Chapter 260: My super power lets me down.

Me: I am so lucky.

One grandkid immediately says the right thing: Why is that?

Me: I’m going to the sushi train for dinner tonight. I’m going to eat some fantastic food.

Gertrude: So am I. I am also going to the sushi train.

Me: You are lucky. Like me.

Gertrude: But you are luckier than me.

Me: Why is that?

Gertrude: You get to talk to me.

Me: You are right. I get to talk to you and you are stuck listening to a retired old fart. You are luckier.

 

In the restaurant I talk to Gertrude:

Me: Do you like being Gertrude?

Gertrude: No.

Me: Why not?

Gertrude: You pushed me away from the fire.

Me: Yes. I am proud of that. I would do that again.

Gertrude: You pushed me.

Me: I don’t want you to get burnt.

 

This topic needs to vanish. I must raise another topic.

Me: Tell me what you did today.

Gertrude: Nothing.

Me: What did you do before doing nothing?

Gertrude: Nothing.

Me: And after. What did you do after doing nothing?

Gertrude: Nothing.

Me: You are right. Nothing all day. You are an expert at doing nothing. You must have been practicing.

 

I have a super power. The ability to read grandkids minds. Bruce dreams of eating another piece of sushi.

Me: Go for it. Have some sushi.

Bruce says: I can’t.

Me: You can. If you feel like it then eat it.

Bruce: I am saving space for an ice cream.

Me: I always manage to have room for dessert. Even when I eat too much.

Bruce: I am not eating too much. I am saving space for an ice cream.  

 

My super power has let me down. It didn’t tell me the full story.

It has resulted in me behaving worse than my grandkids.

Chapter 259: How's work?

Ghosts resembling my grandkids lounge in the front room. Mouths open. Eyes glazed. Arms and legs sprawled randomly.

 

On the TV screen is a group of active kids playing, jumping, drawing and making creative and beautiful works of art. My grandkids look like a different species from the kids in the TV.

 

My grandkids passively watch the active creative kids. They also watch some energetic, creative, bubbly, good looking young adults.  My grandkids don’t resemble and behave like the kids in the TV. I doubt that I resemble or behave like the adults in the TV.

 

Time to go for a walk. We wander. We approach some vaguely familiar people.

 

I ask them: How’s work?

 

I then say:  Is your work affected by Covid 19? Everything else is.

 

Their attitude is typical. They give voluminous answers. They love talking about themselves and their jobs. Nothing wrong with that. Everybody does. Their job is the special subject where they know all the right answers.

 

They talk and we listen. They never ask us anything and then I realise why. We are retired. There is nothing to ask us. Can’t ask us how is retirement going. Can’t ask what we plan on doing. Can’t pretend they care. They know I have erected my tombstone. I just have to add the date.

 

When I worked I was like these people. I always talked about myself and my work. When working everybody who came to see me talked about my work. They talked about what I knew about. They had come to my place of work to talk about my work. I was the man.

 

Now I don’t work there is nothing to talk about.

Chapter 258: What do you think of Hobart?

Charles Darwin:

5 February 1836 arrived aboard the ship HMAS Beagle.

 

The lower parts of the hills which skirt the bay are cleared; and the bright yellow fields of corn, and dark green ones of potatoes, appear very luxuriant... I was chiefly struck with the comparative fewness of the large houses, either built or building. Hobart Town, from the census of 1835, contained 13,826 inhabitants, and the whole of Tasmania 36,505. If I was obliged to emigrate I certainly should prefer this place: the climate & aspect of the country almost alone would determine me.

 

Mark Twain:

1895: Mark Twain did a worldwide tour. He wrote a book about his tour called “Following the Equator.”

 

How beautiful is the whole region, for form, and grouping, and opulence, and freshness of foliage, and variety of colour, and grace and shapeliness of the hills, the capes, the promontories; and then, the splendour of the sunlight, the dim, rich distances, the charm of the water-glimpses! And it was in this paradise that the yellow-liveried convicts were landed, and the Corps-bandits quartered, and the wanton slaughter of the kangaroo-chasing black innocents consummated on that autumn day in May, in the brutish old time. It was all out of keeping with the place, a sort of bringing of heaven and hell together.

 

Robert Plant:

I’m able to actually choose places to go which have intrigued me for the last god knows how many years and Tasmania always been one of those places.

 

Angus Young:

We want to appeal to everyone and get rich quick. We want to be millionaires. I’ve got this plan to buy Tasmania you see.

 

Martha Stewart:

I haven’t been to Tasmania. I haven’t been to the South Pole. I haven’t been to the North Pole. I want to see the polar bear migration before there are no polar bears. I want to see Glacier national Park before the glacier melts.

Chapter 257: Hair today: ? tomorrow

Kay: You must pull the hairs out of your nose.

Me: Why is that?

Kay: They look horrible.

Me: You’ve got hairs in your nose. You need them. I need them.

Kay: But yours look ugly. Mine look beautiful. I’m a princess.

Me: Do my hairy ears look ugly?

Kay: No you are old.

 

 

Kay: Your legs are disgusting.

Me: Why?

Kay: Your legs are hairy. They are disgusting.

Me: Why are hairy legs disgusting?

Kay: Uhhha. They look disgusting.

Me: Do you know any animals that have hairy legs?

Kay: Lions, tigers, elephants.

Me: Are they disgusting?

Kay: Your legs are hairy. You need to shave them like my mum.

Me: How often does your mum shave her legs?

Kay: Every week.

Me: Have you seen her?

Kay: Yes.

Me: When do you think you will shave your legs?

Kay: When I’m old. Next year.

Me: How old will you be next year?

Kay: Seven.

 

 

 

Kay: When grandpa dies and his hair keeps on growing will it come out of the ground?

Catherine: Don’t say that.

Me: That’s okay. You can talk about such things.

Catherine: Your hair does grow after you die. That’s true but no it won’t happen. Anyway I want to be cremated.

Kay: What is cremated?

Catherine: It means you don’t get buried.  You get burnt. You become a few ashes.

Kay: Ughh.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 256: What is my special name?

Bruce : “Hello Grandpa.”

Me :  “Hello Grandson.”

Bruce : “My name is Bruce.”

Me :  “I’ve also got a name.”

Bruce : “Grandpa”

Me :  “What is my special name.”

Bruce : “Grandpa.”

 

He runs off. Hiding his lack of knowledge. He is one of only four people who can call me grandpa. I think I will go with that. He is special. He doesn’t have to call me by my name. He doesn’t even have to know it. Providing I am the only one (there is one other) he uses that name for. Providing he doesn’t use that name for every retired old fart he meets.

He can stick with calling me grandpa.

 

 

 

Bruce dances with swinging arms and legs. He then says “I can teach you”

I try and copy him.

He is jubilant at my efforts. He is jubilant that I dance like a drunk giraffe.

I am happy to let him watch my efforts. 

He smiles at my dancing. So easy to look after grandkids.

 

Bruce : I’ll let you in my gang. if you know the secret word.

Me : What is the secret word?

Bruce : I can’t tell you. It’s a secret? It’s so secret I don’t even know it.

 

 

 

I can hear a soft rumbling noise becoming louder. Bruce also hears it and he dashes out the front door. I follow him and we both stand and watch the wheelie bin truck slowly work its way towards us. Stopping and extending its arm, grabbing the bin, lifting the bin, tipping the bin into the larger truck, lowering the bin back on the footpath.

The footpath is beginning to look like a scene from Dr Who. Aliens hiding in all the bins. To walk down the footpath we now have to dodge all the bins and be careful and aware of the aliens hiding in them.

Chapter 255: my arch nemesis

I say: Tell me something good you did at school today?

Gertrude: xxxx were naughty. They got told off.

I say: Please tell me something you learnt today. Did you do any reading? Any writing?

Gertrude: They were really naughty. They wouldn’t listen.

I say: Tell me something good that happened at school today?

Gertrude: My arch nemesis was away today. That was good.

She surprises me. Using a word such as nemesis. And using it correctly. I don’t know where or when she learnt the word but she knows it. She is heading towards a good grade for English. 

Now she has to learn not to use it. She has to learn how to see the good in everybody and get on with everybody. She has to realise they are all in the same class. She has to realise that everybody wins when  they work together and help each other.

Chapter 254: I need a hug

I walk with and slightly behind Kay and Bruce.

Kay suddenly stops turns around and raises her arms like a scarecrow. She says to me: I need a hug.

I can’t ignore her order. I bend down and lean towards her. I wrap my arms around here. She wraps her arms around my chest.  We become one. A few moments of squirming. She lets go and I let go.

She says: Thank you, turns around and resumes her walk. She looks satisfied. She’s done what she had to. Time to move on.

She made me happy. I made her happy.

A lady walks past with her daughter.  She says to her daughter: Don’t do that. Don’t hug men. You never know what terrible things they would do to someone like you.

The lady speaks loudly. Not hiding her thoughts. She’s just saying what everybody already knows. She’s just stating an obvious fact.

Kay says: That lady needs a hug.

I think and don’t say: You may be correct but I doubt I will be the one.

I say: Unfortunately, I’m all out of hugs.  I can only do a few every day. Look at that cloud up there. What does that cloud look like? What animal is it?

Bruce says: Batman. He does the Batman song and moves like Batman.

Kay says: A unicorn. She dances the way a unicorn dances.