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Hugging the Cat – Featured Blog

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Today’s posts from our featured Port Elizabeth Blogger:

Hugging the Cat by Keep Passing the Open Windows:

Photo on 2015-11-18 at 10.07 AMDo you ever have one of those days where you’re just nothing? I think I’m having one of those months. Novemberitis I have heard it referred to. Yuck. It’s definitely a real thing around here though. It surely sounds like something that happens to people who are eagerly awaiting Christmas though.

I’m not quite sure what to do with this soul fatigue. Wait it out? Drown it in wine. Bury it with special brownies? Those last two sound good…

The thing is I can’t quite figure out what’s wrong. Has it been a tough year? Definitely. A tough  month? Sure. A tough week?

Last weekend my husband and I met our new neighbours down the road. They were mother and daughter who decided to move into the city from a farm somewhere I think. They seemed really sweet and a little awkward but I don’t mind awkward. I’m awkward. We had a lovely chat for a while, covering all the basics – career, children, pets – when the mother asked if I ever swim in the St. George’s Prep pool and I told her that I didn’t but that I didn’t know if it was an option or not. I was just about to mention how nice the St. George’s public pools are when her daughter piped up “Oh I could never swim in that pool without thinking about how many blacks have peed in it.” Nadine goes into a catatonic state of shock. The mother then says, “No not the public pool, the school pool.” The daughter goes, “black people also go to school. You know mos it’s a fact that a black person can’t touch water without peeing.”

My husband and I looked at each other. My husband said, “Yeah I think we’re going to go now” and we walked away. Neither of us had any words. In some ways I’m disappointed in myself for not throwing a bitch fit (I was about to) but in some ways I also wonder if just walking away mid conversation might not be something that might cause my neighbours some introspection.

And I think this is part of what is plaguing me. That THIS is the world we live in. We live in a world where people think that saying this kind of vile crap to perfect strangers is ok. We live in a world where this is STILL considered normal.

HOW??!!! I fight against this world every day. I make sure my kids aren’t assholes. I try to understand things from all perspectives.

But our students are fighting our government and they’re being arrested. For what? Questioning corruption? And while this happens folks keep going on about how “they” keep voting the same way. How the fuck can you be pissy about how people vote but then not be supportive when they demand to be given what they essentially voted for?

In Missouri they’re having a terrible time with some KKK kids (what the actual fuck) who are threatening to shoot all the black kids at  a university. This coming from the country that is supposed to be free and progressive….

Starbucks didn’t put Santa on their coffee cups and now Christians are upset that Christmas is being bullied. How even?????? Can I tell you a secret? Even if Starbucks was waging a war on Christmas they are incapable of stopping you from decorating a damn tree and singing about Baby Jesus until your tongue falls off. Ffs.

There was some or other conference in Iowa where they were discussing the biblical principle of killing gay people.

A bunch of black kids were kicked out of an Apple store in Australia this week for being black.

Refugees are still dying and still not enough is being done.

This is the world I live in.

This is where the people I love live.

All this hate is not only outside my door, but it seems that there is no getting away from it, not matter how many planes you jump on to get away.

So I’m kind of struggling to get away from the urge to just curl up on my beg and hug my cat. Because at least my cat isn’t a racist misogynist with a big enough hate complex to be a danger to anyone.

But then again, our landlord thought it would be a good idea to shoot off firecrackers in the empty house next door at 10:30 at night. We thought they were gunshots and my child spent a terrified hour not understanding what was happening while the police came to sort it out.

So maybe here isn’t all that safe either.

Read more here: Keep Passing the Open Windows

Review: Love Tastes Like Strawberries by Keep Passing the Open Windows:

Love Tastes Like Strawberries
Love Tastes Like Strawberries by Rosamund Haden

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’ve reviewed this book twice. Both times the review disappeared into the netherworlds of cyberspace, so I give up. I can’t write a long one again. This book was lovely. That’s all you need to know anyway. And it was written by a South African, which excites me. So yay!

View all my reviews

Read more here: Keep Passing the Open Windows

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Port Elizabethan

This author is a 'catch-all' for occasional articles and letters written to MyPE. The Author of each article can be found in the signature at the bottom of each individual article.