Planning ahead...

As a relatively newly married couple, the GoodWife and I seem to be on the tips of so many people’s tongues in terms of expectancy. In the greater scheme of things, life takes a progression that is almost predetermined: Meet, date, engaged, married……kids.


Honestly, if I had a buck for every person who asked us the question: ‘So…when are there going to be some little Roets’ running around?’, I would be able to start decorating the nursery! Seriously, maybe I should. I can picture it now – the Smiths and the Jones’ would have paid for the crib, the in-laws for the paint and decorations, the Woodalls would cover the clothes and the Thompsons would have the first months putty-disposal-devices all wrapped up!

PEOPLE, we aren’t havin spawn just yet!



Please don’t get me wrong and not with wanting to sound vain, but I think we would make fantastic parents…when the time is right. I suppose the time is never really right to have kids, but at the moment we want it to be wrong. Both the GoodWife and I are really keen to enjoy each other as a married couple first, before having to worry about whose turn it is at two in the morning to silence the screaming offspring. I like my sleep too. We want to do things together, enjoy our hard-earned money on ourselves for a bit, travel and just be silly! Children are a massive responsibility and, finding it tough to look after each other is not going to be made any easier with a halfling in the mix.

At the other end of the scale I applaud all people who are thinking of, having, or have had children. They really are fantastic little creatures.

This takes me back to when I used to teach swimming to little tiny tots. They really do have such fantastic characters, uninhibited and trusting beyond any measure of doubt. Each child is different taking a little slice of each of their parents’ personalities and using that as a base for their own. You have to love their inquisitive eyes and probing questions, their fumbling fingers and brave steps. There is a rainbow that touches down on every child’s head because I am sure they are all tiny pots of gold. I look forward to having kids, and no, before you ask it, not yet. I understand my attitude seems to have changed through the course of this post. It may appear that I have convinced myself that maybe kids aren’t such a bad idea after all – I never said they were. They are fantastic, and I look forward to having my own, just not yet.


In the mean time everyone, let’s just keep asking. I think I will demand a buck next time.


Yours in reproduction



Brado

P.S.  Congrats to Nat the Fat Rat on her baby to be!
P.P.S.  Cheers to http://www.sangrea.net/ for their wicked free pic...
 
 
 
 
 

Daydreamer...

Here I sit… trying to conjure up a witty and somewhat funny post for this haphazard blog. As I stare at the blank screen I come to the conclusion that there is not too much happening in my mind at the moment. I am sure that many university students at the same stage in their various academic years would wish that they could also have the bliss of my ear to ear breeze. If I sit long enough the lack of thoughts in my skull seem to start to resonate like the feedback on a microphone. I must admit though, the whine of the silence is far more tranquil than the rush-hour jam of thoughts frantically trying to be processed, sorted and stored in preparation for examinations!

I think I’ll go for a walk…clear my head.

Keep it really real

(Pic ala-Google)

En-route entertainment - break out the popcorn!

We often sit in it and even though it brings no pleasure at all there is mostly nothing we can do but continue to sit there, in the traffic!


Please, all you clever scientifical people out there – all the rocket scientists, levitation specialists and people with more brain than they know what to do with…I’d even go for time travel…make something that can get me where I am going without the headache of having to wait!!! A rocket powered time-sled pulled by beautiful Nubian princesses, now we’re talking!

This definitely reminds me of an earlier post of mine, (A passion for the open road – chips the cones…) the traffic part, not the Nubians.

The GoodWife and I went off to Johannesburg to the wedding of a really good friend of mine, TheGough. Johannesburg, or JoBurg to the locals is about 450km (280mi) from our little house and is a far cry from the beautifully serene plot that we call home. The concrete fingers tickle the smog-laced sky and the cars are pumped around a network of black veins. This city is sick though. It has high cholesterol and its veins and arteries are clogged. The lifeblood of this bustling metropolis is being forced to a standstill as red flags are waved to warn you as you approach the road maintenance crews. The JoBurg city council has invested something silly like R510 million into the upgrading and widening of the highways around the city in lew of the upcoming 2010 World Cup to be held in South Africa.

FANTASTIC!!! I’m all for improvement, but the poor sods that have to sit in the jams while they are happening are the ones likely to have the coronaries!

On our way home after a fantastic weekend we were on one of the two four lane highways that merge to form one six-lane highway out of the city. This Gillooly’s interchange is a nightmare at the best of times. Now, however, with those six lanes down to just two the nightmare becomes mind altering!
As we inched (literally) our way out of the city, people in the cars beside us became the objects of some serious amusement! I saw a man pick his nose and then try and flick the gremlin out the window while his wife was preoccupied in the back seat trying to breastfeed a screaming newborn. So many children with their faces glazed to the window burning furrows into the tar with their stares. And then, the pièce-de-rèsistance – the moment I thought I would just park the car where it stood and walk the 450km home because it would be way faster, I saw it. It was a sign, and like an oasis in the desert it shone and sparkled in the distance. It was nestled on the grass verge between the two directions of the highway up ahead. It was a fantastical sign of rather epic proportions fifteen feet across and about ten feet high, mounted on a trailer with its own generator to operate the thousands of tiny lights that would illuminate in a predetermined pattern to spell out its message.

Then I felt it creep up on me it started with a little tickle in my belly and before I knew it, it had built into a humungous chortle that guffawed from my face. My laugh caught the attention of the man in the truck next to me. He followed the line of my pointed finger to the same sign and he too started chuckle. And so the laughter spread through the few cars within eyeshot of the sign.


Well… this is what it said:

In bright orange letters the sign warned us:



ROADWORKS AHEAD…SLOW DOWN!

A taste of home...toilet paper to chill please...

I grew up in the costal city of Durban in the province of Natal in South Africa. The Durban harbour was the home to the Dutch East India Co. which brought many Indian nationals to the province to work in the sugar cane fields during the 16 and 17 hundreds.


The car licence disks for vehicles in and around Durban now bear the prefix ND…Newest Delhi as Natal has the highest population of Indian people outside India! As we all know the Indian culture is famous for its curry as much as the Italians for their sports cars, and Natal is no different. Natal Indians are aggressive in their use of spice and even have a special powder/power mix called: Mother-in-Law-HELLFIRE! When I received this e-mail a while ago, it sparked a knowing laughter in me that could only be quelled by a pint of milk…you will soon see why. Enjoy!

There is an annual Curry Cook-off inabout June/July. It takes up a major portion of a parking lot at the Royal Show in Pietermaritzburg, a small city just inland from Durban.
Judge #3 was an inexperienced food critic named Frank, who was visiting from America.


Frank: "Recently, I was honoured to be selected as a judge at a Curry Cook-off. The original person called in sick at the last moment and I happened to be standing there at the judge's table asking for directions to the Beer Garden when the call came in. I was assured by the other two judges (Natal Indians) that the curry wouldn't be all that spicy and, besides, they told me I could have free beer during the tasting, so I accepted".

Here are the scorecard notes from the event:


CURRY # 1 - SEELAN'S MANIAC MONSTER TOMATO CURRY...

Judge # 1 -- A little too heavy on the tomato. Amusing kick.
Judge # 2-- Nice smooth tomato flavour. Very mild.
Judge # 3(Frank) -- Holy shit, what the hell is this stuff? You could remove dried paint from your driveway. Took me two beers to put the flames out. I hope that's the worst one. These people are crazy.


CURRY # 2 - PHOENIX BBQ CHICKEN CURRY...

Judge # 1-- Smoky, with a hint of chicken. Slight chilli tang.
Judge # 2 -- Exciting BBQ flavour, needs more peppers to be taken seriously.
Judge # 3-- Keep this out of the reach of children. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to taste besides pain. I had to wave off two people who wanted to give me the Heimlich manoeuvre! They had to rush in more beer when they saw the look on my face.


CURRY # 3 - SHAMILA'S FAMOUS "BURN DOWN THE GARAGE" CURRY...

Judge # 1-- Excellent firehouse curry. Great kick.
Judge # 2-- A bit salty, good use of chilli peppers.
Judge # 3-- Call 911. I've located a uranium spill. My nose feels like I have been snorting Drain Cleaner. Everyone knows the routine by now. Get me more beer before I ignite. Barmaid pounded me on the back, now my backbone is in the front part of my chest. I'm getting pissed from all the beer.


CURRY # 4 - BABOO'S BLACK MAGIC BEAN CURRY...

Judge # 1-- Black bean curry with almost no spice. Disappointing.
Judge # 2-- Hint of lime in the black beans. Good side dish for fish or other mild foods, not much of a curry.
Judge # 3-- I felt something scraping across my tongue, but was unable to taste it. Is it possible to burn out taste buds? Shareen, the beer maid, was standing behind me with fresh refills. That 200kg woman is starting to look HOT...just like this nuclear waste I'm eating! Is chilli an aphrodisiac?


CURRY # 5 LALL'S LEGAL LIP REMOVER...

Judge # 1-- Meaty, strong curry. Cayenne peppers freshly ground, adding considerable kick. Very impressive.
Judge # 2-- Average beef curry, could use more tomato. Must admit the chilli peppers make a strong statement.
Judge # 3 -- My ears are ringing, sweat is pouring off my forehead and I can no longer focus my eyes. I farted and four people behind me needed paramedics. The contestant seemed offended when I told her that her chilli had given me brain damage. Shareen saved my tongue from bleeding by pouring beer directly on it from the pitcher. I wonder if I'm burning my lips off. It really pisses me off that the other judges asked me to stop screaming. Screw them.


CURRY # 6 - VERISHNEE'S VEGETARIAN VARIETY...

Judge # 1-- Thin yet bold vegetarian variety curry. Good balance of spices and peppers.
Judge # 2-- The best yet. Aggressive use of peppers, onions, and garlic. Superb.
Judge # 3-- My intestines are now a straight pipe filled with gaseous, sulphuric flames. I am definitely going to shit myself if I fart and I'm worried it will eat through the chair. No one seems inclined to stand behind me except that Shareen. Can't feel my lips anymore. I need to wipe my ass with a snow cone ice-cream.


CURRY # 7 - SELINA'S "MOTHER-IN-LAW'S-TONGUE" CURRY...

Judge # 1-- A mediocre curry with too much reliance on canned peppers.
Judge # 2-- Ho hum, tastes as if the chef literally threw in a can of chilli peppers at the last moment. (I should take note at this stage that I am worried about Judge # 3. He appears to be in a bit of distress as he is cursing uncontrollably).
Judge # 3-- You could put a grenade in my mouth, pull the pin, and I wouldn't feel a thing. I've lost sight in one eye, and the world sounds like it is made of rushing water. My shirt is covered with curry, which slid unnoticed out of my mouth. My pants are full of lava to match my shirt. At least, during the autopsy, they'll know what killed me. I've decided to stop breathing- it's too painful. Screw it; I'm not getting any oxygen anyway. If I need air I'll just suck it in through the 4-inch hole in my stomach.


CURRY # 8 - NAIDOO'S TOENAIL CURLING CURRY...

Judge # 1-- The perfect ending. This is a nice blend curry. Not too bold but spicy enough to declare its existence.
Judge # 2-- This final entry is a good, balanced curry. Neither mild nor hot. Sorry to see that most of it was lost when

Frank farted, passed out, fell over and pulled the curry pot down on top of himself. Not sure if he's going to make it. Poor man, wonder how he'd have reacted to really hot curry?

Judge # 3 - No Report.________________________________

 
 
heh heh heh heh heh......... ooooh, I think I'm gonna cry!
 
Later - Brado *out*

A Tribute:

To the stories that opened my imagination and to the old man who told them.
This post is dedicated to my great grandparents,Robert Adam and Gwendolyn Florence Law. Married for more than 73 years AND STILL RELATIVELY SANE!
The two most inspirational people in my life. Nana and Pops…


Pops would sit in the lounge of the flat that he has lived in for the past fifty-odd years and tell stories of ‘the old days’…when men were men and – well, not quite! There were the tales of his childhood and all the mischief that they caused in their little neighbourhood in Brakpan. (a gold mining community near Johannesburg)

• Now, I was one of the smaller boys and that leant me to being the key part in much of our fun. The toilets back then weren’t waterborne sewerage like nowadays. They were of the bucket system. There was a big bucket under a ‘seat’. There was a heavy flap that opened to the street so that the sewerage men could come along in their truck and empty the buckets in the evenings. On a stiflingly hot highveld night we would sneak out of our houses, a whole group of us, and go for a swim in the public pool. I would have to lift the flap in the street, slide the bucket to one side, hold my breath and worm my way, head first up and through the toilet. It was the bigger boys who couldn’t fit through the toilet and had to scale the wire fence that alerted the guard one night and sent us sprinting off into the shadows before even getting our toes wet!

Living on and around the mines in Brakpan, meant that there were a whole pile of labourers who you shared the general surrounds with.

• The bigger boys all had bicycles and they would get their dads to weld a little extension onto their rear axles. Just big enough for a little squirt like me to stand on. At the mines in Brakpan, all of the mineworkers would live in shanty-type settlements near to the mines. In the evenings, before all of the men got home all of their wives and girlfriends would cook supper on large fires outside their homes. These barrels of flame were our targets as the streets were lined with them. The bigger lads would ride as fast as they could down the alleys and as we passed these cooking fires the chap on the back would stick his leg out to the side and kick over the drums. We would howl with laughter as we rode off, women frantically trying to put out the spread of burning coals and cuss at us at the same time! As their arms flapped in desperation we would line up the next target. I think back now…it probably wasn’t very kind of us to do that…

These are just two of the many that he told me. He is a crumpled up old man now, but he still sparks a fire of life in me every time I speak to him and of him. I sometimes hear him laugh as I do…and that makes me laugh even more!

I found this pic when I was mooching in one of the old drawers at his apartment and came across it again the other day. It’s Pops in the good-ol’-days, twenty-something and playing tennis in a belt and button up shirt. I will admit, I distinctly remember him flipping out the first time he saw Andrè Agassi wearing black at Wimbledon, so I suppose a white belt be the reason why!! He is a fantastic old crooner and he is supported by a woman with a cast iron will and a heart of fudge, Nana. They have been married for 73 years this year. Yes, seventy-three, LXXIII…sorry reiteration is a flaw of mine, but that is a VERY long time. I’d be chuffed simply to live that long. Well, it’s a challenge then: even if  my good wife and I come half as close, I reckon we will have made it.

Love you lots Nan and Pops.

STudy BReAK @... NOW!

I have the end of my degree fast approaching and the drive to actually engage brain and begin the slow process of osmosing the information into my skull seems to be waning about as fast as Hammy on Red Bull! Oddly, my mind is so pre-occupied with the thoughts of plans and schemes to not work that if I used this energy to study, I’d probably be done by now. SIDETRACK: Yes, everything possible has been done to delay the onset of the study bug. A list of some of these would be a good idea!


• Convincing myself that my collection of “How I met Your Mother” needs to be rewatched because you never catch everything the first time you know.
• I really have been meaning to clean the windows in the house, they really are looking grubby, I’ll start learning after that.
• I tell you, every time I walk into this bedroom, see clothes lying around. I had better pick them up before they get walked on…and while I am here, the closet is pretty messy, I think that could do with a tidy.
• Paint, yes I must paint. Who could I paint for, yes a picture of a camel for my mate in Dubai. But how would I get it to him?

Maybe I should get up now… no, five more minutes.
And this is how my mornings have started for the last two weeks - with the intent to study, but then a barrage of reasons to postpone the start gun. It’s no wonder I am exhausted before I even get to think about my coffee, I have done the strategic planning of a small African country before even lifting my head from the pillow. And all of this just to decide to do nothing!

Who are those people who are able to get up at four am and then study for three hours before breakfast and then still face a day at work before coming home for an hour or two on the book before bed?!? Hello, R2D2 and C3PO are missing their cyborg, ol’-buddy-ol’-pal. I am a firm believer of last minute pressure. It has worked for me in the past…to some degree. I need that pressure to thrive. If there is no pressure – I tend to make it for myself, it’s quite easy really. If there are three weeks to do something, why work for three weeks??? Smash it in the last two days. 48 hours solid and a tanker of Super-Java for fuel!. The pressure will produce!

Somehow now the pressure seems to have built enough. And it’s just occurred to me that this degree has been building here over the past four years. Four years worth of pressure into three weeks of exams. Damn…that is enough pressure to make my eyes pop!

People - learn, study, swat! Just get it in your head. The windows will wait and the clothes will be fine on the floor, just make sure the coffee is in hand and the pages are open! It’s time to aim for that A…hold thumbs for me.

Later!

Spidey...

Staring at the ceiling while my good wife reads her soppy novel before bed, I can only but wonder what in the world that odd little dot is that keeps appearing at the same time of night in the same place on the ceiling, night after night. Is it a beetle? Or is it a spider? It must be some kind of bug… oh well.

This is great and well, seeing it, wondering what it is and then rolling over and falling asleep. But the “oh well” turns into a “holy crap!!!” if that little dot so much as moves an inch.

I am convinced that if that bug were somewhere else in the house, say the lounge or the kitchen, the reaction would be exponentially less adrenalin filled. I am quite convinced that the reason is something that forces us to protect the place we sleep, the place that we will be so totally vulnerable in for a number of hours. If your house is burgled, the main place to protect is the sleeping area. When a security company does the assessment of your home, they will almost always separate the sleeping areas from the rest of the home with a portcullis type gate, heat seeking missiles and into-personnel mines. The truth is we are vulnerable when we are asleep and so inspect the integrity of our sleeping area before we doze off. Now that area being invaded by that most stealthy of predators…the arachnid…unacceptable!
Did you know that a person, on average, will swallow eight spiders while they are sleeping, during their lives? I wonder what little Spidey would hope to find in there. Perhaps the leftovers of your soup supper that contained a fly. The fly which you asked your waiter about? Perhaps there was more than just the one that you saw?

What is this weird phenomena that something so small can stir such unease in one person that they are forced to stealth out of bed, choose a badly selected piece of weaponry and smash said bug to smithereens?! I think most of us are convinced that the spider, with it’s ninja-like skills and complete lack of fear and sense of self preservation will just launch itself at your face just to spite you. Will he do this just to laugh at your terrified face as he free-falls towards it? Highly doubt it……but who knows, he might……

Sleep tight!