Phones can be useful, I suppose

This morning started with a spate of phone calls. now, if you know me well, you'll know how much I hate telephones. I'm ridiculously awkward on the phone. Just ask Louisa. I called her last night and in our five minute chat managed to swing wildly between tongue-tied silence and embarrassing babbling half a million times or so. I have a bad case of phone phobia and probably always will.

This morning's first call was a cupcake order. Apparently I bake and sell cupcakes now. This was a friend who was at Roo's birthday party and liked the cupcakes I made. She's ordering a batch for her engagement (it's a big family event as a Muslim) to give to her fiance. So this weekend I'll be baking "boy" cupcakes.

The second call (and two more after that) was from one of the members of our neighbourhood committee that's fighting this development. Seeing it's now such a massive part of my life, I might as well explain what I've been on about. Makro wants to open a 20 000 square metre shop on the border of the development where I live. For those of you who don't know, Makro is a sort of warehouse store where you can buy in bulk, everything from booze to toilet paper or catering equipment. This will wreck our whole suburb if it comes about. All other Makros are built in commercial or industrial zones and I think it's outrageous that the company thinks it's ok to put their huge eyesore of a warehouse next to our homes. So the calls coming through this morning were about some of the campaigns we've embarked on to publicise the issue. More on that another time.

The third call was from my "big boss" at the first job I ever worked, let's call her Tannie. I was the junior copy writer for a small ad agency in Cape Town and she was the sort of top director person. I adored her (while I was totally terrified of the woman I reported to, who was between me and Tannie), but didn't get to know her very well as I was only there for four months before TSC and I relocated to Johannesburg.

She called this morning to say I should expect another call - she's been asked for a recommendation on a writer and she's given the person my details. I was so touched! I mean, I haven't seen her in a good few years and I only worked for her company for those four months, so it was incredible that she thought of me. She says she told this other person, "You can't go wrong with Tamara."

Wow. Such a confidence boost. I've since chatted to this other person and her project sounds very interesting, so we'll see where that ends up.

It gives me hope that there are people out there who are willing to give you a leg-up even when it benefits them nothing. Aside from the fact that the day has been spent on the phone, it's been pretty good so far.