Boxing Day 2009

It’s starting to dawn on me that in 6 days’ time it’ll be 2010! As I wolf down the last bits of Christmas decadence (fruit mince pie, heated in microwave for 30 secs, then covered with vanilla ice cream and custard………oh, man!) and wonder if I should get a second round now or later, I can’t help thinking about that one item that seems to appear on my list of New Year’s Resolutions every year (yea, THAT one!). Haha! It will probably be there in 2010 as well, glaring at me accusingly for 12 months.

Today I made the mistake of agreeing to let someone come and work in my garden. This happens about 6 times a year (the gardener, not the mistake), despite my other resolution to have someone here once a month. Had I not done that and basically been ‘on call’ as a result, I promise you I would’ve stayed in bed ALL DAY!!! I messed my back up again yesterday, doing 5 hours of housework before cooking lunch. Combination of picking up and moving heavy things and being terribly unfit. Looked at the name on the box of the painkillers: Sedapain. Thought to myself, “Waddayamean Sedapain?! All I can do is FEELDAPAIN!” This morning, the question was posed to me, at about 6am, “Do you want to go for a run?” I tried unsuccessfully to roll onto my other side, silenced by the pain, and eventually mumbled, “I take it you’re expecting an answer?”

What is the soundtrack to your life? With me, it changes all the time. Right now, listening to Tuck & Patti. It’s a cassette (if you’re younger than 15, you might want to look that up in the dictionary – or better yet, Google it. Even better, Blackle it!) that someone recorded for me many years ago, when the word “piracy” conjured up images of seafaring roughjacks with gold teeth and eye patches, swords, whiskey and rampant libidos. But, I digress. This T&P cassette has a song on it called “Dream” (one of Patti's many compositions), which could very well become my theme song for now, until the next powerful song comes along and sweeps me off my feet, as songs are wont to do. On the cassette is also a killer version of “They Can’t Take That Away From Me”. Do you know that the only version I’ve ever heard of the Beatles song, “I Will” is the Tuck & Patti one? What a cool song. I must say, no matter how much I love the sound of a piano, guitars just do it for me. There’s nothing more beautiful than a guitar and voice combination. Tuck & Patti are a husband and wife duo from America, who’ve been around for decades, crooning their soul-stirring ballads. He plays guitar like a genius, and she has the most amazing voice. I like! Oh, yes, I like! Their versions of “Dindi” and “My Romance” are absolutely beautiful.

Today couldn’t have been more different to what I’d anticipated. Two separate visitors, one from overseas to see my mom. Yup. And me looking as scruffy as the pirates in the previous paragraph. Virgoes take that kind of surprise badly! Will take me at least 6 months to live this down! Hair looking like a mop, not a stitch of make-up, wearing the clothes I’d do a hike in…….! Might just have to drown my sorrows with another bowl of afore-mentioned Xmas decadence. Heehee! I can be so hard on myself! Oh, Trudy, you masochist, you!

Later, same day, blogging with the tv on.

So SA television finally has an ad for a toilet bowl cleaner where Mutt & Jeff visit a black woman who’s freaked out by cleaning her loo. Yes, ad designers, blacks have loos too; they don’t just come into white households and clean yours. You’d think 15 and a half years after apartheid people would get beyond the stereotypes!
But wait, it’s still whackier – on one channel, an animated movie about a house that’s actually a monster, and on another, an animated movie about a family with special super-hero powers. And then there’s a Lotto programme where, after a young band has just done a hectic rock number, the presenter says, with all the finesse of a toddler, “That was a nice performance!” Don’t tire yourself with that vocab, now!

And life goes on……

Paging through the sheet music I unearthed while uncluttering my lounge, recently, I discovered a few songs that excite me. One I’ve just taught myself, a beautiful Rodgers & Hart ballad called “I Could Write A Book”. New to me, can’t remember hearing it done before. Sweet melody and lyrics. Then there’s one I’ve known a long time but never sung, “How Insensitive”, by my all-time favourite, Antonio Carlos Jobim. (Sting does a sexy version.) Time to find my key and add that to the repertoire. And then another Jobim song that I’d often heard but never really known the title of: “Once I Loved” – yet another Jobim beaut! What can I say? I have a soft spot for his compositions. Can’t wait to hear Diana Krall’s CD recorded in Rio (pronounced “Heeyo” by the locals). And then lastly, a song that will always make me think of pianist Onyx Phillips, working somewhere in Dubai or thereabouts, who plays it as an up-tempo samba, “You Don’t Know What Love Is”. Oooh!

From the sublime to the ridiculous:

Cockroach observations:
Have you noticed:
i) how cockroaches always run towards you when you’re emptying an entire can of spray on them, scared shitless?
ii) how they all look exactly alike? Are they all related? Probably not hard to trace your family tree, if you’re a cockroach.
iii) the weirdest cockroach characteristic…… those legs that carry on twitching for days after all other mobility has ceased!

And finally, a confession: that veg curry I made on Christmas Day, deliberately mild for my children’s palates – ended up tasting like stew, and I now have to drown it in mango atchar to make it even vaguely resemble curry!

Some people can sing, and some people can cook!