Lint by any other name

Let me just state, fluff that gets up and walks away is a spider. And given my irrational fear of spiders, I'd like to make it clear that non-mobile fluff on the edge of the tub when I'm having a soak with a drink and candles is my preference. Always. You don't need to know everything that happened. Suffice it to say it was...not unexpected.

Yes, I know that spiders won't kill me kidnap my kids and ruin the laundry. But it's an irrational fear. If they could do all of that they it would be a totally rational fear. But they can't. YET!

The Rain of unfairness

Rudyard Kipling wrote:
The rain it falleth on the just and the unjust fella,
But mainly on the just because
The unjust steals the just's umbrella

Or as near as makes no difference. That is how my brain remembers it from elementary school, anyway. So don't go and tell me how wrong I've got it because that isn't the point.

The point is, I think I'm too old to still believe that the world somehow makes things come out fair. I find myself occasionally moderately surprised to find someone who is "unjust" doing really well and the just...just sucking, I guess. And then I am really surprised to find myself surprised by that. I mean, I'm not six. Not even sixteen, I know that the world isn't fair. And yet I still manage to hear myself saying in aggrieved tones "but that's not FAIR".

So where does this come from? Human nature or crazybarefeet nature?

Because you know what I can do

I'm getting used to all the ways people used to sign their letters: cordially yours, your humble servant, your obedient servant (as if), but the one that comes up occasionally (because I work with historical documents) is this:

Dear Mr. Doe;
Blah blah blah

Believe Me,

John McJohn

I love it. It sounds vaguely threatening. Like it really matters that you pay attention to what his letter is saying. I think I may adopt it as part of my email security signature. Yes I will. Believe me.

To laugh, to cry or to murder?

I am learning how to knit. I have, as all learners do, made scarves. Two only, which is pretty good in the view that I've heard of people that spend their lives making nothing but scarves.

I made a little blanket for my girl and months ago (maybe even a year?) I started something called a couch cuddler. Still really simple, as in all honesty in the picture in the book it looks like..well...a scarf. Six feet long and two feet wide but still. It's meant to go over the knees of people sitting on a couch watching a movie.

If you've read this blog for a while and remember things, you'll recall that I started and re-started a number of times. Then I came within one ball - so to speak - of finishing and decided that the mistakes would make me crazy so I undid it all and started again.

I almost finished during the Grey Cup game, but I was short having enough wool to cast off. When the kids came home, A. found one tiny little bit left over, almost exactly what I needed.

The kids left for a week at their dad's yesterday, so I got a movie from the library to watch while things cooked in the oven. (Two cakes, and they have long baking times), with the plan to finish off the scarf of great hugeness.

I got home yesterday to two very happy puppies. Two puppies who had been playing with the knitting. Which had caught on a corner of the board we put up to keep them out of half of the house. I would have paid good money for a camera at that point. There were lenghts of wool interspersed with bits of the scarf that were still together ...everywhere. Over the couch, over the bookcase in the hallway, under the coffee table, under and ON (?) the dining room table, over the dog cage and to go with it all small fluffy scraps of wool floating about.

The thing is, they looked so pleased with themselves. (The dogs, not the scraps of wool. The scraps of wool just mocked me in very typical wool-like tones). I've had them get into garbage and the don't come to the door when I get home and as soon as I'm through the door they both try to fit in the kennel. Don't tell me they don't know when they're in trouble! So clearly they know eating garbage=trouble. Too bad I didn't tell them that destroying knitting also equals trouble.

I gathered it all up and unravelled what I could but there is one entire ball missing from all the bits that were too useless to save. In all honesty I think I was as close to laughing as I was to crying. But hey, I guess I just start again, yes? Yes. Nil carborundum illegitimi.

Getting into my Pants

I was walking towards the elevator at work this morning (yes, stairs are the better choice but not when you're carrying a pot of tea and a precariously balanced plate of hot cinnamon buns) when I realized there was something pinching the back of my thigh. And not in a good way, I might add.

Not wanting to disrobe in the elevator...
OK, fine, not being allowed to disrobe in the elevator I continued on the journey put everything down on the first desk I came to and went to the womens washroom to see what the deal was.

Turns out there was a needle - a NEEDLE! - in my leggings. Leggings that I just bought, from a package that I opened, took leggins out of and put on. No stops, no resting in the sewing basket, nothing. The non-existent sewing basket that is. That line certainly implied that I sew, and do it in an organized manner whereas the truth is, M. is right: it's a pity I can't bake a dress, because then we'd be covered. Amazing that she things so highly of my baking skills, sad that she knows that I'll never be able to sew. Not even the hem of a towel. In my defence, my first sewing project in high school was a bathing suit, and the second - and most DEFINITELY FINAL - choice was a tartan skirt. Why the teacher let me start with something so demoralizing is beyond me. Unless she didn't like asking me for help once in the cooking half of home economics. Whatever the reason, that bathing suit made me anti-sewing forever. Except for buttons. If you held a gun to my head, threaded the needles and asked really nicely (despite the gun) I will sew a button back on to the garment it ran away from.

Not Smoking. And NOT the boys room.

There I was, minding my own business doing what one does in the bathroom when there is a knock at the door, the squeak of the door hinge and a GUY"S voice saying "hello?"

Good grief. What does one say? C'mon in and light a shuck? "Occupado? What the hell do you want? I mean, I like to be left in peace. I hate it when women talk in the bathroom but I have to say this is worse.

He's off sick today.

So there I am on the desk - or to be exact, at the desk - when the phone rings. Given that I'm being paid to do a number of things including answering the phone if it rings, I dutifully pick it up:

Government Department X, Jane Doe speaking.
Uh, hi. I'm looking for death.


So many things I wanted to say, not one of them appropriate. I'm counting it as a big plus that I didn't even laugh, let alone offer a snippet of witty reparte. This time.

I don't know, are monkies linen?

My most favourite question from a food site I go to:
Are eggs meat?

More of a clog

As opposed to a writing block, that is. I decided that all I would ask of myself today would be a sentence. One single sentence. Surely no matter how stuck I felt, one sentence was not too much to ask? I mean I'm not blocked I've merely slowed down.

So, I went for a walk instead of lunch and...ended up changing "they will" to "they'll". So not only did I not finish a new sentence, I didn't even start a new sentence. I edited something already in existence and for all I know tomorrow I'll change it back. Yup, I'm sure a great success as a novelist.

Two brains that don't think as one.

I have two brains. Life would be best if I only used the smart one, but sometimes the not-so-smart one supersedes the decisions the smart brain makes.

I dropped a pie this morning, hot out of the oven. My dumb brain said "grab that, you don't have time to make another", so I did. And even as I flung it - yes, I used the word flung intentionally and correctly - onto the counter my smart brain said "but...it just came out of the oven, idiot. You'll get burned." And it was right too. Because both brains had a good point to make, really. But overall it made for a poor morning. And this on top of deciding that the brownies I'd made the night before weren't perfect enough to sell, so I had to make a second batch. And then I realized that I didn't have anything for the pot-luck at work. So before my day in the office even started I had made a pie, a pan of brownies, chocolate-espresso ganache, chocolate fudge frosting and three loaves of bread. Grant you they were flatbreads and the dough was done in the early hours of the morning so all I did was shape and bake but still...this makes for a very long day.

Creative Writing in the Business World

First you need the background to this. Actually, you don't need to read it but I want to tell it so I am.

There is something out there in the kitchen gadged world known as a Hot Stone Cooker. Some brands refer to it as a hot stone grill. The thing works by super-heating a marble slab with is then placed on a metal rack with to alcohol burners underneath. The stone gets hot enough to cook steak, shrimp etc.

I've wanted one for a while, but I've waited because I know that I will eventually find one at something like a garage sale. I know three people who own them and not one of them has used it. Why would I want something that seems like a good idea and yet never gets used? Because it looks nice and with the burners on (and the stone not heated) it would make an excellent hot plate for warm appetizers. And I do cater a fair amount of things that require a hot plate or its marble equivalent.

So I found one, on Sunday. Yeah! There are directions about how to heat it, what to do to not ruin it and when it is ready to cook on the instructions are:
"you are now ready to cook with your new hot stone cooker. Use your imagination and creativity to create gourmet meals for friends and family. If both of these are lacking, here are some recipes" (italics are mine)

I can't decide if they're serious and don't see that that could be viewed as a teeny bit insulting or if they're just a business that has a sense of humour. Regardless, it made me laugh on a dim sort of day.

I should be in a circus

I'm willing to admit that what got me into this situation may be seen as klutziness. But what got me out was so skilled I should be in a circus.

I wore a skirt yesterday (which I pretty much always do: I'm still waiting for the day that daily wear is a giant t-shirt and underwear. With the addition of socks in the winter), a very long skirt. Almost ankle length. And shoes with heels.

Leaving the house requires going down three steps, something I've never had trouble with before. Ok, not often. FINE! Not more than a dozen times. A baker's dozen. This time, on the very top step - so really, I hadn't even started going down yet - the heel of one shoe caught the hem of the skirt, tripping me. Given my general lack of co-ordination*, you'd think, wouldn't you, that this whole thing would have ended up with torn skirt and bloody hands and knees. You'd be wrong!

With crazily cartwheeling arms - and yes, a squeal of astonishment - I managed to negotiate all three steps without falling. I'm pretty sure the whole thing was entertaining, but the thing is I managed it. It was neither pretty nor graceful but it worked. I did it. Ha!

* Except when ballroom dancing. A friend of mine suggested once that when I walk I hum a song in my head - I'm quite graceful when dacning (depending on the dance). I tried that, but I ended up walking downtown practicing the Latin Hip movement. Which is fine if you're a hooker, not so good if you're not.

Tears or toughness?

So what is better when enraged? Streaming tears of anger or buying a boxing thingy - shut up, you know what I mean - that I can punch at will with no harm to anyone?

Free Porn. Intentional?

I learned a whole new meaning for "neighbourhood watch" last night. Driving home from the mall with A. (and let me tell you the people that shop at Safeway between nine and ten at night are...odd. Myself included, I'm sure) and driving along Grant there was a house with a large screen tv on the far wall on, and their curtains were open. Being pitch black out it was easy to see what was on. Giant naked people. I've no idea if it was intentional or if they're just idiots and don't realize that people can see their tv but I'm guessing all it will take (other than a complaining neighbour) will be a car accident when someone fails to negotiate the curve. What with the distraction and all.

Silly Stats

Or perhaps just poor thinking. Guessing? I don't know, but here's the thing:

I have a tea book. Actually, I have a few, but the one I was reading last night made an interesting and mathematically unlikely comment. Their recommendation was to never buy tea in bags, as the tea is pretty much the sweepings off the tea sorting floor after 90 percent of the tea has been sorted and sold. Later in the book she says that 95 % of the tea that people drink is from tea bags. So...ten percent of the tea sold makes 95 percent of the tea we buy. I think that what is really happening is that a lot of the loose tea sold is sold to companies who blend and bag it. Butthat's not the way she's written it. The way she has it 10 percent of tea grown is sold into magic bags that somehow end up accounting for 95 percent of the tea we drink. Maybe there are giant warehouses somewhere filled with really good tea, all going to waste. Or maybe I should not think so much. But I have to. Sorry, but as the song says I don't know why it is but my brain works all the time.

Losing it

I thought I was losing it a few weeks ago when I asked the dogs, as I left the house, if the Food Network was an acceptable TV choice for them. Forget that all three of us believe that they like to have the tv on when we're gone (we could be wrong on that - perhaps they spend their time having philosophical discussions), there I was asking them what they preferred.

That, however, pales in respect to last night. I was working on my writing and stuck between deciding whether one character should be a badger or a hedgehog. I'm particularly fond of hedgehogs and was leaning in that direction when this thought entered my brain:

"Hmmm. Hedgehog. Would anyone even listen to a hedgehog? I think a badger would be better, they are a far more reasonable and creditable creature."

So either this is going to be the most awesome fantasy story or my friends will eventually have to stage an intervention and haul me away.

Well, I'd always wondered.

This is probably something everyone else learned in elementary school (learned and remembered; for all I know I learned it too and it slipped away during the night), but I was thrilled (and you thought I had no life!) to find out that:

Periods and commas go inside quotation marks, colons and semicolons go outside. Question marks and exclamation points can go in either place (which would explain why I can never remember which is correct).

That's it. That's all I've learned today. Oh, and that this job sucks. Except I think I already knew that.

Or maybe I'll just run away

It's a good thing that jail as a deterrent works for me. Because robbery (of a bank, for funds) and arson (of the office, just because) are looking mighty appealing this morning. Hope Y'all are having a better day.

The Lastest in Word in Dieting

There I am in Safeway, safely doing Safeway type things when I turn the corner and end up next to two women who could easily be part of the cast of the Hills by the way their dressed and coiffed.

Both thin (duh!), but one thin to the point of gaunt. Yes, I'm overweight, but that doesn't mean I don't know when someone is TOO thin. Anyway...her friend turns to her and says "how did you get so thin?". Now, I'm kinda curious. I mean, maybe it is something I can do and then stop before you can see the knobs of my spine. Her answer?

"I only eat when I'm drunk".

Oh. Never mind then.

Uh-oh

I'm pretty cool with being single. Most of the time. And time really is a big part of the issue - job and a half, two kids, two dogs a bunny and a house. Where would I find the time?

Perhaps, though, being single isn't the best thing when YOUR OWN CHILD says "you should go on a date, mom." Oh my boy - always my best interests at heart.