The other day i posted the top 5 blogs of this past year in terms of the amount of eyes they got on them. This doesn’t necessarily mean they were the best five blog posts of the year, but they definitely resonated with more people. But i have some favourites outside of them as well and possibly the post i wrote about Deep Dive Conversations just the other day is one of my personal favourites.
But i decided to look back over the year and compile a list of my own Continue reading
If you’re married, then probably every day there is at least one thing that happens that makes you just smile and know why you married that particular person.
But on some days the thing is more obvious and the smile is much bigger.
i have had a bit of a history with airport dressing-up ever since i was greeted in the Durban airport by two of my friends [and two of their friends] in full-on Teletubby costumes many years ago and you can read more about that over here. Since then we’ve seen Hare Krishnas and photoshopped heads onto pregnant bodies and a lot more.
This year when we flew back to Oakland for a month’s visit and camp speak we were greeted by our former housemate, Aaron Ruff, in the full-on Hello Kitty suit that HE HAD MADE for Halloween:
Yes, that is a giant paper mache head. Only thing is Aaron misjudged the time it might take us to get through customs and so he was stuck in that thing – scared he’s have it off when we came through – for a whopping two to three hours. Can you say sweatfest?
Anyways, this week Aaron and his wife Sarah were coming to South Africa and so naturally we had to return the favour. But how do you beat Hello Kitty? Okay, you can’t, let’s be honest, but how can you make a valiant attempt?
ENTER PIRATE BEE MAN AND TRANCE GIRL
The irony of me, as a good mate reminded me this week, is that i hate dressing up for parties, but give me an airport… and so we tried to crowd source and store source and it was Christmas and we weren’t finding anything and then finally in the dying moments of the day before we managed a combination of Majash Dress-up box vibes [cos everyone should have a dress-up box] and Improv Meg Industrial theatre human bee suit [which i discovered was for someone at least half a person smaller than me]
i came up with the idea for Name Signs and used my Heart Radio name and outsourced the other [thankx Wayne Eaves] and we ended up looking like this:
There is nothing quite like your wife shouting, “Testicle!” at passing by strangers who have just stepped off a plane for forty-five minutes straight. Or even better was when she was calling out to guys passing by, “Hugh Jass?” and i was desperately hoping they could see the sign in my hands [i was more than half blind from hair and eye-patch in that costume]
At one point tbV turned to me and said, “Hey, we should come and do this every week, even when we’re not meeting people here.”
And that was the moment i knew that i had married a good one.
[For a growing list of Highlight moments from my life, click here]
2015 has been quite a complicated year. It has contained some of the best of times and some of the worst of times. And there is no way i will do it justice in one blog post here. But i thought it was worth looking back and mentioning some of what it held, even if just for me… Continue reading
So yesterday’s cave time was pretty productive. Have now largely sorted out the beginning of the book and was trying to sit with the chapters and sections and work on a bigger overview of the book as a whole – how it all fits together and have i left anything out. Also got an email from one of my friends who was reading the book to review it for me and felt i had left out a major section or point and so today i will sit with that and see what needs to change or how i will address his really helpful comments. This last hundred meters of this 15 year plus race has felt very much like a communal effort as i sit in a place organised by my mates Duncan and MJ, as i work on feedback given by Joel and tbV and Rob and Garth and Jessica and others, as i quickly email people and bounce ideas off them or run a quick survey to choose the best way forward. Really feels like my arms are being held up by friends and people are cheering me on and that feels great.
But for today i have moved to a new cave. From African Tree Lodge which was a stunning place and you should all go stay there when you are visiting Durban [and turns out the manager, Lloyd, goes to the church i preached at on Sunday night] i have set sail to Red Tudor Bed and Breakfast which is another paradise away from the buzz of the suburb roads and noise and general busyness.
So welcome to Cave 2 – no, it’s still not an actual cave people, sigh.
Today is another half day of writing – had to leave one cave and move to the other and with a gap of time in between managed to meet with my good mate Brian Louw and solve most of the mysteries of the Universe and later tonight i am hanging with great friends Debs and Baz and Dreads and Nancy twin and a big pile of ribs.
Then tomorrow’s full day of writing and the book will be done! And then flying back to Cape Town on Friday. So today going over a bunch of chapters and sections i circled to make sure they are worth having in or can maybe be improved or enhanced in some way and then tomorrow will be final push – adding one or maybe two more chapters in terms of ideas people have shared or asked about or things i think might still be missing and then making sure the end is solid and anything else that crops up.
To the cave…
So assuming i got the right aircraft and these aren’t just for the first class toffs [so fine if anyone wants to bucketlist bump us up to a different class for fun] this is the selection of movies i have available for our first flight to Washington D.C. in which i can watch 2 to 3 movies if i work it right. What would you watch? Hoping to get enough votes so that i can compose a top 3 out of movies i have not seen yet so try and factor that in if you can… What would your top five be from this list… excuse the squinting – this is the best i could do… and GO!
Minus 200 points for even suggesting Anchorman 2 – STOPPIT!
UPDATE: So this was kind of a non-starter with the list NOT being the list of movies available on our first flight where we got a sum total of ZERO movies offered and no food and then on the big international flight i watched MILLION DOLLAR ARM [So Great!] and NOAH [What a load of bollockses] and half of Monuments Men [yawn!] before we landed in Dakar to refuel after which, for the longest section [8 hours] of our flight, tbV and myself and maybe two other people had no working tvs/movies at all so SAD FACE United/SAA – thumbs down… have been looking forward to the movie part of the transition for a while now and you let me down completely [and still have one of my bags, but that’s another post]
i don’t understand chocolate – i know something about cocoa beans but that’s about it – possibly a glass and a half of milk in certain brands and a handful of raiSINs in other overly disobedient and retarded versions – and a bunch about it liking to stick around and be an accessory to your body long after the eating date (friends with unbenefits?) and also that when it goes white it is old (if it starts out white it is probably not as nice as any other form and so you’re in trouble already) um, and that the best possible melting mix in my travels is the following:
[serves two]
one slab of top deck (or more or bigger depending on how many people)
one or two bags of smartie eggs
a microwave, a microwave-friendly plate and two teaspoons (or more if more)
break the Top Deck into individual pieces and then break those in half – microwave for between 30 and 70 seconds (depending on your microwaver) – open, stir, microwave some more until the hint of meltage – the add smartie eggs – the microwave another 30 to 70 seconds then open stir and continue until melted
eat with teaspoons (while watching Survivor or in extreme cases, Amazing Race)
amazing! the chocolate, not the race although it is highly entertaining, especially when chocolate is involved in the challenges as it was that one time.
but give me a bag of cocoa beans, a great big…. tract of land, a shovel and a glass and a half of milk and i will have no clue – throw in a conveyor belt and a packaging machine and will i not still be useless?
[the answer is yes, yes i will]
so i don’t understand chocolate – i ‘get’ some of the concept behind it, i know how it affects me and adds to my life – but i completely love it (well maybe not ‘completely’ – definitely not more than the beautiful Valerie and probably only equal to a good gravy-covered pea-and-sausage-accompanied mash potato portion) and make the most of it (and occasionally embrace it when no-one is looking)
i love chocolate.
so what are you saying, brett fish?
well, i think it’s completely obvious what i am getting at but let me lead you there on the off chance that your mind is not as lateral thinking as mine own.
i love God!
Irresistibly Fish 