This is Red. My sister and her former housemate rescued him from the township in Piketberg, where he had been left to starve to death. With the huge hearts that they both have (and the number of rescue animals they have managed to save throughout the years), they managed to rescue Red and take him to a safe place. When they first got him about a month or so ago, he could hardly walk, wouldn’t eat and had wounds on his rump from where his bones had cut through his skin.

I know that it’s hard for any animal lover to think about how anyone could do this to such a beautiful dog, but it is critical to understand that malice is not always a factor. Ignorance and poverty on the other hand, are two major factors that lead to such serious neglect. My sister Melissa and her pal Les are slowly nursing Red back to health, and over the past few weeks he has started getting better, then he has been put on a drip, and on it goes. Right now, he is doing okay and is asking to be let out to go do his business. They are feeding him chicken soup, which he apparently likes, and he is being given antibiotics and other treatment to help him recover.

The most important thing for a rescue animal like this however is love and consistency. Rescue dogs are never easy. They almost always develop deep-seated emotional and trust issues, and sometimes they act out with agression, barking or other bad behavour. Dogs need a lot more attention and devotion than cats, and they need to form a bond with their owner and develop trust. Giving a rescue dog a home is a life-long commitment, and one of the worst things that can happen to a rescue dog is a well-meaning but misguided person taking a dog from a shelter or rescuing one from a bad situation, before realising that they cannot care for the animal. Animals who have been rejected once have a good chance of recovering at some stage. Animals who have been rejected more than once lose their spirit and also lose all trust in people.

The reason I wanted to share this story about Red was to show that there ARE good people out there who are saving dogs from a terrible fait such as the horrendous story I read on News24 today about a dog burnt alive. With enough patience, care, love and hard work, we can make a huge difference.

When Red eventually reaches his full recovery, my sister wants to train him to be an outreach dog, and take him to the local schools in Piketberg to teach children how important it is to treat animals properly. Many of these kids come from families who have almost no education, and their attitudes have been handed down from generation to generation. Teaching our children is the only way that we can start to build a nation of people who respect all life on our planet.

I am going to post updates on Red’s story too, so that we can all learn from his journey back to health. Let’s make Red a poster dog for saying NO to apathy, and YES to caring!

***UPDATE 07/06/2011***

My sister called me last night to say that poor Red had to be put to sleep yesterday. His story has touched so many people, most of whom never even got to meet him. My sister and Les’ Facebooks were inundated with concerns and comments from the very first few days that Red came into their lives, and I hope that his message will help to inspire all of us… there are many, many dogs just like Red out there, who need people to take action and help wherever they can.

If you see or hear of an animal in need, even if you are not able to take it in yourself, please spread the word to friends and family. This is not someone else’s problem and if every animal in need gets a chance in life, that is one less animal suffering in neglect.

Being a freelancer has its perks, but the concept of ‘working weekend’ takes on a whole new slant. It could be Monday, Friday or any other day today, and the only way I can tell the difference is that there are less people on gtalk to balance out the flow of my day. Otherwise, it’s just another day – more words, less brainz, about the same amount of tea.

Still, there has been one highlight or two this weekend to keep it from being a total write off. The most notable of these being my waffle date with a friend on Saturday morning. Having missed her birthday due to deadlines last month, and not having seen her until now, I wanted to do something special. So I got her a beautiful orchid that had the waiter and customers at Caramello’s smiling away, and then we tucked into the most heavenly waffles on the planet…

waffle heaven @ caramello's... pure bliss!

It was an hour of pure contentment, and I relished every second of it. I have also managed to utilise my late night chillax time more effectively, by reading rather than series slumming. I’ve managed to finish Darkly Dreaming Dexter (a surprisingly short and easy read, more thoughts on this to follow when I have the brain capacity to process my views), and am hoping to get a chance to start After Dark, my new Haruki Murakami. The trouble is, by the time 9 or 10pm comes along, I’ve generally been working for anything from 10 to 12 hours, if not longer – which is not all that conducive to things like ‘thinking’.

All the inspiration I regained lately is vanishing in the face of despondency and fatigue, and this ear thing is not helping. The last thing I feel like doing is giving more money to the medical profession, especially when I could be spending it on things like a new laptop or a decent office chair.

In all honesty, I am actually looking forward to Monday – at the very least, it means a new week that will hopefully bring some good stuff my way. Could do with some decent zen boosting!

Until then… it’s back to the grindstone I go. *sigh*

'Bearly' even half-way to Friday...

Woke up with that bleary rub-my-eyes feeling today, and couldn’t resist sneaking in a cup of coffee. It was very milky, and one cup every now and then isn’t too bad I guess. It wasn’t even a late one last night – I worked and looked after my woozy kitten who was back from the vet after being neutered (very entertaining, poor thing was lurching around with a very drunk look on his face, then sleeping so hard I would have to check that he was actually breathing!), and then indulged in a bit of series. I am watching The Wire from first season – one of my favourite shows, but I got into it a few seasons in so always got way complicated. It’s not exactly easy watching, but nevertheless a good show.

A few completely random thoughts (because I have yet to have mine sufficiently in order)…

* The new Twitter has begun its roll-out today – taking on a rather Facebookish vibe, but anyhoo.
* We are going to check out the Ferryman’s special tonight, bring on the R4 wine!
* I am not too thrilled about this winter revival in Cape Town – I want sunshine!
* At least this weather gives me the excuse to wear my lovely new yellow cardigan.
* Feeling rather stressed out with deadline shmeadlines and other such chaos. Meh.

Well, time to put on something suitably dark and moody to listen to (thinking Portishead may do the drink) and get this Wednesday on with a vengeance!

welcome to shoe hell

It is bad enough that the clog is making a comeback. We survived the (still lingering) peep-toe boot trend. Gladiator sandals are almost bearable. Lately however, the new trend for shoes seems to be super, ridiculously ugly shoes that look like they were designed in a high school art class. The fold-over heels are especially offensive, as are the goat mane ones. I haven’t even featured the moccasin heel!

I don’t care if they were featured on Gossip Girl, I don’t care if they are YSL, DSquared, Alexander McQueen or Jimmy Choo – they are still gross. If I am ever caught wearing anything like these heels from hell, please kill me.

Let’s hope this isn’t an indication of summer boots et al we can expect to see in stores this season… bring on pretty shoes that actually look good!

a dose of eric, because I can...

Gosh, hard to believe that it’s been a week since I went freelance today – feels like so much longer. This week has been especially manic, pretty much feels like all I have done is work, eat, sleep (not enough) and drink wine. Today I lapsed on my no caffeine attempt, but hey – at least it wasn’t espresso! Yesterday when I woke up I was so sure that it was Friday; today when I woke up I honestly didn’t know *what* day it was… time just stops meaning anything when you freelance, it’s weird.

Tomorrow is set to be another crazy day, and then I still have to fit in a full month’s work into these next two and a bit months. At this point, I have given up trying to stress though, even if if things are manic, at least I get to wear my pink fluffy slippers. These things matter you know!

***interlude***

what was I saying again?

***interlude ends***

So, a few thoughts on this zombified Wednesday night…

* I cannot wait until the True Blood 3 finale comes out. It was meant to be aired this past Sunday, but for some reason it is only being aired on the 12th. What we are going to do after that, I don’t know but I HAVE to find out what happens next, especially after such an epic cliffhanger in episode 11.

* My social life has ground to a halt this week. It sucks, but such is the life of a freelancer. Hopefully I will be able to make up for it over the weekend, and hopefully next week will be easier. I need patron. *sigh*

* Summer seems to be in the air at last. I went for a walk to the shop at lunchtime, it was awesome – I was able to wear a dress over leggings with slops… feeling the sun on my arms and smiling away at all the tourists and bergies was the biggest highlight of my week, for really realz.

* Since I won’t be able to shop this month, a closet clean up is in order. When I will find time to do this is another story of course, but I haven’t sorted out my closet in a very long time – one benefit of being a shoppaholic is that I have a lot of stuff I tend to ‘forget’ about and then find later on. Time to work with what I have!

* My cats are driving me up the wall lately. You’d think they would be happy to have me working from home, but instead they are being annoying and breaking stuff, turning up their noses at all food except the Whiska’s pouches, and hiding in my cupboard when I’m not looking. Crazy beasts!

* I need to get more series, and more movies – horror movies especially. I’m thinking of getting a DVD Nuveau membership, so that I can get hold of more French new wave horrors and some Japanese classics, not to mention Twin Peaks box set and other such awesomeness.

* Working from home is much like I remembered, but more hectic this time. Not that I’m complaining – it’s great having so much work, but phew… just wish I had a little more time to breath! Think I need to start setting realistic schedules or something, can’t keep up these crazy marathon writing stints on a long-term basis.

Nevertheless, even though I feel like I have brain ache and I have to think to remember what day it is, I am slowly starting to feel more myself. I love being able to work from home, surrounded by all of my favourite things and in my pajamas. I also love feeling like the mistress of my universe, awesomesauce indeed.

Almost the weekend y’all, just have to get through another day or two!

xoxo

P.S….

booyah!

open wide and say 'aaaah'

It’s been quite a corker of a Monday, starting with a mammoth two hour dentist mission this morning. I wasn’t at all nervous, and as I had barely woken up properly in my rush to get up and be ready and at the dental office by 9am, I was still half asleep. I am lucky enough to have found an awesome dentist who is pretty cute, and also very easygoing and gentle – he explains everything he does, he reassures me, and he is just really cool. Also, the dental office is in a beautiful old Victorian mansion in Oranjezicht, with ornate ceilings, chandeliers and wooden floors – the environment really helps. Nevertheless, having my root canal completed, the tooth filled and then capped with porcelain cap thingy was more painful than I expected – especially the cap fitting part. Three shots of anesthetic and my entire left side of my face felt like it belonged to someone else, and even then by the time the cap was fitted, the numbness was wearing off. Fun times – in particular the part where I got to put my credit card through hell too!

spicy chai tea awesomeness

My mood may have been a little better had I not given up coffee. For good this time, for really realz! Much as I occasionally miss espresso, mostly I am finding it way easier than the last time I tried to stop. I think putting it into perspective and weighing it against my stress levels and the effects that it’s had on me lately somehow makes it seem more logical and obvious than trying to just do it because it seems healthier, if that makes sense. I am drinking huge quantities of organic rooibos chai, which is both comforting and addictive – which makes it a good substitute, even if it doesn’t take away the ‘no coffee’ grumpiness!

best thing to wake up to in the morning...

And on a final note for the day… the cats knocked over my last remaining plant the other day. Ok, it may have been dead anyway, but that cactus was given to me many years ago by a former boss, and I was very attached to it! My ex always used to tell me that cacti in the home were bad financial luck, and I have to say that things have improved a bit on the money front since my beloved mescal cactus died, so who knows – maybe now I will get rich? The lovely Alice recommends three pots of rosemary on the kitchen windowsill for financial luck, so perhaps I may start looking into that too. Otherwise, I still have a yearning for two massive indoor plants (non spiky, just in case!) to put on either side of my TV. I may have the opposite of a green thumb, but I should at least try, right?

I have masses of work to do, and I think I need some music and maybe a glass of wine to get me into epic deadline crunching mode. Tomorrow is another day, and I think it’s going to be MUCH better than today has been.

Catch you on the flipside!

Long Street, I'll be back soon, I promise...

Dear Diary,

Kisses,
Rox

No really, I knew I had made a stupid decision to not take the whole week off as soon as I opened my eyes this morning and tried to get out of bed. The colder it gets, the more awesome my feather duvet gets (trust me, even the cat agrees with me on this one), and the more grumpy and bleary I am in the mornings. Going back to work today was not much fun, nor was clearing out my inbox. Even though it dragged on like no-one’s business, finally it was 5pm. Phew.

Despite the pity party and mehs, a few positive thoughts have shone through…

* The most heavenly roast veg and feta tarts at Caramello’s for lunch.
* Difficult client finally signing off on content (only after the 6th version!)
* Starting a great new project which is totally my kinda client… beauty products, w00t.
* Endless cups of green tea (but no espresso today, sucks).
* Some fun betting and typical mayhem with the copy team.
* My lovely white coat (seriously the best thing I’ve gotten this winter so far).
* Brie and avo on rye for dinner tonight (because I can).
* Krone and chocolates (again, because I can).
* A looooong bubble bath (as soon as I publish this post).
* Saturday rugby mayhem with Holly (half price drinks all day, unlikely they have Patron but you never know!)
* Friday tomorrow, can I get a whoop, whoop!

Of course, I still need to get through a somewhat fair sized pile of work this evening. Don’t think my brain is quite ready for the challenge, but perhaps after some seriaas self-indulgent wallowing in bubble bath I might be ready to tackle the workload.

One last hurdle and it’s the weekend. I can do this!

Hi,

I work for xxx, a leading broker of online advertising, dealing with thousands of independent webmasters like yourself, worldwide.

I’ve had a look at your site and think Roxilla.co.za would be a good match for our client, whose target demographic is similar to your own. We’re working on their behalf to acquire advertising from sites such as yours.

We would be interested in purchasing advertising in the form of a text-based advert on your site. We pay you a fixed annual fee for our advertisements. Once the ad has been placed, we make payments via by PayPal or Moneybookers.

If you are interested, please get back to me with your rates etc. I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,
*Mister Man*

I’m sure we all get a bazilion of these emails in our junkboxes each day, and occasionally like tonight, they even slip past into our inboxes. These are annoying for many reasons, but in my line of work it seriously irks me to see things like this done so, so wrong.

Before I became a web copywriter, I was in Public Relations, and it is this that taught me the basics of communication. Without effective communication or know-how, e-marketing is just spam. But done right, you have the power to reach your target audience directly, without alienating them in the process and without bulking up their junkmail folders.

Of course, most of these emails are sent out by the thousand, through an automated system that leaves no room for personalisation, relevance, targeting or much else – but how is anyone meant to bite, when they are fishing in a massive sea, with just a vague allure and no real direction at all?

I am always tempted to reply asking why they think it’s a good fit, and what they know about my site at all. The one time I was duped into doing a link swap with these people, they weren’t able to even remember what my blog was called though – honestly I think they are surprised when they do get a response.

Argh, it just really does annoy me… with a bit of research and thought, they could have huge results and yet they would rather just carry on with their hit and miss approach. So many e-marketing companies are taking this route, and this is what gives the industry a bad name.

For any spammer types who still think this method works, time to splash some reality on your faces and realise that effective online marketing is EVERYTHING to do with communication and NOTHING to do with generalised mailbox flooding.

sigh...

There are few things more pitiful than being sick over a weekend. The cold I have been trying to avoid finally caught up with me on Thursday though, and I ended up going home at lunchtime and staying home on Friday. Waking up on Friday morning was brutal, slept the entire day away and roused myself only when my wonderful mom came to drop off food and orange juice (bless her). The last two days haven’t been much different, except on Saturday I had to force myself from my sickbed to go to the shops for cat food – not a pleasant experience in yesterday’s heat.

Still, despite feeling rather sick and more than a little bleak, there have been a few highlights…

* This kitten is just too cute for words. I heart him so much it’s ridiculous, and while trying to stay in a cozy coma on your deathbed is a little challenging when your hair is getting chewed, head is being stood on and any body part not under the duvet is being attacked, when the little bugger eventually chills, it’s been so nice having his warm, furry, purring presence around.

* I have forgotten how good it is to sleep this much. Sleeping most of the day away, I have had the weirdest dreams, but there is nothing like sleep to make you slowly get back on the mend. My bed has also been so much more luxurious and comfortable than usual, sigh…!

* Long hot baths with essential oils and yummy bath goodies seriously kick ass. Maybe it’s the comfort of hot water, or the steam, or just being able to lie still and not think for a bit. Or all of these, I don’t know.

* MedLemon, orange juice and… left over Easter eggs. I made the transition from my yummy but not quite fully effective Hot Toddy sachets to MedLemon on Saturday, and am very glad. Sometimes herbal just doesn’t cut it, and right now, I need the heavy stuff – and Sinex so I can breath. OJ is also good, and chocolate is a no brainer (even if the only stuff I have left is not exactly Lindt).

* Thoughts of the week ahead. This is going to be a great one for so many reasons, not least because I finally get my phone upgrade on Thursday. I plan to get a Blackberry, thinking the Curve 8900 but shall see. Also, we have an interdepartmental bowling thing that should be loads of fun (even if I am the worst bowler like ever). Then on Saturday, will be fetching my sister to bring her down for her birthday… psyched.

Have finally gotten all the over-due work I had out of the way, now can finish watching this National Geographic thing on crocodiles and give this beast of a kitten my undivided attention. Some tea and chocolate *may* just be in order too.

And some Sinex, megh.

Short story, phone is pretty much kaput… less than three weeks before my Blackberry is due. Ugh. This means I am going to have to mission down to Gardens Centre in search of an el cheapo stand-in phone – bloody Vodashop in Lifestyles being closed on weekends.

To top off my grouchy mood, this headache is still here, my foot was just attacked and the milk I put in my coffee is a bit off.

So hard to be mad at this cuteness though…

playing...

so much fun...

especially in the sun!

Sigh… ah well, must give this little monster a bit of play time and attention, then I need to haul ass to Gardens Centre in search of a new phone. (seriously wish they could just let me upgrade a bit early but fat chance of that!)

*deep breaths*