Cape Town makes me happy. Cape Town makes me glad. Cape Town makes my heart all full and is seldom ever bad!
As you may have gathered, I spent the weekend in Cape Town. Idyllic, perfect and absolutely magnificent, Cape Town. That comment I made a few weeks ago about now being able to withstand peer pressure until all my friends started getting engaged? Well, it happened again. Hoofseun proposed to his pretty girlfriend! I felt it was time we partook in the food and vine again, so headed off to the big city.
Back in the day, I used to be a little Cape Town girl. Now, however, it’s a case of Plaasmuis vir Stadsmuis kom kuier. I am a little-town country hick of a bumpkin (I cannot drive in the CBD). I ventured into the colourful (in terms of both culture and quite literal colour) area of BoKaap. Two bottles of wine down, we had pretty much caught up to where we left off.
Friday was another perfect morning. We woke up in Camps Bay and headed along one of the most beautiful coastal routes in the country. Luckily we had our passports on us, as we had to enter into the Republic of Hout Bay. Dutifully rewarded, we went down to the harbour for what Hout Bay is known – fresh fish. My snoek tasted as though they had caught him seconds before putting him in the batter. Honestly, I almost felt bad about how fresh it was. Almost. Then I smashed that whole fish in my face with sheer bliss. To wash down the carcinogenic dare which was our breakfast, the boy and I decided that a long-overdue visit to the Constantia vineyards warranted our attention.
We were not wrong.
I was desperate to show him the port that Napolean drank, that is mentioned in Sense and Sensibility and that was hoarded by the nobility of Europe. I seem to remember that it was at Groot Constantia. It wasn’t. So we tried High Constantia. It still wasn’t. Eventually we headed to Klein Constantia, where it was. We were rewarded with not only the port I had been seeking, but a charmingly sweet young woman who poured us beautiful French Bordeaux, Methode Cap Classique with yeasty oat flavours and a well-rounded Cab to finish us off.
Friday night yielded the pizza party which was silly, fun and a good send off for a dear friend. This song seems to sum it up for me: Start wearing purple After a late night visit to Dizzy’s, our CT experience was complete. Thanks for the wine, the song and thank goodness the season is not gone, but has only begun!
Sunday, September 12, 2010
The Bishop
Someone close to me once told me that I only open my mouth to change feet. For the sake of upholding tradition, I felt that a meeting with the new Archbishop of Cape Town shouldn’t be any different.
As if it wasn’t bad enough that the first time I spoke to him (albeit over the phone), the name was a little foreign to me and I may have treated him with a tad too little formality. I thought I should continue the trend over dinner.
The wonderful part about being young (yes, I have changed my tune since my lamentable updates about my age) is that you know absolutely everything. As my dad points out, blogging belongs to the realm of the young, when you still know everything and the solutions to life’s most pressing issues are merely a matter of common sense. Bigotry is also something of second nature to me. Hence, in a moment of perhaps careless folly, I made the (not uncontroversial) statement that “Men who live on their own become strange and tend to end up as weird old bachelors”. Who knew that I had touched a nerve? Of course, I meant men who become the strange old neighbours upstairs (I am thinking now of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Most Peculiar Man”music, or the strange guy who used to come into the pub I worked at and order a beer, just to sit somewhere else and curb the loneliness). In this context, women are as prone to become strange old cat ladies because, wait for it kids, humans aren’t meant to live alone. We are not leopards or Japanese fighter fish. We are community-loving, huddle-together-for-warmth, lets-stick-together animals, whether we like it or not. Now the Bishop, while he may live alone, lives within a wider community and becomes a ‘father’, a ‘brother’ and an integral part of the family. Hopefully that part of my disastrous slur will be apparent to him.
As my mother so kindly says “All the world is mad but me and thee, and I think I have doubts about thee." The truth is that we are all a bunch of wierdos, some of us are just better at camouflage. I love weirdness and I think its application in everyday life is so underrated. Oscar Wilde so memorably reminded us that there are not good and bad people, merely interesting and tedious ones. I pray that I am always one of the interesting ones.
The upside of the debacle is that the Bishop is now keen to read my blog. Talk about advertising! I can just imagine the slogans now: “Dogmatically Compelling”. “Of Cardinal Importance”. “Read this Religiously”. “One hell of a good read”. Sigh. If only.
As if it wasn’t bad enough that the first time I spoke to him (albeit over the phone), the name was a little foreign to me and I may have treated him with a tad too little formality. I thought I should continue the trend over dinner.
The wonderful part about being young (yes, I have changed my tune since my lamentable updates about my age) is that you know absolutely everything. As my dad points out, blogging belongs to the realm of the young, when you still know everything and the solutions to life’s most pressing issues are merely a matter of common sense. Bigotry is also something of second nature to me. Hence, in a moment of perhaps careless folly, I made the (not uncontroversial) statement that “Men who live on their own become strange and tend to end up as weird old bachelors”. Who knew that I had touched a nerve? Of course, I meant men who become the strange old neighbours upstairs (I am thinking now of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Most Peculiar Man”music, or the strange guy who used to come into the pub I worked at and order a beer, just to sit somewhere else and curb the loneliness). In this context, women are as prone to become strange old cat ladies because, wait for it kids, humans aren’t meant to live alone. We are not leopards or Japanese fighter fish. We are community-loving, huddle-together-for-warmth, lets-stick-together animals, whether we like it or not. Now the Bishop, while he may live alone, lives within a wider community and becomes a ‘father’, a ‘brother’ and an integral part of the family. Hopefully that part of my disastrous slur will be apparent to him.
As my mother so kindly says “All the world is mad but me and thee, and I think I have doubts about thee." The truth is that we are all a bunch of wierdos, some of us are just better at camouflage. I love weirdness and I think its application in everyday life is so underrated. Oscar Wilde so memorably reminded us that there are not good and bad people, merely interesting and tedious ones. I pray that I am always one of the interesting ones.
The upside of the debacle is that the Bishop is now keen to read my blog. Talk about advertising! I can just imagine the slogans now: “Dogmatically Compelling”. “Of Cardinal Importance”. “Read this Religiously”. “One hell of a good read”. Sigh. If only.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
In an effort to prolong my youth, I am rapidly aging myself.
Why am I getting old? This seems entirely unfair and something that was sprung upon me without consent. That’s an unfair term! Universe, you cannot unilaterally dictate conditions in our agreement without my knowledge.
Being the brave intrepid explorer that I am, I decided to climb up Table Mountain on Sunday afternoon. 5 years ago I would have done this without thinking, bounded to the top and been at the bottom with a beer in no time at all. It was hardly that easy. However, after we were finished it was a great experience and I was quite proud of myself.
Until I had to get up on Monday morning. And Tuesday morning. And yesterday. And (for CRYING IN A BUCKET) this morning. That’s 4 days. Of DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness, or as I like to call it, Damn Old Mortality Sickness). What is up with being stiff for 4 days? The scary thing is that it shows no signs of abating any time in the near future, despite me having stretched every day and gone to gym. I even tried to combat the symptoms with ethanol (in the bad old days it was thought that stiffness was caused by a build-up of lactic acid, which is the animal-cell equivalent of fermentation). Despite knowing that that is now completely discredited as a theory, I thought I would give it a shot. No such luck, just other parts of me are now stiff.
In any event, I am attempting to climb again this weekend so wish me luck!
Being the brave intrepid explorer that I am, I decided to climb up Table Mountain on Sunday afternoon. 5 years ago I would have done this without thinking, bounded to the top and been at the bottom with a beer in no time at all. It was hardly that easy. However, after we were finished it was a great experience and I was quite proud of myself.
Until I had to get up on Monday morning. And Tuesday morning. And yesterday. And (for CRYING IN A BUCKET) this morning. That’s 4 days. Of DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness, or as I like to call it, Damn Old Mortality Sickness). What is up with being stiff for 4 days? The scary thing is that it shows no signs of abating any time in the near future, despite me having stretched every day and gone to gym. I even tried to combat the symptoms with ethanol (in the bad old days it was thought that stiffness was caused by a build-up of lactic acid, which is the animal-cell equivalent of fermentation). Despite knowing that that is now completely discredited as a theory, I thought I would give it a shot. No such luck, just other parts of me are now stiff.
In any event, I am attempting to climb again this weekend so wish me luck!
Monday, August 30, 2010
The sky might be falling on our heads!
But, logically speaking, it probably isn’t.
Over the past year or so I have been starting to feel a little despondent. Not an easily-locatable (apparently Microsoft agrees that that is in fact a word), deep sense of depression. Rather a kind of settling sense of dejection that I was not, in fact, the proverbial Big Cheese. For someone with my sense of self-importance, this is an alarming realisation.
However, the latest set of news is good. My ship may actually be coming in, albeit one wooden board, one nail and one sail at a time. I have just been offered a short internship at a major law firm. While I thought I had actually made up my mind to pursue the life of an academic, I cannot ignore the lure of a corporate environment, nor deny my desperate itch to want to wear Jenny Button. This unfortunately will involve losing the weight equivalent to a Backstreet Boy, since ol’ JB doesn’t make clothes for anyone over a size 2.
In other good news, I found a way to motivate myself to write. A little ‘Dear Editor’ letter later, and a nice wooden box turned up at my door. Ever a fan of wooden boxes, I was extremely excited. Until I thought a little further and actually opened the box. What greeted me was a Jeroboam (3l bottle, for those of you unfamiliar with the term) of Pinotage. Oh joy! That is far better than anyone’s praise!
Thus this week begins on an unusually upbeat note. All of a sudden I have goals and ambition and such things that are good for motivation.
Who knows, I may even write some…
Book caption: Avoiding Death
Over the past year or so I have been starting to feel a little despondent. Not an easily-locatable (apparently Microsoft agrees that that is in fact a word), deep sense of depression. Rather a kind of settling sense of dejection that I was not, in fact, the proverbial Big Cheese. For someone with my sense of self-importance, this is an alarming realisation.
However, the latest set of news is good. My ship may actually be coming in, albeit one wooden board, one nail and one sail at a time. I have just been offered a short internship at a major law firm. While I thought I had actually made up my mind to pursue the life of an academic, I cannot ignore the lure of a corporate environment, nor deny my desperate itch to want to wear Jenny Button. This unfortunately will involve losing the weight equivalent to a Backstreet Boy, since ol’ JB doesn’t make clothes for anyone over a size 2.
In other good news, I found a way to motivate myself to write. A little ‘Dear Editor’ letter later, and a nice wooden box turned up at my door. Ever a fan of wooden boxes, I was extremely excited. Until I thought a little further and actually opened the box. What greeted me was a Jeroboam (3l bottle, for those of you unfamiliar with the term) of Pinotage. Oh joy! That is far better than anyone’s praise!
Thus this week begins on an unusually upbeat note. All of a sudden I have goals and ambition and such things that are good for motivation.
Who knows, I may even write some…
Book caption: Avoiding Death
Sunday, August 29, 2010
A just-before-middle-mid-life-crisis
Yes, it is an official medical term and yes, I am suffering from it. It’s the feeling that creeps in when all your friends are moving into the next phase of life, and you are stagnating like a puddle of water in the Jukskei stream. They all have new jobs, are becoming real people and have real responsibilities. You, however, are still holed up in the Academia bubble which is Stellenbosch, pretending the real world never existed.
You want to dress like a rockstar and look like a model, but your energy levels just do not accommodate such luxuries. You want a fancy car, but then you realise that you walk everywhere and not only can you not afford the premiums or the lifestyle, you can’t afford petrol. You eye out the pretty first year in your class, until you realise that he was in Std 4 when you were in College. Disgusting. It’s not paedophilia, it’s just silly. I doubt the boy can even relate to “I got hugs for you/if you were born in the 80’s/the 80’s”.
You get annoyed with people in Mercury, because you’re “Too old for this shit”, and at the same time lament the fact that you no longer know anyone in Bohemia because, when you went out, you used to be the big cheese. It’s a mission to go out on a Wednesday night (because there are like, other people there), but you hate to go out on a Monday where it feels dead.
I’m officially stuck in the twilight which is the space between real life, and the endless ream of paperwork which is post-grad living.
On an unrelated topic, but one completely worth mentioning, Vulcans are amazingly hot. They strike the right balance with me.
Go forth and prosper.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Saturday Night Lites
Dinner party with the sis
In an effort to be a good girl, and not to party unnecessarily, I was going to stay home this Saturday night. Again. Also, I have this annoying little cashflow problem that I am dealing with at the moment. How it works is that the ATM doesn’t want to give me money when I try and draw it because I have ‘insufficient funds’. I’m no doctor, but that doesn’t sound good.
In any case, this sense of resolve lasted roughly 18 seconds, or enough time for me to decide that it wasn’t worth it. The sister-lawyer apparently had some buddies doing burgers at Royale, so I decided to hit that. Unfortunately, after the age of 25, ‘doing burgers at Royale’ no longer means a bunch of people who can’t really afford it plan on going out for burgers and the cheapest drinks they can find, but rather a birthday dinner party. To which I had not received an invite. Oops.
Now grown up people think that the best way not to overstay one’s welcome is to be quiet in the corner and unobtrusive. My way, however, is to chat to everyone I see and become the life of the party. I must be growing up though, since I stopped short of proposing a toast to the birthday girl and leading everyone in a terrible rendition of “For she’s a jolly good fellow”. I say that, but actually it would have more likely been a chorus of “She comes from Finland, what do we call her? Finnish! Finnish!” Not my finest moments. I of course ended up telling silly stories about making viennas in the kettle and even used the line “It’s not quite Viennese coffee.”
In any case, I now had dinner dates with wine-marketer and wine-marketer’s-wine-maker boyfriend. I hope the boy doesn’t mind, but really, I’m not sure it will make too much difference. In any case, I went out on Long Street, wore my unnecessarily weird little space boots and generally had a good time. So much for a sense of resolve!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)