Corking Out the Cocktail

        She worked her magic in the LBD. Her freshly done mane was shifted to one side of her head and lay undisturbed on her shoulder. For the finishing touches, she picked out simple jewels that exuded an air of sophistication and a light touch of natural-looking makeup. Then she took one last look into the mirror. A deep breath, “I got this…It’s never that serious!” Oh, didn’t she love to use that phrase? Then she slipped her feet into a pair of silver sandals and strutted out into an emancipated evening. 

            “Thank you, sir”, she uttered as she handed the cab driver his due with an extra tip that might just spell some luck for the happenings of the night. It felt like attending a ball in the castle with the prince who every girl would kill to have a dance with, sway to some piped waltz and live to tell the tale over and over again. However, there was no prince here or majestic gates to swing open into an extensive abode with an array of servants at her service. It was going to be one of the redefining moments of her life. She took the few ruffles off her dress and confidently walked up the stairs to join the rest.

            As she approached the small group of officials, she began to get a few juts of nervousness. They seemed engrossed in a moment of laughter and the nearer she drew, the more her pulse sped up. Another deep breath and with courtesy curled at the tip of her lips, she went ahead to meet the personnel manager, some of the panellists that she met the previous week and a short sturdy man who was unfamiliar to her. “Call me Jill,” he said. “Jasmine, pleasure.” The atmosphere was good-natured and her tense interior began to relax.

            The assortment of colours in the spacious opening was amazing. She felt she should have studded her closet with a little brighter hue for the night but she still had to be cautious and professional. Drinks flowed freely and talk emancipated easily. The service was unparallelled, the glasses always filled with a variety of liquor; wine, brandy, whisky, rum, gin, light cocktails and ciders. She was offered sherry wine which she slickly swirled, sniffed and sipped. Hadn’t she been schooled well? Indeed so!

Then she paced around looking out for her kind of company and getting acquitted with some of the strangers. A few friendly faces bothered to greet her and soon enough she was sharing a humorous moment with a number of them. It was not so hard after all! Those new friends got to introduce her to a few more dignitaries who familiarised her with their fellow contemporaries and continued to exchange pleasantries. Time seemed to while away slowly. It was barely 9.00 o’clock and she decided to get some air outside. 

She secured a bench in the well-manicured lawn and a stream of questions began whirling in her mind. Would she land herself that position? What if she did and what if she didn’t? Had she behaved herself well enough to please the corporate perks? How many more cocktails, lunches and dinners did she have to attend to finally get a job? A solitary mosquito buzzing in her ear disrupted her and she thought it time to go back indoors. 

As she wound through the small mass of people, silence was called upon and the short man she had met earlier in the evening was tapping on the microphone gingerly attempting to make an announcement. He adjusted his spectacles and held a piece of paper in his hand. She began getting apprehensive about what the paper held. He wasn’t planning to read the names of the new employees nor could he be more immodest to do that! Suddenly, the lights went out and the air lurched into an uncomfortable silence. Whispers and murmurs could be heard sounding from different corners of the room. She held to her purse more tightly and sighed heavily.

The same brown envelope and the same sunny days. Morning was here and she was still enclosed in the parentheses of the unemployed. The same hope in the morning but the same disappointment in the evening. She rubbed her eyes, lurching herself from a long night, stretched her neck and turned to the side table adjacent to the bed’s dashboard. She picked the holy book bound with a leather casing, flipped it open and her eyes swept on to the verse... ‘Do not be anxious about anything but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving; present your requests to God’. 

 Check. Sorted.

The 1st of Stamp Nail Art

Here's the first nail art for the 'polished' bit of the blog

I had the idea of a cocktail in mind, thanks to the prose!

Base colour is deep blue, Golden Rose brand. 2 Coats work best.

Don't forget to protect the nails with a layer of base coat. cCUk works well as it is light and thin.

Then I used Konad stamp nail art to produce the pink bubble effect, sort of the bubbles in a fizzy drink. Close up, this is how it turned out...

Now if that won't work for a cocktail, I wonder what will!

Randu's journal

DADDAY’S GIRL

They say fiction is strange and I dare add life is stranger than fiction. My high school life like that of any teenage girl was full of mischief and hard labor. Labor being, trying to keep up with the slavery of the education system of the country. As for mischief, it’s all relative. Depending on how well brought up one was, mischief ranged from skipping school to skipping that horrible thing they serve in the name of food. But as I said it’s all relative. Boarding school teaches you that; relativism.

            The school I attended is in some country neighborhood and it ain’t jus away from civilization, it’s in the back of beyond. I did my damn best to stay outta trouble partly because nobody wants to be in trouble and partly because those nuns made juvenile detention more appealing.

            Nell my roommate and I were shadows of each other. She was a beautiful girl who everyone liked and rode in the high ‘circles’ of school. Even sister Mariasita loved Nell! I on the other hand was plain old Jane. Everyone stepped on me and it did not matter. There was nothing to write home about me though the accounts office would indicate that I had one of the biggest fee balances. Neighbors at home would say that I was the third child of the third wife of my father.

            I come from a middleclass polygamous family. Papa has five wives. The unspoken rule in such families is, life is good until the next wife is married and as the ranks of the wives increases, the politics of the family rises to civic levels. Of course the first wife is the rule and law and by all means she should be. Papa was the judge and the rest of his clansmen the jury. Growing up with stepbrothers and sisters was wonderful and to date even my husband thinks am kidding when I brag about the Christmas lunch; an affair that included thirty seven siblings. I know it’s a little exaggerated but that was Daddy for me.

                       

            Papa lived in the city and was an engineer in a prominent firm until his retirement. His wives including Mama were all tucked in the village where as I can now see is the only place having five wives makes sense. I grew up in the village. It was normal, I presumed to come from a polygamous family and that was until I went to high school. All of a sudden I could not speak of my big family with pride and I was shunned until Nell came along to restore my self esteem. I am just a child of my father and those are his wives not mine. Ain’t no sin in being a child.

            School holidays were heavenly. There are some things I can only eat in Mama’s house like porridge mixed with dried sweet potatoes. It is the sweetest thing but I could not take pride even in that at school. Now that am older and wiser, I know that we had that porridge because we could not afford sugar. Necessity is the mother of inventions. We lived in sheer poverty yet we were not poor. Papa was just never home but when he was things were good. Nobody complained about anything and that’s how   Mama brought us up. Lacking and poverty is not something bad. If it can be ridded, good! If not then just make the best of the little that’s there. That Papa loves me is no doubt and only I doubted it. Even my step siblings- if there is something like that- would send me on their behalf and tease me about being daddy’s little princess. I am named Maria, after my grandma, his mother.

            In school Nell and I would join different clubs every other school year so we could get chances to attend gigs outside school. In Nell’s class there was Ed who must have been the coolest girl in the school. She seemed to have come from a good family. While we were always on our way home to bring school fees hers was always fully paid on time. She liked hanging around Nell because unlike the rest of us who were village girls, Nell was one from city. Ed behaved like a shade of a blonde. She was always in our room showing off all the new stuff she had acquired while on holiday. Oh! The grass is always greener on the other lawn. How I envied that girl! How I wish Papa would spoil me the way Ed’s dad spoilt her.

            Nell seeing my eyes would light up every time I saw Ed would later murmur to something like, ‘It ain’t all gold, pretty face, no matter how much it glitters.’ I never asked her what it all meant until one day she volunteered.

‘This ain’t gossip,’ she started, ‘mark my words.’

‘It’s about Ed I suppose,’ said I.

‘Yes and I am telling you so that she doesn’t break your heart herself.’

‘Ha….ha…. you are doing the breaking up for her,’ I joked. ‘Her life is just too perfect. I wish it were mine.’

‘Oh no!’ She cried, ‘Touch wood!’

‘Why should I?’ I asked touching wood anyway.

‘Father Miller said envy was a sin, didn’t he?’ She asked confused.

 ‘Jealousy, and don’t look too serious you are scaring me,’ I said.

‘Jealousy, envy, all the same to me. And especially because you don’t know the half of it,’ she scolded.

‘I don’t know the half of anything in this school,’ answered I, ‘So you wanna gossip or what?’ I asked indifferently.

‘You know I don’t gossip, I just spread rumours.’

‘Why are rumours there?’

‘To be spread, I guess……’

‘Then spread away,’ I said jovially trying hard to hide my anxiety.

‘Apparently Ed comes from a very poor family. She claims to have a boyfriend who gives her the good things she possesses.’ She said. ‘She jokes that they are so poor she can’t afford even her own name.’

 ‘Noooo………….’ I said stopping my ears.

‘Yes. This is no word on the street. Came from the horse’s mouth.’

‘What kind of friend? You mean like the ones we have?’

‘ No dummy!’ she said impatiently, ‘those can’t even afford postage stamps to send us letters. Those men with big stomachs and big cars.’

‘Sugar da……..’ I started.

‘Oh my gosh! What have I done? Corrupted you? Oh! Marie, the one with kind thoughts.’

That was the end of it. I refused to believe it despite there being more rumours going round. Visiting days came and went and we grew from one level of puberty to another. One moment Lingala was the coolest thing, the next time rock was born in our lives and life couldn’t get any cooler. Oh blessed teenage hood. Mama kept coming to visit me with all sorts of goodies and said Papa sent hugs and kisses. Sometimes she came with those sisters of hers which meant more goodies. The only problem was Aunt Olivia. She always rubbed it in that I was becoming a young woman. Horror of horrors! Childhood is something I cling onto to date. How could she tell me about being a complicated adult? That was the plague. Now my driver’s license reads adult but I am very much a child.

GRATITUDE

GRATITUDE

For the sun rising in the hills over the beautiful lilies

For its setting in the horizon after the cares of the day

For the chirping cricket, full of life in its hops and skips

For the simple gift of life, breath and active flesh

For laughter in the company of friends

For food, fabric and frailty

For a fervent family moment

For a neighbour who won’t stop yelling next door

And even for the workmate who constantly nips at your heels

And in every waking moment for your dreams!

I WISH...

I WISH...

I Wish I were a bird, blue with a big belly, tiny and timid

I Wish I were a butterfly, beautiful in flight with a blend of bright colours

I Wish I were a ladybird, restfully trailing on a blade of grass for comfort

I Wish I were a kitten, playful, restless, adorable and rather cheeky

I Wish I were a swan, white with grace and principled with rhythmic pace

I Wish I were a goldfish, with a short life in water in the hands of a 5-yr old

I Wish I were all of these and so much more but most of all I forget that I wish to be a better me, everyday, and in every possible way!