Andrew Parker gets married

Dorothy got a little choked up as she said her vows in front of friends and family.

Today was a momentous occasion. One of my friends finally got married to a lovely girl he had known almost his whole life. He first met her at his mother's wedding to his stepfather on this day many years ago.
Andrew Parker is quite a character. He is the epitome of self-made man having built up business after business venture to achieve his goals one by one despite the curveballs life has sometimes thrown him. He is an increadibly lucky guy, but one that knows how to make the most of his luck and mack the luck happen when it isn't there through determination and grit.
The remarkable thing is that all this hard work hasn't dampened his spirit. He is a fun loving prankster who goes out of his way for a gag. Even in the sermon his pastor regaled the congregation with stories about how he played pranks on him many years ago.

There are some of us who believe that even today he played a prank on all his guests by getting the staff to shake the bottles of celebratory sparking grape juice so that every table's bottle overflowed, showering the poor guy who took on the task of carefully opening the bottles.
I had the privilege of being a guest at this wedding. I attend quite a few weddings as a photographer so it was refreshing to be in the congregation rather than up front taking pictures. But I was asked to take my camera along and get some "funky shots" where possible. I happily obliged.
Congratulations Andrew and Dorothy Parker.
May your marriage be as fun filled and joyous as your wedding day.

Watch out those of you with Bank Accounts

Fraudsters are everywhere.
Their method of stealing you hard earned money or hard begged overdraft?
Debit Orders! Dodgy Debit Orders.... that unless you are vigilant and on the ball will cost you without you having any say in the matter.
This morning I got a text message from my bank saying a few hundred bucks had been paid from my checking account. (Gotta Love FNB's inContact free text service) I didn't recall making a purchase of that amount in the last few days so I went online to check what was up with my account.
Lo and Behold a Magtape Debit with a reference number I had no idea about. So I called the call centre - once again, very glad i am an FNB customer, their call centre is fantastic, efficient and available round the clock.
I find out that it is a debit order and they give me the contact number of the institution that took the money, as it happens it is Standard Bank. Now I hate that institution but that is an entirely different story with I won't bore you with now but suffice it to say that i ahve tried using them as my bank not once, not twice but three times and each time ended up closing my account in disgust. At one point I even considered not ever doing business with anyone who banks with them. So with this history I immediately get suspicious as at the moment, coincidentally, I am not doing business with anyone who banks with them so a debit order through them would be very strange.
I call their number and fortunately get through to a helpful person who given me the details of who the money has been sent to. A company called ComIT technologies with a Durban telephone number.
I phone them and hear a message saying they are only open after 8:30 so I leave a message (polite and clear with my phone number asking them to contact me and telling them I fear there has been some mistake). After 8:30 I phone again. Again the message telling me their business hours. By now I had googled them and visited their website and found out they are an internet service provider, since we use WebAfrica (also fantastic, just like FNB by the way, 24 hour call centre help desk and functionality) I knew this must either be a mistake or somehow I was being taken for a ride. I looked carefully at the website.
For an ISP they have the most amateurish website I have seen in a long time, and what's more the only email address to contact is a mweb address. Not alarm bells are really going off, so when I get the silly answering machine again I say "It's after 8:30, what is going on. Please contact me, (give my number again) if I don't hear from you by 10am I will be going to report a fraud."
I try a few more times and each time no answer or the answering machine and then all of a sudden my calls get cut off after one ring, like someone is screening my number and rejecting calls.
Now I am really suspicious. The lady at my branch has cancelled the payment and the money is back in my account but I am told I have to go to a branch to fill in a stop payment form so that future debits don't go off my account. What a pain in the neck, I see my nice organised work day go down the drain.
I go to the bank and they put the stop, extending it for the next six months instead of the usual 3 (once again, thank you FNB) but that is as far as they can go. I have to take the matter further myself.
I ask the lady what recourse I have if it happens again and she says the only recouse i have is what I have done today. So then I ask, how can one prevent things like this from happening and money being siphoned off your accounts? Her answer? The best thing to do is keep a close look-out on activity on your accounts and read your statements thouroughly.
I think this is crazy.
Basically what it boils down to is that anyone can take money out of your bank account if they have your details and there is very little you can do to stop it.
Perhaps it is safer to put your money under your mattress after all.
I have decided to open a case of fraud against the coumany that took my money and then wasn't bothered to talk to me and I have told everyone I know about this... I will be posting more as I find out more.
Watch this space.

Hunting High and Low - another journal entry from my last.fm profile

We are by nature hunters.... we seek things we need, then try to catch hold of them and hold on to them, perhaps kill them or collect them for display.
We are seekers, searchers.
There is no end to the lengths we will go to get what it is that we think we need.
But sometimes it is better, fitter, more sane to let go and leave.
Knowing this can make things easier or drive us insane with suffering because of the fact that our "dreams are depending" on something we know will never be.

Sometimes it is so hard knowing that the one you love will never know what it means to love them, and there is no way, no matter how high or low I hunt for me to show or catch something to use to explain it.

I'll keep "tearing myself to pieces" like hunters crawling through thorn bush to get closer to their prey.

But I can't hunt for a kill or a trophy because what I hunt for cannot be owned or killed or displayed as a trophy. I hunt without weapons; the closest I can get to capture the object of my quest is a picture. Like the wildlife photographers who capture their prey in images of beauty and wildness. Beauty can be fierce and blinding, cold and unforgiving. But it can never be owned.

I hunt for myself now.

"For you I'll be hunting high and low"
"There's no end to the lengths I'll go to"

I have gone to great lengths before for love, or what I thought was "love".
Now I know that Love is not something I can do anything for.... it just is. I can go to lengths if I want, but they'll be lengths i go to for myself, as nothing I can do could influence Love's path or pure purpose.... it isn't something I could ever catch, hold, or control.

The greatest length I'm working towards going to now is learning to let go.

(2 December 2006, Hunting High and Low)

Badge Song

Your honour is a badge you wear
pushed into your skin
bleeding

Don't pin this one on me.
I don't want it.
I haven't the space on my chest for more scars.
I have holes in my heart where I have plucked out stars
to symbolise your eyes
howls have hurt my hearing
hums remain day
in
day out
always

I tear myself up like pages between pressed closed covers
or blankets
strewn onto dusty floors
dusty from the dirt of a thousand boots
and skin and hair shed
to keep me from you

Tear yourself apart and bleed
I'll catch the drops,
collect the beads
of blood- tears
and sweat from your face,
off your hair
pooling in the small of your back as you kneel and reel
and drive your hard round wheels over me.

I know my feelings
won't change your mind
about what you believe

So I'll crawl under covers and ground I once tread
Hide for centuaries
catch motes
dig moats
and leave, my love 

unsaid.

And with time the badge you pinned to yourself
might grow over
You might find the way.
You might find me
and wake me.

(11 Dec 2006 Originally posted on my last.fm journal  http://www.last.fm/user/EveMoody/journal/2006/12/11/5aqs_badge_song:_poetry_inspired_by_bel_canto )

More than just lullabies

I am the type of person who finds meaning in so many things. One of my greatest joys in life is song lyrics. I truely believe that while a tune may be very beautiful, the real essence of a song is the lyrics. "It's all about the lyrics" is the name of a facebook group I belong to, and its name pretty much sums up how I feel about this issue.
To that end I struggle with music where I can not hear the lyrics. Most of my favourite vocal music is by artists who enunciate well when they sing.
I have a few really favourite songs and they too are really all about the lyrics.
I am sharing them with my baby girl because they are fun to sing, seem to calm or entertain her, and most of all have a good message in the song.
Of the three I sing to her most at the monent, my favourite is "Smile" The lyrics written after Charlie Chaplin wrote the tune and capturing the essence of the sort of feeling of his "little Tramp" character.

Here are the lyrics:

Smile though your heart is aching,
Smile even though it's breaking,
When there are clouds in the sky
You'll get by,

If you smile
through your fear and sorrow,
Smile and maybe tomorrow,
You'll see the sun come shin-ing through for you

Light up your face with gladness,
Hide ev-'ry trace of sadness,
Al-though a tear may be ever so near,

That's the time,
You must keep on trying.
Smile, what's the use of crying?
You'll find that life is still worth-while,

If you just smile...

Words to live by in my opinion.
I sing it to Evangeline whenever she gets in a state and needs to be calmed down. I sing it for myself as much as for her as at times I find this motherhood thing inordinately difficult and draining and I need to remember that I need to smile a little more.
I remember once hearing that song at the end of a movie about the life of Charlie Chaplin and crying for hours. I was probably only 16 or 17 at the time but it really touched me deeply.

Other songs I share with Evangeline regularly are "Swinging on a Star" and "Sing, Sing a Song".
Both are great for getting her in a good mood or distracting her when she needs to sit sill while I do something like put her boots on or brush her hair. Both have fantastic lyrics with good messages which I hope will sink in to her and help her on her journey through life.

A sad day

Once a week Henrik takes Evangeline to visit her granny and bestefa for the day so that I can have some me time.
Luckily I didn't have Evangeline with me today as I ended up having to take our two rats to the vets to be euthenased. Heather has been getting weaker and weaker for some time now and was losing a lot of weight. We have been very worried about her and keeping a close eye on her. Two nights ago I noticed that Hope had grown a huge tumour on her front leg virtually overnight.
Today Heather fell off the table their cage is on twice and came over to me at the desk to put her back up. I think she might have been trying to say goodbye. She didn't even make it to the vet. She was already dead when we got there.
On investigation by the vet it was noted that Hope actually had two huge tumours and they seemed to be growing very fast. That, and the fact that rats are very social creatures, made me decide that Hope did not need to suffer the double blow of a slow possibley drawn out sickness all alone without the comfort of her sister. I held her after the vet gave her the injection to make her fall asleep and whispered to her until she fell asleep then kept holding her until her little heart stopped beating.
Bradley kindly offered to bury the two bodies for me and I took him up on the offer as I did not feel up to the task.
We will miss having our rats but have decided not to get any more for a while until Evangeline is older and can have a part in choosing the little ones and helping to care for them.
I feel very lost, its funny how such little creatures can leave such a big hole in your life when they go.
I am glad though that they were together in the end and that their suffering was short.

Voter Registration Weekend

This weekend is voter registration weekend. The weekend set aside to give everybody a chance to either check their details on the voters role or register to vote in the ward they reside in next year in the General Elections.
I have recently moved from one area back to a ward I lived in many years ago so I needed to go and register to vote. Luckily I had some sort of idea (having lived here before) where I needed to go. I say luckily because if I hadn't then I would have been up the proverbial creek without a paddle.
I decided to check online where I should go to register, so I google where to check and get sent to the IEC website.
This is what it looked like when I got there.
Imagine, the whole country is being mobilised to register to vote and the IEC can't even get their act together enough to have their website running properly in time for the registration weekend.
Then the next little bit of irritation. I keep getting text messages on my mobile phone from one Helen Zille (?!?) reminding me to register to vote to "help stop the ANC from getting a 2 thirds majority" Each time I am advised to reply "STOP" to stop recieving the messages and each time I send the required "STOP".... But they keep coming.
All that this nincompoop has managed to do is give me a good reason to vote for the ANC.
I almost have a good mind to send them a message saying so.
I know which party this woman is from and I would never have given them my number so I guess they have bought it from someone who collects numbers to give to viscious spammers to annoy the living daylights out of people.... Grrrr!