The Madd House

Hello, my name is Lynda and I’m a Pi Mom. What is a Pi Mom, you ask?   Well, I went from being a full-time Mom to an obsolete Mom in 3.14159265 seconds when my Jerry and her person, Keegan moved to another province ±1,400km away.   I’d like to think I gave her the guidance and courage to spread her wings and fly, I just didn’t realise how successful she’d be and how little she’d need me.   The abruptness sent me reeling. I can remember, while growing up, hearing adults mentioning the words “empty nest”.   There wasn’t much talk about it, no details or advice, but usually it would be said with a sadistic, wry smile or just as a matter of fact, almost as though it was taboo to discuss or speak about it. So when my nest became “empty” it was a swift and painful slap in the chops and, because nobody discusses it, I found myself floundering in deep water without the knowhow of how to swim out.   Nobody warned me about the pain, the loneliness, the guilt and the...

Maybe our grandparents/great-grandparents were onto something. My maternal grandmother was weird.    She would get up at around 4am every morning and zoom into a frenzy fetching coal for her stove, cleaning her house, cooking, baking, feeding the chickens etc.   By 6am you could eat your breakfast off her floor it was so clean. And I thought “Dude, you’re a pensioner.   At least sleep until 7am.” … No, I seriously did NOT think “Dude”.   She would have probably klapped me.   She was known to all as “Ma”.   Just “Ma”.   As to whether it was short for “Ouma”, because essentially she WAS my Ouma or whether it was just that she was quite a strong, stubborn woman and her children called her “Ma”, so everyone called her “Ma”, I will never know. Anyhow, I digress. Farm folk are usually up well before the sparrows to accomplish their many chores and early to bed because (1) it’s dark and there wasn’t – in the old days – much else to do; and (2) we...

  Hands up who is tired of the extra stress caused by Covid?   We had more than enough stress to deal with before but then along came Covid and taught us that firstly, we didn’t have a clue how stressful life could be and secondly, we were actually more capable than we gave ourselves credit for.   But I digress, this is old news.   Here is the real question. Do you know how your children are?  I mean, how they really are? Life at the moment is as tight as a trip wire and it simply takes one small movement in the wrong direction to create a huge explosion. And while we’re trying to negotiate this minefield whilst keeping our own sanity as intact as is humanly possible it’s easy to forget about the young folk in our worlds.   They usually just follow along. They’ll be okay. Wrong! Our children are encountering stress as horrid as any adult can encounter and the difference is that they aren’t built to cope – they haven’t had life teach them, over time, how to...

  Every morning and every evening I participate in a little adventure I like to call “Highway Sport”.   I call it sport because it takes quite a lot of skill to not only enter and exit the highway but to negotiate the twenty-odd kilometres and arrive safely on the other side.   The object of the “game” is to slide onto the highway at whatever speed the vehicle in front of you is traveling at and bully your way into one of the four available lanes.   The lanes are entirely preference ranked and it would be futile to assume that the fast lane is on the extreme right and the slow lane is on the extreme left.   In fact, to the contrary, the “fast” lane is the one lane that everyone zooms into only to sit (with a smug expression on their faces at having arrived in the “fast” lane) going at about 70km/h because this lane is the fullest of the lot.   The lane that is the most difficult to negotiate is the second lane from the left.   Where this should b...

We’ve been trying, since late last year, to get back on track with gym etc.   Jerry, because she would like to participate in the athletics and cross-country running at school and me, because I’d like to be a little healthier.   Have you SEEN the price of chronic medicines?? But, as you know, life happens and gets in the way of our plans a little.   We’ve had a lot more success in the nutrition department – our meals are a lot healthier now that we waved a sad good-bye to the MacDonalds staff and made more time to plan and prepare real food.   But the exercise thing?   Not so much. However, one has to start somewhere.   So Sunday saw us heading into gym like big shots.   There was a slight admin glitch getting into the gym.   Apparently now you need your admin disc, a biometric fingerprint and the soul of a small endangered mammal in order to get past the hostile metal turnstiles.   I discovered, though, that a filthy look and an au...

Some folk are very welcome in my home.   Others, not so much. For example, I recently wanted to run a bath but found two spiders in the tub.   One was a wobbly daddy-long-legs spider (he only had five legs) and the other was a lot smaller but known by me to give a particularly nasty bite.   So before I turned the tap on I gently removed the daddy-long-legs and set him down behind the cupboard, where I know he will find plenty of food.   Then I turned the tap on and washed the other dude down the plug hole. “Discrimination!!” I hear you shouting.   Well I don’t care.   I have been up close and personal with and chased and bitten by a large variety of South African spiders in and around our home (yes, I know they’re South African by their accents) and I have learnt which I can trust, or not as the case may be. I LOVE the beautiful orb spiders that patiently build their hefty webs each night, from the rafters to the ground, only to have them blow...

It had been a very long, very dark valley that she had travelled through.   Sometimes the path was smooth, sometimes narrow, often steep.   Littered with all manner of obstacles from loose pebbles and sharp rocks to gargantuan boulders with slippery sides.   And the branches that slapped against her always seemed wet.   From time to time she was required to climb over massive obstructions or leap down into unknown darkness.   Each step or leap required some form of confrontation either of her previous self or of her current self.   There were times when she had to allow her future self to push her gently from her comfortable ledge.   The valley had been lined with pictures and photos.   Some were pleasant and helped to keep her going forwards, some threw guilt in her face, others projected hatred.   Worse than these, were the mirrors.   A few of the mirrors were smoky and not clear requiring her to peer, squinting her eye...

After having decided to treat myself with a post-payday-Friday indulgence I attended one of the coffee shops in Sandton City.  My experience was nasty and this is the letter I've just written to the head office.  If I don't receive an appropriate response I shall be blazoning their name all over social media. " I had a very unpleasant experience at your Sandton City branch this morning and thought I should bring it to your attention in order to hopefully prevent other customers from experiencing similar situations. Upon arriving at the counter there were four staff in attendance.  The one lady, the cashier, looked at me and then walked away and started talking to the other lady.  After a while she walked back but seemed to be very involved with the cash till.  Eventually she looked straight past me and asked me how I was.  I am still waiting for a smile or an appropriate “good morning”. I placed my order: a cappuccino and a muffin.  I had to a...

Well, this isn’t necessarily something that I would blog about but it feels like a story that should be told, so tell it I will.   I woke to the sound of hammering.   Persistent and LOUD hammering.   Instantly awake with my heart pounding in my chest I peered at the clock radio: four minutes to midnight.   WTF?!?   I lay still for a second trying to determine the actual location (a moot effort as most of you know that I am “rigting befok” because of my hearing problem) and the source of the hammering.   Having no luck I decided that I had better investigate in case someone was trying to break in.   Creeping silently from my bed and barely moving the curtain I surveyed the garden.   Nothing was moving although quite a few dogs in the nearby vicinity were barking.   The hammering stopped.   The silence hit my ears with a pop and I strained to hear anything through the hiss left behind.   Hearing nothing but...

"In a world full of Kardashians, be a Sarah Connor."  This is a meme currently doing the rounds on social media and it actually got my hackles up.  Let's unpack this: The Kardashians are a family of folk who barely seem real.  For some or another reason their contrived antics appear to be hugely popular.  I could not, in all honesty, aspire to be anything like they are in their superficiality and nor would I encourage any young girls I know to aspire to this apparent fickleness. Let's head in the opposite direction: Sarah Conner - a fictional character created for the Terminator Series.  Designed with the typical Barbie-goes-badass look she is rough and tough.  A no-nonsense woman who is mildly sadistic, extremely violent and loses touch with her humanity on more than one occasion (as an aside, I read an article some time ago where it was said that the writers based aspects of her character on folk such as Joseph Stalin).  Either way, she is still ...

Autumn is, by far, my favourite season.   The skies become a crisp blue and it’s distinctly chilly in the mornings and evenings.   The dew on the grass reminds you to enjoy your last few weeks of wearing sandals.   I always feel a sense of anticipation as though something exciting is about to happen.   For almost all of my life it has been my own personal “New Year”.   My time for introspection and for weeding out my mind.   Some of my biggest life decisions have been made during Autumn.   Sometimes it creeps up without any warning, but not this year.   This year it waited for a Sunday evening and then appeared with pangs reminiscent of childbirth.   It started with a vague sinus headache, heralding the change of season, which slowly developed into a debilitating cramp on the left of my head and down the left side of my face.   Then panic set in.   I had arrived at nearly the end of Sunday and still had too much that...

I’m sick to death of the folk who moan and groan at the end of each year about just how catastrophic the year has been for them and how they hope the following year will be a better one and full of miraculous crap like rainbows, success, health and wealth.   Here’s a news flash: 2017 was a time period.   It was a gift handed to YOU to do with as you please.   How did you use that priceless, non-refundable gift? And I’m not talking about those who have really experienced a dreadful year.   I’ve had one or two of those in my life and I can testify that they aren’t easy.   This blog is for Joe Socks who celebrates the New Year and then stands with a simpering smile waiting for fabulous things to happen to them.   And then eleven months later they start whining about the fact that nothing wonderful happened. I’m here to tell you to suck it up, Cupcake.   Life doesn’t work that way.   You get given a year, for free, to do with as you p...