Sunday 18 September 2011

The soul of benevolence

I adore my three-year-old niece, Jaime. She is, to me, what dark chocolate and red wine are to other people - that one thing that chases the gloom away. It's mainly her hugs that do it. Since she is all three-year-old plump and soft as a peach, hugging her is like hugging a marshmallow. It's delicious.

Sometimes, however, I think she is as taken with herself as I am. She is, of course, the flowergirl for my wedding on Saturday. Since this was also the year of Prince Willian (as she calls him) and Princess Kate, she has been rather taken by the thought of nuptials and much planning has gone into her outfit. She has spent hours debating who will have the honour of carrying her train (which she has graciously bestowed on me - funny, because I kind of had another role in mind for myself) as well as selecting the finishing touches for her flowergirl outfit: fairy wings and a tiara.

She was very excited to show my this ensemble last night. I naturally oohed and ahhed and she accepted my compliments with poise, eventually saying, "Yes, I will look beautiful at your wedding" and then, sadly, "You won't'." My dismay, after months of gruelling krav maga and cake denial, must have been noticeable even to her three-year-old eyes because she finally capitulated, telling, "Ok. You will be special too."
Surely Princess Kate didn't have to put up with such insubordination?

Friday 16 September 2011

My mind is like velcro

In that things stick to it all the time. Not in a good way. When it comes to names and faces I am absolutely terrible, so that often, when I am introduced to people, I give them a great hostessy grin and say "it is SO lovely to meet you" just as they say "yes, remember when we all spent that weekend together in Dullstroom".

What does, however, stick in my mind worse than superglue are songs. Terrible songs. And not a great variety of them either. It is like my mind is a jukebox from somewhere like Prins Albert, with very few updates having been made since '88. And even then the changes weren't necessarily for the better. Usually, my days proceed to a soundtrack of Kumbayah, one tanamera and - bizarrely, for a Jewish girl - a collection of hymns, ranging from He (He can turn the tide and calm the angry sea) and Because I have been given much I too must give...and, also, I'm dreaming of a white christmas. That one only really springs up when something good has happened, almost like a strange pavlovian response, so that whenever I am happy or in a good mood, I walk around humming old Bing Cosby yuletide numbers.

The reason I am writing this now is because I have just had a particularly unfortunate couple of hours where my typing has taken place to the tune of "Please don't go". Ouch. definitely not one of the best songs to have emerged from the early 90s - and in an era which produced Pump up the jam and Everybody's Free to feel good, that is no small thing.

The worst part is, I know I can try switch songs, but all that's going to happen is that I will be transported straight back to Wednesday mornings in primary school, warbling along to Morning has Broken.

Tuesday 13 September 2011

I know for a fact I could never be in PR

That's because I just couldn't deal with the non-stop friendliness. Take the PR I just this second got off the phone with. She was excellent at her job; I know, because after two seconds of chatting with her I felt like we had a real connection, as if she really liked me. Such is the warmth and enthusiasm she managed to project into her voice, in spite of the fact that I have just given her extra work. Extra work, with a deadline that would make a non-PR person snarl like a Rottweiler presented with a dripping T-bone they're allowed to sniff but cannot taste.

That's pretty much my standard reaction to similar requests. Many is the time when clients have dropped chatty little mails, innocently asking if I don't want to "just do such and such" quickly, and I have to sit on my hands so that I don't send them back a simple, yet eloquent, response: No. No, I do not want to do anything except go and find the nearest cake shop where I can challenge myself to a brownie eating competition whilst reading. I would also love to point out to someone that 'just' is not a synonym for please.

In spite of my dim view of 'service with a smile', I have done my utmost to develop my own cocktail laugh; the tinkling little giggle that is made at the end of every business call, accompanied either by the phrase "Bye now" or exhortations to "take care" (two expressions I loathed before joining the working world). Sadly, though, my sister tells me it is less Grace Kelly than The Nanny with a sore throat; a bray, if you will.

Sigh. Sometimes, you just have to live up to your limitations.