The return of the mood-yoyo

This has been a tough week, hence the lack of blog posts. I have tons to write about so I hope to get back into the swing of things soon!

I’ve been swinging wildly from euphoria to misery all week, and its getting a bit unnerving. It all started on Sunday night when I got sick. But SICK. As in not even able to keep water down kind of sick. I had some paperwork to sort out in town, and fortunately it rained so I didn’t have to feel guilty for not trapping as I sat and somehow typed up progress reports for the permits office among other things and Leia yelled at me over G-talk because I hadn’t gone to the pharmacy yet.

Anyway, to cut a loOOng story short, I give you:

Happiness:

• My permits are officially in order. It turns out that the guy in charge is amazingly nice if you call him ‘Ludwig’ rather than by his nickname (‘Blackie’)
• Feeling much better and the weird medication-related dreams have stopped
• I’m almost done catching lizards. I need a few more and then i can stop trapping and get started on Phase 2.
• i thought some of my lizards were sick, but they seem to be OK (fingers crossed!), they’re certainly biting hard enough.
• It’s been pouring with rain (I thought the house was going to flood) for he past 24 hours, and the power didn’t go off much. normally rain like this is a guarantee of at least a day without electricity.
• This place is so beautiful. I was climbing yesterday and as I reached to top of the outcrop and I saw the panorama (that I’ve seen a million times and mostly ignore), the absolute hugeness of nothing hit me like it hasn’t ever before. I was listening to Keane at the time, which may explain it.

and Sadness:

• I was sick…  which means I lost a day’s work which meant sitting up until 1am for two nights in a row catching up (the work isn’t that bad, it’s the procrastination between that’s the killer).
• I’m missing Halloween AGAIN. I’ve never celebrated Halloween as I’m always busy or just not had plans. And now I get to hear about everyone else’s plans and it makes me sad.
• I thought some of my lizards were sick. which led to a frantic checking of all of them at two in the morning followed by a sleepless night. They seem to be ok, but it wasn’t fun.
• It’s been pouring with rain – hence no trapping even though the finish line is basically in sight. I have to finish this week to get back in time for my cousin’s wedding and the Killers! I also got to take measurements with flickering power – you have no idea how much fun it is to have a lizard on a treadmill when the power keeps going on and off.
• An armed response guy got VERY lost and wound up here tonight. He then left and got his bakkie stuck and came to me for help. He also greeted me with “Waar’s jou man?” (i.e. where’s your husband?). I was annoyed and therefore refused to speak in Afrikaans. So he said “Can I speak to your husband?” I told him that my husband is a mercenary and I think he went to poach a rhino. Then I phoned one of the farmers next door and told them to sort this guy out, and sent him back to his bakkie to wait for the tractor. I feel bad for being so rude, but he started it!
• This place is Just. So. Beautiful. And I can’t shake the feeling that once I leave there’ no coming back. It’ll never be Home again, even if I come to visit.

To finish it all off, I decided to wait out the worst of the storm by watching a movie, and as I’ve been a bit down I figured a kids movie might do the trick (I’m going to ignore how emotional “Meet the Robinsons” made me last time I tried this).

I should also know by now that any movie involving animals is a bad idea. and now I have the unfortunate distinction of having cried while watching ‘Beverly Hills Chihuahua’ – I’m sorry but when the big German Shepherd get invited back to the police force…

So ja, the random stories will continue, maybe when it stops raining I’ll be back in storyteller mode!