A game of bowls on the Moon, anyone?

So much to tell, but y’all have the attention span of gnats, so I’ll be brief: Friday night – drinks at the Westcliff hotel, an apt location to wish my best friend adieu as he departed for the colder climes of the northern hemisphere. Saturday, a wonderful historic walk through the suburb – and homes – of Westcliff. We walked through the garden of the former home of the famously wealthy Rupert family, and got to see the house of some odd architect husband-and-wife team that design game lodges around the world. Quirky, impractical, yet distinctive. I was pretty envious of the place, until we entered the main bedroom. Perched on a 2m high pyramid-type thing, was the conjugal bed, and nestled within the pyramid (at ground floor) was… the bed of their oldest child, with the youngest child’s cot “adjacent” (again, at the foot of the towering bed monolith) the parents’ bed. So, I asked the question that was on everyone’s minds – including yours – what about the sex?! Are these people so kinky they couldn’t stand the tedium of mere mortal bed-ridden sex and so do it everywhere except the bedroom, or so frigid they just don’t do it? Or so sick they go at it hammer and tongs while the little kiddies block their ears and shut their eyes against the horrors of Mom being slashed by Daddy’s 19cm knife? Food for thought…

But anyway, I digress. On Saturday night, embellished as a blue martini (for a “dress as your favourite cocktail” theme), I partied the night – and morning - away at Taboo, that pretentious, yet strangely enjoyable overpriced venue in Rivonia. I spent the whole night conversing with a fascinating white Russian, and watched as my friend Jamesons surreptitiously tried to pull the moves on the birthday girl (I forget her outfit)… Soon, I will write about the boobs (not hers, but everyone’s). Boobs, boobies, titties everywhere, so undisguisedly on show for all men to ogle at, and for all women not to help but stare too. I made off with a glow-in-the-dark cube Veuve Cliquot light, a bottle of Absolut and the Nigerian bouncer’s tacky Halloween coat, so I probably recovered my outrageous entrance fee. Score!

On Sunday, I played in an Italian bowls tournament, with reputedly the 6th best team in the world, and I actually wasn’t half bad. Now, please stop smirking, and rejoice in my newfound passion – throwing balls down an alley, trying to get as close to (but never touching!) a smaller ball (the kitty, in a connoisseur’s parlance), all the while impressing old Italian men with my keen eye and aim! It’s a pity they don’t endorse the trademark all-white outfit of English bowls, I do so enjoy a well-outfitted sport.

And in the midst of the weekend madness, I put in 12 hours of work! I tell you, if I don’t get a fat raise come performance review time, I’ll be fuming… and poorer than if I did get the raise.

So, that’s all for today – hold thumbs for me, I’m praying I won the eBucks prize to fly to space. Winners to be announced soon, I’ve certainly made all the effort I can to win by harassing every FNB/eBucks employee I came across, and put in a few internet banking transactions to qualify the technical way too.

The pointless update (no doubt many more to follow)

Ladies and gentlemen, I do not yet have the certificate to prove it, but I think it’s safe to say that I have qualified in the Introduction to SA Wines course offered by that venerable institution, the Cape Wine Academy. I can wax lyrical about nose, body, balance, finish, viticulture, viniculture, but am a little wobbly on identifying it all during a tasting! But then, there’s Certificate, Diploma and Winemasters courses to assist in that department.

After the exam last night (which had some ridiculous stupid questions aimed at marketing the institution and had no relevance to the topic – or am I just saying that because I’m bitter that I didn’t bother learning that section and hence didn’t have a sodding clue as to the answer), we all went out for dinner at a fancy little-known restaurant nestled deep in tree-lined innards of Rivonia, where we each brought a bottle of wine to share and enjoy with our meal. I ended up sitting next to the two people who know most about wine in our course (one, a know-it-all wine importer/distributor, the other, an unlikely-looking Melville waiter with an army-cut hairdo, a very heavy Afrikaans accent, and a scooter). Both brought better wines than I had (so there goes my plan to impress – I just knew I should have whipped out my Saxenburg Reserve Shiraz), and the waiter brought two! I’m relieved I got the nod of approval - my wine was unusual and I asked for my sirloin to be walking off the plate, otherwise they’d not have given me a second glance (or more importantly, a second glass).

Now, we all know that letting a bottle go to waste is a shameful thing – after all, think of all the people in Somalia who have nothing, when here we are wasting the precious fruits of a vineyard – but if it is a premium wine, then no redemption can ever be granted. So, four bottles between the three of us, some wine name-dropping later, and we were plastered. In fact, my head was still spinning this morning at work, and I can only be grateful that I bowed out of the invitation to drop in at some larny place for a few single malts (very uncharacteristic of me, I like being there till the very end).

So, you’re waiting for the point of this story. Well, I’m afraid there is none. Just thought I had to tell you I’m through the first wine course. And I’ll be doing the second early next year. And my new pot plant Ezekiel is just loving his desk space in Pretoria. And my new hair do makes me look like a blonde Sinead O’Connor. And today I was decked out all in white, right down to the accessories, bra and g-string. And I think I’ll stop right there.

Colombian Christmas

It’s taken a while to get back into the mood of wanting to say anything up here again, in fact, I’m probably still not quite there yet. Life is one big confusing turmoil right now, and I’m not really sure why. I get pissed off with The Gilb over very little things, mostly when he’s right and I’m wrong; I’ve been out every single night for the past two weeks and letting admin things pile up around me which is creating much stress and not helping my general mood; things don’t look like they’re going to let up anytime soon (which is a good thing, because despite complaining about my frenetic life right now, I’d rather not sit at home and think about it). As Peas so keenly observed, 25 is the most dangerous, volatile stage of life. You’re fighting against the settling-down trend and trying to get in a few last moments of carefree happiness. Let’s all hope it doesn’t end in hospitals or six feet under, eh?

Some good things to report:

1) I write my wine exam this evening, then have a dinner with the class – we each get to bring a bottle and show off our wine buying prowess (wait till they see what I have in store for them!)
2) had a splendid braai at my house on Saturday in celebration of the boyf’s birthday. I drank 2 bottles of vino to myself (very unnecessary, but I hate seeing open bottles that haven’t been finished), decided I’d out-braai the boertjies by doing larny fish instead of the de riguer wors en tjops, and most likely due to the combination of the above, landed up feeling very ill. I do remember running around with the salad and insisting all the Afrikaans boys had some, because we know they don’t eat nearly enough greens, and they’re my little boys. The Gilb tucked me in at 9pm, and I awoke feeling a lot less than human on Sunday. The sweet boy that he is, he tidied up everything before climbing in to bed with his shambolic (is that a word?) girlfriend, and related to me yesterday that while tidying up he found a little packet of coke amongst the cigarette butts. “I’m going to keep it for a rainy day,” he explained. Bring it on, I say. I could do with some invincible god-like feelings right now.
3) My wise oracle, Greg, is here. From Canadia, briefly. Hopefully somewhere between his trip to the Pilanesberg and the Cape, I can sit him down and pick his brain for answers to questions I haven’t yet formulated. Aaaaaand, he dedicated his thesis to the us of the good old days – the kleptic trinity, the intrepid explorers, the Three Blind Mice. Smiles and warm fuzzy feelings all round.