Random sunset thoughts in the twilight of 2014

‘I cannot believe it is the end of the year already.’

I’m sure I am not the only person saying that.

‘I cannot believe it is the end of my life already.’

I am sure that is the last thought in many a person’s head, then they are dead.

‘I mean, last Christmas of 2013, feels just like it was yesterday,’ someone says, as they dust the dust off the old plastic Christmas tree (so old it was part of the props in the manger Jesus was born in), string it up with blinking lights (for once not the fault of KPLC) and sing ‘Silent Night’ in the dark.

So that on January 21, 2015, you are still signing off your cheques and balances with ‘2014.’ This, by the way people, is a great way to bounce cheques off creditors, and pass it off as a mistake, while waiting for February and the relative financial stability that comes with it.

So, what was good about 2014?

First, it is a great thing to have a ‘toi’, for all the moms out there reading this, and the dads too. But they can be a nuisance during holidays. Take the example of little Chelsea just now, as I am typing this.

She has come from having her afternoon nap (fancy folk call it baby siesta) and because it is 5.30pm, is insisting that her holiday timetable says it is time for her to watch Baby TV. This is true.

But my editor also wants this piece in before the sun sets, say,6pm. And I need silence in the sitting room (my home study just underwent its annual fumigation, and so stinks like a fart in Chernobyl, and will continue to do so for a few days).

Chelsea: Timetable ‘inasema’ after ‘kukula’ lunch, ‘ni kucheza’. After ‘kucheza ni’ shower, ‘alafu kulala, alafu nikiamka’, Baby TV.

Arguing with a three-and-a-half-year-old is like arguing with the Grand Mullah. It’s hard to ‘shinda’. So I resort to the tried- and-tested-and-true Kenyan method. Bribery!

Tony: Baby, ‘shika hii’ twenty bob and go and buy yourself lollipop.

Before I can put the ‘pop’ in the lolly, jolly Chelsea is out of the door like a shot.

I would recommend this parenting prototype to anyone with a young Fatou Bensouda at home.

So, what about the year 2014?

After deep reflection, I have come to the conclusion that it was the year of the Big Bottomed woman.

Everyone’s future lay behind them, in 2014.

So, for the sake of fairness and balance, no pun intended, 2015 should be declared the Year of the Skinny Chick in Kenya.

I have hovered between 63 and 66 kilos this year, but I remember being 50kgs and skinny as can be back in 1999.

I was cold a lot of the time because the wind whistled through my bones, so much so passersby thought I was a flute musician.

Being thin had its advantages.

Female relatives tried to fatten one up (yummy, free food) and their friends were sweet to me back then, thinking one in the advanced stage of some wasting disease. But I was under the illusion that I had the shape/silhouette of Michael Jackson.

And the girls I slept with in college (two, in six years, and not for lack of effort), thought I had tried to stab them to death in their sleep.

Me: Hey, I was just cuddling!

(Those were my ribs).

I have an idea for counties this Christmas.

Everyone should go back to their native villages to be counted. That’s what Mary and Joseph were doing, going for a census, when Jesus was born.

Incidentally, as a child, I always thought the gifts of the three Magi were - Frankenstein, incest and Myra.

Merry Christmas, dear reader.

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photo:en.wikipedia.org