O Is For My Scouse Accent

Another in my occasional series, The A to Z of The Laughing Housewife.

Orangensaft (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

O is for orange juice – I’ve been craving it lately. Not so nice for my bladder – drink too much orange juice and I’m like Julie Andrews in ‘The Sound of Music’: When the blog writes, when the pee stings…

The last time I drank this much orange juice was twenty-three years ago.  I was pregnant with Tory Boy and I must have needed the Vitamin C.  How embarrassing would that be for him, to have a sibling twenty-three years younger?  It would almost be worth it, just to see his face.

I’m pretty certain I won’t have that pleasure but, if I start craving cheese and tomato on crackers (my other craving), Tory Boy will stop speaking to me.

No, I have to face it – I am a woman of a certain age; it’s probably my ‘ormones. This is where my Scouse accent comes in, if you were wondering.  We Liverpudlians drop our aitches, extend words like ‘like’ to ‘lichhhh’ and talk about ‘me mum an’ me dad.’

Me Mum was my age now when she watched me get married.  I thought she was old then; now, I’m not so sure.  They say fifty is the new forty so if fifty is the new forty then forty is the new thirty and life begins at forty which must be thirty and at thirty I was raising babies.  When does my life begin?

O is also for ‘owl’ as in, ‘self-pitying ‘owl’.

N Is For A Number Of Things

Another in my occasional series, The A To Z Of The Laughing Housewife.

N (Photo credit: chrisinplymouth)

Normal Service Has Been Resumed

Headache has more or less gone and I’m back to blogging as usual, except…there are

Not Enough Hours In The Day

To allow me to catch up with your comments and blogs and to comment on yours.  Also, I’m

Not Feeling Great At The Computer At The Moment

I find that lately I’m struggling to spend my usual time at the computer, because my eyes burn with tiredness.  Basically, I’m feeling

KNackered

I’m waking early; I’m nodding off around ten at night and sleeping well, but feel like I’ve had none when I wake up.  I’m also

Napping

A lot in the afternoons.

Nice Choice Of Language From An English Graduate

Sorry about the earlier vulgarity – Knackered.  For those who don’t know the meaning, it has several, one of which doesn’t apply in a family friendly blog, so I won’t include it:

• Exhausted
• Reprimanded
• Broken

The first and third go back to the Knacker’s Yard – a place to send  worn-out horses for slaughtering.

If you didn’t understand Joke 548, re-read it with this explanation in mind.

So when I said

Normal Service Has Been Resumed

I was exaggerating a little because that is patently

Not True.

Your comments are still unanswered and your blogs unvisited.  You know, I’m

Not Keen On The Letter N.

It’s a big fat fibber.

L0066542 CO2 gas-powered artificial arms (Photo credit: wellcome images)

Now, I Just Want To Mention One Thing:

Do you read the comments other readers leave?  Even though I don’t always answer them, I always read them.  You should, too; they are often funnier than the posts.  

This morning, in response to today’s joke, Katherine Trauger told me the bizarre story of her friend:

We know a guy with an artificial arm…he lost his original arm while trying to escape from prison — he was shot…While he was in prison the second time, his original artificial arm was stolen from him. 

You couldn’t make it up.

News For Bloggers 

If you are going to be in London on 8-9 November, you might be interested to know that the British Arts Festival Association is offering free tickets to their conference for all bloggers.  Visit the website for details: http://www.artsfestivals.co.uk/bafa-events

Normal Service Will Be Resumed, I Promise.

Eventually.  I’d gnaw off my arm before I let you down.

M Is For Many Things

Maltesers (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

M was, of course, for Maltesers, as most of my many musers managed to mention in the comments.

There were some other submissions:

• M&Ms.  A majority of my readers are from across the mighty Atlantic so this was the most popular suggestion.  Meh, as my eldest son might say – a meagre replacement for the greatest sweet (candy) to ever live.
• Malted Milk Balls: the imitation – almost a mockery – of my magnificent Maltesers.  Meh meh.
• Meals.  An assumption that makes sense, given my interminable meanderings on foods I most adore – Maltesers, mainly.
• Motherhood.  Well, yes, maybe I like being a mum; but do I like being a mum as much as I like Maltesers?  It’s a moot point.
• Muffins.  Mojitos.  Marzipan.  Idiosyncratic Eye knows me well enough to remain with the food theme.  However… Marzipan – yuck yuck yuck!  Mojitos – got an impression it’s booze, so IE doesn’t know me that well yet.  Muffins – good choice.  But English or American…?
• Money.  Not something I crave, unless it’s to pay for the Maltesers I’ve amassed.
• Aquatom was right: M’s for many of ’em.  Yes, Tom; I did see what you did there.  Consider me cheesy grinning.
• Patti suggested it was so easy, I should write another post.  Here it be, Patti.
• Marabou chocolate was sent to me by comment link.  Many compliments to my new best mate, Viveka, who knows a request for a bribe when she hears one.
• Commiserations to my ex-best mate, Viveka, who made the mistake of imagining I wouldn’t want to receive many more Maltesers than I presently have stashed in my store room.
• More congratulations go to Slip Martin (my son’s name for him), who magnificently monitored over many of my posts that there was only one word in the English language that started with M…MALTESERS.  A man of discernment.

Maltesers in a tray. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Summary: Mention Maltesers and my mood is one of amiable harmony and merriment; and you will be gifted with the honorarium of an over-emmed post.

Many thanks for making me smile.

And drool.

M Is For…?

Another in my occasional series, The A to Z of The Laughing Housewife.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

M is for…?

If you don’t know, you really haven’t been here long.

The rest of you, send me some M and I’ll write nice things about you.  

If my over-stuffed chubby fingers can use the keyboard once I’m done.

L Is For My Real Name

sssh! (Photo credit: Stephen Dagnall)

The latest in my occasional series of The A To Z Of The Laughing Housewife finds me at my real name.

When I started this blog, I thought anonymity was a good idea (yes, the writing was that bad).  

I then told you every time I had a poem published, with a link if the poem was online; or a photograph of the page in the anthology with my full name in bold (I never use my middle name, of course – Vanity).

As I always use my real name when I’m published (and in my Twitter feed), I suspect the anonymity thing isn’t really working for me.

I might as well just come out and say it:

My name is Tilly, and I am a Linda.

Why do you use a pseudonym; and is it a waste of time?

K Is For ‘Kidology’

Leather Vancouver (Photo credit: dejahthoris)

The latest in my A to Z of The Laughing Housewife sees a celebration: on June 30th it will be my third blogaversary!  The third anniversary has ancient (leather) and modern (glass/crystal) symbols; to make it easy for everyone, if you send me a set of glasses in leather holders, like those plastic cups at sports games that keep drinks hot or cold*, I’ll be happy.

*Flasks.

Being a fervent monarchist (yes, I would curtsey to the Queen) and because it’s a jubilee year, I decided to celebrate my blogaversary (leather slippers à la Cinderella will do) by copying QEII: four days off and a trip down memory lane.  There will be no original posts from tomorrow, for four days; just re-posts of my four favourite posts over the last three years*.

*The four posts I can remember writing.

Happy Blogaversary to me!
I get four days blog-free!
I’ll cheat all my readers
And they’ll all leave me…oh…

*

A quiz for you: guess which part of this post is a bluff or deception.

*

This is for you, Big Al:

kidology [kɪˈdɒlədʒɪ]

n

Brit informal the art or practice of bluffing or deception

[from kid² + ology]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003

*

I’ll settle for a leather glasses case, if you’re poor.

*

J Is For ‘J’

 

Another in my occasional series, A to Z of The Laughing Housewife.

I can’t think of anything that begins with J that might be of interest to you, so I will pluck some J words from the air and see what comes up.

I’ve had jobs:

• Waitress
• Till Operator
• Sales Assistant
• Receiving Clerk
• Worked In The Office But I Can’t Remember My Title Clerk
• Assistant Chief Clerk
• Chief Clerk
• Account Executive
• Don’t Think This Was A Demotion, Reader, Because It Was Not Wages Clerk
• Another One I Can’t Remember Clerk
• Doctors Get Called This One When They Run Things But I Wasn’t A Doctor And I Worked In A Secretarial College*
• Mother
• Office Temp

*Registrar

The second-to-last one is my favourite-ever job, and I have never regretted giving up full-time paid work to do it, though less vomit and more chocolate would have been nice.

When Spud met Megan at age six, and went round to her house on a play date, Megan’s mother asked him what his mother did.  Spud told the truth as he saw it: ‘She sits and reads the paper.’

I’ve had jabs:

My BCG scar

I don’t understand the hatred for Justin Bieber.  The boy loves his mother so he can’t be all bad.

I know who Jigglypuff is, and I can sing his/her song.  But I don’t know what sex it is.  I was too busy reading my paper to pay close attention.

We once had a five-year plan for me to graduate, take a Teaching English as a Foreign Language course, and for all of us to move to Japan for a few years.  Then Spud got a full bursary to an outstanding school, Tory Boy went to university, and I took up blogging instead.

 

Gyllenhaal as Donnie Darko, 2001 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I always confuse Jake Gyllenhaal with Tobey Maguire.  I know one of them was Spiderman and one of them got snowed in to a New York library, but that’s it. 

Tobey Maguire. (Cut away photo, from Image:Tobey Maguire and Jennifer Meyer by David Shankbone.jpg) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

I don’t know what jute is, and I don’t particularly care.

I believe that the only way to treat new jeans is to bash them around a bit and then throw them into the bottom of your wardrobe.  My sons take this belief to its extreme and do it with all of their clothing.

I like jigsaws.

I am not jealous by nature, though I will occasionally covet a packet of crisps when I’ve already had my day’s packet.

I would love to do jury duty.

Juxtaposition is one of my favourite words.

I’ve had friends called Jackie/Jacqui. One was the school librarian when I was in sixth form. She and her partner painted each of their thirteen wooden stairs a different colour; and grew cannabis in the spare bedroom where I sometimes slept.

Another now lives on a boat in the Bahamas and teaches in a girls’ school. She would take a bottle of Pomagne to birthday parties; give it as her present; then drink the contents.

Print advertisement for Pomagne cider (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

No wonder she can afford a boat in the Bahamas. Her Dad had a warm heart, the widest smile and the yellowest teeth I ever saw.

I still have to tell you 555 jokes in order to complete my 101/1001 challenge of telling a joke a day for 1001 days.

And I just had to use a calculator to work that out.

Did I mention I was once an Accounts Clerk?

*

*

I Is For ‘Me’

 

Washing dishes in 1983. Some things never change. Pity my waistline isn’t one of those things.

Continuing my occasional series of the A to Z of The Laughing Housewife, I have nothing for ‘I’. 

But I = Me, so…. 

Of course, the whole A to Z series is about me, so…. 

So what shall I write about?  I don’t know.

I know!  The things people have said to or about me.

Thanks for giving me time to work that out.

*

Best Introduction [from a friend’s daughter, spying me through the window after I had knocked on the front door]:  Tilly’s here, and she’s got great hair.

Best compliment: 

Sorry; I don’t listen to those.  I’m English, don’tcha know.

Best thing the Hub ever said to me: I couldn’t have picked a better mother for my children.

Worst thing the Hub ever said to me:

Unprintable.

Don’t think bad of him; every marriage has its downturns.  Yes, I have to put up with him, but he has it really bad: he has to put up with me.

Besides, there are so many worst things, how do I choose just one?

Best unexpected compliment that managed to slip through [from a brother-in-law partial to his food, visiting from overseas, after weeks of takeaways, restaurants and visiting other rellies]:  That’s the best meal I’ve had in England so far.

Best thing my boys ever said to me: I love you.

Worst thing my boys ever said to me: Now can I have one of your Maltesers?

Best thing ever said to me by anyone, ever:  Congratulations on getting your degree.

I got my degree in my forties, with the Open University.  Six years of part-time study while busy with a family, a husband who is ill, volunteer work, and a serious Malteser addiction.  Excluding all the usual stuff like a happy marriage and great kids blah blah blah, I consider it my greatest personal achievement. 

Oh Happy Day!

 I can’t think of any more.  I = Me = Egocentric.  I’m so wrapped up in myself, I never listen to anyone else.  I know they think I’m great; I don’t need to hear them say it.  In fact, people respect my position on this issue so much, they never do say it.  How kind!

*

*

Related articles

• Facebook is like Maltesers (nodamnblog.wordpress.com)
• The ‘Blah’s That Plague Us All (adamignited.typepad.com)
• Blah. I’m too lazy to title this. 🙂 (smileitsahappyday.wordpress.com)

H Is For ‘Harry’

Harry was my Dad.  His name wasn’t Harry; it was George.  His middle name was Harry; everyone called him Harry.  I never knew why, if his name was George, everyone called him Harry.  His father’s name was Harry, but no one called his father George.

The Bailey Brothers in It’s A Wonderful Life were George and Harry Bailey.  My Dad wasn’t like either of them: no Buildings & Loan to dip into (too working class); no war hero (too young; and he was excused National Service because of a perforated ear drum).  He was more like Uncle Billy Bailey – sweet and well-meaning, but a bit dopey. 

Actually, he wasn’t even sweet: he was too acerbic for that.  When he felt guests had stayed too long, he told them so.  Always in a joke, so he’d laugh them out the door, with my mother saying in an hysterical aside to us kids, ‘They think he’s joking but he means it’, frantic that no one should be offended.  As far as I know, they never were.

My Dad liked to laugh and eat chocolates.  He used to steal from the sweet drawer Mum kept for the grandchildren and more than once she would say, ‘Let’s see what Grandma’s got for you here’ and find herself with an empty drawer and a skriking toddler.  In the end, she had to give him his own drawer.

My Dad loved the Wild West: movies, books, history, country and western music.  Because of my Dad’s love of C&W, I was probably the first child in the UK to know what a lady mule skinner is.

He had a double album of The Grand Ole Opry with a piece of the original curtain attached.  I expected to inherit it and I was furious when he came back to the UK and left his C&W albums in South Africa. 

It’s because of my Dad and his love for all things western that I know, if I am ever caught in a desert in a thunderstorm, to lie down flat on the ground.  Otherwise I will be the tallest point and the lightning will be gunning for me.  I read that in a Louis L’Amour novel, loaned to me by my Dad.

When we emigrated to South Africa in 1982, we had no money (one of the reasons for emigrating in the first place).  Dad was working for Sasol, a huge corporation that turned coal into petrol.  To help our miniscule grocery budget, my father the usually honest would come off shift with a toilet roll taken from the men’s loos.  One day, he heard from a colleague that the company was cracking down on staff pilfering – stationery, equipment, and so on – and he went home in a panic and he and Mum spent an entire night ripping up a hundred half-used toilet rolls and flushing them down the toilet.  What really made me laugh was that it was unmarked paper; and I doubt the company could have come in to the house asking to see it, anyway.  The price of a guilty conscience, I guess: a huge water bill.

He used to keep us kids up on school nights, playing cards.  Avoiding Mum, usually.  They were unhappily married for over thirty years.  One Christmas Eve, before letting them in the house I had to warn them to behave i.e. not have an almighty ding-dong and ruin Christmas for everyone as usual.  For the first twenty years of my life with the Hub, the minute we had a row I was leaving him, because I’m not ending up like my Mum and Dad!

I have told this story before but it’s worth repeating:  I remember one particular row that went on for months.  Every Sunday we had a traditional roast dinner and my Dad  – who loved his food and particularly his roast dinners, so he might have just been spoiling for a fight – complained that he was sick of roasts every Sunday and why couldn’t we have something else?  Mum never said a word but took his plate away and scraped it into the bin, and cooked him bacon and egg there and then.  Next Sunday we had a roast dinner, as usual…except for Dad, who was served bacon and egg without a word from Mum.  And the next; and the next; and the next Sunday after that…for six solid months, until Dad finally caved first and asked in his best little boy voice if he could please have a roast like the rest of us this Sunday?  Without a word from Mum, he got one.

Dad never complained about his meals again.

My Dad was narky and didn’t suffer fools gladly; intelligent and daft by turns; childish often; adored his three children, always.  He wasn’t perfect but it doesn’t matter: I loved him; he was my Dad.

G Is For ‘Games’

I like card games and tetris-type games but that’s about it.  I’m not great at competition because I always feel sorry for the losers.  My family likes games, however, and as this blog is about me and I’ve said all I’ve got to say on the subject and my family is part of my family, I’ll tell you about them instead.

Oh, wait – I’ve just remembered that I played a game of Cranium two years ago.  Have you ever played it?  It’s a cross between Trivial Pursuit, Pictionary and Give Us A Clue, played in teams. 

Pity the poor people trapped in a team with me.  I introduce into evidence the following conversation:

Me: [Reading from a card] Taking turns, spell the word ‘symphony’ backwards, a letter at a time.

Team Mate: Why?

Me: It says on the card, spell the word ‘symphony’ backwards.

TM: Why?

Me: [Patiently] That’s what it says on the card: spell  ‘symphony’ backwards.

TM: [Even more patiently] Yes, Y.  N. O…

*

Table tennis at the 2004 Summer Olympics (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For a while, our boys went table tennis mad.  They set up their table in the lounge in front of the telly; we had to stand to watch tv: that’s okay for a while, but the 2004 Olympics were on at the time – try following both marathon events standing up and, like us, you’ll soon be researching adoption agencies.  We played table tennis constantly for two weeks.  Tory Boy is pretty good at it – years of being the only boy in his school to turn up for boys’ hockey, which no boys would play because hockey is a girls’ game, apparently; he would take on the coach at table tennis instead.

During one session with Spud, the ball kept hitting Tory Boy’s thumb; he got more and more frustrated.  Spud was winning because of the ball hitting TB’s thumb: when that happens, the point is disallowed.  Tory Boy finally lost his temper, slammed down his bat, thrust his thumb into the air and raged, ‘I hate this thumb!  This is the worst thumb in the world!’

The boys get their love of all games from their father.  He would come home from work in the early days of our marriage and play games on his monochrome screened, 20 megabyte hard driven computer, and scream the foulest language at it.  When I asked him why he played something which had such a deleterious effect on his mood, he replied, ‘Because it relaxes me.’   Proving that even back in the Eighties computers were already smarter than some people.

   Spud was at a City game one night and they were handing out free hats before the game, on the proviso that the recipients be photographed for the website…Spud almost devoured the hand that hatted him.

It’s not the first time he has publicised City: a couple of years ago he was at the derby in which we beat united 1-0 and the camera panned round to catch him screaming in excitement.  Sky Sports used the shot to advertise the rest of the season’s Premiership games.  The same footage was also screened at each home game for a whole season.

He has been in match programmes as well, for various reasons.  He is never alone at a game when these things happen, but he is either in the right place at the right time; incredibly lucky; or has a face that only a camera could love, because he is always the only one who appears anywhere.  I suppose that’s what comes of being a Blue at six minutes old.

Game on; you might get a career out of it.

Next up: The Hunger Games.  Having missed the boat on Twilight, coming to it three years later than the rest of the world, I thought I’d read the book before seeing the film.  I’ve got a year before it appears on telly. 

I nobbled the curate two weeks ago.  This is not a euphemism: she was carrying a copy of the book so I asked to borrow it.  I expect to like it; if it’s got the word ‘hunger’ in the title, there’s bound to be food.  Maybe game. 

Related articles

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F Is For ‘Freshly Pressed’

Which I have never been, in three years of blogging.

[UPDATE: Laurie makes an excellent point – not everyone knows what I’m talking about.  Story of my life.  To be Freshly Pressed is to have a post appear on the front page when you sign out of WordPress.  It leads to a massive hits bump.]

WordPress (Photo credit: Adriano Gasparri)

I’ve been freshly squeezed, by the Hub, back when I was round and firm and orange (we didn’t use sunblock in the Eighties).

I’ve been fresh-faced, back when I was young and round and firm (no matter our ignorance of UV rays, we knew how to say ‘no’ in the Eighties).

I’ve had fresh starts – in South Africa, and then back in the UK.  We knew how to emigrate in the Eighties.

I’ve been a breath of fresh air, before I discovered garlic and my teeth went manky.

I’ve been as a fresh as a daisy, if  ‘Daisy’ is a cow and ‘methane’ is your preferred definition of ‘fresh’.

I was once fresh to the Hub, when we’d been married ten years and I realised it was okay to be saucy upon occasion.

But I have never been Freshly Pressed.

Perhaps it’s because there are 419,999 bloggers on WordPress, who have written 848,252 new posts, or 181,430,211 words.  And that’s just today.

I think the WordPress people stopped reading my blog round about the time I started making fun of them: I took part in postaday2011, and WordPress generously provided 365 prompts to get me writing.  Some examples:

• Would you rather have have the ability to slow down time whenever you want, or to speed it up?  Only when I’m answering daft daft prompts.
• What skill would you most like to learn in 2012?  How to say ‘no’ to ridiculous WordPress prompts.
• Why is there evil in the world?  To prompt WordPress prompters into asking questions I really don’t want to have to answer.
• Explain the difference between socialism, communism and anarachy.  Socialism: The government tells you what to do but lets you think it was your choice.  Communism: The government tells you what to do and gives you no choice.  Anarachy: What happens when WordPress prompters are permitted to do their own spelling.

And here’s my favourite response to one prompt:

Do you think it’s ethical to use unmanned drones in war?

Yes.  Do you know how hard it is to mount a grown man on a bee?

Why on earth would they not want to Freshly Press that?

Every poke has its price.  You have been warned.

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If you enjoy daft answers to daft questions, click on WordPress Prompts in my tag cloud (to the right and scroll down).

E Is For ‘Poo’

Cover of Dog Day Afternoon

I’ve had a rash of new subscribers the last few weeks, so they might as well know my level from the start, before they get sucked in to my dark world of bad puns and toilet humour.  Welcome, newbies!  Thank you for subscribing.  Just so you know, you may regret it.  Ask my regulars.  You can’t say you weren’t warned.

FYI: I write an irregular series of posts about me, based on the alphabet.  No reason, really; just copying more original bloggers.

Where was I?

E is for ‘poo’, or ‘excrement’.  Excrement is the same thing as poo, but sounds worse.  Let’s not go there.  Babies and children poo; adults excrete.  Okay, I went there; but I need to thrash this out.

I write about poo a lot; I don’t know why.  Bowels don’t move me.  Perhaps it’s because I spend my life picking up after my dogs (I am a responsible owner).

Before we knew Spud had an eye problem, he used to fall down a lot.  Into big piles of steaming (summer)/frozen (winter, spring, autumn) doodoo.  I lost count of the pairs of pants and/or shoes I threw into the bin on the way to school (just to clarify: he was a toddler at the time, escorting his big brother). 

I HATE dog poo.  I LOATHE lazy owners who leave their dog’s dirt lying around for children to fall into and go blind.  If caught, they should be forced to collect all the poo on the park with their bare hands.

I have a whole collection of poems about poo. 

Really.  It has my favourite title of all my collections: Number Two Cycle.  Here’s one:

*

Dog Day Afternoon

Spring day; a walk in
the park: the triumph of hope
over effluence.

*

And another:

*

Time and Motion

I’m always here
On the loo.
Diarrhoea?
It’s déjà poo.

*

My favourite post about poo was a long ramble with the dogs, in which I described their toilet habits (regular and often) and colour (five in one, at one point), and how I had to carry it all around with me until we found a bin.  It was a lovely sunny day and it allowed me to close with the line, I never felt more like swinging the poos…

Toilet humour!  I love it!

Unsubscribers to the right, please.

D Is For ‘DVD’ Or, ‘Do I Divorce Him?’

Image via Wikipedia

If I enjoy a book or film I can read or watch them over and over.  Ender’s Game and The West Wing are so familiar to me, we’re practically in a relationship.

Having devoured the Hub’s Christmas present from me to him – the Twilight trilogy DVD box set – I was desperate to see the fourth film, Breaking Dawn Part One.  It was on in the cinemas in January, though it had been out for a while.  He promised to take me.

Small problem: you need to mortgage the house to afford cinema tickets, and we don’t own our house.  We had to use Orange Wednesday – our mobile phone service provider gives us two-for-one on cinema tickets on Wednesdays, if we send them a begging text.

Small problem: Manchester City were in some football cup competition and all their matches were scheduled for Wednesday nights on the telly.

Small problem: the movie was only on in the evenings.

Hub problem: watch the match or please the wife?

I was never going to win that battle.

By the third week the Hub had promised that if City played the following Wednesday, we’d pawn Spud and pay full price Thursday tickets.  I decided not to leave him after all.

Small problem: when I checked cinema times the following Thursday…the film had finished its run.

Hub problem: how to placate an enraged wife?  Promise to buy her the DVD the MOMENT it is released.

The Breaking Dawn Part One DVD comes out today (I can’t believe they didn’t mention it on the morning news).  The Hub is revving the car as I type.

C Is For ‘Choice’

I love choices, so long as they are unimportant.  Ask me to choose a new house, new furniture or the winner of the X-Factor and I pick the first one I see, to avoid meltdown.  Better yet, I get the Hub to choose: if it all goes wrong, it’s his fault.  What you call a win-win situation.

But ask me to participate in a survey or poll, and I’m your man.  I never met a doorstep pollster I didn’t invite into my home.  I helped redefine the Open University’s website during the 2000s, by my simple yeas or nays to their proffered options.  I love knowing that I’m one of the eight out of ten owners who said their cats preferred it.

Imagine my ecstasy, then, when I discovered WordPress had a poll feature.  I brought you polls on what I should call my first-born; which Friend you are; what theme I should use; what I should post; when I should post; if should I post polls at all…you said ‘no’ to that last one, so I stopped canvassing your opinion and sulked a bit.

Today, because it’s spring, because I have nothing to write about, and because I really do value your opinion, I bring you a new poll.  Ignore it if you want, but remember: you provided the answers in the first place; and if you want to be one of the eight out of ten bloggers who said their readers preferred it, you need to say so.

B Is For ‘Bed’

This is an edited re-post because I’m not here, but I want you to read something while I’m away.  A little bed time reading, if you will.

Pillow Talk Swap2 Inspiration (Photo credit: Strandz)

I wrote this when I was just about to go to bed.  Bed is supposed to be a place of rest and recuperation but it wasn’t like that for the Hub last night: I turned over in my sleep and slapped him in the face.  They say we do the things in our dreams that we would like to do in real life but don’t have the courage to attempt….

Before you start feeling sorry for him, let me tell you that I am not the only violent sleeper in this marriage: more than once he has dreamed he’s in a fight and has punched the wall.  Sometimes he wakes up with a bruised hand and wonders why; sometimes I wake him up by yelling at him that he nearly got me that time.  Then he mutters, ‘Curses!  Foiled again.’  Maybe we should think about separate beds; or arguing less.  No: when I suggested it we argued more.  B could also be for ‘Arguments’. 

We are great squabblers over stupid things: the door’s not quite shut; whichever one of  us closed the curtains left a gap; the pillows are the wrong way round on the bed; one of us ate all the cheese & onion crisps and left crumbs in the sheets.

It used to bother me but now I think it works like a whistling kettle: a little tension is released each day so we avoid burning up and exploding. I have known the break up of couples who never argue; by annoying each other each day we are actually saving our marriage. That’s what I’ll tell him next time he moans that I didn’t take my empty cup into the kitchen. Right before I throw it at him.

I wonder if it’s the squabbles that make me punish the Hub in the night, when we are both asleep? Apparently, I often yank his pillow out from under him so that his head crashes to the mattress. It wouldn’t hurt when awake but he tells me it’s a shocker when you’re dreaming that Demi Moore has at last seen the light, begged you to dump the missus, and you suddenly find yourself flat on your back with a humped-back woman hogging the bed. The humped-back woman is me cuddling his pillow and imitating a 3D chevron.

Image via Wikipedia

Then there is the matter of the duvet: the poor love is under the impression that, because he sleeps in the same bed, he’s entitled to a share in it; he has delusions of equality. Men think the funniest things, don’t they? He’ll be wanting more than a quarter of the mattress next.