– life – bokdrols of wisdom –
Years ago, we discussed a revamp for TomTom’s bedroom. Life happened, it didn’t happen. His and Jessie’s bedrooms are just as when we bought sixteen years ago. And now the house is sold.
I came across his hand-written wishlist while clearing up.
Tom's new room Bigger New desk New cupboard Three walls tiled snow white One wall covered in cool graffitti Floor tiled Blinds, not curtains Aircon New lights New plugs Code system (for access)
Oh well, TomTom. One day . .
Four frog calls last night – the Guttural Toad’s kraak, the River Frog’s creak, the Reed Frog’s whip-whip, and the Bush Squeaker’s sweep.
Earlier, a dragonfly had patrolled the skies above the green waters . .
. . and a frog muncher came to see if any of the night-time crooners were careless by day
~~oo0oo~~
Hard work saying goodbye. I had to sweep the stoep again. Petrea and Louis had the small matter of bringing their Weber braai (my two non-Weber braais have gone off to Tom and Jess – I am braailess before I’m homeless), lots of steak, freshly home-made sourdough bread, peri-peri chicken liver in a large cast-iron pot, crockery and cutlery, bread board and knife, steak board and knife, ice, a large beaker of lime unt soda with fresh mint leaves from their garden and deck chairs; And Louis brought his hat; Jules brought delicious snacks; Sheila brought six bottles of white and three of champagne; Charles and Barbara brought beer and snacks and their delightful selves;
I had to do the rest.
Jolly good fun. Perhaps ‘Maritzburg’ will let us have another of these gatherings. After all, it has only been 120 days, waiting for ‘the paperwork’ since I sold my home.
~~oo0oo~~
. . and then low on grass as they sway downwards. Then HIGH again if one flies off a stalk and the stalk sways upward under less weight. I confess I am endlessly fascinated by little seed-eating birds swaying on grass stalks in the morning light, so here are some more Red-backed Mannikins performing for us in my garden:
The Bronze Mannikins followed today, with juveniles; Yellow-fronted Canaries come often; and every now and then I get a Grey Waxbill as a rare treat.
~~oo0oo~~
Meantime, on the surface of my pond, a gruesome scene: skimmers doing what skimmers do: feeding on some poor creature that landed on the surface. My water-surface hyenas doing their job.
Tom’s truckload was the first to leave.
And there goes Jessie’s today! She and her family are looking forward to the fridge and the microwave.
Now they can feed themselves and I’m free to roam! Our household goods divided fairly for the kids to start their own new lives. Yay! Fingers crossed.
~~oo0oo~~
Life without a fridge – first time since forever – and a microwave should be interesting. First meal: Starter, a packet of peanuts & raisins; Main, a camping sachet of three bean salad, crisps and freshly fried home-made potato chips with salt and braai spice. Washed down with a wee bottle of Vergelegen Reserve Merlot 2015 – a gift from Coo Evans. Yum!
I forgot to get the camera out – or rather, aim my phone at people – so that’s the setting for my farewell meals without Petrea, Louis, Charles, Barbara, Jules, Gayle, Grant, Ziggy, Tom, Mbono, Geoff, Janet, Heather or Bruce. A people-free zone before they arrived.
And I didn’t suffer all of them at once, are you mad? I only have five chairs left, so that’s my max guest number. And I sub-contracted out all catering – to Petrea, Louis, Ziggy and Checkers.
Some of these soirees were evenings, some were lunches. The evening ones were interrupted by le frogs calling loudly. Guttural Toads loud BRAAAP! and the gentle creak (that’s creak, not croak) of the River Frog – all in my sparkling blue-green pool. Here’s a guttural toad who scored – managed to entice a svelte young lady. The noisy one is the little guy on her back. He’s quiet now cos he doesn’t want any interruptions while theyr’e makin’ whoopee – and long strings of black fertilised eggs.
We’d have to get up every now and then and shurrup the toads, but you know what its like when you’re horny – they would only shut up for less than a minute. You do know what its like when you’re horny, right? Here’s one of them belting out a number:
Oh, hang on!? Anyway, Fats sounds better.
Here’s the polite lil chap:
Here’s his cousin from Petrea and Louis’ place down the road with a much showier ventral stripe:
One morning I called in expert help to deal with the noisy toads. I don’t know if he manage to relocate any of them. Hope so. He looks like he needs the protein.
I’m told my end-of-days is now only at at the end of February, so more to come.
~~oo0oo~~
So the garage door was falling to pieces. Made of strips of aluminium riveted to a frame the rivets had mostly popped and it was flapping in any breezes that wafted.
Something had to be done.
So I waited a few months. And a few storms, for enhanced flapping.
Then I bleated to a project manager who sprang into action, roared off to a hardware store, bought some self-tapping screws and gave them to me along with his automatic, hydromatic, self-propelling, variable speed, battery-operated 14.4Volt hand-held Bosch Power Drill. With star bit for screwing screws with star heads.
He obviously hadn’t understood what I wanted.
So I waited.
Then I told Ziggy, ‘When you’re finished tidying the garage let me know. I need to repair the broken door.’ And sowaar, my patience was rewarded: ‘Why don’t you let Mbono do that? He’s very handy with man things,’ she said.
Now usually I would stop my daughters in their tracks with my standard, ‘Hey! Anything a man can do a woman can do too,’ but I listened and I shurrup. ‘OK’ I said and gave him the screws and a Spanish screwdriver (Manuel).
Mbono fixed the door in no time. Like greased lightning, it was hydromatic, automatic. I was going to post before and after pics here – too late.
So to end this lecture on project management: For suitable tasks all you need is to find one tame project manager and one tame matriculant from Northwood Boys. Then expertly source – or delegate the sourcing of – a bit of equipment and it’s actually quite easy.
~~oo0oo~~
sowaar – true’s Bob
The big old album is hitting the recycling bin. I have recorded all the pictures.
Home after our lo-ong honeymoon and some surprise welcomes:
Also in 1988 we had a big optometry conference in Durban. As part of the hosting committee I produced a daily newsletter. Then I became president of the optometric association at the end of the conference.
Friends at the conference – and an induction (Brauer says they induced me):
I dragged some non-canoeing friends out to the Umgeni Valley. I wanted to see the valley for a last time before Inanda Dam drowned it forever. The river was rather shallow – um, VERY shallow! We dragged for miles!
We visited the folks in Harrismith, clambered the slopes of Platberg and sang around the piano:
Bernie & Karen Garcin got married in Empangeni – George Stainton and I were his best men.
In between all the scurrying we lived in our lovely Whittington Court one-bedroom apartment in Marriott Road, and I think I occasionally did a bit of work. Sheila reminded me that she lived there for two years after we bought our house in Westville.
Another of our frequest visits to Hella Hella. And a visit to the Hills on Melrose farm, Mid Illovo.
~~~oo0oo~~~
I just sold my longest-lived-in home. We’ve been here sixteen years. After being given a long fixit list I decided to sell voetstoots – as is. It sold on the day it hit the market – for a song, if you ask me.
Here’s my sequence:
First home Whittington Court. I forget how long, but bought as a bachelor, then Trish moved in ca.1986. When we moved out, sister Sheila lived in it for a while. It was a lovely old one-bedroom flat; big rooms, high ceilings.
.
1989 we bought our first suburban home at the bottom end of the cul de sac River Drive in Westville. A magic place right on the banks of the Mkombaan river. Stayed there fifteen years.
Then we rented Ian Whitton’s lovely home in Windsor Avenue Westville for about two years.
2005 we bought here, a magic home in a cul de sac above the Palmiet river – ‘to be near the schools.’ Now, there’s a story for ya!!
This pic is the house as we bought it – the feature image is Elston Place after our 2011 / 2012 revamp.
~~oo0oo~~
Good photographers have presence of mind. I’d like more of that stuff.
Last night I leaned back in my office chair – director’s or boss’ chair deluxe, high-back, padded armrests – luxuriously and started to put my feet up on my imbuia wood desk. The smooth motion didn’t stop there, I kept going backwards, the high-back cushioned my head as I crashed, the wheels of the chair caught under the desk, sending a full glass of red wine and a plate of fine curried mutton pie and tomato sauce crashing to the tiled floor, along with the PC monitor and my drone remote control.
Fokop. Chair horizontal, desk at 45 degrees, blood on the floor, legs in the air, same air blue with profanity.
A photographer would have taken a great picture, especially as the blood oozed towards my collection of eleven Okavango Delta books I’d gathered together as I’m getting rid of my library.
I very boringly tidied the broken glass and ceramic, mopped the red wine, re-assembled the scattered shrapnel and then thought: Damn! A picture would have been good.
I sort of re-staged it this morning to show how the chair’s wheeled legs tipped up the old desk on the right.
Another chapter begins. I’ll be leaving the home I’ve lived in the longest in my life – sixteen years. The kids were eight and four when we moved in.
How hard can it be, right? You sell, bank the cash and drive off into the sunset. So I called Aitch’s friend and colleague in her four-year stint as an estate agent, Pam.
Pam, You Know What You’re Doing, You Come And Do This.
So you know what she does? She gives me a list as long as your arm! You do this, then you do this, then . . she’s as bad as Aitch was!
So she tells me: Sell your furniture; sell your books; sell the many wall hangings which haven’t hung on a wall for ten years since Aitch went; Fix the cracks, the windows, the doors, the ceilings; Paint – a lot; Rip up those carpets; New light bulbs;
Yes, Pam.
Mow the lawn – WHAT!? Now you’ve gone too far!
Hell, if I didn’t do all those things for us, why should I do them for strangers? Cos you want to sell the house, Pete.
Oh
I decided I’ll never get this done, so we put the house on the market “as is” – its called voetstoots in South Africa. And on that very day we got two offers for the full asking price. A week later their finance was approved and so I asked ‘Must I Leave Now?’ No, they said, it takes about three months before you’ll have your money! Damn!
Now it is very real and I sat Jess and Tom down and broke the news. They picked what they wanted from the house, a truckload went off to Tom’s rented rooms:
Jess wants less, but the other fridge and microwave will go to her.
(later: Have now gone to her).
~~oo0oo~~
Here’s hoping the Black Flycatchers breed on the old stoep again, Last time was in a cycling helmet; before that in the bougainvillea creeper that has been removed. This time a plastic flower pot modified and mounted for the purpose.
They have filled the pot with nesting material and the female is starting to spend more time in it. She’s there in the the top right close-up pic, you can just see her tail.
Here are the nests from years gone by, in the creeper and in the helmet:
Clearing out old emails
On Mon, Nov 22, 2010, Pete wrote:
I felt a snuggle in bed last night. Wasn’t Aitch. Eight year-old TomTom had come through and was spooned tightly against my back.
Later, when I had to roll over he was wide awake.
“Dad” he whispers close to my ear, scared he’ll wake his Ma.
Mm
“I’m hungry. Can I get up and make myself a snack. I’m really hungry.”
He’s 24 kg wringing wet, and his muti suppresses his appetite by day, so I say:
Mm
I wake again to a feeling that it has been some time. I can hear dishes clanking, so I get up and tiptoe to the kitchen, where the clock shows straight up 4am. Still dark outside, but the kitchen neon is blazing.
Lots of kit has been employed and a good dusting of icing sugar is evident on the chairs and the floor.
What? I ask
“Dad” he says, “I’m icing Marie biscuits.”
Have you eaten? I ask.
“Not yet, Dad, but they’re nearly ready.”
“And” he says, “I’ve made my school lunch.”
I didn’t ask.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Steve replied: Doncha just love it. This young man is not only a problem solver but also aware of the necessity for contingency planning. Hope this does not turn into a regular event though.
Our Neil [24] occasionally mentions he is “off to get some food” at the end of a phone chat to him down in Welly. I imagine this would mean most likely pizza, burger or when he is at his most domesticated, a ready-roasted chicken with some breadrolls.
Like you, I don’t ask.
That’s different, I thought. Something had zoomed into the Albizia at speed and the birds had scattered.
A juvenile Little Sparrowhawk. She sat for a while peering around and up and down intently. To me it looked like she was on the hunt. Then she darted off in a flash. I hope she got something to eat.
Meanwhile the Hadeda was unfazed, gathering nesting material.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Spring birding has been great. Some poor but fun pics of what’s been buzzing about.
Above: Cape White-eye and African Firefinch – Spectacled Weaver – Olive Thrush
Below: A Pegesimallus robber fly; The tail hanging down from the branch? A vervet monkey; Temnora marginata (a sphinx moth); Ceryx fulvescens (yellow sleeved maiden moth); and – the white moth possibly a citrus looper? Thanks, iNaturalist.org for help with identification.
The female Black Cuckooshrike returned and I got a better view. Pics are poor as I took them through my dirty window rather than open up and spook her. One bird, I compiled this montage with FastStone again.
~~~oo0oo~~~
“To be concerned is so much more constructive than to be worried.”
“Every time we make a real decision,
we find out who we really are,
because we make use of our own priorities and values.”
“The problem is not that there are problems.
The problem is expecting otherwise
and thinking that having problems is a problem.”
“Kindness is more important than wisdom,
and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom.”
“Anxiety and depression are tolerable if we don’t get
anxious and depressed about being anxious and depressed.”
“Sometimes we must make a serious effort to be frivolous.”
“To understand children,
we must have some memory of how we felt as children.”
These quotes by Theodore Isaac Rubin psychiatrist and author
Jessie is smoking tik. That was a shock. I’m sticking with her and supporting her, trying not to lose contact with her. Reading up a lot. I decided to talk, not keep quiet. The first five people I told, four came up with immediate solutions and advice. The fifth listened, empathised, offered an ear and said, “Good Luck, It’s A Long Haul.” He’s a medical specialist doc living with a drug addict child for around forty years.
I remind myself: Jess is addicted to tik AND very addicted to her boyfriend – completely under his sway; Jess takes herself to him – he does not drag her there – although she sometimes says he keeps her there, sometimes when she SAYS she wants to come home; sometimes, though, she admits she decided not to come home despite telling me she was coming; Nothing is clear, though. The truth is a serious casualty of the addiction – there is a lot of lying, a lot of blaming, a lot of confusion and uncertainty;
Both of them, and others who live with them, suffer from paranoia and hallucinations visual and aural, so when they see and hear things it’s not at all clear if they saw it in real life or in hallucination – most of what each of them say they’ve heard is aimed ‘against them,’ so paranoia would explain that; and again, the lying . . . ; Jess is aware that nasty things said against her are possibly real, possibly imagined.
Then I also remind myself that Jess has a wonderful time with him and his family when all is well; Mom, Aunt, Uncle, brothers, a sister. They sing and dance and laugh and get drunk and get high and have a wonderful time and she loves them and is loved by them; Especially the ladies there – Sihle’s sister, Mother and Aunt – treat her very well; So the lows are horrible, but the highs beat the boredom she feels at home.
And I remind myself of that socially acceptable substance right on top of this list. The acceptable one. The one I grew up with.
And I remind myself of the criminal disgrace of the failed, yet ongoing “War on Drugs.” And of how the only places who have reduced drug use and drug crimes are countries that have ended the lie of a “war on drugs” and significantly decriminalised drug use, instead helping drug users with their lives. Who see drug use as a disease, to be treated by healthcare workers, not as a ‘bad choice’ to be stamped out by policemen who are not trained in anything other than arrests and throwing users in jail. They are not equipped to do the very difficult task of talking to users who are high. They’re incentivised to make arrests, so they ‘raid’ and arrest. In the process, all thoughts of a police service go out the window. Instead of assisting their citizens, as they swore to do when they qualified as police officers, the system sets them against them.
An example of unintended consequences and misguided laws: Codeine is freely available in South Africa, you can buy it almost anywhere. We have a fairly low annual prevalence rate of opiate use at 0.3%. In the United States where all opiates are strictly regulated, the prevalence rate is almost double, at 0.57%.
Tolerate drug use!? Legalise all drugs!? What MANIACS would do that!? Well, be a lawmaker. Be honest with yourself and decide which of the drugs you would make illegal if you were making the decisions. Of course, you’re an honest person and you want what’s best for your people, right? To make it easy, let’s say you can only make ONE drug illegal. Which one on the HARMS CAUSED BY DRUGS list below would you choose? Start at the top and count down and choose the one you would ban (even though banning never works). You’d ban the top one, right? The one that causes most harm?
~~~oo0oo~~~
“God save us from the people
who want to do what’s best for us.”
“There’s a certain class of people who will do you in and
then remain completely mystified by the depth of your pain.”
~~~oo0oo~~~
“You can’t save others from themselves because those who make a perpetual muddle of their lives don’t appreciate your interfering with the drama they’ve created.
They want your poor-sweet-baby sympathy, but they don’t want to change.”
“Sometimes I wonder what the difference is between
being cautious and being dead.”
“Insecure people have a special sensitivity for anything
that finally confirms their own low opinion of themselves.”
These quotes by private investigator Kinsey Millhone, female protagonist in author Sue Grafton‘s novels.
~~~oo0oo~~~
We’ll get there, guys.
~~~oo0oo~~~
~~~oo0oo~~~
I strive for kindness AND wisdom, so on 6 July I passed my course on Addiction and Recovery, so now I’m an expert! Can a complete cure be far off!? Stanford University’s Psychiatric Dept had a six week online course and I just got my results. Learnt a lot and very gratified that expert opinion and the evidence points AWAY from the destructive ‘War On Drugs’ and harsh law enforcement.
TREATING the disease of addiction is the way forward, working with the addicts – each one an individual.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Bewilderbeast Droppings 