– life – bokdrols of wisdom –
Jessie:
Hey Dad! I saw the Detour Trails kombi today! Is he your friend? (we’d been on a cycling trail to the Wild Coast with them, and she knew he was).
Yes Jess, I’ve known Rohan since before you were invented.
She looks at me wide-eyed: And he’s still alive?! she asks, amazed.
~~~oo0oo~~~
We’ve relocated in the Mall to a new shop 20m down the passage, but more central and more visible. Lots to do, most of which I dodged and Feroza did. One thing I had to do was change our address and pay the increased deposit at the eThekwini electricity department. We decided Chatsworth would be best, so I set off up Higginson Highway and past the Hare Krishna temple and find the municipal offices.
It’s the usual scene: Miles of chairs with silent sheep shuffling one seat at a time, edging closer to Nirvana: the counters against the far wall. I join the tail and luckily I’m next to a chatty oke.
After a few minutes he says What number you got? What number? Ja. Oh, where do I get a number? He points.
How did they know that? I wonder.
Back to the entrance hall where I get lucky number 53 and rejoin the happy throng.
I watch, trying to learn so I don’t make damn fool again. Eventually I am in pole position, sitting alert, waiting for a gap at a counter. There it is. I stride up to it and immediately sense something is wrong. The Auntie in the sari is tense. She keeps her head down. After a minute, without looking up she says Is it your number yet? I say I dunno, I just got to the head of the queue and followed everyone else. She flings her hand up and to her right Look at the number.
I step back and look up. In the top left corner of the room there’s a small electronic box 20cm by 20cm. It has a bold, accusing number 50 which clicks over to 51 with a buzz as I watch. So that was the buzz sound I’d been hearing!
Oh, I say, slinking back to my seat, sheep-like. Damn fool.
How did they know that? I wonder. And how did she know I wasn’t number 50? Maybe they don’t dish out numbers 50 to 52 so they can drink tea?
Soon bzzt lucky number 53 pops up, but no counters are open so I wait. Hey, you must go in that door, someone hisses at me. On the left of the left-most counter, directly under the number box, there’s a closed door that no-one else has gone into. Damn fool.
I do as I’m told. Inside there’s a chair and an identical counter to the rest, just lower – at table level. How the HELL did they know that? And why me? I wonder.
You must pay R3500 increased deposit, no credit cards, says the man. He’s spotted I’m holding a credit card. Oh. OK, I don’t have that with me. Can I go and draw R2000 and will you credit me, then tomorrow I’ll come again with the balance and then you can complete the transfer? Eish, I don’t know if that’s possible. I’ll ask. Off he goes. Back 10 mins later. You don’t need to pay anything. You’re on debit order. You can go.
Back at the office the ladies are very helpful about the mystery door with the chair behind it:
Maybe its because you’re a whitey, they suggest. Or old.
Tom doesn’t ask too many questions about Aitch’s illness and mostly just listens, but his ears pricked up while Aitch was talking on the phone the other day.
What’s a chemo sweet, Mom? he asked.
After she’d explained about the room with all the reclining chairs where she sits for the day with a drip putting muti in her to help her get better, he lost interest.
He’s been there, and it turns out a chemo suite isn’t nearly as interesting as he thought.
One year Aitch and I did the mini-Shova cycle ride. Held on the same day as the tougher, longer “Amashovashova,” it’s the easy part: 38km from Hillcrest downhill all the way to the sea. On the way we chatted and decided, “Next year we must do it with the kids – they’ll love it”. Sadly Aitch wasn’t up to it the next year, but she rose early to drive the rest of us to the start.
OK, I lied about the downhill-only. In the early days the start was at the bottom of a valley, so the first couple kays were quite a challenging uphill. This reminded me I’d forgotten to give Tom his muti. Loud complaints and long descriptions of just how dumb it was to be pushing your bike (which is the WRONG bike for this race anyway) and why should we be in the rain? And who’s idea was this anyway? And there must be more intelligent things to do . . . and and. Which I ignored.
We hit the downhill phase and wheeee! the two kids whizz downhill, feet flying, bikes wobbling, looking around to see if anyone’s impressed. I just close my eyes and think: There are hardly any fatalities on these events, it’ll be fine.
But of course all “only downhill” sections have their little uphills and Tom is really REALLY slow up these. After a while Jess can wait no longer. She shovas off and I now have only one kid to chaperone. The slowest kid on the whole mini-shova.
I wait, I feed, I juice him up. I explain “focus” to him. He says “Dad, I’m having Fun,” so what can I do but laugh. He sings me an anti-girl song. Something about: Just Barbies who think they’re fantastic, But their boobs are made of plastic . .
He fills his pocket with BarOnes at the refreshment stand, then asks for an energy bar. This seems to have an immediate effect. On his tongue. None of it reaches his legs.I ride ahead for 100m, stop and look back. He’s 99m behind. I park my bike at the top of a hill and walk back to fetch him. When I reach him he’s LITERALLY inching along. TINY little shuffles, one toe-length at a time. But he’s laughing and singing, so so am I.
I ride ahead for 100m, stop and look back. He’s 99m behind. I park my bike at the top of a hill and walk back to fetch him. When I reach him he’s LITERALLY inching along. TINY little shuffles, one toe-length at a time. But he’s laughing and singing, so so am I.
And talk! He talks only about winning, and fast, and what prizes are there for coming first, and if he had a better bike, etc. Doesn’t acknowledge me when I say, but Tom, your classmate Dan came past and he’s now WAY ahead (he had burnt up the tar for a few metres to catch him to chat, but Dan soon rode off into the sunrise).
Sunrise was magnificent and the rain cleared up and we had a glorious day. A mere 2hrs 35mins later we roared into the Moses MaFIFA stadium (I towed the little bugger for a kay or so towards the end).
Free juice and a medal – COOL!!
Free juice and a medal – COOL!!
Let’s do it again next year, Dad, but about my bike . . .
I’m deaf.
Quick guys! Come and look!
Picking up Labrador poo on the lawn I notice a black mass about the size of a doormat. As I get closer I see its moving. Thank goodness it’s a hatching of tiny locusts, not Sambucca’s finest dump.
Quick, come look!
(reluctantly): What? What is it?
COME NOW!!
Grumble grumble moan moan. What is it?
As they get there the hoppers start scattering, hundreds all hopping off in different directions. Beautiful black and yellow striped midgets.
Oh, that?
Um, very interesting Dad.
Yes, VERY interesting.
*rolling of eyes and digging each other in the ribs*
Turn round and go back to YouTube, Jess to Justin Bieber’s wailing monotone and Tom to Lil Wayne’s screeching monotone.
A short while later it’s Jessie’s turn to call me:
Dad!! Come quick! Come now!
What?
Look! There’s TV in our room at The Cavern! (points at pics on their website)
Her idea of heaven in the Drakensberg.
(Meantime there wasn’t. She was looking at the de-luxe suites, I had booked the un-luxe rooms)
People (mistakenly) say that I am forgetful. I think I have selective, random, disjointed hypermnesia. I remember all sorts of shit . . Might not be WHAT I want to remember, might not be WHEN I want to remember it, but I still think I got hypermnesia. ----- Word of the Day: hypermnesia \hye-perm-NEE-zhee-uh\ noun : abnormally vivid or complete memory or recall of the past ----------- Larry responded from Ohio: My condition is remarkably similar -- and people also say (correctly, I fear) that I am forgetful. Not that I've actually forgotten anything; it's just that I don’t remember it at the correct moment. I'll remember someone's birthday is coming up weeks in advance -- too soon to do anything about it -- and then again after the fact. But NOT at the moment when it's appropriate to act. And then there are all the things I know that I know, but that I can’t seem to summon to memory precisely when I want to recall them -- the way I used to be able to. They tell me that's more or less part of the natural aging process. I'm waiting for the signs indicating the onset of Alzheimer's. Bottom line: I don’t think you're suffering from hypermnesia. It's more likely geriamnesia -- forgetting you're getting older. If that's not a word, it should be. It's a condition many baby boomers have intentionally cultivated.
Jess & Tom watch a car chase with guns blazing.
Tom roots for the shooters while Jess holds her breath.
When its over a guy says to a girl “You OK?”
Jess (16) asks Tom (12): “Do you think he likes her?”
Tom: “Huh?”
~~~oo0oo~~~
The day we moved into Elston Place Sheila brought Jess & Tom to the new house as we moved our stuff from Windsor Avenue a couple of kilometres away in Westville.
Standing on the driveway, four-year-old TomTom looked up and saw the resident vervet monkey gang precariously wobbling across a wire high above.
He started fulminating against them, and They shouldn’t be here and What did they think, and This was OUR house . .
“TomTom, they belong here and we welcome them and we live in harmony with them, my boy” says Dad.
Unimpressed, Tom muttered:
“Well, they mustn’t come and complain to us if they get shocked!”
Sir Max Aitken (‘Lord Beaverbrook’)’s Drumbeat Is For Sale. Totally Rebuilt In The Early 90s At Berthon, Has Had Truck Loads Of Money Hurled At Her Since. Special, Original And Thoroughly Useable Piece Of Our Maritime Heritage.
Trish sailed in her as navigator and chef in about 1983 from the Caribbean to the UK where she headed for a refitting (the boat! not the girlfriend-to-be!).
Aitch at the helm
Just gave myself a DIY haircut with the buzzing razor, bending over and doing it by feel.
My last one was at Ngcolisi’s place Nwelezelanga (‘sunlight hair’) downstairs, sent there by order of the ladies at work who had been hinting for months.
A strapping young oke looked at me once I was in the chair (no namby pamby wash beforehand, what do the others think – I didn’t shower and shampoo that morning?) and said ‘Number One?’
He’d mistaken me for Msholozi!! Amazing.
Actually I realised what he meant when he approached me with those razor things that I use myself – for free – at home. I’m used to scissors when I’m paying.
You got a Number Four? I asked.
‘Sure’ he said and proceeded to spend AGES going over and over my head tearing at the roots slightly every now and then, but I’d left it so long that I was just happy it was being shortened. He fussed over it and trimmed here and there and then eventually let me go.
Fifty Ront. My kind of no-fuss, no wash haircut. And no yakking. He said a total of three words to me: “Number One?” and “Sure“.
But too long. I decided then that my next one would be just me and the machine, bending over, alone at home. Save fifty bucks and time.
~~~oo0oo~~~
I’ve seen expensive hairstylists before – in days gone by.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Later: Back when we wrote about haircuts I said:
My next one is going to be just me and the machine, bending over, alone at home. Fuck paying R50.
I’ve just finished (lo-ong overdue!) and I think I now know how the mullet was born. It’s quite hard to reach the middle at the back, so I have a suspicion (unconfirmed, can’t see) that my hair there is quite a bit longer than the rest of the 6mm setting of the zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz razor.
But 50 Ront in the bank is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick . . . as my mate Doug Retief would say.
~~~oo0oo~~~
While on chemo,and having lost all her hair, Aitch pulls up outside Tom’s school. Please go and fetch Tom, Jessie.
No, Mom. Come with me. But Jess you know the school well, and I'm tired. You go. Moan, groan Jess, I haven't a wig or a beanie or a hat with me and you know Tom gets embarrassed by my bald head. He doesn't want his friends and teachers to see me bald. Well, Mom: Tommy's just going to have to grit his teeth, says our Jess. So they waltzed in arm-in-arm. Here's Mom & Jess in wigs:
Mohamed came to play, then ended up staying the night.
Mom Rookaya, in answer to my query, said “just not pork” so I thought I had meals under control.
Supper I pick up a packet of pasta and say “Here’s yours, you guys. Cook it yourself” to the two nine year olds.
NO DAD! THAT’S HARAM! says my TomTom.
What?
HARAM. You can’t give that to Mohamed!
Oh. I look at the packet: Cheese and bacon Carbonara. Oh, OK.
(Phew! You saved my bacon, boetie, I think. And who woulda thought TomTom would know these things, I think).
~~~~~ooo000ooo~~~~~
Later we go down to Vetch’s beach where they reflect on things . .
Every year Trish got a professional photographer to the kids’ parties. Me, I’m scrooge. I’ll take the pictures. I can do this! So at the kids’ uShaka Waterworld party I tried to photograph everyone. But I didn’t get one of lovely young Hannah, and she left early.
I told Tom.
“Doesn’t matter,” he says, “She’s a brownie/blondie hair kinda person.”
Oh. That’s obviously okay then.
Tom with friends whose pics DID matter . .
~~oo0oo~~
Another brilliant, money-scrooging decision was not to have two separate parties, as Aitch used to. Turns out joining fourteen year-old girls with ten year-old boys was not a clever idea! These below do not blend well with those above. Who would’ve known?! I rushed around searching for bodies all day. Never again!
Jess was 12 and Tom was 8 and even though they would (sort of) believe me when I would say: “Err on the side of spoiling your Mom n Dad, and listening to your Mom n Dad if you want Xmas gifts”, they felt they would hedge their bets and write to Santa as well.
Off they toddled up the road to the PnP centre with their aunt Janet, visiting from Botswana, to post their petitions in the big red letter box.
Jess had given me a copy of hers. It said “Please may I have . . “ before each and every separate request. Extreme politeness was evident.
Tom’s envelope was addressed to Father C. Jess thought it would be better to address hers to Santa C – more formal. Janet had helped with the spelling.
All together now they shoved them through the slot and turned to go.
After two paces, Tom swung round, looked hard at the slot and said sternly: “Read them, OK?”
——-ooo000ooo——-
Below an earlier – 2007 – letter:
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
