And you want for her to stay, there’s an uneasy chemistry.

It’s baseball season again, the Yankees versus the Red Sox and I’m frustratingly texting my brother at three in the Cape Town morning about the pitching, the manager and the status of the game. He writes back that his off to bed because they don’t have Easter Monday where he is but we agree before he goes that they should have taken CC out after he walked his first batter he faced at the bottom of the sixth inning.

In a few short hours I’ve lost all perspective.

The Yankees eventually lose game one of the 2010 season, a game that they were poised to win but Joe Girardi retains his composure points out that it’s just a game.

Yet one game is all that it takes for those old feelings to come gushing back…And you never want to lose to the Bosox no matter what game it is during the season.

Still I’m glad that it has all begun again, it’ll definitely make reading the New York Times in the morning a little more interesting, there will be at least one bit of news that I am definitely interested in most days, I’ll go back to my morning routine of an espresso and a bookmarked Yankees sports page to start most of my days for the next few months.

—

Soil and Pimp ‘Sessions’ are a Japanese six piece band who I admit to knowing very little about except that they are Quasimode’s peers (I know Quasimode) and more importantly I knew that they were playing at the free Cape Town Jazz Festival concert which was held on Greenmarket Square.

Arrangements were made and off we went to see them.

They didn’t disappoint they were just mad! It felt like punk rocking jazz on a perfect night in the city without any wind and in front of 12000 people, it was festive and Soil and Pimp responded with a 45 minutes set that just energised everything and everyone who were in the vicinity, cockroach, cleaner, cook alike.

It was MAD! And we were there.

—

Easter’s over and you can see some people in sandals and other people in boots, some are clinging to the season that’s almost passed others can’t wait for the season that’s in our midst.

The one thing that is apparent is that the light disappears quickly now and your evening routine is autumnised before seven. The light is a funny thing, it’ll take a few weeks to get use to it before it’ll all seem like normal and then we’ll just put on our coats and continue to do things.

I like this season because it separates the grass from the chuff and the city once again there to be reclaimed by the people who have had to temporarily had to give it up.

—

Finally we agree that Smog belongs to us and we don’t want to share Bill Callahan because it’ll ruin it.

Apparently I still believe in music snobbery after all these years, surely that’s just snobbery period? Probably but I’ll gladly admit to music snobbery.

Since Saturday late I have been suffering from a series of nose bleeds, thankfully nothing severe but just enough to be unsettling. I managed to go most of my life without them until a few years ago I got a severe nose bleed, my nonchalance faded fast after 10 minutes and two blood soaked towels fortunately though my parents rescued me with Priar’s Balsam and that helped to contain it because at the time I thought it must have been a capillary.

There after I got a few smaller ones at the most in opportune of times but it cleared as quickly as it came and since it was a very hot summer’s day that brought it on once the weather got a bit milder so did my bloody condition. I don’t think Saturday was that hot even in Robertson where we went to buy some wine and enjoy a meal, it wasn’t boiling so I’m not sure what brought it on this time.

I’m not overtly squeamish about blood but I’m no Dexter Morgan either, I find the clotting of my blood in my nostrils and the spitting it out to be concerning because it’s the self and the self is quite fragile when you think about it. So now I go most places with a few cotton balls and my Priar’s Balsam, I run in the gym because it’s more contained even if the road is better, I put in my pocket just before meetings at work and it’s close by my side in the car. I certainly hope that the worse is over now because based on the last experience it takes few to sort itself out and counting from Saturday I have had three, yesterday morning being the last one.

I can though see why they say that in combat if you want to unsettle your opponent or if you want to extract information and there is a reluctance in getting it break the person’s nose because the blood flow is quick and you can taste it as well as see it which it makes it really unsettling in the moment. I’m not in that line of work, I wish I could give my excel spreadsheets or my meetings calendar a quick jab on the nose and let the bleeding start but my don’t mess with me attitude is very passive.

The highlight of the weekend was certainly a great wine shop in Robertson which is just a little too far driving for me, I will do it again to visit ‘our favourite shop’ but the drive back is the challenge; post meal, post wine in ice bucket and when the passenger drifts in and out of consciousness as you need to concentrate on the road, tapping the steering wheel gently to the great sounds of Espresso Espresso.

I bought lots of wine, two boxes, as if I really needed that much but when you run out of white wine in January and you make a mental note not for it to happen again this is the outcome. Although more importantly my champagne stocks are what they should be, I can now describe my kitchen cupboard as well stocked which is the way I like it.

Admittedly I haven’t been drinking very much champagne of late, nothing feels celebratory or necessary and need tends to be more desirable than celebration otherwise it would be left to birthdays and graduations and well that simply isn’t enough. So I’m in the need category, the need to toast the end of a hard day, the need to acknowledge the view, the need to be thankful for all the good things that are around, the need to open a bottle or two at someone’s insistence, even if that person is me.

Symbolically though, I always keep two bottles of champagne in the fridge and touch wood (fist to forehead) long may the practice continue because it signals that even if everything isn’t right in my world at least my world is good, it’s that reminder for me to be thankful for what I have got. That’s my driver for this ‘filthy’ little habit of mine.

Robertson’s got some good bubbly they’ve got a certain mister Beck and my favourite mister Jonker and there are others not just these usual suspects, there are others which I’ll be investigating in time.

Then this week has been hard, not impossible but work is unsettling, I’m sleeping badly and waking up thinking about things that should be left in the office. My mind tends to like resolution, it’s not a mind that can procrastinate even if that’s what the body tends to do just laze through the moments, mentally there always tends to be something on the darn back burner and this week it’s forensic auditors, 2009′s wrap up, project workshops and more but all different.

It has meant nibbling on something then putting it down then doing the same thing on another subject and it feels like nothing gets done, no momentum gets built and no satisfaction results. Still ‘that’s the job’ even if I don’t like it at the moment, that’s the job and it allows me to strengthen my resolve and work the mental engine so that these hands don’t become to idle because then devilish things result.

In the evenings I run or I try my best to but not every day is a strong running day, some days you just have to slog through shorter distances and this heat while other days everything is in your favor; even people who pleasantly appear doing the same thing and it’s nice; the body responds, the heart smiles and your spirit acknowledge the other.

No little entry would be complete without a musical context and these last few days have seen my attention turn to swing, Bossa, cha,cha,chaaa. Here are two little gems that have been in the player:

Della Reese – It’s so nice to have a man around the house
Lorez Alexandria - Send in the clowns

Digest that in the meantime, I do want to talk all that jazz before the week is out; already thinking about the most important album of the year.

Ps our favourite shop is the La Verne Boutique!