How bizarre!

I should have written this post last week, but due to my superior powers of procrastination, I find myself writing it over a week later!

Early last week, I was in my car, listening to the ’90s radio station on Sirius, when I heard a song that was a blast from the past. The song in question is “How Bizarre” by a New Zealand group called OMZ. Here’s the video:

Back in 1996, my sister had just been married, and I had just bought my first car, a white Citroen ZX 1.9TD. Funny side story actually – I bought my car using my sister’s wedding as a reason. Sound bizarre? Let me explain!

I love to drive. Always have. Even though I could ride a motorbike before I could drive a car, I just love being out on the open road. I don’t know why, but that’s just how I am! So when my sister was getting married, and I was due to go to Cardiff and help out with everything, my 23 year old mind thought – now is the right time. So I went to a dealership with my friend Jamie, and bought a car that was just put on the lot. She was beautiful, and she was mine. They gave me the car the day before I was due to drive down to Cardiff – and driving home in rush hour traffic, I didn’t really get to push her at all. When I got back, I called my dad, and said something along the lines of “wouldn’t it be good if I had a car too – that way when I get down there, I can be of more help.” He agreed, not realizing what I had done!

However, I do not get anywhere by being deceptive – even something as harmless as this. When I started my drive down to Wales the next day, I discovered that if I went above 45 mph, the front of my new pride and joy would start to wobble like a hula hoop dancer on speed. This made for a very long journey down to Cardiff – and not an enjoyable. To cut a long story short, when I got to Cardiff and took my car to the local Citroen dealership, I was told that my car was not roadworthy as someone had bent two of the rims and put so much weight on the front tires that I was lucky that I hadn’t crashed. I also found that between that time that I had signed for the car, and the time that I had picked it up (it was over a weekend), someone had added a little over 1200 miles to it. Just my luck, eh?

Ah – but I digress – back to the song.

So at the time that this song came out, I was spending a lot of time with my sister, my brother, and my (then) brother in law. Those were some fun times! The weather was great, the days were long, and we spent a lot of time driving around. So when I hear that song, I can close my eyes and remember this song playing on the car radio, and all of us singing along to it! Now that I think of it, there was another one too – “I can never be your woman” by White Town.

Here’s the video for that one:

In addition to the song, the fact that an Indian was “White Town” intrigued us I guess!

It’s weird – the fact that we can associate music – or songs – to moments from our past. It’s as if the song is a musical trigger, that digs deep into our memory banks and retrieves images at the speed of sound – without any prompting from us. Now that I think of these moments though, I feel old! That was 13 years ago! It was a lot of fun though – we had a lot of good times. I guess since I don’t get to see my siblings that often any more, I can connect with these moments that much more. My brother is still in Cardiff, looking to relocate to London with the first job opportunity that comes his way. My sister is now an English teacher in South Korea, teaching young, impressionable minds that “Jay-Z rocks, innnit?” God bless her!

Anyway, that was my first post in a while – I have more though, and will be posting them either today or in the next day or so. Hey – I said that I was a procrastinator! Cut me a little slack!

Peace!