Little things

Wine

I passed my exams! Got a B for theory, and a B for the tasting! I’m debating the merit of starting the next course (Diploma) in August – this runs in four modules of courses, with a tasting exam only at the end (after a year), so it’s a huge investment of time (and needless to say, money) – the former not something I may have in sufficient supply if my recent workload is anything to judge by (though happily this ensures the latter doesn’t have sufficient time to be spent too frivolously).

Also, I bought and drank my first bottle of Chilean wine, which has further reinforced my conviction to buy a wine farm there and turn its very average wines into a heavenly ambrosia. Since the exam, I’ve been invited to wine tastings left, right and centre (and of course, have even organised one), so wine is clearly not going to exit my life in the immediate future, regardless of whether I do this course now or not.


Taste buds

On a brief grocery shopping spree to Killarney on Friday afternoon, the daunting aisle of sweets at the cashier queue at Woolies wore me down, and a bag of sour worms inevitably made its way into my basket. But this was no ordinary bag of sour worms – no, this one, “specially packed for Woolworths”, has fumaric acid as a key ingredient. And no, I’m not entirely certain what fumaric acid is, and yes, that shouldn’t freak me out as we all know that Coke has phosphoric acid in it, milk has lactic acid, rancid butter has butyric acid etc etc, but my taste buds were telling me this was a whole different pH level, seeing as I could taste blood in my mouth after I had consumed a smallish number of the worms. On Sunday afternoon my tongue was still tender, the little frazzled papillae still shrinking away from spices and alcohol. And I haven’t yet finished the bag of sweets…


Snobby flatmate

We all know she loves her high heels, swish parties with absurdly wealthy people, and some of the elite northern suburbs of Joburg, but my dear Peas cannot put one and one together to conclude that she is in fact a huge snob, preferring to be acknowledged as a great appreciator of colonial tastes (“I’m from the Midlands – it’s the last bastion of colonialism in South Africa”, she explains). We had a (friendly) shouting match about this the other night, where I bandied about the possibilities that the (as yet undiscovered) love of her life might hail from bizarre Boksburg, mundane Milnerton, or even scary Secunda (if she’d ever allow me to drag her there for a weekend). Peas very nearly fainted at the suggestion. Stereotypes may exist for a reason, but not everyone in Fourways or Lonehill or Randburg is bad – after all, the last few years before I moved in with Peas were spent living in my parents’ house in nouveau riche Bryanston, and I’m not all that bad, am I? And neither is my Afrikaans Linden-bred boyfriend, surely? Darling Peas, wake up and smell the frappuccino! It’s one of the many reasons I love you, after all – and perhaps you can’t be blamed, hailing from one of South Africa’s most prestigious schools, while I had a (slightly) broader view at Hahd Pahrk Hahr.

In Peas’ defence, she does frequent the Colony Arms (colonial fortress, perhaps?) and drink cane and cream soda with the ordinary folk on a regular basis.


Desperately horny flatmate

Momentarily disregarding my previous comments, Peas may just lower her standards briefly for a shag. I arrived home on Friday to hear her despairing wails from the bathtub about her hymen growing back. “My angel wings are flapping about aimlessly in the night sky, desperately seeking a wiener to enter betwixt the chapel gates.” We then discussed in great detail the size of said chapel gates, and came to the dubious conclusion that due to the drought in her sexual activity (spanning all of two months) her chapel gates are in fact quite small. So, if any Peas hopeful prospects are reading this post and have just written off their chances with her based on the locations of their dwellings, now the small window of opportunity is open and they should give it a shot.


Carpet burn… on concrete

My right kneecap is covered with a gigantic scab, courtesy of an embarrassing fall on the road right in front of Hahd Pahrk Hahr during one of my now regular early morning jogs with Third Roommate. Thank God the kiddiwinkles are too young to recognise me as a former scholar. Ironically, I inflicted an almost identical injury on myself on almost the identical spot of road in Matric when I was running to the robot one morning to perform my “robot duty.” Good times.


Poll

Another one of my many arguments with Third Roommate has resulted in the need for me to conduct a mini poll amongst my small blog following: is, or is not, Meatloaf’s I Would Do Anything for Love a seminal work? [The Collins Pocket English Dictionary ed. 1991 – adj. highly original and influential] (And yes, dear Third Roommate the very word spawns from the same root as that for ‘semen’, meaning seed). My gut instinct says no. (The mental image I have of the man performing the song live while doing some bizarre hop/skip/headbang move suggests that his dance moves might be, however).