I saw the pearly gates this past week, but am happy to report that I made it back in one piece. What started with a sore tummy on Tuesday evening ended up with a night in hospital, four doses of morphine, an MRI scan, a 3-D sonar and a near 3am operation option (which thankfully didn’t happen). Oh, did I mention that it also included a vomit session – into a plastic Duane Reade bag – outside a packed elevator in a busy hospital corridor? Oh yes it did.

Three full days of sleep and a couple of kg’s lighter, I finally feel like a human being again. And what was the cause for all this drama? A tummy bug of note, combined with the American doctors’ anxiety of being sued for missing anything. My poor body feels ravaged and exhausted – and there is probably nothing worse than a morphine hangover!

Today on my first day back to life, John and I spent the full day packing for our move on Wednesday (with me taking occasional lie downs to recharge the energy batteries). Watch this space – I fear it’s going to be eventful!

Have I convinced anyone to come pack boxes yet? Thought not…

I forgot to mention yesterday that our sudden fascination with running was in part inspired by our upcoming move closer to the park and its running facilities, bur mostly by the amount of awe we feel for other runners. Two runners in particular. John’s brother Martin and his fiance Caroline completed the London Marathon a couple of weekends ago and I am so proud of them! After nearly collapsing after 4 miles I have no idea how they managed to keep going…and then some! Well done guys.

This morning I jumped out of bed, feeling so good. The endorphins from yesterday’s activity were still flowing and I really still felt proud of myself for breaking through this mental barrier. Enter a long day at the office, crouching behind my computer with feet stuck in upside down position (not quite, but bear with me here) pointy-toe’d heels, hardly ever stretching my legs, typing away furiously at my laptop and what do you get? The stiffest thighs in the history of man. No wait, I’m wrong. The stiffest thighs mankind has ever seen must be my thighs right now – after a 45 minute standing spinning class. I kid you not. John and I were so amped about being super fit that I think we might have gone overboard with our high intensity workout this evening. He nearly collapsed on the way home from the subway and I’m just lying in bed now, too dead to move!

So much for being super athletes.

One good thing is that my hands and arms are still quite mobile, so I’m taking this rare evening off to page through decor publications – have so many around now that I’m in the right industry – tearing out pictures of items and ideas for our new home. Cannot wait to move…Ten more sleeps until we load all our (ikea) earthly possessions into a moving van. I feel more stiff muscles coming on…but as with most after-workout burns, I think this one will also be worth it.

This morning, with much mental preparation from John, I completed my first running race ever. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, your girl is a race-virgin no more! I completed a 4-mile run (that’s 6.4kms) in about 37 minutes. With no running background. Nada. Zip. I don’t even run on the treadmill at the gym because I hate it so much! So yes, I’m a bit proud. Mostly astonished, but also proud.

I was surprised by how quickly the first mile flew by, then the second mile was kind of okay, and the third mile dragged on forever…with a little hill thrown in for good measure! The last mile was pretty much agony, but all that disappeared when I ran over that finish line. What a feeling! And Central Park is the perfect backdrop for this new experience. There are still some cherry blossoms in the trees and all over there are new leaves, giving the park a green kaleidoscopic face! It’s gorgeous + and I cannot wait to live near the park. It’s going to be wonderful.

Last night, John and I went to the movies to see ‘Stop Loss’ – a movie that once again reflects on how stupid, stupid, stupid this war in the Middle East is. As we walked out, I had to look twice, because there, right before the exit where we were heading towards, stood Morgan Spurlock, the guy who did ‘Supersize Me’ and is now launching ‘Finding Osama’. That’s the great thing about life in New York. You never know when you’re going to run into someone famous, or take up running. This weekend, I did both.

Our moving-to-a-new-house planning’s coming along nicely and poor John has spent countless hours on the phone negotiating moving rates and finding appropriate storage facilities and playing suppliers off against each other to ensure we get the best deal. Annie and I have gone to the apartment to take the floor measurements and she has drawn up a floorplan on which we’ll lay out the furniture arrangements and base the décor on. I must say, I feel quite intimidated having to furnish this home. Not only am I now working for one of the hottest designers in New York, but I also realized that our furniture will never be enough to fully furnish our new apartment. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not complaining, it’s just daunting…finding the perfect couch to go with the perfect coffee table to go with the perfect wall color, to go with the perfect rug, to go with the perfect house to go with the perfect couple. Shew.

So we are moving out of our current apartment in two weeks’ time and then placing everything in storage. The first nine days of May will then be spent bumming overnights on friends’ couches before we jump on a plane to fly halfway across the world (to a place where the clock is 11 hours ahead of New York time) to attend Martin and Caroline’s wedding in Bali. Then we head on to Singapore in time for John’s birthday and more wedding celebrations, and we might squeeze in a trip to dirty Bangkok before we fly home. On the Saturday we get back to New York (landing around 10am) we will then move into our new apartment with a weekend in which to complete the move and recover from the holiday! Oh boy… But I seriously believe that all these discomfort will fall away when we sit on our new couch in our new aparment and look at the photos from our perfect holiday, feeling tanned and relaxed. But until then, it may be a bit of a rocky month ahead…

Anyone up for packing boxes?

With the variable weather conditions that comes with a New York Spring, it’s not very surprising when one does get the sniffles. All the trees are exposing their spring buds and I even dared to venture out without a coat on this morning to go buy my 11am coffee! That said, when one needs to see a doctor, I don’t think New York is the best place to be. I may have mentioned this before, but finding the right doctor here is like venturing into a maize, blindfolded.

Last Friday my throat was itchy and I had an annoying dry cough. By Sunday night, this cough had turned into a raspy chest infection and I was alternating between being uncomfortably hot and sweaty and freezing – bronchitis had clearly set in. In the US, most people do not have any holidays or sick days during their first year of employment – I’m one of these unlucky ones – so taking a day off to sleep my way through the infection never really was an option, particularly as we are taking a two week unpaid trip next month (but more about that when I can breathe again!).

So every morning this week I have trudged my way across the island to my office on the West side and through opening or closing the window during the day, I have managed to control my temperature to some extent. What I haven’t been able to control are my rasping coughs and the deep, nose blowing noises that has been pouring otut of my office. On Wednesday I was ordered by our office manager to get my sick self to a doctor. Sure, I thought. That should be easy enough, right? Think again.

After phoning the seventh doctor’s office, I was once again offered an appointment three weeks from that day and in exasperation said: “But I’ll be dead by that time!”. That didn’t even help. It seems that in order to see a doctor in this city, you have to BE with a doctor, but in order to BE with a doctor you have to first SEE this doctor. It’s so frustrating! No one’s taking new clients and there’s an average one-month waiting period to see the doctor. Now don’t get me wrong, but how am I to know one month in advance that I’ll be needing to see a doctor in one month? (If you’re hoping I’ll be able to provide the answer later on, bad news…I still don’t know!)

Eventually I decided to just give up and continue along my Sudafed and other over-the-counter meds til I managed to kick this phlegmy beast myself. There is, after all, nothing worse than trying to find an appointment with a doctor you found on a website your medical aid allows you to see, and getting rejected time after time all while you feel like you really might die.

So yesterday morning I woke up feeling a whole lot better. (Only physically though, emotionally I still felt scarred after my many rejections.) Around ten I got a phone call from one of the rejectors from the day prior (actually the one I warned with my pending death!) who said that they had just had a cancellation and that if I hurried up I could get the appointment. Well that was me, in a cab, heading south and across town, only to get there and wait about 40 minutes for the doctor to see me. After the initial consultation, the nurse took my vitals, the doctor did a 2 minute examination and then the nurse came back to do further tests. Four hours later I left the rooms, having probably had about 22 minutes of actual ‘attention’ and over three hours of waiting.

This is when I really miss my Dr Dina in Cape Town where you were pretty sure to get your 15 minutes of attention and walk out feeling healthier immediately – just because she’s so nice. I just don’t think I’m American enough yet to understand why some things have to be so damn difficult…

It seems that I’ve been writing a lot of posts lately simply reporting back on the crazy, busy lives we lead in the Big Apple, but it’s really gotten to a stage where I feel like there are just not enough hours in the day. I’ve been in my new position for just about a month and while I suffered from incredible information overload during the first week or so, I am now finding my niche in the interior design world. It’s got all the allure and energy of fashion, and none of the bitchiness – I like! The one thing I’ve realized about my position is that it involves a lot of networking. And when I say a lot of networking, I mean just that. Here’s a rundown of my social diary (all professional) last week:

Monday:
Lunch with TV producers and the Promotional staff of a top design magazine
Cocktail party at Christie’s, hosted by Elle Decor
Cocktail party for the Diffa Dining by Design event

Tuesday evening:
$800 per person banquet for Diffa’s Dining by Design event

Wednesday evening:
Stay at home in a blistered-heel exhaustion-fuelled coma

Thursday evening:
Cocktail event at the Ralph Pucci showroom

I know, I know, I really shouldn’t be complaining/braggin, but it’s like I almost have my Cape Town social life back! Yay! I had to share these photos I took at Diffa‘s Dining by Design banquet event. Diffa (Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS) is one of the country’s largest supporters of direct care for people living with HIV/AIDS, particularly in the design industry, and they organize Dining by Design every year to raise fund and awareness.

The concept is that top designers create way out individual booths with creative table settings and the tickets get bought up by big sponsors who use the event to showcase themselves or entertain their clients. This was the Benjamin Moore table where I was lucky enough to be invited to. The entire booth was colorfully made up with paint sample tags!

My favorite table featured knitting – and it was everywhere from the table and chair covers, to the ‘chandelier’, to the slippers guests had to don before they stepped into the booth and while the cocktail was in full swing, there was a permanent ‘knitter’ on display!

The highlight of the evening was definitely DJ Bunny, a drag queen who has been DJ’ing since the 80′s and is never seen without her humungous hairdo which is oh, so fabulous!

So on this Friday afternoon I carry my weary bones home, ready to launch into my personal social life, which is looking decidedly busy. All I can say is that this is a definite change from similar posts a year ago – time flies when you’re having fun, right!

This past weekend was filled to the brim with dinners, drinks and friends and while I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it, it left me exhausted! John’s brother and his wife are visiting from Sweden and it was wonderful to have some time to hang out with them – I won’t go into the details of our punctured air mattress that they were sleeping on, but suffice to say that poor Andreas had to sporadically get out of bed at night for numerous ‘pumping sessions’…

Another highlight was having my former Cape Town flatmate, Samantha, in town for a couple of days. It was awesome to again see the city through the eyes of a first-timer and catch up with all the gossip and happenings since we last saw each other a year ago.

On Friday night we all went to dinner for Laurel’s birthday, preceded by work drinks and followed by more birthday drinks. On Saturday John and I went out to a furniture sale in New Jersey (and were most disappointed at the still high prices and false advertising, promising us 75% discount!) and I then rushed off to a work function after which I met up with Sam for some SOHO shopping. Straight from shopping, we met up with John and his work colleagues for a super expensive dinner at La Esquina, followed by more…you guessed it, drinks.

Phew, I feel tired just thinking about it, but on Sunday morning we went to look at an apartment, went for brunch at 44 & X and then Sam and I went touristing on the Staten Island Ferry and downtown – visiting the 9/11 site and the financial district where we had to succumb to grabbing the famous bull by the, uhm, horns…