Putting some humour and chutzpah into celebrating RESIDENCY - SA to NZ.

        Celebrating obtaining our Residency !!

I vowed that when I got residency I'd do something a tad wicked and outrageous, like dye a few bold coloured stripes into my hair to make a celebratory statement >>> um, well the time has come :)
So I went into a salon today and have booked to have two colour stripes in my hair, over and above the reddish colour I don (to hide the advancing grey). The names of the colours are Blueberry Hill and Raspberry Beret. I liked that - (my best friend's favourite song was Blueberry Hill. I'm sure she's still playing it on a cloud with a harp and will smile at this.)  
One doesn't get residency every day, so when it comes along one needs to shout from the hilltops or make a statement that symbolises one's new persona. Some people will be quiet and very private about it; others will want to swing 
from the chandeliers. Nowadays it's becoming more difficult to get residency and isn't a walk in the park. One has to climb though hoops of fire, crawl down a few rabbit warrens, acrobat back and forth to the immigration lawyer, hit the bank to draw more $ to cough up, get relentlessly jabbed in a dissonant vein that insists on hiding far more subtly than Bin Laden did to have blood taken for a raft of tests, hold one's breath and stand deadly still to have one's chest x-rayed, inelegantly pee into a container to check that one's pee is the regulation yellow, collate screeds of information from the year dot; like one's birth and marriage certificates, testimonials, CVs, documents and university transcripts, passports, visas bla bla bla. Plus we had to get letters from friends for the Immigration Bureau, to validate that we're still in a bona fide marriage and have been living together for the past year.The only living creature that that could 100% vouch for the fact that we still share the same bed every night is Paddywag, our Kiwi doggy who sleeps between us... but hey, they didn't want a doggie foot print for proof. And in case you're wondering... no we didn't ask our mates to a John Lennon and Yoko Ono sit -in in the bedroom. They just knew that we're together and have been since The Rinderpest, so that was that !

I was wondering what would happen when the merry- go -round stopped; when there's no more space to permit new migrants into any countries, and where some countries are overflowing with nowhere to shunt people off to in ships. I guess that won't happen in our life time, but I did hear a radio show about countries eventually saying 'enough' and that they'll become more stringent about eligibility criteria and get picky and choosy. Just as well it hasn't got to that yet, and so yes, I will have Blueberry Hill & Raspberry Beret dye in my hair next week. A silly indulgence,but people have done worse ! I never said that I was a 

paragon of virtue, nor Mother Teresa.  I'm not advocating sack -cloth allegiance  to altruism, nor to full- blown self-indulgent  hedonism. But I, too, like to have some leisure -time and fun in between the hard work and every day stresses of life.
   Besides, this ain't a full dress rehearsal.....

 We get one go at life, and I don't want to go down with a miserable regretful pathetic little whimper; having only had a half- hearted shot at life ! And if we do reincarnate, I'm planning to come back as a dog that sleeps in in the morning, like Paddywag does, and that doesn't  feel the pain of severance from my kids and grand kids back home.