Eish!

I’m teaching myself to multitask.

I fear I have much to learn. Amelia managed to send 30 emails, edit a spreadsheet, apply makeup, find all the crap on my iPod, make 3 phone calls and drink a Savannah in the time it took to drive from Somerset West to Blouberg. If she hadn’t pre-prepared the salad I can only assume that she would have chopped and tossed  that en-route. I may have set my sights a bit high.

It makes me think though, and I don’t like to think much most mornings. It puts unnecessary strain on a well groomed hangover.

JJB reckons that woman can’t actually do two things at once, but rather can do two things half as well at the same time. The two parts simply add up to a single whole. Although the notion has merit, I find it unlikely that I would be able to apply that theory in a rational debate with a woman. Nor would I want to. They are capable of burning holes through your spine with their eyes, slapping you in the face with a wet fish and driving a high-heeled shoe through your temple all at the same time.

I don’t care which one is done half well.

All this is moot though. Amelia is capable of bathing a dog, building a 1500 piece puzzle, deciding who will win Survivor and deboning a chicken all on the way to work. All I’m capable of doing in the same time is driving over a nail, whacking my wing-mirror on the garage door, scaring a small child, jumping a red light and running out of petrol under the boom at the entrance to my office park.

Multi-tasking is, in fact,  for the birds.

…and it looks like a chicken? Well, that’s settled then.

I may have mentioned chicken somewhere before. I forget why exactly but when I considered that I’d mentioned vegetarianism before too, it all started falling into place [1].

Can one, indeed, dress Mutton as Lamb?

I cannot begin to think why not. The one is none other than an ovine O.A.P. [2] that’s trying to stay hip (or at least with a hip-replacement). It is a tactic adopted by most cougars on the hunt for nubile, blind young men who are impervious to the smell of moth-balls. These are, for obvious reasons, in short supply, hence the need to dress down so to speak.

Dressing Lamb as Mutton, on the other hand, would be like photographing your child with a slicked down comb-over, a little tie and a blazer that’s been pulled taught behind his back with safety pins to make it fit. My parents have many of these pearls. I know yours do to. Don’t make me prove it.

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Somerset West is on fire.

Literally, that is. This is not a town ablaze with cosmopolitan delights; burning with brazen, youthful zeal;  or even conflagrant with exotic and filthy Eastern temptations. Mind you, the Ladies of the Elsies Riviera are known to impart certain kinds of tantalising treats that should leave something burning for a few weeks at least.

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As a tax-payer I’m one of the few and the proud.

Which in turn, appears to make me fewer and consequently more proud. With all this pride going round, it is surprising that I have not, as of yet, sprouted a golden mane and growl a lot. Yes friends, like a rubber hose the tax season is brought down upon us and as I grind my head through the SARS schedule mincer, I cannot help thinking that if only I knew how to file my tax properly I’d probably not get audited every year. [1]

Tax money is a useful thing for an aspiring government. Least of all, it pays for a better quality of finger-foods but occasionally a road gets built, a child gets schooled and a man who hits his thumb with a hammer can get a plaster and a little white pill. These are the things governments provide. Wonderful isn’t it?

Yet I can’t help thinking that I’m being taxed twice over.

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Occupational Health and Safety is, ironically, designed to melt the brain.

It is a difficult matter to work on a mine and to stay safe. For one you have to stay sober at all times. Why one would want to stay sober in the dust that is Polokwane or the yellow fog that is Secunda, I have no want for knowing. Hence the elevated risk I guess. The last OHS induction I attended had a 3 minute stint on how to detonate entire hillsides in a safe, efficient and responsible manner followed by a 3 hour diatribe on how not to spend your weekend behind the Spaza gawking at the girls with two heads through the bottom of a home brewed beer bottle. The contrast was noted.

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Can vegetarianism be trusted?

There is an old adage that instructs us to not make decisions on an empty stomach. Wise words and ones which I try not to take too lightly. It is therefore that I am watchful of what I eat, lest I make a wrong decision based on my protein intake and end up razing Kosovo with a gardening trowel.

The last thing I want is to be grumpy from ignoring my Atkins impulse to consume large quantities of red meat, feeling sorry for myself and having to self-console in ice-cream or movies with teenage girls on ponies or ice-skates.

Those ponies would start to look quite delicious.

You are what you eat, we are told and for this exact reason I am dubious of vegetarianism. For obvious reasons. So consider yourselves warned against rampant and totalitarian Vegetarianism. The nitrogen cycle shudders in its very wake. Consequences are hazardous and potentially dire:

• sheep shall multiply exponentially, with no natural predators, to start an ovine pandemic
• cows will walk the streets, blocking traffic whilst looking for China shops
• we will all be plunged into a green hell where we fight for foraging rights with the very species that we once displayed domain over
• our egos will quake from neglect and our hands will shiver from malnutrition
• our children will scream in the night hungry for a piece of chicken.

Then again, maybe not. We can still eat cake.

As long as it fell naturally from the tree.

It is unwise to criticise the youth.

Specifically if you’re criticising their music. It shows how old you are.

I recall how my own parental units turned up noses and plugged up ears (and unplugged radios) at my music when I lived under their roof. And I was listening to such innocence as Duran Duran, OMD, Big Country and Gerry Rafferty. OK, admittedly I interspersed it with bouts of Halloween, Quiet Riot, G’nR and vintage Metallica but normally when I was hiding at Gerald’s house. The days we’re long, the summers warm, my t-shirts torn and my neck whip-lashed stiff.

I kind of wish someone had criticised me properly, intelligently (with force if necessary) and shown me the Path. I mean, honestly, Big Country? Was that just a phase or did Gerry Rafferty lead me to harder drugs like the Waterboys?

Either way, it’s not wise to criticise the music of the youth for fear of ridicule if nothing else. Unless of course they are listening to utter shite. This is altruistically acceptable. I can name a few:

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I like a good rant as much as the next guy.

This is no exception. The flu has kicked in, the drugs aren’t cheap and they just make it worse[1]. However, before I rant away merrily and stew in my own melancholic torpor, take this disclaimer and memorise it well children:

Disclaimer: Eish! has no delusions of grandeur. It receives 43 spam comments a day and has a readership of 12 accidental hits a week, none of them from my mother (incidentally, even she doesn’t know about it). 3 of those hits are by me refreshing the page in different browsers to up the ante, 3 of them are stalkers and the rest are by your mother Googling for boot polish so get over it. I know I have.

The 2009 SA Blog Awards have left me with a somewhat stupefied expression on my face. It is the same expression you would have seen me wear when Bush beat Gore at the Polls, Zuma beat the NPA on the street and when I walked in on an erstwhile housemate beating it on the couch.

The cause of my stupour is easily surmised, though, by the Blog Awards website itself:

Quote: If you’re a winner or a runner up in any of the categories, please contact us and we will forward you your winner/runner up badge for you to put on your blog. Thank you.

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I suspect I’m a little colour blind.

They say that, in life, there are two kinds of people: those who believe the world can be divided into two kinds of people and those who don’t.

The latest meme to hit our follicles in the endless quest to dissect humanity into its constituent parts is the colour[1] coding of menial tasks. Pink jobs for girls and blue jobs for boys. Say that last one fast ten times and you’ll see why I’m not feigning my interest in this dialogue[2].

A Blue Job is supposed to be something that boys are good at: mowing lawns, changing light bulbs, lying about Ukrainian strippers, opening jam jars and keeping remote control buttons from siezing.

A Pink Job is supposed to be something that girls are good at: erm, cooking? cleaning? bending credit-cards? running out of motor oil? Why am I drawing blank on this one?

I confess I am judging this by the calibre of my ex-girlfriends, all master-chefs and/or fastidious house-cleaners (with the exception of one who claimed she was the 3rd member of a touring girl-band. I did her laundry.)  No, I am not trying to marry my mother.

The Nice Dog Lady, however, is not so easy to break down into constituent parts in any way. If you did manage it, you would probably find two parts gin and one part vermouth. I’ve seen her mow the lawn, mount an outside light, open jars and use a remote. I’m just waiting for her to lie about Ukrainian strippers and then I’m going to dig into her past to see if she wasn’t at one stage, indeed, the Nice Dog Lad.

Disclaimer: I fell deeply in love with the Nice Dog Lady when I went over to visit one Sunday and found her in the back yard wearing leather gloves and feeding branches into her own personal wood-chipper. It is an image that shall stay with me always.

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[1] for our American audience, that’s color with a ewe

[2] gosh, all these ewes, what will the Republicans think?

The other day I considered dog nipples.

I took the Nice Dog Lady out of quarantine, introduced her to my friends in good faith that she was ready and she decided that after dinner was the perfect time to mention that she had felt dog nipples. I’m wondering if it’s an English tradition that I’ve missed.

That being said, after the blank stares were replaced by nervous coughing and offers to make tea, I thought about some of the things that I’ve felt in my time. The list extended to the inside of an impala, a soggy bread-roll in my trouser pocket and a sheep aorta wrapped around my index finger as a kind of organic ringlet.

Pretty standard really.

There was also the snot streak from a six year Madagascan boy that flung itself in a wide arc across my forearm. That was special too. I’ve also stood barefoot in more poo than I can care to mention. Can you spell suppository? I am not proud.

So why should the thought of touching dog nipples arise a sedimentary response in different people. According to Python [1], wolf-nipple chips were a Roman delicacy. Dog-breeders alike often have to rub the milk clots out of canine-cans so that the puppies don’t choke.

You don’t have to like it but you do have to try it. At least once.

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[1] that bastion of historical accuracy