Interrupting this very, very long (5 day! FIVE! Not even Thanksgiving weekend in the States is 5 days long!) weekend in South Africa to tell you about my new abode...

And never mind the opening paragraph. Because it's already a few days later (in fact, almost time for another weekend!) since I wrote that. See, when I caught myself almost blogging on a long weekend, I got such a huge shock that I promptly went back to being the World's Laziest Blogger.

But I'm dying to tell you all about my new place.

It has two rooms one of which triples as a kitchen, study and bedroom, and a bathroom so tiny that not even a toddler could turn around in it. In fact, I'll spare you the intricate details on how I go through my daily ablutions. Just know that I'm becoming increasingly flexible (and that my aim is improving) by the day.

The toilet really deserves its own post. But just to give you an idea: It is one of those old-fashioned commodes where the tank is high above the bowl with an actual chain that you have to literally swing from like Tarzan in order to get it to flush. (So much for swinging from the chandeliers...)

But once it flushes? You've never seen or heard anything like it. At first there is a low, threatening rumble, then a sound and visual that always put me back to years ago, when my family and I visited the Victoria Waterfall in Zimbabwe.

If you ever need to get rid of a human body, simply come to my place. We can stuff it down the toilet and flush it away. No one will ever know. THAT is how powerful this thing is. On day one I acidentally dropped a bar of soap in there. It didn't even have time to make a final bubble as the tsunami of water washed it away.

The shower, on the other hand, could comfortably hold five people. No, this is just an estimate. Not a proven fact... yet. I may actually have parties in there, though, because I don't know where else I'll be able to entertain. At least that way we can flush the toilet and pretend that we are on a terrace somewhere near a huge fountain.

My shower only has enough hot water for one VERY brief shower, though. Needn't elaborate on how I discovered that. Let's just say it was a very cold shock...

The bedroom has parquet floors. It's seen better days, but the wood gives such warmth to the room, so I've only coverered parts of it with two small and matching area rugs.

The room was already furnished, so one of the only things I have in here is a very large, ratty old office chair that my mom spotted for sale outside a secondhand shop. And since my mom worries about both my economics and my ergonomics, I bought it. So for less than R200, I am now the comfortable owner of a has-been executive office chair (circa late 70's, early 80's) in an indiscernable, greyish colour.

It's WAY too big for the room, but since my family (and some other people) have faith that I'm going to spend a lot of productive hours of writing in it, I shall ignore the general rattiness of the faux leather. Or pleather. Did they even have pleather in 1980, which is probably when this chair was at the peak of its career, warming the arse of some big-shot business exec?

Anyway, so once the money from my planned productivity starts rolling in (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!), I will have the chair reupholstered. In the mean time, I ride around on its surprisingly unsqueaking wheels from one end to the room to the next (it's a short trip, but fun!) and swivel around and around and arou...

Weeeee! More tomorrow! Have to roll on over to the kettle to make some coffeeeeeeeeee.