Burgled!

My cottage tenant woke me up this morning to let me know that my front patio furniture was stolen.

It was a green plastic table and eight chairs, which I used regularly cos I loved sitting on my veranda facing a nice view of the city.

I think it’s someone who cased my home before coming, cos he must have known that my dogs would not bite him. Mr Brown is very big, and he must have known that he’s still a big puppy really, and was no danger.

I’m also assuming the person drove up, or at least 3 people were required, with one carrying the big table and 2 carrying 4 chairs each.

The incident has put me in a very bad mood, though I’m not sure who I’m angry with: the robbers, for stealing my stuff or myself, for having a loophole they could work through ( a waist-high gate I was planning to replace on one side of the perimeter wall).

Slow, pain-filled day

I'm going to make it a slow-paced day, today. A tooth I had filled a couple of months ago is aching like you wouldn't believe, and somehow, my jaw is not happy at all.

Have a dentist appointment for today, and I have taken a strong painkiller, but in the meantime, I'm doing whatever work-related tasks I can manage.

On the work-related front, we've finally registered www.softwareengineer.org.za for the Joburg Centre for Software Engineering blog.

So I'm going to spend a lot of time writing up the static pages and timeless feature articles in the next couple of weeks. Launch is planned for the beginning of July.

Please tell all your sofwtare engineer/programmer/geeky friends about the blog once it's launched.

I'm also going to start taking Intro courses on software engineering (the JCSE offers them), so I know what I'm talking about on the blog. That's the beauty of being a writer: you're always learning something new/finding new interests.

And if you have five minutes, please join me on the Onelove web site as we chat about a new study which says that "Widespread sexual violence puts Swazi girls at risk of HIV infection"

As I've previously mentioned,the OneLove aims to get us all talking about our sexual choices in the time of HIV and AIDS.

The campaign is regiona, and is happening in Lesotho (launched in Jan), Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Southh Africa, (launched in Jan) Swaziland,(launched in March), Tanzania (launched in Oct 2008), Zambia (launching on 16 June) and Zimbabwe (launching on 3 June).

An Illuminating Moment

It struck me this morning that I love working on large-scale writing projects that take place over time, rather than managing small bits and pieces of business.

My mind is clearer when I have the time to digest the information, and structure it in a way that I think would work best for the client.

And while tight deadlines give me an incredible adrenaline rush – something that I thought I would not be able to give up – there’s something to be said for writing in a calm and peaceful environment.

Somehow, the brain works faster, ideas flow rapidly and the words just flow. And before I know it, I’ve accomplished much more than I would have, if someone was holding a gun to my head.

Promotion, promotion

After doing the requisite daily writing, I spent some time answering questions in an email interview with another blogger (it was a very thorough interview!). Will post the link here once the interview is posted.

I also did a lot of Internet surfing, and registered with a number of networks including BlogHer and DestinyConnect.

Found a lot of interesting blogs on Amatomu. Hopefully I'll make new friends. I have said it before and I'll say it again: blog promotion is blooming hard work!

A Special Day

Yesterday I mentioned that today is a very special day for my family. It's Baby's 11th birthday. And the reason I mentioned that Gaynor would know what I'm talking about is that his 11-year old son was also born on the same day, effectively making them twins.

So happy birthday, kids!

Of course the day was hectic yesterday, getting the cake organised for her to take to school and printing invitations to 7 girlfriends she's taking to the movies over the weekend.

The girls are divided: a couple of them want to watch Coraline, while others want to watch 17 Again. I voted for Coraline - it's based on Neil Gaiman's novel of the same name and I think he rocks.

Speaking of entertainment choices, Baby and I have discovered the joy of liking the same books and reading them at the same time.

I have previously mentioned that she loved Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. Well, she worked her way through New Moon and she's now half-way through Eclipse. And she loves sharing bits and pieces of the book with me; sharing something that she finds funny or strange etc.

Of course, for the most part she skips the kissing/romantic bits. Too mushy, she says. Or when she doesn't skip them, she reads them as a parody.

Huh! I give her five years and then she'll be ooing and aahing over the romantic bits.

Yesterday, today and tomorrow

I typed up a poem titled "Yesterday, today and tomorrow." My 20-year old nephew, Agisanang Mokua, wrote the poem as part of a collection of poetry and lyrics.

Baby is going to use the poem for her solo performance in this year's Eisteadford, which I think takes place in September. Maybe? Gosh, need to double check dates. Anyway, her teacher has already approved the poem, so it's all systems go.

Agisanang is really into romantic poetry and songs, and even though he has no plans to go into the creative arts, I hope he keeps up the writing. If nothing else, it is an outlet to express himself creatively.

Check out Yesterday, today and tomorrow in my African Tales blog. I didn't do any edits or changes; I simply typed it up ad published it as it is, to showcase the raw talent Agisanang has.

As for work-related writing:

Watch this fun video on How to Heal A Broken Heart which I posted on the OneLove web site. The video is aimed mainly at young women, but the humour has universal appeal.

You can also find out how you can get your community involved in the OneLove campaign.

What makes a house home?

Tomorrow it will be exactly five years since I bought my home and moved into it. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to make this space home.

The house structure was solid, but the rest of it was just a wreck. I knew I’d have to install a new kitchen, main bathroom, bedroom cupboards etc.

I was also going to have to remove the concrete backyard, destroy some outbuildings that were not too steady and clear out truck-loads of rubble.

And that doesn’t even begin to touch on cosmetic jobs, such as grinding rust off the roof of the main house and painting it and the whole interior of the house.

Oh, did I mention the house had ugly green and maroon carpet covering the floors and hiding some seriously nice oak floors! It took hours of sanding and dust before the wooden floors ( a portion of which is showing behind Edward in the image) were cleaned up.

Most of the work is still in progress, or has yet to be done, because we’re doing most of the work ourselves, rather than hiring contractors and it all needs cash.

And despite all the problems I could foresee at the time of the sale, and the new ones that cropped up once we moved in, the house still feels like a good home for my family.

I suppose I was initially sold on the potential of what the space could be, rather than what the structure was. And slowly but surely, my vision is becoming a reality.

So why didn’t I choose something else?

I could have chosen a new-build house, or an old one that is fully renovated. In the 5 years since I have moved into this house, I have renovated and sold 2 additional houses in the area (and one of them was much bigger than this one), but somehow those houses did not feel like my home.

They felt like potential homes for someone else; and a hobby and business combined for me.

I chose this house because:

I love old houses. They have more generous proportions and the walls and roofs are solid. Add the nice architectural touches like pressed ceilings and wooden floors, and you have a good starting point for a nice home, in my view.

I loved the challenge of creating something new from my vision. The easier option would have been to buy a fully renovated house. But this way, I got to choose a kitchen and bathroom and facilities I want, as I would have in a new build house. Yet, I also got to own an old house with the accompanying benefits.

It’s cheaper to buy a wreck and fix it up yourself. You pay in terms of effort, blood and sweat. But your debt to the bank is much smaller for the amount of house you can get. And the bank becomes your very minor partner, rather than the holder of the lion’s share of your assets.

The house is based on a double stand. So I had room to build a garden cottage, which will help offset bond costs, repurpose a building as my home office, and decent enough front and back garden space left for the kids to play and the dogs to run about. And it’s right in the middle of the city.


Finally, watching the evolution of wreck into a good solid home is very rewarding.

There are many times when it’s all frustrating, like when it seems everything that is old has conspired to break down and the builders don’t do the work as previously agreed and the construction noise just about drives you batty.

But then I see some of the the results as the house takes shape, and it’s all worth it.

So five years later, this place has taken giant steps to become the home of my vision, and I’m so glad we moved here.

So tell me: what, in your view, makes a house a home? And what do you love most about your home?

P.S There is a very special reason why I blogged about our anniversary in this house today, rather than waiting for tomorrow. Stay tuned for something even more special tomorrow. Gaynor, you know what it is.

Would you resign by SMS?

Having worked as a tech journalist for a number of years, and personally loving technology and how it has improved my life and work, I'm still flabbergasted to learn that a slight acquiantance resigned from her job by SMS.

The resignation was with immediate effect.

As far as I know, there was no bad blood between the employer and employee. There hadn't been a major scene at work that would result in the on-the-spot resignation.

The employee simply landed a better job, and instead of serving the usual notice period, send an SMS to her senior saying she decided to leave immediately.

My mind is still trying to wrap itself around what I would say if I was resigning by SMS. Maybe: "Sorry Jack. Won lotto. Resigning . Immediate effect."

I've had an employer or two who made resignation by SMS an attractive proposition. But I've always thought that action like that would later come back to bite me on the ass.

Would a new employer actually take me on knowing that I have no qualms about leaving my current employer in a lurch? Doesn't such a behaviour show how the new employer will be treated when the next big offer comes along?

Which brings me to my original question: would you resign from a job, assignment or project by SMS? Under what conditions would you do it?

Encounters Documentary Festival in crisis

The future of South Africa’s premier documentary festival, Encounters,hangs in the balance since its principal sponsor, the SABC, yesterdaywithdrew their financial support for the 2009 edition of the festival.

This is due to the SABC's new austerity measures.Encounters is now faced with the task of raising sufficient funds in thecoming week if it is to take place as planned.

The dates of the2009 edition are 2 - 19 July in Cape Town. Unfortunately, Encounters alreadyhas had to withdraw from Johannesburg this year since the Gauteng FilmCommission also withdrew its financial support.

Read the rest on the Encounters web site.

I wish

I wish I was a consistent writer. You know, the very talented kind who can bang out 2000 words every work day, take weekends off and live a normal balanced life.

Unfortunately, I'm the other kind: for weeks I will energetically write thousands of words per day, come up with workable story ideas and write until I drop. Sometimes, when I go through this period, I wish my brain would just shut down so I can sleep or at least, do a good imitation of a human who can talk intelligently with others.

Then when I've squeezed every once of creativity out of my brain and my fingers are sore, the energy and inclination to create goes away, and I just want to laze around my house.

As you know, the world of a working writer demands consistency and I can only write in advance for certain content. That's when I start praying that my muse come back so I can get things done without feeling like a slug.

Anyway, the past few weeks were slow, and I wrote because I have to. Today it feels like my energy is coming back, which will make for a productive but crazy life. I'm excited, because I managed to push through a feature article and two press releases in addition to my normal updating of sites and blogs. But I'm also trying to figure out how to have some balance even when I remain highly productive.

A Big Thank You

I also want to say a very big thank you to my friend Manana. With winter fast approaching, I was thinking of getting myself a long, big coat. But Manana, bless her generous heart, saw a navy knee-length woollen coat last week which she thought would be perfect for me. So she bought it and had to delivered to me. And it wasn't even my birthday!

Thank you sisi.

Today Is Writers' Worth Day

Today is Writers' Worth Day and writers all over the world are blogging about the worth of a writer. The issue that is being raised in many ways is: "Writers should be paid a living wage for their work."

That means, writers should ask for what they are worth, and publishers should offer writers what they are worth.

I want to look at the issue from a perspective of someone who earns her living as a writer. I'm a mother with school fees and assorted child-care fees to pay; a home owner with a bond, maintenance and insurance costs. I have to clothe myself and my family and like everyone else, I want to enjoy a good life while building a solid reputation doing a job I'm good at.

Can low-paying assignments, pay-per-view, $1 per articles or horrors, sites that offer me "exposure" actually help me meet these objectives?

I think:

1. If you take a low-ball price, you are putting yourself in a position where you have to work harder to earn a living. Say I want to earn R1500. Now, I could pitch a feature article to any number of local magazines ( which pay an average of R2 per word), write a well-researched 800 word piece, or I could write a couple of el cheapo assignments, write 30 $5 articles for some of the online article mills to make the same amount of money. Now which move is more likely to land me with carpal tunnell syndrome and which one will land me a decent byline in addition to the cash?

2. If you take a low-ball price, you have to work longer hours to meet your target. This is time you could have invested in your career, family, friends or anything else that bring you fulfillment.

3. $1 assignments will not help build your reputation as writer ( and they don't pay bills well either!). Many low-paying assignments are about quantity rather than quality, so working on them does not help you to build a strong reputation as a good writer.

That is, if you even get credit for the work. And if you want to estasblish some sort of online presence, or get into the routine of writing, why not start your own blog?

Your content will still get published, but you still own it and you can pull down the articles, refine them and send them to other publishers any time you like without having to ask someone else.

4. If you take low-paying assignments, you could be paying people to work for them! Sometimes I chuckle when I hear people on forums say that writers in third-world countries can afford to take low-paying assignments because dollars and pounds in those countries go farther.

While it is true that the Rand/Dollar exchange works to our favour, ridicilously low-paying assignments mean that the earnings are eaten up by some of the operations costs.

Internet costs in South Africa are relatively high as compared to other countries. So a large chuck of your money when you work online goes to paying Internet connection costs. Then there are banking charges, which are ridiculously high....

So I want to urge writers to ask for what they're worth. It will give you the space to do your work properly and deliver quality work, so that your career can grow.

My message to publishers and other types of businesses that use writing services is that, you get what you pay for. Quality writers who know their worth will not take low-paying assignments.

They know that time spent looking for a fair client is worth more than an assignment on hand from a low-paying client.

Cabin Fever Forces Location Change

Cabin fever forced me out of my house to Mugg & Bean at the mall. I am rather disappointed that the South Africa restaurant sector has not caught onto the fact that their customers who come there for meetings and to work may need an electrical connection.

Bless Mugg & Bean, they have a dedicated area where customers can just plug in. But it was busy today, and other restaurants said they could not provide plug points. So I had to wait...

The morning was however, productive, and I managed to update the blogs and begin an article on the return of the craft era based on the Agile Forum I attended last week.

The article is mostly human resources related, not IT, but I think that's good because the trend is not restricted to the IT sector (nor was it first seen in the IT sector).

I also think that the trend is good news for professionals who want to do something really well, rather than being overwhelmed by management issues.

As my career as a writer developed, one of my biggest conccerns was that I didn't want to be promoted out of the tasks that I love, and that got me into this business in the first place. On the other hand, I wanted to be paid real well for my skill.

If you have a minute, check out the posts that were published today:

Explore the real cost of software development

Participants in this Master Class will read through code that tells a long tale of inefficiency and will learn how to eliminate waste in the software development workflow.

Support from religious leaders is important to the OneLove Campaign

This article is based on previous interviews I did with directors of NGOs that are regional partners to the OneLove campaign.

OneLove is happening in ine countries in Southern Africa: Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe and the web site encompasses news, views and content from all of them.

Slow Internet Sucks Big Time!

Internet was so slow yesterday a snail would have walked faster in a race.

It was very annoying, especially as my work is mostly online. So I did not accomplish as much as I planned.

But I did manage to publish a couple of announcements for clients and post links on social networking sites:

IT Skills versus world economic crisis

This is an announcement of the Skills Summit by the ITA, JCSE and ITWeb, taking place on the 19 May at Bytes Technologies in Midrand.

If you are concerned about the IT Skills challenge in South Africa, register for the course. The JCSE and ITWeb will also present the 2009 Skills Survey.

Soul City series 9 reruns on Fridays @ 15h00

Prime time drama Soul City, which is on its ninth season has just finished its initial run on SABC1. However, those who missed it can still catch up by watching reruns on Fridays at 15h00.

The latest Soul City season is a central part of the OneLove campaign in South Africa.

And speaking of the OneLove campaign, campaign, join us on the OneLove web site as we discuss whether one is justified in having an affair if your partner refuses to have sex with you.

What if you even tried to address the problem and went for counselling and also asked for family intervention, but the situation did not improve?

Meanwhile, Janet Riehl Grace's Sightlines ( audio) has arrived. So I'm going to listen to some of it while I work this week, with the view of reviewing it some time in June. I'm also planning to host Janet for her interview during her blog tour.

Readathon Week

On the life front, this week is Readathon Week and Baby's school takes the event very seriously.

In addition to setting aside time for the kids to read at school, and encouraging them to read more at home, the kids are supposed to go to school on Friday dressed as their favourite fantasy character.

For some reason, she has fallen in love with Twilight, so of course she used that book to choose her outfit.

She wants to go as Alice Cullen ( see Alice Cullen doll on the left).

Baby's teacher said the character of Bella Swan (protagonist) was human, and therefore Baby couldn't dress as her.


What is it with this story? When you look at it objectively, it's just another vampire/teen love story. Yet it resonates with millions of people worldwide, young and old. I also found myself completely absorbed in that world, even though it's actually for young adults.

Needless to say, Baby is keen on it despite the fact that she's actually 11 and not the intended target audience.

I am a bit worried about whether portions of the book are too vivid for an 11-year old. But I'm not complaining. It's good to see Baby fall in love with a book. And some of the stuff she watches on TV ( in the afternoons and prime time) are worse, so I'm probably just going to have to deal with my reservations. Unless I can find another book for Baby to fall in love with it in 3 days.

Gaile Parkin Amazon Rising Star

Amazon has chosen my friend Gaile Parkin, author of Baking Cakes in Kigali, as one of its Rising Stars for the first half of 2009.

Amazon says, "Each title has been read and selected by our Rising Stars panel as being the very best in new and emerging literature."

Congratulations, Gaile!

So if you haven't read Baking Cakes in Kigali, grab yourself a copy. And if you love it, please write a customer review of the book on Amazon.

The review doesn’t need to be long or intellectual, and it can be anonymous.

Out of the 8, the book that receives the highest number of great reviews will be crowned the winner.

Meanwhile, I have a very bad dry cough. Could be the beginning of a flu.

I'm very unhappy about this, because I take a lot of precautions (like eat well, exercise, take immune boosters etc). But I was exposed to two friends who had the flu.

I wish they'd stayed at home, because being sick will slow me down in work and life. Now I'm drinking a lot of ginger to try to fight the cold/flu.

If the situation persists, or I get worse, I'll have to go see a doctor.

Urgggg!

Breast Cancer Hike; Happy Mother's Day

I've posted three poems on my Africans Tales blog, which I have neglected hideously in the past 18 months. My sister wrote two of the poems, and I know I'm biased because I love her, but I think she's the better poet than me.

Check out her work.

Also check out the OneLove blog post, "Having many sexual partners is not liberation" and then share your views on "retaliation affairs" by leaving a comment.

Breast Cancer Hike

This morning I went on a Breast Cancer hike with a group which included two women I went to university with.

We hiked through Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve, which is within an hours drive of Johannesburg and lies close to the town of Heidelberg.

The main feature of the reserve is the Suikerbosrand Mountain Range that forms the backbone of the reserve and varies in height between 1,545m and 1,917m above sea level.



The 10km hike was in support of Sue Dinner, a friend of a friend who is a cancer survivor and has organised a hike to promote cancer awareness in Los Angeles today.

Before Baby, I was quite an avid hiker, and had done a number of destinations including Suikerbosrand and Drakensberg. Yup, moi actually managed to climb Mount Aux Sources, the highest peak in the Drakensberg range.

Then Baby came and I sort of made excuses for myself, saying that I was too busy to go hiking regularly and finding child care was a schlepp etc.

Today I had difficulty climbing the steep end of the trail. My legs and lungs were fine - I walk quite a lot in my neighbourhood. But my waist/core was a mess, especially when we did the steep inclines.

I definitely need to strengthen it, because I'm going back (to Suikerbosrand) and next time I'm taking Baby to do the 4.5 km route. We'll stroll through it so she's not stressed, but I hope she'll love the scenery and the quiet.

Happy Mother's Day!!

Meanwhile, our plans to celebrate Mother's Day are sort of loose. We'll spend the day together, and do what feels fun and natural.


















Baby has already given me my Mother's Day gifts so whatever happens tomorrow is just extra.








She has good taste, doesn't she? I love the silver necklace with the blue pendant.

When you hold meetings in a restaurant

I had tea/breakfast with a business associate this morning in a restaurant located in a business complex.

The complex is one of those luxury premises where a number of buildings are enclosed in a park-like environment, with facilities like restaurants, gym etc included inside.

I arrived an hour earlier than the set meeting time, because I was travelling across town and left my house earlier to avoid peak-hour traffic.

It did take me a while to get service once I was seated, but I was so busy working on my laptop that it was a non-issue.

And once the staff were aware of me, they were quick to take my order, bring me tea etc.

I was just about to start eating when my associate arrived. “You’re not going to eat here, are you?” he said loudly.

He then went to explain that the food offered by the restaurant chain is really bad and that he has stopped eating there. I chose the restaurant because it looked OK and was close to my client; had never eaten there, so I had no way of knowing how they perform.

But their servings were very generous, and I paid about half of what I would have paid elsewhere for a similar or comparable meal. And other than an overly-generous hand with the salt, the food was quite good, actually.

I was just thinking “different strokes for different folks,” when a waitress came to take his order, and he asked for black coffee.

“Do you want milk separately, “ the waitress asked.

“Black coffee means that it is without milk,” he snapped. Then he looked at me with a smirk, as if to say, “Look at me. I am a big man and I can put this one in her place rather quickly.”

OK, I admit it. Black coffee does mean without milk, but what was the point of dissing her like that? Why not say, “No milk, thank you,” and leave it at that?

From a young age I learnt that we had to treat anyone who provides help with a lot of respect. Firstly, they are providing you with a service. Secondly, stomping on the help is an act of a coward, because they can’t fight back. Whatever they think of your boorish behaviour, wait staff have to swallow their words, smile and say “yes, sir.”

When we paid, he stiffed the wait staff off their tip.

Huh!

It makes me uneasy to work with someone who stomps on people who are weaker, because one day he just might decide that I'm also weak ( because I'm polite) and try his luck with me.

He's have a fight on his hands, but still.....

Anyway, it made me wonder: how do you treat the wait staff when you go out to dinner/when you work in a coffee shop for the day /when you hold meetings in coffee shops, especially when they don’t give you adequate service?

And how do you react if when the person you’re meeting is rude to staff?

Do you agree with me that one should always be polite to staff, because they don't have the power you have? Or do you believe that you have to drive helpers harder to get the service you deserve?

And in case you're wondering about the relevance of the issue to you as a writer or work at home professional, I'm sure you, like me, hold a number of meetings in restaurants and coffee shops. Or maybe, sometimes you can't stand your house anymore and go to these places for a change in scenery.

Doing a happy dance

Woowooo! It looks like I will be able to free up the space that I'm planning to use as my home office this month.

My current home office is a smaller corner of the living room of my home.




I have a small garden cottage, but it has good reliable tenants who've been staying here for years, and whose income I didn't want to lose.

So I decided to extend another outside building and convert it into a one-bedroomed cottage with open plan kitchen / livingroom and shower/toilet (sorry about the bad lighting).


Building work began in March, and today, the guy helping with the building work did the first coat on the exterior walls.

Doors and windows are installed, and the plumbing, electrification, flooring and painting inside is done.

He assures me that tenants can move into their new space over the weekend, freeing up the space I wanted.






Words are not enough to communicate how excited I am. Finally I will have a large space to work, file my documents and books, even hang pictures, storyboards etc on the walls.

So my next big renovation project will be to design and furnishing of my home office interior. I can't wait!

In the meantime, work went on as usual. I'm attending the Agile Software Development Forum hosted by the Joburb Centre for Software Development.

I also updated the OneLove web site. Please check out the 10 Tips to Survive The Teenage Years.

You can also watch excerpts of Chippo's Promise and Between Friends, which are part of the UNTOLD series.

P.S. To those who have emailed me asking about how Dylan and his friend are doing, we are making progress. They have relaxed somewhat and are playing with my other puppied.

Dylan has also come close enough for me to take a close up picture of him.

Wooing Dylan

I've finally managed to get close enough to Dylan (black dog on the left) and his friend to take a decent picture.












I think it helped that Edward and Hayley accompanied me to the little corner where the new dogs were hiding out.

Edward also vouched for me, but since I don’t speak Dog, I’m not quite sure what he said to win the others over. (Edward is the small puppy facing the two large dogs)


















I definitely needed the break.

Yesterday was very hectic. The plumbers came to replace my geyser, so I had three strange men trooping in and out of the house for hours. And the work they did was not unobtrusive; and sometimes, it was downright loud.

Baby was also home all day (school only reopened for the second term today). Add the fact that it was a normal work day, with web sites to update, articles to write, interviews to set up and I felt like I was going crazy.

But now it’s all finished – we have a spanking brand new geyser and hot water pressure is just fantastic.

I also feel a sense of accomplishment for getting one more big job done, in the great house renovation project.

And Baby is back in school today, so the house is quieter.

As for Dylan and his friend, I’ve decided to help them recover from whatever trauma they’ve survived, and then decide whether I keep them or send them to my mother.

Now I just have to decide what to name Mr Brown here. At least, I think it is a Mr.

I thought it only happened in movies

About a year ago a colleague where I worked gave me two black 6-week old puppies as a present.

I'm not really a pet person ( never owned a dog or cat until then) and never played with other people's pets either. But we thought having a couple of dogs would be a good security measure.

Less than 3 months later, Bob and Dylan were stolen (ja, the irony doesn't escape me that my potential guard dogs were stolen ). We looked everywhere in my suburb, without any luck.

They had collars with my phone number, so if they wandered outside my yard by accident the person who found them should have been able find me.

To make amends the person who opened my gate and led to the dogs going outside gave me my two current puppies, Edward and Hayley. And we thought life had moved on.

Until yesterday.

Baby and I were going to see the Hannah Montana movie, and she stepped outside while I made sure everything was locked and tight. Anyway, a few minutes later, she walked back into the house, rinsed her face with cold water (to wake herself up and make sure was not dreaming, she later explained), then peeked through the door again.

"Damaria, I think Dylan is sitting outside," she said. "And he's with a big brown dog I don't know."

Puzzled, I went outside, and found the two dogs sitting under my veranda table. It was hard to tell if the back dog was Dylan, but it really looked like him. And he looked up when I called his name.

We were running late for the movie, and I didn't want to tell Baby we had to cancel. On the other hand, how was I going to deal with the dogs?

So I called the friend who gave me Edward and Hayley and explained the situation; asked him to come over and feed the two dogs and make sure they don't leave until I came back. He called back 15 minutes later to say he couldn't find the dogs in the veranda, but would look all over the yard.

Unravelling the mystery

Turned out that they hid behind the garden cottage when I left. So I spent the afternoon worried about where they'd gone to, and even more importantly, trying to understand how Dylan found me in the first place.

He's no more than 12-months old now (more or less), so he was tiny when he got lost. Do dogs remember that far back?

And if Dylan was well-cared for by his new owners, why come looking for me? How far did he travel to come to find me, and for that matter, how did he know where to find me?

I thought animals that travel distances to look for their former owners happened only in the movies?

The other thing that doesn't add up is that my house has changed since Bob and Dylan lived with us. I've built a high perimeter wall, repainted the house. Inside the yard, there are many more changes.

Did the two dogs really jump over a gate to enter a stranger's yard? Also, the fact that he brought a friend along to look for me with him makes even less sense.

Creepy theories

The more disturbing aspect of the whole deal is that both dogs look very tall but skinny. And they are terrified of humans. Dylan looks at me when I call his name, but he shakes the whole time. And when I get too close, they both run off.

And big as they are, they climb all over each other, squeeze into a corner when I approach. They don't bark though. And when I gave them food, they wouldn't eat until I was long gone, even though they were clearly very hungry.

Eleven year old Baby argues, quite intelligently of course, that I can't keep the new arrivals.

"We can't have four dogs! You're going to be like those crazy old women who have hundreds of cats and just keep getting more if you're not careful," she says. "You'll be the dog lady and every stray in the neighbourhood will know if they come here, you'll keep them."

A friend of mine lives in a smaller yard than mine in the neighbourhood, and she has 4 dogs, so space should be manageable.

Maybe.

But Baby is right; can we actually keep four dogs?

A second, creepy theory I did not share with Baby was that the dogs did not travel across town from where ever they came from to find us: the people who stole Dylan gave them up and dropped them off here at my house.

Maybe they couldn't take care of them anymore. Makes me feel weird to think people I don't know have been watching me, and decided I'd be the person to take care of "their" dogs.

And the $64 000 question: Where is Bob?

Decisions, decisions

So now I have decisions to make: what to do with the new dogs? Do I keep them and hope that Baby will get used to them? Do I take them to the SPCA, where they are unlikely to be adopted considering their size and the bad economy?

Do I give them to my mother, whose dog is old (11 years old) and has ample space for them to run and play? Do I look for their old owners?