Latter Day Lady MacBeth

Ugh, again we are to be assaulted by a furnace-like heatwave, and I will be wearing a second skin of sweat.  I hate this frigging heat.  I am rostered to work tomorrow, but when I knock off - lunchtime-ish- I will suggest my children come for a swim with me.  I am over the school holidays already.  It's hard for me to concentrate on my computer with kids playing x-box and iPads, or squabbling, or playing hide-and-seek with Master 14's buddy who stayed most of yesterday and today. 

Over the past few days, at intermittent periods, I have been polishing a belt buckle.  It was a commemorative belt buckle, one of many, worn by my father.  These buckles were awarded to riders who completed hundred mile endurance rides (I'm buggered what they'd call those events these days, what with the conversion to metric).  He had eight in total, and wore one every day for as long as I can remember.  A friend who works for a local jeweller's gave me a special cloth, and I've just been rubbing and buffing, rubbing and buffing, rubbing-rubbing-rubbing like a woman possessed.  A latter day Lady MacBeth, if you will.  At one stage, I even gritted my teeth and muttered, 'Out, damned spot!'  When I looked at the grime on my hand from whatever that cloth is impregnated with, I did refrain from wailing, 'All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand!'  I probably won't be able to get it back to its original state, but I don't want to - I want it to retain some of its character from having been worn so many times over the years.  Mr Bingells is keen to get the brass embossed figure of a man-on-a-horse and the lettering professionally polished.  This buckle is of particular importance to me because it was the one Dad was wearing when he died.  It was returned by the funeral home in a package, and I unwrapped it away from the kids, and held it in my hand, sobbing softly.  I will try and include a picture of it in a post shortly.

Today I've been listening to 'Romeo's Tune' by Steve Forbert.  I have always liked that song, and I guess I'm just in the mood for it. I'm aware Keith Urban has done a cover, but I can't be arsed listening to it.  I don't reckon he could portray the sweet longing and whimsy Steve Forbert does, although I should give him a chance.  Yeah, I know, I know.  I'm just thinking of Forbert singing, 'Let me here you say everything's okay...', and it encapsulates how I'm feeling today.  And how I have been feeling lately.

Well, I'm off to have a cool shower and a drink of cold water.