The coolest MOST ROCKING thing in the world!

http://roxik.com/pictaps/index.html

All sushi'd out?

You know, you'd think that after a MASSIVE sushi dinner on saturday with Noodle (my best mate) and a GIGANTIC sushi with the girls two nights ago I'd be all sushi'd out. But it really is quite the contrary! I'm addicted. More than ever. I do think that Durban's summer heat has something to do with it. The thought of eating anything even vaguely hot/spicy just freaks me out!
OK! I know what you're going to say... To much sushi is a bad thing. Even the japanese themselves restrict their sushi diet for week to week. And the fish is not as pure/clean as we think it is, when you consider the polluted state of our water. But I say... BAH!
BAH TO YOU, SUSHI PARTY POOPERS!
Oh... and pass the wasabi, please.

2007 is the year of The Greens!

... Well for me, at least!
Happy 2007 everyone. I'm so sorry for not wishing you sooner (or even saying goodbye before my holiday, for that matter - oops!) but life's been... life's been... what's the word?... life's been for the living, I guess.
This holiday I made sure that I lived it, - not vegging out on the sofa day after day, but getting mylsef out of bed early each morning and doing SOMETHING everyday. Even if that "something" was as small as driving along the coast, with the sun on my face and the wind in my hair, and stopping to have lunch on the deck of a restaurant overlooking the beach. Beautiful.
But now that I'm back to reality, Green is the new Fat... And I'm LOVING IT! After just a week at work, detoxing, working out and eating "clean" I'm feeling stronger, slimmer and more "alive" somehow. Ok so I had a couple of glasses of wine a few nights ago, but I watered them down with some sparkling water and felt SO proud of myself all of the next day!
And read my lips! This is no New Year's resolution. This is a way of life. And it's going to be easy for me to implement because I've already been putting the various elements into place one by one during the course of last year. So this year, all I've done was give up ONE thing... The Final Thing that makes the whole plan come together... BREAD!
Goodbye Saturday morning toasted sarmies.
Goodbye free restaurant breadrolls.
Goodbye midnight peanut butter sarmies washed down with a good scotch & soda.
Goodbye special bakery cheese loaves and croissants...

And goodbye heartburn, butt-block, 2-day bloat and not fitting into my dresses anymore!

I won't miss you, bread. You're like an emotionally abusive boyfriend. I've always somehow known that you were bad for me, but you just felt so damn good.

Now that you're gone, I look you and I can't believe that I ever loved you so much.
Go make some other woman miserable!
I'm over you.

Birthdays ROCK! Drunk driving SUCKS!

My friend, Gail (the aunty in the middle of the pic), had her birthday at Bean Bag Bohemia last friday... What a jorl!!! The food was incredible: thai chicken wontons, YUM! And the people were great. My mom and I pretty much spent the evening shooting the breeze with Noodle (first from the left).
I was totally bummed that I was driving and couldn't really let my hair down, but it was a good thing I kept it tidy. On the way home, mom and I went through our first road block for the season. The Booze Bus was parked on the side of the road, next to the rows and rows of cars belonging to drivers who flunked the breathaliser test. Scary! I'm always really irritated when I go through these things. I go to all the trouble of staying sober, and the cops don't even ask to see my license! They just assume that, as a woman, I'm less likely to be driving home wasted, but let's face it... In this country I think the chicks take just as many chances with drunk driving as the men! Those of us who are single still want to have a good time, and we still need to get home somehow! Cops need to catch a fat wake-up! I know everyone keeps telling me that I'd be singing a different tune if the cops DID catch me for drunk driving. Make no mistake: You do NOT want to spend a night in jail in this country! But, I limit my drinks, pace myself and even if it means I've got to stop drinking and move around for a couple of hours to sober up, then that's what I do! People who get behind the wheel while they're still smashed should also take responsibility for what might happen to them if they get caught! (Boy. When I think about how young guys brag about getting home while trashed, I actually feel sick.)
I often get to work in an absolute STATE after having driven in front of / behind / near a reckless driver. It always frightens me that the reckless people are rarely hurt / killed in the accidents that they cause. They can see it coming, so they're "prepared" for the impact. It's the innocent guy/girl that gets hurt/killed. They're blissfully unaware that driving safely/defensively simply isn't enough. If some reckless a/hole is gonna take you out, they're gonna take you out and there's nothing you can do...
Boy that was a bleak blog.
It started out so good, and then it got wierd...
ANYWAY! The message is this: Be careful on the roads this festive season. I've lost far too many people lately, and I can't do any more funerals.

Lynette (1971-2006)

Lyn...
Christmas Day was always our day together. Every year, you'd come over in the afternoon and we'd laugh 'til 2am the next morning, over shooters and a bunch of dumb jokes. So, wherever you are, I know that you know I'm going to miss you very much. I don't want to be sad, but I'm already getting choked up whenever Christmas day pops into my head. This lump in my throat is going to suffocate me. I'm trying hard to do what you always did in tough times: put a radiant smile on my face and never let them see me down. But I can't do it like you did. The lump in my throat keeps squeezing big, giant tears out of my eyes. I'm going to miss your baking and the thoughtful gift. I know that your folks need us this festive season more than ever, but I can't look at them. I just can't. I wanted a change of scenery... maybe Christmas lunch at a nice restaurant somewhere. Anything to be able to stay away from the memories... But my parents need the comfort of their own home right now. As much as they don't want to think about you too, they want to be near the places they know you'd be happy.
I'm going Christmas shopping today. I'll be picking up something for Liam, Tatum and your folks. But I don't think any store out there has what we'd all really like this Christmas:
1. Lump-in-Throat Remover
2. ... and few more moments with you.

Is it Christmas time yet?

No?
Oh well... bummer.
...
...
...
...
How 'bout now?

Life of Pi **********

Amazon.com says: Yann Martel's imaginative and unforgettable Life of Pi is a magical reading experience, an endless blue expanse of storytelling about adventure, survival, and ultimately, faith. The precocious son of a zookeeper, 16-year-old Pi Patel is raised in Pondicherry, India, where he tries on various faiths for size, attracting "religions the way a dog attracts fleas." Planning a move to Canada, his father packs up the family and their menagerie and they hitch a ride on an enormous freighter. After a harrowing shipwreck, Pi finds himself adrift in the Pacific Ocean, trapped on a 26-foot lifeboat with a wounded zebra, a spotted hyena, a seasick orangutan, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker ("His head was the size and color of the lifebuoy, with teeth"). It sounds like a colorful setup, but these wild beasts don't burst into song as if co-starring in an anthropomorphized Disney feature. After much gore and infighting, Pi and Richard Parker remain the boat's sole passengers, drifting for 227 days through shark-infested waters while fighting hunger, the elements, and an overactive imagination. In rich, hallucinatory passages, Pi recounts the harrowing journey as the days blur together, elegantly cataloging the endless passage of time and his struggles to survive: "It is pointless to say that this or that night was the worst of my life. I have so many bad nights to choose from that I've made none the champion."
I say: After reading a book like this, I feel inadequate even trying to find the words to review it! Life of Pi will no doubt be in my Top 10 books of All Time... In fact, it might very well be in the Top 5. I'm one of those people who could NEVER read a book more than once, - unless it's for study purposes and I really really really I HAVE TO. I've always admired(?) people who can read a book over and over again. It's a special gift to be able to be "surprised" again and again by the same words on the same page. (It's different with movies, - they're no-brainers anyway...) I could enjoy reading a passage over and over again while I'm in the process of reading a book for the first (and only!) time, and I often do when I find something particularly poignant / meaningful / skillfully written. SO, for ME to say that I would go back to this book and re-read it, is a MAJOR thing. There's nothing particulary clever about Martel's vocabulary - I find Big Words incredibly boring anyway. But the storytelling is something else. Wow, what a story. I'm a big cat lover (as you know by now!) so there were times when I didn't know WHOSE side I was on, but what I do know is that it was physically painful at times to hold my breath until I knew everything was going to be okay. I think I was expecting a Disney Fairytale when I heard about it? Maybe it's the cover that misleads you, so the first 2 chapters kinda threw me. But once I got into it, I was hooked. I could taste/hear/see/feel/smell every change in the weather/water/sky/sun that Pi experienced in his 227 days on the water.
If there's one book you read this holiday, make it Life of Pi. The story is meant to be a sad one, but there is so much hope, strength, resilience and beauty in it, it has to be one of most uplifting books I've ever read! Ten out of five, Martel. Ten out of five!
(Thanks, Noodle, for lending me your copy. I think I just might buy one of my own soon!)

Jorling LATE on a Saturday night...

So Brendan and I ditched the dumb concert and went off to Suncoast Casino. My mom wanted to try her hand at some gambling and we offered to give her a lift home after the concert. Little did we know that we'd leave the concert so early. But I'm really glad we did. Brendan, my mom and I ended up having the time of our lives!!
We started out by losing a bunch of cash on the slot machines. (When we lose, we lose with STYLE! Everytime the machine made a noise - any noise - we'd do a little dance, much to the amusement / confusion of the serious gamblers.) Then a drunk guy walked up to me and slurred a "Hello. I love you...", to which I responded, "Oh. Thanks, hey." Brendan laughed about that all night long. And nows he's starting a vicious rumour that the only reason I'm still single, is because I'm too picky. In his version of the story, the drunk guy was a perfectly presentable young man who cared about me very deeply. Hmff!
We ended the night off with a bottle of wine and a seafood dinner at the John Dory's, at the casino. It was wonderful! The food and service were great, even at that time of the night.
By the time Brendan drove mom and I home, we were pretty wasted and were falling apart in a fit of giggles everytime we thought about the drunk-guy-in-love...
All-in-all a great day/evening/night out!!

Jorling on a Saturday night...

Well!!
Let's just say that my brother and I should have stayed at jorl number ONE (the BBB picnic).
We managed to score comps to the East Coast Radio Birthday Concert so even though we had no idea who was performing, we thought we'd go. (Everyone else was raving about the line up... So what the hell, right?)
WELL!!
The first sign that things weren't going to go so well was when we were still queueing to go in. Let's just say that there were far too many 16 year old girls in cropped jeans, knee high stilettos and poor-boy hats for my goddam liking. (GROSS! I'd like to bitch slap the person who invented the poor-boy hat. I think it might have been those losers from Oliver Twist. The Artful Dodger, my freakin' butt! He won't be able to dodge one of MY klaps!) And the REALLY worrying part was... most of these 16-year olds were with their parents! Sadly Brendan and I were clean that night, otherwise anykind of hard dwelms might have helped... a little!
So we eventually got in and decided to make the best of it... SOBER! They were only selling soft drinks and beer - neither of which we drink. (Groan.)
And then the music started...
Followed by the rain.
By the time Bananarama started (yes... BANANARAMA!!) Brendan and I had had ENOUGH! I was really looking forward to yelling "Sing, little leprechaun man, SING!!!" to Ronan Keating, but alas, he was coming on far too late and we were ready for the next jorl!
So we got in the car in the poring rain and drove off to jorl number three... or "jorling LATE on a Saturday night"!

Jorling on a Saturday afternoon...

So I managed to crack the nod to the Bean Bag Bohemia picnic this year, thanks to my friend Gail. The theme was Black and Bling, so I pretty much wore all black and every piece of jewelery that I own... Oh! And I made sure that I had the biggest hair there! The girls and I got there on time (ie. TOO EARLY) and ended up getting completely wasted in vodka and red bull (FREE!) before the food even got there... Nice. The food was really awesome, though. It always is at BBB. Lovely sushi, pizza, chicken/beef rolls... and the dolmades were to die for!
I think it would have been a really late night for me if the NEXT party for the evening wasn't waiting for me! So off I went to party number two, or "jorling on a Saturday night".

Like Water for Chocolate *** (for STYLE not CONTENT)

Here's what the reviewers say: Like Water For Chocolate is a deceptively simple book - a love story set in Mexico, interspersed with recipes, related in unadorned, uncomplicated language. Yet when the ingredients are combined and simmer, subtle and unusual flavors emerge. On one level, this is the story of Tita, youngest daughter of the formidable matriarch Mama Elena who forbids Tita to marry her true love Pedro because tradition says that the youngest daughter must care for her mother until her death. When Pedro marries Tita's oldest sister in order to be near Tita, it begins a life-long conflict filled with passion, deception, anger, and pure love. Interwoven throughout the narrative are the recipes, which, like an ancient Greek chorus, provide an ongoing metaphorical commentary on the characters and their culture. Finally, there is the food itself that Tita creates as head cook on the family ranch, food so vibrant and sensual, so imbued with her feelings of longing, frustration, rebellion, or love, that it affects everyone who eats it. The combination of all these elements, with a good measure of the supernatural thrown in, makes for an earthy, quirky book, sad and funny, passionate, and direct, told by Tita's grand-niece who follows in her footsteps, using her cookbook and continuing a tradition quite different from the one her great-grandmother tried to impose. (From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Erica Bauermeister)
Here's what I say: GIMME A GODDAM BREAK!! How any woman can love a man who marries and makes babies with her SISTER just to get close to HER is beyond me! Laura gets 3 stars for style. (I like the way she paints a picture, and the recipes are a nice touch even though it's highly HIGHLY unlikely that all of them work. I do a lot of baking and cooking, and some of those recipes looked VERY strange to me.) But she gets a big fat ZERO for content. I have no patience for people who feel they have to be stuck in a shitty situation forever, just because that's their lot in life. Bollocks. I found the protagonist irritating and furstrating... And as for the love of her life??!! He's lucky he died when he did. I wanted to kill him myself! All I can say is, THANK GOODNESS it wasn't a long read. i don't know if I could put up with the whining for another 50 pages!!!

The sun is shining!

I wish I could send you a pic of how beautiful it is today. The sun is shining; the sky is the bluest it's ever been; and I'm working outside on the deck, with the sunshine sparkling off the pool... WHAT A DAY!
That's one of the great things about being a free agent. While all the other boring, old stiffs are working indoors in the sterile air-conditioning, I get to work with the sun on my shoulders, while I sip on something cool. It's nice.
It's not going to last very long... But it's still nice while I can enjoy it.
There are so many things going on in my life right now, but I'm not gonna zap them with bad mojo by talking about them before they come to fruition, Just bear with me, but DON'T STRESS! I'm doing well.
Even though my cousin Lyn isn't going to be with us and I'm going to miss her very VERY much, I think this is going to be one of the most amazing summers for me... EVER!
So... back to your dumb desk you go!
I'm going to take the laptop into the shade, poor myself another fruit juice, and watch the trees swaying in the afternoon breeze. Ah! What bliss.

Man. What a crazy world we live in...

If you scroll down this page, you'll see some pics of my cousin Lynette and me on the "Wow! I'm getting really nifty with the ol' flat irons" blog from a few weeks back.
Well... Lynette died in a car crash a week ago and I'm devastated. She was 35, married and on her way to work.
I wish I could say more, but it's too hard to get anything out.
I'm angry.
I'm sad.

I'm just over bad news and funerals.

I'll be posting some nice pics of the two of us growing up together, just as soon as I can bring myself to look for/at them.

Anyway. Peace.

Here's to new beginnings!

Hey friends!

What a crazy couple of weeks this has been...

I've quit my job and I'm officially on The Adventure Of A Lifetime.
I'm sorry that I haven't updated my blog over the past couple of weeks, but let's just say... I've been MORE than a little distracted.
I can't give you all the details about my new venture just yet, seeing as I'm still fine-tuning the details, but it is going to be SO cool when it all comes together! (Why did that sound like something out of the A-Team?)

Please bear with me while I sort out my internet at home.
I'll be able to blog more often once that's done... Promise!

You can mail me on: carmen.gabriel@gmail.com

Later! xox

HAH!!!

I knew it.

Ponies are cool.

Here's my brother, Brendan, with my little cousing Tatum at the birthday party. They were keeping the ponies company while I was attacking the trifle at the buffet table. Trifle is even cooler than ponies. It's a close one? But the trifle wins.

Barney is the devil.

Can somebody please explain the Barney phenomenon to me?
I guess kids dig him, so that's all that counts. He does make me really nervous though. It's like I gotta wonder about the freak INSIDE the costumer. And those songs... Crikey.
These are some pics from my cousin's kid's (Kelcey) first birthday party a couple of weeks ago. There is Barney stuff EVERYWHERE and the kids went completely ape.
There were no major casualties so I guess all's well that ends well.
Except... well... I'm still seeing purple wherever I look.

The Ranting Bruino - “Lies”

You know what really grinds my beans?
Lies.
Boy, the thing that really gets me is, the that lie itself (that one little moment of untrue stuff that’s said/done) is not the beginning and the end of the lie. Oh no! There’s all the sniveling, spinelessness, cowering, ducking and diving, fake smiling, alibi-ing, whispering, cowering, pretending, … the amoeba-ing that goes on before and after the lie.
Lies! LIES! It’s all lies, I tell you.
And for somebody who really tries every freakin’ day to keep it real? The lies stink.
Why waste all that brain space on remembering The Lie and all the padding that comes with it? - who to talk to, who not to talk to, what did I say to whom and when, what to say to say-and-so and who to leave out completely.
Just be honest and you don’t have to take up all those brain cells remembering a whole lot of kak.
Maybe some people get off on lying?
Maybe it’s an illness?
Maybe some people can’t tell the difference between fact and fiction.
Maybe it’s pure laziness to do the right thing?
Maybe some people don’t give a rat’s hiney about anyone but themselves and lying is the only way they can feed their own selfishness while saving face at the same time?
… But I think that most lies are born out of cowardice. It takes a lot to face yourself and tell the truth – especially if you know that you’ve done something really un-cool. Trust me! I know. I’m Catholic and there’s no bigger fear than going into confession and telling someone face-to-face with a total scumbag you’ve been. And whatever you may feel about Catholics / Catholicism / confession, it’s GREAT practice for Real Life… Examining your conscience, seeing where you’re wrong, apologizing and asking for forgiveness. (Shiver!) And the biggest thing about confession is that you can NEVER do that bad thing again… Ever. (Double shiver!)
Man! You think you know people, but don’t. You actually really don’t.
So cover your back and safe-guard your heart.
You never know when some sucker might come along, lull you into a false sense of security and then whip the rug out from under your feet with a few well-chosen half-truths.

Phew! That felt nice.
Enjoyed it? Well then look out for the next installment of The Ranting Bruino, where nobody is safe.
Are you the taxi driver who tried to push me off the road this morning? Look out! The next episode might just be about you and the state of our South African roads! Argh!

Lifestyles of the not-so-rich and moderately-famous (in Durban)

Hey bloggers!
If you've already had a gatvol of popping into Carmen's World to see what I'm up to, and all you get greeted with (AGAIN!) is a picture of me with my silky hair, I DO APOLOGISE!
I've been in Cape Town for a week on a tv shoot. And I'll be going back for another week on the edit.
So this is really just a little "Howzit!" to let you know that I haven't forgotten you. I've thought about you all everyday. And I'll be using up all my weekend-minutes calling you this weekend to see how you're doing.
Watch this space for pics of the shoot and my recording with... wait for it... SOUTH AFRICA'S TOP ROCK BAND, PRIME CIRCLE!
How friggin' cool is that?
I flew up to Johannesburg last week to sit in on the recording of their latest track, and the next thing I know, I'm getting dragged into the recording booth to sing back-up vocals!! "No way!" I hear you shout... Well! YES way!
Those of you who have heard me sing will know that I don't exactly have a "hard rock" type of voice. James Hetfield's job is not in Kak Straat if you know what I mean? So it sounded a lot like "Marry Poppins does Prime Circle". (Hey! Wait a minute. That sounded well porno! Anyway.) But after the band stopped laughing so hard that they were CRYING (:-() they ASSURED me that I'd be "in there somewhere"... Poison!
I was also doing some crazy-mad flirting with Marco (the bass guitarist). He nearly signed my boobs, but I chickened out... Argh!
Next time, I suppose.
I might be seeing them again sometime soon, but I'm not holding my breath. Who knows where I'll be jet-setting off to tomorrow, hey? Sigh.
Anyway! Be cool, Durban. And don't break anything while I'm gone!

Wow. I'm getting quite nifty with the ol' flat irons, hey?

Here I am on Saturday with my shiny straight hair, sitting next to my fave cousin, Lynette at her niece's 1st birthday party. What did we ever do without flat irons, hey girls?
I tell you what I'd be doing... I'd be sitting there on that sofa with a fuzzy hairline and more hair gel than N'Sync went through in the early years... or later years, for that matter.
GHD for president!!
GHD FOR PRESIDENT!!
VIVA GHD, VIVA!!