Having returned home this morning from a late night, I wasn’t about to iron an outfit for work, so I found a pair of jeans hanging over the foot of the bed and paired it with a T-shirt, a sweater of Star’s and slops.

I arrived at the office only to be reminded that my colleague and I are to attend a seminar this morning. Ooops, I forgot about that. I kinda had something else on the brain ...

Besides the delicious breakfast [free food always tastes good] it was a very boring two hours and I struggled to stay awake.  It was only when the guest speaker mentioned that her law firm were opening a branch in Cape Town and were looking for a consultant in my industry that my attention was piqued. 

Had I been properly dressed I would have accosted the attorney then and there and I am better able to sell myself in person than with my CV. However, with the attire I was wearing [not to mention lack of make-up, jewelry … and you don’t want to know what the hair looked like!!! – Sorry I1] I decided to wait for a more opportune time.

So is Long Street a decent place to work??? 

I met my not-so-secret-lover for lunch earlier. I’d have preferred a rendezvous at either his place or mine for a lunch time quickie, but alas I didn’t think to suggest it when he called. Instead we met at a place I hate more than Spur but it was convenient for us both to get to and from.

The weirdest thing happened while we were there.  On Sunday he was in a car accident, the other driver was drunk and refused to wait for the metro police to arrive.  He was in shock and didn’t think to take down the license plate number so he had no details for the driver. While we were eating lunch we saw a truck carrying a very fucked up orange car on it … The next thing you know we’re up from the table, in the car and trying to chase the damn thing! It was the car from Sunday’s accident! We didn’t catch up to it and I had to return to work.

Lover is off to Brazil shortly.  As soon as he receives his visa he’ll be flying out for a few months.  He did say that he’ll send a ticket for me to visit.  Which of course I will accept. [who says no to a free trip to South America???] However, hopefully by the time he returns to South Africa I’ll be living elsewhere.  Problem solved.

There's nothing like sneaking back into my house at 06h20 in morning trying not to wake Angel and acting like I've been here all night.  Who needs the Spanish Inquisition.

Pardon the pun.

If I didn't think my town was too small yesterday, I'm now convinced that a move is in order.

Star has a new girlfriend, they've been seeing each other since the weekend.  He has put down his charmer boys ways and found a very pretty little dimpled thing.  He has also taken to walking the maiden home from school inthe afternoon this week.

And where does the young lady in question live? The same complex as Mi Amor's ex/GF and parents. You know, the same complex as AB.  As if that wasn't enough, the girl's younger sister is very good friends with Mi Amor's daughter, in fact I've even seen photo's of the girls together [during my FB stalking on MA Mama's page] not knowing that that the bigger girl was the sister of my son's soon-to-be-girlfriend.

So imagine what happy families we could all play! An invitation from the in-laws could be very interesting.  I must just get an opportunity to lie on ex/GF's couch!

But wait, that's not all ...

[Never is in Harmony's life]

Mi Amor lives two blocks away from Poker's business, so I noticed at dawn.

It's not so much that they 'broke' into my house, and I can live with the fact that they were watching DVD's without my knowledge or permission.

But ... that the GF felt so comfortable to LIE on MY couch and not even jump up in surprise when I walked into the house ... what does that say about a person? This is what has my so flabbergasted! My friends don't even have the audacity to do that!!!

I'm trying to picture myself lying on exF's exwife couch all cosy-like.  Blank.  I refused to even enter her home, let alone make it mine. 

exexF's exGF also refused to enter my house. I'd invite her inside and she would prefer to wait for exexF outside in my garden. At the time I thought her rude, but god how I miss her now.

Perhaps we need to put a few things into context.

GF is 20 years old. [cradle-snatching clearly runs in the family] Which makes her young enough to be my child. As if that's not enough, she went to high school with Star.  She was in Matric when he was in Grade 8 and it was her friend that invited him to their Matric Dance.  WTF!  And now she's dating her friend's ex-boyrfriends ex-step father.

This is becoming too incestuous.

Oh and last night Star decided to share the news that whilst walking to a friends house in the afternoon, Mi Amor drove past him. Really, I don't want to know.

I'm moving. Far.

So ... which province wants me?

This is the same man who has paid zero rand and zero cents in maintenance since we split 3,5 years ago, after I literally threw him and his shit out my house.  The same man who was supported by me, financially and otherwise for the 7 years we were together.  The same man who forgot to tell me he wasn't paying the instalments on the car he gave me [in lieu of maintenance] and hence I had the car ripped out from under my tuchus.

So since my broke-ass baby daddy wasn't contributing financially, I roped him in to assist with transporting the kids to and from school.  His duty is to get Star to school on daily basis and to fetch both kids on a Tuesday and Thursday as I work fulltime on those days.

As Star is on holiday at the moment, he is supposed to stay home on a Tuesday and Thursday afternoon to keep an eye on his sister until I return home.  Since Star let me down twice last week, I arranged a Plan B whereby if he wasn't there she was to go to Blondie [whilst we're certainly not friends again, we are assisting each other with the kids]. I even went so far as to come up with Plan C where she could go to my colleague's home [yes I live in a fishbowl]  as her paramedic hubby was working nightshift and he was home with their kiddies.

Yesterday, being Tuesday, exexF fetched our daughter from school and dropped her off at home. From what Star tells me he usually doesn't even drive into the complex, just drops the kids outside the guardhouse and they walk in.

When I left work at 17h00 yesterday afternoon I noticed an sms had come through from exexF at 16h30, saying that Star wasn't home and that he was there looking after Angel.  Since only Star and I have keys to the house I assumed that they'd either be sitting in his car, or on my veranda [god forbid on my throne].

So how did they get into my house? Angel was sent to climb through a window to open up for them.

Where was Angel when I got home to the WTF moment? At Blondies, as per Plan B. 

So WHAT THE FUCK were exexF and his gf doing on my fucking couch watching my fucking movies?

If you feel so fucking comfortable that you can literally make yourself at home in my house, don't you think you could at least have done the ironing???

Imagine returning home to your house [well, yours and the banks], after a long hard day at the office and being met with the following sight:

Your ex-fiance's new girlfriend [whom you've only met once] lying on your couch with your [you don't care about this part] ex-fiance sitting at her feet.  Not only that, but they're watching your DVD's on your home entertainment system.

Once you manage to stand up again, because let's face it, you'd be floored; you greet everyone, put your bag down and wait for someone to to sit up.  Not only as a matter of decorum, but since the only other couch is piled high with laundry awaiting ironing; your 'guests' are occupying the only seating in the room.

Now with that imagination of yours running, picture neither of them moving an inch, nor pausing or stopping the movie ... in fact, the scene continues as it was before you arrived home.

Then, and only then, can you truly say you've had a

WHAT THE FUCK

moment.

I survived surgery yesterday.  And fell in love with my dentist at the same time.  I don't know his name, and I don't know what he looks like [he is always wearing that damn face mask] but this is the first man not to hurt me.  That's love in my books.

The past few days regarding my tooth have been pretty traumatising to say the least; from the worst pain I have ever experienced [yes, worse than labour pains] and the scare of my near overdose [I'll just keep downplaying that]. So I would rather not even describe the procedure, suffice to say the offending fang is gone.

I report back to the dentist in a week to ensure the wound is healing and the stitches are dissolving, and he is going to inspect the rest of my teeth and advise what further work needs to be done.  We have decided not to wait until it gets this bad again. Next time I might not survive.  So we'll be seeing each other on a monthly basis for the next few months.

I have decided not to date Poker.  A confirmed bachelor, party animal.  Do I really want to go down that route? I don't think so. That is how I get into shit every time. 

Oh I'm just going to have some fun, says Harmony. It's not like I'm going to fall in love.

Famous last words.  So another new rule ... no dating men that I wouldn't or couldn't or shouldn't settle down with.  What's the point really?

I haven't heard from any exes of late, touch wood. But I have spent all morning thinking about Mi Amor.  Why him specifically? Well, blame 5 FM for playing every song that reminds me of him since I woke up. Anyway, lest I conjour him back into my orbit, I'll say no more.  The door is firmly closed.  And padlocked.

In other news ... well, actually there isn't any.  Teeth and work have been keeping me far too busy to have a semblance of a social life.

PS: If you smell cloves, yes it's me.  I thought only I could still taste it, but apparently I reek of it [so says my neighbour last night and boss this morning]. 'skies.

An ex-fiance taking care of me, a recent ex phoning me ... and me ... surviving my first family function in years ... sober.

So it was an interesting weekend to say the least.

On Friday night I was in the worst pain I've ever been in.  Anyone who has ever declared that emotional pain is worse than physical pain; hasn't had toothache.  I'd rather get my heart broken again than go through that torture again.  Seriously.

It got so bad that after hours of writhing on the couch [in pain!] I took more than my 'allowed' dosage of prescribed painkillers.  Quite a lot more.  So much so that I'm pretty sure I wasn't sleeping late on Saturday morning, I reckon I was unconscious.  It took  most of the day to wake up properly, and when I did, I was nauseous as hell.

Of course I hadn't eaten anything in a while because of the pain.  So all that medication;a cocktail of god knows what chemicals, has nothing but what's left of my stomache lining to feast on.  AB brought me some smoothies in the afternoon, so at least that was a bit of nutrition in my body.

A few hours later exexF came over.  I was lying on the couch under my duvet.  A position I retained from Friday evening to this morning. Angel and I were watching Desperate Housewives [Season 5], and so he joined us.  He left after a few episodes to fetch his girlfriend, who works and lives up the road from us.  We all spent the evening watching DVD's and eating pizza together.

It was quite sureal.  I was running up and down to the bathroom.  I was convinced I was going to throw up, but it only visit number 10, I think, that yeielded results.  Angel of course heard my retching and ran to the bathroom.  She wanted to know if she could come in. As I was hardly in a position to reply, she did.

The unpleasant sight was immediately relayed to the occupants in the lounge.   Shame. Yet they stayed all evening, til after I feel asleep to make sure that I was OK. That made me feel loved.

I woke up this morning, less swollen and with minimal pain.  And I learnt two lessons ...

1.  Don't ever take more than the prescribed dosage.  And definitely not on an empty stomache.

2.  All I needed to feel better was some old fashioned TLC.

On that note, my original plan was to get through this afternoon's family get-to-gether in a haze of alcohol, but after yesterday's 'instructions are there for a reason' lesson, I wasn't going to ignore that bright orange sticker on my medicine box.  Hell no.

Waking up much better this morning also meant that I wasn't off the hook with my speech this afternoon.  Gulp. I hadn't even thought about what I wanted to say.  I made myself a cup of coffee, took my cigarettes, netbook and notebook and pen outside and sat on my throne.

I googled speeches, poems, sayings, jokes. But I couldn't find anything appropriate for my step-mother.  The poems were too lovey-dovey [which we are not]; and the jokes were too generic.  I couldn't find anything on the net that I could use as inspiration.

Frustrated, I closed the netbook and my eyes and just thought about what moments with her have stood out in my life.

The first was my first experience with death.  She, out of everyone in my life, was the only one able to comfort me and understand my grief.  I was too young to recognise it as a teenager, but that showed how compassionate she is.

I also recalled that after the birth of my two babies; my freezer, fridge and grocery cupboards were stocked with the essentials.  This also goes for when I've been ill or just broke.  Everyone know how I feel about cooking at the best of times, but under such conditions, nothing is more appreciated than a shelf full of Woolies microwave dinners!

With those memories, it was only a matter of minutes before I had scribbled down my speech. Sorted.

My speech, even with a slight speech-impediment [thanks to the swollen cheek], brought tears to my step-mother's eyes, and even I was choked up reading it.

Oh, just before I got up to say my speech,  checked my cellphone for the time, as I did so it rang.  I didn't recognise the number, but considering I've deleted a few contacts lately ... it was easy to  discern the suspects. I cut the call so that the caller would know I didn't miss the call, I was intentionally cutting off communication.  Later in the afternoon I went through old smses to try match up the number. I did.

So as I was saying ... I was sober ... I was ordering cokes. And then cokes and dry lemon and mixing them. No alcohol for me. I did smoke though.  Which i never do in front of the family. Especially my dad.  I even had an uncle come up to me to ask when I started smoking.  He was aghast to hear and said that he and the on-looking aunts of mine, didn't know I'd ever smoked. Oooops.

Nevertheless, it was a good day with the family and I'd love to have more like this. Star was putting on his comedic acts and had everyone in stitches.  Angel was in diva mode and had everyone falling in love with her.

And would you believe that I returned home with no swelling and no pain. 

And would you believe I spent the next 3 hours ironing?

I can't believe that after all that psyching myself up for the visit to the dentist nothing happened! Dr Unpronounceable declared that I have a serious infection and until it has cleared up, he cannot extract the tooth.  As if that wasn't bad enough, he said that due to previous root treatment and the fragility of the tooth, he is going to have to remove it ... surgically ... in the chair ... with only a local anesthetic to get me through.

He prescibed two courses of anitbiotics, and two types of strong painkillers and said to return on Monday.

I mooched off to the chemist to fill my prescription and didn't the pharmacist further kill my mood! Whilst putting description stickers on my medicine boxes she blasely informed me that whilst taking Adco-Metronidaz, I was not to drink any alcohol.  Not even a glass of wine. [Not that I would ever drink a glass ... I'm more of a by-the-bottle kind of girl.]  To drive home her point she stuck a luminous orange sticker on the box saying

AVOID ALCOHOL / VERMY ALKOHOL

*sob*

I had no choice but to send Poker a message on Facebook and cancel our date for this evening.  There is really no point going out if I can't drink [does that make me sound like an alcoholic???] But besides that I'm still pretty sore and waiting for the new painkillers to kick in, so going out tonight really isn't an option.

It also means that I have endure my step-mothers 60th birthday bash on Sunday, stone cold sober.  Did I mention I have to make a speech? Needless to say I have been procrastinating about this for weeks and haven't so much as thought about what I am going to say. For a very long 3 minutes.

I am now in extreme agony, I have finished Boss Lady's supply of Nurofen; and knocking back several Mypaid's has not alleviated the pain.  I can't use the clove oil any longer as it has burned my gums :-(  But it's just an hour and a half until this damn tooth is gone, so I will just have to hold up until then.

If you have not already done so, please join us at my LV Girl's bachelorette party.  It took hours of planning last night, despite being in terrible pain; and the gorgeous woman deserves a good send off to celebrate her last few days of singlehood. Follow the posts to collect your free T-shirt, ride in a pink limo, loads of free drinks ... and very very hot entertainment!

Happy Birthday to Linnie for her [second] 25th! Wishing you happiness, love and laughter on your special day!

The evening did not go as planned.

I had Flossie banging on my door after 22h00 like she was the damned police. I got roped into babysitting her daughter and every half an hour, for five hours, she'd call to say that she was "leaving in half an hour."

Thirty minutes later I gave Face the boot, over the phone.  The 'one strike and you're out' policy is in full effect and there are no exceptions.  In all fairness I tell him that I had no expectations of him, but that I would hold him on his word. So whilst I didn't give him a hard time last night when I needed him and he wasn't around [because we didn't have plans]. .. I did however believe him when he said we would do something together tonight.

So after Flossie finally left, I called Face to find out what happened to our plans tonight. Admittedly I was too sore to go out or even engage is some snogging, but he didn't know that.  He also didn't answer his cell and I didn't bother to leave a message.  Twenty minutes later he returned my call, gave me some bullshit excuse as to where he'd been this evening and attempted to make plans with me!

I'm sorry, but phoning me close to eleven at night and asking if I would like some wine is not what I had in mind, and I told him so. I said I wasn't sure what kind of girls he had dated in the past, but if he thought he could call me at that time of night expecting to see me he obviously isn't the guy for me. 

I thanked him for being able to keep up the act for almost a week and that I really had fun for the few days we were together again but that I was looking for more than he could offer. I said that we should finally end this thing as we continually think it could actually work between us, when history and the present have shown that we clearly want different things.

Before I could finish my spiel he said ok, and he'd call me later.

WTF??? Did he not  hear a word I said???