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Reasons to love Cape Town

Like most people who were part of the great reverse-trek (born in Joburg and moved to Cape Town), I have long since shed my ‘vaalie’ exoskeleton and quickly adopted the Capetonian cloth. I easily converse with other ex-vaalies about how ‘when we were there it was much better. Safer, really. But it’s changed now. Joburg is just so different’ and quickly change topics to how much better it is to live in the Cape.

After the torrential downpour of the last two days, the winter Cape Town emerged clean and shiny from the cloudy cocoon and presented us with one of these perfect winter days. It just reminded me HOW lucky I am that the folks decided to venture off in search of a better life.

#1: Table Mountain

Ja ja, so I’m clichéd. I admit it. But there is some kinda crazy magic about that mountain that just makes it so unique. It’s no surprise the view from Blouberg beach has been voted third best in the world. (Incidentally, I live in Blouberg so I love having something like that to boast about).

But it’s not only the view of the mountain that counts. Almost every capetonian likes to use the mountain as a reference guide for directions. “You need to like, turn right, but just like, make sure that the mountain stays like north-east of you. No wait, like, make sure it’s on your right hand side and you can’t go wrong.” And it works, too.

Climbing up the mountain (and trust me, it’s do-able. There are routes spanning from man-I-want-to-feel-the-burn to more of a stroll through the hills. I’ve even pushed a pram up) and then rewarding yourself with a wine picnic is definitely way better manner to spend a Sunday that a trip to Leeukop prison.

Bru, its laaaaank cool.

#2: Kirstenbosch

No walk up Table Mountain is complete without finishing it off with a picnic in the botanical gardens. Kirstenbosch summer concerts are the single best way to spend a lazy sunday afternoon. The biggest names come and play and you can enjoy anything from the Philharmonic to the Parlotones (if you’re into that sort of thing) with your choice of Sauvignon Blanc (I recommend Uva Mira) and a selection of cheese and figs. The dramatic backdrop of the sun creeping away behind the back face of the mountain, the hot sweet heady smell of proteas and the general happy vibe of the people contribute so much more to any concert. Warning: get there early because everyone else feels the same way I do! Also, just expect everyone to be a little pretentious. We’re capetonians. It’s what we like to pretend we are.

#3: Wine
Ok sure, you can get wine anywhere, so on it’s own it isn’t really a unique characteristic. But we have the wine farms too. The most amazing part of the wine industry around here is how unbelievably diverse the various areas are. It really depends on what your mood is. If you enjoy lazy, slow wine tastings without too much hustle and bustle, talking to the farmer and taking things easy, then the Robertson valley is where you want to go (take an Afrikaans friend along though!). If you want tourists by the dozen and students intermingled, plus a healthy dose of families, babies and just about everyone, then Stellenbosch is more your area (I may have made it sound horrible, but actually its amazing). If you want a short route with loads of farms, after which you can go and tan on the beach, Durbanville is where you are headed. And if you want to experience the snooty English pretension of Cape Town (well worth a visit), the Constantia valley is where you should go.

Because I’m a Stellenbosch girl, I am biased towards the area. I am also stuck on the wines of the Hidden Valley, Rust en Vrede and Uva Mira. If you haven’t been, then you haven’t seen wine farms.

# 4: Wine Festivals

As if the above couldn’t get any better (wine on my doorstep), the farms now come together and have festivals where you can see, taste and experience all the wines. It’s actually hard to keep track of how many there are! The favourites still remain the Stellenbsch Wine Festival which is something around 100 farms, 2 tents and all the wine you could possibly taste! (Not to be taken lightly and you should ensure that there is someone to carry/drive you home). Next is the Bien Donne Cheese Festival in Franschoek, which has a similar idea to the previous festival, but adds in a million different cheese tents and olive tents. And lastly, the Wacky Wine Fest in Robertson, which is a weekend away with a wine passport in one of the oldest wine areas in the Cape. Mountains everywhere, camp sites full to the brim, people from all over the country come and spend the weekend just wallowing in the wine of it all.

# 5: Friendly people


The old idea of the stuck-up capetonian has fallen largely to the wayside. While there may still be some stalwarts in the Republic of Hout Bay, and Constantia mums who never leave Cavendish, in general people around Cape Town are pretty friendly. There is a lack of that suspicious mistrust that seems to permeate Joburg air and so people are more inclined towards each other. Wander through Long Street on a Friday night and you’ll se what I mean!

# 6: Nothing is far away

I mean it. Nothing is far away. In Joburg, everyone drives everywhere and nothing is really close. I used to drive 45 minutes to school every day. When you move to Cape Town, you quickly start changing your tune. Claremont (10km from Cape Town) starts looking ‘too far’ to drive just to go party. If you drive more than 30km to work, you live in the wrong place. Living in Stellenbosch has made it even worse since all my friends/work/study/play/party place/shopping etc is within a 4km radius. If I have to drive much more than that, I make sure I can stay over.

# 7: It just never really gets that cold

What? It doesn’t. Winter temperatures of 12 and 16 are not shocking. Even when it goes down to 7 degrees, it’s not like its freezing or anything. Temperate and Mediterranean, I’m quite happy with that.

# 8: 8 ‘o clock summer sunsets

I remember the car trip when we moved to Cape Town. We left Joburg at some ungodly hour in the morning and went through stop-go-traffic due to road works in the Karoo. 4 hungry tired children, sick of eggy-mayo sarmies and warm golden delicious apples are not the most fun passengers in any car. But as we drove over Hospital Bend for the first time and saw the sun twinkling over the harbour (at 19h45!) a hush descended over everyone in the car. There have been countless days since then of running up Lion’s Head at half past seven, watching my brothers kite board until just before 8 and having sundowners in camps bay and not leaving until it gets dark at 9pm. Us capetonians get extra hours in our day so that even if we work shitty office jobs in the city, we can walk along Sea Point’s board walk, or have drinks at the Radisson after, and somehow it just takes the edge off it all.

# 9: Cape Coloureds is mos kief, my bra!

It has to be said. I used to take an Atlantis bus home from work (! I know). My Afrikaans was never really good, but boy did I learn some interesting phrases from those trips home! (Not expressions I could ever repeat in polite company, of course, but there have been a few situations in my life where I’ve used the cursing in my head). Coloureds in Cape Town speak their own special blend of Afrikaans, English and slang. They are the heart and soul of the cape and their unique language shapes so many of the cape expressions. To be fair, no real cape street scene would be complete without the shrill cries of one bergie swearing at another informing him “jou ma se soup tastes nice”; or two brasse greeting each other with “aweh, my laanie!” and the inevitable skimp “gee vir my ‘n entjie”!

(For more of these colourful terms, check out http://kakduidelik.co.za/2008/10/22/cape-town-slang/)

# 10: There is always something to do

And I mean ALWAYS. Even when you’re broke and sad and desperately waiting for this month’s pay check, there is still entertainment. It’s still safe enough around here to go walking in the mountains. There are beautiful botanical gardens (the ones in Stellenbosch are still free) to wander through and chill on a blanket and read a book. Cape Town central is a tightly-packed activity ground. If you have just a little bit of cash, then you can wander through art galleries, the Planetarium, museums and the Turkish baths of Long Street. With a little more in the pocket, there are lunches on wine farms, vertical tastings, beer tasting in Hermanus, apple picking in Elgin, cherry picking in Ceres. As winter settles in, there are roaring fires and amazing food (always complimented with the finest wine SA can offer). There are conventions and festivals and trance parties and rocks fests and cycle races and road races and tourists and *out of breath exhausted sigh*. The best part about Cape Town is that you will never get bored. Never.

Victoria Street

I walked the most amazing road this morning. As I sauntered down Victoria Street, I realised once again how happy and lucky I am to live in this town.


The trees have turned a gorgeous myriad of colours, everything from bright yellow to burgundy red. Everywhere you look, leaves twinkle from a wintery sun in a faint morning mist, heavy with the rains from last night. The shape of the Oak tree leaves looks just like a star, and they are all flattened against the floor. The fallen leaves turn the ugly cement and tar of the parking lot into a vibrant carpet covered in stars, like a painting of some celestial body.

Winter walking

Tree watching

Fire, somewhere in the distance.

Ok, I'll stop being a sentimental old fart now.

But if you haven't taken a walk down a leafy lane in a while, perhaps it's time to do so. It just brings that little boost back into your step.

In other news:

WE WON QUIZ! Suck it, b - b - b- b- bird is the word! R1500 bar tab and a spitbraai are ours! We nudged past them last night to win by just half a point. Naturally, we stayed to celebrate so I'm feeling a little fragile at the moment. But hell, it's WORTH IT!

The boy is taking me on a surprise birthday date tonight. I have no idea what it is (obviously, hence the word 'surprise'), and the clues just make it sound seriously dodgy. Apparently it's something I've done, but in a different way and a different combination. The boy hasn't done it before. And it's not very expensive. If you have any ideas, let me know. I'm still hoping for the best though! (plus, I got a present of an awesome lumo purple top to wear so actually I'm  more excited about that!)

Purple vest (but long sleeve)

Tomorrow is Super 14 finals! Can you feel the excitement? Go stormers!!! I'm more excited about Pierre Spies, Victor Matfield and Morne Steyn all together on the field. Man candy is still the motivating reason behind my interest in rugby. Plus, we get to drink beer in a cosy bar. What more does a girl want?

Afterwards we're celebrating the sad departure of a good friend who's going to entertain his erotic asian fantasies (read: teach English in Korea). You will be missed, Old Man Time.

Girl stuff

The girls came over for wine last night, and as usual the boy asked before “What are you going to talk about?” Firstly, does he think I plan the topics of conversation and then we pick little tags out of a hat to decide? But secondly, I have noticed that boys are always intensely curious to know what girls talk about to each other. As if when we are alone we morph into different people and have strange conversations about crazy things.

I asked a male colleague this morning what he thought and he gave me that shuffled-feet, shifty-eye look and mumbled something about “girl stuff”. What, pray tell, is the exact definition of ‘girl stuff’? From what I am led to understand from asking some of the boys I know it seems to span over a wide scope of everything from cookie recipes to giving birth.

(Now don’t get me wrong, I am only too happy that boys shy away from the topic of conversation and are easy to dismiss anything provided it lies under the veil of ‘girl stuff’. Need to leave work early and don’t feel like explaining why? Tell your male boss you need to go for ‘lady problems’. Unless you have an enquiring gay boss like I did, it’s foolproof. Need to go shopping for no apparent reason? Tell your boyfriend that you need to pick up ‘girl products’ and you have as many hours of guilt-free shopping as you need. No man REALLY wants to enquire what you mean, just in case he becomes privy to a graphic image in his mind he may never be able to wipe clean. Something his MOTHER may have.)

On the other hand, it’s a little insulting that we have this apparent whole section of our lives to which only other girls have access. Because, honestly, periods aren’t actually that scary or that bad. Yes, they are annoying. Yes, we wish we didn’t have them. But we do not turn into contagious lepers and if you touch us while we have it you will not have to rush out of the room tearing at your clothes yelling “unclean, unclean!”

Bladder infections? Yes, they’re gross and no, we can’t help it. Girls get them, guys don’t usually. Be happy about that. Men are, however, more prone to kidney stones. Men’s nether regions are constructed in a far simpler manner and work on a user-friendly interface. In contrast, women have a delicate ecosystem in which homeostasis must be maintained. If that balance is upset or interfered with, there are consequences. It’s an awful topic, but trust me, we don’t want to talk about it any more than you do. (Except maybe this girl)

So seriously, when I invite my girlfriends over to drink some wine and chat, we do NOT spend the entire time chatting about Aunt Irma and her imminent visit. We don’t sit around swapping recipes. We don’t debate the advantages and disadvantages of top loader v front loader. We don’t boil a cauldron and hold séances. We don’t get down to our underwear and pillow fight. (These are all REAL suggestions boys have proffered for a girls night in)


To dispel the myth, we are in fact the same people we are when we are with you.

Sorry, guys.

Looking for work

In the legal profession, work does not typically just fall onto one’s plate (unless of course you are a tort lawyer and someone chokes on a piece of glass in their salad and during the heimlich manouevre, that piece of glass lands on your plate. This doesn't happen very often). Quite the contrary, one has to embark on a long and arduous task of sending out a 1000 CV’s, only to receive in response a letter which does not bear good news. Not good news AT ALL! (on a totally unrelated point - what is the correct construction of "no news is good news"? Is it "no, news is good news!" or "know news is good news" or....)

To date, I have received 15 ‘Dear John’ letters from prospective employer’s that I begged to work for. They all follow the same format too:

Without Prejudice (with malice aforethought)

 

“Dear *insert candidate name here as this is clearly a format mail-merge letter*,

Thank you for your application, (kindly stop sending us your crappy CV).

Unfortunately we cannot offer you a position at this time (we didn’t like your stupid CV and see no reason why we should hire anyone like you. There are toilets in china who could do a better job than you. Not even a mother could love you). We wish you all the best in your future endeavours (just make sure it’s nowhere near our plush offices. If we catch you hanging around these parts, we shall dispense wild west justice and scalp your loser ass).

Kind regards (f*ck off respectfully)

Evil Law Firm

And it’s such a humiliating task. I find myself shamelessly exploiting my positive characteristics to them, blowing my own trumpet so hard the walls of Jericho would crumble down in front of this covering letter. Then I try to tailor-make my personality to fit their corporate profile. It’s all so demeaning. I’m not sure it’s much better than in the medieval times when you were looking for work as an apprentice and they checked you had all your teeth.

Because really, what is the perfect candidate but a well-bred filly? We are weighed, measured and (in my case) found wanting. For the astute of you, yes I did recently re-watch A Knight’s Tale. Good movie. Great movie. Moment of silence for the fallen beauty Heath.

The reason for this rant is it is once again the time of year to send out CV’s to law firms to beg them to hire me. I don’t know why I bother, since I’m not sure my fragile ego could handle another rejection letter, but I need work! Of course, I’m only looking for 2012, but end of May this year is the cut-off date (!).

Much more fun, and to appease the sinking sense of depression, is applying for casual wine-tasting jobs and a position as a winemag blogger. Those are my kind of applications! Far more stimulating than the traditional "Dear Sirs, I trust you find the above to be in order" legal bullsh*t. You get to be informal "Yo dog, How hangs it with ma' homey" and such other non-legal greetings (or so I am led to believe). You can lie (a lot). I learned the other day that in other professions, other people aren't competely honest about their qualifications (the horror!). You can even exaggerate the truth. (See my post 'College Admission Letter" for how I would like to apply for a job!)

In any case, wish me luck and pray that I don't get another "Dear Jill" letter. Too many law firms have already broken this heart...

Morning boys

Judgement

Updates

• I never thought that I was a Lost fan, until the boy started making me watch Season 6 with him. Don’t get me wrong, I have always been a devout Matthew Fox fan because, let’s face it, who isn’t? However, we are now episodes away from the end and the solution of the series, and I realise I’m into it. I now have to work back through the annals of time to figure out what exactly is going on. Very frustrating. If you’ve never watched it though, start at season 1 and I promise you’ll be hooked. That said, it’s just about time to find out WHAT THE ISLAND IS (!!!) If I hadn’t started watching backwards, I would never have had the patience to keep following.

• Writing has begun on my thesis. Not complex, nuanced and intelligent writing, but pages filled with words nevertheless. The problem is that I keep being distracted by just about everything. Plus I am now writing a fantasy series so my thought wander in that direction most of the time. You may also note how I said ‘writing has begun’. Well actually, I have begun writing, but I’m so used to writing in the academic 3rd person that apparently I am no longer able to perform any tasks around my thesis, rather my chapters, headings and arguments do all the work. As long as they don’t get all the credit, and on graduation day MY name is called, and not Chapter 6 and Hypothesis 4.



• I have been on a three month experiment to try and lose weight/live healthy/look good naked and the end of May signifies measurement time. I am thus dreading the day because it turns out that if you want an experiment to succeed, you actually have to put the time and effort in and ensure stable conditions. *Sigh* I mean I did the running and the gym and stuff, but the eating plan is just not working for me. Plus every time I open a book or pamphlet about losing weight, the first thing they tell you to do is give up alcohol, dairy and refined foods. Duh. I know that. I am looking for an ALTERNATIVE to that! Apparently there really is only one way.

• In relation to the above point, I am also trying to cut down on alcohol containing carbs. I went for a burger the other night and instead of a foaming pint or a glass of red wine, I had vodka and water. The boy said he had never seen someone so sad in his life. The point is that if I had to choose between red wine and well, just about anything, everything else would have to make a REALLY convincing case before it would even vaguely please the court.



• My scrabble score is on a steady decline. I was seriously impressed with an 84 for ‘FOOTBATH’, which should just show you how unimpressive the vocabulary of the rest of the game is.



• I officially hate photocopying. Especially at work, where I have to stand in a scary, dingy room without sun or warmth and the photocopier works as fast as a pregnant woman in a field (no offence to pregnant women – but you are not the field’s fastest workers).
But check this woman!

• I had a terrifying nightmare last night about a colleague. He’s the tall, dark one who should-be-hot-but-isn’t (this is an oft-occurring phenomenon whereby people give the illusion that they should be attractive, but when you get down to it all, they really aren’t. Patrick Dempsey is my celebrity example). Anyway, he tried to hack me to death at Aandklas every time I went to quiz. I hope this isn’t some kind of a sign, since it’s quiz tonight and we really need to win (and I need to not die).



Wish me luck (with the thesis, scrabble, dingy photocopy room, quiz and surviving the homicidal attack!)

Life

Life can be a thankless task at times, especially when you're a girl. Yes, I am ranting a little bit here. We're expected to be protective and sweet and soft, and tough and diverse and interesting and innocent and experienced and all the rest. And no one ever says thanks!

Obviously I am now generalising and playing a game of "Oh....me!"

Mainly I'm annoyed because I made a whole tray of savoury doughnuts (yes - MADE) and no one even said thank you. In case you didn't see that, yes, I MADE them! Ok, well they weren't really doughnuts. More like savoury waffles with some cheese on them. But they took EFFORT dammit. And time.

Bastards.
"I made 100 canapes and no-one liked my shoooooeeeees!"
Dylan Moran

But then, just occasionally someone comes along and makes your day by letting you know that they think you are worthwhile. Today, that person is Tammy, on http://midlandsmadness.blogspot.com/. She let me know that she thinks my blog is worth a little non-pecuniary award, and that there are people out there reading it. Thanks, tammy!

There are a few rules to be followed when accepting the award:


First, thank the blog that sent it our way (even if that wasn't a rule, it's just common courtesy, people).

Next, share seven things about yourself:


1) I own a shower cap.

2) I have never time travelled.

3) Certain people think I am a prophet. They are wrong.

4) If you count my basketball achievements, you can count them all on the fingers of one toe.

5) Fat people scare me. Asians sometimes too.

6) I know a lot more about computers than you think.

7) I cannot spell the word 'Hemorrhage' out of my head.


And last but by no means least, pass the award on to five blogs you've recently discovered and found deserving of this award. In no particular order:


1) Hyperbole and a half

2) Plan B

3) Baglett

4) Gys Hough

5) Skinny on my Jeans



So here you are fellow bloggers - your award. Ain't it purdy?

Women's Magazines

So, I was going to write a rant about women's magazines when I came across this little jem. Sadly, it says everything I could possibly say! Just think about it next time you consider buying Cosmo, or Cleo etc

Men

My two favourite things are committment and changing myself.

And because you deserve it:

Friends

Getting to know you...getting to know all about you. That first part of the song I can totally dig. Getting to like you…getting to hope you like me. Now that is the tricky bit. I know too many people, and I like too few. I may be getting off topic though.

What are the best ways to get to know someone? The skinny one asked me the other day why she was still single and why she never picked up guys in bars, and it led me to thinking, “neither have I”. Tracing back the path of my life, I realised that I have never had any lasting, meaningful relationship (on any level) with someone I met in a bar. Every person in my life with whom I am especially acquainted or actually give a sh*t about, I met a) sober and b) in a relaxed social setting.

My best friend I met in my dorm, the others all through class or school. Boyfriends have ranged from church, to work, to class, to my best friend’s brother. The common interests we share, the natural inclination towards each other were established during moments of lucidity and without crazy loud music and smoke clogging up your eyes. Often, several meetings took place before any sort of affinity was confirmed. (At the risk of sounding pretentious, please bear in mind that I am working my way through Georgette Heyer books and thus am forced to term my thoughts in 18th century English. Many apologies.)

That said, I have never really gotten to KNOW someone until I have gotten drunk with them. Every first kiss with every staid boyfriend happened after some serious lubrication of the liver. Every best friendship was cemented through being a drunk whore together/crying ‘dronk verdriet’ tears/arguing senselessly about no point in particular. And because women call each many other things first before they call each other sister, these long nights of red wine and chatting are what made us trust each other so much.


The advice I can give is look for your friends and lovers in social settings where you want to find yourself, but get to know your friends somewhere outside your mutual comfort zone. You meet someone sober, but you get to KNOW them drunk, and only then do you really get to like them (or not).

A boyfriend's plea to his girlfriend

This is why you should stop smoking:


Picture the opening scene to one of those “How I met your mother” episodes...

“Kids, today I want to tell you about how I met your mother,” is what I'll say. “Yay! Yes daddy, please,” I imagine they will respond with bated breath.

“Well, what comes to mind right now is the first couple of years that we were dating. I used to beg your mother to stop smoking. Everyday. But you know how she... oh wait you DON'T cause she's DEAD!” is how I'll calmly start.

They, on the other-hand, will have hearts of steel and show no remorse (they are my kids after all) because they never developed the loving emotions only a mother could nurture.

Little Thomas is an inquisitive one though and will ask, “But dad, please tell us something about our mother?”. “Well, kids” I'll try, “You know what? I had many happy memories about your mother but they have all faded and all I'm left with are the memories of the last six months where she was cancer ridden and had no hair. Oh the HORROR! She also smelled funny.”

Little Claire, with her scary resemblance to her late mother, will beg, “But daddy, please tell us! Did she love us?” and I'll say, “You know what kids, I don't think so. She would have stopped smoking if she did”

Book Launch

I attended my first book launch last night. I realise this in itself is nothing amazing, there are book launches that go on just about every time someone publishes a book, and when you work alongside academic intellectuals this actually happens far more than one would imagine.


But there is something about the event ‘book launch’ that invites images of black-clad authors and dignitaries lounging on leather ottomans, clutching glasses of Pinot Noir, hiding behind over-sized glasses and squinting into the half-lit atmosphere, talking in hushed tones about the drastic implications of the Oxford Comma. The food critic from Ratatouille springs to mind. Several other events naturally bring the same images to my mind, like “gallery opening”, “poetry reading” and “gala evening”. Of course, the discussion may vary from the Oxford Comma to re-interpretations of feminist art to conceptions of summer in TS Eliot, but ultimately it all boils down to the same thing.

Granted, it wasn’t precisely that. This was a legal textbook, so there were no hushed tones (lawyers like to be heard) and instead of tights and polo necks, everyone had black suits on. These are after all judges and advocates and the like. It was a pity, I had really hoped for more tall lanky men of dubious sexual orientation looking disparagingly over their horn-rimmed glasses, but alas there was only my rosy-cheeked, flamboyant homosexual of an ex-boss. Hardly the kind of person I was expecting.

On the plus side, there were little steak kebabs with incredibly tender meat on them. I think I ate about ten. Yes, that was the highlight of the night.

Soup night

As winter has now fully taken hold of cape town (I know it’s true because I have worn coats and boots THREE times this week!), I decided that it was definitely time for a soup party. Soup parties, like most of our other parties, involve a lot of soup, but also a lot of wine. How much wine, you may ask? Well, the entrance is a bottle. Work it out…

The colleague was horrified when she saw the butternut pot boiling on the stove, because the process of making butternut soup does not look particularly appetizing. A boiling pot with butternut, apple, half an orange, carrots and stock is a pretty gruesome sight. However, after thorough cooking and a whirry-whirry with the hand blender, smooth creamy butternut soup appeared. She was amazed! I also boiled a pot of my mother’s famous tomato soup, with a spicy tobacco ‘n chilli twist. Greatest soup party EVER! I was also lucky that the weather played along, and was not merely cold, but overcast and stormy. It really was very fortunate.

The doctor then regaled us with stories from the hospital, funny ones though, not the grisly sort. Stories about old people and bollocks and that sort of thing that makes 5 girls with a bit of wine in them giggle like hyenas. The best friend also contributed with her share of the latest Darwin awards. We ate, we drank, we shared, and it was awesome.

The boy showed up halfway to pick up my removable hard drive, and look none-too-pleased to see the awesome food party on the go, but what can I say? Meh. Deal with it. Girls just a-wanna have fun….ohoh girls just a-wanna have fun! The hostess’ beau then showed up, looking like he had had a fun boy’s party a bit beforehand. Somehow, the conversation turned to threesomes. Shame, he tried valiantly to defend them and to show us that they were nothing to be condemned, but he to contend with moral-highground-me and the i'm-so-hot-that-i-dont-need-to-do-anything-else colleague and basically, his argument flailed and drowned like a legless pirate (yes, I do like that expression because I made it up myself and I’m trying to get it to stick). Ten points for effort though, and he really was facing all the odds. But like the old story goes, “there we were, 10 000 against 10. Boy, did we sure F%$^ up those 10!”.

In any case, soup party was a huge success and is going to be a definite repeat on the next awful, stormy night. If you want recipes, I’ll be happy to oblige! And, like, soup parties are SO the new book clubs!

Wine faux pas

As a wino, we occasionally come across some of the funniest experiences, questions and mistakes. A friend was so kind to send this list of Cathy Marston to me, but I have many more of my own…


 I once stood politely behind a stand at a large wine tasting listening to some old bat fulminating for what seemed like hours about her hatred for Chardonnay. She finished up her diatribe with the words "So I never drink the stuff - I only drink Chablis!" I was young, I was tired, I could perhaps have been more tactful in my response - but she never bought wine from us again. Oh dear. (Chablis is Chardonnay)

 The best one I heard was the girl behind a prestigious winery's tasting counter pouring wine for a customer who sniffed it and pointed out to her that it was corked. Baby-blues wide and an anxious smile on her face, she informed him "But sir - all our wines are corked!"

 I had a similar experience to the above in a sushi restaurant the other day when I told the waiter that the wine was corked and asked for a replacement. Much muttering and conferring behind the bar eventually produced a bottle of a completely different wine (a screwcapped one - guess where this tale is going...) with the apology that this was the only wine which wasn't corked.

 And then of course there is the waiter in the terribly smart restaurant in Camp's Bay endeavouring to open a screwcapped bottle with his waiter's friend. He struggled for several minutes before we pointed this out to him - in self-defence, we did tip him very nicely!

 And finally - although not technically a wine gaffe, I think this definitely counts as a complete social no-no. I remember seeing a couple going round at the end of a big tasting in the UK with a large 5litre plastic container. They were emptying the spittoons into it and I asked my colleague what on earth they were doing. "Oh, they take that home to cook with" was his reply. "Wine, spit, canapé crumbs - the lot."

Mine include:

 The obvious pronunciation errors eg Mer-lotte instead of Mer-low, and Pino-ta-jay instead of Pino-taj, which subtly distinguish the wino from the wine-pert (my nickname for a wine expert with their nose a little too high in the air). Incidentally, both the words obvious and subtle are also so often mispronounced as to distinguish the person, but perhaps I’m just splitting hairs…

 The shocked look on any Gautengalenga’s face when we sadly inform them that no, we do not, in fact, make any form, variation or style of sweet wine.

 After reading the somewhat flowery descriptions of the wine (lime infusion morphing into a tropical fruit explosion, with a bouquet of roses etc), the question often comes up “So, how do you make these flavours? Do you, like, inject the essence into the wine?” Oh dear. No, we don’t. The French would shudder.

More will follow! But in the meantime remember, In vino veritas! Long live Bacchus...

Thesis

Today I was supposed to start writing my thesis. Actually I was supposed to start writing on the 14th April when my lecturer gave me the go-ahead, but I decided to take a little ‘break’ until it was officially approved by the Board. My little break followed pretty much the same pattern as a normal day of work, i.e. get in late, scourge the internet for cool stuff and head out to lunch early. Sadly, my little holiday is up, and today is the day.

However, when I came into work this morning, I had an annoying beaurocratic surprise waiting for me in the form of a whole invigilation timetable. Bleugh. This gave me about 15 minutes of working out exactly when and what, and then about 45 minutes of bitching and complaining to my colleague about the total unfairness of it all. This brings us to 10h00, a mere 15 minutes before I had to leave for my hair appointment. I managed to write one, very badly constructed, sentence. It uses little punctuation and pretty much doesn’t have a subject. Where the hell do you start to write a 180-page thesis? I am completely stumped.

After my (hair-raising) haircut (I am being a cheap little Jew about luxuries this month and paid a minimal amount for a haircut from a trainee hairdresser), the colleague and I had missed our daily coffee break and so HAD to walk all the way to the local to buy some. (This is a classic example of the ‘procrastination cup’ as in my last blog post). All of these critically important activities managed to fill the day and bring us to now (12h30). Since it’s only half an hour until lunch, I see little point in writing my thesis since I don’t really have any focus/motivation/pressure/will to do anything with brainpower. In any case, my farm needs harvesting and I have 13 games in FB scrabble in which to make a move.

Did I mention that I do all of this while at work? Since I have no work, this is what my department pays me to do. It’s a tough life.

In other news, my hair looks great! Check out Head Boys salon for appointments…

My top ten Favourite Coffees

1. The first cup of coffee when you get to work in the morning. Before anything gets done, the warm silky caffeine kick that makes you feel somewhat human.

2. The procrastination cup (usually hunts in packs). This cup features alarmingly often during any study session, resulting in the two-fold downfall of time-wasting and lack of concentration due to caffeine high.

3. The morning-after coffee. Takes like warm sticky sludge and always has too much sugar in it. Necessary purely for survival.

4. The I’m-sad-and-tearful-pms cup. This usually tastes mildly salty, whether from licking one’s salty lips or tears dripping into the cup. Mostly only useful for pressing against your tummy and feeling sorry for yourself. Sometimes also synonymous with the you’re-a-bastard-and-are-making-me-cry boyfriend apology cup.

5. The I-gave-up-coffee-for-lent-and-this-is-my-first-cappuccino. Silky caresses of foamy milk and hot strong espresso and mmmmmm……

6. The “skinner” cup. Coffee brewed, served and drunk for the sole purpose of facilitating a gossip session. Can be re-filled several hundred times, depending on the prettiness of the girl and the juiciness of the story.

7. The getting-to-know-you-cup. Coffee drank again for the sole purpose of getting closer to another person with the hopes of a date. Apparently, there are hundreds of rules surrounding how this coffee should be approached (don’t have too high hopes, don’t bring a buddy, go somewhere central yet where very few of your mutual acquaintances hang out), how to solicit it (like you can’t sms the person, it has to be casually suggested after a mutual class), how long it should last etc. If you have been in a relationship for a few years (like I had) and then tried to hit the single work of dating-coffee without a full brief, you would flail and drown like a legless pirate.

8. The Kahlua-coffee (variants include the Irish coffee and the Grappa espresso). The delightful little gem served after dinner, or all on its own, combines two beautiful things in one beautiful cup and warms you from your throat to your toes. Best served on winter nights.

9. The Mountain coffee. Served from a silver flask into a convenient lid-cap on the side of a mountain at below-freezing temperatures at an ungodly hour. Usually brought by the cheerful bugger who promised a lovely walk up the mountain (here I have visions of a leafy lane and lots of waterfalls) and you end up wading through freezing river streams at 400ft. This smidgen mouthful of coffee is the only thing that stops you from killing him.

10. Home coffee. The 6 or 7 cups a day I have when home for a weekend, made by either mom and dad, shared with both mom and dad. The safest, warmest and most delicious cuppa java you will ever drink in your life is the one that you have right in your own home. I’m soppy, so sue me.

Friday afternoon joys...

It's just beautiful. 'Nuff said.

Tagline

While filling in a an application for a conference the other day, I came across the question

“If you were a brand, what would your tagline be?”

Naturally, my first response was to google ‘best taglines’, just to see what was out there. There are some amazing ones, like Apple’s

“Think Different”

and then there are shockers, like the one K-fm is pumping out at the moment for the World Cup

“If you aren’t in Cape Town during the World Cup – you suck”.

I get that it’s straight to the point and the message is clear, but it’s hardly something that will go down into the annals of history. In any case, the google search then morphed into the WORST taglines in history. There aren’t many. There are, however, loads of the worst MOVIE taglines, which I have so kindly collated here for you:

http://www.moviezeal.com/ten-worst-movie-taglines-ever/

Nights alone

Nights on your own are less fun than you’d think. Sure, every magazine advises that us girls take some time out, chill out with ourselves and re-charge our batteries. The boy is away in Pretoria, the housemate out until further notice. I had my weekly dinner with the best friend last night, and then went for drinks with the drinking buddy. So far, have exhausted all my hang out passes for the week. The other awesome choices have all removed themselves from the social scene to visit their boyfriends/study for exams/live in hermanus. So, since I have just been paid and never have a night alone, I decided to splurge. On myself.

Inventory = One bottle odd bins Shiraz 2006 (looked promising), small slab (I don’t get paid THAT much) 70% cocoa Lindt chocolate, one Cleo magazine (I can’t even defend that one...embarrassing I know) and one trashy feminist art novel. I snuggled down on the couch, the weather so very kindly playing along and giving me stunning winter rain and wind against my window. I let the wine breathe (obviously – it’s just correct) for a sumtotal of 10 seconds and had a glass. A mouthful of chocolate and a chapter into the book later, life was good. The only thing that caused me to break was the 6.30 call of 7de Laan. After that, however, the excitement level dropped distinctly.

I then sms’d pretty much everyone I know to detail the scene above and brag.

That was fine, but I only got one response. It sucks when people aren’t jealous.

Ho hum ho hum....so I finished the book. I then decided to cook for the at-some-point-in-the-future-to-return flatmate. Ok. Done. So I read the magazine. Ok. Half the bottle is now gone, and I am seriously not feeling the alone vibe. So I put on some Rihanna and dance around the room. Fun for about 15 seconds in total.

I then sms’d pretty much EVERYONE in my phone book trying to convince someone to come out on this rainy night and see me in my not-very-flattering I-don’t-ever-expect-company-again sweatpant/pyjamas and drink wine with me. NOT ONE TAKER!

Sufficed to say, I got seriously bored all on my own. Eventually I put on an old Enya cd and went to bed. Please, in the interests of my sanity, next time I sms you and ask you to come over, just do. Next time may be suicide...

Things I like about me

1.       I eat meat. Because it is awesome. Your carbon footprint may be smaller, but so is your brain. Take that, herbivores (in T-rex accent).

2.       I drink wine. Wine makes your heart strong, your brain pretty and your liver want to be a donor. I did studies.

3.       I struggle to exercise. Don’t get me wrong, I do it and I like it once its done. But I struggle to get motivated because I am human and inherently lazy.

4.       I tell racist jokes. Shut up, so do you. Even if you only do once you’ve checked over your shoulder.

5.       I think I’m better than most other people. ‘Nuff said.

6.       I read trashy Mills ‘n Boon novels. Its awesome reading about people who are stupider than you in order to justify No. 5. Plus, steamy stuff is fun to read.

7.       I am happy when my ex-boyfriend’s girlfriend is fatter/dumber/uglier than me. Because I win. At everything.

8.       I am occasionally jealous of my friends. They are fabulous, awesome people (which is why I choose to have them surround me) but sometimes its hard not to want to be what they are.

9.       I lie about my weight. I am not even going to justify the stupidity of that one.

10.   I love my boyfriend and I want to post hundreds of facebook status updates about how amazing and sexy and special he is, and I love that people are jealous of the kind of relationship we have.

And for all of these things, I am truly thankful, for they are what have made me a real person.