Springs Fever

For any of you Springsites who might be interested in rereading the first episodes of the Dogs Blog (Zed and Skunk) - I’ve written a kindle book which can be found at the site below.

http://www.amazon.com/A-Dogs-Blog-ebook/dp/B005C1QYNE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1310391003&sr=1-1

I know most people don;t have kindles (erk – what’s a kindle? It’s an e-reader, a little do-dad that you can download books onto from the internet – old books, new books… and most of them are a lot cheaper than the real thing (not that I’m knocking the real thing – I love real books!)

This is for my friend Marlene – her birthday is on the 1^st of May – yup – just like the song… when we were small and trees were tall we used to laugh while others used to pay… or something like that.

MAD and me - on the roof of the girls dorm where we used to tan at HBC.

I’m useless at getting cards off in time, and seeing as I can’t be there, thought I’d reminisce a bit…

MAD (so called because her parents named her Marlene Audrey Deacon) and I shared a room at Helderberg College.  Not only did we sleep together – No! You asses – not together together, just in the same room, but we were inseparable most of the time. Auntie Eunice in the kitchen used to call us Pork Chop and Lamb Chop. I was Lamb Chop – the boys at table used to be very rude – like oh yay – it’s peas for lunch today – Ginny can keep her skirt up.  MAD was a bit curvier and had boobs to die for.

We got up to lots of wicked stuff.

One time springs to mind… it was off weekend. We’d arranged a meet with our sort of regular boyfriend type people. They were planning a surprise for us. Would come and fetch us from my poor long suffering Gran’s house in Mowbray and take us out.  Great. Awesome.

We were young and a tad lacking in morals when it came to going out with boys at that stage of our lives. So when two other – read slightly older than us, uber cool college dudes at the time – asked us (erm… make that Marlene but we were joined at the hip) out the day before, we saw no reason why not, readily agreed to go.  Naturally the two sets of males had no need to know about each other.  Marlene was quite enamored of Steve (remind me to tell you about the incident involving his “car”) and so I was happy to go along and chat to his friend (despite the fact he wore revolting checkered pants, and I thought he was a monumental pain in the ass – sorry Ray). Can’t remember the finer points but I know we went to Sea Point and gazed at the waves. Think it was crap weather and they were huge, but like I said details are fuzzy.

The next day – our surprise visit was… tarraa… a visit to Sea Point to gaze romantically at the huge waves.  Oh yay. The boyfriend types were wildly impressed with the stormy sea, kept remarking that it was a long time since they’d seen such huge rollers. Urging us to agree with them.  Naturally, like the grown up 16/17 year olds we were, we snorted and giggled like crazy, enjoying our private joke.  Don’t think we ever confessed.

Hmmm… Steve’s car.  I had a passion for salty liquorice. They came in all sorts of odd shapes and sizes. (Still do.)  One of them looked like a Volkswagen. Marlene pounced on it. It went up on her shelf in the dorm.  Pride of place.  Weeks later, starving as usual, and lusting after that ornament. Blew off the dust and… Yum. Licked it a bit, then decided to nibble off the back wheel.   It still stood quite fine on three wheels. She’d never notice.  A few more days passed. Decided to trim the other wheel off.  Ooops… not so stable any more.  Propped it up against something on the shelf, figured she’d never notice. She didn’t.  However… did not end there did it? Ended up with me gnawing the one side off, realized she’d notice that for sure, thought aaargh what the hell – it’s not such a big deal and ate the whole friggin’ thing. By that stage it did not even taste that good.

Shit! Was MAD mad? Big time. No doubt about who the culprit was either. To this day – when I see volla shaped salted liquorice, think I should buy one and send it off to atone for my sins.

Mostly we worked in the kitchen, but we did spend a short time working in the laundry.  Can remember we used to invite our boyfriends into the drying room and have illicit smooches between the sheets (minds out of the gutter people – not what you’re thinking – the sheets were hanging on lines to dry).  All garments were labeled. Anybody we did not like used to get their shirts ironed to death (erm… singed) on the elna press. Lucky for us it was damn hard to do too much damage.  But we tried.

Used to go awol on a Sunday afternoon – sneak down to the village (using back roads) for a burger (long lusted after meat!!!) and then brazenly stroll up Irene Avenue on the way back – hoping like crazy for a lift. Hard labour was worth it. I was always in trouble at Helderberg.  Had issues with all the rules.

Damn! But MAD’s mom made good cookies.  Those choccy ones with icing type stuff on top – to die for! I shunted back and forth between Cape Town and Malawi – cookies were a luxury at boarding school.

We used to chat in church using sign language – no cell phones in those days. Jeans were worn as tight as we could get away with and tops were not as long as they should have been.  These days – HBC has done away with all those stupid rules. We swopped clothes and shoes.  Think I actually stole Marlene’s toe socks.

We drove Mrs van der Molen crazy in Home Economics (but I think she sneakily liked us anyway) and got up to nonsense in Kevin Hartung’s English class – caused kak would probably be more honest!

And the manne… on their little itty bitty buz bikes – eish – they thought they were just so cool. Hey Leon?

MAD’s sister Sandra used to come fetch us in her mini (car that is) and take us out, buy us delicious Kentucky Burgers (they don’t make them any more) which we’d eat in Gordon’s Bay overlooking the sea.

For the last 30 years, Marlene and I have kept in touch – not frequently – but enough. That’s what friends do. Thanks to Facebook – we’ve met up with most of our old class mates again. Amazingly enough, we are all relatively sane, not-too-shabby people. 

Happy Birthday my MAD friend.  May awesomeness be yours from now on forward. (Although think you have always have been a tad on the awesome side!)

For more MAD adventures…

http://sprung.blog.com/2009/09/30/hbc-recollections/

http://sprung.blog.com/2009/05/10/in-vesting/

http://sprung.blog.com/2009/05/09/the-buff/

Saturday mornings we were allowed to “sleep late”. This merely meant nobody checked up whether you were at breakfast or not and there was no roll call during morning worship because… there was no morning worship. This was all well and good – but darn – it was a long time to lunch if you missed breakfast.

Know this would sound really odd to my kids now – knowing that their mother quite frequently goes from supper to supper – but back then – missing a meal was a major deal.

So what we used to do was appropriate a few slices of brown bread and some cheese on the Friday after supper.

Maybe I should go back to the beginning for those who were not there… at Helderberg College – the kids in the dorms did the work. You had to do so many hours of work per week. Now, upon reflection, it was slave labour – but after a year at Worcester in the Ladies Seminary – it was heaven.

The girls at Helderberg College did kitchen and laundry duty.  To begin with,  I complained like a stuck pig. Not fair that the boys had the cool jobs – like herding cows and riding shotgun on the truck around campus. I mean who wanted to wash up a gajillion dishes and iron crappy clothes for all the kids in the hostels. Talk about stereo-typing.  Obviously I made enough noise because I was invited into the hallowed male world of truck riding… eeeergh… and they made me do garbage duty. Seriously gross – to this day – I hooch, heave and hold my nose when I have to swop black bags.

So we worked in the kitchen. They had this cool dishwasher type thing – you stacked the dirty plates on a rack and then hosed the hell out of them with a gun that shot serious bursts of water. Then they got shoved through a little house of piping hot water. Bit like a car wash really. Usually only matrics got that hosing off job. 

Racks of glasses, warm and steaming, had to be dried. I quite liked that – at least there was no grungy stuff involved. A select few were allowed into the cooler room – this was where the good stuff  – like cheese – lurked.  Really can’t remember the specifics – but suffice to say – we had cheese and brown bread on a Friday night.

On a Saturday morning we’d make toasted cheese. Marlene had an iron, I had an iron. We’d heat them both up. Make a cheese sarmie and clamp it between the two hot irons for a few minutes. Truly, don’t think I have ever tasted anything quite so delicious since then.

Kettles were the privilege of Matrics – we were in Standard 8 or 9 at that stage. So we’d heat up water in our steam irons – and make lukewarm coffee to swill our sarnies down with. Bliss.

Heaven help us if we’d forgotten to iron our clothes first.

Like I said before – this was a column in the Springs Advertiser for a few months in 2008… we had fun ripping off the crappy drivers. Remember to read it in the right accent doll…

You know – I like the N17!  It’s such a nice road – not too busy, not too big, not too small, plenty of space for everybody. The big scary trucks don’t seem so humongous and intimidating either because they can like stay on their side. None of this creeping up on us little ladies. I tootle along, checking out the sights and the scenery. All the other bods just cruise about minding their own bumpers too. Civilized, very civilized.

Until we get to the toll gates that is. I always do the automatic ones – one swipe and off I go. Nothing to it right? Wrong!  It’s amazing how inventive some bods get when they have to swipe a credit card themselves. First one way. Nothing. Try again… the same way. Still nothing. Oh! Okay then – turn the card around. Swipe. Uh uh – the light stays red. Tsk tsk. I mean really, it’s not like the lotto now is it?

Brroooom broooommm – the hardbody behind me starts getting the wobblies – all agro, heated and muttering under his breath.

So they think maybe that particular card does not work and grovel out another one. Swipe it the same way as the first one. Red light still glares at them. Oh oh. Problems.

Vrooom vaaroooom, eeeeeggghhhh – Mr Macho behind squeezes out of the lane and rudely roars into another one.  I give him a dirty look – like can we have a bit of patience here? These things happen you know. Deal with it dude.

I can just see the bod in front is starting to sweat and shudder – but like they are in the automatic lane and only a credit card is going to open that boom. Shame. Know how it feels. Happened to me too – swiped my card and it did not work. Strange, because I have actually worked out now which way it goes. So I swiped again. Still nothing. Panic attack. Then I realized the garage card had expired. Gosh Gertie I said to myself, what a ditz you are doll. Lucky I had another piece of plastic tucked away in my visor.

But you know – if it takes too long I also get my exhaust pipe in a knot – like the toll gate is not exactly a happening place to hang out in now, is it?   Sometimes I just go swipe my card for the car in front so they can go. Sorted.

So yesterday I was zooting back from schmoozing with some planes – merrily winking at all the cool dudes hugging the tarmac alongside. I see this big bod cruising in the slow lane with his flashers on. Oh oh, I thought to myself, what’s going on here? Reckoned like maybe he was being towed or something – bit hard to see when they are so huge you know. Next thing – he swerves out right in front of me… no really, he did. Know why? There were two cows on the N17! And not Clio’s either – real cows. Gave myself a broooming to – cripes Gertie – you better slow down. You don’t want to join the rest of the East Randers and have fur on your dashboard too now, do you.

Remember to read in a Sandton kugel accent

Well tickle my tyres and call me tootsie! Was sitting at a robot on Nigel Road, waiting for the light to turn green, eyeing out the Ekurhuleni bakkie next to me. (Definitely not worth batting lights at – bit sleazy looking you know). He starts inching forward. Jislaaik I’m thinking, this dude is in a hurry to leave, and next thing, he’s riding halfway across the intersection while the light is still red.  And do you know – he did it again at the next traffic light. Appalling hey? No wonder there are always nasty body bits of glass and metal on the roads. If some okes think its okay to drive on the orange and others get impatient waiting for the green… Well! There’s just bound to be a boomps some time or other. I mean really – what’s the point of these lights if nobody bothers adhering to them.

But, ahem, talking about red lights… had a seriously green moment the other day, like I wasn’t quite concentrating as much as I should have been and rode through a red robot. Just sailed through. Oh yes I did. Shame on me! Treated it like a yield sign. When I realized what I’d done I nearly had a battery attack I tell you – my engine thumped and my shocks trembled. Gertie, I said to myself, you have to shape up doll, otherwise your gorgeous petite figure is going to lose a bit of its shapeliness. And that just would not do, seriously now – I like the shape I’m in.

The little scare did me good – because I was lekker awake when I had to go to Jozi later that day. Oooh, all those big bully trucks on the road just scare the bumpers off me. Specially when they sidle up in the next lane and rudely release exhaust gases – when you least expect it. Makes a bod want to stall I tell you.

Although, I must say, these Joburg drivers are a lot better than the Cape Town dudes. If you put your flicker on and wink at them – they give a doll a break you know. In Cape Town, it’s like they go faster and say Naaai man – I was here first – youse get in line. Back off!  But… oh my bonnet!  If you don’t drive fast enough or you do something stupid – quite common with us ditzy broads – they make you feel really stupid – just like a dinky car.

Shared a piece of tarmac with a macho old Escort last night. Bit ancient for my taste. Had the nerve to try chat me up – parp-parped himself as “The Reaper”. More like the creeper I’d say!  Shame, he was trying so hard to look younger than his years, so thought I’d make his night and gave him a little flicker.

Gertie Getz  appeared in the Springs Advertiser as a column for a few months in 2008.

(to be read in a Sandton accent)

Gertie Getz herself!

You know, being a gorgeous little car is quite a drawback sometimes. Like those big manly bakkies and utility vehicles that try to take liberties, push me over and have their way with me. Now I’m a sap for a good-looking bod, specially if he’s wearing mags and all, but there is just no excuse for bad manners.

I mean really,  there I was, tootling down Charterland Lane, minding my own business, sticking to my side of the road, going I might add, well within the speed limit. I know there are some scary little potholes dotted around, don’t want to break one of my designer takkies now, do I?

What happens?  This white bakkie leapt out of a side street and very nearly terrified the bumpers off me. I almost nosedived into that nasty horrid hard tarmac and smeared my makeup.  Like I’m very particular about my make up too – don’t like getting it smudged or messed up you know.

I tell you, my battery was pounding and my flickers got flustered. Had to slow right down and do some deep breathing exercises – brrrooom in, broooom out, brrrooom in, brooomm out.

Worse, that big ugly bakkie just drove off into the sunset – not even a toot toot to say he was sorry, have a nice day or anything. (And he was ugly too – no mags, no nice zooty stripes, no redeeming features what-so-ever.) Very rude I thought. If I find him in a parking lot anytime soon I’m going to give him a big piece of my mind. Well, maybe not such a big piece of my mind. If give out bits of my mind to every rude body I see on the road, goodness gracious, I’ll have no mind left at all after a few days.

It’s amazing hey – how some bods just think its okay to ignore all those cutie little road signs.  Like comma, instead of stop, or they treat a stop sign like that upside down triangle thingamajiggy –  oooh – always forget the name of it…

I know there are so many things to remember when you’re out on the road – like does orange mean slow down or go faster? I’m pretty sure it means slow down, but then everybody else around me goes faster, consequently I get my exhaust pipe in a knot sometimes and go faster too, just so the bod behind me doesn’t get to boomps my bum, you understand.

I don’t like anybody touching my bum – although you know… I saw a nice manly deep blue Tucson dude last week – what a bod!  Ooh la la. I batted my headlights at him so much I nearly lost my wipers. Sigh. He can share my garage with me any day.

Em’s plane arrived from Cape Town on 17^th September at 18h10. Had promised her that we’d be standing on the balcony at Lanseria Airport, leaping up and down, waving. (Last time we left her standing forlornly outside for over an hour.)

To live up to that promise, anticipating untoward traffic jams, we decided to leave in plenty of time. Like 2 hours early. Naturally the road just flowed and we got there in under an hour. No problem – we’d have drink and relax. Chat about the day. Turns out to be happy hour, so we slurped two drinks each instead. Ordered cheese sauce slathered slap chips to mop up some of the alcohol.

Lanseria is a great little airport.  It was a warm, balmy evening and there were a lot of people on the balcony, taking full advantage of happy hour. As the planes land and take off you get blasted with smelly fumes and have to shout to be heard. There is atmosphere.

My last swig coincided with Em’s plane leveling out on the horizon. We ambled over to where we figured the plane would park on the apron. Duly did the mad waving bit and then headed downstairs to collect the little baggage and her luggage.

As we were walking up to the car Chris pats his pockets, looks in his hands (which are only full of fanny pack and skin). Oh! he yelps – I don’t have the keys. Do you? Nope I reply – it’s your car.  Our pace quickens. Maybe we left them in the car or perhaps they are up in the restaurant. A quick glance confirms that they are still in the ignition.  I sidle round to the passenger side – the Opel does not have central locking and I often forget to do the manual thing. Maybe it’s open. Sod’s Law. Not this time.

Sick feeling - keys hanging behind locked glass.

A few ineffectual stabs at trying to push and pull windows yields buggar all. Em sits down on the curb and lights up a smoke.

Chris slips into stress mode and stomps off to the airport building to get help. I grovel uselessly in my handbag. Had a roll of that nylon strap stuff for just such occasions.  Knew that I’d chucked it out when we took out roadside assistance insurance, but look for it anyway.

Yes – we have roadside assistance. But the telephone number and the policy number are neatly typed on the “ICE” tag, which is sitting in the bakkie in the middle of the car. Can see half the number but the other half is obscured. Very useful. It’s now 18:30.

Chris comes back, looking like a thundercloud. Nobody is willing to assist. Typically – there are no dodgy looking characters lurking around when you need them either.  We bounce around some options. Call his sister, get them to fetch us and take us home – but how do we get into the house to get the spare keys. Break the back window. Call a locksmith. Eventually we call his sister for a locksmith’s number. She gives us three. The first dude can be there in two and a half hours. The second in an hour. Cost – R750. Cash. Chris does a double take. Tells the guy he’ll call him back.

Another think. I’m all for breaking a window.  The thought of damaging his little car makes Chris shudder. Besides it will probably cost more to repair - plus all that sodding inconvenience. 

In the end we called the locksmith back. Went back inside to wait out the hour. Negotiated with the lady at the desk that we could upgrade our parking ticket and pay for more time.  Luckily the cash machines are working – we draw money.

We chat and laugh. What’s done is done. Em tells us there is actually an official “Eff my life” website. This might qualify for an entry. So much for cheap flights – something always happens to make them cost more than a regular one. The hour passes. The locksmith arrives and, using a nifty little bendy piece of metal, takes precisely 5 seconds to open the door. He asks if we want an invoice. No. Okay then, the price is R650.

We head off. It’s just after 20h00 – will take us another hour to get home.  On the upside, traffic has now abated.  

A waggy-bummed Fudge is delighted to see us. We’ve taken much longer than anticipated, cautiously edge round the door – wondering what all she has trashed. Some of my files are in a heap by the door. Uneaten. Probably got a fright when they cascaded down on her from the bookshelf.  

So she ate my shoe instead.

When we moved into the complex, one of the things I was looking forward to was not having to deal with gardener issues. Loved our previous dude to death – he was like part of the family, but eish…

The garden service fee here is included in the rent. A sort of add-on-extra where you don’t have a choice. Envisaged the odd inconvenience whilst the lawn got mowed, edges trimmed, beds dug – all at the same time of course, maybe once every two weeks or so.

As it happens, sod being alive and all… have swopped one trusty garden-type person for about five or six unknowns. No longer have predictable old once-a-week gardener day either – all day every day is now gardener day.

The place is laid out in rows. The gardens – if you can call them that – are all interlinked with metal doors that have no locks on. The guys come and go as they please. In the beginning was worried about safety. Now just worry about my sanity.

There seem to be no set days for anything. Some weeks the lawn gets mowed. Some weeks it does not. Sometimes it gets edge-trimmed the day before mowing, and sometimes the day after. Usually either of these two activities will occur just after I have vacuumed or swabbed the tiles. The wind blows and all those miserable snippets of grass that somehow manage to evade the bin system – swirl into the house, scurry to the furtherest corners – where they know they will be safe.

Occasionally, because our unit is at the end, it just gets used as a throughway.

Then there was the time (again – had just cleaned) the crew descended and liberally sprinkled thick black topsoil all over our five square meters of outside breathing space. Not to mention Fudge’s poop space. This was, naturally, followed by a healthy splodging of water for a couple of hours. Instead of lovely springy grass we now had sludgy mud. Fudge clearly has aspirations of being a mud-wrestler and positively wallowed in it. Skiddy paw-prints prints adorned the tiles and stairs. Fur delicately decorated every available surface with little flowery footprints.

Watering is dodgy too – there is some sort of alien evil eye next to the wall. Sometimes it just pops up and sprays copious quantities of water. If the washing is on the line, that enjoys the same treatment too. Sometimes one of the dudes pops in, attaches a hose to the evil eye and proceeds to water by hand. Then sometimes they just sling the hose over our wall and water the grass verges outside.

Frankly, I’d rather trim the lawn with nail scissors and do all the work myself. It’s certainly manageable.

Each time the bolt slide on one of the metal doors outside, Fudge flies into protect mode, starts charging up and down, barking ferociously. My heart thuds to a halt – kadoosh! Then I leap up to close the sliding door. To date, she has never nipped a heel but it’s not too late to start.

I may beat her to it.

Our view of the neighbour's garden

Just finished doing some research on osteoporosis for the Ripple Effect cartoon strip and realized it’s really quite scary stuff. Sneaky too. Like you don’t have any idea your bones are slowly getting less dense until you break something. Usually your wrist, spine or a hip. Kadoef! That’s when you find out your very structure is beginning to crumble.

Pretty much like it sounds huh… Osteoporosis: osteo = bones + porosis = holes = holey bones. Or less dense bones to be more medically correct.

Seems like it affects one in two women and only one in eight men. This is mainly because men have higher bone density than women do.

And how does one get this dreaded lurgy? Simple really – don’t eat properly.

Lack of calcium pretty much does the job. Lack of vitamin D too – although it would appear that the vitamin D is needed to help with the absorption of calcium from the intestines. Most things work hand in hand – you need the one for the other to kick in properly. Or out.

Normally – your body removes old bone and replaces it with new. Osteoporosis occurs when this process becomes imbalanced. The bone is resorbed more quickly than it is replaced and so bones weaken and can break.

There’s more… you don’t only need calcium for healthy bones – you need it for normal heart, muscle and bone function. So here’s the cruncher – if your body picks up that your levels are low – too low to function one hundred percent properly – it simply makes a plan. It releases special hormones, including parathyroid hormones, which help break down or resorb bone tissue to release calcium into the blood. And yay – your body can continue to function normally. But duh – to the detriment of your very own bones.

Hang on a sec… still have a few years to go before I hit the big five oh – so really don’t have to worry about all this ridiculous stuff. Right? Wrong. By 50 it’s probably too late.

Specially if you smoke. That makes it worse… like really really worse.

Check out the facts – peak bone density is reached at around the age of 25. If all goes well, said bones stay strong and healthy for about ten years after that. Then at about 35 they start losing around 0.3% – 0.5% of their bone density per year – just part of the normal old aging process No biggie right. Happens to everybody.

But… if you smoke – as in a pack a day throughout your adult life (not to mention those weaselly kids who start puffing at the age of 12) this can lead to a whopping loss of between 5% and 10% bone mass. Considerably accelerates the decline of the normal bone density process. Throw in some decreased estrogen levels (which smoking also aids and abets) and wham bam – you don’t have half the skeleton mass that you thought you did.

But am trim and healthy, you console yourself. That’s got to count for something. Baaaaaaaa – wrong again. Makes it even worse. Specally if you weigh less than you should for your height. Slightly built people run an even higher risk of osteoporosis.

Plus they tell you that drinking alcohol and coffee also increases the risk – but was rather relieved to note this has not actually been proven. Boils down to a case of all things in moderation – no going over board. Drinking too much alcohol or getting through life on copious quantities of coffee is bad for other things apart from your bones anyway.

Turns out that once you have got osteoporosis – you can’t completely cure it – so it’s much better to prevent it in the first place.

Most of the articles I read suggested that to avoid osteoporosis you should consume x amount of calcium daily. This depends on your age. And no – this does not mean you can pig out on rich creamy stuff – the low fat and fat free type of milk, yogurt and cheese actually contain more calcium. Don’t forget the vitamin D and while you’re about it plenty of muscle strengthening exercise is recommended as well.

Ah hah, thought I, with a small pang… one can build up bones and make them stronger by exercising. Walking is good. But what really cracked me up, pardon the pun, is that all the exercise really does – apart from building muscle tone and making you feel better – is gives you better balance which then reduces the risk of falling and breaking stuff. Does not actually bring about any substantial increase in bone density.

Amongst this doom and gloom, was quite delighted to see that along with fortified milk, cheese, butter, margarine, cereal and fatty fish, natural sunlight is a form of vitamin D. So next time I’m catching some rays and my kids yell at me to stop frying myself – can tell them I’m legally topping up my vitamin D levels.

All this trouble and in the end you might get hit by a bus. Well – think about it this way – at least if you’ve got strong healthy bones – you’d give that bus a run for its money!

Usually the subject of pooh is taboo but feel a desperate need to share my plight. Must have been really horrendously wicked in some previous life – or maybe my wickedness in this life has sufficed.

Our house in Springs is situated on near as dammit two thousand square metres of ground. That’s a lot of poop place. We now have approximately five. Just five. Not five hundred, not five thousand. Five. Square. Metres. Of. Grass. With a mingy little olive twig growing slap bang in the middle and a few daisy bushes on the side. I like those daisy bushes – this is where the cat buries his business. Come to think of it… I like the cat.

Does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that a teensy tiny bit of lawn poses a slight problem when a dog is involved. Even when one is in possession of a super duper pooper scooper.

Not only do piles of dog poop honk, look unattractive and besmirch the overall effect of ascetically pleasing greenness, but they can be stomped in, by human or canine, and inadvertently transferred to different locations, namely, the house.

Have now resorted to pouncing on the freshly deposited piles – literally while it’s still steaming. Before it can do any harm. This is all good and fine – a total non-event when the poop to be scooped is nice, firm and not-too-smelly. Painless really.

Example of good poop - fortunately there was no cruddy poop today.

We had a good few days of that in the beginning and life was just dandy thank you.

Then disaster struck. Fudge delivered an odious heap of grungy sludge. My stomach heaved. Ohhhhshhhiiiitttttt! What in the hell am I going to do with that? The heaves converted into rapidly rolling waves of nausea.   

You understand – this is when the beloved family pet becomes “Gin’s dog”. I’m it. The crap stops here. 

Circled the area until my breath ran out. Retreated back to the stoep. Suppressed bad dog thoughts – after all – it’s probably something I fed her that’s caused this. Take another deep breath – grab poop scooping device – attack offending pile.  Eeeeghhhh – it’s now half in the bag, in the scoop and all over the spadey thing. Do a little war dance of horror around the grass – carefully avoiding The Patch – waving the revolting paraphernalia around in the air. Whattodoooohhhwhattodo.

Leave. Now. And never return. 

Em’s hooting and hollering from a safe distance behind closed sliding doors. Wretched child.  Try to clean the spade in the bit of garden. Smoodge some ground around the scoopy thing. Desperately hoping it does not contain cat crap.  Am light-headed from the disgustingness of it all. 

Fudge looks on apologetically.

Watered the last sludgy bits into the grass. Will deal with the malodorous poop bag later. Much later…

For any of you out there with the same problem – have mastered the technique now. Bag on hand (tried it without a bag first – you so don’t want to know what happened) – put double layer of newspaper over shitty pile – scoop it up with bagged hand. Don’t breathe whilst doing this. Fold it over without looking at it. Or breathing. Stuff it into another bag – eff the environment – this is my sanity we are talking about. Knot bag tightly. Deposit in outside wheely-bin. Water down left over bits. Breathe again.

Vow never to feed dog anything but dry pellets and water.