MESSAGE IN A (robertson spice) BOTTLE

There is nothing more disturbing that when the foundation of what you believe is shattered.
It's as if your world comes tumbling into peices and you have to sort of resettle your reality, which takes some time. This has happened to me four times in my life.

First Occasion: When I found out the tooth mouse was not real.
Second Occasion: When I found out Santa Clause was not real.
Third Occation: I found out the paper fairies we made when we were kids and left food for in return for chocolates that used to magically appear overnight were not real.

Ok Ok .... I understand the importance of imagination and creativity. These are really important elements that need to be created in childhood and different parents use different methods. I can vouch that reading a good children's book does that! You don't need to make up real things that you then find out are not real! While reading a book you get transported to a magical land in your mind and you know it's your imagination, so you are safe from the bottom falling out of the world when you return to reality. BUT when adults DELIBERATELY fool you into believing in something that you will eventually find out does not exist - well I think that's a lie and it's NOT FAIR!

Anyway - this is not an attack at my parents - they were wonderful in encouraging us to live in a world of fantasy and magic and that is what helped me be so creative and I am writing this blog to make fun of myself - not anyone else.

Apart from the toothmouse (my parents got this wrong, because I actually found out it's meant to be a tooth fairy, but we had tooth mice and paper fairies - so all good).

And now I come to the fourth point. When I was 6 or so we used to go to the beach every summer for a holiday. On one of these holidays my late dad helped me write a note which had my name, age and telephone number on it and it said that I lived in South Africa.
We placed this carefully written note inside a bottle (a good old school roberson spice bottle) and chucked it into the ocean. This episode was accompanied with some magical story from him about how people who loved each other would send each other love letters in bottles if they lived in different countries or how sailors trapped by pirates would call for help and the currents would transport the bottle via millions of miles across the ocean to the recipient. My little roberston spice bottled bobbed off in the horizen and I lay awake that night wondering who would find it in some far away country.

Back home after the summer holidays, my bottle became a distant memory until one day I received a telephone call. Now as a child you don't receive many calls when you have a mom who is at home fulltime and you are not yet at school. Your gran phones you for your birthday and that's about it- so it's a big deal when someone calls for you!

Me - 6 years old: Hello.
Man with French Accent: Elo, izz zis heater?
Yes?
Eh, je suis, my name iz Pierre
Pierre?
Wi, I telephone to tell you I found ze note.
What? Mamma - there is a funny man on the phone
No wait lizzen - Ze note in ze bottle - I live in France on the Suisse Canal and I found ze little oranje bottle with ze note and your name on it. It sayz you are living in South Africa - I zink it must have floated all ze way wizz ze current and I was walking on ze sand and saw it amongs ze shells near ze waves.

I could not believe it - my little orange bottle had travelled all the way to France through whales and sharks and hurricanes and waves. It had survived tornadoes and pirates and landed in France!

For the next 20 years I held onto my very special memory - which was the one thing that was not snatched away from me.

Ok - until I was 26 and even though I have told quite a few people this story - no one had ever said anything about it. So I proudly recited my message in a bottle story to the team of creatives I worked with at an Ad Agency and one of them said. Doh Heather - it was your dad who called you.

My world fell apart for a moment. I had never thought of that and it was worse than finding out the damn toothmouse was lie.

So that's the story about my message in a robertson spice bottle which I believed until I was 26. That's a whole 20 years. A damn long time!!

Babylons

I feel like a school marm writing this blog, but it’s something I feel strongly about.

Now don’t get me wrong – I’m no saint...
I’ve had my days of being a wild child. Luckily at some point it all changed and I found my moral compass buried deep inside and my frivolous phase passed.
I still get the odd comment from old friends "hey where’s wild Heather gone- it’s just not the same you".
It’s such normal behavior for many people especially in Cape Town, my mother city. You just get rowdy and rude and have fun – but alas every girl has to settle down!

And we come to the present.

What inspired this blog was reading another blog. Written by a mad, wild voluptuous woman in the fashion industry. She is well endowed with a very nice pair of babylons.
These particular babylons are obviously not from mother nature - the DDs were manufactured. So wild, sexy voluptuous lady, who obviously calls herself a “feminist” wears her babylons proudly under skimpy shirts and displays them everyday in an industry that does not call for modest clothing.

And then I hear she complains that strangers on facebook say “nice t*ts” and slates them with foul language for what …..NOTICING them? How can you NOT?! Even I notice them!
What exactly is the reason for making these wonderful endowments in the first place, unless of course you are going to cover them up in more modest shirts and they were really for your own personal appeal. Sorry for the poor guy who just spoke his mind, but clearly you did not make these hooters to not be noticed. Ok he did cross the line and was a bit blunt, but you get my point.

Second Case Study:
Another wonderfully voluptuous advertising executive who has a tendency to always wear the shortest dresses and when sitting down exposes her knickers for anyone sitting opposite to notice. And a slight bend at the water cooler gives the unsuspecting person behind a rather full view.
When management comments that her skirt is completely see-through and may not be appropriate for the office – the response is mock embarrassment “Oh my word, I am so embarrassed, I can’t believe this - I never knew it was THAT see through!! Thanks for pointing it out” and proceeds to tie a jersey around her waist and arrives at the office the next day in what looks like a shirt passing off as a dress again.
And then comments from the skirt-less lady post meetings follow something along the lines of “I don’t like meeting with that client, because he always looks at my legs and makes me feels uncomfortable – it’s like sexual harassment”

I just feel like HEADBUTTING women like this.

Come on, every woman knows EXACTLY what she is revealing – you can’t be that stupid to NOT know you are flash republic when sitting down.
If you CHOOSE to flaunt it then be prepared to be looked at. If you don’t want to, cover your damn self up and you will have nothing to complain about!! Personally I prefer to cover up.

I mean how exactly can you call yourself a feminist - it just does not make logical sense to me.

RANT out

Mini Mouse

Ok I had one of the funniest days of my life today.

A while back I had planned to write a blog about the fascination I had with dead creatures when I was young and how I partially disected a dead rat at the age of 10, which including probing it's stiff body with two sticks and investigating it's dead body parts. I can't even look at a dead creature now without wretching so not sure when this phase of my life ended, but it did!

I was then going to add how disturbed my younger sister was by all of this and how she insisted on burying my science specimen in a grave with flowers and a cross and praying for it.

I ridiculed her for the next 10 or maybe 20 years about this and the funny part is I am now a Christian and praying for not so dead things is part of my life and I feel very sad about how I tormented her about it for so long.

So to cut a very long story short, I think my cats decided to get back at me for all of the trauma I created for my poor 7 year old sister's gentle heart...... they brought me a mouse at 3am 3 days ago which creeped me out completely.

They did this by chasing the poor sod into my printer that was on the floor and pawed at it for 2 hours. I woke up to a bloody mess and assumed the bugger had been eaten. 2 days later a horrible stench developed and I placed the printer in a black bag and decided to lug it to the Canon service department to have the remains of Mr mouse removed (the printer had been faulty and that was why it was on the floor in the first place - ready to go for a service prior to the mouse incident).
So I was hoping they would overlook the odd request to remove the mouse and do it as part of the service of the printer.

Today I could not get the printer booked into the service department, so while Mr Mouse cooked away in my car in a 40 degree Dubai summer's day , I devised a plan. On the way back form a meeting I asked my boss.

"Please would you do me a big favour? A man's job" - He said "Sure".

I then told him it was to remove a dead mouse from my printer in my car.

"I can't do that!"
"Why not? "
"Because I have kids and I could get an infection."

I told him he had no choice as he had promised.

So the stinky printer inside the black bag was placed in the corridor outside our office - armed with a plastic bag to put the mouse in, THE MOUSE REMOVER was ready.

With a little bit of drama and a tug to get it's flattened head out from between the rollers - Mr Mouse was laid to rest forever.

Watch the video!

Put your foot in it

I regularly get myself into trouble with what I say.
Now I am not as bad as I used to be - and I don't have tourette's syndrome - but I can admit that I can say the stupidest things at times.
I have a really blunt sense of humor and usually say things as they are. Having this quality has probably made me offend more people than I know . Thankfully some people tell me and we manage to laugh at it eventually.
I do try to curb my tongue these days, but here are some cases where I actually felt the impact of my words fall onto people like those arrows in Avatar that give you 60 seconds to live.

Most Recent Case:

I watched a tap dance rehearsal for my amateur comedy graduation show.
This is the FIRST time I have ever seen a tap show and I knew there was a beginner's and advanced part to the show. They did an amazing rehearsal scene and I exclaimed to their teacher in front of all of them - "Wow - that was amazing! Are these the beginner's?!"
Turns out they were the tap veterans and some had been tapping for 12 years. Eeeek.
In my defense I don't know what good or bad tap or beginner's or advance looks like, but I think I pissed everyone off.
I was well impressed with the tappers - I don't think they were with me.

Case Nr 2:

Dinner with a couple in Dubai. (I met the husband via my husband and only met his wife a few months later and we have all become good friends now).
His wife is feeling a bit down on this specific occasion and is not very happy. We talk about how we all met and I say the following to her husband to try and cheer her up indirectly.
"You know - when I met you I was so suprised that you had such an amazing wife!"
Eeek. He did not speak to me for a while.

Previous Cases:

I was 19 and working for an ad agency. I saw an old photo from the 80's lying on my boss's desk. It was a photo of him dancing with a girl in an outrageous outfit. Gold Lycra and leather with 6 inch gold high heels.

My Question:
Who is the common girl you are dancing with?

His Answer:
It is my wife on our wedding day.

The Bible is very clear about the power of speech to do great good or evil. Words are described as having the power of life and death--the power to build somebody up, or tear them down. The power of the tongue should not be underestimated.

SWAMP GIRL

The only constant in my life is that I DON'T EXERCISE.

Now this is not due to a lack of motivation, training or willpower. I have stacks of that. To put it simply: I just HATE exercise.
I find it pointless, boring and a complete waste of time. And then on Saturday I did a 60 minute RPM class at gym and loved it? Why? Is there something wrong with my love-meter?!

Let's go back.
I was born in a swamp (not really), but I did have this beautiful picture above on my MAC desktop and one of our cameramen said:

"Wow that's a lovely photo - where was it taken?"

"It's where I was born?"

"You were born in a swamp?"

"No. I was not born IN this picture, I was born in the area in a TOWN.”

So back to my blog: I grew up on a farm - there was no such thing as lycra tights or neon leotards in my cupboard and I had no idea that there was a word like" aerobics" or that Jane Fonda had released best seller exercise videos.. The five of us kids would just run around and chase baboons and milk goats and do all sorts of other things that happy swamp kids do.

Then I moved into the village and suddenly we went to school and had this weird class called PT - this foreign group exercise where you need to all run when someone blows the whistle and jump when they blow it twice until you are red in your face and feel like vomiting, because it's so unnatural. So in a nutshell, I never took a liking to running or scheduled group exercises.

Then came swimming - I was fine in the swamp, because there was a shallow end and I knew if I stayed in that vicinity, besides the odd underwater pothole and mouth full off water ferns, I was fine.
But at some point I was told I had to learn to swim and I was put into the deep end of a chlorine pool at about 8 and told to swim a few metres. It stank and made my eyes burn so I clung to the side and cried long enough until they told me I could get out and I never learnt to swim until I was about 13.
I did this by deciding to tackle my problem head on and join the school swimming team. I think everyone used to come and watch me because I used to swim so badly. Like a flailing lobster in a pot of hot water. I still can't do it properly with all the hair in your eyes and trying to breath and move your arms at the same time. It Just never worked out for me. But I can save myself from the basics of near drowning at least.

Then came high school and COMPULSORY SPORTS. I started bunking sports by taking advantage of a technical glitch in our high-school rules. If you were a “Sports Medic” it classified as sports. So I joined the First Aid team - instead of running large laps until I was red in the face and vomiting again, I got to go to lectures about how to give CPR to someone who had lost their lips in a fire and given practical ways to bandage amputated limbs. Not that this would ever happen to the first team rugby players that I had to attend to on the field, but all in all it was a lot more bearable than laps.

And now we come to the present. In my favour I am blessed with a slim figure so never really needed to exercise because of my weight - so the ONLY reason I can think of doing it is because it's apparently good for you - so seeing as I am clocking onto 30 and I live in a highly stressful city in a semi-stressful job - I guess the best thing is to do what is good for you.

So I think it may all be about a mindset change and doing good things to my body and even tho I had visions of having a tomato face and vomiting down the side of my RPM bike - I actually enjoyed it and felt good afterwards.

For the fan(s)

Everyone is always telling me to settle down, have a kid, do less fundraising, stop moving countries find one hobby and basically to stop being creative and adventurous.
Now I must admit that I like a lot of different things - doesn't everyone? .....I like to do whatever I feel like doing when I feel like doing it - I like writing & painting & babysitting & singing & eating & plants & reading & movies & making things & acting & window-shopping & dreaming & doing stuff & finding more interesting things to do. OK!!!! - That's just the start to what makes up the whole of me. I get it all the time from strangers, friends and family. You do too much. You're involved in too much. blah blah blah

Now ONE person gets me in life and I have known her for 5 years and she has never said "woah, slow down kiddo" and funnily enough, she is my biggest fan of my 3 chapter blog - which is another thing I recently started doing.

Her last e-mail to me was something like this: "I can't wait for the next episode of your adventure. Please let me know as soon as you write your blog, I'm fascinated to hear what you are up to next."

These words are words that writers hunger and wait for. Adoring fans to be moved by their work...

My adoring fan is my mother in law.

She recently e-mailed me while on a trip from Johannesburg to Cape Town visiting her daughter for a much needed break. What did she do when she arrived? She asked her daughter how to open and read my blog. (Hopefully after first unpacking and saying "Hi" I hope). Now I like a person with priorities and for someone in their 50's who is only just learning the ways of the interweb and a laptop - well I am so pleased that on her holiday she would make it a priority to find out how to view the URL to my blog that I mail her because she has found it so fascinating (all three posts).

Some advice to all those folks who are also told to take a breath and do one thing at a time. Bollocks - you can do much more than you can ever imagine - so JUST DO IT. Write, laugh, create, move, dance, sleep, snore, eat and do it all over again and even at the same time. If I dropped what I was doing everytime some unmotivated person tried to palm their demotivation onto me - I'd be incredibly bored by now.

Thanks to my second mum for always cheering me on. It means the world to me.
Now get busy people. Do some stuff you never ever thought you'd do. Just for the hell of it.

Oh and then of course you need to take long holidays in between episodes of busy-ness - REF: My first blog "My Melancholy Cay"

Walking down the RED CARPET

I've started my month long holiday. Whoohoo.

Today I walked down the red carpet at the Dubai International Film Festival.

Ok it was at 10 am to collect my industry accreditation badge today; the long carpet was only half finished being laid down; and it was all being done amidst a Dubai sandstorm at The Madinat Jumeirah, so all in all NOT that thrilling.
I did for a moment imagine what it must be like to really walk down one before I got to the end of the carpet which was still being rolled out by two Philippino men. They looked at me with a look of "get off the carpet can't you see we are busy here - walk down the side like all the other plebs".

Sheesh - If looks could kill. I wonder if most people wonder what it must be like to be famous at some point in their lives. I do. A lot. I think it's about being recognized and moving people with something that you do - more so than actual paparazzi fame.
What people think intrigues me. I know a girl who has sexual connotations to everything she says and she told me the other day that she thinks the same thing about everyone she sees or meets. "I wonder what they would be like in bed". Imagine having a brain like that - too wierd. It would be exhausting! I'm happier thinking about doing award-winning producing or acting and a fantasy red carpet with flashing cameras adoring me.

Anyway back to the real red carpet stars. Meryl Streep says in her "Inside the Actor's Studio" interview that acting is about "vanity". I agree and as Lamya Tafik, a veiled Eqyptian comedienne (who lives in Dubai) says, "applause is addictive". All so very true. True for anything in life that makes you feel good about what you do and gives you personal and public recognition.

This week (week 1 of my 4 week holiday, YES let me rub it in!) I am doing a 4 day acting course. It's with Michelle Danner - a hollywood acting coach and I guess overlapping with the Dubai Film Festival - my head is in the clouds about the red carpet.
I've been doing a variety of acting, radio drama and comedy classes over the past 12 months and I just graduated from a 9 week stand up comedy course which was loads of fun. I did not invite any friends to come and see my performance, because I was too scared I'd not be funny, but I was really funny and wished you had all been there. I should be getting a link to my 12 minute skit which I will share when I have it. It's all about being rasied by hippies and just mentioning the word marijuana in Dubai either gets you arrested or lots of nervous laughter, so I guess I had a headstart at being funny because I talk about marijuana ALOT in my show.

Watch Meryl Streep's interview here (part 1 of 5) on youTUBE or read about Lamya's story about being a veiled stand up comedienne in Dubai.

By the way - Meryl Streep is phenomenal in Julie and Julia. You gotta watch it.

See you soon from the real red carpet....Maybe