked and quite a bit disappointed; I thought unlike SA’s police force, NYPD was living in the land of Obama and endless possibilities.
Yesterday I was especially hit hard by this reality as I could have used some digital magic and cross-referencing of cell phone signals and such. My lawyer told me that the sheriff was unable to deliver summons to the evil travel agent as the address I had given was locked and vacant. Did I have another one? Mh. No. Luckily the internet is my friend and though CSI is not real, I am a super sneaky spy when I need to be. In fact, thanks to Facebook stalking, aren’t we all these days?
Anyhow, I put my skills to good use only to find out more horror stories about the woman and to learn that I am apparently not the first to send summons and waiting for funds from foreclosed auctions.
I cried a bit on my way through Garden Centre and when I got home decided the moping needed to stop. Instead of pondering upon the crappy year I’ve had so far, I tried to list the things to be grateful for. This went well for the parts of I made some awesome new friends, went on three trips, had a really horrible attempt at a relationship, but I learned - Flip! What did I learn? I don’t think whatever I did learn was worth the effort, but was faced with the task to turn it into something to be grateful for. That’s when karma kicked me in the butt and I found stinky maggots in my trash. Again. Luckily I had already taken my contact lenses out so they were a bit fuzzy, which was a good thing. They had also mainly stayed in the confinement of the trash cupboard and I hadn’t had dinner yet, which was also a very good thing. Have I mentioned that sight of maggots makes me gag? I think their only useful purpose in the world is to eat rotten flesh out of wounds and thus save lives. Then again I saw them do that on Bones and after learning the truth about CSI, I should be more suspicious of what is true on any given show really.
So, no I don’t believe that maggots have a soul and I don’t care about finding a maggot friendly way to kill them. That is that and there is no need to go all P.E.T.A. on me when I say, I enjoyed the little popping sound they make when being squashed by a paper towel. That was about all I could enjoy about the process and thus I found the reason to be grateful for my past relationship: Love is when he cleans her flat of maggots. Another reason to be grateful for is learning that I can do it myself and unsupervised wine consumption helps while doing it.

The rest of my evening was blissfully uneventful and I amused myself with having a funny dream about said ex-boyfriend. So what can I say? This being grateful business really does work…