There are so many different ‘Self Help’ books & programs banging around that if you base your identity on one of them then you may end up feeling like you have (DID) Dissociative Identity Disorder (what used to be known as Multiple Personality Disorder). Are you this? Are you that? What if you are a bit of this and a bit of that? There has to be some element of self-awareness of what works for you and what does not but often the people seeking these things are the ones who are the most impressionable and vulnerable. If people who are desperately seeking something happen to collide with a grifter then the depth of blood letting may know no bounds.

For example there are the ‘Stop wasting your life, go climb a mountain’ type of people who think that if you’re not thriving, then you are just surviving and if you are not feeling well it is because you need to do more exercise or some nonsense. Everything is mind over matter.

Then there is the more gentle chain of thought that ‘Life is hard, if you are just existing, you are doing enough’ type of people who understand that sometimes the most you can manage is to just exist and that is fine. Each person has their own level of what they are capable of and what they are not and for some people this may be inconsistent. One day someone may be perfectly capable of going on a long walk, having lunch with a crowd or going to a market, however on a day when they are experiencing high anxiety or mental exhaustion, it may not be possible for them to do it without crippling anxiety or heavy masking. Each person must manage their own levels of ‘ability’ and everyone around them must accept it without putting them under pressure to adhere to someone else’s expectations.

I was watching some silly reality show and the actress said something about an experience from the past which still caused her pain and her therapist said ‘All we have is Now’. Basically saying that as you cannot change the past or influence the future, why waste energy on it?

Then this week my Elder’s Prayer said “Today, we should be grateful to the Creator for the present and for the lessons of the past. May our future be guided by the Great Spirit.” Which basically means the same thing. These are all about insecurity and an unwillingness to relinquish control: wanting to change the past, wanting to control the future. I am trying to live by this as there is no reason to panic if we focus on being present! But for an autistic person, we sometimes just need to know all the things.

I’ve been thinking about my connection to the Creator. Every time I prayed in the mornings, in the West, I would always ask that ‘Those things which are no longer serving me be washed away and to bring in those things that I need in my life to support me’. Someone had expressed derision for this as they said that those things which may not serve us now, may be needed at another time or some sort of nonsense that made sense at the time. Later I pondered this and wondered why I am so easily persuaded by a very persuasive person? Especially someone who has no relationship with the Creator or any other ‘higher power’ themselves. No clue why I do the things I do (#Autism) but I dropped that part of my prayers for a long time. This week I consciously brought this part of my prayers back in, but once a habit is broken it is hard to get it back into your routine.

On Friday when I was out on the hill doing my prayers I looked up and saw the most beautiful rainbow! You could see it from one end to the other which is so unusual. To have this greet me when I am greeting the Creator and giving thanks was just amazing.

The weather has been much cooler here finally. There was a lot of rain in on and off bursts.

It rained heavy on Friday and the plants got a lovely soaking.

I brought the plants under cover when I wanted to work on them. I checked the baby plants I have growing all over. Sometimes I put clippings or leaves in when I find them loose and sometimes the little plants just pop up out of the ground. My friend laughed and said I do ‘too much to save a little leaf’ but to me that leaf is as worthy as an entire plant is. Let it grow and it will keep me happy watching it do so.

My new planters arrived this week and I have planted them with clippings and put them in the fairy garden.

Unfortunately the weather is going to be back to unbearable heat next week. I am glad our pool is at least clean and I can submerge if it is too bad.

My new project kicked off in earnest this week and I spent 2 days at the client offices in the city centre. One day I was only providing input to the sessions but the last session I was facilitating and presenting slides I had created myself. I was happy with how my workshop went. I was calm, my technical developer stepped in when the client asked about something tool specific as he has developed using it before. The client provided what we need to know and I am feeling happy.

We used an app to capture the meeting notes. After the meeting I opened the notes and they all looked brilliant until I saw that it had issues with my southern accent and had interpreted ‘Semarchy’, the tool we are implementing, as ‘Sea Monkey’.

Do they still sell those little ‘Sea Monkeys’ that you could order in the back of the comics?

Anyway.

Norm found it funny that after only 2 days in the local coffee shop all the staff know me. The young lad sold me a pastry and when I pointed it out in the display case I said ‘I will have that bad boy right there’ which I assume he found funny coming from an old lady. Then when the young girl was serving me I complained about how dark it was in the shop and she then pointed out I was wearing my very dark sunglasses so we laughed so much. Then the barista got to know me when I popped my bottles of water into my bag. He said that a woman will have a bag and inside that bag she has a smaller bag and inside that bag she will have a smaller bag and so on and so on, so I said they are like Russian dolls and we talked about Millie loving to play with our set of Russian dolls. So on day 2 when I went in for my morning coffee they all shouted ‘hey mama!’.

I think I mentioned about my GP sending out an email to say they were no longer seeing clients and that we needed to find a new GP? So since Norm and I both have chronic medications we went to a new doc on Tuesday afternoon. I walked in carrying a makeup bag because I took all of my meds with me so she could get the dosages correct. She looked at me oddly and I said ‘I am not coming to give you a make-over, I brought my meds.’

I liked the new doc and she seems lovely. Of course since I am old as dirt she seemed about 16 years of age. When I went in and saw a young blonde I said awkwardly ‘Oh, I thought Dr Kim would be Asian’ to which she laughed and said that Kim is her first name. In my monologue of my various anomalies and idiosyncrasies I told her I am Autistic and ADHD and she said ‘oh really I never would have guessed, you are so sociable. You must be high functioning’ and I told her I did not like that term. It gives me the ick. She said ‘oh!’ and I said ‘I can look you in the eyes and I can smile and charm you – IF I choose to. Me being my natural self is just me sitting like a frog on a log with my mouth hanging open while disassociating over RuPaul’s Drag Race.’

She took my blood pressure and pulse and my BP was a bit high. I told her about my changes in dosage due to my yo- yo weight and she decided that she would put it back up again. She felt the lump in my neck that my gyne had also noticed in December and has sent me for an ultrasound of my thyroid. I am booked in for Friday the 13th…..lovely.

Norm said he could tell she was fascinated to know how a Scotsman and an American ended up in the little village of Hout Bay.

That night we ordered delivery from Thai Central as I had not really eaten that day since we were up and away so early. I ordered the Khao Phad with prawns (a flavoured stir fried rice dish) and chicken satay. It was tasty.

I mentioned above that I had a delivery arrive this week. I ordered plant pots and solar lanterns and some other ‘tat’ as Norm calls it. I had wanted a set of small, long handled scissors for use in my glass terrariums that are in the kitchen.

I had seen the scissors on a different website and then checked Takealot to see if they had the same thing at a better price. I searched for ‘terrarium scissors’ and did not notice that I had ordered ‘aquarium scissors’ and of course I did not check measurements.

This arrived.

So if anyone needs surgery I have a kit! Let me know what you want lopped off and I will give it my best. I am sure I could even do a tonsillectomy with these.

This has been an eventful week for my grandbabies that live in George. First, my little Reuben Eli turned 2 months old on the 1st of the month. I am so happy that Amelia thinks he is the most amazing gift in the world. She adores him.

Then little Amelia had a dress up party at school as it was the school’s ‘birthday’. She dressed as the cutest little ladybug!

I love that I get to see so many photos and videos of them since they are so far away. Amelia phoned this week and was so funny. She was eating crisps and told me they were ‘not crunchy’ as we both know it is all about the crunch. Then every time Lily told me a story, Amelia jumped in and repeated the last part of the sentence. So it went ‘next week they must wear different colours each day. On Monday they must wear’ then when Lily says ‘Blue’ Amelia shouts out ‘BLUE!!!’ It cracked me up. When she got over the convo, she wandered vaguely off with her face full of chips.

I get sent lots of videos of Bree at the park, the beach and doing all sorts of activities. I love the access you have to your loved ones now. My Mom is in both of the WhatsApp groups and she gets all of the videos and pics as well. It really is special.

We had our geyser (hot water heater to some of you) burst this week. We saved as much water as we could for the garden. The insurance company were brilliant. We rang them on Friday afternoon, they appointed a plumber, sent out the plumber and right this minute he is upstairs putting in the new geyser.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend and week ahead. Until next time, Kisses from the Kitten xoxoxox