Meaningless and Maladroit Manis Memoirs Chapter 66: A Midnight Meeting With Princess Mellivora

“Rolling down hills tonight are we?” The voice said, as it unstuck its claws from the Pangolin’s scales. “Aren’t you afraid someone will see you? Won’t you be terribly embarrassed?”

Manny was indeed terribly embarrassed, but he couldn’t go red. He was a sort of light yellowy-beige colour. Sometimes he wished he was bright purple, but it would make for poor camouflage. Still, he felt bright purple suited him. He once found a bright purple plastic container that a fertogafer left behind. He cherished it, and when no one was looking he would sing songs to it.

“Um… hi Princess Mellivora”, said the Pangolin. From the other creature’s deep, sniffly, irritating voice, and un-naturally long claws he already knew who he was speaking to, but he had to look up at the big, brutish Honey Badger to confirm it. No one knew why he was called 'Princess Mellivora', but knew that the badger had chosen his name for himself. The animals of the Kalahari doubted that Princess Mellivora knew what the word 'Princess' meant, but no one dared to bring up the subject.

Princess Mellivora was a honey badger, and true to his reputation, he rarely stopped for anything. If he couldn’t eat it, or collect it, it generally wasn’t worth his time and he’d abandon it for something else. He always travelled with his minions- a pair of Pale Chanting Goshwaks named Min and Ion. They pursued any prey that Princess Mellivora missed, so that nothing ever got away. Princess Mellivora approached everything and feared nothing. He probably knew the Kalahari with its many trails and its inhabitants better than anyone else. He certainly knew how to get the lost Pangolin home. He was incredibly smart.

He didn’t allow fertogafers to see this side of him, but not only was he was pretty handy with a swiss army knife, but he understood the inner workings of a laptop computer and could start his own fires when he was cold. Being nomadic, he had few possessions, but those he had, he carried with him in a small yellow backback with the words ‘Build-a-Bear’ on it. He had stolen it from a juvenile fertogafer. It was always strapped to the back of one of his minion goshawks, causing it to fly most awkwardly, not unlike a spooked Black Korhaan. Princess Mellivora was the only animal in the Kalahari who had his own iPod- obviously raided from a fortogafer tent. Tent zippers were no mystery either. And when no one was looking, he’d sometimes creep into the reception area at Nossob and mess with the bookings on the computer, just for the fun of it. Double booked chalets made his day, as did cancelling the shop’s weekly pie orders.

The Honey Badger knew Manny and his family quite well. In exchange for information about secret Cape Fox den locations, he left the small pangolin family alone and promised not to eat them.

The Honey Badger didn’t admit it, but pangolin really was the one thing he just couldn’t bear to eat. Something about a pangolin’s long tongue just didn’t sit well in the badger’s tummy, or in his mind. This was most confounding considering he loved to eat truck tires, braai tongs and toilet paper. And he had a fondness for sticking bird feathers onto porcupine quills and dipping them into the mud puddles on the road. He called it ‘Princess Melliovra’s specialty feather fondue’. He wasn’t creative and he had very poor taste.

“Well, you’re a long way from home” noted the big, scary honey badger. “Yeah... lions… don’t ask” replied Manny.

The pangolin wasn’t particularly afraid of the honey badger, but he certainly felt uneasy in its presence. He couldn’t bear to think of Cape Foxes.

“Um… would you be able to point me in the right direction?” Manny asked nervously.

“Sure… but you’re going to have to do a little something in return”. Princess Mellivora signalled his minions. The goshawk with the little yellow backpack approached Manny, with a nasty but broken, and extremely tired glaze over its eyes. ‘Those poor birds aren’t even nocturnal…’ Manny thought to himself.

The goshawk shrugged off the little yellow backpack and dropped it in front of the Pangolin. “Open it” ordered Princess Mellivora.

A Life in Pancakes: Pancakes Today

So today marks ‘Day 11’ of Pancake Week, which was supposed to last for one week, and has now lasted 11 days. I decided to have a ‘Pancake Week’ in the first place, because I’m not comfortable with the idea of ‘Pancake Day’. It’s too much like ‘Valentine’s Day’. There shouldn’t be one day a year to eat pancakes, just like there shouldn’t be one day a year when boys are nice to you.

This brings me to the final post in my pancake series.

These days, i’m happy to try new kinds of pancakes. I can no longer eat lemon and sugar pancakes without cinnamon. I prefer the thin ones. Nutella on pancakes is love. Biltong on panakes is not.

Some of the pancakes I’ve had over the past 11 days, and how I rate them.

1. Strawberry and Nutella: Amazing. However, these particular strawberries tasted like amoxicillin.
2. Nutella: On it’s own, Nutella is still kudutastic.

3. Lemon and sugar: I couldn’t do it. My parents ate these ones.

4. Maple Syrup: So beautiful. I like to balance maple syrup pancakes with cinnamon sugar ones on a 1:4 ratio. Maple syrup is a special treat, but MUST be Canadian Maple syrup

5. Cinnamon Sugar and Lemon: The absolute best.

6. French Toast. I still remember the day I learned that normal people made French Toast with egg. Ew. I had always made it by soaking bread in pure pancake batter. This past week, my mom admitted that this is because she didn’t know how to make French Toast when I was little. Our pancake French toast is fabulous when buttered and coated in Maple Syrup.

I’m going to see how long I can keep up my pancake streak. I’ve become rather attached to it, and I’m not quite ready to give it up…

Meaningless and Maladroit Manis Memoirs Chapter 65: "Darn this highly evolved feeding apparatus"

“Um…so I think I’ll be going now”, announced the pangolin to his lion companions, as soon as it was sure that the sun was well and truly set. This can take a long time in the Kalahari, with the whole sky melting into an excruciating mixture of colours, before finally getting dark. Manny didn’t understand this at all and tonight it was particularly drawn out making it all the more inconvenient.

He slowly edged away from the cats, wondering whether he was supposed to thank them or not. He decided against it.

Snout to the ground, Manny began to walk in roughly the direction he had been rolled from.Every few steps, he’d slurp up an ant or two. He was over his earlier bout of motion sickness and was ready to eat again. In fact, he was hungrier than he’d ever been, and ants just weren’t hitting the spot. Then he saw it. It looked like an ant, but was considerably larger and looked rather crunchy. “Perfect!” he thought. Finding this Armoured Ground Cricket was a blessing. He wouldn’t need to eat again until Wednesday at the earliest. Why had no one else thought of this? Why was it always ‘termite… termite… ant… termite… termite… termite… ant…?’ The pangolin boldly walked up to its new prey item, apologized profusely to it, and opened its mouth to get a good grip. That’s when he learned why pangolins didn’t eat ground crickets. They just couldn’t. “Darn my highly evolved and specialized feeding apparatus” he murmured to himself and to the grateful armoured cricket.

The pangolin reached the edge of the riverbed. He looked down, but saw very little. He was blind enough without it being dark as well, but he could feel he was on the edge of a large slope. Then he got an idea.

He cautiously looked around him. As far as he could tell, no one was close. His excitement mounted. An ant crawled across his foot, but instead of eating it, Manny used his long claws to dig a shallow hole, into which he flicked the little ant. He quickly buried it in the hole. The pangolin didn’t want anyone to see what he was about to do. It would be terribly, terribly embarrassing.

Eying the bottom of the hill with glee, Manny tucked his feet and tail into his body and rolled himself into a little ball. There was a boring way to descend a sand dune, but there was also a fun way, and with a little push, the pangolin was soon rolling down the hill in a tight ball.

“Wheeee! Wheeeee! Wheeeee!” cried Manny as he rolled faster and faster. Now he really felt like a stocker ball. As he rolled, he thought he could hear some muffled giggling. It sounded familiar and it was getting louder. The pangolin has just enough time to think to itself, “Oh dear, this is not what I need tonight”…

This Week...

1. I decided I was finally going to back up my entire photo collection to Flickr, so they'll be kept safe and cozy, long after all of my hard drives die. Only after I had paid money for a subscription, did I realize the upload speed was so slow that it would take my computer running 24/7 for 4 months to upload all of my photos. And now i'm committed to it. Commitment sucks! This is why i'll never let myself get married. I blame Flickr. So my poor computer has been running for 4 days now, all day and all night. I feel horribly guilty. I keep wanting to offer it a refreshment or bake it some cookies to thank it for its tireless work.

2. On Monday, I planned on taking a long walk up to the hills and sit there (as I often do), and Dog tricked me into taking her with me, by spinning in circles at the door and being cute and wuffly. In a moment of weakness, I forgot that she doesn't like me and so I brought her along. I spent two hours sitting on the most glorious mountainside with her staring up at me with absolute contempt in her eyes.

3. Too many people I love are suffering this week, through various unfolding situations. Some people I love suffer because of terrible things they can't control. Some others suffer because their in situations where rational thinking has gone out the window. Having spent 25 years of my life thinking irrationally, it hurts my heart to see it in others. To be helpless is to suffer.

4. On the positive side, i've spent so much time this week reflecting on impermanence. Good things will never last, but neither will bad things. Everything passes, and that's really quite awesome. I'm facing up to a really, really icky reality this week which is probably in my 'top 10' of 'really unpleasant things that can happen to Mo'. But honestly, I wouldn't want it any other way. Love and grow.

5. On my 'fun run' last night, the moon was bright and the water in the bay was completely calm. It was absolute bliss. I sat on a rock and let a little spider crawl over my hand. So much love.

6. Yesterday I shamelessly allowed the girl at the Clinique counter to spend an hour or so giving me a complete makeover. I like to think that they enjoy doing this, so if it made her happy, I feel less guilty. In the end, my face just looked fuzzy and orange. It's lovely to know that I don't need to spend £150 on makeup to feel beautiful. I'm lovely and beautiful just the way I am.

7. It was Cricket @ Skukuza this past weekend! This means it's been a year since I was in Kruger. This confirms that i'm not imagining things- this has definitely been the shortest year of my life! Probably the very best, but definitely the shortest. I even squeezed into last year's cricket shirt to mark the occasion.

8. The cricket shirt was definitely tight, because as of today, i'm on Day 11 of Pancake Week! This means i've had pancakes for two meals each day for the last 11 days. At first I was ashamed of this, but now I realize that it just another thing that makes me awesome.

9. I caused a little stir on Facebook this week, by posting photos of my beautiful pet python, who i've had for 11 years. I didn't expect so much negativity! A few people I love and care about made some painfully disapproving comments, which were enough to make me remove the photos. But one friend I haven't heard from in 10 years, sent me a long message which concluded with the idea that I needed to be 'taken out and executed' because I kept a pet python. I wanted very much to reply that in 11 years, my morals and views on animals rights have changed and that I will never, ever keep a large python again, but that since Kitten was my responsibility now, I am committed to him and will give him the best life he can possibly lead. But I didn't want to do this, so I 'un-friended' her.

10. I don't like that I have words like 'un-friend' in my vocabulary now. I would love to leave Facebook. I don't like that i'm bound to it. In the past, it's made me quite the stalker and it hasn't been entirely healthy. I watch my mom waste countless hours each day with her 'Facebook friends'. She hasn't met a friend in person for years and years. It breaks my heart. I hope I can set an example by leaving and re-learning how to communicate using such things as letters and telephones. Honestly, what I really need is for all of my good friends to join the SANParks forum. Then I could leave Facebook behind for good! I can dream.

A Life in Pancakes: Pancakes in Africa

Pancakes in Africa were amazing. Like, really, really AMAZING. Africa is an absolute hotbed of pancake diversity. Anything and everything is considered suitable to roll into a pancake. Truly an eye-opening and life-changing experience..

1. I fist tried cinnamon sugar pancakes at a church function in 2008. I was very reluctant, but the smell itself convinced me that this was in fact, the way forward. It’s very simple to mix a little cinnamon into some sugar, so I can’t understand why the rest of the world hasn’t caught on to this yet.

2. My favourite place to eat cinnamon pancakes is in Pilanesburg National Park. The restaurant in the middle of the reserve allows to you eat two cinnamon pancakes with either cream or ice cream, surrounded by hornbills, monkeys, go-away birds, giraffes, warthogs, etc and all for just R12. And you get the wasps for free!

3. The above restaurant has the best pancake eating atmosphere imaginable, but terribly questionable service and quality. It takes a great deal wrong for me to send something back to the kitchen, but this place manages it regularly. Pancakes are often raw to the point of oozing batter or they don’t come with lemons. Explaining these things always involves taking a walk, because the table service is non-existent . But it’s still a winning situation. The longer you sit and wait, the longer you get to be there...

4. There’s a place at Hartebeespoort Dam called ‘Pick-a-Pancake’. It’s in the middle of a dusty, touristy market and they will put anything on a pancake. The place is love.

5. Pick-a-Pancake even makes a biltong pancake, which is only unfortunate insofar as I once had to watch a friend eat one. This pancake happens when one sprinkles raw, dried shavings of kudu and warthog onto a pancake. Not quite right, but if it brings someone joy…

6. On the flipside, the worst pancakes in Africa come from a chain of sickly ice cream shops called ‘Milky Lane’. Here, the pancakes are sugary and plasticy and the toppings are not right. On the plus side, Milky Lane for me holds lots of fantastic memories of small children doing very fun things with food- like wearing an ice cream cone, or mixing Smarties and chocolate ice cream and bits of waffle into a bright green glass of cream soda. LOVE.

7. My favourite pancake eating experience was probably Christmas 2008, when a friend had been sent some genuine American Blueberry Pancake mix from the USA. Our pancakes were topped with icing sugar. Happy happy happy...

8. I met and made a lifelong friend at Skukuza Camp in Kruger, when the two of us were trying to outbid each other on some maple syrup in a silent auction.

9. The best place I’ve ever cooked pancakes is definitely at a campsite at Addo Elephant Park.

Next up: Pancakes of Today...

A Life in Pancakes: St. Andrews University

So, continuing with my completely unnecessary and longwinded celebration of pancakes...

As I grew, I left Canada for England. My appetite diminished and I could no longer eat 21 pancakes in a sitting. Pancakes lost their significance. They didn’t bring me the joy they once did. Eventually, I ended up at St. Andrews University in Scotland, where I regrettably spent most of my time being a depressed hermit, but I did manage to re-ignite my relationship with the pancake.

1. It will first be said that pancakes are done differently in the United Kingdom. This is not a compliment. I must say that I don’t swear. I never, ever swear. I doesn’t sound nice and it doesn’t make anyone look clever. There are very few things merit one of those nasty little words. But in the UK, I quickly learned that not only do people eat pizza with knives and forks, but they’re also prone to putting something called ‘golden syrup’ on their pancakes instead of maple syrup. So here it is. Golden syrup: what the fuck.

2. It started with a pan. One day while browsing the shelves at Dundee’s TK Maxx store, I found the most divine hot pink frying pan. I loved it and it loved me. From that moment on, I decided I was going to bring pancakes back into my life, by making them for myself… for the very first time.

3. At University, I was part of the ‘Christian Union’ and the chapter based at our hall of residence became notorious for our ‘pancake parties’. For weeks beforehand, we would plaster ads all over hall (carefully omitting our affiliation to any religious organization), inviting anyone and everyone to come and have some yummy ‘FREE PANCAKES!’ Once we’d corralled masses of evil atheists into a tiny kitchen with little or no chance of escape, one of our leaders would suddenly get everyone’s attention, break out a bible and give their testimony. It was as painful and awkward as it sounds.

4. Food colouring. When added to pancake batter, you can produce a pancake of any colour. I was especially fond of the blue and green ones, which I called ‘moon pancakes’. To get a really strong colour, you had to add half a bottle of colouring. ‘A few drops’ is insufficient and silly. Despite claims to the negative, in large enough quantities, food colouring DOES affect the taste of things, and it will make you feel very sick.

5. While at St. Andrews, I regularly had ice skating lessons in Dundee. I’d often go to early morning practice at 5am on a Saturday. This would always be followed by two consecutive pancake breakfasts at the McDonalds in the parking lot. I felt I could justify it. If my best friend was with me, we’d have to decide whether we were going to ‘pleb McDonalds’ or ‘posh McDonalds’… or the ‘spa’.

6. That same best friend was one of my least favourite people to eat pancakes with. I’d watch as she would layer sugar or syrup over her pancakes. And I mean layer. She could easily smear £8 of precious, pure, Canadian Maple Syrup onto just one pancake. This irritated me to no end. But that was old Mo who got irritated. New Mo would smile and laugh about it and lovingly watch her best friend making herself one utterly fabulous pancake.

7. My pancake making days at university were often marred by a lasting debate about spatulas. That same best friend (again) insisted that pancakes were flipped with a ‘flipper’. I insisted that they were flipped by a ‘spatula’. She insisted that a ‘spatula’ was one of those rubbery stick things you used to get mixture from the sides of a bowl. Our insistence made us both hugely angry with each other. In addition to that, I was also hugely angry with the whole concept of her ‘spatula’. There should be no tool for scraping the inside of a bowl. Bowls should be scraped with spoons or tongues and the scrapings should be treasured and savoured. The ‘spatula’ debate was never settled and 8 years later, I’m still afraid to bring it up.

8. I lived at 123 North Street for 2 years with the most awesome people imaginable. Our house hosted many, many epic pancake parties

9. Pancakes at university was a much loved tradition, but in fourth year, the magic ended for me when one of my male flatmates used my precious, precious pink pan to fry something terrible and greasy and boyish. The pan was mangled beyond recognition and I refused to use it again. Luckily, I didn’t need to, because there was a pancake place on South Street called ‘The Eating Place’, which made the most awesome pancakes. It was here that I had my first brush with the ‘savoury pancake’.

Next: Africa introduces a new set of pancake ideas...

A Life in Pancakes: Pancakes of Childhood

To glorify Pancake Day on Tuesday, i've decided to relive my greatest pancake memories. To begin, I present my complex relationship with pancakes as a young, obnoxious child growing up in Canada.

1. I spent much of my childhood at Clarence Baptist Church. Every Easter, the noble men of the congregation would cook ‘bunny pancakes’. There was much competition over who made the most realistic bunny shapes. It was very holy.

2. I suffered terrible pancake-related cultural dissonance when as a child my preference continuously flopped back and forth between my mother’s paper-thin Bristish lemon and sugar pancakes and my very cool Grandma’s thick, fluffy, buttery American pancakes, dripping with syrup. I loved both. Publically, I sided with the American pancakes, but secretly, I just didn’t know and it caused me great distress. At 24, I learned that South African pancakes beat them both and this lifelong conflict was resolved.

3. As a young child, my parents knew I had a remarkable ability to eat pancakes. They’d always count how many I could eat in a sitting- 6, 9, 17, 23 etc… As a result, they treated me like a sideshow act. They’d take me into a pancake house (IHOP, Golden Griddle, etc…) and as we were being seated, I’d always announce to the waitress that I was “having pancakes please” and my parents would chip in, “just wait until you see how many pancakes this kid will eat!” They would proceed to order me plate after plate after plate of pancakes with no regard whatsoever for my health. And at Golden griddle, they’d always order me an extra tub of maple syrup too. When I was about to burst, they’d laugh and say, “Well, I think you’ve finally beaten her…!” to the waitress as she took my plate away. This happened every time and by the time I was 14, it just wasn’t funny anymore.

4. One of my very earliest memories involves me staying with a strange lady in Ottawa who was definitely not one of my parents. I haven't got a clue who this woman was or why I was staying with her, but I remember she got me up very early in the morning and took me to buy a Barbie doll, and then said we were going to McDonalds for breakfast. I remember being upset (but still thankful) at the prospect of a burger for breakfast, before she explained that McDonalds did pancakes. This changed my life. My parents had withheld this information from me.

6. When I was about five, I was playing in the basement with my younger cousin (pictured), when my mom called us up for pancakes. The smell of pancakes wafted down the stairs. As she climbed the stairs, the cousin jokingly declared, “I can smell it! I can smell it! I can puke in it!” My mom completely lost her mind. In all the years since, I have never seen her so completely enraged. This is also the source of the emetophobia I suffered for the next 20 years.

7. For a while, my dad had a lot of business in Florida. We spent a few separate holidays there, but always stayed at the Double Tree Guest Suites in Orlando. On each trip, every morning at 6 or so, I’d go down to restaurant alone and sit at the bar with a huge plate of pancakes watching Gilligan’s Island on the bar TV and talking to the nice Jamaican waitress. She even fixed my broken sandals once. Good times. The photo below is from one of those visits. Note the goofy hat, which served as my Halloween costume for the next 5 years, the troll doll keychain, the hockey shirt, the huge plastic glasses and the 'bum bag'. But note also that absolutely everyone in the background is also wearing a 'bum bag'. That makes it okay.

8. We’d have pancake dinners at home often enough, but it’s the pancake breakfasts that were a real treat. For some reason (lazylazymother) we never had pancake breakfasts at home. I absolutely despised friends who saw pancakes as a breakfast food. I openly scoffed in their faces. I only ever had pancake breakfasts when we were travelling, so I’ve come to associate them with holidays and highway service stations and hotel restaurants and my all time love, the continental breakfast. Finding a hotel which featured pancakes in its continental breakfast was like winning the lottery. Below: Las Vegas was a goldmine for pancake breakfasts.

9. I had one of those little plastic tupperware cooking sets when I was young. My mother saw this as a chance to get me making my own pancakes. This was never as enjoyable as it could have been, because she was extremely irrational when it came to the stirring process. She believed that all pancakes were doomed to FAIL unless you cautiously dug a tiny hole in the flour in the bottom of the bowl. To this hole, you would have to add the milk drop by drop and stir a few grains of flour into the drops of milk before repeating the process again, and again, and again, and again, and again until the mixture finally became 'pancake batter'. There is no better way to suck the fun out of pancakes.

Up next: The move to England... pancakes and university...

This Could Really Be A Good Good Life...

Happy Happy Happy.

So today was a non-windy day! This never happens and the best way to celebrate it was to go and sit on a cliff, because you can’t do this when it’s windy, because you will be blown into the Irish Sea and get very hurt and wet.

So I went for a good long walk across many fields of sheep in search of the perfect cliff to sit on. I was hoping to see some sheep wearing knitted jumpers or discarded hiking shoes but didn’t see any.

But I did find the most perfect cliff. I kicked off my lovely aubergine Hunter wellies and sat there for the whole afternoon, singing, thinking, listening to seals, smiling, laughing, birdwatching, sending love across the sea and into the world and taking goofy self portraits.

I never let myself listen to music at times like these, but today I had my iPod with me and snuck in a quick listen of ‘Good Life’ by OneRepublic. It was perfect in the moment. Watching Gannets fly by.

“When you’re happy like a fool, let it take you over. When everything is out, you gotta take it in.”

I went back to the parking lot to watch the sun set. The seagulls hadn’t eaten the bag of Marks and Spencer beetroot crisps that I’d left open on my front seat, which was something else to be thankful for, given it was one of those days when you can’t help but leave all of the windows and sunroof open.

How fortunate I am to have days like this! It won't last forever. Live in each moment. Love.