Friday the 13th…No superstitions here!…Visa extension is in the works with the law firm…

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Big Daddy, handsome as ever standing close to us.

Today is Friday the 13th. We don’t give it a thought other than to mention it when it occurs. How did this superstition ever start anyway?

Here’s some information from History.com that explains the potential origins of this often feared day of the month:

“Long considered a harbinger of bad luck, Friday the 13th has inspired a late 19th-century secret society, an early 20th-century novel, a horror film franchise, and not one but two unwieldy terms—paraskavedekatriaphobia and friggatriskaidekaphobia—that describe the fear of this supposedly unlucky day.

The Fear of 13

Just like walking under a ladder, crossing paths with a black cat, or breaking a mirror, many people hold fast to the belief that Friday the 13th brings bad luck. Though it’s uncertain exactly when this particular tradition began, negative superstitions have swirled around the number 13 for centuries.

While Western cultures have historically associated the number 12 with completeness (there are 12 days of Christmas, 12 months and zodiac signs, 12 labors of Hercules, 12 gods of Olympus, and 12 tribes of Israel, just to name a few examples), its successor 13 has a long history as a sign of bad luck.

The ancient Code of Hammurabi, for example, reportedly omitted a 13th law from its list of legal rules. Though this was probably a clerical error, superstitious people sometimes point to this as proof of 13’s longstanding negative associations.

Fear of the number 13 has even earned a psychological term: triskaidekaphobia.

READ MORE: What’s So Unlucky About the Number 13?

Why is Friday the 13th Unlucky?

According to biblical tradition, 13 guests attended the Last Supper, held on Maundy Thursday, including Jesus and his 12 apostles (one of whom, Judas, betrayed him). The next day, of course, was Good Friday, the day of Jesus’ crucifixion.

The seating arrangement at the Last Supper is believed to have given rise to a longstanding Christian superstition that having 13 guests at a table was a bad omen—specifically, that it was courting death.

Though Friday’s negative associations are weaker, some have suggested they also have roots in the Christian tradition: Just as Jesus was crucified on a Friday, Friday was also said to be the day Eve gave Adam the fateful apple from the Tree of Knowledge, as well as the day Cain killed his brother, Abel.”

Friday the 13th occurs 2 times in 2023
Three Fridays the 13ths last took place in 2015 (February, March, November) and will next happen in 2026. So this year, in 2023, there are two Fridays the 13ths (January and October).”
So pretty mom Begonia and baby Buttercup stopped by again today.
We aren’t superstitious, although I hesitate to walk under a ladder; from a logical viewpoint based on the fact that something or someone could fall. Tom has no superstitions whatsoever.
So here we are on Friday the 13th. Jabula is closed until the 20th so that Dawn, Leon, and their staff could have some holiday time when they worked so hard during the holiday season. Funny, I ran into David in the vegetable section at Spar yesterday. We gave each other our usual warm hug and smiled warmly, happy to bump into each other in produce. He was glad to have over a week off to recover from the busy establishment this past six weeks.
We paid the legal fees yesterday and signed the contract to have the Cape Town law firm represent us in obtaining a visa extension. By Monday, we’ll receive a list of the documents we must procure to have the application submitted for approval by March 9.
According to the lawyers, our concern about filing 60 days before the visa expires was unnecessary. We have plenty of time. But once again, what appears on certain governmental websites may not be “cast in concrete.” Filing through the law firm will still require us to drive to Nelspruit to apply, and two, pick up the actual visas for our passports when they are tendered. Each trip will be about a four or five-hour turnaround.
Bossy, the kudu from our last house, two kilometers from here, stops by several times a day. It appears she is pregnant again.
Hopefully, in both cases, our appointments will be early enough in the day that we don’t have to stay overnight in Nelspruit since there’s no way it’s safe to drive on the N4 after dark.
Since Jabula is closed until the 20th, tonight we’ll go to dinner at Bos Restaurant in the Bush Centre, and tomorrow night, we’ll head to Giraffe, both of which are a short drive down the road. The menu selections in both restaurants are tricky for me to order, with most foods “crumbed” and deep fried. But as always, I’ll figure something out. I can’t ever order a bunless hamburger after I discovered all mince (ground beef) delivered to restaurants in Marloth Park contain wheat as a filler.
Be well.

Photo from one year ago today, January 13, 2022:

Last year on this date, we celebrated Rita’s birthday at the Khaya Umdani house, owned by Louise and Danie, where we’ll celebrate my birthday in February. I made this keto chocolate cake for Rita. For more, please click here.

This morning, a surprise like none other!…It’s almost over…

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Two female kudus eat pellets off the veranda railing so they don’t have to compete with Hoppy’s mom and her two pesky piglets.

When Vusi arrived to clean this morning, I heard Tom talking to him in the driveway while I sat at the table on the veranda,  asking him, “Do you need help carrying that?” I had no idea what he was talking about.

Moments later, Tom called out to me, “Come see! There’s something here you’ll love!”

I bolted out of my chair so fast I almost tipped it over to find Vusi in the outdoor laundry room plugging in a relatively new clothes dryer. It’s small, as shown in the photo below. It will be perfect for our needs. We won’t use it to dry heavy items like jeans and sweatshirts, but we certainly can use it for our clothes, especially things that wrinkle. We will be mindful of not using too much electricity, as we are when using any electrical appliances.

This little dryer is perfect for us! Thanks, Louise and Danie, for this appreciated addition to our household.

I couldn’t text Louise quickly enough to thank her for the dryer. She knows how much this means to us. It changes how we wear our clothes, always concerned with the limited number of items we have and how long it will be until we can wear something again that may have been sitting in the laundry basket for four or five days. Plus, we’ll avoid mildew on wet items such as dish towels, hand towels, and washcloths.

This could be a mom and her fast-growing daughter.

On another note, we’ve counted the days until the end of the school holidays in South Africa. Today is that day, and already our garden has been packed with a wide array of wildlife since early this morning. Sure, a few tourists still linger, including those with or without children who may be coming this weekend for a few days, which is always the case anyway.

This morning for the first time in weeks, a band of mongooses arrived with several tiny babies in tow, which were surely born in the past few weeks. Getting a photo of the babies is tricky since they stay tucked under their moms and are very skittish. I was able to get this one less-than-ideal photo this morning to show you their minuscule size.

See the little one? We couldn’t believe we hadn’t seen mongooses over the past several weeks. The holidaymakers may have been feeding them their leftover braai meats and bones that kept the mongooses away from us. When we cook meat on the braai, it is mostly lean with few bones. This morning I cut up a good-sized portion of paloney for them, which they devoured in seconds. Surely, we’ll see them regularly once again.

Nina and her calf walked by this morning, whom we’d hardly seen lately. But with Hoppy’s mom and her two remaining piglets in the garden, she didn’t bother to stop. Piglets can be very annoying and aggressive with antelopes, zebras and other wildlife. Of course, piglet moms are also very aggressive in trying to protect their youngsters.

I am so excited that my bee sting is rapidly on the mend. The redness and swelling are almost gone, and the itching is under control with the ice pack every few hours, followed by a new application of Calamine lotion. Whew! I am relieved this is almost over. I got stung in the outdoor laundry room, so now, on laundry days, Tom will spray the area with Doom before I enter to do the wash, which will be more often than in the past with the addition of the dryer.

Two Big Daddies were also eating off of the railing.

Last night, it was fantastic to get a night’s sleep since I could finally sleep on my left side. I only had to get up once to reapply the Calamine lotion but easily went back to sleep. This morning I felt alert and enthused, ready to get back to work on some of the three tasks upcoming over the next few weeks: apply for the visa extension, apply for the renewal passports, and finish Tom’s insurance claim for his lost bag, which has yet to appear.

Now that I am feeling better, we can start the research. This will be a lot of work, but we must address these tasks. As for our passport renewal, it appears we must make an appointment at the US Embassy in Pretoria, requiring we make the five-hour drive, possibly twice, once to apply and another time to pick them up two to four weeks later. We’ll most likely have to stay in a hotel for a few nights to accomplish this.

Several female kudus and their youngsters eat pellets off the railing.

That’s all the news for today, folks. We’ll be back with more tomorrow as we continue taking more photos of the returning wildlife.

Be well.

Photo from one year ago today, January 10, 2022:

Definitely, not as clear as we’d like. We were thrilled to see these two Meller’s Mongoose on the trail cam last night. For more photos, please click here.

Food and shopping in the USA…

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Photo from the Big Island in Hawaii in December 2014 as the sun came up.

We don’t have food photos to share. When we’ve been dining out, the last thought on our minds is to take photos since most of which we’ve ordered is not considered “fine dining” as we’ve opted for standard American fare, not necessarily photo-inspiring meals.

I must admit that being here in the US sets my mind away from the search for good photos and no doubt has had an impact on my creativity when posting each day. Right now, I don’t feel like a world traveler. I feel like a mom, a grandmother, a mother-in-law, a sister-in-law, a stepmom, and a friend.

With no interest in cooking, although we have a fully equipped kitchen in our resident-type hotel room, we’ve eaten most meals sitting in a restaurant, eating takeaway in our room, or on a few occasions, in the homes of family members. I am confident this will continue for the remainder of our time in Minnesota, now only over the next five days when we head to Wisconsin.

From there, we’ll be dining out for all meals or perhaps ordering a few carry-out meals. In Milwaukee and Nevada, we won’t have a kitchen as we do here, which ultimately proved to be less important to us other than for chilling our iced tea, making ice, and keeping cheese for snacks.

Later that morning from the lanai.

While in the US, I’ve lightened up a little on my eating less protein and consuming lots of salads. It doesn’t seem to have impacted me one way or another. But, once we return to South Africa, we’ll both resume our usual way of eating.

Tom has been enjoying many of his old favorites, and I’ve kept my mouth shut. He eats doughnuts, candy, fried foods, and bread. He’s gone through bags of jelly candies (not gummy) and many plastic containers of old-fashioned cake donuts, his favorites which are never available in Africa or in many locations we’ve traveled.

Yes, he’ll gain a few pounds (kg) but will undoubtedly lose it once we return to Marloth Park. I have gained a few pounds just from eating out every day, not certain about the ingredients in the meals I’m consuming. I’m none the worse for the wear and will also lose it once we get back to our lives in the bush.

We’re certainly not as active as we’d been in the bush, jumping up and down every few minutes to feed the wildlife and doing a variety of tasks around the house each day. Here, we sit on the bed or small sofa in our hotel room, our only task being laundry every few days and walking here and there.

We are located in a bustling area with lots of traffic. Walking is not appealing to us in this location. With the post to do each day, planning and scheduling get-togethers with family and friends, neither of us feel motivated to do much else. I can’t believe how lazy I feel here.

The much-anticipated whale fluke, as seen from the lanai.

We’ve done quite a bit of shopping, more online than in stores. Although, it’s been fun to go to Target, Walgreens, and the Eden Prairie Mall across the street from our hotel. We even went to Best Buy to purchase a much-needed new cord for Tom’s laptop. It’s been just like old times, going out shopping and dining.

Today, at 5:15, I will meet up with Camille, Maisie, and Madighan at the pier on Lake Minnetonka. We are going out on Al & Alma’s dinner cruise, which I haven’t done since the 1970s. That will certainly bring back many memories of a life long ago when my two boys were young and I was in my 20s.

Tom is meeting up with daughter Tammy for dinner, which I would have attended. But, tickets were purchased and set for the dinner cruise on the lake at the same time. We had no choice but to split up and spend the evening with our respective family members. I hope to finally see Tammy at some point over the next week before we depart for Wisconsin on Friday.

Tonight, President Cyril Ramphosa will conduct another “family meeting” about Covid-19 and its impact on South Africa. We are concerned about our ability to re-enter South Africa on our flights as planned, departing two weeks from yesterday on July 24th.

May your Sunday be restful and fulfilling.

Photo from one year ago today, July 11, 2020:

The natural bond between mom koala bears and their offspring is always precious to observe, as we did in Australia in 2015. We were allowed inside the pen for an up-close and personal experience. For more photos posted one year ago, please click here.