|
Earthquakes, drinking to excess, the whiners and other random thoughts.
As I sit here at work on a wet and windy Saturday morn, feeling a little groggy after being 'ambushed' at the pub last night by a well meaning and well funded association of poisoners, I just thought that I would share a few seemingly random thoughts with my colleagues at the clan.
The groggy feeling has been compounded by my recent consumption of a traditional Chinese breakfast. Cheung fan (rolled rice dumplings) cloaked in chilli sauce along with fried noodles and Siu mai (fish balls), isn't exactly the 'breakfast of champions' (First time I heard that phrase it was upon being presented with a pint of Guiness by a smiling barman in Dublin at about 10.30am after an extended bout of boozing the night before), but at least it had the effect of clearing the sinuses. Breathing is rarely something that I focus on in particular, but I've got cause to regret it this morning as my increasing age makes it's presence felt by the depth of my hangover.
Self inflicted pain is the very worst kind.
It's strange how you can fool yourself into thinking that the consumption of rice dumplings, chilli and fish balls could in any way have a palliative effect, but that's the kind of situation I find myself in this morning. As I write these words, the red and green chinese characters that underpin the slightly more familiar roman ones on my keyboard are glaring at me and making it increasingly difficult to focus on the task at hand, nevertheless I shall soldier on.
Self pity is also the very worst kind.
I'm also anticipating a meeting with the PTA of a Hong Kong primary school where I shall be expected to hold court upon the benefits of various courses that I shall be recommending to their school. Not an especially onerous task you understand but one which will require more thought and self possession than I am currently able to muster. It's at this point that I take comfort in the fact that I'm a situationally motivated person and that crisis will provide me with the juice of inspiration. I'm probably just bulls****ing myself however.
The ground feels as if it's still shaking which is never a great indication of sound mental or physical health, but I'm persuading myself (Again, probably incorrectly) that it's merely the residual echo of the earthquake that registered 3.5 on the richter scale a couple of nights back. 3.5 I'm reliably informed, is a 'tiddler' in quake terms, but being British and from a land that Tacitus once famously observed as being 'worth the conquest' because of the fact that it's weather was mild, there was virtually no wildlife that could kill you and was full of tin and gold, it was a singularly scary event.
Those who live in the Bay area of course would scoff at my concern. My brother in fact, who lives nowhere near the Bay area (He is actually a policeman in the UK......not one of those village people types that you might find in the Bay area, but a real policeman) sent me a text this morning that read " You big girl, did Kate (my wife) hold your hand for you?". Stung, by his casual approach to my well being I replied "No, she just said 'what the f**k was that?' at around the same time as me".
The Earth of course regularly moves in the Bay area. Quite how it moves for those who live there and what they do to make it move is not something that I want to dig too deep into this morning for fear of bringing back my Cheung fan, or upsetting the deeply wholesome people who inhabit these boards. That I will leave to those more practiced in it than ourselves, namely those overfamilar descendants of gold prospectors who cling to the North American continent as inhabitants of 'The city'.
It is my fervent hope as I write this little missive (maybe even dismissive) that we make a contribution to their mental fault line by sending their football teams (I won't utter it's name) season into a tailspin from which they won't recover. It's the one thing that is peering through the fog of confusion that has wrapped itself around me this morning. It's the constant, the crutch, the apex of hope with which I console myself as I stumble through what remains of my morning.
The benefits will be clear. We will have defeated our bitterest foe, moved one game further ahead in the division, scored a TD to silence the carping, proved that our D is worthy of the name, given Steven a reason to cheer with justification and silenced some of the insipid, moronic guff that some see fit to post on our smack forum in the name of those who should not be named. One game doesn't make a season but this one would truly help. Oh, and I'll be happier which will be of great benefit to my nearest and dearest.
After all, self inflicted pain is the very worst kind.
__________________
"If a man does not know to what port he is sailing, no wind is favourable" Lucius Seneca 4BC-AD65
|
Linear Mode
