Introducing Em...

You have understand that this is my first time. I am a blogging virgin.

I thought I'd introduce myself and 'set the scene'. Even though most of you are family members, the last I saw 'the kids' (Birdshit, Farteen and...Justin, what's your nickname?) was a decade ago. A DECADE! Good Lord.

So, this is going to be short:

What is an intro without photos. As they say, a picture says a thousand words, which is fortunate considering my inexperience with blogging. Here we have my husband, Mark, and myself dancing on our veranda. We have a ball together. Bless his cotton socks (and thinning hair). Am totally smitten.



Okay, that's not exactly fair. Here's a better picture of him and as an added bonus we get the hunky Wright brothers too. Joe (left) has recently been employed by my brother-in-law, which could well turn into an entire entry on its own. Bruce (right) is living with his girlfriend in London.



Back to setting the scene: Welcome to my garden. The two of us live in little slice of paradise. We're on a wine farm in Stellenbosch, a town just outside of Cape Town. The farm is the highest farm on the Helderberg mountains, which faces Cape Town, so the view is fantastic. The mountain range you see in the distance is the side profile of Table Mountain. Lucky, lucky us.




View looking the other way. The big 'bulge' on the left of this range is the mountain that Mark, I-don't-run-for-the-phone, climbed to ask Dad for my hand. Aaaaaaaw.

















For Heaven's sake, this takes a helluva lot longer to do than I thought. And I just got a message that said this might not save. What??!! It had better bloody save.

So that was a start. At least you have the setting. Right, it's time to head home. I'm supposed to be walking on the farm with a friend, but it's raining, so I think we'll exercise our right arms with a glass of (unmeasured) wine instead. So, cheers.

Ta da! I've finally managed to Preview this entry. I'm pressing 'Save'. My blog 'flower' has officially been plucked.

Looking forward to more entries now that I know the ropes.

What's in a name?

It's amazing what your kids think up when you're not around. On the drive down to Jersey, they revealed the nicknames they'd created for each other the day before.

Are you ready?

Jack is Big Cinnamon, Maggie in Son of a Bun and Libby is Big Butt.

Can you stand it? Steve and I just about wet ourselves when they told us. And to their credit, they couldn't have picked a better time to tell us. We were stuck in pre-Philadelphia traffic.

And Libby had just farted on my hand.

Clarification?

Well, we were bumper to bumper just north of Philly, with no relief in...what? Oh, Libby and the fart.

Well, we were bumper to bumper just north of Philly and Maggie had to pee...really, really, really bad. BUT...with no opportunity to find an exit (we wouldn't have anyway...if you blink and miss a sign, you're as good as dead...really). So, since we were crawling along anyway, I decided to let her pee in my empty, disposable coffee cup.

She dropped trou', squatted perfectly and relieved herself in the last drops of my cappuccino. Mind you, I was an integral part of her success. One hand held the cup, while the other hand steadied her itty bitty buns to ensure she didn't accidentally piddle all over me or the van. The tinkle was then transferred to a Gatorade bottle with a tight fitting lid.

Perfect. A little disgusting, but perfect.

Not to be outdone, Libby announces that she, too, had to go really, really, really bad. I knew she didn't. She had consumed less than half of what Maggie had in the previous 45 minutes, and until she saw the coffee cup routine, she mentioned nothing of needing to use the bathroom.

But, proving that someone does NOT have to pee is harder than it sounds, and she threw in a couple of tears for affect. So, we allowed her to unbuckle, get her shorts to her ankles and attempt to make good use of my coffee cup (with my help, of course).

And she strained. And shifted on her feet. And grunted a little.

After about a minute, she snapped her head up and barked, "I really do need to pee, Mommy!" and punctuated that with a juicy, noisy, vibrate-y fart. Right on my hand. That tickled.

Jack and Maggie lost it. It was almost too much for them. Steve and I were too stunned to speak.

I. Still. Have. No. Words.

No one, and I mean no one, cuts the cheese like Big Butt.

A Tease

We're back! And it was awesome!

More in the next day or so...

(And thanks for the posts, Dad and Brighid (I'll add my comments today). Keep them coming!)

Edited to add picture of MY Jersey Shore tan...and because Brighid double-dog-dared me to post a picture of me with my giant moon face and too-tight shorts.

Edited to add a picture of the hunk (even though he and his boogie board will be heavily featured in the next post...whenever I get that together). For Winky's jollies...The Hunk.

Thank you!!

What an amazing experience ! My email was filled with messages of love and “I’m with you” from all over the world. It is humbling to know how much you all care. Each and everyone of you made a difference, and I hope that you feel the power of your gift to me; may your thoughts reframe your own lives on your journey to your highest expression.

Despite my certainty that nothing evil was lurking on my rib or spine, I do admit to a huge sigh of relief, which was luckily masked by the noisy emotions of my two supervising family members (Butterfly & Bird).

And now for something totally mundane. It is a sort of housekeeping.

I have had an avalanche of requests for a picture of my facial hair. There were at least two at last count, and so let me use Mart’s blog to satisfy, and stem, this flood.

This picture was taken by a most comely photographer whose hand is many projects, this for a little known glamour magazine for the cover of their winter 2023 edition. I was oh-so-lucky to escort this model (in a coral twin set top, provided by JCPenney) to a premier performance of modern and free dance, debuting Ms. Libby and Ms. Maggie. The performance was somewhat biased to free dance, and had tones of the art form modern non-rhyming poetry, and was performed with zest and feeling. The American Dance Theatre is in good hands. Please do not distribute this pic and so decrease its impact on publication. Thank you so much.

Lastly, I am in the process of setting up a personal blog entitled " ... my compass points ..." (so aptly named by this blog's owner). My focus will be ways to save the planet, humanity and civilization. It will be filled with insignificant trivia, and be a guide on how to have your collection of books on awakening your inner magnificence actually work for you.

Which of course brings to mind that all those who can, have reached the Adept level, are dirt poor and on a remote mountain top. Those who cannot, run seminars, write books, and count their money. By the way, don't try to find this erudite blog just yet. It will be up as soon a my self help book gets published.

Love & Light to y'all!