Extraordinary day with Extraordinary Professor

I spent the other day with an Extraordinary Professor of philosophy. What makes him so extraordinary? And who am I to judge his extraordinariness seeing I know bugger all about philosophy? In order: He is willing to be seen in public with me. He is family and willing to admit it. And extraordinary professor is apparently an official title. But mostly he is extraordinary because he can start truthful sentences with “When I worked at the zoo”.

“That is no way to speak about my alma mater!”, I interrupted.

“I said zoo, not circus” was the reply.

Fair enough. “Go on about the zoo.”

He was on the ethics committee, thinking about what the zoologists did to the animals and how ethical it was. What the animals did to the scientists were not considered. Clearly slaughtering rhinos and braaing them on Friday evening was not ethical. He wasn’t needed for that. That was clear. With dissecting and braaing off the menu, zoologists gather lots of information from non-invasive sources. Bodily fluids to you and me. Blood, urine, faeces and even semen in some genders.

Did gathering semen not constitute sexual assault? This question apparently still amuses the zoo staff years later. After getting off the floor they showed him a video of a penguin semen gathering, eh, operation. And while it is fair to say some uncomfortableness existed, it was not with the avian participant. In fact the donor not only participated willingly, he came back for more. How many genes do human and penguin males share?

My cousin and I spent a glorious autumn day together in Stellenbosch and environments feasting and tasting wine. It can be rather intimidating to hang around with a professor of philosophy.

“How long did it take you to get here?”, he asked.

“About 45 years.” I replied, in a desperate attempt to rise to his intellectual level.

“No, Doofus, to get here from your home to pick me up.”

Philosophy 1. Engineering 0.

I nearly stuffed up this glorious day by forgetting that my mental and bodily age differ by several years. Checking in to the Oude Meul guest-house (now highly recommended by me), the proprietor saw me and a young lady ⁽¹⁾, in a shapely Maties exercise outfit, at the same time and assumed we were together. With age comes a certain circumspection, or slowness, that saved me. I was half a second away from proclaiming “I should be so lucky!” when asked if we were together when I realised the guest-house owner saw a father and daughter, the pretty one saw a fat old bloke and her young self and only a delusional me saw a possible couple. I should have been thinking “If only I was 20 years younger! I still wouldn’t have had a chance with her.”

The day ended somewhat accidentally with a glorious dinner at Jardine. It is the type of place where the frequently changing menu is only a double spaced A4 long and each dish has several words in the description that I did not understand. Seeing that we were clearly from the other side of the railway than her usual customers the waiter assisted superbly. She explained everything patiently and recommended a wine with our meal. As ever in restaurants like this, I felt somewhat of an imposter.

It is also the type of place where bready type thingys (yes I am that inarticulate about fine dining) came unbidden to the table. In our case it was a seed-like provita in aioli. Crispy and nourishing. Complex and rewarding. The other piece was a fridge magnet sized vetkoek. It was by some distance the best vetkoek I’ve ever tasted. Not oily at all and lacking that door stopper quality of bazaar ‘koeks of yore; this was fluffy and dry. Boere chic.

And the rest of the meal only improved on it. Quail with Gorgonzola and a version of potato (I think) that was sublime. Mushroom dust and a delicious sauce matched with Chardonnay made up the rest of our fodder. Not sure which part of the quail we had, but it looked and tasted nothing like chicken. In fact, chicken can only dream of tasting this good.

For dessert (we opted for the two courses) we had a triple mix of guava. Thinly sliced in syrup, in a sorbet and a foam in brandy snaps. Given my predilection for guava this was not a hard sell. Next time I go to Jardine I will opt for the three course meal and ask if all three courses could be this collection of guava delights.

Days like this are far too infrequent. The heady mix of epicurean pleasures and reality delighting and grounding one’s body and soul. To be fair, if you look like me, it is rather delighting two’s body and soul.

(1) I’m guessing early twenties. And knowing quite attractive.

My medical excursion

Last week I acquired a sports injury. Injury to be more precise. My sporting glory lies safely buried in the last millennium. I hurt my shoulder doing, ehh, I am not sure what. There was no AARRGHH-HAAA moment. For some time it was a niggling thing (been watching cricket again I have) and then suddenly one morning it was BLOODY HELL WHAT IS THIS FOR? Quick activities review; looking for closed doors that needed persuading open? None. Heavy lifting? No just my normal, if very substantial, self. Acts of stupidity to impress a woman? Not this time. So I must have slept myself an injury. The laziest injury of all.

For 3 days I tried self-medicating with aspirin, Deep Heat, ineffectual rubbing and the psychological approach. The last one essentially consisted of hoping it would go away by itself, reasoning that if it arrived by itself, the return journey should also be possible via the same road. Ineffectual all of them. By now I am not sleeping well, have trouble dressing myself and am mentally preparing for an amputation. So despite some deep rooted fear of all things medical, I went to a physiotherapist. First time ever. Because I've grown attached to my arm.

After a brief time filling in some forms, I spent an even briefer time explaining my pain. Within moments she figured out where to press to make the pain worse. Thus clearly demonstrating she understood the problem. She showed no pleasure in this, the giving pain bit. So I unclenched by teeth and other bits and started to warm to the therapy.

She put an ultrasound to my shoulder. Apparently it is not pregnant. I forgot the technical reason⁽¹⁾, but it made it feel better. Some massaging, some manual manipulation, always stopping shortly after my unsuccessful attempt at hiding my low pain threshold. But after all that, it felt a lot better. A moerse lot better. One of my more stupid doings, waiting so long to get professional help.

I was shown some simple exercises and told to put ice on it as long as I could. After 7 minutes the Checkers store manager threw me out of the frozen peas section. I also had to upgrade my pain medication to some anti-inflammatory type thing. Luckily they knew exactly at the pharmacy.

“Oh and don't take these for too long, it could have some nasty gastrointestinal side effects”

IT IS GOING TO ATTACK MY BIGGEST ORGAN!! No way I am taking this medi ,BLIMEY CHARLEY, that hurt, OK I will listen to the professionals. So here I am writing sinisterly, occasionally pausing to adjust the once frozen Hawaiian stir fry, thinking about the time my drinking arm worked painlessly.

(1) Oh, now I remember the technical reason: I don't have a uterus in my shoulder.