Almost 40 and Ancient

I am almost forty. It's like I woke up one day and went "What the fuck?! Where did time go?" To most of the young gay people forty is ancient: ancient like you were part of the creation and saw the dinosaur extinction. I think being about to turn forty is more traumatic than actually turning forty. They say your forties is the best years of your life; you know who you are, you're settled in your career and you have disposable income that you actually can enjoy spending. I hope all this is true because if it's not I will hunt that person down, who said this, and threaten to kill them to their face. I won't actually kill that person because I am too pretty for jail and have terrible food allergies. Ok, I just made up the food allergies but still, prison food I assume is really bad.

A lot of things change as you approach forty. You realise that you're no longer in your sexual prime, you're sprouting grey hair (even your pubes which is stark reminder that your penis is old too) and you tend to become set in your ways. It's like you have reached a point in your life where you no longer are willing to tolerate shit from other people, you re-evaluate your friendships and attempt to have an uncomplicated life free of bullshit. In essence you are cleaning house in preparation for the next phase making sure you no longer have excessive baggage.  Because frankly who needs it.

The most obvious reminder that I am almost forty is when I drop off or pick up my son from kindergarten. Most parents there have just started their families and are young. Every time I am there I am reminded that I am one of the older parents. You know the ones that had little oopsies. However, I don't particularly care. We are all going through the same shit with our kids and we can stand in solidarity with just a sympathetic look or a nod of the head. The scary thing is that when my son finishes school I will be fifty six. That sounds ancient to me now but I guess only until I turn fifty. Oh dear god, the thought of that makes my head and Botox hurt.

Being almost forty and having a two year old also comes with both positives and negatives. The positive side of it is that I have more patience and have learned to pick my battles. The negative side is that I have never been a person who yells or even raise my voice, but now I am. I have patience but it is constantly tested. After the forth "No, don't, stop it" I tend to go into angry dad mode and my commands turn into "NOOO! STOP IT!!! I AM GOING TO COUNT TO THREE!", but three always come and everything calms down. Then five minutes later we are at the exact same situation. I am now a screamer.

I have also caught myself saying things like "Just wait until your dad comes home" and then immediately thought 'God I sound like my mother!".  

I am now at the age where I don't take myself that seriously anymore. A good example is when my two year old throws the mother of all tantrums. Depending on my day I will throw a tantrum as well mimicking his. Usually he reacts with total confusions like he's thinking "What the fuck is wrong with you?" normally this reaction causes his tantrum to seize out of pure shock. After all I'm the parent. The good thing is that we both got rid of our frustration in a "healthy" manner and I still maintain a small degree of parental control. I have not tried this in a shop yet. But when it happens I am sure it will have the same effect.  I just hope when it happens the people who witness it have children because they will be the only ones that would understand.

Almost turning forty also meant that I lost a couple of pets that I had since my twenties. In the last year I lost my two cats due to old age. It was sad as I had them for fifteen years. This also reminded me that life is short.

Turning forty has also seen my body go to hell. I got fat. Loosing weight is fucking hard. Diets can only do so much but you need to exercise too. I am not a fan of exercise at all. However, I did start. You see I don't want to fall one day and break a hip. I also don't want the get obese and have to be removed from my house with a crane. So I do my thirty minutes on my stairmaster every day. I despise that machine more than I hate homophobes and I have a mostly hate relationship with it. But the machine that was designed by the devil himself is yielding some results and I continue to torture myself daily.  Its like I am atoning for all my sins of my twenties and thirties.

I am thirty nine and one year away from the big 4 0. In a strange way I am looking forward to it. I have come to accept that I am ageing and that Botox and facial creams can only do so much to reverse the ageing process. I have no wrinkles or frown lines on my face but I am going grey and packed on a few pounds. As I am preparing for forty I hope I will be older and hopefully wiser. I am determined to enter that phase of my life with enthusiasm and glee. Well, I will try to anyway.

Till next time.

Gay Adoption Legal Across the USA

Finally gay adoption has now been legalized across the USA. In South Africa we have been blessed to have had it legalized now for a while. Seeing as my husband and I also adopted our son, I think it could be interesting for all of you to read about our journey. It may give some of you, who plan to adopt, an idea on how exactly gay adoption works, the process, the time frames and both the joys and heartaches.

To read about our adoption journey CLICK HERE.

The Day I Shit Myself.

A while ago something really traumatizing happened to me. It was a Friday that started off like most of my Fridays do. There were no signs to suggest that my day would have a horrifying start. No sign that this particular morning would be the start of a particularly bad day; such a bad day that it henceforth will be known as “Black Friday”. It has taken me months to muster up the courage to write about it here because I was embarrassed and ashamed of myself. I just hope you, my readers and Facebook fans, do not think any less of me after reading this blog post. But, before my courage wanes let me tell you about that shitty “Black Friday”.

Fridays are my favorite day of the week. Mostly because I only have to endure 8 more hours of work before it’s officially weekend. Fridays are also the only day of the week that I can honestly say I am almost a morning person, with the emphasis on “almost”. On this particular Friday I followed my usual routine, woke up at 6:15am and proceeded to get my early morning caffeine and nicotine fix. I then sat down in front of my computer to update my social media and scan the interwebs for gay news worthy of sharing with my Facebook fans. It was a normal Friday morning by any means and there was nothing out of the ordinary, but that would soon change.

You see my bowel movements are predictable and they are regular and that is just the way I like them. I usually have them in between the time I spend updating my social media and the time I get dressed for work. On this fateful morning it was not to be any different. As I was finishing updating my social media presence I could feel a slight rumbling in my stomach. This is normal for that time of the morning and it usually is my body’s way of notifying me in advance of having to make an imminent deposit in the loo. Not concerned that the rumbling heeded a sense of urgency, I decided to hold off going to the loo and instead went to the studio to select my outfit for the day. That would prove to be a dreadful mistake.

As I unlocked the studio door the rumbling in my stomach went from a mild loo notification to a more prominent warning groan. But, I know my body (or so I thought), and believed that I still had a good 6 minutes before my loo call. As I was taking my outfit off the clothing rail, the groan in my stomach took on a more ominous tone. It wasn’t long before I realized that the 6 minutes I thought I had would expire earlier than what I had anticipated. So, I took the clothes and, this time with a sense of urgency, I attempted to lock the studio door. Then it happened, suddenly and catching me totally off guard I found myself at the wrong side of the loo count down.

My bowels were about to move and I wasn’t ready for it. All I could do was to clench my ass as tight as I possibly could and pray. It was crunch time! Out of absolute desperation I abandoned the key in the door all the while clenching my ass so tightly I could have made a diamond in there. Rather frantic I rushed into the house and as I entered I realized that only clenching my ass muscles was insufficient. I needed a backup defense system in case my rectum fails me so I proceed to also clench my rectum muscles as tight as humanly possible.

 “Holy Mary, Jesus & Joseph” I thought “this CANNOT be happening to ME!” In my final desperate moments I dropped my clothes on the floor and were about to leap into a sprint. But one thing no one ever told me is that if you are clenching every muscle in your ass and rectum to prevent yourself from soiling your pants, sprinting will nullify all those efforts. So I guess what happened next should not come as a surprise.

To my horror in mid sprint halfway to the loo the unthinkable happened. -I began to shit myself. At first only a little and then the flood gate opened only 9 feet away from the toilet. "I was so close! So damn close!!" I thought. Then a strange sensation overcame me, the sensation you only get when you shit yourself. Apart from your pants becoming heavy, I also experience an euphoria of guilt, disgust and shame combined with relief.  My self-esteem was also as soiled as your pants and I felt ashamed. Very ashamed! The kind of shame you cannot put into words. The kind of shame nobody who haven't soiled their pants would understand.

As the sensation of my own excrement was weighing me down, I went to the only place in my mind that would make my situation remotely acceptable. I went to my favorite place - denial. “Nooo, I didn’t just shit myself. No... not me.” “This didn’t just happen, it must be a bad dream, come on now, on the count of 3 wake up!” But it wasn’t a bad dream. I did shit myself! I shit myself right in our dining room. I shit myself and the proof was in my pants and whether I liked it or not I now had to accept it and I had to do something about it.

So I held my head high, breathed in deeply a couple of times and with my chest out and shoulders back I uneasily walked the remaining nine steps to the toilet, took off my pants and pretended to finish my business in a dignified manner. The last time I shit my pants was during the time my parents potty trained me and I really was not expecting to do it again until much later on in my life, like let’s say in my mid to late 90’s. But, at least when I am 98 I will be wearing an adult nappy so technically I wouldn't actually have soiled my pant.

After I removed the evidence of my hugely embarrassing bowel disaster, had a shower and got dressed. The trauma of my experience hung over my head and I had to share it with someone. So I phoned my husband “Honey, something awful just happened to me. I bet you will never guess what it was!” and I was right, he didn’t. The rest of that day pretty much went downhill from there. It was not my finest hour, proudest moment or fondest memory. May this never happen to you! Shitting your pants really has a way of ruining your whole day! And Black Friday was indeed really a shitty day.

Till next time.

There's Porn in my Backyard.

There are a few things in life that makes my blood boil.  Well, actually that is a lie.  There are a great many things in life that causes the veins in my head to throb.  I can often successfully overcome such emotional inconveniences by counting to ten or proactively popping a pill for it.  However, every now and again I am caught off guard causing me to briefly behave like an emotionally disturbed child accompanied by a nervous tick in my left eye.  This past weekend was one such an occasion as I was confronted again with one of my top ten pet peeves which is sex littering.

Now before you ask me what sex littering is let me explain.  Sex littering is when someone leaves behind, in public, certain items that they used either during coitus or when a certain deranged bitch throws her husband’s porn DVD’s over your wall and into your back yard.  I am aware that the latter is unusual and doesn’t happen to most people.  However, it has happened to me not once, or twice but three fucking times!

You see our neighbor’s, which I have always referred to here as the “undesirables”, has an extremely tumultuous relationship combined with a cornucopia of emotional instability.  Sometimes their insufferable negativity interferes with my inner peace and I have called the police on them before.  But this new turn of events had me utterly bemused.

Sometime during last year I was sauntering through our backyard when I saw something shining as the light caught it in the foliage.  Upon closer inspection it looked like a CD or DVD that was lying face down.  Being naturally curious by nature, I Indiana Jonesed my way through the foliage and picked it.  When I eventually got it and turned it around I was both shocked and very confused.  After all I am a very innocent, sensitive and impressionable person.  Well, not really but it is fun to pretend to be.

Upon inspecting the DVD cover I was mortified to discover that it was a hardcore straight porn DVD.  “What. The. Fuck.” came out of my mouth before I could help it.  "Why was it in our backyard and who left it there?" I thought as I could feel that I was becoming unhinged by the trauma.

Nobody expects to find porn in their garden, especially when it is not your porn.  Don’t get me wrong I have nothing against porn as such.  What I do have a problem with is when someone throws it into my garden.  It is not only inconsiderate but irresponsible.  What if the bunnies we had tried to eat it or if our garden services found it. I mean really.  If you want to toss porn into our garden at least make sure it is gay porn.  Generally homosexuals do not get off on straight porn and I thought people knew that.  Also, our garden services are very judgmental. 

It wasn’t long before my exceptional sleuthing skills helped me track down the sex litterer.  It was our neighbor (the undesirables).  I once overheard her and her husband fighting about porn.  From what I could tell she didn’t like it being in their house and she doesn’t like him watching it hence, her throwing it over our wall.  I honestly think that woman is a few potatoes short of a potato salad.

The only rational reason I could think of for her to choose our yard as her personal porn dumping site is because she is batshit crazy.  Still, that is no excuse for exposing us unwillingly to their straight pornography. Also littering our garden with her husband’s debauchery and sinful endeavors and her condemnation thereof is just wrong and they should be ashamed of themselves. I might be an atheist but my husband is a Christian and Christian folk don't do things like this because they will go to hell. Or so I'm told. I really know nothing of religion, but I digress.

I am a firm believer of the theory high fences make for good neighbors.  I don’t really care what goes on in most of my neighbor’s lives.  I don’t snoop and I respect other people’s privacy.  Most times anyway. As a general rule I don't gossip about my neighbors because that is what my blog is for. But when our neighbor’s shit start affecting my life and encroaches on my little bubble of peace and tranquility I tend to get annoyed.

Thinking that the sex littering was a once off thing I decided to let it go for the sake of not embarrassing anybody.  Also, I didn’t want to talk to the undesirables especially not about their twisted taste in porn or, even worse, their sex life. That is just gross and would be awkward for everybody involved. Unfortunately nothing in my life is ever uncomplicated and optimism has never served me well.

So this weekend when I was searching for other spots where our chickens may be laying their eggs I again stumbled upon sex litter.  Again it was straight porn and again it was the undesirables' doing.  My blood pressure went up and this time I was furious.

I remember thinking “What the fuck is wrong with these people.  Why can’t she just throw this shit in their dustbin or dispose of it in any other way?  Why us?  Why our garden?” Also, do we look like the kind of people who would want to watch a porn movie titled “Sex starved fuck sluts”? After hyperventilated I caught my breath and the twitch in my left eye subsided I thought of the best way forward.  I decided to leave them a harshly worded letter:

Dear Neighbors,

Your sex life is none of our business however you have now made it our business when you first threw the porn DVD “Backdoor adventures of Butthead and Beaver” into our yard on 6 February this year.  Now, again you decided to infringe on my right to privacy and choice to live in a straight porn free environment by having thrown the porn DVD “Sex starved fuck sluts” into our yard. 

If you have some sexual issues, including but not limited to porn, please don’t make your fucking problem ours.  Go see a fucking therapist.  Also, our yard is not your personal sex litter dump.  Use your dustbin.  That is what it is there for!

Lastly, by throwing your porn into our yard is not the solution to your problems.  The internet is full of free porn that could meet with your sexual desires and fetishes.  I know you have internet at home because I can see your WiFi on my phone.  Use it.  Delete it.  Just for the love of god leave us out of it!

Sincerely,

Your GAY neighbors.

I am still checking our mailbox for their apology letter.  So much for being “good Christians” who go to church every Sunday.  The worst part of their sex littering is the fact that we are then forced to throw their porn into our dustbin.  What will our housekeeper think if she were to accidentally see a porn DVD in the trash.  It has been enough of a culture shock for her to work for two homosexuals with a child.  I think discovering a porn DVD in between broken egg shells and potato peels might just give her a heart attack which she could benefit from as she is not a very good housekeeper anyway. We have fired her last week and she is working her notice month but that is an entirel other blog post on its own.

I thought moving to suburbia would be peaceful, quiet and private.  I never expected people to throw straight porn DVD’s into our yard and that our neighbors would be perverts with a preference for entering through the back door and being into sluts.  Also, I never expected that I would need to have awkward conversations with my neighbors about their sex lives, fetishes or taste in porn.  I guess it is what it is.  At least they are not terrorists or god forbid Mormons. After my note they hopefully would be too ashamed to even look at me.  And ashamed they should be. Perverted freaks.

Till next time.

Things I’ve learned in my Thirties

I am now closer to my forties than what I am to my twenties.  It is kind of depressing because I still don’t always feel or act like an adult or act my age for that matter.  In just a few years I will be forty and be expected to have gotten my shit together.  To a certain degree I am ready for it but mostly it terrifies me.  Fortysomething has always seemed so old to me especially when I was in my twenties.  But now that I am almost there myself it doesn’t seem that old anymore.  Funny how life works, isn’t it?

In the last few years of my thirties I have come to realize what an idiot I was in my twenties.  The things a twenty year old worries about are so frivolous, yet at the time these things seem so important.  There are a couple of things that I know now which I wish I had known in my twenties.  For instance, don’t worry about what people think of you.  It is exhausting and a total waste of time.  Conforming to what is expected of you slowly massacres your soul.  It’s like trying to fit into a pair of jeans that is two sizes too small for you.  Not only is it uncomfortable for you but everyone else will notice that you got fat.

In my thirties I have also come to accept that deep down I am a very neurotic person.  Instead of seeing this as a negative thing and hiding it from the world, I decided to embrace it.  After all that is a part of who I am.  I have realized and accepted that I have flaws and that it is ok.  Nobody is perfect and perfection is fundamentally boring and most certainly unattainable.  Whenever I doubt this I just remind myself that even the people who I may have thought were perfect have also had, at one time or another, raging diarrhea.  This has always made me feel better.

I wish I enjoyed being young more, having had a great metabolism and being able to eat whatever I wanted.  After I turned thirty everything went to hell:  Things started to sag, got flabby and I realized that the saying “a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips” is totally fucking true.  My thirties was also the first time in my life that I actually tried diets.  They all failed because I am a non-conformist and measuring food just seems like too much work.  Naturally, I developed body image issues as well and a strong aversion towards scales.  I also came to realize that mirrors in changing rooms are designed to shame you from all angles in the most unflattering of lighting. It's like they want you to feel bad about your body. Sadistic bastards!

I had body image issues until I finally realized and made peace with that we cannot all look like Greek Gods and that is ok as well - the world can do with more chubby people.  We stand a much better chance to survive a famine than skinny people.  That being said, it is important to accept yourself just the way you are (I once read that in a self-help book.  It sounds like bullshit but it is totally true).

In my thirties I learned not to prophesize about the future.  Shit happens and not always the way you planned it.  In my twenties I never wanted children.  Children scared me and I thought they were annoying.  I thought all babies were ugly and I considered people who brought their little brats to restaurants as just plain inconsiderate.  Well, today I am a parent and one of “those people”.  I now also bring my child to restaurants and on planes.  It’s not like I am being discourteous, it’s because I don’t have a bloody choice.  It’s not like I can leave my two year old at home alone.  Duh!  Or that there are nannies sitting next to their phones just waiting for my call and are willing to work for free.  Don’t be an asshole.  Some of us love our children, love their company and love taking them to places.  Get over it.

The one thing I did right in my twenties, that I have never regretted, was meeting my husband.  We were so young when we first started dating and this year will be our eighteen year anniversary.  However, one thing my twenty year old self did not know, at the time, was that making a relationship work takes a lot of work.  I will not lie and say that it has been sunshine and roses all these eighteen years, because it was not.  That shit only happens in fairy tales and movies.  When you meet “the one” you must be willing to suck it up through the tough times in order to reap the rewards during the good times.

In my thirties I have come to realize that marital spats become less of a “who will win the fight” and more of a negotiation.  You learn to pick your battles.  Neither one of us are screamers and we tend to resolve our differences in a more mature manner – through passive aggression, as it should be.  We would do this until the other one eventually catches the hint and asks “what is bothering you?” and then we will have a discussion.  However, sometimes the issues are more complex than just the habitual non-compliance with filling empty ice trays or the inability to close drawers.  For instance, when it comes to religion we differ fundamentally and eventually agreed to disagree.  Also, my views on religion are the correct ones and hubby's views are wrong.  Just saying.

Lastly, in my thirties I have come to realize what is truly important in life.  I am sure this will mature even more as I grow older.  I no longer have time to indulge in bullshit if it interferes with my happiness and/or that of my husband and my son.  I have learned that being happy is a choice.  If you allow negative people into your life and invite them to stay or dwell in the past you erode away your own joy.  Sometimes you just need to move on and not look back.  Sometimes all you need to do is focus on your priorities and your future.  In my twenties I was incapable of doing this and I wish I had this realization sooner.  I am now closer to forty than what I am to twenty.  And thank god I am.

Until next time.

Conversations that make me sound crazy

Sometimes I have awkward conversations with friends that makes me sound crazy. This one is about our chickens:

Me: So our garden service informed me via sms that they quit.

Friend: How professional of them.

Me: I know right. And that right after I sms'd them to be careful because we have chickens now.

Friend: Maybe they have a chicken phobia.

Me: Bastards! Now we have to get a gardener who isn't afraid of chickens. I mean really. Who the fuck is scared of chickens?

Friend: Your chickens are cute. Not threatening at all.

Me: I know. I still don't get why people are scared of chickens. Especially two hens who I saved from a rapist rooster who tried to pull out their feathers.

Friend: A rapist rooster?

Me: Yes. They have been through so much already and now they also get discriminated against by people with chicken phobias.

Friend: Shame man. That's a tough life.

Me: I am serious! They are also even too scared to lay eggs. I would be too if I lived in constant fear of being raped and plucked. But now when the one hen lays eggs she makes this agonizing sounds. Think it is stretching her pooper of vagina. I don't know chicken anatomy at all.

Friend: You do have a point.

Me: I think they suffer from PTSD. Are there therapists who specialize in chickens? Like a chicken whisperer?

Friend: Only you would ask me that.

Me: There should be if there are dog and cat therapists. Or are chickens too low on the food chain for psychotherapy? They have feelings too you know.

Friend: If you find one I need one too. Long story.

Me: PTSD is tough on chickens. Especially ones who apparently are "scaring" people away from working in our garden.

Gay Men Try To Explain Tampons.

Ok, so gay men have no clue about feminine hygiene but in our defense we do not have vaginas.

I got pushed out of a plane once.

I jumped out of a plane once. At night! I cannot say that I enjoyed it or did it out of my own free will. I was pushed and being deathly afraid of heights I almost shit myself. This happened a few years ago and is not something I like to talk about seeing as I am still traumatized by the whole experience. It wasn't my finest hour and I lost all composure which is not something that happens often. But let me start at the beginning...

My career has been quite interesting thus far. It is by no means a career one would associate with a homosexual like me. I mean I am not butch, don't play sports (because running after balls are stupid if not attached to a man) and generally I don't like doing things that will mess up my hair. Therefore, very few people would imagine that I am good with guns and knives, got training from the military and did some work that is considered to be "dangerous".  I have always come across as unassuming which has made me very successful in what I do for a living.

That being said, it doesn't mean that I have not been terrified or considered the work that I do as the result of bad life choices. The one time I really knew that I may have made some bad career decisions was when I received training from the military.  At the time it was compulsory that I spend three months at the army. In other words I was forced into it kicking and screaming when I heard about it. I had so many questions and the same amount of serious concerns about the whole thing.

My first day there I felt completely out of place. I was surrounded by very butch guys and the women were no different. The one guy even looked like he had killed some people and liked it. I knew if the shit was to hit the fan that he would be my best option to stay alive so I immediately made friends with him. I also made friends with a few women in my group because I also knew that if the shit hits the fan that I would be able to out run them and they would serve as my human shields behind me. I know it sounds horrible but it is a survival thing.

The first two months went by without much drama. I scored at the top of my group and I was quite proud of myself. I did good academically and especially with the practical work which surprised everybody including myself. At that stage I thought it was quite easy and fell into a comfort zone. I felt like I would be able to cruise through the last month and afterwards would be able to boast about my achievements at the army. But that comfort zone was not to last and shit got real really soon after that.

During the last month we traveled to another military base and spent the week there. The base sounded interesting as they had a small air force base and we would get to blow shit up. The fact that they had a small air force base in that small town meant nothing to me until we were told that we had to do a tandem night skydive. At first I thought heard wrong and muttered "Say what now?!  You mean I have to jump out of a plane at night being bound to a person who I don't know and I am not sure I can trust?!"  To which the general looked at me disapprovingly and said in a annoyed voice "Affirmative." 

At that point I was done with the army because they were all a bunch of reckless assholes with a death wish. I was not about to die in a skydiving accident and I tried my hardest to get out of it. I even faked having diarrhea. Well I wasn't faking it so much as I wishing that my nervous bowels will get me out of the whole thing. An hour before we had to jump I prayed for it to all just be a bad dream but it wasn't. I had to do the jump in order to successfully complete my training.

As I was handed my jumpsuit and other things that I needed all I could think about was how I hated my life. I stood there looked at myself and my trembling hands and thought that if I died my family would not even be able to have a open casket at my funeral. Open caskets at funerals are important to me because how else can you verify that the person is actually dead. But I digress...

I got into the plane, well more I was pushed into it. As they closed the door and we were taking off I was about to become unhinged. I was about to loose my shit and was looking for anything I could grab onto when it was my turn to plummet to my death. The guy I was to jump with saw I was nervous and then decided to make things worse by saying "Relax. Nothing bad will happen and if it does you will die quickly and not feel a thing". He then laughed and tied me to his sarcastic body. I was starting to feel violated.

When the plane door opened and the wind came rushing in I knew that I was about to die. I was third in line to be pushed out of the plane and at that point I no longer minded what people thought of me. I resorted to begging and trying to negotiate my way out of it. As the two guys in front of me plummeted from the plane I knew it was my turn. My turn to die!

I was told to cross my arms until we had cleared the plane and only then I was allowed to extend them. At that point I was already in the fetal position with my eyes closed. Much like a cat I thought that if my eyes were closed nothing will happen and what I was to experience was just a bad joke.  I was wrong. The countdown started and the bastard pushed me out of the place at the count of 2 and not 1. As I was plummeting to earth my screams were dulled by the cold air that rushed passed me. I looked like a dog sticking its head out of a car window while it speeds down the freeway. It was very unflattering and really fucked with my botox.

As the parachute opened and I was jilted upwards I panicked again as I was worried that I might be ripped from the guy I jumped with. There were more screams and I could hear the guy laughing. We floated down to the ground and when the guy said I must lift my legs up as we landed I felt the kind of relieve that I never experienced before. I got unlatched from the guy and had to sit for a few minutes as my legs were not working. The guy, whose name I never asked, said "Let's do it again" to which I responded "Go fuck yourself! I never want to see you again!"

After the skydiving experience, that almost saw me shit my pants, we were trucked back to the base. At that point I was pretty pissed off and hated the army and everyone in it. The only redeeming quality of that night was when we got to blow shit up. We had two hours of bombing stuff and being on the sharp end watching how different types of weapons and missiles do different types of damage. It was nice but did not really make up for the abuse I suffered earlier that night. As I finished my training at the military I vowed to never return. And I didn't nor do I ever plan to.

Till next time.

When things start to sag

Growing older sucks.  And not in a good way.  Throw in early onset male menopause and you have the odds stacked so against you that I now totally get why Meryl Streep drank that potion in Death Becomes Her.  Only in real life there are no magic potions only hormones, exercise and diets.  All of which I loathe because hormones require needles, exercise make you sweat and diets are just a “socially acceptable” way of starving yourself.  You know, because anorexia and bulimia are “mental disorders”.

Having gained 7kg (15.4 pounds) in just over three months I can honestly say being fat isn’t fun.  I know that I have been joking that our pregnancy is the reason I have put on a few, as I am "with child" so to speak, but in all honesty most women I know do not gain that much weight during pregnancy.  So why did I gain all this weight in such a short period of time?  Well, according to my doctor (not the one that lives in the Internet who communicates with me through WebMD) it is male menopause and being in my thirties.  I almost killed him, but I didn’t because even though I am chubby I’m still too pretty for jail.  Do you even know what they will do to a pretty boy like me in there?

The final straw that broke the camel’s back happened last week Thursday.  Picture it.  It’s 6:30am at our gay petting zoo, the animals have been fed, I have brushed my teeth, shaved, applied my plethora of age defying creams, done my hair and got ready to get dressed.  I took out an outfit that I wanted to wear, put on my shirt and then tried to put on the pair of pants.  But it didn’t fit.  Then I pick another pair of pants.  That one was also too small.  I made a third attempt, this time I tried to suck everything in and almost popped a vein in my head in the process, but to no avail.  Then I started to panic.

You see, the larger size pants that I recently bought was in the washing and I only had two more pairs of pants left as options for work.  If these two didn’t fit I would be totally screwed!  I have never prayed when I was dressing myself but this day I did.  But my prayers went unanswered.  After I tried on all five pairs of pants I found myself sitting in the middle of a pile of rejection, in the form of pants, sobbing like an emotionally disturbed child.  I looked at my fat and screamed “Why do you hate me?” as if my fat would be able to answer me back.  Anyone who has ever been in that kind of situation will tell you that at that moment you cannot think rationally.  I also almost called in fat for work that day.  But I don’t think that is actually a thing, but it totally should be.   Needless to say I didn’t try it.

Luckily hubby saved the day.  I had forgotten that I bought another pair of pants that I have never worn because hubby hadn’t gotten around to hemming it yet.  So he promptly did and I was able to go to work, albeit it emotionally bruised and feeling rather defeated.  Later that day I spoke to hubby on the phone and he suggested that I go and see my doctor.  Which I did.  While in his consulting room I told him about my unexplained weight gain, that I did not eat more than usual and that he needed to help me.  Then he asked me when last I got a testosterone shot and I then remembered that it was more than seven months ago.  And apparently that was the problem.

Also, apparently those little tropical holidays I have been experiencing again the last three months were hot flashes.  The injection I had seven months ago only works for four months and the last three months my hormone levels took a nose dive again.  Now I am on a testosterone injection once every two weeks until my levels stabilize.  The doctor said that due to the lower testosterone levels I was gaining weight and once the levels are back to normal I will find it easy to lose the extra weight.  But being thirty something I should also remember that my body’s metabolism slows down and that is part of ageing and there is no pill or injection OR magic potion for that.

Look, I do know that we all are going to grow older and that our bodies will change as we do but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.  The fact that I have also noticed that certain parts of my body are on the verge of sagging freaks me out and I will definitely have a few things lifted, nipped and tucked down the line.  I started with Botox when I turned 30 and luckily due to this I have no frown lines, wrinkles or crow’s feet.  However, from the neck down that is a totally different story that I like to refer to as “Ground Zero”.  It’s like a natural disaster but only it involves fat and cellulite; the kind of fat and cellulite that you will eventually have to get sucked out of your body because they are stubborn motherfuckers.

Growing older isn’t any fun.  There comes I time that you have to accept that the twenty something body you once had is gone forever.  The days that you could do fifty sit-ups and have a six pack has passed.  The days that you could lose weight just by fucking breathing is now a distant memory.  Many people I know embrace the process of ageing; they don’t mind gravity sucking their boobs and asses to the ground, the odd wrinkles, grey hair and the cellulite.  They accept it as the natural order of things.  But I don’t.  If we were meant to age gracefully there wouldn’t be things like facelifts, body lifts, tummy tucks, liposuction and Botox to mention but a few.  I’m not saying that I will do all these things or advocating that you do.  All I am saying is that I will try and defy the process of ageing for as long as I can afford it.  And as for my early onset male menopause, I have only one thing to say about and to it is and that is fuck you!

Till next time.

It's Friday the 13th so don't be an asshole.

It's Friday the 13th and for all those superstitious folk out there, take a Xanax and stay in bed.

I have never believed that there is anything sinister about these "unlucky" Fridays. How can I? I have three black cats who continuously cross my path on a daily basis. Sure my cats are assholes but they have never caused a ladder to fall on me, break a mirror, spill salt or made me forget to touch wood to avoid bad luck. Sure they have tripped me, scratched me (for no reason) and sometimes sit and stare at the wall making weird noises but all of this is just to enforce their authority in the house. They also do this to make us aware that we are the inferior species. Cats like to remind us that they were once worshiped as Gods until some son of a bitch ruined everything for them. So they are just resentful and not evil. Mostly.

Furthermore, touching wood has never helped me to get a parking bay closer to the shop, made me win the lottery or caused me to get a 90% discount on my Botox. In other words  - I do not believe in any of this shit.  And we should stop being assholes to these Fridays. We will give them an inferiority complex or worse - make them resentful towards us.  We don't want them to be pissed off because they are being teased by the other Fridays and make them send Jason after us, now do we.  So don't be a dick and enjoy your weekend.

I am so offended! I don't have a STD!

Apparently having a urinary track infection (UTI) is quite normal especially if you are a women. Or so I have been told. I have no way of verifying this with clinical research. Also, if you are gay and have a UTI it is perfectly normal for a nurse to make the assumption that you have slept around while drinking excessively and that your UTI is in all probability is a STD. This  is what happened to me this week.

On Tuesday I woke up blissfully unaware that I had a UTI. That was until I had to pee. When I did I was in considerable pain causing me to negotiate with myself for how long I could hold my pee in before I would die. Apparently not long (holding it in, not the dying part). What made it worse was that I was also passing a kidney stone which is right up there on the "I want to die" pain scale.

As the day progressed and I noticed that there was blood in my urine and I grew increasingly concerned. I did not want to die of blood loss through my penis because that would not make for a good story at my funeral. "How did he die? Well, uhm he bled to death? How? Through his penis?" 

Naturally when you suspect that you have a UTI you see your doctor. Unfortunately mine was indisposed and could only see me in two days time. Which, when you have a UTI and about to pass a rock through your penis, is a fucking long time to wait.

I did not want to go to the emergency room for my UTI and kidney stone. You see, the problem was that the last time I was there I thought I was having a heart attack which turned out to only be severe heartburn. As such I can never show my face there again. So I opted to go to there pharmacy. It seemed like the lesser of two evils. Also, they did not know about my heartburn incident and would not judge me me.

When I got to the pharmacy and explained my symptoms they seemed quite accommodating at giving me something to make everything better. Well, that was until they heard that there was blood in my urine and then they treated me like a zombie asking for drugs. Feeling less confident to assist me (because they did not want to kill me) I was referred to the nurse. And this is where things went south rather quickly.

I got into the nurse's consulting room and explained what was going on. I just wanted to pass my kidney stone in peace and have my UTI sorted out. So she made me pee in a cup. This would have been fine had I not been experiencing pain at the time. Knowing that I really did not have a choice I reluctantly I complied.

She took the cup with my penis blood and urine and stuck a stick into it and looked at it and then looked at me and said "Hmm there seems to be a lot going on here" To which I thought "No shit lady. Why do you think I am here?" But I didn't say that because I am a gentleman. She said that I definitely had a UTI and then proceeded to ask me if I had been drinking over the weekend to which I responded in the affirmative. This however pissed me off as she made it sound as if I had gone on a drinking binge which was so not the case. And then the part came which really offended me.

"Is your partner also experiencing the same kind of symptoms?" she asked. "Because if he is he would also need to come see me". This made it sound as if my UTI was a STD and that I got it from my husband. I rather rudely responded to her that he wasn't having similar symptoms and that we are not sleeping around. Why I felt the need to explain that to a total stranger holding me pee in her hand is beyond me. But I did it anyway.

Apparently, in her experience, people only come to see her with such symptoms when they are too ashamed to go to their regular doctor because they do have a STD and know it. I found the stereotype I was being boxed into offensive and I was even more upset because it was painful when I peed. It seems that if I am in pain and I don't get drugs to make it go away that I too become rather judgmental: I thought that she was being a bitch which in all probability was not really the case.

After being treated like an alcoholic serial orgy inclined homosexual I got my antibiotics and left. It still hurts when I pee but at least it is not as bad as it was. But at least it no longer feels like I am giving birth to satan through my dick.

I have never used the word penis this often in any of the blog posts I have ever written. So if you are offended by penises I am sorry. It is just that gay guys know a lot about penises and for that I apologize too. Well, not really. But it is what it is. My UTI is being treated and is healing and I passed the kidney stone with great effort. I am still alive and not peeing blood anymore which is a win in my books. I am still offended by the nurse's assumption about me and gay guys in general but I will get over it. However, I will never see her again because I do not plan on getting a STD and if I had one I'd rather see my regular doctor. I prefer being judged by people I know.

Till next time.

We are so much more.

As some of you know, I stopped blogging for a couple of months. I even considered quitting for good. The main reason being that I am so much more than my social media persona. There are so many more layers of myself. Most of us project a very different image of ourselves on social media and it is rare when your social media persona is congruent with the essence of who you truly are. So why do we do this?

Over the years I found that the person people like to read about on my blog is only one tenth of who I am. In reality it is very difficult for me to be a fucking delightful person All. Of. The. Time. After a while it feels like this is all that people want from you. That this is only what people want to read about me and my life. We never project a true image of ourselves on the internet. We don't post the truth when we are really depressed. Instead why pretend everything is fine. That all is ok when it is not.

I think we do this because we are scared that if we reveal that side of ourselves that the people on our friend list will judge us. It seems that most of us seek approval and acceptance on social media which is a shame. We don't want to sound weak. We don't want people to know our true thoughts and feelings. We want to present a facade to the world. We want to appear to be the person people want to see in the cyber world. We pretend we are better than what we actually are.

Let's face it, life is not always a ray of sunshine. Sometimes things are rather shitty. We might have issues at work, in our relationship and/or with our families. Yet, on social media, it is very rare that we will reveal this. And the people who do we see as attention seeking or pathetic. They are the people who depresses us and the people we see as complainers and we judge them for sharing. Furthermore, we also judge them for "over sharing" and this is why most of us don't share our troubles and only put on that fake social media smile.

I have found that I have done this quite often on social media. I have always tried to be delightful and funny on my blog. I wanted people to laugh, I wanted people to smile and brighten their day. I wanted, and still do, people to like my blog.

The truth is that this is only a small part of who I am. I rarely blog about my struggle with depression and anxiety. Like I said before I didn't blog about this because I did not want people to judge me. I also know of quite a lot of people who will be judgemental. But the truth is we do not share this part of our lives because we are either ashamed of suffering from mental illness or we are afraid that if people knew they will see us differently. We don't want to share that part of our lives with people, especially not total strangers.

It has been said that many comedians suffer from depression. Often this is a side of themselves we do not see or would not even believe to be true. After all they are so funny and energetic on stage. We have come to accept that they will make us laugh and assume that they're always like that. We don't want to know about their issues off stage because, god forbid, that will make them seem less funny. The same goes for us - bloggers.

People don't want to read on social media about your shit depressing day. This is why we, most of the time, I never share it. The person we present ourselves to be on the internet is the person we want to be. The person we want other people to believe we are.

I have decided that I will no longer confine myself to the persona people want to believe I am on the internet and social media. I will own my life. Sure I will still not completely reveal all of myself because there is a thin line between privacy and revealing too much. Certain things should remain private. But I have decided to not always appear to be the comedian and delightful person you would like at your dinner party because that is not who I am. I am the person who would rather spend the night at home than go to a party. The person who do not like crowds because they make me anxious. The person who isn't always happy and content. I am who I am and if people do not like me, well then they can go fuck themselves.

Coming to this decision probably comes with age and maturity. It is also quite liberating when you have made this decision. I do recommend it for most of you. Be who you are. Be who you were born to be. We are more than our social media personas.

Till next time.

The Illusion of Willpower

So I should have stopped smoking a year ago. But I haven't because I have the willpower of puppy having a treat waved in front of it.  This is not to say I don't have any willpower whatsoever because I do, just not with things I have to give up though. This is also why I suck a diets.

Making me give up carbs (anything potato or resembling a sandwich) is like asking me to stop breathing. Sure I can survive for a while but then I start to negotiate with my body and/or myself. For example, the Irish went through a potato famine and potatoes were the only thing that helped pull them through. Do I really want to punish potatoes now after all the good they have done in the world? Or, if a potato chip is broken it looses all its calories; AND, my favorite excuse - carbs don't exist on weekends.

Willpower is something you need when you have kids. You must be able to stay focus while there are chaos around you and stick to your guns when things get though.  Also, you need to stay strong and follow through on the kinda threats your mother use to make which you inadvertently now inherited from her.  Sometimes the following through on your threats is the tough part.  This is also not the part when you say ahhh because then you're just as bad as he is.

My son is a little charmer and manipulative little shit. He knows exactly how to twist my arm in getting what he wants and getting away with murder. When he knows he is about to get a hiding he will look at me with those puppy eyes (I'm using this reference again because I really want a puppy) and just as you are about to spank him he would say "I love you" in that adorable voice he has. Now I ask you, how do you give your child a spanking when he does that?

My son is also a great analytical thinker and plans his mischief a head of time. He has a red "time out" chair because sometimes a spanking is not appropriate (if you're a parent you will know exactly what I mean). He's really good with timeouts because he has had a lot of practice. When he is now planning on being naughty he goes and fetches his red chair before he does what he is not suppose to. Yes, I know most of you are going "ahhh" but it really is, again, not an ahhh moment when he breaks something or spill juice all over a table and your iPhone. He then gets a time out for two minutes during which he is suppose to think about his sins.  However, I know that is exactly what he is not doing as he is probably planning his next mischievous adventure.

The other area of my life where I lack willpower is with animals. I have had a whole zoo of pets until half of them died of old age. We now only have three cats left and I am suffering from empty-nest syndrome. However, my husband has said if I bring one more stray home or makeup a story that a perfectly healthy animal was abandoned, when it clearly isn't true, that he will divorce me. He won't really. I think. Sure he will be fucking pissed off at me first but he always gets over it and falls in love with my strays. However, this time I am applying my willpower. How long it will last I don't know.

In the past I have gotten away with lies. I would tell my husband a cat or a rabbit was homeless or about to get killed. He would then ask me where the animal in question was and I would say the pet shop. At this point my husband would point out, in grievous error, that they then are not homeless. However that argument is technically flawed because if an animal is in a pet shop they are "technically" homeless and in danger. How come people don't understand this logic is because they in all probability hate animals and can't stand puppies and kittens. AND they should be ashamed of themselves!

These days I apply willpower selectively as all of you should. It's quite liberating not always being sure how your day or week will pan out with my philosophy but hey, living dangerously has never killed anyone. Ok, realistically it has but I am not talking about those people because they did stupid things. Y'all should not do stupid things that will get yourself killed and if you do, I take no responsibility whatsoever for your actions. Just saying.

Till next time.

Almost 40 and Ancient

I am almost forty. It's like I woke up one day and went "What the fuck?! Where did time go?" To most of the young gay people forty is ancient: ancient like you were part of the creation and saw the dinosaur extinction. I think being about to turn forty is more traumatic than actually turning forty. They say your forties is the best years of your life; you know who you are, you're settled in your career and you have disposable income that you actually can enjoy spending. I hope all this is true because if it's not I will hunt that person down, who said this, and threaten to kill them to their face. I won't actually kill that person because I am too pretty for jail and have terrible food allergies. Ok, I just made up the food allergies but still, prison food I assume is really bad.

A lot of things change as you approach forty. You realise that you're no longer in your sexual prime, you're sprouting grey hair (even your pubes which is stark reminder that your penis is old too) and you tend to become set in your ways. It's like you have reached a point in your life where you no longer are willing to tolerate shit from other people, you re-evaluate your friendships and attempt to have an uncomplicated life free of bullshit. In essence you are cleaning house in preparation for the next phase making sure you no longer have excessive baggage.  Because frankly who needs it.

The most obvious reminder that I am almost forty is when I drop off or pick up my son from kindergarten. Most parents there have just started their families and are young. Every time I am there I am reminded that I am one of the older parents. You know the ones that had little oopsies. However, I don't particularly care. We are all going through the same shit with our kids and we can stand in solidarity with just a sympathetic look or a nod of the head. The scary thing is that when my son finishes school I will be fifty six. That sounds ancient to me now but I guess only until I turn fifty. Oh dear god, the thought of that makes my head and Botox hurt.

Being almost forty and having a two year old also comes with both positives and negatives. The positive side of it is that I have more patience and have learned to pick my battles. The negative side is that I have never been a person who yells or even raise my voice, but now I am. I have patience but it is constantly tested. After the forth "No, don't, stop it" I tend to go into angry dad mode and my commands turn into "NOOO! STOP IT!!! I AM GOING TO COUNT TO THREE!", but three always come and everything calms down. Then five minutes later we are at the exact same situation. I am now a screamer.

I have also caught myself saying things like "Just wait until your dad comes home" and then immediately thought 'God I sound like my mother!".  

I am now at the age where I don't take myself that seriously anymore. A good example is when my two year old throws the mother of all tantrums. Depending on my day I will throw a tantrum as well mimicking his. Usually he reacts with total confusions like he's thinking "What the fuck is wrong with you?" normally this reaction causes his tantrum to seize out of pure shock. After all I'm the parent. The good thing is that we both got rid of our frustration in a "healthy" manner and I still maintain a small degree of parental control. I have not tried this in a shop yet. But when it happens I am sure it will have the same effect.  I just hope when it happens the people who witness it have children because they will be the only ones that would understand.

Almost turning forty also meant that I lost a couple of pets that I had since my twenties. In the last year I lost my two cats due to old age. It was sad as I had them for fifteen years. This also reminded me that life is short.

Turning forty has also seen my body go to hell. I got fat. Loosing weight is fucking hard. Diets can only do so much but you need to exercise to. I am not a fan of exercise at all. However, I did start. You see I don't want to fall one day and break a hip. I also don't want the get obese and have to be removed from my house with a crane. So I do my thirty minutes on my stairmaster every day. I despise that machine more than I hate homophobes and I have a mostly hate relationship with it. But the machine that was designed by the devil himself is yielding some results and I continue to torture myself daily.  Its like I am atoning for all my sins of my twenties and thirties.

I am thirty eight and two years away from the big 4 0. In a strange way I am looking forward to it. I have come to accept that I am ageing and that Botox and facial creams can only do so much to reverse the ageing process. I have no wrinkles or frown lines on my face but I am going grey and packed on a few pounds. As I am preparing for forty I hope I will be older and hopefully wiser. I am determined to enter that phase of my life with enthusiasm and glee. Well, I will try to anyway.

Till next time.

My son’s teachers are going to hate me.

Last year hubby and I started looking for kindergartens to enroll our son in for this year.  Being gay parents with an interracial child we were cognizant of the fact that we would have to choose very carefully.  We are not your typical …uhm… cookie cutter family.  We did not want our son to experience intolerance or discrimination of any kind and we wanted him to be in an environment that is open minded, conducive to empowering him and to be fully integrated.  Also, the school would have to tolerate me.  I have been told that I am an overbearing parent with the potential of driving our son’s teachers completely nuts.  I am embarrassed to say that this is totally true and accurate.

In this day and age there is still discrimination prevalent and schools are not compelled to accept a child for enrollment.  They can decline an application for any reason without providing you with an explanation.  If you know me you will realize that this makes me very uncomfortable and somewhat rebellious.  I mean how any school could decline our application would be a mystery.  Sure we are a gay couple with an interracial child, but this only makes us a fabulous rainbow family.  And I know all parents think their children are the prettiest and smartest but in our case this is undeniably true.  Any school would be doing themselves an injustice by letting an opportunity pass by to be graced with our son’s presence.  See this is where the overbearing side manifests.

After a few phone calls a school was recommended to us by my sister-in-law as her son was already attending it.  Granny and my sister-in-law were already familiar with the school and we thought it would be nice if our son and his cousin attending school at the same place.  The selling point of the school to me was the fact that they had a petting zoo.  It’s kind of a dream of mine to have a petting zoo of my own, one day, which includes a rescued gay donkey called Theodor the 3rd.  I have also daydreamed about quitting my job and joining Kazakhstan’s male synchronized swimming team but some dreams will just stay that - dreams.

We phoned the school and made an appointment with the principal for “the interview”.  The afternoon of the interview we arrived at the school on time, which is rare these days.  Our son has the ability to screw up our knack for being punctual.  We met the principal and we started chatting.  I could tell that she was immensely impressed by our super smart and well behaved son.  Well, that was until he started misbehaving and chewing on things on her desk which I chose to ignore because if we didn’t make an issue of it then hopefully she wouldn’t either.  See this is where my years of studying psychology finally came in handy in a non-professional setting.  Either that or I was just lying to myself again.  Something I do frequently as to not hurt my own feelings.  I never said I was totally sane, now did I?

The first thing she asked us was if our son was adopted and I was all like “No, he is our biological son!  Can’t you tell that I am still struggling to lose the baby weight?”  But I didn’t because I realized pissing off the principal might not be the best way of getting our application accepted.  Then she brought up the subject of us being gay and again I was all like “No, technically we are straight.  I was born female and had a sex change” but then I told myself to shut the fuck up before what hubby has dubbed my “foot-in-mouth disease” screws this up for us.

We went through all the different challenges that lay ahead of us as a gay couple raising an interracial child.  We discussed how the school will handle it when our son starts to ask questions that could make people uncomfortable, which he probably will if he takes after me.  I fully expect our son to grow up to speak his mind, be confident in himself and to call a spade a spade.  If he has a slight case of foot-in-mouth disease I will be proud.  I would have raised him well.  The interview went glowingly, mostly because I hardly spoke.  I just let all my paternal energy shine through and prayed that our son doesn’t break anything expensive in her office.  After the interview she took us on a tour of the school.

We were shown where our son’s class would be, met his teacher and was showed their play area.  The teacher looked a bit timid and I remember wondering if she would survive the first day with our son in her class.  As we were shown the play area my parental alarm system went haywire as I spotted sharp edges, steps and moveable pot plants.  I wanted to wrap the whole area in padding because god forbids our son gets hurt.  Then I remembered to just breathe and centered myself.  I also reminded myself that I cannot wrap our son in bubble wrap and that getting hurt is part of life.  As long as no blood is drawn or bones are broken because that is when I will lose my shit completely.

I was impressed with the school’s security and the fact that they have CCTV cameras everywhere.  Soon we will be able to log into our son’s class’ cameras and will be able to watch what he is doing.  The poor teacher’s life will never be the same again after that.  She can be expecting quite a few texts and calls from me.

Our son started school a couple of weeks ago and he seems to love it.  He is enjoying his friends and all the stimulation he is getting.  In the afternoon I can see that he had a good day because he is exhausted.  His teacher says that he is a very busy child (which in our house is also code for naughty) but that generally he is a joy to have in her class.  She is an excellent liar.  On his first day she texted us that our son was doing well and that he made friends.  I was happy to hear that and pleased that he was finally in a good school.  What the future holds no one knows.  Only time will tell but I really think his teachers will start hating me once my true colors come out.

Till next time.

When Pussy Attacks!

My husband and I share our house with four pussies. They are furry, sometimes cuddly but beneath their angelic and sweat demeanour there lurks a darkside. A darkside so malevolent and vicious it’s best strangers approach our kitties with caution or face the dreadful consequence – being mauled! You see our furred critters are emotional and dangerous little souls and every now and again their tempers and tantrums take me by surprise and I left me wondering, why do I share my house killers.

Killer Pussy will eat anything she can lay her little paws on. If it is not guarded, covered or sealed she will seek it out and devour it whether it’s broccoli or potatoes – she has no preference. Her absolute favourite snack is a vitamin and catnip enrich cat treat which she gets every afternoon. So when the treats were finished, a couple of weeks ago, and the shops ran out of stock our little pussy was not amused! Then the tantrums started.

We were ignored, she would sit in the corner of the bedroom sulking, scratch us when we picked her up and when her passive aggression failed to yield the desired result she went to Plan B – breaking stuff. Two broken plates, a torn curtain and a punctured pool lillo later, the shops eventually acquired her favourite treat just in the nick of time, as I suspect Plan C would have involved murder by suffocation – I wonder who she would have killed first, my husband or I? So now she’s back to her normal routine which are the plotting and scheming about how to break into our pantry (the food room as she calls it), furthering her nuclear ambitions and setting her plan for world domination into motion.  She really is one ambitious and very dangerous cat!

Fur Monster is one of our eldest cats and she doesn’t like strangers and despises children (little humans). The fact that she was barren for so long and struggled to have kittens of her own may have something to do with her hatred of offspring. Whenever we receive visitors we always have to warn the guests of her violent streak. Many children have been emotionally and physically scarred by her and many adults have too, with my late mom included.

A few years ago Fur Monster’s sister had kittens and my mom and her housekeeper wanted to see the litter/kindle. They forgot about the saying “curiosity killed the cat” and they went into my garden cottage while I was out. They didn’t make it past the kitchen. Fur Monster and her sister Sly Monster cornered them and held them hostage, literally, in my kitchen for well over an hour. Eventually I received a hysterical call from my mom “Your cats have attacked me! I’m in your kitchen! Can’t. Get. Out!!! Oh God have mercy!!! H E L P MEEE!!!” and in the background I could hear the housekeeper praying "Jesus, Mary & Joseph" and the cats hissing and growling. Careful hostage negations followed and both my mom and the housekeeper were released bruised, bleeding, traumatized and forever fearful.

Cute Monster is the middle child and the fruit of Fur Monster’s loins. She’s not the sharpest tool in the shed and the only thing she does well is eat, fart and look cute. She has never mastered the art of tree climbing and is still trying to learn how to play but without any notable success or improvement. The one skill she recently acquired is the much envied skill of paw-to-paw combat.

Seeing as she doesn’t know how to play nice she settled for second best – fighting. She picks fights with her mother, her aunt and her adopted sister and she usually loses. Did I mention she isn't that bright? Every other day all hell breaks loose in our house and it’s a choir of hissing, growling, screaming with fur and pot plants flying everywhere. Breaking up a pussy orgy of violence is near impossible and after two attempts and some loss of blood later, hubby and I decided to leave them to sort out their own problems. If it involves violence so be it!

Apart from eating and shitting the garden the only thing our pussies enjoy doing together as a family is kill things. This is where our youngest comes in Lover Pussy.  And as his name suggests he is a gentle soul and is more a lover than a fighter.  However, he also loves hunting and he's fiercely good at it.  He also usually leads the family hunt.  Like a ruthless pride of lions (which I swear they think they are) they stalk their prey on the African plains that is our garden. Many a bird-, lizard-, moth-, butterfly and lady bird family has lost loved ones at the claws of our feline predators. So when a flock of weaver birds decided our leopard tree was the perfect spot for them to raise their families, last summer, their fate was sealed and the bodies piled up!

Last Saturday we experienced the worst massacre since bloodshed Wednesday of 8 May 2007. It started at roughly noon. I heard a commotion in our back garden and didn’t pay it much attention until the commotion made its way to under the dining room table. Killer Pussy caught a juvenile weaver bird and was busy interrogating and torturing the poor thing North Korea Style, while the other four Monsters were watching. I tried to save the non combatant but Killer Pussy would have none of that and ran outside. We intercepted at the pool and I tried to pry the screaming bird from her fangs but she refused to loosen her grip and punctured two of my fingers.  I considered getting a tetanus shot but then realized the hospital would asked too many uncomfortable questions so I took my chances.

Then I realized the non combatant is doomed anyway and feeling like a horrible human being I let the murder continue. In the lounge I was close to tears as I heard the bird's screams become fainter as the minutes passed. The bird’s parents, family and neighbors all tried to save its life, but one-by-one they too were interrogated, tortured and killed. At sunset the screaming stopped and our backyard was a scene of utter horror and devastation. There are now only four weaver birds and eight eerily empty nests left. Every day and every night our monsters patrol the leopard tree and soon the surviving weaver birds will be no more.

Sharing our home with temper tantrum killers, admittedly is not always fun. But even though I sometimes pitch up for work with arms, legs and hands looking like I shoved them into the blender, I love my little monsters dearly and can’t imagine my life without them. Our backyard may be littered with the skeletal remains of countless avian victims, the bird population on the plains of Africa may be living in fear but my pussies are a delight to have and one day, may just one day, the birds will stop screaming.

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Till next time.