It’s my choir’s concert tonight. We’re doing stuff from musicals, including a fantastic arrangement – by Ollie Mills, our choir director – of Cats. His alto line for Memory is the most fun I’ve had singing anything, ever, not least because that’s the only bit in the whole show I can sing without mistake.
Don’t tell that to the audience. I’m pretty sure Ollie and everyone around me already knows, but we still have some tickets available.
We had a rehearsal last night and I coughed all the way through it. I have had a persistent cough for months, for which I’m now being treated because I finally dragged myself to the doctor after hearing a horror story from a friend about a friend of her friend’s who ignored a persistent cough, and things ended badly.
Mine is nothing so dramatic; it’s probably a post-nasal drip.
I misspoke when I told my singing chauffeur (the lovely woman who gives me a lift to choir) about it, accidentally calling it a post-natal drip, and we giggled for an hour about me developing a twenty-one-year baby-related condition that wasn’t excess weight.
The cough is always worse after exercise: for example, from the walk to church on Sundays. I hack through the first half of the service but I’ve noticed that it improves after communion, just from one sip of wine. That thought brought on a brain wave – I’ll take alcohol with me tonight!
Alex tells me alcohol is bad for the vocal chords, but we’re not talking great singing on my part; and I’m thinking, better no voice than Coughy McCoughy in the chorus, ruining the best bits. You might suggest that I could, of course, nobly stand down and not be in the concert tonight; but I’ll thump you if you do. I didn’t spend six months learning these songs (some of them, anyway; my first paragraph refers) only to sit sulking in the audience on my big night: yodelayee-yodelayee-yodelayeeNO!
I tested my theory when I got in from choir by supping a tot of rum and, yup, no cough after it. I’m taking a small bottle with me, to sip throughout the concert. I’ll just have to be careful not to get drunk: no one wants to see a sozzled alto tottering around the stage, defending McCavity against the slurs on his character.
Golden Retriever: The sun is shining the day is young, we’ve got our whole lives ahead of us, and you’re inside worrying about a stupid burned out bulb?
Border Collie: Just one? And then I’ll replace any wiring that’s not up to code.
Dachshund: You know I can’t reach that stupid lamp!
Rottweiler: Make me.
Funny dog (Photo credit: kattebelletje)
Boxer: Who cares? I can still play with my squeaky toys in the dark.
Labrador: Oh, me, me!!!!! Pleeeeeeeeeze let me change the light bulb! Can I? Can I? Huh? Huh? Huh? Can I? Pleeeeeeeeeze, please, please, please!
German Shepherd: I’ll change it as soon as I’ve led these people from the dark, checked to make sure I haven’t missed any, and made just one more perimeter patrol to see that no one has tried to take advantage of the situation.
Jack Russell Terrier: I’ll just pop it in while I’m bouncing off the walls and furniture.
Old English Sheep Dog: Light bulb? What light bulb? I can’t see anything.
Cocker Spaniel: Why change it? I can still mess on the carpet in the dark.
Yorkshire Terrier: Sure; let me just bark and bark and bark at it first. Where’s my treat?
Pointer: I see it, there it is, there it is, right there…
Greyhound: It isn’t moving. Who cares?
Australian Shepherd: First, I’ll put all the light bulbs in a little circle…
Poodle: I’ll just blow in the Border Collie’s ear and he’ll do it. By the time he finishes rewiring the house, my nails will be dry.
A funny picture of a cat on streets in Riga, Latvia. Visit http://www.startlatvia.com for more information about Latvia. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Cat’s Answer: ‘Dogs do not change light bulbs. People change light bulbs.
So, the real question is: How long will it be before I can expect some light, some dinner, and a massage?’
Proving once again that, while dogs have masters, cats have staff.
“There is no snooze button on a cat who wants breakfast.” Anonymous
“Thousands of years ago, cats were worshipped as gods. Cats have never forgotten this.” Anonymous
“Cats are smarter than dogs. You can’t get eight cats to pull a sled through snow.” Jeff Valdez
“In a cat’s eye, all things belong to cats.” English proverb
“As every cat owner knows, nobody owns a cat.” Ellen Perry Berkeley
“One cat just leads to another.” Ernest Hemingway
“Dogs come when they’re called; cats take a message and get back to you.” Mary Bly
“Cats are rather delicate creatures and they are subject to a good many ailments, but I never heard of one who suffered from insomnia.” Joseph Wood Krutch
“There are many intelligent species in the universe. They are all owned by cats.” Anonymous
“Some people say that cats are sneaky, evil, and cruel. True, and they have many other fine qualities as well.” Missy Dizick
“Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want.” Joseph Wood Krutch
“Cats aren’t clean, they’re just covered with cat spit.” John S. Nichols
“Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will p**s on your computer.” Bruce Graham
A famous art collector is walking through the city when he notices a mangy cat lapping milk from a saucer in the doorway of a store and he does a double take. He recognizes that the saucer is extremely old and very valuable, so he walks casually into the store and offers to buy the cat for two dollars.
The store owner replies “I’m sorry, but the cat isn’t for sale.”
The collector says, “Please, I need a hungry cat around the house to catch mice. I’ll pay you twenty dollars for that cat.”
And the owner says “Sold,” and hands over the cat.
The collector continues, “Hey, for the twenty bucks I wonder if you could throw in that old saucer. The cat’s used to it and it’ll save me from having to get a dish.”
The owner replies, “Sorry buddy, but that’s my lucky saucer. So far this week I’ve sold sixty-eight cats.”
First it was the loose cobra, then the kidnapped alligator and anaconda…now, Stockport has a wild cat on the roam. Not a missing tabby or a feral kitten – ‘a large ‘mountain lion’ type animal’, seen in a local resident’s garden. Read it here.
Experts dismiss it as a ‘melanistic savannah’. No, I don’t know what that is, either, so I looked it up (hooray for free speech on the internet!). Wikipedia tells me it:
is a medium-sized African wild cat. DNA studies have shown that the serval is closely related to the African golden cat and the caracal.
I’m no wiser. I guess free speech is overrated.
Here’s a picture of a serval from junglecats.com (quoting the source – better practice than just linking the picture to the original website: dull reading, but I hope it will keep me out of a yankee jail):
Doesn’t look meaner than any other cat, does it?
I am reminded of my favourite cat quote. I’ve shared it before, but cats have nine lives, and so do their quotes:
Cats were once worshipped as gods. Cats have never forgotten this.
Wild cats on the loose in Stockport…I guess I should have stayed in South Africa; it’s probably safer there. We emigrated from England to South Africa in 1982: first my Dad and younger brother; Mum and I followed six months later. Mum was on the phone to Younger Brother just after he arrived:
Mum:So what’s it like?
YB: [Joking] Great! I’m just watching the lions stroll down the street.
Mum: [Screams] [Incoherent babble about getting out of there now!] [Faints]
I could have that conversation with her today, from Widnes to Stockport, and it would be the same in its essentials.
Or maybe it would be me with the [Screams] [Incoherent babble] [Faints]: Mum’s been dead four years.
A man goes on a 2-month business trip and leaves his cat with his brother. Towards the end of the trip he calls his brother.
Brother 1: So how is my cat doing?
Brother 2: She’s dead.
Brother 1: She’s dead! What do you mean, She’s dead? I loved that cat. Couldn’t you think of a nicer way to tell me? I’m leaving in a few days. You could have broken the news easier. You could have told me today that she got out of the house or something. Then when I called before I left you could have told me, Well, we found her but she’s up on the roof and we’re having trouble getting her down. Then when I called from the airport you could have told me, We tried to scare her off the roof and she died when she hit the ground.
Brother 2: I’m sorry…you’re right…that was insensitive; I won’t let it happen again.
Brother 1: Alright, alright, forget about it. Anyway, how is Mum doing?
Brother 2: She’s up on the roof and we’re having trouble getting her down.
A Freegler offered a rule plaque for a teenager’s bedroom door; it was the usual stuff but these caught my eye:
GROWN UPS ARE ALLOWED WHEN BRINGING REFRESHMENTS.
GROWN UPS PLEASE REMEMBER THIS IS A NAG FREE ZONE.
The best excuse EVER for not vacuuming the house comes courtesy of my cousin’s wife’s Facebook Status; the lovely Sandrine, who is now my idol:
I really should be hoovering, but I wouldn’t want to increase my carbon footprint, now would I ?
She swears she’s not lazy, but a closet environmentalist. I believe her.
A man and a woman who have never met before find themselves in the same sleeping carriage of a train. After the initial embarrassment, they both manage to get to sleep; the woman on the top bunk, the man on the lower. In the middle of the night the woman leans over and says, “I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m awfully cold and I was wondering if you could possibly pass me another blanket.” The man leans out and with a glint in his eye said “I’ve got a better idea … let’s pretend we’re married.” “Why not,” giggles the woman. “Good,” he replies. “Get your own blanket.”
I really don’t get yesterday’s napowrimo prompt: something about a line of nonsense and then a coded poem. My code is very basic and I think you will easily crack it. The nonsense goes without saying.
* *
*
Three Words
8 THree words IS the PRO
per aMount to ProTest that
thiS is not quite Up
*
my partiCular
street; sadly, no interest,
no sKill; so…up yourS?
*
*
I thought I would keep to the spirit of the prompt, however, so there is a line from the dramatic monologue ‘The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God’ by J. Milton Hayes hidden in today’s tale.
I had somewhere to go today. That doesn’t often happen now that the boys can walk to school alone. Some of you may know that I have been job hunting since I graduated – right at the height of the recession; timing is everything – and I have had two interviews and no luck. My biggest problem is fear: I lack confidence (stop laughing if you know me personally; I’m all right once I get in there). There are so many jobs I like the sound of but I might not qualify on one point so I don’t apply because I don’t want to waste their time or mine. My family are becoming increasingly frustrated because they believe I can do anything so long as it doesn’t involve a kitchen.
Consequently, when I was offered the chance to go on what I can only describe as a ‘job course’, I took it. It entails four four-hour sessions per week for four weeks. The idea is to build the confidence of women like me who have been out of the work place for a long time (twenty years in my case); get their cv up to date, that sort of thing. I attended a taster session this morning and I feel rather excited about it. The hope is that we will get a four-week placement (unpaid) at the end of the course and employers will love us so much they will take us on at a fair wage.
I didn’t feel confident or excited first thing this morning. I put on my glasses and the right arm snapped right off. I haven’t had new glasses in over three years and the prescription of my old ones is out of date so I couldn’t even wear them as a temporary replacement. Besides, I don’t think Deidre Barlow – the Baldwin Years is a good look on me.
I opted for the next best thing: camouflage. I straightened my hair and let it hang over my temples so that no-one could see I only had one arm. Trouble is, it only worked if I didn’t move my head to left or right. Up, down; no movement at all, really. Try waiting at a bus stop angled so that you have to be sideways on to see the oncoming traffic but that puts the morning sun in your eyes – in a southerly direction, I think – and while I don’t want to complain because we haven’t had any sunshine since last June and may not see it again in my lifetime, it meant that every time I turned my head away from the sun or towards the traffic, my glasses slid down my face so that I could only see through the left lens.
I was able to hide the problem during the taster by sitting still as a cat and unnerving the session leader by looking only at her through two solid hours. I was so still that I may have gone into a trance at one point, because I seem to recall Generation X made the coffee while singing Nice Day For A White Wedding and Billy passed around chocolate biscuits. Not a great idea whilst wearing a wedding dress; and it was too tight for him.
Did you know he was in the movie The Doors, playing Cat, Jim Morrison’s best friend? Me neither.
The Hub and I met a white cat today. We had just settled in the car, with Toby in the back seat, when it walked up to the Hub, liked the look of him, and jumped in, onto his knee. It was quite happily accepting a fuss when it spotted Toby and decided the Hub couldn’t be that nice if he had a dog, and jumped out backwards, never to be seen again (I assume). It was nice to see the way cat and man bonded; sometimes they just do.
George Mikes A dog will flatter you but you have to flatter the cat.
Jenny de Vries You own a dog but you feed a cat.
Helen Thomson One is never sure, watching two cats washing each other, whether it’s affection, the taste or a trial run for the jugular.
Anonymous Thousands of years ago, cats were worshipped as gods. Cats have never forgotten this.
Mary Bly Dogs come when they’re called; cats take a message and get back to you.
James Gorman Cats are the ultimate narcissists. You can tell this by all the time they spend on personal grooming. Dogs aren’t like this. A dog’s idea of personal grooming is to roll in a dead fish.
*
Did you get the line? It was ‘There’s a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Kathmandu.’ I hope you are not too Nepalled at my inability to write in code; at least now you understand why today’s poem is rubbish.
I first heard the poem one Saturday afternoon sometime around four in the Seventies on the best programme ever made for children’s tv, Playaway. I tried to find a video of Brian Cant reciting it but no luck; as a consolation I have another video for you to enjoy:
Trivia Corner: did you know that Tony Robinson (Baldrick; Time Team) and Jeremy Irons (Brideshead Revisited and one dreary film after another until Die Hard) started out in Playaway?
Here’s the Playaway theme tune, sung by some bloke I’ve never heard of:
This is the first chance I’ve had to blog today, for reasons which will be revealed later in the week (I’m following the old showbiz adage Always leave them wanting more; it works for chocolate). Some snippets:
H.L. Mencken:
Journalism is to politician as dog is to lamp-post.
The Hub:
The bloke in the car behind me had his finger so far up his nose he scraped the dandruff off his scalp.
Jason Manford in The Sun last week (this won’t appeal to non-cat people):
Dear Cat,
If your idea of a gift is a dead mouse at the foot of my stairs then please leave me off your gift list or get me some HMV vouchers.
Your Human
Dear Human,
It’s not a gift, it’s a warning.
Regards,
Your cat
Sad Fact:
Dick Francis died today, aged 89. I love his books.
An Interesting Fact:
Bobby Darin’s Mack the Knife was first made famous by Louis Armstrong but is from The Threepenny Opera, by Bertolt Brecht & Kurt Weill, based on John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera. It was originally sung by Lotte Lenya, who was married to Weill and is mentioned in the lyrics – wonder how she felt about her husband naming her as one of the victims of a serial killer, and then making her sing it? Maybe that was why she divorced him; though they did remarry. Depending on which Wikipedia page you read, however, Louis Armstrong inserted the line, ‘Look out, Miss Lotte Lenya!’ when he recorded it.
When I told the Hub this fascinating fact he was distinctly underwhelmed; I was forced to threaten him with more fascinating facts if he didn’t at least pretend to be interested; he fell asleep before I’d finished sharing with him that Brecht’s The Good Person of Szechuan used to be called The Good Woman of Szechuan in ye olden days of the 1970s and is based on the tale of Solomon and the two women who claimed the same baby was theirs – no, no, I was thinking of The Caucasian Chalk Circle…
…Hello? Where did everybody go? Where did all those letter zeds come from?
As usual, it’s gone as fast as it came; the cupboards are still full and the wallets still empty. We had our usual quiet but lovely Christmas. The Hub and the boys like it when it’s just us. They get to play with their toys and sit around in pyjamas all day. I prefer a full house but I have to say I like not running around after guests and just enjoying myself.
We went to the cemetery on Christmas Eve, as usual. My Dad died on Christmas Eve, 2000. He was a lifelong smoker and lung cancer was inevitable. Thankfully, he had a short illness – three weeks from start to finish. He was 64. He is buried next to a week-old baby and that always reminds me to be grateful for the time he had. I save one flower from his bunch and we go round to the other side of the cemetery, and lay it on the grave of one of Tory Boy’s best friends, who died in his sleep at sixteen, from an epileptic fit. I look at my boy and I’m grateful he’s fit and well.
My Dad, like me, was a scouser and tormented the life out of my husband for coming from Manchester. He always teased the Hub that ‘lots of people come from Manchester but nobody ever goes there.’ The Hub likes that he had the last laugh – Dad is buried here in Greater Manchester.
We usually come home then, and crack open the wine; but this year we have a dog, so we took him for his walk to Abney Hall Park, which is just up the road from us and is famous for its Agatha Christie connection (see the link for details; this post is going to be long enough without historical asides thrown in).
A new form of fly-tipping
The Hub and I walked around the frozen ponds while the boys went sledding, then ambushed us with snowballs. To be accurate, they ambushed me with snowballs because they respect their father too much to attack him i.e. are terrified of him, as you can see> The Hub had forgotten his walking stick so we couldn’t stay out as long as we’d have liked to, but I was ready for my wine so I didn’t mind. On the way home we saw a snowman in an unusual place: .
In the evening, I went to the Christingle service at my church, where it was my job to cut the red tape and stick it on the oranges. We were also encouraged to make plasticine animals to add to the nativity scene. Perhaps because of the wine, my animal started out as a dog and finished up a dinosaur (a rather fetching stegosaurus, if I do say so myself). The curate was very gracious and told me that all animals were welcome at the nativity, and no-one wondered at the paradox of a dinosaur worshipping at the manger. Mind you, it was a purple dinosaur; and we all know they sing songs about love.
Someone reminded me of Spud’s first Christingle service, when he was three: he started crying when the candle was lit because ‘my orange is on fire.’ This year was the first one that I didn’t have a child with me: Spud has finally outgrown it, and Tory Boy gave it up long ago. I don’t understand how they have outgrown the Christingle yet I still have to read them ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas’ before they go to bed on Christmas Eve. One of those traditions that will always be a part of their Christmas experience, I suppose. On our first Christmas together in 1982, the Hub bought me an expensive card with the poem inside and I kept it and displayed it each Christmas. I started reading it to TB on Christmas Eve when he was two, and I have done so ever since. These days, there’s a lot of messing about and joining in, especially the last line, but my thirteen year old son and his nineteen year old brother refuse to have Christmas without it.
We got to bed at a reasonable time (after midnight) and Spud had strict instructions not to get us up before seven. Adhering to the letter of the law, it was 7:05; what he didn’t tell us until much later was that he had set his alarm for 6:59.
The gift-giving ceremony was a little shorter than usual because the presents were more expensive, but there were no complaints from the crowd (hold your breath now because I am never a pretty sight in the mornings, and worse on Christmas mornings):
I am a little fat. I like food; what can I say? I have dull hair: mousey. I don’t wear much make-up and have no need of a dressing table. If I look like a bag lady, I chose my own clothes. If I look nice, the Hub picked them for me. Despite all this, I am a little vain. This photograph is from 2003. I had to go back that far to find one of me that I liked. But I don’t really care: my husband still thinks I’m beautiful and if he doesn’t, he loves me enough to lie about it. I’m lucky. I have two boys. They never lie to me. Still, you can't have everything.
RT @AuschwitzMuseum: 1 April 1928 | Twin Dutch Jewish girls, Rosa and Anna Parser, were born in Amsterdam.
They were murdered in a gas ch…Tweeted 15 hours ago
RT @BrMenopauseSoc: New HRT prepayment certificate (PPC) being rolled out today in England will reduce prescription costs to £19.30/year fo…Tweeted 15 hours ago
RT @MomOf2Happas: Just did that thing where you’re washing your hands and your sleeves are too close so you do that double punch thing to “…Tweeted 15 hours ago
The Hub had forgotten his walking stick so we couldn’t stay out as long as we’d have liked to, but I was ready for my wine so I didn’t mind. On the way home we saw a snowman in an unusual place: 
.
An HD Ready Spud: 
The Laughing Housewife 
I have the funniest readers in the blogosphere (not necessarily ha ha…)