And It Just Gets Worse - Not For Sensitive Readers

Mark and Chad don't get the whole "Everything happens at once - what more could go wrong" vibe that I have going on at the moment. For me it seems like a curse or bad spell has been put on us. So whoever did it (the curse/spell) hope you happy it is working :-y. If life at work is not hectic and stressful enough, our landlord is doing major renovations to the front of our building, so we are subjected to dust; noise; more dust and did I mention noise from about 10 Jack Hammers hammering away all day almost everyday. He is building 3 floors of offices and revamping the shop and front area. Whether the area we are in needs a major office block is up for serious debate. Our premises are in the middle of a boomed off residential area. Not a gated community/complex as such. A residential suburb that has security booms at each entrance to combat crime, whether it does or doesn't combat crime is also up for serious debate, but what it does imply is that the residents in that area are not that keen on turning their leafy suburb into a place of work or business hub for outsiders.

The Building

They basically broke down the whole front area and left us, the flat above and another business above us and next to the flat. That is the door we have to get through every morning, before we can unlock the gates to the workshop. So many clients think we are doing the revamp, because we used to have shares in the building a long time ago. No we are not that crazy to take on a project of that magnitude, that may or may not bring business to the area. So with all the building going on, Mark said to me on Monday morning "funny we have not heard from those two with the remote (you can read about it over here) I told him not to worry we will - we haven't heard the last of them. It was not even 10 minutes later and the phone rang. It was the thief and his con artist girlfriend. For the purposes of this blog and everywhere else that is what they will be referred to. The thief all friendly tells me that they did not find their remote, so they will take Mark up on his offer to get them a new remote. Like hell they were going to find the remote they never had one in the first place. You drive a 1999 scrap car and know exactly how much a remote will cost at the agents. Anyway I said to him - the thief that they must bring the car in and Mark will look into it. Hundreds of calls later and it was decided that they would bring the car in on Friday. The day carried on with its usual hell. Fetched Chad from school, dropped him off at home to lie on the couch all day study. Back to work. That night we arrived home at around 6. Sheila's room was all closed up, which was strange in this heat. Chad was not sure where she was and thought she was sleeping. I thought wow nice life, you sleeping and I must come home at 6 and cook. OK, I don't really mind, because if her work is done then she can do what she likes, if I ask her to cook then she works until I get home. I had just asked her to peel potatoes and cut them for chips, which she did, but only a handful so I was annoyed. Mark took Chad to gym, I made supper then called her to ask why she made so few chips. She looked strange and I asked if she was sick. She said her eye was sore and tried to show me, but I did not want to go too close, in case it was conjunctivitis. I told her to go to the clinic in the morning and gave her panado, which was all I had for pain. On Tuesday morning as I was leaving for work, I went passed her room and she was sitting on her bed crying in pain. I asked what was wring and she said her eye was sore. I was like (to myself) "really - I know pink eye is sore - but to cry about it" I asked if she wanted me to take her to the doctor. I made an appointment at my doctor for 11.30, dropped her off, went home to tidy the house and hang up the washing. In the meantime Chad finished school, I went and fetched him. He finished school like an hour earlier than he was supposed to. This is at a school that wants to ban cellphones completely, because children do not need phones at school. What did we do when there were no mobile phones is their argument. Well we do have them now and life has changed. When most public schools are using iPads in class a private school wants to totally ban mobile phones. Back to Sheila. An hour later I phone her to see what is happening and she tells me she is in with the doctor then phones me and says she is done. I meet her at the pharmacy and check the invoice - she has Herpes Zoster, which can be sexually transmitted disease or adult chicken pox - shingles. The pharmacist tells me chicken pox is going around. So last week it was a staff member with TB and this week shingles/chicken pox. The tablets and ointment the doctor prescribed would have cost over R1500.00 and I told her to rather go to the hospital to get the medicine.

Broken Wash Line

She went and fetched her stuff from our house and went home to her sister, who was going to take her to hospital. She ended up only going to the hospital late at night. They gave her medicine and sent her home. That afternoon it poured with rain, one massive storm and Chad phoned me to tell me he was sopping wet because he brought the washing in off the line, whilst it was pouring with rain. I was really angry with him. He threw the clean washing, which was now rain soaked and just needed to be rinsed again, onto the dirty office now store room/budgie room floor. The floor was soaked the washing was soaked, the clothes he had on was soaked. The dog's beds were soaked. He left those out too. I was really angry with him and Mark who was happy to go off to gym and not help me cook or tidy up the mess. I was angry with Chad, because instead of even studying, he lay watching TV all day and could have brought in the washing for me and the dog's beds before it rained. Again words were said that cannot be unsaid ever, when we said over here that it mustn't happen again, but it keeps happening.

Old Rusted Broken Wash Line

 One good thing that came of all this, is that I got a new washing line. Who gets excited about a washing line - well if yours looked like this you would too. Besides I get a bit OCD about hanging up washing and I know it is hard to believe considering what ours looks like, but I do go from moments of OCD to burying my head in the sand with most things in life. With the water logged towels and linen putting strain on the old rusted washing line, it finally gave in. Just in time because it was due for re-stringing AGAIN. Mark asked why the wash line broke - "Ahem - Have a look at it"

New Wash Line

I am sure it is as old as the house and our house is old. I was not going to let an inanimate object add to my stress and after a quick search, thanks to Google, I phoned the first company I found Factory Direct Wash Lines. I sent an email with my address and the specs of the wash line I wanted, received a quote accepted the quote and the next morning they came and installed it and removed the other one. Mark always said there must be a business opportunity in re-stringing wash lines, well this company does it too. I don't know why I battled before.

The only hassle was that Chad had to be at school at 11.30 to do his CAT exam, so I had to quickly drop him off at school and come back as they were finishing off. Then back to work then off again to fetch Chad from school. His exam that should have finished at 3 or 3.30 finished at 2. What was that about mobile phones not being necessary at school????

A Very Ill Sheila

I sent Sheila the photo from this post  and asked her how she was feeling and told her to get better soon, because her dog was missing her. A few hours later her sister sent me this photo of her and probably thought that I believed she was not very sick and wanted her to come back to work. I won't lie, I do want her back. I hate doing housework and working all day and coming home to clean and cook and iron and hang up washing and fold it an and and. Yes I know I am not the only one who has to do it and people older than me, busier than me, probably sicker than me, maybe even disabled people all do their own housework. Well sorry to say I hate it and I do not know why anyone would chose to do their own housework over employing someone. Besides resting and relaxing when you are not at work, you are giving someone a job and ultimately feeding another family. No I am not ashamed or embarrassed to say that I hate housework and will rather pay someone to do it. If it is sheer laziness, then so be it. Sheila is now in hospital, after getting that photo we persuaded her sisters to take her back to hospital and get her admitted. They phoned an ambulance. Apparently if you go by ambulance you get admitted. Such is life in South Africa - one of the things that don't make me proudly South African. I spoke to her on Friday and she sounded much better and even laughed about Jingles looking for her. She knows how much Jingles loves her. She is on a drip and said she was no longer in pain. Tomorrow she is being transferred to another hospital to check her eyes.

Then when you dealing with stuff that matters and is serious,you have to still deal with people like the thief and his con artist girlfriend. Again we arrived at work to find their scrap 1999 car parked in front of our gate. Again she came breezing in all friendly later on in the morning ans showed me some video on her phone of her indicators that were not working after Gavin fixed them and to collect her remote that we DID NOT lose, which I told the thief. I am sorry but I cannot fake smile and be friendly to liars and thieves. Yes if we did something wrong I will apologize and Mark always guarantees his work, but don't blatantly lie and imply that we are thieves, when you know you are lying. Mark or Gavin paid R65.00 to program a remote that Gavin had for her central locking. Believe it or not she is an optometrist, I feel sorry for the Ophthalmic practice she works for and the patients that go there. The more I think about them the more she reminds me of the murdering bitch who caused Clint's death. You can read about her over here I will never forget that bitch's face ( I don't swear on my blog, not because I am a prude - I can swear as much as the next person, I just don't think it is appropriate to use bad language on a blog - but there is no other word I can use for that murdering bitch). The con artist girlfriend sounds like her looks like her and has the same morals as her. I cannot get it out of my mind that she is a younger version of the murdering bitch. I just get this very strong feeling that we have not seen the end of them. Gavin felt the same way when they left. Even Mark is in agreement that we do not want their business. They must never come back there. You know that bad feeling you get at times when you meet someone. A feeling that does not make sense, but you cannot shake it off. That is them. You know you can wrap trash up in gold and precious stones, but it is still trash. Don't judge a book by its cover, because it can be all pretty on the outside but the contents are still full of filth and trash.

Then to top it all. It was so hot on Friday, it was such a stressful week, we were feeling drained so I bought us Lucozade and Enerjelly sweets and I broke a tooth eating the sweets. They were not hard sweets, more like wine gums - not even as hard. I managed to get a dental appointment for Saturday morning. She tried to build up the tooth, without a crown and it just broke right off when I was eating hake for dinner. She has gone away for a week and now I will probably end up getting an abscess. I thought it was too good to be true. A painless visit to the dentist, quick - fixed and done. No lies there was no pain. Now this.

What a week and what a weekend. Cleaning in this heat was no fun. This morning after I hung up the washing it was so hot and my Galaxy tab was on and I looked at the weather on the screen and it was 9 deg or something like that and I thought this can never be right it is too hot to be 9 deg. I had been checking the weather all this week and only today did I notice that the last time it was updated was on the 29 September 2013. What an idiot. This was the weather at 10:15 this morning.

It was really hot this weekend and the other good thing is that I am still walking on the treadmill. Not everyday - I missed a couple of days, but made up for them today. If you can make up for missed days. I walked 3 times - morning noon and night each time for 35 minutes and fast enough to walk 3 km's, level one. Lets hope it speeds up my metabolism.

So I end this post with a feeling of doom and gloom; of something bad that is going to happen. Be it the irritation of the thief and his con artist girlfriend; my tooth that broke that is going to give me problems or some other business related issue that I am getting a bad omen feeling about.