Blue Monday and Oros PART 3 .... Conclusion

On Tuesday it would seem that my blue Monday is over. We are all cheerfully awaiting Bafana's match against France, hoping against hope and reason that they can pull off a 3-0 victory that would see them through to the next round.

I'm scheduled to go and watch at Jan's place if work allows. Since we have the imperative of the match driving us, work allows and at 3:30 I call a taxi from Paddy's Sportsbar where the good citizens of Randburg are already out in their numbers. For a moment I regret that I'm going tto watch at a private house and miss out on the 'gees'.

But only until a drunk guy called Mike insists on blowing his vuvuzela loudly in my ear ... at regular intervals. I move to another table an watch the spectacle. Randburg dressed up in the yellow Bafana kit for the occassion and is in high spirits and ordering more of the same continuously....

At kick-off time I'm still waiting for my taxi but I consider to be a good thing. This way I can catch a bit of the 'gees' which is now very spirited indeed. I am also interested to see what Randburg will do during the singing of the national anthem. Although all the colours of the rainbow nation are represented, it is by far a 'white' congregation present in Paddy's.

Will they stand for the anthem?

Yes they will. They rise like one and what surprises me even more is that many of them even seem to know the seSotho part of our tri-lingual anthem and do not fake singing it like many whiteys, including myself, do. Nevertheless, looking around I can see that most of us are faking singing the seSotho part and when the Afrikaans part comes along I see many darkies faking that ... before we all find our common voice in the English conclusion.

All united and proudly South African thanks to the World Cup and I'm happy to be there and part of it.

Then my taxi arrives and I'm off to Jan's place listening to the game on the radio in some darkie language while the driver Johannes keeps me abreast of developments. When we score our first goal he nearly overturns the car, but when he regains control it is high-fives and elaborate handshakes in celebration.

After the game we are all in high spirits at Jan's, congratulating ourselves on Bafana's victory and agreeing that all turned out well with all things considered. We spend a pleasant evening with wine and a splendid spaghetti bolognaise that Jan made ... well done Jan ... before we all decamp at about 10pm, citing the fact that the work not done by leaving early on Tuesday, must be crammed into Wednesday.

On departure I steal a bottle of wine from Jan, but have the good manners to alert him to this fact and after he inspected the bottle to ascertain that it was not one of his 'special' ones he bids me good drinking and goodbye.

At home I open the bottle, pour myself a glass and sits down to write you a witty blog about the day ... when my niece's cat Schmiegel jumps through the window and knocks over the bottle. It shatters on my already dirty white tile floor. The floor is dirty because Zita has disappeared. I clean up and go to bed thinking that my blue Monday may in fact not be over.

Predictably Wednesday and Thursday go by in a blur of work but we finish the programme in good time on Thursday afternoon and I even get a bit of praise and is certain that my blue Monday is finally over and at last I have time to write.

All of this, but especially the broken bottle of wine, lead me to the reflect once again that shit happens by itself and that you have to work real hard for the good things in life. Also that if you don't deal with the shit in your life, it multiplies and in the same way, if you don't deal with the good stuff in your life it diminishes.

This is a common mistake that a lot of people make. They become so busy dealing with shit that they forget to deal with the good stuff in their lives, which means the good stuff diminishes and since nature does not tolerate a vacuum, the space created by the departing good stuff ... fills up with shit.

It is always good to remind oneself of this: Life is never how it should be or ought to be. You can count on that. But you can also count on the fact that life is always exactly how it is at any given point and if you just deal with how it is ... you'll be okay. Not as okay as you may feel that you deserve, but exactly as okay as you would be.

So remember to fight the shit and fight for the good stuff because they are on the same continuum.

My next blog will be about the damn cat Schmiegel ...