Seven Of Nine, And Not In A Good Way

Dear Readers, I apologise: excluding the daily jokes, seven of my last nine posts mentioned blogging, improvements to blogging, problems with blogging, faulty blogging and why blogging is killing me, one white screen at a time.  To quote the best tv series ever made – The West Wing – I should Just change the subject!

But I can’t, of course, because I’m blogsessed.  To quote the second-best series ever made – Star Trek – Resistance is futile.

The good news is, the problems appear to have been fixed: I have not had to refresh my Facebook connection once in 24 hours (instead of having to do it 24 times in one hour); comments no longer disappear; pictures now appear; and the white screens have returned to their parallel universe, where Frustrated Me lives in a permanent state of Munch’s Scream.

One of several versions of the painting “The Scream”. The National Gallery, Oslo, Norway. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have answered as many of the comments on my own blog as I can – I had problems commenting here, as well, but I had to just do it.  I eventually gave up because I needed to regenerate (white wine-Maltesers-hot shower).  I have tried to catch up with your blogs but if I missed some, I apologise. 

As a thank you for your patience, here are seven of nine reasons not to date Seven of Nine (actually, these are seven of 45, but that kills the theme.  Read the rest here, where I found them):

1. The two of you have a little too much syntho-tequila, steal the Holodeck’s portable emitter, undergo a minor transporter malfunction, and “Boom!” you’re a daddy.
2. The first two and a half hours of any romantic encounter are spent trying to find the zipper on that damn catsuit. 
3. At the monthly Voyager Beer Bash, inebriated crew members keep shouldering you aside to use the bottle opener on Seven’s forehead.
4. The Collective has assimilated detailed knowledge of the sexual practices of thousands of species, and who needs that kind of pressure?
5. Her old roommate, Eighty-Four of Eighty-Five, always wants to tag along.
6. 198,874,987,293,128,154 in-laws.
7. Automatic response to “Was it good for you too?” is always, “Pleasure is irrelevant.”

For those of you who are not Star Trek fans, here’s a West Wing joke:

*

*

No joke.  I got nuthin’.  The show was often funny, but I can’t find a joke about it.  8,340,000 possible results, and nuthin’. 

Have a Scream cartoon instead:

Finally, this won’t make you scream with laughter, but it amused me:

From the Arts Council:  Arts Jobs: Wanted: tramsgendered performance artists

I wonder how much training they need?

*

And if you think this post is weird, wandering all over the place, making no sense, have a word with WordPress – they drove me to it.

Make it so.

Call Me ‘El Presidente’

Image via Wikipedia

Do you think you’d make a good president?

Of what?

My house – definitely.

Next door – they might object.

Virgin – disqualified because I’m not.  And I don’t like the beard.

America – I was born elsewhere and I have the birth certificate to prove it. Besides, I wouldn’t want to follow Martin Sheen; that’s too much to ask of me.  Though I wouldn’t mind a library.  Which leads me to one of the great unanswered questions of all time: did President Walken get a library?

*

The whole prompt is much longer than that one question; I tend to read only the subject in the email:

Do you think you’d make a good president? Or Prime-minister? Or King? If so, what would be the first thing you’d do in office?

I’ve told you before that I can’t be Prime Minister because Tory Boy is going to have that job one day and he won’t want to be accused of nepotism.

I could be King, I suppose, if I have a sex-change and learn to speak RP.  Does the job come with a chauffeur?  It’s not very dignified for a monarch to travel by bus or bike (unless you happen to be Dutch).

The first thing I’d do in office is remove that dreadful Microsoft logo.  Oo, oo!  Can I be president of Microsoft?  I hear the last one got rich enough to give away half his fortune and still rule Computerland.  I wouldn’t mind being that rich.

Bonus: If not yourself, who do you know that you think would make for a good president? Perhaps a blogger you’ve met through #postaday?

It would have to be Nancy, of course.  I don’t know anyone else firm enough.  Amy would make a great VP.

Wait!  What was I thinking?  I was operating on the premise that politicians not only have principles, but stick to them.  Sorry, girls: no motorcade for you today.

*

Footnote:

While trolling the internet for Presidential references, I came upon myself on page 1, number 12 of 1,80,000,000!

With that and and my recent WP mention, I think president is aiming too low: next stop, the world.

You can read that particular post here, or I could just include it in this post, because it’s short:

I read this years ago and I have always wanted to share it.  It is supposed to be a true story;  you’ll have to decide for yourself.  I soooo hope it is.

The Queen was entertaining a visiting head of state; they were parading down the Mall in a horse-drawn carriage, chatting nicely, when one of the horses made what can only be described as a rude noise.

QEII: I’m so sorry about that.

HoS: Please don’t apologise; if you hadn’t said anything, I’d have assumed it was the horse.

*

*

Weekly Photo Challenge: Tiny

Here’s a picture of a tomato.  It’s tiny: cherry tomatoes are like that.  So is my brain, I imagine, and there is the possibility it may get smaller.

Reading Kate Shrewsday’s blog today, about a genetic group volunteering to help in the search for an Alzheimer’s cure, I left the following comment:

I have always been glad my Dad died at 64 of lung cancer, because I’m certain he was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s.

As I wrote it, I had a thought:

It has suddenly occurred to me that if I’m right, there’s a possibility I could get it too! Can you believe I never thought of that in ten years??

I really didn’t.  It never once entered my head, even though I know it’s hereditary and I have always remembered Alan Alda’s performance as a doctor with Alzheimer’s in ER.  There was Meredith’s mom in Grey’s Anatomy.  C.J.’s dad in The West Wing.  I have no excuse not to think of it, given the number of worthy American dramas I watch.

I wonder if it never occurred to me because of the human capacity to know that we will die one day, yet not quite believe it will happen?  We certainly don’t believe we’ll get a serious illness: if we go at all, we’ll be going in our sleep.  Other people die; the chance that I will is tiny, given what an important person I am: I know at least three people who will miss me.  I can’t do that to them; I’m not that selfish.

I don’t know if my Dad did have Alzheimer’s: I diagnosed him after years of medical tv-watching; my education might be missing a few crucial details, like knowledge.  I’m not worried enough to get tested.  Besides, a doctor is going to listen to my reasons and laugh me out of the surgery (I know from House there are mean doctors, too).

My brain is rather more cherry tomato than I’d like: seeds of ideas inside, going nowhere, a pretty addition to my salad days but now shrivelling away in a corner of the kitchen.

Becoming a housewife?  My Mum thought I was out of my tiny mind. 

I don’t regret it: how else would I be able to blog three times a day?  When my mind begins to go, I’ll know there’s a tiny piece of me in the ether that will never die. 

Unless the WordPress prompters catch up with me. 

(

Don’t Read This If You Recorded The Last Episode Of ‘Over the Rainbow’ And You Haven’t Watched It Yet

This weekend was all about the tv: first we had the last-ever episode of Ashes to Ashes, a show which never lived up to its predecessor, the joint-first-best programme ever made (as decided by me in my poll of me): Life on Mars (its co-winner being The West Wing) – and I mean the original Brit version, not the Harvey Keitel abomination.  All the more surprising, then, that it was one of the most satisfying conclusions to any tv series I have ever watched.  

Over the Rainbow ended with an okay winner who was the only one of the eleven finalists to hit a bum note when singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow at the end of a show – watch her face when she realises her last note is flat:

I liked Danielle but I’m still sulking because Steph wasn’t in the final.

Britain’s Got Talent threw up this gem:

Thinking about reality tv and the transience of fame – and seeing Stacey Solomon hiding in a corner of Michael Bublé’s Audience With – reminded me of this poem I wrote last year:

Stars In Their Eyes 

After the door shuts,
the footsteps die:
no wife to swap;
no champagne pop;
adulation stops:
you’re a flop. 
Paparazzi don’t pap;
you fall through the gaps in the schedule. 
X-Factor marks the spot,
vacant for the next big thing, brother.
It won’t be you:
don’t bother. 
Fame – long wait;
short sell-by date
(fifteen minutes, tops). 
Don’t open that door.
Walk away; don’t try. 
You’re not a celebrity,
get out of there. 
Notoriety:
the great TV lie.

Talking of Michael  Bublé (as if I ever needed an excuse), here he is being fabulous on ITV last night:

Of course, the big tv event of the weekend was the last-ever episode of Lost being simulcast around the world; it was on at five this morning in the UK.  I watched the very first episode and it lost me at the sunbathing plane crash victim, so if you want an informed opinion, I’ll have to tell you to get lost.

Sorry Sorry Sorry Really Sorry and Sorry

Sorry 1: it’s all poetry today

To celebrate the politicking season I thought I would watch The West Wing for the nth time.  How is it possible for Rob Lowe to be of a similar age to me and look so gorgeous?  More importantly, where did the Hub go wrong?  He would say it was marrying me.   This is my back-handed way of introducing a poem for today’s prompt.  Some of you will have seen it on my blog before but I make no apologies for repeating it because I’ve got nothing else to blog about.

Sorry 2: repetition

The prompt for today requires us to come up with unusual metaphors for our loved one (no s for me; I married the love of my life, poor man).  I can’t work to the prompt because I’ve exhausted that avenue, and here’s the proof:

.

Unaccustomed As I Am

.

I don’t write love poems

but if I did

I’d say you are

the remote to my telly

the fart to my smelly

the shake to my belly

the mud to my welly

the peanut butter to my jelly

the catessen to my deli

the phant to my ele

the circus to my Nellie

the copter to my heli

the é to my mele

the Brazil to my Pelé

 .

I don’t write love poems

but if I did

I’d raid a dictionary for you

include you in my felony

and hope that no-one thesaurus

.

.

Sorry 3: for this abysmal poem

I’m not feeling under pressure to write because this is all voluntary, but I do feel obliged to write to the prompt and it doesn’t always make for great poetry.  The prompt for yesterday was to write a tanka: 5 lines; 5-7-5-7-7 syllable count; third line should be both the last line of lines 1-3 and the first line of lines 3-5 (stay with me); subject – humour in love.

.

Pillow Talk

.

Even ten years-wed

we like a little night-time

fun.  Oops!  Collapsed bed. 

How could I resist? ‘Did the

earth move for you, too?’ I said.

.

Really Sorry: to my children, who will probably be scarred for life on reading that

.

Sorry 4: myself

Now that I’ve used up a favourite poem on today’s prompt, I may be caught up but I don’t have anything to write about tonight to post tomorrow.  A poet’s lot is not a happy one.

.

.

The Host Of Christmas Past

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

Look what I got in my stocking

I couldn’t sleep last night – I ran out of decaffeinated Earl Grey on Monday and I don’t shop until tomorrow – and I lay awake thinking of past Christmases, so I thought I would share one with you; it’s an easy way to fill a blog.  Christmas 2006 was not a vintage year.  We got our turkey on Christmas Eve and it showed –  I have never been so disappointed in a frozen bird; it was as if that particular turkey didn’t want to be someone’s Christmas Dinner.  No meat on it at all.  Luckily, we also had gammon and duck, though the duck was an unpleasant surprise – so much fat on it, I know now why they don’t get cold on winter ponds.  We didn’t have gravy so much as artery-killer. 

Luckily, only Mum was having dinner with us that year, Dad having had the good sense to pop his clogs Christmas Eve 2000, once he heard I’d be cooking.  He wasn’t so lucky the year we had 22 for dinner and I remembered everything except the setting of the table, so everyone ate wherever they could grab a seat, some inside and some in the garden (in South Africa, don’t worry); and the greedy lot gobbled it up so fast that by the time I served the last plateful (mine) everyone had finished and I sat in lonely and tearful state with the Hub.  On the plus side, the washing up was done by the time I was. 

We had no problems at all in getting Spud to bed in 2006: he no longer believed in Father Christmas; hooray for the death of children’s fantasies!   – although he did wake up at three in the morning.  He managed to go back to sleep after rummaging through his stocking, but woke Tory Boy at 5:45, to TB’s vociferous displeasure.  Spud then climbed into our bed with the apparent intention of him no sleep, no one no sleep, so we gave in and were up by six-twenty.  Grandma was already awake, so it was simply a matter of toilet breaks, tea all round, video camera at the ready, and then the boys were allowed into the living room to receive their gifts.  Once they’d had a good poke around their booty piles we all sat to unwrap the under-the-tree gifts.  That took a good two hours, what with all the squealing and ‘thank yous’ and sorting of gift wrap, bows and ribbons into appropriate recycling bags.  

The Hub is a great gift giver.  That year, I got stuff from the White House, including a tree decoration, pin, and cufflinks which I am going to wear every time I have on a long-sleeve blouse, if I can only find them.   Unusually, no underwear, but furry socks and a large bag of Maltesers and lots of stocking fillers.   He also bought me the bread maker I so desperately desired.  I must be the only wife in the world who doesn’t hurl a new kitchen appliance at her husband on Christmas morning.  I had wanted one for ages and I used it every day for a fortnight; then about once a month; and now it’s just another dust-gatherer on top of a kitchen cupboard.   Why am I cursed with such a listening husband? 

The boys bought me thoughtful gifts: Spud bought me the Take That cd I was after (I had to have a little patience but I got it in the end) and a large box of Maltesers.   TB bought me a £10 book voucher and a large box of Maltesers.   How I love my children, especially when they spend their own money.  

I also love my mother, who bought me The West Wing.  Need I say more?  

Christmas dinner was delicious, reluctant turkey, oily gravy and all, and afterwards we watched a new dvd while Mum snored. 

Boxing Day was buffet day; a sort of ‘all-you-can-eat’ for the greedy amongst us, with me at the front of the queue.  I always do a buffet on Boxing Day because my Mum always did a buffet on Boxing Day.  I set it all out on a table in the lounge and we stretch out in front of the tv we taped but didn’t have time to watch on Christmas Day.  The only year since I’ve been cooking Christmas that I didn’t do a buffet was the year I didn’t cook Christmas because we were invited out.  That Boxing Day, the Hub and his offspring insisted I cook Christmas Dinner on Boxing Day because it didn’t feel like a proper Christmas without my Christmas Dinner.  Something to do with them missing the kitchen hysterics and burnt smell permeating the air, apparently.  Happy days! 

  

  

About ME

Feeling tons better tonight. Thanks to Melanie and Abraham Lincoln for your good wishes. It gives me a frisson of pleasure to say thanks to Honest Abe: I am fascinated by American politics and presidents. I think it started back in the Eighties when I watched a mini-series about Theodore Roosevelt, and I know it became a part-time passion when I started watching The West Wing; and last year’s race for the Democratic nomination was truly exciting. I just hope President Obama’s hype is more than that. Not sure about that dancing on Ellen, though….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsWpvkLCvu4

I don’t know where my headache came from because I’m not prone to them and can usually ignore them; but this one had me flat on my back for almost 24 hours. My friend suggested it might be hormonal. Given that I’m a woman of a certain age, it’s a possibility. The last time I remember being so bad, I had not long given birth to Tory Boy. Or maybe it’s just my age: the Hub suffers migraines, but he hasn’t given birth to any children that I’m aware of.

The Hub’s migraines are connected to his CFS/ME, of course. He became ill with it in 1996. It isn’t life-threatening, but it is a life killer. Forget any hope of going back to your pre-CFS existence: it ain’t gonna happen. The prognosis for it is anything from six months to the rest of your life, with the average being ten years. Once he got to six years with it we started hoping he was average, but it’s going on for thirteen and he’s getting slowly but progressively worse. We’ve accepted – grudgingly – that he will never be well enough to work again, and that we will never go back to our pre-CFS life, but that makes it oddly easier to go on. Once you can accept your life has changed forever and that five-year plans are a waste of time (just ask Stalin), you can get on with it.

My next five minutes plan is a hot bath and cup of Earl Grey (decaf, naturally), then bed. It won’t pay the bills, but it’s about as perfect a plan as there is, as far as I’m concerned.

Sweet dreams!