adminFadzayi Maposah
Correspondent
There was a time I used to watch lots of movies. For me, a weekend then had to have lots of movies and lots of music.
Looking back now, I am amazed how much time I spent watching movies and munching popcorn!
It was like my teeth were on their way to becoming a powerful grinding mill! I would chew, chew and chew and actually enjoy myself!
When my daughters were small, I was literally forced to watch their cartoons and child friendly movies. They were always amazed at how I seemed to know the development of the movie.
Each time I loudly expressed something about the movie that we were watching and then it happened, my daughters would look at me and ask me “Have you watched this movie before?”
When I would tell them I had not watched it, they would be in awe.
They thought that their mother could foretell how movies would develop and it was one thing that made me popular with them as occasionally they would be curious and ask, “Mum, what do you think will happen next?”
If I had not been watching and following the unfolding of the plot I would just say “Let us watch to see what happens next. Patience my darlings!”
What the girls did not know then was most story lines are just the same, they are tried and tested and they are simply reproduced over and over again.
When watching child friendly movies, there is always one who is the nerd, loves studying and is always investigating something that they read somewhere and in most cases this individual wears spectacles.
Then there is the one child who is bullied, is made fun of and takes longer than others to grasp issues. In some movies there is the other child who is always getting into trouble.
So as an adult, one just needs to watch a few minutes to actually pick whether the movie is good or not for the children. It is always important to have an idea what your children are watching.
One way is to watch their movies with them.
So back in the day, when I could tell what was likely to happen next in a movie, I was the superstar.
I guess that I could still be the superstar, but predicting what is going to happen next in a movie no longer appealing to the girls now.
That level of movie predictions is not what I am judged against. The girls now have bigger fish to fry…
It could be my background in high school, where I went to girls` school or it could just be me and my love for talking.
I am not very sure. It is one of the few things that I am not sure of.
I have this tendency of sharing when I am on my menses. I learnt from an early age that one needs an `it` experience support system.
The bubbly trio from my high school girls remind me of the importance of a support system at times when one is not very familiar with what it going on.
The trio will always have a special place in my heart. They helped me appreciate the importance of supporting one another in all instances…but then I digress, today is not about this trio.
Let me go back to my issue of sharing with my housemates that I am on the “it” experience.
I will share how the experience is going, the challenges being faced if any.
As I am getting older, the “it” experience is not as regular as it was in my “hay” days. As the grey hairs multiply, the more irregular the cycle becomes.
So occasionally, I will ask my housemates – who happen to be my daughters, when the last “it” experience was, my excuse being that as I get older, I am also becoming forgetful!
The girls were getting tired of being asked when to expect my “it” experience they suggested that I mark on the calendar and that too did not work as I forgot to mark the calendar.
How easy is it to explain a marked row of dates, especially if that calendar is in a communal space?
Meeting dates? Birthdays?
To cut a long story short. I now have an application in my phone that tells me when to expect my next “it” experience. It also tells me when I am fertile should I want to have a baby, so that I ensure that I take the appropriate action in that regard!
The application calculates the average values of the menstrual period length and the cycle length in days.
On some days I hear a tone on my phone only to check for an SMS and only get the application telling me that I should prepare for the next period.
The alerts will continue coming daily, until there is one that says it should be first day of the period. If there is no input on the phone, the application sends another alert asking whether I forgot to input the start of the period.
All I can say is the application is a must add to the bubbly trio so that the name changes too to the Bubbly Quad!
The application is there with me all the time and I like that it also takes information that relates to medicines that I could be taking, my mood and other related information.
The only challenge is that my dear application has not been able yet to predict that I could be getting to menopause.
On some days I am flooded with alerts that my period is late. I really wish that it masters my story line like I did when I watched movies with my daughters.
I am waiting patiently that this application realises that I am getting to menopause and stops sending alerts that the period is late.
Online Reporter