So Close

Moving house

So, moving!  Yes, it is true. We are moving to a new house.  I haven’t mentioned anything before even though this has been going on for MONTHS already because we weren’t sure whether it would all come together. It’s been fairly stressful.  Also, I didn’t want to mention it because we are moving into the house next door! As in, literally right next door. Which sounds a little weird, right?  It’s just that we LOVE our security estate and don’t want to stay anywhere else, but we needed more space.  And the house next door is HUGE.  It has everything we need and more.  So, we are moving, yay!  Very exciting.  We have been doing LOTS of renovations and fixing over the past week or so because the house sorely needed some serious attention.  We move in at the end of the month.  We are so super excited and we are at the house every single day (a few times a day) to check on the contractors and also just to admire our new house or jump on the trampoline J  Kids are super excited. 

There are a few things I have learnt through this process which I thought I would share with you:

1.  They say moving is stressful, which is true.  However even more stressful is having to deal with the horrendous admin involved re contracts, attorneys, buyers, sellers, certificates, bond applications etc etc.  It’s like a painful jigsaw puzzle
2. Property attorneys are effing expensive and not always very user friendly.  It makes me not like them very much.
3. Marko and I are frightening efficient (anal). Everything is done 100% properly way before it is due.  Not everyone is like this. In fact, few are. It’s frustrating.
4. There are some serious bullshitters out there.  We got an offer on our house in December. From a guy who made huge promises.  Signed everything.  I googled him and saw that he is a serial, international bullshitter.  Needless to say the deal fell through, but only after he had strung us along for a month, basically wasting our time. I have strong feelings of hate towards him for conning us.  However, according to Google, he has conned far more people out of much more money.
5. Marko and I take really good care of our ‘stuff’.  You could buy a used car from Marko and EVERYTHING would be in tiptop condition.  It would literally be ‘like new’.  Our house is always clean, neat, tidy, fixed, in good working order. Other people are not like this.  Some people are VERY not like this.  It is shocking how some people live. How badly they take care of things.  How dirty they are.  But perhaps they just aren’t arsed about ‘stuff’?
6. Packing is a pain in the arse, but it is also a GREAT opportunity to do a cleanse and a purge. I am cleansing like you can’t believe.  I am giving away mountains of stuff.  We have way too much stuff.  Plus I am so very unsentimental.  It makes for some pretty significant purging.
7. It is really, really great to take the plunge and pay for an extra month’s occupation rent just to have the house empty before you move.  We have used this time to have the whole house painted, the cupboards repaired, carpets replaced, new electric wiring done, air cons put in, paving done, floors sanded, lights changed…. All the things that make a huge mess and are PAINFUL to do if you have to live in the house while they are doing it
8. Having the house professionally cleaned before you move in is a non-negotiable.
9. My husband is probably the BEST husband anyone could ever hope for when it comes to house moving / repairing / renovating.  He has managed the entire fixing up process.  Project plans, contract negotiations etc.  Every single thing is taken care of.  He is there every day, a few times a day checking on everyone, making sure everyone is doing what they should be doing.  Doing some stuff himself.  He is a machine.
10. Selling my house was a lot less painful that I feared.  I put this down to working with one of the best realtors / estate agents around.  Manja from Realtors International Durbanville is amazing.  For all the usual things like having good buyers / lots of opportunity / having a good network of associates / good staff as well, but more than that –she made whole experience of buying and selling unbelievably (relatively) painless. I never felt like it was an intrusion to have people come and look at our house.  She always did it in such a way that it was of no inconvenience or intrusion to me.  I was dreading that part, but it was such a non-issue.  And she has not stopped being helpful – she arranged quotes from professional cleaners, she gave me contacts for window cleaners, for people who service blinds etc etc. I speak to her almost every day and she just carries on being helpful to us.  Long after the deal has been signed and sealed.  And let me tell you, Marko and I (mostly Marko) are PAINFUL customers.  Painful.  Everything has to be done TODAY. He was on everyone’s case all day, every day.  I actually felt sorry for Manja. But I can see why Manja is so successful. She is just so damn good. 
11. Lastly, I have struggled with how very fortunate we are, especially in comparison to so many others.  We have so much. We are so lucky.  Through my purging and cleansing, I have given truckloads of stuff to Happiness.  TVs, beds, DSTV decoders, tables, chairs, pots, pans, toys, lots and lots of stuff.  Happiness doesn’t have a car so I take the stuff in my big car and I drop it off at her house in the township.  She has a tiny RDP house.  A tiny house in a dusty street with a thin barbed wire around it. And I stay in this huge house. It seems so wrong that the difference is so huge.  It makes me feel sick actually.  I can’t fix it all for her, but I am committed to helping her improve her circumstances, not only through donating stuff to her and paying her a really good salary, but also by upskilling her and helping her with her child who has disabilities.  I feel that we each have a moral and ethical obligation to help those who are less fortunate than we are, no matter how much or how little we have.

Only 10 more days until we move! Super excited. 

SQUEAK SQUEAK SQUEAK

I have to tell you that my hearing problem does not go well with foreign accents.  There is a lot of “pardon?”, “sorry?” etc.

Today I went for a spa treatment to distract myself from my woeful missing bag situation.  It was a most amusing experience and I kept thinking that if my friend Melany was with me, she would be in hysterics.

Conversation:

Kind lady at spa to me:  You want (can’t hear) herbal tea?

Pardon?

Herbal tea?

Pardon?

Tea (makes drinking motion)

Yes please.  (thinking it might help with the garlic problem. Well, the internet said green tea but maybe herbal tea will do a similar job.  At the very least if it smells like it tasted (like one of those potpourri sachets you put in your cupboard to make it smell nice) then hopefully it would mask the garlic)

I go into the treatment room and put on the gown and the disposal underwear (sized extra small) and hop onto the bed which is quite large and has a leather/leatherette type covering with a disposable cover on top of that.

The massage begins quite vigorously, which is great because I am not paying anyone to pussy foot around with wimpish gentle touch.  Unfortunately with each massage stroke she does, my painted toenails squeak against the massage bed.  Rub SQUEAK Rub SQUEAK.  It was very distracting and so I thought I would ask her to put a towel under my toes.

Me: Wow, my toes are quite noisy!

Massage lady:  Eh?

My toes, they are noisy. Can you put a towel under my feet?

Your feet tired?

No, my toes are noisy, can I have a towel please

Tired?

Towel!

This part tired? (pats feet)

No, a towel please. For the toes.

Ok she says and climbs on the massage bed with me, sitting between my legs and spends at least half the time massaging my ‘tired’ toes and feet.  .  Rub SQUEAK Rub SQUEAK. SQUEAK SQUEAK SQUEAK

I gave up on the towel idea and just enjoyed what was a VERY thorough and rigorous massage.  Where EVERYTHING was massaged expect my vajayjay and my …. Actually, it was only my vajayjay that wasn’t massaged.  She even massaged my eyebrows.

At one point she had my one leg just about wrapped around my neck with the other one wrapped somewhere around the waist area. 

Half way through she whipped the towel up to my shoulders to tell me to turn around and in doing so accidentally caught the edge of the disposable panties in her hand which meant I was very suddenly and quite surprisingly wearing a thong. Pulled up to just about chin height. There I was, having parts of my body massaged that I didn’t even know existed with my extra-small panties up my bum and my toes going SQUEAK SQUEAK SQUEAK.  Interesting!

After the massage I had a hair appointment for a wash and blow dry. 

I thanked the massage lady and said that I was going to shower now

No, she says

Pardon?

No shower.

I must shower, I have a hair appointment.

No shower for 5 hours. Oil good for skin. No shower.

(panicking now in case I am locked in the room for five hours with someone who has just massaged my boobs and given me an accidental thong)

Oh, no! Um, I have to shower, sorry. Thank you. Bye!

And off I ran.

It was an interesting massage. Good and interesting.  Very strong hands for such a small person.

SQUEAK. 

On going deaf. (Speak up lovey, I can't hear a thing!)

I found out I was going deaf quite by accident.  

As part of the "lets eliminate what could be wrong" process, I had to take Max to have his hearing tested a few years back.  The first test we had was a general, high level hearing test.  Max sat on my lap and the tester sat on the other side of the glass partition in the sound proof room.  On either side of the room were two speakers, on top of which was a toy monkey.  She explained to Max that each time he heard a sound come from either monkey, he should turn his head towards the sound.  

We sat there for a minute or so while she adjusted her headphones and fiddled with some knobs.  And then she looked at us through the glass window.  Suddenly Max started turning his head randomly towards the monkey on each side on the top of speaker.

OMG! I thought to myself. The child obviously has bigger problems than we thought!  He is wildly turning towards each monkey for no rhyme or reason.

The tester obviously saw my panicked look and said "he is hearing beautifully and responding perfectly to the sounds".  What sounds, I said? I don't hear a thing!  "That's ok, it happens to many people as they get older" she says.  

Great.  I had age-related hearing loss.  Wonderful. Getting older is an absolute joy.

That was that and I soldiered on with my dodgy hearing.

Last year I had to have Max's hearing retested, this time by a proper hearing clinic (1.5 hours and several hundred rand later) as part of the "lets further eliminate what could be wrong" process.  This time I booked a full hearing screen for myself too. (2 hours and several hundred rand later).  Max passed with flying colours again whereas I failed fairly notably.  The official result:  "A sloping mild to moderate high frequency mixed hearing loss was obtained bilaterally". In other words, going deaf in both ears.  

Truth be told, I suspected I might have a problem.  There are certain people I just cannot hear / understand when they speak.  Before going through the full hearing screening, I thought going deaf / losing your hearing meant that everything got softer. That it was like turning the volume down. But it isn't like that, well at least not for me.  I can hear most sounds perfectly fine.  But there are certain frequencies / voices that I cannot hear at all.  All I hear is mumble mumble / white noise / static.  I can't make out the individual words.  I used to feel ashamed at how often I had to say "excuse me?" but now if I don't hear the first time, I mostly just leave it like that. If it is important, the person will say it again or I will ask them to repeat it.

The Audiologist asked which doctor referred me so that she could send the results to the doctor.  I said that I had come there myself and didn't have a referring doctor, however she could send the results to my kids' ENT, as well as emailing the report to me directly as well.  Which she did. A week or so later, I get a call from the ENT's office to say the results are with them, and the doctor would like to see me for an appointment.  "What do you mean?  I have the results myself so I know what is going on".  No, apparently the doctor wanted to see me.  Now, I really like the doctor, a lot.  We have a lot in common and have built up a relationship over the years.  So I knew she wouldn't be calling just to waste my time or money.  So I went to see her. She explained to me that my hearing loss is fairly significant for someone my age.  It is more often associated with someone much older than myself.  And it is probably nothing to be worried about, however she has a duty to inform me that there is the very small possibility that the hearing loss could be because of a tumour or growth.  

GREAT. I voluntarily go for a hearing test to see whether people are mumbling or I just can't hear and now I might be dying from a cancerous brain tumour.

She said the chances are unlikely it is anything sinister, but in order to be sure I would need a MRI to rule out the tumour issue.

FANTASTIC!  Brain cancer and a MRI. Perfect.

I went for the MRI, which is not exactly a very pleasant experience and TG it was all fine. Even though I knew it was probably all fine, I must say I did have a few moments envisioning my funeral proceedings while lying still in that horrible tube.

Bottom line - I have the hearing of an old person. To match my rapidly ailing eyesight. I AM A TOTAL CATCH!  Blind and deaf.  But at least brain-tumour-free. Glass half full etc. 

It's weird, and a little scary actually, to see how your physical capabilities deteriorate as you get older.  You can be as young at heart as you wish, but the physical body degenerates according to it's own timetable.  

Sigh. Getting older is not for sissies.  But it sure beats the alternative.

Now speak up lovey, I can't hear you.