The last day of my year end holiday ended on a high as Lily and Josh drove up to stay with us and Caitlin came for dinner that evening to see them. We were having dinner to celebrate Lily and Josh’s engagement as he proposed to her on the 3rd of January.

And yes that is a giraffe in the background.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BdfzTY2jcLh/?taken-by=lily_vanillie

Both families are so pleased and excited as Lily and Josh have been together since high school and are made for each other. Josh also has a lovely family and we are happy to now consider them our family too.

For dinner I cooked a big pot of chili con carne and made cheese quesadillas with sour cream, salsa & home made guacamole to top them with. Caitlin stopped and bought a bottle of bubbly on her way over so that we could toast to their happiness.

Caitlin had just come to our house from an animal adoption centre where she went to investigate getting a kitten now that she has her own flat. She fell in love with 2, a girl and a boy from the same litter. The shelter had originally said that she could take them the next day but there were issues with the paper work and inoculations so she can only get them this coming weekend. But they are so cute! I will post some pics when she does, I do not want to spoil her own unveiling.

We had a relaxed evening and Caitlin went off home to get to bed as we both had work on Monday.

The next morning I woke up bright and early and drove into Mowbray and there were almost no cars on the road at all. I got settled in my desk and then realised I had left my laptop charger plugged in at home. My battery was pretty low as I had not used my laptop much in the holidays so I rang Norm and dragged him out of bed and begged him to bring it to me which he did. He is the best husband ever.

To cheer myself up about being back at work I booked tickets for Valentine’s Night for Norm and I to see Alice Phoebe Lou. It is a Cafe Roux sessions night that we spotted when we were there last week. We have seen Alice perform before and she is brilliant so that should be fun. It gives me something positive to look forward to.

Monday night Norm braaied dinner for us, Lily and Josh. We had chicken breast kebabs (or sosaties as they call them in SA). He also cooked butternut and pumpkin on the braai, I made coleslaw and Lily made a salad so we had a lovely family dinner.

On Tuesday while at work I received a message from Norm to say that he heard on the radio that a woman in her forties had been doused with petrol and set alight in Hangberg, the township on the harbour side of Hout Bay. The story was in the news and allegedly the woman was beaten and then set alight by her drug dealer. She is allegedly a tik addict (aka meth). Whatever her sins she did not deserve that and I pray for her family as she was a mother of 4 and has since passed away from her injuries.  This is now at least the fourth drug related death in this area as 3 young men were killed last year over drugs too.

I cannot fathom what sort of person could do such a thing to another human. To deliberately douse them in petrol and set them alight?

But I have written before about how expectation is the root of all disappointment. I know that my expectations of others are high. I also set the same standards for myself and I get very hard on myself if I do not meet those expectations. I try to be realistic about what I expect and to be gentle with myself but setting the bar high is my go to position and it is not easy to divert from that standard.

However, no matter what our desire for internal change there is also an element of the fable of the frog and the scorpion in that we cannot change our intrinsic nature. I do believe that we can evolve and become more enlightened or aware of our impact on others, but our core being usually does not change.

I now know that I sometimes see and experience things that many people do not due to my empath and spiritual abilities. I sometimes see elements of people’s aura or energy which is not evident to other people. I had always assumed that other people were vibrating at the same frequency as I am and were in tune to these things as well, but I now know that is not the case.

This can create a dilemma when others trigger my unease. Do I keep these feelings to myself? I see red flag signals and feelings of high alert when I interact with certain individuals and with my new decision to listen to my instincts I choose to avoid that toxicity when I encounter it.

I find that I am often disappointed in other women when they do not seem to be ‘conscious’ of things such as misogyny and oppression of other women and even more so when they propagate that energy. I had an interaction with a friend of over 40 years recently over the Golden Globes protest when she shared the horrid misogynistic meme which tried to devalue that protest with slut shaming and saying that the protesters were hypocritical as they had their cleavage showing. The meme was from someone who claims to be christian. I guess he did not read that bit about Jesus not being a Judgey McJudgeson but rather being loving to all with no discrimination. Not that I personally am a follower of Jesus but to each their own. My only personal judgement is for those who spout Christianity but exhibit very unchristian behaviour.

They missed the entire point of the protest, women should be able to wear whatever they wish without being the victim of abuse, cat calls, lewd staring or another behaviour from men who see women as their property or as fodder for their titillation.

If my partner was inclined to stare google eyed at another woman’s cleavage I would not be with that partner. However other women seem to choose to be oblivious when their partner does that. I do not find it a compliment, I find it invasive and creepy and will no longer be silent, I will call them out on it should I be unfortunate enough to be in their presence again.

I have been reading about Carl Jung and his theory on archetypes and how this influences and even determines how and why we react to external stimuli and I do understand that some men are trapped in the ego or Warrior stage of their development and this may result in exhibiting overly macho or misogynistic behaviour. These are the men who act like petulant teenagers when challenged, regardless of their age. Their ‘evolution’ has been halted for whatever reason. However by allowing them to demonstrate these behaviours without calling them out only allows them to be normalised.

So again, it is all in your perspective and maybe in your levels of acceptance and even self worth.

Personally, I know I deserve more. I know I have raised my daughters to have high standards and they also know their self worth. I am very proud of that.

On Tuesday night Lily and Josh went to meet their friends for dinner so Norm and I just decided to get a naughty take away. He headed out and seemed to be gone for hours and eventually we receive a whatsapp message to our family group saying that he had inadvertently captured a young lad who was busy strolling back from the beach where he and and his accomplices had mugged someone who was walking on the foot path to the beach in Llandudno. Norm took him to the police station and handed him in then cruised off to get a chicken burger.

My husband, the hero. For the mugging capture not for bringing home the chicken burger of course.

On Wednesday Lily took Pixie to the vet as she has been struggling with her breathing lately. Pix is not overweight as she eats very healthy raw food and not commercial rubbish. She does have enough fur to provide a coat for about 20 larger dogs than her but a heavy coat is natural for Pomeranians so I did not think her breathing issues are related to the heat.

The vet said that Pixie is in great shape but that she was quite worried about her breathing too and so she did an x-ray of her to check for any fluid in her lungs or around her heart.

Her airway is a wee bit narrowed and her heart is a bit enlarged, but they could not get her lie on her back calmly so they made an appointment for Norman to take her back on Friday morning and sedate her in order to get clearer pictures. You can see the vertebrae that she fractured years ago have fused.

Panda was not bothered by all of this he spent the day chilling in the ironing basket.

That evening we planned to go to Caitlin’s as Lily and Josh had not seen the progress in her flat in a while but then Josh came home from work with a dreadful case of sunburn and he felt really nauseous from it so off he went to bed and Lily, Norm and I drove over to Caitlin and stopped to pick up take away dinner from Col’Cacchio which we chose as they have various low carb options and are close to Cait’s flat.

I had a major challenge on the phone ordering the food from them however. First of all when I phoned she could not understand either ‘melanzane’ or ‘eggplant parmigiana’ and so she put on another staff member who said that they no longer serve melanzane despite it still clearly showing on their online menu. I told them I would have to call them back as I then had to go back to everyone and reconfirm their orders and phone back with a new order. I then tried to order a Volatilia salad and the girl could not understand me at all – I had to spell it several times. Then I ordered a Cobb (also had to spell it) and 2 chicken Caesar salads which she then said they also do not serve. I had a Caesar salad there recently and so I said to her ‘since when? I just had one last week’ and she eventually said ‘oh you mean a Caesar with chicken’. Was she taking the piss now? I had to repeat my name and number so many times I eventually said, ‘I am not saying it again. I will be there in 10 minutes’ and just hoped she had gotten the order right as she seemed rather a ditz.

I ordered 4 salads in total and we went to collect the food and of course, she got it wrong. We ended up with only 1 Caesar and 2 Cobb salads instead. How hard can it be to listen to someone and then enter it into the computer? If you cannot work a computer write it down by hand and get help once the client is off the phone. My call took ages and led to much annoyance. When Norm went to pay she had no idea how to ring him up either. I do understand that people start new jobs but surely she should be shadowed by someone competent until she gets trained?

Anyway.

Expectations and all that……

Speaking of expectations, I was not expecting the intense heat we are having this week. It was 25C at 7am and when I left work it had risen to 35!

Tonight we are cooking sausages and halloumi on the grill and just making a salad. It’s too hot to put on the cooker.

It is Lily’s birthday on the 16th but she has to be back at work in Mossel Bay on the 15th and so I booked a table on Friday night for me, Norm, Lily, Josh, Caitlin and Wes to go to Cheyne’s in Hout Bay before she leaves.

I will appreciate any positive thoughts and prayers that you can spare for Pixie. I love that little girl so much, she is my little shadow. I hope that she is OK or that they can treat her easily.

I will update everyone on the outcome with Pixie as well as our dinner at Cheyne’s in my next blog.

Until then, kisses from the Kitten xoxoxoxoxo