Catalogued and classified

The current 'work in progress' is a catlogue of over 600 plant species that's to go to the printers tomorrow.

It rather saps my writing ability, especially since most of my colleagues say that they 'can't write', so I end up doing all the descriptions. The ones who think they can write, spell even worse than I do, or launch temselves into passionate declamation that excludes punctuation.

Given that I am now in plant describing mode, I seem unable to come up with anything else, and so I've written a description of my fair (and occasionally unfair) self.

Maunderus mutterus (Lesser spotted horticulturist)

A slow-growing, occasionally aggressive but ornamental perennial to 1.53m that likes to learn the hard way.

Tolerates adverse conditions but thrives on occasional feeding and regular attention. DO NOT PRUNE although occasional cutting down to size does no harm.

Ensure plenty of sunshine, but thrives in shade during the summer months. Although continually in bloom, best results are achieved when suitably admired.

Propagation not recommended owing to the possibility of becoming invasive and taking over the planet.

In the Belly of the Beast

Or back at the salt mines, or whatever you'd like to call it. Shoulder to the wheel and all that. Three days off and I get to work a twelve hour day. Then again, I decided I was behind after spending the last few days on my behind (and walking and swimming) and got 'stuck in'.

Stupid thing to do really, which is why I am writing my blog now and not, not, not working. Enough is enough. I quit. At least until tomorrow at 7:30 AM. Then I'll be all bright eyed and bushy tailed (in the metaphorical sense), and punching the air and yelling 'Up and at 'em!' and other hearty phrases.

Hee hee: got you going there didn't I? No! Come back! I promise I don't do stuff like that in the morning. You have no need to hate me!

At one time, there was a motivational speaker on what was then the only TV station. He used to come on at 6:30 in the morning and do the air-punching thing and say 'Yes! Yes! Yes!'. It was awful. I heard that he comitted suicide eventually. Just goes to show. There's nothing like a slow start.

For now, I have a slow wending home, to rest, to sleep, perchance to find inspiration for a decent blog post (but I keep dreaming about work anyway: boring!)

Today's pic: Lichen on a rock - a metaphor for getting up slowly in the morning and why? Because I say so.

The Return of the Mutterer

Yes its me. Now where did I put my specs? Crikey! Oh there they are… right on my face. Now why on earth did I put them there? One’d think I’d know better (removes specs). Where was I?

Oh yes. That’s it… I’m back. And where, you may ask, have I been? Ah! Now that would be telling. Whatsat? That’s what this blog post is for? Now why on earth didn’t I think of that? Yes, yes, I’m getting around to it. I just want to have a good mutter first.

As you know, I did things involving hot beverages to my computer which wasn’t as thankful as it jolly well ought to have been. On receiving both Teutonic (a colleague of mine) and technical advice that involved a blow dryer, I added three melted keys to my woes, and things still didn’t work.

Right so… on leaving my computer marinating in coffee at the repair place, I had to get through a couple of computerless days at work, and then I was in hot water.

No, really. Hot water, and very nice it was. Boiling hot (well, nearly), iron-laden water bubbling out of the ground and piped into pools where you can swim about to your heart’s content and turn orange from the iron while you’re at it.

Then, when you’re good and orange, out you go into the little karoo (that’s a sort of semi-desert) for a bit of clambering on rocky trails through the kopjies and sere grass among the orangey rocks with your camera chasing springbuck that turn out to be goats. Its my idea of a good time, anyway.

Nice landscapes: more typical of this country than the forests and mountains around my home. Good thing its winter though. No shade. Wide open spaces that match what’s between my ears just at the moment.

Get back, get computer and now, with the world of words at my fingertips I haven’t a thing to say. Which is why I wrote this.

Today’s pics: the inside of my head: the green bit in the first one bothers me a little.

coffee error

12345678970
qweruiop
asdfjkl’
zxcvbnm,.?

So, middle of comp does no work. Coffee error. Sure readers know. Coffee and compuer. Does no work. difficul. Problem. Mos inconvenien Apoloies. Reduced o morse code. No more blo for now. Sob.

back wen fixed. :(

can laff if ou like.

I will laff, nex week or so wen compuer is fixed.

I AM ART

HWfaber’s blog made me think about self-portraits, of the photographic variety. Up till now, I’ve called it ‘mucking about with my camera taking pictures of myself’, but thanks to him, I now realize its an art form! Yay! No more guilt!

The fact is, that if you want to try things with people pictures, one needs a willing model, and for some reason all my friends are of the sort that you have to creep up on if you want a photograph at all. You certainly can’t say: ‘Hang on there, hold it.. I want to see what happens if I take this from under your chin.’ They’ll be hiding away under the table before you or your camera can say ‘click’.

So I’ve decided to make this a ‘me messing around taking pic..’ oops, I mean ‘self-portrait art’ post.

First up is the one I’m currently using for my blogger profile – a bit harsh – I boosted the contrast to hell and back wanting something ‘moody’ and weather-beaten. Well, I must say, this one looks pretty darned dangerous. Woohoo! Mission accomplished. Don’t mess with me, especially not in a high wind.

One of my earliest attempts was this very out of focus little number. I do like being out of focus - does me the power of good, I tell you. Who’s a pretty little smudge then?

Then a year or two back, a reflection in a café window in Copenhagen. I like this one a lot. I look spooky, and you can see right through ‘me’ to the knives and forks on the window ledge and the sofa inside the café.

Then my more recent monster.. I mean.. ‘master’ pieces. I adore the one I titled ‘Kiss the Sky’. I turned it into black and white for a recent post, but its even better in colour. It was sweltering day in February and I wanted a silhouette with the occasional gleam of sweat against the fierce blue sky. Mission accomplished!

Last but not least: a smoky, hazy one taken during my recent move. I didn’t have a thing in mind, just trying some new and, strictly speaking 'wrong' camera settings, but I think the result is interesting.

I’m an ‘artist’ only in my dreams and desires (and without enough desire to actually make an effort). Photo’s are a bit of a cheat – so quick – so little effort involved, but there it is and I shall call it ‘art’ and since that is me in those pictures, I suppose I’m art too.

I am a bask-ard

Warm winter's days should be outlawed. For one thing, they're just too darned nice. Anything that nice has to be questionable. Then too, they make one ever so lazy. It shouldn't be allowed. I managed to drag myself from the back veranda to the front veranda to get this susnet shot over the sea and cliffs. Its also the view I have from my bedroom window. Awful isn't it?

Most of the day was spent on the other veranda. Which looks like this in terms of sunshine if not bees. The hive is still there, and very busy on a warm day, but in this picture the swarm arrives, so its a lot more intense.

Half of the veranda is roofed over and there are big windows facing the mountains, so when the sun gets a bit much, its easy to find a more comfortable spot. I love the colours you see from here: the golden field, a distant green meadow and the mountains march onwards as far as the eye can see until they fade into blue. Cradock peak has snow on it and looks almost Alpine.

Can you blame me if I folded my hands and did next to nothing all day long? I just basked like a lizard in the sun.

At leat I took that sunset shot!

A job in Vice

… and so it was that I decided to study Agriculture, or Agricultural research, or anything that would get me as far out of town as possible and under the sky.

By that time, my mother could no longer afford to send me to uni, so I decided to work and save up for it. This time, I applied at a hotel in the middle of Pretoria – rather a smart one, and got a job as a bar waitress.

I may have been saving up for an education, but I certainly got one at the bar. Aged eighteen I learned how to get rid of obstreperous clients, avoid getting my backside pinched, and learned how to get revenged discreetly if my backside did get pinched -you kick them hard on the shins, no-one notices and they won’t complain. A slightly less discreet revenge, is to serve their next drink onto their laps. A definite cooling of ardour (among other things) results.

I could write pages about the parade of faces, the good, the bad, the happy, the sad, but on the whole, barmaiding is very humdrum. You spend hours waiting for a customer, and then you’re run off your feet, you hear the same jokes – sometimes several times in one day – and some men will try to ‘buy’ one. I never could ‘get’ that.

Ask for a date, sure. I’ll turn it down, that’s fine – but some thought to clinch the deal by offering me money. If they only thought, they’d realize it: if I was selling sex, I sure as heck wouldn’t be working from ten in the morning till after twelve at night serving booze. I’d be making oodles of cash lying on my back (or in some other position which is, with luck, fairly comfortable). I wouldn’t be mopping up beer slops (or worse) and running about like a maniac for three rand an hour and whatever small change I got in tips.

As at the hairdressers’ I found many of the things that my management considered to be important rather trivial, but I was a good barmaid – I served my clients politely, never got drunk and my stock and till always balanced. Besides, the MD really liked me, so I was able to get away with occasional insubordination with impunity.

In the end, I decided I’d saved enough to begin studying and gave my notice to the MD. While I was working out my final month, one of the more junior managers tried to fire me for telling him to get a move on and help me cash up.

‘You can’t fire me.’ said I, laughing.
‘Oh yes I can!’ he riposted with great wit and a certain amount of asperity.
‘Oh no you can’t!’ said I, matching his repartee with ease. Eventually we got as far as:
‘Why can’t I fire you?’
‘Because I resigned two weeks ago.’
I do hope he’s seen the funny side of it by now.