Tuesday, June 28, 2011

The secret to a long life

I am not usually prone to stress. And when it does threaten, I think I deal with it pretty well.

But the lousy weather that blights much of the Beijing summer (clammy humidity, toxic supersmogs, flash floods) has been making life especially difficult just recently. Furthermore, I have had an insanely busy workload for most of the past two months (and having to use Beijing's public transport system too often, especially in the rush hour, surely has a hugely negative effect on anyone's composure, serenity, philanthropy...). I've been stuck in China, in Beijing, too long without a decent break, and I'm worn out: everything is bugging the crap out of me almost every day.

I have been getting dangerously close to a catastrophic implosion.

But now I have new role model, a new mantra: from now on, I'm just going to let it all slide right by.... like water off a duck's back.





[Thanks (yet again) to the inestimable JES for indirectly introducing me to this. Last week's instalment of his 'Midweek Music Break' series was a delightful B.B. King novelty song, One Shoe Blues. Immediately bowled over by the song's composer, the utterly wonderful Sandra Boynton, I went looking for more of her work on the Net, and soon found Be Like A Duck. As with the video of the B.B. King song, it's directed by Boynton herself. It features her four children - the lead vocalist is her eldest son, Keith Boynton.

There's lots more fun stuff to meander around on Boynton's website.]

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