What is with the new slang "sick"?
Jennifer Lopez is getting "sick on the dance floor", I don't think I'd like to take a turn on that dance floor thanks.
Dr Rey is telling all us South African girls we're so gorgeous that we're just sick, man. Erm, thanks..? Not sure I can take a compliment seriously when someone tells me I look sick.
I may be getting older but I think telling someone that something is so cool and awesome that its sick is Just. So. Stooopid.
Maybe it gets its origins from something like " She looks so good its sickening!"
Or "That dress looks so cool on you, you make me sick."
What will the next catch word be in the gastro vein of slang vocab?
"Baby, you are so hot you're a total vom-bomb!"
"Vomalicious, dude!"
"Bru, that wave was so awesome it heaved!"
"Chunka chunka, babe!"
Rainy Sunday afternoon ramblings of a bemused mama.
And I get to spend the rainy evening camping on the couch with my sick Husband and my vomalicious Boy eating buttered popcorn.
Now thats just sick.
Besides enjoying the challenges of parenting I also enjoy the odd spot of gardening while trying to defy the elements and cultivate a garden in a wind blown corner of the Cape Peninsula.
While the strong south easterly summer wind, fondly(?) referred to as the Cape Doctor, is commended for blowing away all the bad air and smog, leaving the air brisk and breezy and supposedly cleaner to breathe, she leaves our gardens in a state of shock and serious dehydration.
I don't bother getting stuck into the garden in summer, its a pointless exercise. Putting the sprinkler on is the hardest bit of work I manage and even then the water is sucked right out again by the gale force trade winds making their way down the African coast.
But in winter I enjoy pottering around my garden and redesigning my outside spaces.
Last weekend was my day for pruning and weeding. I enjoy pruning trees and bushes, I enjoy reshaping things, giving new opportunities to the smaller members of the garden, letting sunlight through to the darker corners of the yard. Give me wings and a sparkly wand and I could be the shrubbery's next fairy godmother.
But one person who enjoys pruning even more than I do is The Darling Husband. A handsaw in the hands of this man is a recipe for mass destruction for the arboreal community of our garden.
Our tenant once innocently asked him to trim her overhanging pepper tree branches. Luckily I came to investigate his progress that morning only to find he had cut back most of her tree canopy leaving very little of the precious shade she so enjoyed. Her reaction was very polite but she has since then never asked him to trim anything else. She now gets the garden service in.
Last weekend he undertook the task of trimming our front lawn and pruning back some of our trees, some of which had branches devoid of a single leaf and which The Husband was eyeing critically while his sawing hand was starting to itch. "Dead wood" was the verdict and I had to be in agreement.
Trouble was was that the dead wood happened to be at the top of the tree. Granted, the tree wasn't very high but high enough to merit some sort of elevation. Our stepladder was inside the house, upstairs and tucked away behind a door and, well, just too far away to be fetched. So he devised a quick makeshift plan using the plastic garden table of dubious age with the wobbly legs.
My skepticism for using this as a safe platform outweighed his enthusiasm for the job at hand and he clambered up onto the table, hacksaw in hand. At this point I had visions of rushing him to the ER, with the traumatised Boy in tow after one of the table's wobbly legs had indeed wobbled itself out of its socket and dumped the man back down to earth in a painful and uncomfortable manner. Or worse.
"Mrs Snyders, I can see you are in a state but can you tell me what happened to your husband? How did a plastic table leg find its way to where it is presently lodged up your husband's behind? Mrs Snyders, maybe you can stop laughing for a moment..?"
Luckily that was not the scenario that played out and my child, who was an onlooker and Daddy-cheerleader, was not scarred for life. All's well that ends well. The tree is now more streamlined and the ground beneath it is warmed by the stronger sunlight streaming through the remaining leafy branches.
The only limbs harmed were those belonging to the tree. This time.
