I miss pho bo

Vietnamese chicken noodle soup, or pho bo, is a delicious meal for breakfast, lunch and supper.

Pho bo up close

Sean slurping his delicious noodles

I miss Pho Bo. And all the other delicious food I ate in Vietnam. I miss my boyfriend’s tasty chicken wraps and tuna salad. I miss kimbab and sang-gyup-sal and dwenjangjiggae.
I miss all of this because I can’t cook for shit.
Last week I made THE MOST DISGUSTING vegetable soup I have ever tasted. Broccoli and beans do not go together, take my word for it.
And this weekend I made spaghetti bolognaise, not too difficult to make.
It SUCKS! And I still have a GIGANTIC pot of it at home.
Anyone who wants to come feed me will be greatly rewarded.
The condition of my work hinges on my stomach unfortunately.
And she ain’t happy.

Creative Writing Challenge: Metamorphosis

Twas the night before last
And all could agree
There were shivers in clouds
and jerks in our knees
When from a window bare
A cry pinched and sharp
Awoke e’ery child
And sleeping adult.

Twas the cry of the Jagrowl
The most fearful of beasts
It catches its prey
By beating it wings
With jowls sluicy grim
And eyes big as cups
The Jagrowl leaps
between trees and burning veld.

That night ne’er someone did sleep
Or had a son of their own to keep
All the young men leapt forth to the hunt
And neither returned, nor stayed their knives blunt.

“What will we do,
when the Jagrowl comes?
Our sons they are gone;
Our daughters are won;
Our babies are cold in their keep.”

The Jagrowl sleeps in the day.
Biding his time for the night.

When the moon shines
He opens his large eyes
Hoots and hisses his fangs at the stars

“What will we do when the Jagrowl comes?”

Aim for the jugular.

reaching above my station

I feel sometimes I’m reaching above my station
I jumped too high, now I’m hanging by my fingertips
Holding so close to my breast
the stuff I’ve accumulated
What if I’m not as smart as I think I am?
Or if my smarts aren’t what the world wants
What if it was all a waste of breath?
Money Time Headspace
What if I was meant to live simpler
Not be greedy for the life of a professor
You see me and you see chubby, lazy, socially inept
Is why I don’t look in a mirror
Corrupted, corroded, still Calvinistic inside
(despite the teachings)
What if all I am is a soul with a chip in it?

In the background

I tried to capture the beauty of the window, and got the cool shed in the background for free.

The South east Asian signatures – peace and lights in the background.

Vietnamese towers of light and light and light and light

The Game of Thrones of South African Politics

I’ve had some time on my hands, and pre-recorded episodes of Game of Thrones to watch, and I’ve been pondering on this idea. Who are the key players in the SA version of Game of Thrones? Granted instead of seven kingdoms we have 14 parties represented in Parliament and a shit load not represented (there’s even a dagga party, check on wikipedia). But I have thought long and hard and was able to find certain parallels between key characters in the hit HBO series and our own entertaining dance of the parliamentarians. Here they are.

First, the House Targaryan. This one is obvious, the previous regime, the National Party, with the mad King Pik Botha who ruled with an iron finger.

They tried to revive their former glory, but was wiped out during the 2004 elections and are now, after various failed alliances, defunct. But many a secret Boere heart still yearns for a leader to rise from the ashes and take back the iron throne.

House Baratheon. At first I thought Jacob Zuma is the current king in GoT, Geoffrey, but shame, he’s really not as cruel and demented as the blond ruler, and really, Zuma is more a Robert Baratheon. Fought hard in the struggle, conquered the throne from the mad king, but now that he’s on it, he still thinks of himself as a revolutionary. Instead of playing the game of thrones, he spends his time conquering woman and engaging in sport. We all know where that got him.

Then we have the opposition with the most support, the Starks. Eddard Stark (Tony Leon) fought a brave and noble cause, but his ultimate unwillingness to play the game led him to his demise. Now we have Helen Zille, (Robb Stark? Catelyn?) who just can’t get it right. The latest DA poster will suffice to show how these group of people have one thing in common, they are too uncompromising and unsubtle to win the war.

Yeah. Pissing people off always works in politics.

And then we have House Lannister. They always pay their debts, hey Guptas?

With so many new characters frequently entering the show, who will win the Game of Thrones?

Old imperial city in Hue

When Sean and I went to Vietnam, we visited Hue, a beautiful city situated around a wide and wonderful river. South of the river is the old imperial city, where royals and their servants lived a long time ago. Today it is a cultural and historical haven, where the legacy of the Vietnam war can be seen in the walls of its former glory. We spent a whole day within the ruins of the imperial palace, and Sean took this breathtaking picture as the sun started to set on our day of exploring. No photo shop was used, my boyfriend is just very talented.

Escape

A one way ticket to paradise and a backpack full of dreams
This is freedom
escape
for a short while

Oooooh, that smell!

Write down the first sight, sound, smell, and sensation you experienced on waking up today. Pick the one you’re most drawn to, and write. (For a bigger challenge, pick the one you’re least drawn to.)

Mouldy shirts on rainy days
Ironed dry
Keep my arms to my side

Like winter days of sweaters and school trousers
Who’s that smell?
Look around like a guilty fart
Not I, no. Damn.

All eyes on me.
The smelly kid with the weird face.

I open my eyes and it cloys and clings
Monday morning laundry before tea or sex.

All I want is a house filled with books from floor to ceiling.

The neighbours were brutes. And I was a dirty, potty mouthed scoundrel with long tangled hair and red cheeks that got even redder when I let them have an earful. Then they threw away a box of books that they got I don’t know where and I went rummaging through their rubbish heap and took ‘em all home to my parents’ dismay. I packed ‘em all in the big blue shelves that just before that were used for displaying miscellaneous crap for the benefit of guests. Amongst the pile of discarded books was Dogtertjie van Jefta by Antjie Krog. Eleven-year-old me didn’t know who she was (but would go on loving her stuff and meeting her twice during the course of her adolescence), but I was in awe, and I read every poem out loud for the whole town to hear even if I didn’t understand most of it.
Then my father threw away all the books I acquired. He found one with nudie pics in it and decided books were bad for me. But I saved Antjie Krog, and we started a love affair that only got deeper the older and less volatile I became. I’ve lost that particular copy between boarding school and university and countless packings up of my life, but my love bought me a collection of her greatest work, which came with me to South Korea, and I still read her for inspiration, or just when I want to hear someone else say the p-word that I can no longer utter in polite conversation (oh how we become socialised, to be wild and free among the guava trees again!).
I met her, but I couldn’t tell her how she inspires me. If I were her and I came up to me gushing like a schoolgirl, I’d be very annoyed. But it doesn’t even matter. Writers like Antjie Krog and Sylvia Plath and Lauren Beukes aren’t there to mother the world. Their words have power, and in that power is the source, the magic, the thing that makes the world go round.
My mother thinks I’m living large in luxury in Joburg with my quality boyfriend and my socialiteness. Shows how well she knows me. I don’t care about material things. All I want is a house with books from floor to ceiling. And I’m well on my way there.

The every day now

I have dog hair coming out of my nose and tomato soup stains on the front of my sweater, but I’m comfortably ensconced on the sofa between editing and writing and sending out the dreaded advertisements. The days have finally slinked into a doable pattern that I can cope with semi-willingly. I stumble blindly to the kitchen for tea, take a quick shower, wash the dishes from the night before, eat a yoghurt, put on my big girl panties, send out the first emails of the day, respond to the queries and questions, request more tea from Sean who’s still on the couch in his jammies watching Adventure Time, take off laundry, phone the traffic department, edit articles as they come in, try my hand at writing, stop to answer the phone, process requests, edit articles, add to my to do list, play with the dogs, make dinner, cuddle Sean, go to bed.
When I was in high school and at university I was a pain in the ass. My boyfriend says when he met me I was loud and obnoxious. I wanted so many things for myself back then, I didn’t think how I was affecting others. I wanted to be rich and famous, I thought I was the shizznizz. What I became instead was, against my best attempts at sabotage, happy. I am happy to shout at the dogs and struggle with the words and to love the one I’m with. I think people can get better as they get older. Like a good red wine.
The every day isn’t so bad. Because it contains moments now where I know who I am and what I want. And I’m not sad about the past or despondent about the future any more.
I think what I’m trying to say is that I am now well and truly growing up.