– life – bokdrols of wisdom –
Sister Sheila had lunch at some friends’ place. Other friends arrive with their three–year-old. Kiki.
Kiki takes one look at the zebra hide ‘rug’ lying in the entrance hall and says to the host:
“Why’s your donkey lying so flat?”
good question, kid!
~~oo0oo~~
pic from openclipart.org – thanks!
You can’t understand teenagers. Whenever I offer to sing to Jess and her friends to save her the cost of tickets to Justin Bieber she says “OmiGawd, Dad, NO!”
When they’re in the car and I offer to sing instead of listening to their CD’s, iPods, Blackberrys or whatever, I get a loud chorus of “No Thanks Pete!” and whispered giggles to Jess about her weird Dad. And some “OMG”‘s.
But she has a soft heart*. Yesterday she came to me and said, “Dad maybe old people would want to listen to you”.
~~oo0oo~~
* also, I'm the main source of funding
Dusted off the bikes and threw them on the back of the bakkie and headed off to Albert Falls Dam for our first mountain bike ride in years. Picked up a friend for Tom and a friend for Jess. Two more bikes.
Got there too late for the official start, so no hurry. Took the bikes to be pumped up (about six flat tyres out of ten) and brakes fixed. Off we went on a 10km ride through the nature reserve.
What a bunch of wimps. There was so much whining it sounded like King Shaka airport.
A small herd of bewilderbeasts and zebra thundered past us, spooked by the other riders in the actual race. Also saw nyala, impala and oribi.
Then we saw fresh rhino dung and the panic set in. “What if they charge us, Dad?” Relax! Just pedal on! And hush. Enjoy the day, I say. “We wanna go home”, they say. Eventually they go on strike and say “No further!”, folding their arms.
So I head off into the distance and they’re forced to follow, muttering something about cruelty.
They enjoyed it. “When can we do it again, Dad?”
“Dad, I’ve got tomorrow off for study leave! “Can we go to the Pavilion?”, says Jess, pulling my leg, rattling my cage and testing my alertness.
Luckily I twig she’s revving me and I say, “SURE, dear! Let’s spend the whole day there and spend LOTS of money!’
Tom pipes up in the background: “He’s saying no”.
=======ooo000ooo=======
2012/11/04 Brauer wrote:
What her Dof Dad seems to have overlooked is that she might be majoring in sociology and there’s no better place to do research than at the Pavilion.
—————————————-
Oh, she’s definitely majoring in sociHology. She and Rita Durban went shopping to Pavilion today. When I got home she was hopping up and down: All those clothes she’s been on at me about for AGES she’s finally got!
And is she CHUFFED!?
I had a fashion parade tonight. Mostly shorts, baggies and short tops.
She has one dress. I think she has worn it once.
She wore beautiful black slacks and a short salmon-coloured top to her cousin’s wedding.
She dances here all day every day, but wouldn’t dance at the wedding.
My Jess.
Her main focus now is her 15th birthday party. This Saturday. Dancing disco with boys, then a sleepover, girls-only.
BUT HAVE I BOOKED THE SLIPPY SLIDE?
————————————————————————
It’s the ONLY bit of beach in the whole of KZN with a reef catching the breakers and leaving a protected beach for beginners to learn to swim, to paddle, to love the waves.
The only walk-in reef in urban Durban where snorkellers can cut their teeth in clear protected waters (and divers can do their first dive without driving miles to Sordwana or Umkomaas, and then taking a boat out);
And besides, it’s the beach where I taught a Scottish medical student to paddleski back in 1980 and her bikini top came off without her noticing it and I continued the lessons with a topless chick for the only time in my life. It’s worth preserving this beach, I’d say!
(see https://vrystaatconfessions.com/2019/03/25/scotland-the-brave/)
On 2013/02/20 12:34 PM, carshop wrote:
Dear Thomas,
We have been unable to contact you since your vehicle enquiry from CMH Land Rover Silver Lakes. Please contact Org R on 012 8_9 5__0 from CMH Land Rover Silver Lakes to discuss your vehicle enquiry. Feel free to contact our support centre by email carshop@cmh.co.za or call us on 0861 carshop should you experience any difficulties.
Sincerely,
~~oo0oo~~
Hi there
I’m sorry!
Thomas is 11yrs old and was on a “wishing” spree without my knowledge!
Please cancel this request.
Thanks a lot
Pete
~~oo0oo~~
Hi Pete,
Thank you for your response, I’ll cancel your – or shall I say Thomas’s – request with the dealer.
Glad the boy has good taste in cars.
Keep well.
Kind Regards
Vicki
Carshop Team Leader
————————–
From: Pete
Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2013 2:15 PM
To: carshop
Subject: Re: We have not been able to reach you
~~~oo0oo~~~
Brauer: Fully understandable. Having been forgotten to be picked up at school so often by his dad he deserves his own wheels and shouldn’t be embarrassed in front of his peers by arriving in a skadonk;
Reed: Would Evoque some ire no doubt! Hope it was the Diesel Turbo 6 speed manual. (Probably the automatic, though, so he could drive it).
Stoute: Where’s their sense of humour? Didn’t even offer him a test drive!
~~~oo0oo~~~
skadonk – Land Rover
We got a new kettle. The fancy black round Russell & Hobbs started leaking and that irritated me as it was only a year (or three? four?) old and I thought stuffit, so I dug the camping kettle out of the ammo box in the garage and we became Team Liquigas.
So I got to know the smell of red hot aluminium and that wasn’t good, so I used a pot and got to know the smell of really hot plastic handles and sometimes we’d only get tea after two boiling-dry’s and by the third boiling the kitchen smelt funny. And sometimes we rescued it but there was only enough water for half a cup, not three cups.
So I caved in within two months and bought another kettle that uses Eishkom electricity and switches off automatically because we are MAA in our house – Multiple Attraction Abundant – or VWE – Various Wonders Enriched.
We are NOT Attention Deficit.
~~oo0oo~~
So Devan and Lungelo are staying over for the night. Devan was just visiting, but when his young blonde divorced Mom came to fetch him the trio convinced her it would be SO UNFAIR if he couldn’t also spend the night.
Him being rather pale he was noticeably pink as they’d been in the pool all day. Oops. Suntan lotion. Right. Tom & Lungelo not so much. Once Devan’s Ma had left I lined them up and issued each wif a stone – about plum-size.
What now, Dad?
“City slicker wimps need to learn a few basic skills” I drone while I line them up in front of an upended big black dustbin with a white HTH bucket on top. At a distance of four metres they all missed the target by about five metres.
“Seewaddimean?” says Dad. “Take turns and don’t stop till you’ve each hit the bucket five times.”
They loved it. They reckon they’re ready to hunt big game now.
.
As his classmates were here I called him Thomas, like they do.
‘Dad’ he says, ‘I’m Tommy’.
Suits me.
=======ooo000ooo=======
The pic is Tommy, Lungelo and another pale mate Ryan. Another day, another place, but same year!
On the school run one morning my Thomas is singing along with me:
I am a rock
I am an i-i-island
And a rock feels no pain
And an island ne—ver dies
Dad, he says, pretending to be really asking, not just being a smart-arse:
Do you really not feel pain?
=======ooo000ooo=======
and remember:
Brauer asked: Totally reasonable and innocent question. So what’s the answer, ‘Swanie the rock’? ‘Peter the Rock’? True Granite?
Which reminds me of Larry the Yank back in 1969 who said of the Afrikaners in Harrismith: ‘They just hate being taken for granite’.
Jessie’s gala day looms. “I’m NOT swimming!”
I said That’s OK, lend me your cozzie and Mom’s wig and I’ll swim in your place.
HORROR! “NO DAD! I’ll swim!
Roses are red
Violets are blue
I have five fingers
The middle one’s for you
– Jess & Tom
I PAY for this education!?
Tom comes into my room and says “Dad, your room is the coldest in the house”.
That’s because my windows are open. You & Jess close your windows and live in stuffiness.
“Oh” he says, “Are you not a CO2 person?”
Got back from the Brauers’ palatial new home in the ritzy suburb of Gramadoelas in Tshwane – that ancient seat of my forebears the Tshwanepoels (we have landclaim rights there) – landed at Kinshasa Airport and set off to my car. OK, bakkie. It’s waiting for me in 1A in the parking garage proper. (King Shaka airport, really).
Usually I park under shade cloth, but I thought what the hell, I was a bit late so I took a shorter route; the undercover is closer to the boarding gates.
Okaaay, I’m sure it’s here. I’ll check again.
Up and down all the rows, including the ones I knew I wasn’t in. Nothing.
Try level 0, one down (even though I KNOW I was in 1A, I memorised it and said to myself “Remember 1A: You can’t get better than that: 1st class and an ‘A’ result”). Nope. Try level 2, one up. Nope.
So eventually I had to go to security. To report my car missing, ask where the SAPS was to report the theft, open up a ‘missing car case’ and ask if they had CCTV cameras. Already I was imagining it on a lowbed trailer on its way to – I dunno, Monaco? Paris? where bakkies like mine are highly desired.
‘No’, said the perky 21yr old at the parking office with a smile, ‘You can’t have lost your car, where did you leave it?’
‘1A’ I said, my spirits lifting as she said it with such absolute certainty! I thought ‘They don’t have cars stolen here. I can see that just by her demeanour!’
‘Try -1A’ she said. “MINUS ONE AY” is how it sounded.
‘There’s a -1A?’ I asked, ‘Yes’ she burbled brightly, ‘Two levels down from 1A’.
There it was.
~~oo0oo~~
. . is not so bad.
Tom just had a mate stay over who has a Four Parent Household. Well, two households.
There’s Mom and her boyfriend and Dad and his girlfriend. They alternate weekends.
Mom’s in hospital ‘getting better because she has stress and then she’s very hard on me’.
This morning Mom’s boyfriend arrives to fetch him. Little oke, doesn’t look a day over 19, sports a huge tattoo on his one arm and neck, driving an old Uno.
Tom said as they left ‘He looks very young, hey Dad? In his early twenties, hey?’ Always has an opinion my Tom.
Walking back to the house he hugs me and says ‘MY Daddy’. Little rat.
Lots to be grateful about!!
Except later I give him his medicine. As he swallows it he grabs his throat, looks at me with wide eyes and says dramatically: “I’m having a seizure!”
Little shit.
Tom says Why are your arms so hairy, Dad? looking at them in wonder and at his hairless arms.
It’s because when I was young we had to fight off lions and wrestle them to the ground and shoo them away so we could eat their impala. And if they bit us, the hair would give us some protection.
As I’m talking he starts an Ooh, I’m SO impressed expression, widening his eyes and nodding.
Then he hugs me, pats me on the back patronisingly and says:
No wonder Mom fell for you, Dad.
“We’re watching the Comrades Marathon out on the road again tomorrow!” I announce to the gang. My house is infested with five know-it-alls. We’ll get up at about 5.30 and be there by 6. The route is about 600m up the road and we like to watch the ‘up’ run if we’re home.
Aaw, Dad, can’t we watch on TV? It’s much better graphics, says the lazy one.
Here comes the sun . . and the helicopter:
Grumble, grumble! But then the first runners arrived! And now they’re into it: My five cheer every runner.
They loved it. Especially breakfast afterwards. Thanks Dad!
~~oo0oo~~
