I usually pride myself on my organisational skills. I mean I am a Virgo Sun Sign with at least 3 other planets in Virgo, I should be the most organised person on earth. But lately I seem to keep dropping the ball and double booking myself. I think it is because I am not used to having any plans!
This week our friends who recently moved to Malta were back in Cape Town for a visit and I had arranged for us all to go out on Tuesday for dinner, but I spotted an advert for a Full Moon Meditation which interested me and I had posted about it and had enticed my new friend Dee to come with me. I then realised they were both on the same night so I had to back out of the meditation.
We had arranged to meet at The Butcher Shop and Grill in Mouille Point opposite the light house. We gave our friend Andy a lift as we were all coming from Hout Bay and arrived a bit late for our 7pm booking, but Mel and Steve were already there.
Here are besties Steve and Andy. #Trouble
Mel and Steve brought their beautiful daughter Chloe over with them.
It was lovely to see Mel again.
It was a bit noisy for having conversations but we did try. The restaurant was not too busy when we arrived but as the night went on the place became rammed! As our table was in an open area on the 3rd floor we were bombarded by noise by the end of the night and it was a bit overwhelming. It was so lovely to see our friends though, it is so sad when people we love move away.
One topic we discussed was ambition and success and how you define those things. Andy was wearing a very cool hoody made of sail cloth and he told us that he had bought it in a tiny town in the UK and had chatted with the owner of the little shop and said they should open a branch in Cape Town as there are so many sailing fans here. The man said that he made enough money in his little shop and did not want to bother with that. Andy asked whether he had an online shop and the man said no, he sold enough in his little shop to provide him with what he needs in life. Andy could not understand the man not wanting to make as much money as he could out of his brilliant products, but to me, the man had what we should all be trying to achieve. A life of enough.
Both Norm and I have worked hard to build a life together but we are certainly not wealthy by any means. We own our home and both of our cars and we have no debt. To me that is a huge achievement, but is it ‘success’? I am not ambitious in regards to work, as a consultant there is no ‘career path’. I consult. That is it. Norm is self employed also and he just wants to keep busy. Neither of us have been the sort who are always looking for that ‘get rich quick’ scheme, or the sort who aspire to driving a ridiculously expensive car or to have the best toys.
The Buddhists say that possessions just create unnecessary challenges and burdens and that we should strive for a clutter free simple life. Or as Buddha allegedly put it:
Joy comes not through possession or ownership but through a wise and loving heart.
I recently discovered that the NI philosophy is the same!
Saying that, I have a LOT of possessions. A few new bits arrived this week, how cute is this bird cage? I am still testing what I will put in it and where I will put it but I do like the little bird bowl in there.
Norm hung the stained glass items I had ordered in my kitschy kitchen window.
Last weekend we had Hunter and Mark around for dinner. I had all of the food ready in advance so I had time to chill in the garden a bit.
We even had dual rainbows which were beautiful!
I had set up the table outside for dinner but the heavens opened and we had a major downpour so Norm and I quickly ran out to bring everything in.
The weather for most of this week has been pretty dismal.
Did you spot the rat in the tree at the end of the video?? Cheeky fecker. He comes to eat my bird food. You can see him a bit better in this one, focus on the bit of tree near the suet balls.
One area that causes me conflict is rats. As a ‘we are all related’ sort of viewpoint then we should let all creatures live and let live. Do they harm me? No, not yet? Do they harm my animals? No, not yet? They just give me the heebie-jeebies.
We seem to have a few of them as we have had a few sightings, but it could be the same guy popping in and out. First, when I had my friend here for coffee recently she saw a black and white rat (a colouring which is usually only seen on a pet rat). Of course a pet rat could have shagged a wild rat. Do rats have specific genus-centric views on breeding or is it deemed fine to shag any old rat? Is there a colour based rat caste system? What about an upstairs, downstairs, tug of the forelock type of house rats vs sewer rats and are the inside rats the top of the pyramid or the bottom? Is there a caste system such as in India? I cannot remember what the Indian one is based on…. surname or skin colour or career or something?
Or is that assigning the capability of human emotions on an animal? Or once again do I think too much? And I said think, not drink. I rarely drink other than socially. Saying that, last weekend I had a yummy vodka, raspberry soda, iced tea thing. It was quite scrumptious. I found them rather strong but I seldom drink. But it is handy to have a premixed cocktail to take to gatherings to avoid drinking wine. I give it 3 and a bit Kitten Stars ⭐⭐⭐✨
Anyway. Back to my rats.
I’ve seen a rat swinging cavalierly off of one of my suet ball bird feeders twice now. I’m not seeing many birds eating from the suet feeders lately, could it be because the feeders smell of rat? They say birds can smell humans if we mess with their babies, surely we smell better than a rat? Or is the relevant question, can a rat be smelled on a bird feeder by the birds? And more importantly, how do birds feel about rats?
I have decided to pray for birds of prey to catch the rats and eat them. That is a natural process and I would rather know a nice birdy got fed than risk us poisoning anything.
I bloody freak out about rats!!
People say that squirrels are just rats with better PR. Are crystals and rocks the same? Do crystals just have a better rep thanks to the hippies? But unlike rats, I also love rocks as well as crystals.
Is this what ‘We are One’ or ‘Mitakuye Oyasin‘ means? From the rats to the stones to the grandmothers and grandfathers, everything is the same worth?
Hmmmmm.
“Peace… comes within the souls of men when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the Universe dwells Wakan-Tanka, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.”
–Black Elk (Hehaka Sapa), Oglala Lakota
I choose for the birds to be fed cos I cannot handle any more rats. I have 5 useless rat hunting animals and the rat gives zero effs.
The mobile dog groomer came on Thursday and we asked her to come earlier than usual as I had a 4:30pm appointment with a plastic surgeon to remove the cyst at the back of my knee.
I am a bit paranoid about being late so we left an hour before my appointment but quickly hit backed up traffic and saw on the security app that a truck had overturned and was blocking the road through the forests. The issue with living in Hout Bay is that we live at the foot of a mountain range and we only have two roads in from the city but they go to completely different areas of the city. Norm made a quick decision to attempt to go the other way along the coast road and then to hit the motorway. It was a very long route but if we hit it right it could have been smooth sailing. Needless to say we did NOT hit it right and it was not at all smooth sailing. It was gridlock. At 4:30 I phoned the doc’s office and told them we were still 20 minutes away so she rescheduled it til next Thursday.
What a lot of pressure and stress!
On our way home we stopped at Massimo’s for a drink. We sat outside on the patio and watched the kids play with great amusement and it flipped our moods. We could hear various foreign accents all around us. Living here is sometimes so much like being on holiday. The electricity was off so we also ordered some food to take home.
Last Sunday Norm and I were both in need of some mental chill out material so we chose to watch the film ‘We Have a Ghost‘. Neither of us had heard anything about it but we could tell it would be full of nonsense and that was just what we wanted, then when I spotted that Jennifer Coolidge was in it that was a quick sale!
It stars David Harbour as ‘Ernest’ the ghost. You may know him from Stranger Things. He is the actor whom I always get confused with Ethan Suplee the dude from ‘My Name is Earl’ who lost all of the weight. David is on the right in this image and the other guy on the left. They are both large men and it confuses me in every film that one of them is in, I have to google ‘which guy lost all the weight’.
Anyway. I laughed a lot at this film because it was just full of nonsense but that was what I needed and I enjoyed it. However as far as quality goes, I give it 4 Kitten Stars. ⭐⭐⭐⭐ I found the relationship between Jahi Di’Allo Winston, who played the role of ‘Kevin’, and his adorable new neighbour ‘Joy’ played by Isabella Russo to be more of a Gay BFF relationship vibe than a love one. I got heavy gay vibes from Jahi and it just did not sit well with me. Maybe I am wrong about the young lad and my signal is just because he is pretty? Either way I did not buy it.
‘Frank’ (the father who is played by Anthony Mackie) is one of those guys like I mentioned above who is always chasing the next financial windfall and subjecting his family to the fall outs associated with his failed get rich quick schemes. I have known people who have amazing business ideas but no ability to execute them, and I have known people who are brilliant planners and hard workers who could not generate an original idea if their lives depended on it. It takes all sorts of people to make the world spin, whether you are a driver or a rider of this rollercoaster depends on your own personal appetite for risk, change or need for achievement.
Work has picked up as I finally have some data for analysis. Friday’s we have ‘proof of life’ where we are all supposed to put on our cameras in the stand up meetings, normally we have cameras off for everyone except the scrum masters. This Friday Pixie came and stood by my feet and barked until I picked her up to see who I was talking to. She listened to everyone, cocking her head and staring intently at the screen. I look cross but I am blind as a bat and was trying to take a screen grab and hold her all at the same time.
Tonight we are out for dinner with some other UK friends who are over for work. We are off to Den Anker which is usually quite good and has beautiful views of table mountain.
I hope you all enjoy the remainder of your weekend and that you have a wonderful, rodent free week ahead.
Much love. Kisses from the Kitten xoxoxoxoxoxoxo
Kitten in the City 