Miscellaneous

Yesterday, over lunch, Father A and I discussed the subject of infidelity. And although after two years of marriage we haven't quite reached the stage where he is gifting me mixer grinders and I am clipping his toenails, it's definitely a good time to discuss infidelity. Just like we should things like who gets the red blanket and if something should happen to me, will he ensure that the dog gets ice cream on Sundays. Because as I am blow-drying his underwear so it's dry in time for his flight to Dubai, infidelity is definitely uppermost on my mind. "I hope I meet someone new cause this blow drying thing? It so rocks! In fact I would like to do it for someone else! I wonder how many other men need their boxers blow dried?"

My mornings have been rather entertaining. The little park where I go for a walk at 7 is going through an upheaval. There are two warring parties. One, a group of plump new mothers who walk in night suits, lipstick and Reeboks and the other, a group of older women whose children have grown up; rendering them unafraid of anything under six feet tall.

Every morning they stand at opposite ends of the park surrounded by the old men who come to walk but talk about bums and boobs instead. Egged on by the swinging walking sticks, the women get shriller and shriller. "Screw loose!" "Bleddy woman!" and "Headache!" in various languages are being tossed about. And it's come to the point where you have to take a side or move to the park where all the flashers come. The fight has begun because of someones child running on the forbidden lawn, but now has been blown to mammoth proportions over arm-swinging beyond acceptable limits, ponytails that bounce too high and who makes the better chocolate brownies. Having studied in a girls' college I am unfazed. I just carry my rolling pin along. But Father A has moved to the flasher section.

More than ten days after Chilled Beer Bose's death, the family has begun to recall little incidents that made him so special to us. My father specially, is the most moved by the man's memory. And story-teller that he is, is determined to immortalise Chilled Beer's. So yesterday he rang me to say, "You know how Aunt P (Chilled Beer's wife) always called him Mr. Bose?" [This was because when Aunt P met Chilled Beer, he was a principal in the same school she taught at. So she never broke out of calling him Mr. Bose] "You think she called him that in bed too?"