Brunettes Bite Back

The Husband and I watched Vicky Cristina Barcelona last night. About two seconds into the movie it becomes patently obvious that blondes have more fun. Granted, “blondes” in this case equals Scarlett Johanssen who is no ordinary blonde, but still…

I know the “blondes have more fun” thing has been a universal truth since before Marilyn, but I still think it’s unfair. Last night, I was feeling a tad more upset than usual about this state of injustice. Out of nowhere, I found myself throwing a tantrum in front of the TV, “I hate it! I’m Vicky, the boring brunette and the blondes get to be Scarlett. IT’S NOT FAIR!”

I’m not normally this unhinged (okay, not always) but I think I was feeling extra brown-haired and banal after a little episode the day before. I’d just finished a fun-filled Chardonnay lunch with two girlfriends and was dashing to my 3pm hair appointment when Ballito Babe (the little beetch has just fallen in love with a hot, older man and is upping and moving to Ballito this weekend – hence the name) goes: “Are you getting highlights? Get some highlights. No really, Nats, you should get some highlights.” I was trying to shoot daggers at her with my eyes for moving to Ballito, but now, she was insulting my au natural, aw so BROWN, hair-colour. Just to explain: when I first met Ballito Babe I went blondish for a couple of years. Just to test the “more fun” theory, you see. (And the answer’s yes, BTW. Men really are that shallow). After month 22 of peroxide sessions, I had a hunch that things were starting to go a wee bit pear-shaped in the hair department. But when my father (he’s a man of few words, to begin with, but when it comes to the topic of my sister and my appearance, he’s practically mute) said,”You look common,” I knew my blonde number was up. Ever since then, I’ve been brown and proud. Well up until last night, anyway.

When I announced that I was “Boring Vicky”, I did realise that I came across as a completely lame, self-pitying female. What I hadn’t bargained for, however, was The Husband’s response. “Great, so that makes me Dependable Doug!” (Doug is Vicky’s super dull, fiance). This may have been kind of amusing for five minutes, but instead, he sulked the whole way through the movie. No matter what I said, I could not convince him that the whole Scarlett/ Vicky/ blonde/ brunette thing had NOTHING to do with him whatsoever. To make matters worse, Doug’s character got more and more loathsome as the movie progressed. “I can’t believe you’d compare me to that guy!” I was like, “I’m not! This is so not about you”. And then the movie would flash to a shot of Doug in his neatly pressed fawn-coloured Bermudas, with his iron-over side parting and his preppie accent. He’d be boring Vicky and co. to death about his latest golf game. Snore. And I’d try again: “You don’t even play golf. In fact you HATE golf. You’re a sexy cyclist…”

“Baby………..?” I tried again. I have to say that his lip did start to pick up a bit when I mentioned ‘sexy’ and ‘cycling’ in the same sentence.

In the midst of all this, I was still silently seething as Scarlett’s character continued to, quite literally, have all the fun, as she lived out her sultry, romantic dream with Javier Bardem in balmy Barcelona. (Blonde beetch).

And then, all of a sudden, the brunettes bit back. Enter Penelope Cruz as Javier’s magnificent, fiery, talented, dark-haired ex-wife, Maria Elena.

Sweet revenge.

Even Scarlett’s character with her comparatively goody-two-shoes, all American twang was starting to look a bit washed out in comparison. (And that’s saying something). Of course, Maria Elena turns out to be a stark raving lunatic but by then, Scarlett’s Cristina character has been exposed as immature and flighty.

So maybe blondes don’t always have more fun.

Anyway, I will soon find out since four ice blonde Icelanders have just stepped off the ’plane and into my living room for a week-long visit to Africa. Two years ago, I spent four days in Iceland in mid-summer with chattering teeth and cobalt blue lips, while the North Sea winds whipped through every bone in my body. I don’t know if it’s universal karma but the torrential Joburg rains should have them feeling right at home in no time. Or perhaps it’s another form of revenge against the blondes?

The Massage

To my knowledge, The Husband has always been vehemently against massages of any kind. “I don’t like people touching me,” he’s been known to say to innocent holiday-makers who happen to recommend our hotel spa to us. (The friendly Americans look taken aback, recover quickly but then politely back out of our dinner date later that evening). So when he suggests that we celebrate my 31st birthday at our local spa, I’m like, “Since when does the Spar do dinner?” Turns out he’s talking about a hot stone aromatherapy thingie at the Radisson’s wellness centre. Ah! Much better.

Birthday eve arrives and we set off for the spa. We get there, change into our fluffy robes and velvety slippers and shuffle over to the heated pool “where our therapists will collect us”. I’ve followed instructions and am clad in the disposable g-string and gown provided, but The Husband’s able to whip off his robe because he’s in his swimming shorts. Our therapist comes through and asks if we have any special requests. The Husband (I should just call him The Cyclist since he’s currently THAT obsessed) wants a sports massage. (I’ve been spared an hour on the stationary bike just beforehand “to earn our massage”, thanks to phenomenal cost of an ad hoc work-out on the Platinum Planet. I mean, it’s my bl**dy birthday, for Pete’s sake.) Anyway, the sports massage request from hubby prompts the therapist to ask if he “would like his glutes massaged.” Now, I’m no expert but it sounds like a fairly standard question to pose an avid cyclist, given that they sit on their gluteous maximus for like, a million hours on the trot. Evidently not, though, because The Husband’s eyes widen and he freezes. The therapist tries again and Lance Armstrong finally responds: “Under …..no…..circumstances…..will…..I….be…..taking….these shorts off”. Ohhh-kay, then, baby.

And off we go to the massage chamber…

We’re asked to lie down on the massage tables (as you do when you’re having a massage, right?) so I duly begin to de-robe when, out of nowhere, a body flies at me from across the room. I’m knocked to the ground and end up in a semi-fetal position, sandwiched between the hard floor and my fluffy terry-cloth robe. My robe is being held in place by the full weight of The Husband.

“Um, what are you doing?” I ask from under my gown.

“What are YOU doing? Why are you taking your clothes off in front of everyone?” comes the shocked response.

Oh boy. I don’t think the previous regime had ANY idea that banning topless tanning would have such a lasting psychological impact on the generations it affected.

“Sweetheart,” I say, “Give the gown to the nice lady. She’s only going to massage your quads and your calves and make you the biggest, strongest cyclist in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD. She won’t bite. I promise.”

Silence. For what seems like forever.

Eventually, I hear, “How big and strong?”

Phew. Progress.

Once I’ve finally coaxed and prized The Husband off me, have helped strap him to his massage table and have left sign language instructions for the therapists to drug him with aromatherapy oils, I sprint out of the couples chamber to the safety of the indoor pool. Thank God the Veuve’s already on ice. I figure that a girl deserves some birthday bubbly after all that. I’ll share it if he comes out of his ylang-ylang coma before I finish it.

Fishing Competition


Despite my fear of piranhas (a very healthy fear, if you ask me), I was determined to give piranha fishing a try myself. I mean, how many times in my life would I get to fish in the Amazon? The more appropriate question would have been “how many times had I fished – ever, anywhere?” There had been a couple of occasions in my pre-teens but I now suspect that my Dad did everything for me all the while making me believe that I had some skill.

Anyway, by the time I got going with my rod/ stick thing, Hemingway (a.ka. The Husband) had already caught about six piranhas in succession and was looking mighty chuffed with himself. Now, I know that I need to grow up and simply accept that he will forevermore be better than me at basically everything related to sport and/or the outdoors.

But I can’t.

And so, given that Hemingway has never expressed any interest in fishing whatsoever in the ten years I’ve known him, I decided to take him on. After many failed attempts on my part, Ricardo, (the junior guide) decided to intervene in an attempt to be helpful and took hold of the fishing rod.

With me.

Fishing “a deux”.

At the age of 30.

How cute.

I felt like saying: “I know, that you know, that I know, that you are the one actually doing the fishing here, so for goodness sake, LET GO!!!!!!”

But the poor, sweet Spaniards had caught their one piranha each, taken their photo with the monstrous fish and were now plastered to their seats, drenched in sweat and yawning up a storm. So I played pretend fishing with Ricardo.

E V E E E E E E e e e e e e e N T U A L L Y, I (Ricardo) had something.

I (Ricardo) pulled it up out of the water.

It didn’t look like the same species of piranha the others had caught. It wasn’t bloated like a blaashoppie, with reddish bits on the edges. Instead, it was slender and silver.

I was thinking, “maybe, I (Ricardo) have caught a really RARE type of piranha. That would be cool.”

No such luck, as it turns out. I don’t think Ricardo had the heart to break the news to me because he just kept quiet and looked at Victor.

“It’s a sardine,” Victor announced.

Awesome.

So that’s the story of how, in a two square metre stretch of water, infested with piranhas so starved they had begun to feed on their own family members, I – The Fabulous Fisherwoman from Keurboomstrand – caught the one surviving sardine.

Piranhas and Havaianas

Piranhas and Havaianas: it’s got such a good nursery rhyme ring to it, I couldn’t resist. In reality, however, flip flops and piranha fishing are not a good combination. In case there were any lion-petting type tourists on our Amazon cruise, our guides specifically told us to wear closed shoes on the morning of the fishing expedition, “unless you want to get a pedicure”. This is apparently Amazonian for ‘losing a toe’ – or ten.

“Who wants to fish first?” Victor (our guide) asked when we’d reached what he deemed to be a piranha-infested spot (right next to the bank of the river, by the way). Before you could say ‘anaconda’, The Husband – ever the competitor – had practically flown across the skiff to grab hold of the make-shift rod. His only real competition besides myself and a lovely, soft spoken Spanish girl, was the Spanish girl’s boyfriend, Ramon. Ramon didn’t react at all to Victor’s fishing offer, so my Hemingway-esque other half needn’t have risked his life for the rod.

Anyhoo. He did. He survived and he set about fishing, like a man. Within seconds he had a podgy little silver and red thing flailing about madly on the end of the line, before he lost control almost completely, causing the Piranha to writhe and bounce on the floor of the our suddenly SUFFOCATINGLY SMALL skiff.

The scene that ensued resembled what I picture happening at a book club after someone has just pointed to the floor, yelling “MOUSE!” In an attempt to save our toes (closed shoes or not), we three terrified tourists were jumping on top of our seats, screeching uncontrollably (Ramon included), praying and trying not to fall overboard. In his defence, my Hemingway really did try to control the wriggly little b*gger. Unfortunately, he failed miserably. As a result, the purportedly lethal fish continued to convulse unpredictably across the length of the skiff’s floor while we shrieked in terror. And then Victor saved the day. If there was ever proof that looks can be deceiving, Victor is it. He is boyishly adorable looking with the kind of podgy little cheeks that your grandmother would like to grab and go “gootchie gootchie GOO” to. But when he stabilised that writhing Piranha he was the Camel Man incarnate. He grabbed hold of the fish (which honestly looks like a harmless blaashoppie and if we hadn’t been warned about its dangers, I might’ve been the lion-petter in the group) with both hands and managed to get it still enough to show us its teeth.

Then he further educated us on how vicious these things are. He told us about an American tourist who’d refused to listen to him and lost a piece of finger in split seconds. He told us that the chef on our boat had lost part of a finger AFTER he had gutted a piranha – the fish was practically in pieces but the biting reflex was evidently still intact and so it promptly munched off a piece of his finger right there on the chopping board. He told us that piranhas have been watched by scientists, completely devouring a 300kg cow – down to its carcass – in 18 seconds. He could see us mentally dividing our weight into 300 to figure out how long we’d last. He showed us a bloody gash on the piranha’s body apparently caused by his fellow piranhas when they’d gotten a bit peckish.

As sweet as it was to think that Hemingway had possibly saved this dudie’s life, I was going to make sure he was going straight back into the water with his buddies. I didn’t want any ‘impulsive’ piranhas outside of Victor’s brave hands.

Cape Town International

I’ve always reckoned that a good rule of thumb on 'planes is that if your neighbour hasn’t proved to be Chatty Pants in the first ten minutes, then you’re home free. A couple of weeks ago, though, I realised that I’m going to need to modify this theory on the free booze flights (the few that still exist). Two mini bottles of Chenin Blanc down, my 60-something neighbour decided it was time we met, JUST as we were preparing to land. By this stage all my leave-me-the-eff-alone-accessories had been dutifully packed away (laptop, I-pod, book) and I was left with little option but to speak back.

He was an ex-Joburger who’d emigrated to CT and was a die hard Kaapener my whole life before converting to Jozi-ism. Invariably, we had the “why-Cape-Town-is-so-much-better-than-Joburg” debate. My favourite. No, really. In the same way as Jews for Jesus are even more fervent than their reborn counter-parts, I am constantly shooting my mouth off about how FAN-tastic Joburg is.

Anyhoo, after old Chenin Blanc had run through all the obvious CT selling points (wine, mountains, wine, the new stadium and wine), he launched into his promotional pitch for the new airport. “It’s bigger, better, faster, classier, sharper, hotter, cooler, hipper, better,” etc, etc.

Great,” I thought, a week later. Because, you see, yesterday, I walked Cavendish square STUKKEND for a Christmas present for my darling husband – aka “the-man-who-has-everything-or-if-he-doesn’t-he’ll-buy-it”. (This characteristic of his is fantastic when you need any make or shape of electronic device – pronto, but it’s less fun when you need to buy him a present.) However, given old Chenin’s sales pitch on the super new, super fab airport, I figured I’d simply pick up something there. So NOT. Unless you are looking for a wooden Giraffe carving from not one but TWO curio stores (out of a total of about 8 shops), do not leave your holiday shopping to the last minute. Needless to say, my husband cannot be left cooped up in a security enclosed retail space without being absolutely compelled to contribute to consumer spending. Bless him. Even under the utterly miserable retail conditions in Cape Town’s new international airport, he managed to get some gadgets. (All I can do now is hi-jack his goods and wrap them up as his Christmas gift).

On the bright side, though, Cape Town really has made airport security a mega-priority. I was lucky enough to experience this first hand when I witnessed three uniformed policemen trying to sweet-talk the Premier lounge receptionist into smuggling out free drinks for them. But she was hardcore and she wasn’t having any of it. “Can you see the cameras?” she responded, wagging her finger at them. “There they are”.

Nice one, officers.

Failing in that little endeavour, the Kaap se Coppers decided to amuse themselves in other ways. I happened to be standing at the reception desk at the time.

“Don’t I know you from somewhere?” the one asked.

Mentally rolling my eyes, I replied that I didn’t think so as I tried to stay on the right side of the law. (I don’t think he saw the irony).

Naai, man,” he said, “aren’t you on the TV?”

Much better, dude.
For that you can have a celebrity smile.