Are you ready?

Does your lovely man have some pet frets? Mine does, bless him.

I have pet peeves, he has pet frets.

Top of mind, for him is AI.

Of all things.

Darling, he advised me, everything I read stresses that we need to be AI ready.

Are you AI ready he enquires of me.

I am not, I admit.

What is AI, he asks, I don’t feel I am in the least competent in it.

This is probably true as he refers to it, for starters, as A1.

You are retired, I reminded him, you don’t need to be AI competent, stop worrying about it.

Perhaps we should buy this book, he continued, or enroll on this six month course for a mere USD 2,000. It sounds critical.

That’s a hard no from me.

So, finally, I have come up with a cunning plan.

When you are competent with the TV remote, I tell him, I’ll teach you AI.

Every time he brings it up, we are going to have a TV Remote test. And then I’ll ask him to Google something.

I’ll give you something to talk about

I’m a slippers and gown type of girl. It’s my favourite outfit really. I have, on a few occasions, noticed that I’m out, but still have my slippers on.

This means that, quite regularly, I have to throw my slippers in the wash. I’m quite good at hurling shoes into the washing machine. I have a friend who puts her trainers in the dishwasher. Also acceptable.

My lovely man is often in charge of emptying the washing machine and either hanging up the relevant, or putting it in the dryer. Shoes, for various reasons, are not for the dryer.

The last slipper load, somehow, slipped (did you see what I did there?) past his vigilance and some hours later I was presented with a much smaller version of my very adored sheepskin Uggs. They were dry and lovely and warm. And very little.

Luckily your feet are small he announced, these will be fine.

They are not fine, they are now baby slippers. Toddler size at best.

Well, he said, I’m waiting to read about this online, at least I give you good material.

Gotta love him. The knob.

It’s a mouthful

My lovely man and I are each on a dental journey. Some of it through necessity, some of it through choice. Not much of it, as it turns out, fun.

It’s lengthy, laborious and largely painful. On the one hand, we are grateful we can get these things tended to, on the other hand we are somewhat regretting our choices.

And then we watch TV. American TV in particular. The Brits don’t seem to have any dentists. But… There is rarely an American actor without perfect teeth.

As my lovely man and I sit and watch, in our own various stages of trauma and healing… We discuss this a lot. Spooning ice cream and cold soup into our wounded gobs, the only diet we can manage these days.

Are Americans born with perfect teeth? Surely they can’t all endure major dental work?

Can anyone shed light on this phenomenon?

Sincerely bewildered.

OK, I can probably sort that out

I’m no relationship expert. God knows I’ve enjoyed my share of failures…

But, I do love my lovely man, so I do try.

Every now and then I check in and ask the man..

‘Are you happy my darling? Is there anything you need, or would like changed?’

So, I asked recently and the man went into deep thought.

I waited, with some apprehension, gotta say.

Well, he said slowly… There is one thing..

My underpants are too tight, can you please get me some more?

It all counts

We have four little fur babies that share our lives. We also feed the birds in the neighborhood. All of them I suspect. Who are ravenous. And two little mice, who come and go and at present are gone, possibly deceased.

The two cats, interestingly enough, are far less fussy eaters than the two little dogs. When it comes to little dogs, it is important to note that if you spoil them with all kinds of delicacies when they are pups, you are screwed forever and have no hope of changing the diet back to anything easy or reasonably priced.

I am in charge of the morning cuppa in our household and this involves feeding the ravenous cats. Lie ins are not permitted ever, they barely make it through the night from dinner to 5am feed. We have a very vocal Ginger, who screams in my face by 05h10. No need for an alarm.

My lovely man feeds the pups a bit later, who do enjoy a lie in, as long as there is a wee snack given to them as we enjoy a cuppa and a choccie bic. (This is not their snack, panic not).

My lovely man reports back as to how the breakfast he serves the pups is received. He is delighted if it is scoffed down and distressed if not. A discussion as to how we can tempt these fat, ungrateful and completely indulged creatures ensues.

I suspect, I suggested, the ratio of pellets to the other goodies, is too high.

How many pellets must I give them then, he asked unexpectedly. Twelve each I randomly suggested, in a panic.

Then, we were thrown a curved ball as the vet suggested we soften the pellets to help with aging teeth.

So, one of my 5am duties is soaking the pellets in advance of the feed in hot water.

Immediately, I received feedback… And criticism.

You are obviously not counting the pellets, I was advised, there were 13 and 15 in the bowl respectively this morning. And there was disdain and dissent at breakfast as a result. Will you count them please? We decided on twelve.

As it turns out, one cannot make and then break the rules here.

Is that the complaints department?

My lovely man is prone to nightmares. I know, it’s awful, the poor bugger. Everyone in his dreams seems determined to beat him up.

It’s quite traumatic and involves a great deal of soothing and cuddles after a session of screaming and thrashing around. And that’s just for the pups on the bed.

We’ve got some help, so it’s much improved, but the occasional burst of terror sometimes means he throws himself off the bed.

So, to keep him safe, I ordered, (Takealot of course, is there anything you can’t get from them? I think not), a bed rail.

So, now he’s caged in on one side and is limited to throwing himself on top of me.

(Not sure I’ve properly thought this through).

He’s got quite adept at raising and lowering the rail, but before he does that, he follows his little ritual of sitting on the side of the bed and faffing with whatever we faff with before we turn in.

Darling, he says out of the blue, you need to get hold of these people about a potential design flaw of this contraption of mine.

Oh, I said, what’s that?

I’m in severe peril of clamping my ballsack everyday if I’m not careful, he shared.

This is not a survival tip

My lovely man… Bless him… gave me a little squeeze today.

Thank you darling, I said, love you, be careful to not squash the boobies. (This is never welcome just by the by, unless it’s your thing… In which case, you do you).

Oh, he said, sorry, I thought they were higher up.

Fed up to my back teeth

I have entered that phase of my life, sadly, where a whole lot of work on my teeth is happening.

The Springboks endure their mouth guards for however long a rugby game lasts… Mine are a permanent fixture.

On the positive, I’m eating less, because it’s actually just a pain to eat. At the end of this ordeal, I expect to be a perfect set of gnashers, in a skull.

I have become quite creative about keeping everything now housed in my mouth clean, and have ventured into the world of, not just steradent, but dental tablets. Useful when you have to rinse and brush 15 times a day.

When my online order of dental tablets arrived, (I am not one to darken the door of an actual shop), they arrived with a bag of ‘mouth tapes’.

What have we here I pondered.

Well, for the ignorant, as I was, a mouth tape is something you wear over your mouth at night to ensure that you breath through your nose while you sleep.

All kinds of wondrous benefits to this apparently… Stops snoring, helps you avoid ‘dry mouth’.

So I slapped one over my mouth and went to bed.

Unfortunately, before explaining to my lovely man what was going on.

What’s this new kink he probably thought, and will it hurt?

I had generously decided to try it myself first rather than experimenting on him.

After explaining to him the concept… I watched his face.

I am quite expert at reading his mind.

‘Wonder if I could get her to wear one during the day’, I could see him thinking.

You go first

Darling, my lovely man asked, holding a handful of berries, what are these?

They look like gooseberries, I said, where did you find them?

There’s loads of them in the flower bed at the back, he replied.

Is there a gooseberry bush there, I asked. Apparently not.

They are nice, I said, popping one in my mouth, I’ll add them to your breakfast bowl (I’m always on the lookout for bright coloured fruit and veg my lovely man should be eating).

He looked at me horrified…. You don’t really know what they are… You could die.

Tastes like a gooseberry, I replied, but yes, we should wash them.

He watched me carefully the rest of the day… I knew he was concerned when he began with the questions..

How do I buy electricity?

What are the cake ladies details?

Can you please write down how exactly you make my breakfast bowl?

And then, as a bit of an afterthought…

How do I call the ambulance people?

So now… We have mysterious… Or as I like to call them.. Immaculate gooseberries.

Marco….. Polo

About a year ago we splurged and upgraded my lovely man’s hearing aid.

The first set he had was not cheap, this one eye watering.

But… Necessary for his well being and my sanity really.

A few months later, we came back from walking the pups and he announced that one was missing.

The angels were watching over us, because we retraced our steps and found it lying in the road.

Darling… He announced earlier today… My left hearing aid is not in my ear.

Someone else take the wheel for a bit I thought to myself.

We started to look for it.

Do you think the app on my phone can track it he asked.

I looked at him… Astounded at the brilliance.

I actually had to sit down and take a wee sip of wine.

Where’s your phone?

I don’t know.

(Another sip).

Phone found…. The hearing aid is in the house!

And there we start…. Very Far…. Far.. Near.. The clever app guided us.

It’s in the kitchen!

15 minutes of searching the floor and counters. Realizing we have the worst tiles ever that could camouflage a lost rhinoceros if it fell on the floor.

Very near… It’s in the bin.

Of course.

Perhaps it’s time to give them a good clean my lovely man murmured.

Perhaps it’s time for wine.