Tiah Beautement's Blog, page 114

Under Construction

Things may be a bit wonky for awhile.

Going numb

I haven’t been blogging much. I’ve been adjusting to new drugs, keeping a new ‘fibro diary,’ our family has been playing musical chairs with some pathogen and from time to time trying to write. There have been doctors to see, new vitamins to take and learning (bless you google) how to give myself my own B12 injections. There have been Short Story Day prizes to hand out, Eisteddford performances to applaud and endless assessments to prepare for (the endless exams leave little time for learning, but that is a rant for another day). I’ve also been a bit stunned. As...

Take your Women's Day - Update!

Helen Moffett's piece, Take your Women's Day and Shove It, has gone viral with 6.9K 'likes' at the time of writing this post AND making it on the radio. But many people are asking how to take their righteous anger and actually put it to good use. Helen Moffett has two suggestions: 1. Make a donation to the Cape Town Rape Crisis Center. 2. In the words of Helen Moffett: here's what I want people to do: tweet Helen Zille @helenzille, asking her to ensure that govt funds Rape Crisis. It's OUR tax money; this is what we want to...

A Day for Women (so who gets the other 364?)

Almost two years ago Damaria Senne was looking for bloggers to write for 16 Days of Activism Against Gender and Violence and the best I could do was this post. Moira Richards seems to take up the gauntlet every year for the same cause. I admire her for that. Takes an emotional stamina I do not seem to possess. Today is Women's Day, in Women's Month in South Africa. I confess I was originally not going to do much. But then I thought about the post I wrote above, then this post I wrote updating my health and then my...

4 years ago...

4 years ago my family and I arrived in Cape Town International with the intent to live in South Africa permanently. The Summer Olympic games were captivating people’s attention and I watched much of them to the backdrop of my youngest screaming for all she was worth. Dark days, indeed, despite my best efforts to focus on the beauty of my new town, the beaches and all the possibilities now before us. I was exhausted. Ten solid months of sleep deprivation, not a single night slept through, and my daughter had responded to the move by sleeping even less (hadn’t...

A new short story out of an old town favourite

Good news! I have a new short story out. (I know, it has been some time since I have said that.) This is a special project by Ludic Press on retelling fairytales and legends. To sum up, the writers were told to take a classic fairytale, legend or myth from times of past and modernise and revamp. You can read more about the project here. I picked a story from my home town: Bandon, Oregon. (Google it. Very pretty place.) The story: The Legend of Face Rock. (The link only takes you to one version. Oral story telling means that...

The key to a good holiday is to get all the bad stuff over with first

The best holidays in life probably do begin shortly after 4am. We decided we really were going to try to get to Cape Town for the funeral. Or Husband was, since my doctor’s appointment was moved to right smack in the middle of the solemn do, and that would not do. The N2 was not closed for three hours as it had been a few days before, (although it did appear they were doing a trucker drug bust heading the opposite direction). Anyway, we got there with no traffic delays, road closers or accidents. I was an hour and a...

The verdict

Fibromyalgia: that’s what the doctor suspects. The diseases has no blood test, x-ray or scan that can confirm it. The diagnosis is made by compiling a list of symptoms and reactions and is very common as a secondary problem after a person has dealt with chronic pain stemming from things such as arthritis (don’t have) or hypermobility (do have). However, she did send me for a blood test to check my vitamin D levels and B12 since deficiencies can compound the problem. The results should be here in the next two weeks. In the meantime, she has explained how to...

A story of a temper tantrum, by nobody's request

‘Basically, I’m having a private temper tantrum,’ I told the artist. He smiled, and clicked on the screen. ‘You are going to have a classy tattoo.’ ‘Listen,’ I said, ‘I’ve googled these things and I know what they are referred to in the biz; it’s a Geek Tattoo.’ ‘Doesn’t mean it can’t be classy.’ I’m not sure my husband would agree. ‘You are going to pay someone how much so you can be in pain?’ he had said. ‘Pain with a purpose,’ I had said. ‘And I don’t think it will hurt that much.’ It really didn’t. Nor would it...

A story about flowers, by special request

The story of flowers begins the day before Mother’s Day, where Husband presented me with a bouquet he acquired from a local shop. I thanked him, because it was a sweet thing of him to do, then began to clip the ends. Snip. Off went the dead end. Plop went the bud from the other side. Snip. Off. Plop. ‘I bought the best flowers they had,’ Husband said, watching the few remaining blooms scatter their petals as I shifted them into the vase. I believed him. I really do. We live in a town where I once set out for...