This at my house recently:
“Hey, Dad, how old are you?” asks Tom.
57
“Yeah! In dog years, maybe!” he grins, – hastening to add
“I saw that on TV, Dad!” back-pedaling before he gets a klap.
Category Archives: Family & Kids
sms from Jess
“Hey dad can we plz have a treasure hunt don’t say no you can say maybe”
Note afterwards from Minenhle:
![20150405_212301[1]](https://i0.wp.com/bewilderbeast.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/20150405_2123011.jpg?ssl=1)
“Dear Pete – Thank you 4 letting us have a treasure hunt and 4 agreeing to hide the sweets”
It’s Lo-onely in the Saddle . . .*
Jessie lost all her songs on her Blackberry. Also all her photos. Just disappeared. Much sadness.
She started uploading new songs slowly from her friends.
This morning she comes running to me “Dad! Dad! All my songs are back! I’ve got 173 songs! Also all my photos are back!”
I said ‘You must have played a Country & Western song backwards, love.’
She just looked at me blankly, thinking ‘What’s he on about?’
Different generation. Double generation gap, in fact.
.
*. . . since my horse died.
~~~~oo0oo~~~~
Everyone knows if you play Rock n Roll backwards you get Satanic Verses.
If you play Bles Bridges backwards you get potjiekos recipes.
If you play Country and Western backwards you get your dog back, you get your girlfriend back, you get your house back, you get your modified pickup truck back . . . and your lost songs on your cellphone!
~~~~oo0oo~~~~
Cecelia wishes Tom
17 August 2012 – Athletics day at school and Cecelia sends an sms:
Sir will plz tell tomy i wish good lyk to him.and i love him .
Hijack Anniversary
15 August 2012 – sms from Belinda:
Hey Pete! I stand to be corrected, but it was 10 or 11 years ago tonight we met some uninvited visitors at your house after a St Lizzie’s parents meeting! Just a thought I had.
(I was taken off from our home by five armed guys in Belinda’s VW Polo that night, and dropped off on the M19 onramp onto the N2 South. A truck driver stopped and took me to a garage. Cops then fetched me and took me home. Her car was recovered the next day. Belinda and the Griffiths had come for coffee after a pre-school parents gathering. I was carrying little Em to Belinda’s car when I was jumped).
Pearls Before Swine
On Friday, August 3, 2012, Pete wrote: You can’t understand teenagers. Whenever I offer to sing to Jess and her friends to save her the cost of tickets to hear Justin Bieber or whoever, she says “OmiGawd, Dad, NO!”
When she’s in the car with friends and I offer to sing instead of listening to their CD’s, iPods, Blackberrys, bluetooth to my speakers, or whatever, I get a loud chorus of “No Thanks Pete!!” and whispered giggles to Jess about her weird Dad.
But she has a soft heart. Yesterday she came to me and said “Dad maybe old people would want to listen to you sing.”
~~oo0oo~~
Steve Reed wrote: Want to listen to you sing? Only old people who are drunk and who are also wanting to sing. I suspect this type of forced exposure to our dubious talents (though with only the best of intentions) would have been responsible for a substantial degree of traumatic stress to our own kid . . . Character building though.
Anyhow, good to see the SAfricans doing well in the Olympic medals.
Aussies have brought a bunch of retired sportsmen out to have a go. The pre – Sydney games sports development initiative is now a thing of the past.
Go the ZA’s! . . and good on the Kiwis.
I wrote: Ah, austerity over posterity? The calvinist ideal. Usually used to deny poor people their fair share; but in this particular case I agree with it, I’m afraid. ‘Specially here, where much money is spent looking for medals (and my favourite: building plush, empty, white-elephant stadiums) while people have no jobs, houses or electricity. Even the lotto’ charity’ gives money to ruddy sports clubs rather than genuine charities. Bums me.
~~oo0oo~~
Back to singing: Fine tradition, drunk warbling.
Steve: One of Australia’s best has yet again done his country ‘proud’ . .
Australian Olympic rower will offer his apologies to the shop owners whose windows he damaged. Booth will also pay more than $2000 to the owners in a bid to avoid criminal charges. The 21-year-old Melbourne University student was intoxicated during the incident as the team was out celebrating.
The men’s eight rowing team qualified 6th just hours before the incident. The Australian Olympic Committee have little doubt of Booth’s involvement and say he is responsible for all reparations. Many believe the incident has caused embarrassment for the Australian Olympic team. (Me: Drunkenness has cause Aussie embarrassment? C’mon! Get real).
Booth fainted and hit his head at the police station after being arrested. He was then taken to hospital as a precaution. OK, now that’s embarrassing for Aussie.
And no, they take NO Drugs. This liquid has long been declassified as a drug by the anti-drug, pro-booze industry . .
I wrote: Having once (long ago) experimented with this very same liquid drug, I spose I should keep quiet at times like this . .
Steve: Still doing controlled experiments myself. Let’s call it research.
I wrote: Yep – C2H5OH taken internally . . ongoing experimentation. Cos there’s still so much to learn . .
~~~oo0oo~~~
Tom’s Next Car
On the way to school this morning he gave me a lecture on the need for us to get a BMW.
I said “Ain’t gonna happen” so he tried for an Audi.
I said “Our kombi is our holiday-on-wheels”. He said it’s like being dropped off in a taxi.
What he really wants is a Jaguar or a Ferrari. Maybe like this one? Sold for R54m this week.
“And where would we fit Jess, Tom?” He thought that was a novel idea, worrying about such trivialities when we were talking serious matters.
Anyway, R54m – pshaw!
This one is R299m:
A classic Ferrari first built for Sir Stirling Moss has sold for a world record £22.7-million (R299-million), making it the most expensive car in the world.
The 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO
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Birds in the Snow
Afriski, Lesotho. Winter 2012
My Pasta Chef
Dragging the juicer out of the pantry, TomTom looked at me.
And now?
I want to mix some pasta dough, Dad.
That’s the juicer, boy, here’s the Kenwood chef.
OK
Mixes the stuff, whips it up, then kneads it by hand;
Next thing he has a pasta machine clamped to the kitchen table. It has never been used before. Or not that I have seen, anyway! Rolls out the dough, puts it through the machine to cut tagliatelli or penne strips.
I need to dry these out now, Dad, where can I put them?
On the granite, fella, and we’ll cover them with a dry cloth.
All gleaned by his own self from the “Techniques” chapter in one of Aitch’s books “Pasta & Pizza Presto”. He’s going to cook it for lunch after school tomorrow, he informs me. I’ll taste it, fella.
He did, I did, It was delicious!
I Get A Bum Rap
Snoozing on Tommy’s bed tonight he lies down and puts his head on my stomach, disturbing me with the racket coming from his Blackberry.
Dad, listen to this rap: It’s 2 Chainz, he’s cool, huh?
All I can hear is a string of chanted F-words.
Dad, he says, taking a picture of my face from navel-level, You could be a rap star. We could call you 2 Chinz.
Hoses himself. So clever. Little squirt.
=======ooo000ooo=======
Jess also took a pic with her distortifying setting:
Nrgggh!
Sitting with Tom watching Le Mans when he harks back a disgusting snot sniff.
Sis man, I say, digging him in the ribs.
Are you picking on me cos I’m black? he protests.
No, I say, because you’re disgusting.
Us blacks sniff like that, Dad, he says!
———
Jon asked: How do you argue further along this line?
I said: Too busy laffin to say anything. We both hosed ourselves for about ten minutes!
Solemnish Ceremony
I gathered the kids and said “Let’s go and bury Mom’s ashes with Bella. We’ve been meaning to do it for ages, let’s do it now.”
Her ashes had been keeping an eye on us from the mantelpiece. Now it was time for ceremony.
We trooped down under the trees to the spot where Tobias and I had buried Bella and where we had prepared a hole for the little box containing Aitch’s remains.
I gathered my thoughts and cleared my throat and . . .
“ANTS!” the kids shouted, slapping their legs and running away back to the house.
Ah well, I had a little private ceremony, shaking with laughter. Aitch would have enjoyed that (though she’d have had something to say about decorum).
MiniShova Downhill Ride
Early morning start in Hillcrest for the 35km downhill cruise.
Whizzed down the hill again this year, with TomTom keeping up his undertaking not to whinge once. He didn’t.
And he beat his Dad across the line.
Jess got the family gold, though, tiring of the dawdling boys and zooming off in the last few km’s as always.
Sheila dropped us off in Hillcrest again, and we fetched the bakkie at her flat after the “race”. The steepest uphills are those after the finish – from the Moses MaFIFA stadium to her flat – after breakfast!
Lovely day.
My bum is sore, Dad.
Eid and Cutting Remarks
Jessie’s classmate Faatima tells me at great length about Eid and the cutting of the bulls.
She herself will be cutting a goat, however.
For the paw people.
The Hamstring Hop
Absolutely not, I told Aitch. Forget it. I’ll pull a hamstring, I told her. NO WAY.
So I line up for the Dad’s 100m race at Livingstone Primary School. Me and twenty other Dad’s half my age. I’m wearing long pants, long-sleeve shirt and a tie. I’ve removed my leather shoes. Typical delusion of just maybe I can do well at this. After all my time of 11 seconds dead stood for over twenty years and how much can one deteriorate from sixteen to fifty five? Sure, I had probably slowed down a bit, but the question was How Much?
I politely fall back into the second row on the grid to let the pushy okes ahead. There should have been seeding races so I could get pole position AND THEY’RE OFF!
Within five metres I’m four metres behind so I deliver my famous kick and start the dreaded Hamstring Hop. I TOLD her, but did she listen? From the roar of the crowd I hear one distinctive loud peal of laughter rising above all the hundreds of shouting voices.
By the time I finish the three young adonis’ that got gold silver and bronze have already left the podium.
Is Africa for Sissies After All?
I wrote to some of you when I went to the Master of the High Court of KwaZulu Natal to start a frustrating six month process of queuing and waiting to be appointed as executor of Aitch’s estate. I’d been told: Six Months!
The long and the short of that story was I got forgotten outside someone’s door and when the first lady who had helped me saw me (and probably my sad face) she said “Are you still waiting there?” and took me under her wing.
Three hours later I left with the letter of appointment in my hand! Not “We’ll post it”, nor “We’ll phone you” nor “You phone us”. Done and dusted! In my hand!
Yesterday I finally admitted defeat after searching for Jess & Tom’s adoption papers (the ones that say “asof uit u gebore” – ‘as if born of you’) high and low in our upside-down house. I had turned over everything at home, in the garage, at work, at Trish’s Mom’s place, everywhere five times, so I turned with resignation and trepidation to plan B: Apply for replacement forms from the Department of Justice.
I phoned Ms Miya (who I seem to think we dealt with – her name was on a 2004 letter – the only thing I could find) and she said “I’ve moved from that section, but I’ll help you my lovie”!
And she did: She phoned me back in a few hours and said “When can you come and fetch them?”
How’s that!?
I went first thing this morning to the Pinetown children’s court. Walked in at 7.45am and walked out at 7.48am with the forms in my hand!
Whattapleasure.
Very worrying, though. Are we going soft?