a glass of red

“I rather like bad wine . . . one gets so bored with good wine.”
Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield 1804 - 1881
Sybil; or, The Two Nations [1845], bk. I, ch. 1

“As to wine, I was born in the land of plenty”
Eryll Oellermann 1948-

Herself had purchased two large bottles of vino in preparation for my visit. I need to smoke, I enjoy a glass of wine.
Naturally, as the month is almost past, that wine is history!
I should have known better! After all, cvs is a pharmacy … is it not? But there they were, bottles of red wine for only $5.99. now I may be resident in a far and misty land, but, I know a bargain when I see one. Yes … indeed!
Chateau Diana, California, Merlot.

Red wine, along with garlic and drizzles of olive oil … is, as we all know, that which keeps the Mediterranean folks heart healthy.
Red wine, in moderation is good for you.
Merlot would be my personal favourite.
$5.99 …
Last night I uncorked my bottle of red. Yep … a merlot which cost only $5.99 came corked. Sure it was only one of those new fangled plastic corks …
But it was a cork.
A little wine into each elegant wine glass…. “cheers!” … mmmm …. What the %&#$!
My bargain basement merlot tastes like an alcho pop!
I grab the bottle, there it is “merlot” … uh oh, right beneath ‘merlot” are the words …
WINE PRODUCT!
Whoever heard of such a thing … man! What is the world of wine coming to?
I roll the bottle in my hands until the back label is visible to my disbelieving eyes.
Ingredients???
Wine is made from grapes, since when does it have ingredients … whoops …. Forgot I was handling a “wine product”.
Ingredients …California table wine, water, sugar, concentrated juice, natural fruit flavours, citric acid and carbon dioxide … heh!
“Chateau Diana Merlot boasts of deep dark fruit and possesses aspects of cherry and cocoa. The warm oak components continue on to a long, smooth, velvety finish.”

Imagine that!
Never mind …
My Merlot (wine product) contains 6% alcohol by volume and there appears to be 5cents refundable on the real glass bottle.

Wine is bottled poetry.
Robert Louis Stevenson


Poetry is devil's wine.
St. Augustine

they are they

would I trade my life
exchange my journey with another
erase certain memories
to live without the pain of recall
is reality reason enough
to pursue the sands of time

for I have consumed my life
breathed it deep and felt content
the pain of loss has seared my soul
and burrowed deep within my mind
yet still I treasure
each and every step through time

at times my way winds slow and easy
gentle as a sleeping babe’s breath
then the swift rushing wind of change
new fear and new experience
pressure heavy at my back
time to learn a new tomorrow

through all of time and journey
love rides apace
my fated soul companions
hearts and minds aligned in friendship
from near and far, from now and then
my searching eyes seek

and I find such gentle comfort
in eyes that care and arms which hold
hearts and minds who love for no reason
except that they are they and I am me
experiencing life together, through laughter and tears
in these sweet souls I see the face of god

All materials Copyright © 2004-2008 by Eryll Oellermann

lori says ...

put it out there!

when hahn says "do" ... i do indeed do!

whatever is possible ...



let the words ring out ...
let the world hear ...

we will no longer be silent ...
we are who we are ...
we are good and bad ...
we are saint and sinner ...
we live, we love ...
we are not ashamed ...

judge not ...
love one another ...

in my home country we commited a crime against humanity ... we passed laws which created inequality based on skin colour and race!

apartheid was created, many of us grew up within the system, blind to the inequality!

we live with the guilt of our ignorance!

open your eyes and know the truth ...
love is a spiritual gift ...
no matter if you love your own or the opposite sex ...

in california, marriage for same sex partners = equal rights.

please ... do not create/support a 'new' apartheid.

i am smoke

A long, long time ago …
Back in the day …
When I was sixteen years old …
I started work at a very respectable banking institution.
My first job was addressing the envelopes into which bank statements were placed and then posted out to our very respectable customers.

Some were less respectable than others. Some had two accounts, one for their respectable life and another for their more interesting life.
In my youthful innocence, I sent an interesting statement to a respectable address.
Whoops! Was I in trouble? You might say so! I am firmly convinced that my psychological problems when it comes to earning a living out in the world …
All started with this traumatic experience… sigh …

Sixteen years old and responsible for mayhem and divorce! Addressing envelopes was obviously not going to be my forte.
The accountant moved me to the switchboard.
The switchboard was fairly challenging. Twenty four lines, twenty four chords and plugs.



The switchboard required mental alertness and manual dexterity. I enjoyed working the switchboard, I soon learned that if I accidently pulled the wrong cord from the wrong plug … disconnection occurred. I became a master of saying in a sweetly reasonable voice …
“I am so sorry mr bank manager, the other party’s switchboard seems to have disconnected you.”



I was trained in switchboard skills by erika, a girl who became my very good friend. She also taught me to smoke. It was difficult but I persevered. I sucked peppermints in order to be able to take the foul tasting smoke into my mouth. I avoided my mother until such time as I had brushed my teeth. My mother was a fearsome woman! She laughed herself silly when I eventually confessed to my nicotine habit … she had, of course, known from the very first day!

Yep! Taking up smoking was not easy. However … it was very cool! I was convinced that I looked at least thirty years old and as sophisticated as any film star. Damn … those were the days!

So this historical saga took place forty six years ago, I have smoked ever since. Except for three years in my early thirties, when I gave it up, three miserable years, I can’t bare to think of them. That is a whole other story.

to be continued ...

happy birthday manfred!

Happy birthday baby!

Damn … you would have turned sixty seven today! That’s mighty nigh on seventy sweetheart.

Been thinking … (yeah, yeah … that’s the smell of wood burning! Lol! Of course you never knew what lol meant.)
So anyway, I’ve been thinking about you and me and how life would have been in your 67th year. Guess you would have looked pretty much the same, I mean you had already lost all the hair you were going to lose and the remaining was already snow white.

You would still have been the world’s best “fixer”. I really miss that, you could fix anything! Remember when we were first married and I tried to make you a toweling dressing gown? Hah! What a friggin’ disaster ;-). No problem for the mann, you just sat down figured it out and finished it yourself!

Every place we lived back home holds something you built or fixed. Kitchen units, carports, verandah extensions … you name it, you could do it. You once told me that if you sit and look at a problem for long enough… you can always figure out how to fix it.

That was you though, the most stable person I have ever met, filled with boundless optimism and the most ‘can do’ attitude ever.

How I hated it when you were always right! How come was that anyway? Cause you were so damn smart I guess … heh! You are still the only person in the world who has made me so frustrated and so mad that I threw something at you … grin. Bad boy! My beautiful iron was never quite the same again.!

Love is forever. Happy birthday baby!

high flier

first of all ... allow me to apologize for any and all errant capitilization of this blog. i am using the computer of my beloved, a computer which ... i may add, has the infernal cheek to insert capitals and attempt to correct my grammar ...


All in all … not a bad trip.

Glasgow airport has a new security system, much more efficient. I managed to find my way through without having to remove either my shoes or my belt. Of course I also missed out on being body searched by the attractive security guard. But hey … we don’t always get everything we want in life…

First time coming in through Newark … yep … much faster than jfk, quite a pleasant experience actually. My flight arrived an hour early as well!
None of the above meant much as I managed to wait in the wrong place for herself.

In the freezing cold …

hah, Scotland is a warm and hospitable country in comparison to Newark airport.
So … I waited where I was, she waited where she was and eventually I thought … “best I phone the woman, as she is obviously lost somewhere between where she was coming from and where she is going to.”

Unfortunately, my mobile phone does not have international roaming. I cast my eyes around for folks with working type mobiles in their hands. I sashay over to the nearest mark, trying to look as harmless as I actually am.

“er… excuse me … are you local? Any chance you would be so kind as to make a call for me, my lift seems to have forgotten me.”

Pregnant pause …

I flash my best ‘I’m an alien and helpless in your big sophisticated country ‘smile. I fumble for my wallet … “perhaps I could reimburse you?”

Damn! I love Americans!
Back home in the good old republic I would probably have been maced. Over here, people love to help!
I gave herself’s number to my saviour, which she very kindly dialed for me and then handed over the phone.
I get the answer message … aarrgghh!
I leave a polite message, trying really hard not to sound too whiney, forgotten or neglected.

“I’m here, waiting outside international arrivals at passenger pick up number three …”

My phone lady and I continue to wait, her taxi arrives and she departs.

I begin to worry. Perhaps herself is not lost, perhaps she has been involved in an accident. I look around for a new mobile phone owner. I find a woman walking a cute little dog … she has no mobile phone! she expects me to believe that … Hah!

I scan the rapidly thinning crowd for potential call donators.

There she is … flouncing towards me … doing her new York eye roll! Shaking her head and waving her arms, intimating …

What?

It would appear that when I called, I neglected to call her mobile. I phoned the home phone.
Fortunately being a woman of innate intelligence and with an almost psychic understanding of my modus operandi …

… herself deduced that I might well have called the home phone. A simple call to check her messages and she came to understand that I had not been arrested by immigration officials and that I was indeed waiting just outside the building …

Instead of just inside …

Where she, herself, was eagerly awaiting my arrival.