a life less apostrophised

Casually suggested to Gruff as we pulled out of Somerfield car park:

We could do with renting the robots of death.

Said to Zig just now, as he struggled to pull away from the Fairly OddParents:

Just concentrate and write the Rosetta Stone.


I reckon it’s useful to have a Bank Holiday to do list

Gruff went in and came out safely. Thanks to the drama of developing a dramatically dramatic allergy to any antibiotic beginning with Ciprox, he was in for nearly a week, has more than one reason to be a bit lighter, and has only just stopped walking a bit deliberately. But now he’s back and - well - Balanced, if you get my meaning, with a scar to make grown men faint and curious wives poke and prod. Just the one, though, eh.

Mind you, if any curious wife out there is that curious, make me an offer and perhaps you can come and poke and prod too. We need to build up a bigger pot for the big brave grown-up house move we’ve been intending for a few years now; this could be our answer. Telling you that he’s all scrabbly from dissolving stitches and hair re-growth just makes it better, oh yes.

baubles part der

I wonder if Gruff is the only person to have gone down* to surgery with ‘Xmas Trees’ written under allergies on his wristband**? Because you never know when your surgeon will be strung with tinsel and gripping his scalpel between Blue Spruce fingers.

Or - as Gruff added, to derail the twiggy hands idea, as he had Raggety nightmares as a child, and doesn’t really want to wonder about vengeful childhood horrors looming over that bit of him when he’s out for the count - if the anaesthetic will be pine fresh.

Still, he said, after all was done and altered but not Altered, the metal snap stickers along his torso made him Neo.

Or a babygrow, I didn’t add, because the poor chap had just had rather nasty surgery on his man bits, and if being Neo makes him feel better then good for him. And a few après surgery metal snap chest stickers are available on the National Health. Floor length leather coats are not.

It went well, but things were trickier than expected, so he will be in until at least Monday. He’ll be fine; he has Cartoon Network.


*I was about to write why ‘down’ when surgery wasn’t ‘down’ at all, but over, across a bit, a bit more, and along? Then I remembered that Gruff had been moved to the second floor and surgery was on the ground floor, therefore he did indeed go down to surgery. Smartarse or keen observationalist I’m not.

**The wristband they make you wear so you don’t get lost. Or someone doesn’t pick you up while you are dozing and take you home in mistake for their baby. Which, when you’re a bit plump, a bit bald with temporarily bald nads, could happen. Even if you’re so much 36 you're very nearly 37, and always very much 6’ 1 ½”.

ooch

Will somebody please tap me on the shoulder when it's International Think Before You Speak Day. I'll be just here, with this cushion over my head.

what’s the name of that book again?

These days I’m holding my breath. My eyes must be bugging, my cheeks puffed, numb and tingling, my lips turning blue from the outside in.

Somebody get a pin. Or tickle me. Or something.

onward and upward

Or: Why I will never be a theatre critic. Or have tea with the queen.

Since about this time yesterday afternoon, Mol has been 10. Double figures. One of my kids is in double figures.

The shock called for high culture, and high culture was got.

I might be thirty-five; I might bristle to the touch, be a bit tough to chew and a little wizened around the edges, but when the banging and knocking had finished and the cloth was lifted, my sensibilities roared and my gut donkey kicked


OH MY GOD! IT’S CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG!


FUCK ME! SHE’S FLYING!


Chaps, I had a tissue up my sleeve, secret-like. I am crap.

But, fuck me. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

he he he

Am downloading some Glenn Miller for Molster, who is learning to play In The Mood in keyboard lessons.

I get a little jolt every time I see Glenn Miller's face on an album cover, and it's not James Stewart.

you have 357 days to comply

Zig claims to have forgotten his new year’s resolutions. Year 2 stormed the stairs (for stormed where Zig is concerned, please read rode the Robocop-worthy, cooler than Stannah any day matey stair chair) to the computer suite, to tap their resolutions into a hard drive.

Sarah’s mum says Sarah said (repeat quickly fifty times and score ten points) she resolved to keep her bed tidy. Not the bedroom, for she’s a practical six-year-old with a feel for what’s reasonable.

While hoiking him into his chair, I asked Zig what he’d resolved. He screwed up his eyes, puffed out his cheeks, and turned up the corners of his mouth. Hold for ten. Release.

I can’t remember

Apparently he didn’t resolve to do all the washing-up for the year. I checked. Whatever they were, quick as made, his resolutions blew away to make friends with the ether. And probably do all its dishes for the year.

Either:
1) He remembers his resolutions perfectly well, but is concerned that I might hold him to feedingthecatswashinghishandspickingup litternotpickinghisbogeysresolvingworldconflicts every day for a year
2) He remembers perfectly well but is afraid of the cloud of failure should becoming the Archbishop of Ramsbottom not be feasible before December
3) He remembers perfectly well but thinks it none of my bloody business
4) He’s forgotten

Any are possible; I empathise with all. I’ve deliberately side-stepped resolutions this year. I’ve also, until now, side-stepped the side-step, with a breezy whistle. Letting a resolution slide is just too cloudy, and if I don’t let them slide, I might, you know, succeed.

The very idea.

Thing is, in the computer suite on the second floor of a school not too far away, there’s a hard drive. In this hard drive there are Zig’s resolutions, which for reasons 1-4 or 5) Other, he has chosen to keep quiet.

My innards being sneaky, I reckon I’ve got a hard drive too. I’d take the stairs but I forgot to plug in the Robocop-worthy, cooler than Stannah any day matey stair chair to charge.

I'd best just stay here on my arse. Pass the chocs.

up up up up up up up

Molster was given three juggling rings. I’ve nicked them, and practice in the kitchen. Am spending a bit of time unhooking juggling rings from wine racks, swiping them down from the top of the fridge freezer, and hoopla-ing shallots.

It takes a whole different hand position than juggling with balls. A sideways flick is trickier than an open palm toss. As every good girl knows.

I was taught to juggle by a new friend, before he became a good friend. Which he was before I learned to keep three bright balls up in the air.

He’d turned up on my doorstep, with a soft, cheery knock and a backpack full of passata and gnocchi. Knock, gnocchi, passata and company were all welcome. I’d just returned to an empty dump of a student house in a rough part of Manchester, to discover I’d been robbed.

Not being heartless, they’d left me my kettle and a muddy footprint in the center of my bed sheet. With kettle, knock, gnocchi, new friend, footprint and passata, I could conquer the world.

Instead, we went to the park, where I learned how to keep all my balls up in the air.

Haven’t the foggiest where my new friend, good friend is now. Or his backpack.

I’ll keep on tossing the rings.

stonkingly large, stonkingly expensive, cat-hunting robotic dinosaur sez no

I’m the bad cop parent. The one who puts her foot down with a firm hand. The one who says no.

Every so often, however, I’ll take a breather, and – if I don’t exactly say yes to something – allow the impression of a yes to slide past.

When a boy has saved his money until he has enough for a stonkingly large, stonkingly expensive, cat-hunting robotic dinosaur, who am I to say no? Specially when, on the quiet, I really want to have a go.

The impression of a yes (so cunning an impression I’m the one who places the order online) slides past, and a couple of days later there’s a stonkingly large, stonkingly expensive, cat-hunting robotic dinosaur on the living-room floor.

In its box.

Because, no matter that I let the impression of a yes slip past, I’m not the only one able to say no, it would seem.

Being only able to find five of the necessary six high-powered rechargeable batteries needed to power the thing, although there are eight of them in the house, that’s a no. So I make an impression of a yes and charge up the six make-do lower-powered batteries.

To then spend a good half an hour untwisting twisty plastic-covered wire tags to release the beast, to discover that I can’t unscrew the buggering thing's feet from its base. I just can’t get the damn things loose. If I struggle any longer, I’ll wreck the threads, and that will be that.

The stonkingly large, stonkingly expensive, cat-hunting robotic dinosaur has had its foot put down with a firmer hand than mine.




You’ve got ‘til Friday, cats.

run, bellamy

Watership Down is a very, very sad film, Zig decided, lots of squirrels get killed.

This wasn’t the only moment I wondered whether the kids had been watching the same film as us parents, squished up together on the sofa though we were*.

Much is said about the increasing violence and aggression that children absorb through screens today. Yet what is the film that made Molster stark awake until 1am, when she came and snuggled in our bed with Freddy dog, and was sat on and purred to sleep by Major Tommy? What is the film that made the bad dream that brought Zig through before dawn, to squeeze the last half inch out of the kingsize and throw his mother off the edge?

A U-rated film about bunnies, made in 1978.

Art Garfunkle is that scary.



*Until near the end, that is. After a few childhood late 70s, early 80s years of owning the bookofthefilm, before seeing the film, and seeing more spoofs than my childhood cats had rabbit paws on string to pat and gnaw**, I know enough to hop [geddit] from the sofa and out of the room before Hazel felt that he wouldn’t be needing his body any more, so he left it lying at the edge of a field, and stopped for a while to watch his rabbits because even now, all grown up, even typing - and probably misquoting dreadfully – the line, makes my nose and eyes strangely runny. Shut up.

**I’ve never owned or read the actual, you know, book, even though there has to be a copy in every charity shop before a charity shop can be called a charity shop. That and Jaws. It’s the law.

use or ornament

We park the Dyson between the merchant chest and the hinges of the living-room door. It’s not exactly hidden, not exactly on display. When I twirl round in this computer chair, I stare at its strata: sandy stuff, dirty stuff, paper stuff, fluffy stuff, hairy stuff.

I know you’re supposed the categorise the Dyson as use, not ornament, however, I must spend more time looking vacantly at those layers than at any other bit of useless tut on the units or walls of this room.

Today was the day we took down and repacked each and every shiny thing we unpacked and put up a couple of weeks ago, plus a few that snuck in, seasonally quiet-like. Then we hoovered, because Dysoned is not yet a verb and vacuumed sounds too … empty.

Twirling just now, I noticed the strata are: glitter stuff, dirty stuff, wrapping paper stuff, tinsel stuff, hairy stuff, sweet papers.

My quandary is, although it’s use, not ornament, does my looking at those layers, however vacantly, more often than at any other bit of tut in this room automatically classify the … what do you call the see-through plastic middle bit of a Dyson?.. does it automatically classify that bit as ornament?

Do I have to empty the Dyson before Twelfth Night, or do I keep it as is and enjoy dirty Christmas right into February?

feathers fly

My first sliver of 2006 daylight sliced a single wince-opened eye. I groaned for water, then grumbled for tea.

I then lay in bed until gone midday, and read a tatty paperback about a man who, finding the minds of his people muffled by torpor, the lands of his people fallow through skills forgotten, the hearts of his people numb and limp, sets off on a quest across land, across sea, past the world known into the world uncharted or unchartered, to find, challenge and vanquish whatever big tog, superking duvet was doing the smothering.

Is doing the smothering.

in with the new

breath dig cox snooze act give receive chortle hum accept reveal fight question answer might drive study work wish nurture grip spell respond surprise support observe ice-cream excite relate turn make lick quicken revolt spell arse renew plot Christine’s Garden dream move challenge savour release alchemy space balance sense tickle.

out with the old

Sloth torpor passive stolid static stagnant fallow gutless lax slack limp flaccid sluggish tepid weary idle aimless fear hesitant regret pies procrastinate avoid poison cheap chocolate filler fancy void inert arse defeat abnegate concede Eastenders hide abjure mass censor forbid abuse saturate cud cross defunct submit withdraw vapid grease numb.

could try harder

This year is all used up.

I never grabbed it; never wrestled it into submission. Never tied it up, tickled its belly, and rolled it, dizzy and giggling, down a grassy hill into the nettles.

I never licked a finger and, touching it to a day, claimed that day mine.

aslan product placement

We watched a trail for Narnia at school, on the interactive whiteboard.

What?

Every classroom in Mol and Zig’s school now has an interactive whiteboard: a superdooper connect t’internet and … interact … whiteboard.

And they both - that’s the Year 2 and Year 5 classes at least - watched a trail for the Narnia film.

This unsettles me hugely. They attend a Church Of England school because it is the nearest, it is a good school, and it’s important to Geroff and me for the kids to go to school with the neighbourhood kids. Not because it is CofE. Because it is CofE I can – sort of - understand the pimping of Christian allegory through the medium of interactive whiteboard, but shit and fucking hell, it’s advertising. Pure and simple.

How long and how, if not already, will the names creep in? Will McD’s ‘incentivise’ schools to display a small golden arsecheese at the top of the screen, which begins to blink at 11:45? Will Run Spot, run in Nike?

There is an interactive whiteboard pipeline direct to my kids in a place they trust. It won’t take long, the brands can smell it. If they haven’t already devised and funded it.

I don’t like this one little bit.

Wasn’t too keen on the film, either. Which, by the power of interactive whiteboard or otherwise, was the becoming traditional family cinema twixt Christmas and New Year visit choice for 2005. No adaptation betters my head Lion, Witch or Wardrobe, imprinted by reading the damn book. Simple.

The wardrobe is even at the wrong angle. I know. The kids, however, loved it.

it might as well be spring

There are four tidal pools of pressies on the living room floor; they spread, wash into each other, then pull away, leaving some of their original and taking something new. This won't end peacefully.

I dipped a tentative toe into the business of assimilating them into the house today. A bottle of port is now in the bottle of port box. Go me.

Christmas has been hibernation. Warm, curled and nesting. With sprouts.

Molster has been at her best friend’s tonight, and has been invited to stay. She needs pyjamas, toothbrush, hairbrush and clean top and undies. I am uncurling, waking up and shaking out to walk them up the road to her. And stay for a drink, of course, now the antibiotics are over.

Big yawn and a stretch. Come on brain, wake up. You’ve got to think of conversation. And talk. And shit.

all the food groups

Chocklit.


Chocklit.


Chocklit.


Chocklit.


Chocklit.


Chocklit.


Chocklit.


And Christmas Pussy.

god bless us, every one.

To the success of the feast
The success of the feast

To the boy who lived
The boy who lived

To the new Doctor Who
The new Doctor Who

And zombie penguins
Zombie penguins



Things To Do

Cake: Soak fruit in booze; chuck all the stuff together and cook; voodoo with more booze; marzipan; ice; eat.
Pressies: buy; wrap; distribute (wearing stiff gauntlet to save fingers). addendum: forget to give Suffolk ones to mum when she visits.
Pressies from kids: buy; make; wrap; post / give out.
Cards: buy / make; give out / post.
Decorations: consider putting up; put up ; take down.
Christmas dinner: yeah, right.
Booze: buy; drink; buy; drink; be bought; drink; buy; stop drinking for five days because of tooth abscess and antibiotics; drink; buy; drink; scrounge; drink; drink; drink; drink; buy; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink (list in progress).

ha bumhug

You probably noticed it. In the middle of last week, the Last Chance To Order Before Christmas!! emails gradually, depending on the companies’ faith in their courier service, changed to Sale Now On! Great Bargains!. As I’m sitting smug on a pile of bought and wrapped pressies for those I love, those I like and those I feel obligated to buy for, all were deleted unread.

Who wants to shop for after Christmas when we’ve yet to have the grand unwrapping? Damn, we haven’t even opened a box of mince pies yet. Have yet to do the sprouts.

Imagine my surprise when I check Geroff’s account online and see a £99.99 purchase from Play dot com, dated next Wednesday.

Imagine his surprise. It seems I don’t have a lovely post-Christmas just-sub-£100 treat on its way to me.

Apparently the Christmas holiday is beloved by gits who steal card details, for using those details. The buggers.

Card is now cancelled, the department that deals with refunding our account is closed until Tuesday. We wait to see what other joys they’ve ordered. I have an irritated head about this, an irrational Oh, Will They Give Us The Money Back? drama head, a mocking £99.99 Ha! Is That Your Best Shot? Head, but most of all is my throbbing Ow, Won’t This Blasted Abscess Ever Go Away thump skull against the wall head.

Merry Christmas, One and All. Yes, you too. Just this once.


Things To Do

Cake: Soak fruit in booze; chuck all the stuff together and cook; voodoo with more booze; marzipan; ice; eat.
Pressies: buy; wrap; distribute (wearing stiff gauntlet to save fingers). addendum: forget to give Suffolk ones to mum when she visits.
Pressies from kids: buy; make; wrap; post / give out.
Cards: buy / make; give out / post.
Decorations: consider putting up; put up ; take down.
Christmas dinner: yeah, right.
Booze: buy; drink; buy; drink; be bought; drink; buy; stop drinking for five days because of tooth abscess and antibiotics; drink; buy; drink; scrounge; drink; drink; drink; drink; buy; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink (list in progress).