Mental excrement

Oona's Story

2011-05-25T10:35:00.006Z

by: her mother

This is the story of the day you were born. You will be 14 weeks old tomorrow, and I want to write this story while the day is still fresh in my memory. I’d like to think that I’ll never forget a single detail, and maybe I won’t, but most likely my head will soon be full of potty training and temper tantrums and preschool and times tables and pierced ears and boyfriends, so I want to tell this story now, while it’s still fresh.

You were six days late, according to the “experts,” but I think a baby comes when it’s damn well ready. I think you were exactly on time. When you went past your due date and they started talking about induction I was scared. I know that inducing labor before the baby has decided it’s ready is miserable for everyone.

But I didn’t have to be induced. I woke up at 8 am on the morning of Thursday, February 10^th, 2011, went to the loo, and had a contraction. I was so excited I woke your father up by leaning over him an inch from his face and grinning like a hyena on Prozac. He went back to sleep for 2 more hours.

I started timing the contractions, and they were regular at 3 minute intervals, and lasted about 15-30 seconds. I recconned that was pretty good. I knew we’d have a baby by the end of the day.

Your dad wanted to go to the gym, but since he couldn’t take his mobile phone with him, I told him “no.” I didn’t want him out of my sight. He agreed reluctantly. But there was a tiny bit of blood spotting in my underwear, so I decided to phone the birth center and ask their advice, and about the timing of the contractions. They said not to be worried, and phone back with the contractions were closer. They said I might not even be in active labor, that it sounded like it was still in the latent phase, and that I should let your father go to the gym. I agreed reluctantly.

While your dad was at the gym I got hungry, so I walked to McDonald’s. I knew that I should keep on my feet and keep moving as much as possible, to keep things progressing. I noticed on the way that there were three daffodils blooming in front of our neighbor’s house, the very first daffodils of the spring. “That’s lovely,” I thought. “Oona will be born on the day the first daffodils opened.” I knew the labor was active. I didn’t care what anyone else said. I knew you were coming.

I felt special as I walked to the roundabout where the McDonald’s is. I felt like I was hiding a great, wonderful secret. I knew something marvellous that no one around me knew. I knew you were coming.

The contractions were strong, but not painful. I got my favourite lunch (2 cheeseburgers and a strawberry shake) and ate while I walked back. I didn’t want the people in Mickey-D’s to see me doing my breathing exercises.

Your dad got back from the gym shortly after I got home from lunch. He wanted to go to McDonald’s for lunch. I said I would go with him; the walk would be good for me. So we set out together. I showed him the daffodils. He said he saw a cherry tree blooming on his way home from the gym.

Walking back from the restaurant the contractions were getting strong. I had to stop walking and lean on your dad for support. I said we should call the birth center when we got home. They told us to come on in. That was about one thirty in the afternoon.

We listened to the first movement of Beethoven’s 7th symphony on the way. I wanted your dad to hear it. I love that piece. The first time I heard it, it made my heart soar. It still does. It makes me think of horses charging across the open countryside. It’s rapturous!

When we arrived I could hear them filling the birthing pool. There was a midwife on duty I’d not met before. The contractions were hard enough that your dad had to help me through the breathing, but when the midwife examined me she said I was only one centimetre dilated and two centimetres effaced. She said things were moving slowly, and I was in for a long night. She wouldn’t let me stay in the birthing center. It was too hot in the room and I threw up 3 times. She sent us home. That was around two thirty.

In the car the contractions were getting strong. During the 25-minute journey they lengthened, and by the time we got home again they were starting every two minutes and lasting a full minute. I laid on my side on the living room floor and clutched a pillow.

They gave me a TENS machine at the birthing center, and with the start of each contraction I pressed the button to increase the intensity. Your dad sat with a stopwatch and timed my contractions by watching me click the button on the machine. For two hours we sat there, me pressing the button on the TENS with each contraction, your dad pressing the buttons on the stopwatch. I vaguely wondered if our neighbours on the other side of our semi could hear me moaning and grunting.

Shortly after five I told your father to phone the birth centre back. I know it was after five because they are only staffed during the day. After hours you ring a different number and they get someone to phone you back. A few minutes later a midwife named Claire phoned us back. Your father took the call. I couldn’t talk.

I could tell there was a disagreement. I remember your father saying, “She’ll be devastated,” or something like that. I knew they didn’t want me back so soon. It was less than 3 hours since they’d sent us home. I shouted “We’re going in!” between groans. Your dad spoke for a few more minutes before hanging up. He said she agreed to meet us.

I transitioned in the car. By the time we got to the end of our road I was already pushing. Now it was a race between you and your father: could he drive faster than you could climb out?

I had to hold myself off the seat by hanging from the handle over the window. Sitting felt wrong. I was pushing hard, and I was scared. Your dad kept saying, “This is good, this is what we want.” I didn’t have enough time or breath between contractions to explain that if I was pushing before I was fully dilated I could bruise my cervix and cause it to swell shut, and I knew that was a real possibility.

It was dark, and it was raining. I told your dad we might not make it. I wondered if we should pull over and ring for an ambulance. He said we’d make it. We kept going.

My water exploded.

When we arrived your father dropped me at the door so he could go park the car. I stumbled in to the small community hospital and called for help. A small, dark-haired nurse, who had seen us leave earlier in the day, came running. She grabbed me up under the armpits and called for a wheel chair. A pump, grey-haired nurse (don’t ask me why I remember these things) came with a wheelchair that looked like it was made between the wars. I climbed on, but couldn’t sit.

They took me upstairs.

We got off the elevator as your dad arrived at the top of the stairs with all the bags of Stuff. Bloody slow elevator.

Claire had only just arrived. I didn’t wait for an invitation. As soon as I was in the delivery room I took off my trousers and underwear. They were wet and dirty looking. It dimly registered that there must have been some meconium in the amniotic fluid, but I didn’t have enough brainpower left to be worried. If there was worrying to do, I let others other do it.

I climbed/fell/rolled onto the bed. I knew there was no time to fill the birthing pool. Claire looked at me. You were crowning. Immediately she turned away, grabbed a nearby phone and said, “Get another midwife here. I don’t care who, send whoever is closest. Get someone here now.”

I knew then you were close. It’s the policy of the birthing center to have two midwives attend every birth, one midwife to deal with the mother, and a second to deal with the baby. That way if things get messy there are enough hands to go around. It was clear they didn’t expect to need two midwives so soon. They didn’t think you were coming, but I knew better.

This is where your story loses some cohesion. All I remember is sensations, disconnected feelings. I remember I wanted to sit up more, to be propped up more on the bed. They raised the back of the bed for me.

I remember it was hard to keep my legs apart. Claire didn’t talk much, but she did keep telling me to keep my legs open. It’s counterintuitive, that. When you have pain between your legs, you want to close them. That was hard, keeping my legs apart.

I remember there was no place to put my feet. They seemed to be floating in air.

Then Claire told me to push in short, controlled bursts. Control? What control? My uterus had a mind of its own. I was no where in this picture. I had no say in how I pushed.

I remember crying. It was hard work. It stung.

They told me your head was out. That heartened me. I knew it wouldn’t be long. I knew I only needed one or two more good pushes to get your shoulders through.

And then Claire said “Time!” and your father looked at his watch. He started calling out intervals of 10 or 20 seconds. I found out later why.

And there you were, not all blue and goopy like they’d told me to expect, but pink and surprisingly clean. Not squalling, either, just sort of whimpering a bit, and only for a minute or so.

I lifted my T-shirt (an Empire Strikes Back T-shirt I’d had since high school) and held you right against my chest. And of course you were perfect. Everything about you was perfectly circular: your head, your dark, dark grey eyes, your (warning: cliche’ imminent) rosebud little mouth.

Claire said you were wonderful and healthy, and then explained that I had some tearing. Your arm had been pinned to the side of your head by the umbilical cord, which was wrapped around your neck. (That was why she asked your father to keep track of the time. She needed to know how long after you emerged the cord was on your neck. But your arm, which made things more difficult for me, was good for you: it kept the cord from being too tight around your windpipe.)

While I was holding you, mezmerized by this mysterious, tiny creature, another woman walked into the room. “I see I’ve missed all the fun,” she said. Her name was Janie. She was the second midwife.

She said, “Sorry to barge in on you.” (My knees were in different time zones, and I was facing the door.) “I know it’s not very dignified.”

I said, “Don’t worry about it. I have no dignity left.”

Claire said I needed to get stitched up quite quickly, but she couldn’t begin until the placenta had been delivered, and would I consent to a shot of some drug that would speed it up and minimize the bleeding. I had read about it before so I knew what it was. I agreed.

If anyone ever tells you that once the baby is born all the hard work is over and you barely even notice the placenta coming out, hit them in the mouth.

Then the nitty-gritty started. I handed you to your father. He took off his shirt and held you against his chest. Claire and Janie tried to find the stirrups to attach to the bed. That took a while. They were very familiar with delivering babies, but not very familiar with the cupboards in this particular birthing center. I remember there was a lot of bumping around and improvising. I said it felt like camping.

The two midwives had known and worked with each other for almost thirty years. They had some great banter. There was a lot of laughter in that room.

Janie had to do an internal examination to find out how bad the tearing was. Neither woman was qualified to sew third degree tearing, and Janie said it looked bad. If I had torn all the way to my rectum it would have meant a transfer by ambulance to the hospital. That would have been miserable, but Janie said it was as bad as it could have been while still being second degree. Good news, of a sort.

Janie had grey hair in a bun and silver-rimmed glasses. She looked like the sort of woman who did a lot of needlework. I was very comfortable with her doing the stitching.

I didn’t use any pain relief while in labor, but for the stitching I used the entonox. It didn’t do any good, but it was nice to have something to bite down on.

It seemed to take a long time. I was freezing cold. I shivered. Claire brought me blankets and a cup of tea appeared from somewhere. (You have to love the English. There’s a medical crisis: quick, make tea!)

While Janie was sewing, Claire took you and your dad in the other room to take your measurements. I could hear you complaining, loudly and lustily. You didn’t like being weighed. Being naked when you’ve only just been born is cold and miserable. By the time your dad brought you back into the room with me you were quieter, but grizzling. I knew you were hungry. They wouldn’t let me feed you until I had been sewn back together.

It was taking forever.

Finally midwives took my feet out of the stirrups, dimmed the lights, and skedaddled. We finally got to be alone, the three of us, a family. I fed you straight away. You were hungry.

Claire came in briefly to check that I wasn’t having any difficulty feeding you, but we were doing fine. Your father stood next to the bed, proudly declaring that this is how a baby feeds when she hasn’t been born all drugged up on pain killers. He wasn’t wrong; you could suck crude oil from the ground.

Eventually we bothered to dress you (all the clothes we brought were too big), and then we called our parents. That was a couple hours after your entrance into the world. Your grandparents were ecstatic, and rather surprised. We had let them know earlier in the day that I was in labor, but no one expected news quite so soon. You surprised a lot of people. You surprised everyone but me.

Then someone said they had drawn a bath for me. That sounded nice. You were asleep. So was your dad. He had crashed out on the tile floor of the delivery room. I told him, “Go in the other room and lie down on one of the beds.” He seemed grateful for permission to leave.

I think someone took you and put you in a cot. I stumbled into the bathroom and slid into the tub. I was still bleeding, and the water quickly became gross, but I didn’t care. The tub was huge and warm and I could stretch out and really rest for the first time all day. It was almost ten at night.

Your dad came in and asked, “What do you want on your pizza?” Good man.

I needed help getting dressed. I couldn’t bend over (it pulled my stitches), but there was a string to pull to summon help. Your dad came and helped me.

I hobbled in to the “ward” (a bedroom with 2 beds, a small telly, and a kettle) where your dad was waiting with the pizza. There was some discussion as to whether I should stay the night there or go home and come back in the morning for an exam. It was decided it would be much easier (and save me some very uncomfortable car rides) if I just stayed put.

Your dad was shattered, so I sent him home to sleep and look after the cat and the fish. They put a rail on the side of one of the beds so I could keep you in bed with me. That was nice. It saved me having to get out of bed to check on you (it was really, really difficult to move), and meant that we could spend the whole night snuggled up together.

It was hot in the ward. I was sweating until my hair was wet. You were bundled up in every article of clothing we’d brought, plus several blankets. Because of the meconium in the amniotic fluid they were worried you might have swallowed some, which can give you an infection. So they kept taking your temperature and it kept reading low, hence all the blankets. It turned out the thermometer didn’t work.

But that night was wonderful. Despite all the discomfort I just laid in bed in the dark room looking at your beautiful face by the light of the green night light. You spent a lot of time sucking on my finger. It was warm and quiet and peaceful, just the two of us in that room. There was a woman down the hall if I needed anything, but we were fine. You fussed whenever I got up to pee, but quieted down as soon as I was near again. You didn’t want to be alone, but you knew who I was and when I was close.

Slowly the lilac curtains lightened. I drew them back and saw crocuses blooming around the tree by the car park. You were asleep. I ate the rest of the pizza for breakfast, and drank several more bottles of Lucozade. I’ve never been so thirsty in my life!

In the morning a breast-feeding counsellor came to see me feed you and make sure we were doing OK. She said we could teach master classes. Then a midwife came in to make sure I knew how to change your diapers and dress you properly. She said I must have lots of younger siblings, because no new mother is ever that confident handling a new baby. I loved putting your lovely, soft bamboo diapers on you. I felt so smug, like the best mother in the world because I’d found the best nappies that would be the most comfortable for you.

I phoned your dad to come pick us up. I told him to go hire some special cushions first for me to sit on, because I wasn’t going to get in the car without one. He arrived with the fancy cushions (what a god-send they were!) and we put you in your snowsuit to take you home. (That was the beginning of your love-affair with your courduroy snowsuit. For 10 weeks you wouldn’t sleep without it.)

As we buckled you into your car seat you started to cry. Your father looked at you said, “You don’t really mean that. Now stop it.” And by god you did. That was the first and last time you ever did what your father told you.

We went downstairs and the nurses who helped me through the door the previous night were on duty already. The dark-haired nurse spotted me and said, “Oh my goodness, I barely recognized you! You’re a different woman!” I was beaming ear to ear, a far cry from my state that last time she’d seen me.

And on that sunny, February morning we brought you home.

Small Pirate pictures! Yay!

2011-03-30T12:52:00.002Z

There be mischief in those eyes, yarrh...

The Gerber baby can kiss my nappy!

My mom, my fuzzy beagle... What more could I want?

New Word

2011-03-21T08:50:00.002Z

Bjornable, adj. An activity that can be accomplished while carrying Small Pirate in the Baby Bjorn because she absolutely, unequivocally, flatly refuses to be put down for any reason can be said to be "bjornable," as in "I'll refill the bird feeders today. That sounds bjornable."

Introducing...

2011-02-13T17:07:00.004Z

Oona Mary Elizabeth Pirate!

Born on the day I saw the very first daffodils of spring (while walking to McDonald's for lunch while I was in labor!), and Pirate saw the first cherry blossoms (while walking home from work to take me to the birthing center).

And yes, that is a Star Wars T-shirt I'm wearing. I used the Force. It helped.

She weighed 8 lbs, 7.5 oz. Don't ask me how long she was, they don't do that measurement here so I have no idea.

We didn't go to a hospital, we we went to a midwife-led birthing centre. It was marvelous and peaceful. I was the only mother there, and I was waited on hand and foot by two fantastic midwives who had been working as a team for 30 years, knew each other inside and out, and had great humor and bantor, and by a materinity assistant, who did all the non-medical stuff like make me tea and draw me a bath after. I couldn't have received better care if I'd been the queen.

I stayed overnight with Oona in bed with me. They offered to let Pirate stay as well, since he was falling asleep on the tile floor of the delivery room. Poor wee Pirate; he was all pooped out after 11 hours of labor! *snort*

I'll post the whole story with the gorey details later, if any of you maternal vultures are interested. Right now I have to put the bed together for my maternal pirate-in-law, who is coming to stay for a few days to lend a hand so Pirate can go back to swashbuckling.

WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL PREGNANT?!?!?!?!

2011-02-07T11:04:00.003Z

My due date was Friday. This is shit. This is NOT the German efficiency (and I'm 25% German, so that should count for something.)

I'm huge. I can't sleep. I can't sit comfortably, stand comfortably, walk comfortably, or lie down comfortably. And I'm fed up with swapping one discomfort for another just for variety's sake.

Also, I'm exhausted. I can't sleep. I have to pee every 45 minutes (until about 4 am by which time I'm sufficiently dehydrated that I can go about 2 hours between weeing. If only my uterus was as keen as my fucking kidneys.) And my RLS* has become unbearable. I lie in bed at night jerking like a mule that's undergone army experimentation, thus guaranteeing that the Pirate isn't getting any meaningful sleep, either. (And he hasn't whinged about it once, bless his tighty whities.)

We went to see Brendon Burns in Oxford on Thursday night, hoping to laugh the kid loose. Nearly worked, too. Had a couple contractions before the show began, and after 90 minutes of solid belly laughter I carried on contracting strongly, if erradically, until about 2 am. Then it all fizzled out and died and I've had nothing since. Bah.

Tomorrow is my nephew's birthday. He'll be 1. Keep your fingers crossed that something kicks off tonight so the cousins can share a birthday. That would be cool.

*Don't laugh. It's real, and it SUCKS.

I am California

2011-02-02T13:30:00.001Z

2 days from D-Day. Lots of little tremors, just sitting here waiting for The Big One.

Watch this space...

2011-01-20T11:20:00.003Z

I'm back.

But that's not the big news. THIS is the big news:

And this photo is a couple months old already. I'm T minus 2 weeks, and boy am I ready to pop. My mom and doc don't think I'll make it to 40 weeks, which is good, because I'm SO FREAKIN' SICK OF BEING PREGNANT!!!! (I know I know, after I wanted to be pregnant soooooo badly. So I'm a hypocrite. Shoot me.)

In other developments, Pirate and I no longer reside in sunny Cornwall. Now we're living in bloody Swindon. Thank fuck it's only temporary. We'll be out of here in July.

So why the sudden return to blogging? You can thank First Nations for that. I saw that she was back on line again and it inspired me. That, and Pirate has been bugging me to get back in the blogging saddle for a while. He's scared I'll get hit with post-partum depression (a legit fear, with my family history and my own history of depression) and knows how supportive all my imaginary friends have been in the past, and figures one more safety net can't be a bad thing. Plus all kinds of zany crap keeps happening to us, and he's constantly saying shit like "this would make an awesome blog post." And he's right.

So watch this space...

Announcing Yakee Cakes!

2010-04-05T20:36:00.003Z

I finally did it! I have a business! A real one, with a website and everything. Check it out:

www.yankeecakes.co.uk

Now, my technical advisor (Pirate) informs me that for my website to be known to search engines there have to be lots of links to it on other websites. I've created a couple business listings in places like yell.com, but it would really help if each of you would just whack a link to my business in your blog. It doesn't matter what continent you're on, there just need to be a ton of links out there in the ether.

Pirate explained a new website is like a walled garden, and every link you create is gate in the wall. Make enough gates, and eventually Google will notice you exist.

(For the techies who are now rolling their eyes, we've already done the meta data and keywords in the html code.)

Now get linking and send me some business!

(and if you know of any one in the soutwest who's getting married, point them my way.)

Stripper

2010-02-19T13:27:00.004Z

Last week the Pirate and I were given a load of second-hand furniture by the parents of some friends of ours. They are moving and downsizing from a 5K square foot house to a 2.2K square foot mansion flat. So, naturally, some furniture had to go. For the £130 we spent on van rental we made out like bandits.

We are now the proud owners of a 7 foot-long sofa, 2 chests of drawers and matching beside tables from Habitat and accompanying mirror, 4 teak folding patio chairs, and two solid wood bedside tables.

It's these latter bedside tables which are of interest. They were in the shed in the garden (the shed in this case being larger than our dining room) and we were told, "Oh you don't want those; they're awful and full of mold and woodworm. We're going to burn them." They were painted white and while plain and in need of some TLC, were discovered to be rather sturdily built.

"Oh please let us have them!" we begged. Since they were marked for the woodpile we were told we welcome to them, but it was implied we were more than a little silly for wanting them.

We got them home and went to work on them. It's amazing what you can do with a can of Nitromors, a pair of neoprene gloves, and a week of Olympic TV coverage.

I should have the last bits of the decorative molding I'm adding on this afternoon, and then i'll put the pics up. I think you'll agree: I've got a new carreer cut out as a stripper.

Yay! Also, Oops.

2010-02-04T11:24:00.003Z

I've done it; I've started Kingfisher Cakes. The website will be online shortly. (I hope.)

I'm extremely excited about this. I began this with the view that it would just be a little cottage industry, something to help me earn a little pin money. But looking at the way the website is shaping up (I'm making it in MS Publisher), it looks ruddy professional. Now I'm thinking, the sky's the limit. Who knows how far this could go? How far do I want to take it? I don't even know, but I'm open to much bigger possibilities that I was a few months ago.

I've also just realized that in telling y'all the name of the business you'll be able to go to my website and find the real me. Now all you cyber-crazies can find me in meat-space. Oops. Oh well. I'll have to take my chances. It never occured to me when I began discussing this with you that I was crossing over my real and virtual personalities. Now you know. Too late.

And for your edification and delight, here are some photos of cakes I have made recently:

First up is a double-chocolate, 10-inch square layer cake with chocolate buttercream frosting, decorated in a solar-system theme with hand-piped buttercream.

Next is this awesome R2-D2 cake. Fully 18" across, the sponge is chocolate, covered with white buttercram frosting and decorated with hand-piped buttercream and silver sugar balls (which you can't really see in the photo but looked great in person).

Lastly is my own wedding cake. Two tiers of lemon drizzle layer cake, 2 tiers of carrot layer cake, all covered with cream cheese frosting and decorated with real pansies and rose petals which had been crystallized by hand by yours truly, and all of which were completely edible.

So whadda ya think? Would you pay money for one of my cakes? (Oh, and I have learned how to do marzipan and sugarpaste, so if that's the look you're going for, I can does that, too.)

Once more unto the breach, dear friends

2010-01-26T13:50:00.002Z

I'm eating leftover homemade spetzla with onion gravy for lunch and drinking Franziskaner, but that's not important right now. The key here is, what should I name my new bakery?

I know I asked you this before, but I've narrowed it down to 3 finalists, so I'm going to smoke one more pole. I mean poll. Yeah. (And no, I am not so think as you drunk I am in the diddle of the may.)

To give y'all my thoughts on the finalists, I'd like to construct a handy table, but blogger is not big on tables, so you'll just have to plow though the nicely laid-out text. Here goes.

KINGFISHER CAKES

Cons: What the fuck have fish got to do with cakes? We're not talking fish-flavoured cakes here, are we?

Pros: No we're bloody not. The kingfisher is a symbol of unspoilt countryside. It suggests beauty, purity, and a bit of sparkle. It's elusive, and therefore a bit magical. Cakes should be beautiful, sparkle, and be a little magical. You get it now?

CORONATION CAKES

Pros: Suggests big, grand celebrations. Evokes images of big ball gowns and stuff covered in gold. Majestic, gradiose, royal. Everything a cake should be.

Cons: The last coronation was in 1953. The word 'coronation' resurrects memories of stuffy, awful, 1950s cuisine, doilies, old women in clunky shoes, and chunks of chicken covered in gloopy, yellow mayonaise. And a god-awful, long-running soap opera.

CONFETTI CAKES

Pros: Nothing says 'party' like confetti! Except maybe cakes. Cheerful, colorful, light, and whimsical. Everything a cake should be.

Cons: Not quite as distinctive as the other two. Harder to spell. (Is that one 'f' and two 'ts' or two 'fs' and one 't'?)

So what d'y'all think? Comments in the usual place, vote in the sidebar on the left.

The Golant Is Not Enough

2010-01-24T10:46:00.005Z

I've gotten back in to rowing. Sculling, specifically, which is better for my back. I found a club near here (only an hour drive!), called Castle Dore Rowing Club, which is a recreational (ie, non-competitive) community fitness club, largely made up of middle-aged vets with busticated back. Perfect! (Or so I thought.)

For the past month or so I've been going out with them on a Sunday afternnon. The river is lovely (when there's water in it). It's always a scratch crew, made up of whomever shows up: men, women, novice, vets, whatever; we all get lumped in together. I was really enjoying myself, just pissing about on the water, not having to think about upcoming events, split times, or whether stroke could possibly go any faster up the fucking slide (Jesus Christ, Becky, it's not a race to the catch!).

And then something happened. I was in a crew with 3 blokes, all of them half-decent oarsmen. We set a rhythm. It wasn't shit. We pulled on it. The boat moved. We lifted the shell onto the surface of the river and heard the water bubbling cheerfully as we whizzed along. We moved. It felt fantastic.

And I was done for. The adrenaline all came surging back in time with the surge of the boat. I felt my heart pounding. I heard my quads say to me, "Oh yeah, we remember this!" I fell in love again.

The quiet, little, recreational club isn't enough any more. I want to go fast. I want to go fast now. I'm too young to be an allakadoo. I'm too young to be this old. I'm getting back on the ergo. I'm setting training regime, and when Pirate and I move away from Cornwall sometime this spring, I'm joining a proper boat club again. I want to win shit.

Wee Mighty Predator

2010-01-15T15:38:00.005Z

The small predator had a big day yesterday. In the eyes of the neighborhood moggies, he is now A Man.

He caught his first mouse.

Before yesterday I wasn't sure if he was a hunter or not. After seeing his behavoir, I'm convinced that if he'd had a kill before now we'd have known all about it.

I came home from the supermarket and found a dead mouse right in the middle of the front hall carpet, with Pai walking around it in circles around it, chest all puffed out, tail up, and saying to me "Look at me! Look what I did!*" He was so chuffed with himself I gave him a pat on the head to acknowledge his achievment, and then he did something I did not expect.

Despite the mouse being well and truly dead (I checked), he clearly wasn't done with it. He put it someplace where I coudln't miss seeing it, but once I had seen it Pai wanted to continue playing with it. He picket it up in his mouth, threw it across the hall, and pounced on it. This he repeated several times until by accident he threw it in with the cardboard recycling. He tried to climb in after it, but the density of empty cereal boxes made this impossible.

Not wanting it to rot and stink in there, I dug it out and carried it outside on the front porch, where I told Pai that he could keep it, but it was strictly an outdoor toy. He listened, bless him. He carried on playing with the mouse outside, but didn't bring it in the house again after that. Such a good kitty! I did get a huge kick out of watching him throw it straight up in the air and then bat it between his paws as it came back down, the fucked-up feline.

*He was speaking Cat, naturally, but some things are so obvious they need no translation.

And the beat goes on

2010-01-09T18:23:00.003Z

I've finally done it. I've finally pursuaded the Pirate to let me lose the patch and allow nature to take it's course.

Damnit, I'm going to be 31 in just a couple days! fuck me that sounds OLD.

Part of me is rejoicing, but part of me is still really worried. He doesn't seem happy with the idea, just resigned to it. I don't want it to be like that. I want it to be a happy occurance (when it eventually occurs). Having a baby should be full of joy, not resignation to your wife's biological clock.

I want him to want what I want, but life just doesn't work that way.

So I finally got what I want, but I can't bring myself to be happy about it. Fuck.

And I'm about to turn 31.

(Jesus, have I ever sounded more like Herebe? Now there's a frightening thought.)

I have the absolute power of veto and override

2010-01-05T18:29:00.002Z

and I'm prepared to use it.

I thank you all for input and votes. Clearly The Bespoke Bakery is the popular choice (well done, Herebe, for suggesting it*). Sadly, it's just not jiving with me. Yes, it does what it says on the tin, which is important, and yes, bespoke means custom and and high-class and all of that which is good, but somehow it's just a little too... too... I dunno, generic? It's a name that could belong to anybody, anywhere, and I guess I'm after something a little more unique and individual.

With that in mind I've been gravitating toward Coronation Cakes and Kingfisher Cakes. Coronation is good. I conjurs images of balls and princesses and crowns; it's posh, it describes an occasion at which you want a really, really good cake; and it is highly suggestive of Royalty.

Which might be great for marketing purposes, but just makes me wince, just a little. I'm not a royalist. I don't bow and scrape to someone just because of who they were born. People earn my respect; they don 't get it by birthright. And the blue collar, union-member Democrat in me just can't bring myself to have that sort of association. *sigh*

So my first choice is Kingfisher. The kingfisher is a beautiful, rare, and elusive bird. It is synonymous with pristine, untouched countryside, and has an almost magical aura about it. It crops up frequently in poetry, always a symbol of the majestic, divine, etherial, mystical. More to the point, it has awesome logo potential and scans well with cakes, with the strong stresses on the first and finaly syllables, which is pleasing to my tongue and ear.

I know some marketing types will suggest that I shouldn't be concerned with whether my name begins with a dactyl or an anapest, but I, like Winston Churchill, believe these things register on a subconscious level with all hearers, regardless of their familiarity with scansion, and are therefore important.

And above all, it's unique. It's jazzy. It stands out. It's catchy. And I like it.

I hope you won't feel your votes are wasted; on the contrary. Watching the votes come in and registering my emotional responses to the results has been extremely useful in helping me to clarify and and understand my own mind. So I thank you, genuinely and sincerely. And when the new website is up and running, I'll be sure to linky you all.

At the moment, I am drunk and in no position to create anything. Woo.

*Since it won the poll I will still send you a cake for creating the winning name. :-)

Not that Big News, but something else Mildly Interesting

2009-12-30T16:06:00.008Z

Hi all.

After a loooooooong hiatus from bloggering I've found myself in need of your good opinions. I know I can always trust my trusty readers to guide me in the paths of righteousness and sound marketing principles. (How are you, by the way, my dear readers? I have missed you, you know.)

So I'm starting a business.

It turns out I'm rather handy in kitchen, dontcha know, and without really meaning to, I've sort of started a private wee bakery in my house. It began with my Teutonic neighbor hiring me to bake birthday cakes for her sons because, while she enjoys baking, she doesn't really have the time and thinks I do a better job anyway. So she went around and told everyone else, and now I take orders from all my neighbors for cakes for their special occasions. (I also do a good line in pies, but those don't seem to appeal to the English palate as much, so even though I think my pies are a good deal more interesting than my cakes, no one really seems to want them, but that may change.)

And since I haven't been able to get a job in the god-forsaken county that is Cornwall, this cake-baking lark has become my only source of income. So go with what you know, right? Time to expand the bizness!

Step one: reach more clientelle through website.

Sounds simple enough. There are a million companies out there that allow idiots like me to build personal websites for a small fee and provide templates and tech support and all sorts of things for a small monthly fee. But here's the kicker: I want the URL of the website to be the name of the business, and all the names for the business I originally wanted have already been registered as URLs by other people.

SO! I have on the sidebar a selection of potential names, and I would like you to vote on the one you would find most appealing if you were hiring someone to bake a cake for your wedding or birthday or whatever.

Feel free to leave comments as to why you voted the way you did. I have my own thoughts on each of these, but I'm curious to see yours.

As for the rest of my life, here's the rundown of the past year:

Marriage is great
Cornwall is beautiful, but bankrupt. There are NO JOBS.
I still haven't finished my PhD.
Nor am I pregnant.
My last living grandparent died a few weeks ago, followed shortly by his wife, followed shortly by my penultimate surving great-uncle. It's going to be one of those winters, I can tell.
The slugs ate my whole garden except the sweetcorn.
Pirate and I both had pig flu and nearly died.
My parents came over to celebrate Christmas.

And that's about it, really. Now go to the sidebar and VOTE, bitches!

(Oh, and that first entry should be Cornucopia Cakes, as Dave very kindly pointed out. I can't correct it on the poll because blogger won't allow you to make changes after voting has begun. Very sporting of them and all that, but they clearly didn't anticipate my bad spelling.)

I'm going to be in London for 1 day only

2009-08-03T20:31:00.003Z

on the afternoon of Wed August 5. My train gets in to Pad at 12:25 (theoretically), and I don't have any commitments until 7:30 in the evening when I have to be in Fulham.

If anyone fancies meeting up in that time, drop me a line (medievalsteph AT gmail DOT com). I'd love to meet you, whoever you are.

It's not that I don't love you anymore

2009-07-29T15:06:00.000Z

I do, really and truly. And I think about you guys and wonder what you're up to. (One could argue that if I want to know what you're up to then I should log in and find out. But that would be logical.)

It's just that when i lived in Bristol I was a maiden trapped in a small room in the 7th floor of an ivory tower block, and my computer was my main connection to the outside world. Now the outside world is, well, just outside. I walk through my door and rather than finding a stinky, loud, smelly city full of torn bin bags, skantily clad drunk students, and crapping seagulls, I find a lovely garden full of sunflowers and sweatpeas and zinnias and corn and tomatoes. And if I go a little further than that there are other houses, with actual people in them. Meat people. And some of them are really nice. And we play board games and walk to the shops and keep each other company.

And there's the house itself, always with things to do, meals to cook, and laundry to fold. (Always with the fucking laundry. Jesus-H.-Christ-on-a-pogo-stick that man generates a lot of laundry.) And I find I just can't bring myself to sit in front of a computer for one milisecond than is longer than absolutely necessary. And not even that long. I've become abslutely crap at checking my email. It's driving my mother up the wall, but I figure that's fair revenge for being driven up the wall by her before the wedding.

So I'm still around, and I still love you all, I'm just unplugging for a while. I'll still be here intermittenly, so feel free to stop by. I like hearing from you. I just won't be a daily poster any more. Maybe at some point in the future I'll return to being a more regular writer, but in the meantime I think I'll stick to Big News. (I'm hoping that before next Christmas I'll have some Big News to share with you.)

There. That seems a good place to leave off. Always best to leave the readers hanging.

Brown Belt Humiliation

2009-07-15T11:53:00.002Z

Last week I defeated a brown belt. I'm still a white belt. (Which in jujitsu isn't the bottom of the pecking order. It's one up from red, which is the lowest.)

I've been taking jujitsu lessons since November. In May I was awarded my white belt. Last week I was sparring for the very first time against someone other than my sensei. My opponent was a brown belt, one step below black, and also a guy. I beat him. Really and truly. He didn't let me win (though he may have underestimated me a bit.)

w00t.

Pet Names

2009-05-07T07:04:00.002Z

Pirate and I finally came up with good pet names for each other. The usual "honey" and "darling" just wasn't working for us. We drew upon the native American tradition for inspiration (and utterly insulted it in the process). We are:

Bear Who Waits For Blowjob

and

Little Cooking Flower

My Mother-in-Law the Pudding Rapist

2009-05-02T09:24:00.003Z

Wow. I knew it had been a while since I blogged, but I genuinely hadn't realized it had been over 2 months. Sorry about that. I didn't mean to take such a long break, but once I stepped back from the screen to take a breather I found it really difficult to return. Rather than write a big long whingy apology though, how about I just jump right back into it? Right. Here goes.

My mother-in-law is a Pudding Rapist. (This is pudding in the English sense, meaning all things desserty, not just the stuff Bill Cosby sells.)

Pirate and I were up at the in-laws for 2 weeks over Easter, during which time my MIL fed us pudding every day at lunch AND dinner. Argh! After 4 days I thought I would explode. The problem is I know she only does it because I'm there. If it was just Pirate visiting his parents she would make a pud the first night and leave it at that. But because I'm there she makes one every night. And since she's doing it for me I feel obligated out of a sense of hospitality to accept, and then she says "See, I knew you really did want it" and makes another one the next night. And then pourse double cream all over everything! GROOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!

So, yes, the Pudding Rapist. Becuase in her mind "no" means "yes" and no matter how much you scream and kick and protest that you don't want any more, she knows you secretly do, and gives it to you.

The Results Are In!

2009-02-20T19:09:00.002Z

And the winner is...

Pai Mei!

I'm awfully glad you guys voted for that name, because that's the one Pirate and I chose anyway, so now you won't feel like I fobbed you off.

Pai has settled in well to his new home. His favorite activities include tripping us as we walk down the stairs, making biscuits in my lap, and hiding in the wardrobe. (He spends so much time in the wardrobe he almost got named "Aslan.") Generally we call him Kitten-Pai or Cutie-Pai, or when he's hiding in the wardrobe Chicken-Pai.

Currently he's sitting on my mousepad licking his ass. All is well with the universe.

I can has family?

2009-02-17T15:58:00.004Z

Here he is! Isn't he handsome?

(If a bit scary.)

Hello, small predator!

Aww, look at his widdle white socks!

Now the question is what to name him. The options are:

1. Fred. This is the name the shelter gave him and, though not terribly original, I was thinking of him as "Fred" in my mind for the whole week before we actually brought him home, so we're already kind of used to it. Also, it's pleasant and domestic and kind of suits him. (He's a cuddle slut.)

2. Pai Mei. This dude. He's the bad-ass martial arts guru from Kill Bill. The Furball is not a badass, but he kind of looks it with his narrow eyes and white goatee. We'd probably call him "Pie" on a day-to-day basis, and that has pleasant pudding conotations. Also it kind of ties in with "Pirate." He'd be the Pai-cat. A Pi-rat and a Pai-cat! Brilliant! (I may have just talked myself into this one.)

3. Clawdius. You can't really see it in these photos, but he has white toes with brown outlines that form these little Roman arches across his feet. Like little aquaducts. So we thought a Roman name might be appropriate. Pirate thought of the pun with the spelling.

4. Toast. He looks like badly burnt toast. 'Nuff said.

5. Thornton. Because he's chocolate brown and Hershey and Nestle are totally unorigina. Ditto Cadbury. And Lindt is just too posh.

Go vote. We won't pay the slightest bit of attention to the results, mind. Your opinions are purely for my amusement.

Let there be catness!

2009-02-12T14:36:00.004Z

Well, it's official. Pirate and I will be going to the shelter to morrow afternoon to collect the newest member of our family: a (roughly) 2-year-old male cat named (so far) "Fred."

The shelter told us Fred is 2, but i suspect his real age is closer to twice that on the principle that shelters have a bitch of a time rehoming old cats and always knock a few years off their age to make them more marketable. I don't particularly care. He is wonderful.

When we went to look at cats most of them just lay on the their blankets and ignored us. One or two opened an eye, assessed us as uninteresting, and closed it again. But not Fred, oh no. When Fred saw us he came straight to the front of his enclosure and and greeted us verbally. I replied in kind. We had a very enchanting conversation through the glass before the volunteer came to open the door so we could get to know each other better through a brief session of sniffing and groping. (Kind of like dating when you think about it.)

And just like it was with my Pirate, the minute i touched him I fell in love. Pirate wanted kittens, but I got all watery-eyed over Fred so Pirate caved and we are bringing him home.

Earlier this week I went to the pet store and spent 130 pounds on:

a carrier
a litter box
a litter mat (to trap the gravel before Fred tracks it all over the house)
litter liners, disposal baggies, and a pooper scooper
a food dish
2 scratching things (a cardboard one for the floor and one made of rope that hangs from a doorknob)
a fleece hammock that hangs off a radiator (cuz if i was a cat i would SO want one! hell, i'm a human i wish they came in my size)
8 packets of treats (4 for UTIs, 4 for hairball control)
UTI paste
hairball paste
a rubber grooming glove
a wire grooming comb
2 packs grooming wipes (not quite as effective as a bath, but a hell of a lot easier and better than nothing)
a vibrating toy mouse
a wobble ball
a feathery thing on an elastic cord on a stick (Pirate loved it so much he played with it for 10 minutes. who needs a cat???)
cat-wee carpet cleaner spray
a food dish
a collar with breakaway safety feature and ID barrel (in a very fetching red, yellow, and black aboriginal-style pattern)
a book of cat care, heavy on the medical information

That, combined with the 55 pound obligatory donation to the shelter brings our total expenditure to almost 200 pounds, and we still haven't bought litter for the tray, a cat flap for the back door, or food.

Food will be the biggest expense as Fred has to be kept on a special diet owing to his FLUTD. If we give him normal food his ureters will clog up and he won't be able to pee. So by the time we add in the cost of a month's supply of food, the gravel (i want the flushable kind, which ain't cheap), and the cat flap, we're looking at an initial output of over 250 pounds.

Someone told me cats were economical pets. They lied.

At least I'll have him to keep me company over the weekend while Pirate is away. That will be nice. I'll post photos for you. (He's a very handsome boy.)

We pause now in the middle of this whinge

2009-02-10T16:07:00.001Z

to bring a brief moment of eye-watering hilarity.

see more pwn and owned pictures

Normal service will resume shortly. Thank you.

Haunted

2009-02-10T00:34:00.003Z

I figured out what was wrong with me.

The house is killing me.

Here's how it works. Do you remember the incident last October, shortly after we moved in, when the whole left side of my face ballooned up and my eye was swollen shut for 3 days and the doctors (yes, plural) never did figure out what caused it? They couldn't figure out if it was bacterial, viral, or an allergic reaction to some environmental factor, and it was getting worse so rapidly there wasn't time to try different medications in succession (also, I was half blind and itching like i had fleas in my eyeballs), so they put me on antibiotics, antivirals, AND antihistemines all at once. One of them worked because I began to get better shortly thereafter, but it's still a medical mystery.

Now bear in mind that we moved in here on September 20, I immediately got a head cold, and then the eye thing started on October 5.

Please also bear in mind that all last autumn I had one head cold after another, such that we estimate I've been sick about 50% of the time since we got married.

Except for the 6 weeks I was stuck in Michigan waiting on my spousal visa. For those 6 weeks I was completely fine; not a sniffle.

I got back home to Cornwall at the end of January, and within two weeks I had another mysterious illness. This is the short version:

Friday: sore throat

Early Saturday morning: most painful sore throat in history of humanity, body aches all over, throbbing pounding headache. Essentially pain. Ultimately, the only symptom I had was pain. Conspicuously absent: fever, congestion, sneezing, coughing, runny nose, or ANYTHING that might indicate a viral or bacterial infection.

Sunday: Body ache gone, throat still sore but sufficiently better that I can eat solid food again, headache more bearable but still present.

Today (Monday): Sore throat all but gone, headache back with a vengeance, accompanied by mild nausea.

This morning I walked to the pharmacy to buy some of the effervescent cocodamo*l tablets the nurse on the NHS helpline told me about on sunday morning. My throat was better, but i'm not convinced it won't happen again, so i decide it's a good idea to have some in the house.

My head was throbbing. It didn't hurt more if i bent over or looked down, but as soon as i straightened up again it felt like someone was driving a railroad spike into my brain stem. I thought my brain would explode from the pressure. The ferocity of the pain was such that I actually cried out loud a couple of times while walking home. I wasn't sure I would make it. I just kept putting one foot in front of the other and eventually I got home. (It's only one bloody mile.)

I decided to take one dose of the cocodamol for the headache. It helped the headache, but gave me a mild psychotic reaction. I was utterly convinced for 3 hours that there was someone else in the room with me, and i was being WATCHED. I can't tell you how freaky this is. Thankfully about 3% of my brain was holding down the sanity fort and constantly reminding me that I was alone, in no danger, and this was clearly a reaction to the drug.

So what the fuck caused me to have an incredibly sore, swollen, inflamed throat and migraine-level headache pain with no other sign of infection? The House.

Think about it. Shortly after we move in i get some weird, undiagnosable condition. I am sick on and off the entire autumn. I leave for Christmas and enjoy 6 weeks of perfect health. I return and within 2 weeks (roughly the same amount of time between moving in last September and the first medical crisis) I have some other weird, undiagnosable condition. Unless someone else out there has had a bout of tonsilitis that lasted 2 days and went away on its own, my leading theory right now is that there is some environmental factor in the house that's making me ill.

Am I crazy? It just seems unlikely that this is a coincidence.

Pirate is not affected by it, but I'm in the house ALL THE TIME, whereas he only comes here to eat, shag, and sleep. He's out for 12 hours a day at work. I'm not. I'm here, dying by inches.

I've dismissed CO, as we have a dector that says there's no CO in the house.
I've dismissed radon, even though Cornwall is full of it, because radon toxicity takes years of exposure to produce symptoms.
Right now I'm thinking some kind of mold or fungus. I shall begin to investigate and see what I turn up.

*Tylenol 3 with codeine, and it's available over the counter here. Take that, you sorry Americans!

Good News, Bad News

2009-02-08T09:01:00.002Z

The good news is we're getting a cat! I feel kinda bad because Pirate really, REALLY wanted a kitten,* but we went to the other local animal shelter on Friday and absolutely fell in love. He's brown and white with really striking markings, very fluffy, is 2 years old, prone to urinary tract infections, is incredibly friendly and cuddly, and his name is Fred.

The shelter doesn't know much about his history as he was brought in as a stray, but he's waaaay to friendly with people to have been born stray. I suspect he was dumped by an owner who couldn't cope with his bladder problems.

But the good people at the shelter have got his problems under control, and assure us that all he needs is to be fed a special diet and he should be fine. I'm sure he'll still have the occassional flare-up, but I'll watch his litter closely and get his urine tested every 6 months or so, which is no big deal at all.

So after we visited him I decided I was completely in love with him, and I looked at Pirate with big, doleful eyes and he gave in. He's such a good man, but i do feel a bit guilty. I've promised him that after Fred is all settled in we will look for a kitten. Someone seriously needs a kitten. Bless.

And now for The Bad News.

I am sick as a dog. I don't know what's wrong, but I have the worst sore throat in human history. The throat started Friday afternoon, and by the small hours saturday morning my whole body was in agony. My head was pounding, my throat was so sore I couldn't sip water without extreme discomfort, and every muscle and joint in my body ached. I could barely move. I spent the day lying on the couch and moaning.

Today I am a little better. The body aches have subsided somehwat, so I'm more comfortable than I was yesterday, but everything above my collar bone still hurts like a bitch: my head is pounding, and when i swallow it feels like someone is choking me to death and the pain goes right up my ear canals. I've managed to eat a scrambled egg, 2 popsicles, and 2 glasses of apple juice. That's since Friday night, and now it's sunday morning. Pirate tried to get me to drink some Lemsip** but hot things make my throat hurt more and after it cooled it was so disgusting i gagged and almost threw up. Oh yeah, I've had some nausea and stomach cramping as well.

Clearly I am dying.

Does anyone know a disease that is characterized by an incredibly sore throat and massive body aches? Cuz really, if it wasn't for all the pain I'm in, I would just have a slight stuffy nose and that would be it. I'm seriosuly wondering if it's not my tonsils. This is truly not your run-of-the-mill sore throat.

Oh yeah, there's more: Pirate got contacts!

It's very strange. Normally the only time I see him without his glasses is when we're making love, and therefore I find it a huge turn-on when he takes them off, because I know what it foretells. But now he's wearing contacts and every time I look at him I think I'm about to get some. If I wasn't in so much fucking pain I'd be the most turned-on woman in the western world right about now.

*"self-propelled balls of entertaiment" according to Pirate

**Theraflu to you Yanks

Middle Class

2009-02-05T11:20:00.003Z

So there we were, the Pirate and I, listening to the test match* on the radio, playing Boggle, and eating strawberries.

When the revolution comes, we are fucked.

*That's cricket, for you football-watching Philistines.

Wong-Foo Fighter

2009-02-04T17:30:00.002Z

Well I promised you I would try to have something bad happen to me this week, and now I'm going to deliver.

Do you remember Wong-Foo? Wong-Foo was the bestest fishy ever. He had fu, foo.

I got Wong-Foo back in the summer of '07. He lived in a pretty little aquarium on my desk in Bristol and kept me company. He was far more social even than the Nazi Death Hamster. (Hard to imagine, I know.)

So last Saturday we bought some more fish. Our 80-L tank has been up and running for months, and has had no problems. Introducing a few more fish shouldn't have been an issue. We followed all the correct protocols.

Nevertheless, on Sunday morning when we inspected the fish we noticed that one of the tiny guppies (an unusual variety that were only about 2 cm long each but cost 4 quid apiece) had ick. There was a white fluffy spot on one side and it's dorsal fin was missing. I treated the tank and hoped for the best. Later that evening it died.

It died well within the pet store's 48-hour guarantee, so I bagged the fish, put it in the freezer, and made sure I had the receipt. We noticed Wong-Foo following the guppy around in it's death throes. This is not unusual behavior. The very instant the guppy went belly-up, Wong-Foo took a bite out of him. This, too, is not unusual for fish, especially bettas.

The next day Wong-Foo died.

I am both gutted* and furious.

Clearly the guppy was diseased when we bought it, despite appearing healthy. Most likely the stress of the transition was too much for it, and whatever infection it had (probably ick) it was unable to fend off. The pet store acknowledges this with their 48 hour guarantee. If the guppy had contracted the disease in our tank, it wouldn't have died so quickly.

The fact that my betta, who had been healthy for a year and a half, died within hours of taking a bite of a diseased fish is NO COINCIDENCE. I'm hoping I can get the pet store to admit this and replace the betta as well as the guppy. It's a long shot, but I have logic and truth on my side.

Meanwhile I'm mourning. Wong-Foo was an awesome fishy. His hobbies included begging for blood worms and eating baby guppies snacks. He had loads of personality and always acknowledged my presence when I entered the room. That's more than I can say for a lot of people. Wong-Foo was more than a fish in a tank; he was a genuine pet.

Now he's gone to sleep with the people. *sniff* RIP, little buddy.

*Geddit? Gutted? We're talking about fish and I'M gutted! Even in the face of tragedy I maintain my sense of humor

The Life Domestique

2009-02-02T17:18:00.002Z

Ah, the pleasantries of matrimonial banality. Everything, no matter how lovely or how miserable, is just that little bit nicer or more bearable. This weekend we:

Got Pirate new glasses, went to the pest store and bought 7 fish (6 guppies and an algae eater, if you must know), and visited The Gables Farm to pick a cat to adopt (we chose 2 kittens, but they're not available yet. Watch this space).

Sunday we baked loads of muffins, spilled 4 gallons of hot soapy water on the kitchen floor and cleaned it up, made a pot of chili, scooped a dead guppy out of the aquarium, and tried to have a super-bowl party but failed to have any friends cool enough to come.

Pirate ordered me a calendar online that he made with my own photographs, I refilled the bird feeders and cleaned the hamster cage. (It was a big weekend for animals, apparently.)

Nothing was monumentous; it was just nice to have a companion. Even cleaning 4 gallons of water off the kitchen floor became a laughable offense rather than a swearing, cursing, day-ruining event. God it's good to be home.

I'll try to have something bad happen to me in the next week or two so I can write something interesting instead of all this mushy drivel.

A visit to the dark side

2009-01-31T08:21:00.002Z

The discussion yesterday of the mother of 14 kids got me thinking, and it occurred to me that train of thought was best driven at Question Everything. There's a new post at QE for the first time in donkey's years. If you'd like to debate the ethics of repro rights, click the link on the sidebar.

Is she a woman, or a guppy???

2009-01-30T12:22:00.003Z

Is anyone else at all distressed that a mother of 6 children (ages 2-7, which means she didn't get her period for 5 years) felt the need to have fertility treatment? Am I the only one who thinks that's crazy?

1. I SERIOUSLY hope her health insurance didn't pay for that fertility treatment
2. What on earth makes her think she's capable of looking after 6 kids AND 8 infants at the same time, while her husband is on duty in Iraq no less???
3. Why would anyone want that many kids? I can understand having 14 kids in the grand old days before birth control. You either had to accept that you'll be a baby machine or give up having sex with your husband for the rest of your life. I know what I would have chosen. But this is the 21st century people! You no longer have to make that choice. Wake up and smell The Pill!

8 babies. That's not a family, it's a LITTER. It's dangerous (for the mother and the kids), it's irresponsible and puts an unfair drain on social service programs and the medical system (at the end of the day, whether she's on medicare and wellfare or and employed adult with health coverage, it's still the rest of us who are picking up the tab for this woman's personal attempt to populate the planet with her own spawn), and it's not fair on the rest of her kids, who will now be completely ignored until the 8 babies are all out of diapers.

Am I the only one who thinks this is nuts?

HONEY, I'M HOOOOOOOOOME!!!!

2009-01-29T00:58:00.003Z

Well thank fuck for that. I got on a plane in Detroit, Michigan on Saturday and Pirate met me at the airport in Bristol on Sunday morning. He was 45 minutes late, mind you, so there was none of that walking out of baggage collection and into his waiting arms. Instead there was a lot of sitting around and looking at my watch, but he got there in the end and that's what matters.

The flights over weren't too bad, either. I managed to score exit-row seats on both planes. AND wound up sitting next to the male lead of Riverdance, who are beginning a new UK tour. He offered to get me comps to the show when they're in Plymouth. So all in all not a bad trip.

God it's good to be home. I missed my Pirate. I missed his voice and his laugh, his smell, the smell of the house, the feel of the sheets, my own kitchen with all my stuff exactly where it should be, Pirate's ginaggerous shlong, the birds in the garden, the fishies in the tank (Counselor Paul, our algae-eater, has gotten HUGE, as has Garlic, the snail), my cacti collection and african violets, and all the little things that make the house our home (mostly each other).

*inhales deeply*

Ahhhh. Life is good.

Homeward Bound

2009-01-15T21:32:00.002Z

I'm here to bring you the Good News. The Second Coming is imminent. The End (of my American imprisonment) is nigh!

We just heard from the honorary British Consul, and he says that my visa will arrive in the next couple of days and that i can book my plane ticket for Friday week. I don't know how he got a 10 week process shortened to less than 3, but I'm not looking a gift-bulldog in the mouth.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel. It is not a train. Life is good.

A Memo from the desk of Too Much Information

2009-01-14T15:54:00.004Z

Me: sorry for sleeping so late. I put the sheepy sheets* on my bed last night and it was so snuggly in there i couldn't bring myself to get up. It was like a uterus. Now I'm going to spend the rest of the day eagerly awaiting bed time, just so i can get back in it.

Mom: Why don't you go back to bed now?

Me: I'm wide awake. What would I do there.
*pauses*
Don't answer that.

Mom:** You know what they say: sex is like bridge... if you've got a good hand, you don't need a partner.

Me: ...

*We're having a cold snap. The temperature was below zero last night. That's zero Farenheit. So I put the flannel sheets on my bed. My flannel sheets have little cartoon sheeps all over them. They are seriously cute.

** Mom runs a twice-weekly, ACBL-sanctioned bridge game for a bunch of nearly-dead local residents. I shudder to think where she heard this.

Back at "GO"

2009-01-12T18:07:00.003Z

Today is my 30th birthday.

30 is one of those landmark birthdays where you sit back and look at your life as it is and compare with where you thought you'd be at this point. Let's take a look, shall we?

A. Where I thought I'd be:
Happily married, at home with my Pirate, having some people to dinner to celebrate.

B. Where I actually am:
At my parents' home in the USA, back where I started, feeling old and wondering when I'll see my Pirate again.

Now before you panic let me assure you this has nothing to do with any kind of marital issues. Pirate and I are still madly in love and horny as hell and all that gross newlywed stuff. The problem is immigration issues. I'm stuck here, waiting on my spousal visa, without which I cannot return to the UK. They said it could be as long as 10 weeks.

My aunt knows the Honorary British Consulate for the Detroit area, who is a very nice man and is trying to push things along for me and shorten that 10 week estimate. Meanwhile the Pirates-in-Law have contacted their MP to push things along from that side. With any luck if they both push hard enough they'll meet somewhere in the middle and I can get the fuck out of here.

So here I sit, in my parents' house, feeling old, wondering how I ended up back here again. I feel rather like I've been playing a board game, and drew a bum card or landed on a crappy square that sent me back to "GO" while everyone else is playing on, now half a board ahead of me.

Oh yeah, and I gained 6 pounds over the holidays. 2009 is off to a great start.

OH! The wether outside's delightful...

2008-12-23T13:34:00.002Z

But my family is so frightful;
His pants are pulled way down low,
Let us go
Have a blow
In the snow!

The flight was shit, but we got here alive if not well. Pirate has a nasty cold, not at all improved by 9 1/2 hours in a middle seat that didn't recline, had no legroom, and was surrounded by screaming babies. I hope he made them sick.

On the plus side, there was a foot of snow on the ground when we landed and it's been coming down almost continually since. WHITE CHRISTMAAAAAAAAS! It's fucking freezing, but that's all the better to snuggle you with my dear. The mattress in my brother's guest room is the best i've ever slept on in my LIFE. It was like sleeping on a cloud. At 5 am I got Pirate to promise to buy me one. w00t. It's a Simmon's Beautyrest.

And now we're just alternating between shovelling the sidewalk every 30 minutes and eating ourselves into a stupor.

Merry crimbo, mis amigos.

Back in the USS...A?

2008-12-20T08:20:00.002Z

Pirate and I are leaving tonight for the Land of W (soon to be the Land of O). I don't know when I'll be back, because I have to get my spousal visa while I'm there, and the British Consulate give absolutely no indication of how long that takes. It might take 2 days, in which case I'll be coming home with Pirate on January 3rd, or it might take 6 weeks, in which case I'll be missing my own 30th Birthday/Innauguration joint party. I have no idea.

It's going to be an absolutely manic holiday, what with travelling to Wisconsin to visit my brother, fighting the snow on the roads and airports, PIRATE'S parents flying over from England to spend a week with my family, Bridesmaid Vi, husband Wally, son Smally Wally and Big Wally's parents all visiting from Massachusetts during the same week the Pirates-in-law will around, and my visa excitement thrown in on top of that. Blogging may or may not occur. Most likely I'll lurk and read your blogs when I get a few quiet minutes to myself, but I don't know that I'll have the ambition to write much.

Unless I'm in desperate need of catharsis, which is always a possibility.

And at FN's request, here is a photo for your enjoyment:

Merry Christmas, y'all!

Unlike this poor schlob, i AM Michael Phelps

2008-12-19T08:10:00.002Z

During the Olympics this summer you may have seen the BBC news reporter who is not Michael Phelps.

I know how he feels. I've taken up swimming at Pirate's gym, mostly because 2/3 of the time I show up for weight-lifting or circuits classes they get canceled due to me being the only one HARD CORE enough to show up. So I hit the pool instead.

I used to be a really slow swimmer. A really really really slow swimmer. Then I discovered the box of flippers next to the kick boards. Now, rather than praying for the wall at the opposite side of the pool, which advanced so slowly I used to fear the second coming would happen before I reached it, it rushes toward me with such rapidity that it frightens me, and I have to slow down to avoid an out-and-out crash.

"So this is what it feels like to be Michael Phelps" I thought, the first time I swam with the flippers on. "Brilliant!"

Now crowds follow me where ever I go. I can't get out of the locker room without signing autographs. Oh well. It's all part of the price of fame.

Dances with Worms

2008-12-17T19:18:00.003Z

I saw the most amazing thing yesterday. It was a seagull.

No, that in itself is not amazing. I moved away from Bristol to escape the fucking seagulls. (Don't tell Pirate; I'm just using him for his low-seagull lifestyle.)

The amazing bit is what the seagull was doing. It was dancing.

Pirate explained that it was creating vibrations in the ground which the worms perceive as rain, which inspires them to come to the surface. (You wouldn't think this would be necessary in a country where it rains every fucking day anyway, but there you go.)

I love this. I love this on several levels.
1. It's cute. No doubt about it. Seagulls suck. Dancing seagulls are cute.
2. It's seagulls doing what seagulls were meant to do, ie, act like birds. In nature. Not tear apart my garbage bags and squawk and shit all over me.
3. It's industrious. They're earning their lunch. I'm down with that.

But mostly, I love it because I love the idea of a universe where you can do a little dance and you lunch magically appears at your feet. How brilliant is that!!! I want to live in that universe! I want to, whenever I'm hungry, do a little dance, and look down, and *poof!* LUNCH!

*sings* Do a little dance... Make a little worm... Get lunch tonight! Get lunch tonight!

Now every night when I fix dinner I make Pirate stand in front of the serving hatch and do a little dance. Then I give him his dinner.

High Dorkness

2008-12-08T20:31:00.002Z

Guess what we did tonight?

I don't think you lot have a clear understanding of just how dorky me and the Pirate are. We are exceptionally dorky.

As Pirate has just said to me (while watching what I type over my shoulder), "The word 'pedant' sums up our relationship quite nicely."

Yes, we listen to Radio 4.
Yes, we watch University Challenge and Mastermind.
Yes, we iron our clothes, eat our vegetables, wash between our toes, and go to bed early. But that is just the beginning.

Tonight we settled a long-standing argument. (Mostly so that one of us would have the opportunity to be smug.) We have been arguing for a while about the plural of the Toyota Prius. But tonight we settled it.

We have this argument because my parents have two of the marvelous little hybrid cars, to which we refer as the family Prii. (Pronounced pree-eye).

Pirate insisted the plural of Prius was Priuses. (I know.)

Since Prius isn't a Latin word, we agreed that the closest equivalent was "focus," and tonight, well, tonight we finally went up to my office, pulled out my Latin grammar and looked up the declension of "focus."

For the record, it IS a second declension noun and therefore the plural is "foci" (something I already knew from high school math class, but that argument didn't fly with Pirate). The only way, in Latin, to pluralize a noun ending in -us is with -i.

So I win. Thanks to Kennedy's Revised Latin Grammar, c. 1962 Longman Group Ltd.

In-laws

2008-12-05T11:05:00.004Z

They are coming.

They are coming tonight.

I have 9 hours to:

clean the bathrooms
mop the kitchen floor
vacuum the whole house (Pirate?)
tidy the spare bedrooms
rearrange the furniture in the spare bedrooms
put sheets on all the beds
wash a load of darks
walk a mile to the grocery store and carry all the groceries home*
cook dinner for Pirate
bake Christmas cookies
take out the compost bucket
clean the dead leaves out of the flower beds before the stems rots
shower
finish sewing Pirate's stocking**
finish crocheting Pirate's mum's scarf***

*I must remember to buy toilet paper
**I'm making stockings for both of us out of an old pair of jeans.
***It was supposed to be done for last Christmas

Feelin' Fuzzy

2008-12-01T11:53:00.003Z

or
Still Crazy After All These Hairs

(This is a funny one.)
On Friday morning I put my hair in french braided pigtails while it was still damp. I wore them all day Friday (it's the most comfortable hairstyle in existence) and slept in them Friday night. When I work up Saturday I took them out, fluffed my hair, and got dressed.

I wore a black and white striped turtleneck, and because it was colder than the balls on a brass monkey, topped off my look with a tan, corduroy, flat cap (Oliver Twist-style). I looked in the mirror.

There was something unnervingly familiar about the person looking back at me. I stared and stared, and then all at once it dawned.

You know how they say that over time owners start to look more and more like their dogs? I think the same is true of music. I clearly need to update my record collection. I had become...

...some weird 21st century hybrid of Simon AND Garfunkel. (Except with boobs.)

When the Cat's Away...

2008-11-28T11:44:00.003Z

Going to Bristol this weekend. Pirate is going to B'ham for an archery competition, so he's dropping me of in Brizzle on the way. I'm going to spend two nights with my ex-partner (sculling partner), and run around and do Crimbo shopping and go to the gym and see my supervisor and lots of friends and get drunk a few times. w00t.
See yous Monday.

No-man's Land

2008-11-26T20:08:00.003Z

I saw a new specialist yesterday about my back. He's the head of physical therapy at Plymouth's largest hospital, and he specializes in lower back pain.

I'm not in quite a sufficiently poor state to justify surgery at this point. Most days I can function just fine. It's really only about 1 day a fortnight when I'm genuinely unable to do basic things for myself like get dressed and wipe my ass. Most other days I have pain on and off throughout the day, but I can do the things I need to do, albeit a bit stiffly.

The problem is, I've already just about exhausted all the non-surgical options. I'm fit, healthy, strong, and flexible. Given that, there's very little I can gain from further physical therapy. There are a few things that can be worked on, some movements that I can't do, so they are giving me an NHS physio who will give me more/new excercises, etc. But The Expert said he couldn't guarantee it would have any real impact on my quality of life.

So I'm in a bit of a medical no-man's land. If I were any worse, they would operate, but I'm too healthy to benefit much from phys. Arg.

I asked about my long-term prognosis. His response? (And this is a direct quote) "You have a bad back."

Thanks.

The one small segment of silver lining is that if I do get any worse I'm an absolutely perfect candidate for a particular kind of back surgery that no one else had discussed with me. Instead of removing the disk and fusing the vertebrae, which I thought was the only option, they can add little rubber springs to my L4 and L5 vertebrae on either side of the damaged disk to give it more stability. It's only got a 50-70% success rate, but because I'm such a perfect candidate for it (young, healthy, fit, and with a single-level problem (ie only one affected disk)), they put me at the top end of that estimate, and maybe as high as 80%.

So in the meantime I muddle on as best I can, unlikely to get better, and waiting to get worse, so that then I can get better.

Bad Ass

2008-11-24T15:19:00.002Z

I've begun taking jujitsu and boxing. Jujitsu on Tuesdays and boxing on Thursdays. It's brilliant. It's helping to bring my fitness back up to snuff (which has suffered abysmally since Henley last June), and is helping my mental state as well. Get me, I'm tough. *Grrrrr!*

There's No One As Irish As Barack O'Bama

2008-11-21T10:52:00.000Z

It turns out that Pirates wear underwear

2008-11-17T17:05:00.005Z

Who knew?

It also turns out that they will wear their underwear until it is so riddled with holes it can double as a fishing net. At which point they keep wearing it.

So I had a very Middle Class moment the other week. No, not quite that middle class. Or even that. But middle class enough for me.

I went to Mark's & Spencer's to buy underwear for my man.* And then stood around in the men's underwear department with a bunch of other middle-aged housewives complaining that our men refuse to buy their own underwear, but complain about the stuff we buy for them.

It was all terribly middle class, dahlink.

* I eventually got him these.

ps. The bestest part was looking around at the packaging and realizing that my Pirate is more fit and better hung than all the professional underwear models. Yee-haw baby!

It turns out that Pirates wear underwear.

2008-11-17T17:05:00.001Z

Sleeping the Plank

2008-11-15T21:52:00.002Z

The plywood did the trick.

I went down to the lumber yard (1/2 mile walk), picked out a sheet of plywood, got them to trim it to the right dimensions for me and deliver it that afternoon. Whacked it on the bed with the help of the Pirate when he got home from swashbuckling, and lo! A (mostly) firm bed!

It's still a bit spongy, but eliminating the give from the box spring has done a lot to firm it up. The big change is that now I can turn over at night, which I couldn't before. That helps a LOT.

So this will get us through at least until the New Year. Pirate has finally been persuaded that we need a new bed anyway, if only to upgrade in size. After I spent three nights on the floor* and he had room to stretch out, I climbed back in and he declared the bed too small.**

*In my nest. I slept on my camping bedroll between the bed and the wall, a space about 2 feet wide and 8 feet long. I had 3 pillows (two for under my head and one for hugging***) and burried myself under 2 down duvets (one of which was king size and folded in half). It was a proper little nest. I quite enjoyed it.

** Which I told him when we registered for the duvet on the wedding list. I insisted on getting a king size because I knew we'd need a king-sized**** bed as soon as we could afford it. He scoffed. Ha!

*** this is critical

**** A king size bed in the UK is equivalent to a queen size in the USA*****

***** I'm trying to beat GSE for the Most Footnotes In The Footnotes Prize

Back to back

2008-11-10T17:17:00.003Z

My back has been getting slowly but steadily worse for several weeks. By this weekend I was having serious problems, including but not limited to:

pain that reduced me to tears every time i sneezed or coughed
an inability to bend over to put on my own knickers
an inability to bend over to wash my face
an inability to get into a car w/o assistance
an inability to twist around to wipe my own ass

So I finally did it. I slept on the floor.

I expected that I might feel somewhat better after a night on the floor, instead of in a bed so soft that when you sit on it your ass sinks below the level of your knees. I did not expect that after one night on the floor that I would feel completely fine.

That pretty much settles it. We need a new mattress.

For budget reasons we'd really rather not make a major purchase until after Christmas. As a stop-gap we're going to try putting a sheet of plywood between the mattress and box spring. Several people have suggested that this will help, so it seems the obvious first step.

(Oh, and I've got an appointment with the doctor in the morning to see if there's anything else that can be done from a medical perspective. In the past 2 years the NHS has shown a distinct disinterest in my back problems, but this is a new doctor so maybe he'll be more openminded to helping a 29-year-old healthy woman with chronic pain issues. I'm not holding my breath, though.)

Thank you, NRA

2008-11-08T18:16:00.000Z

Keep up the good work.

Insomniac

2008-11-08T05:51:00.002Z

It's 6 am. I've been awake for 2 hours. I don't think I'll go back to bed this morning.

The bed is horrible. It's too small and too soft. With Pirate in it I've got no room to move. My half of the bed is smaller than my mummy sleeping bag. And the mattress is awful. It's really old and completely soft. When you sit on the bed your butt goes all the way down to the box spring. It's doing my back in. I can't turn over in it, and if I'm in one position too long my back hurts. I wake up 6 times a night just to roll over, which I have to sit up to do.

But despite all this I've been able to sleep. It's taken 9 or 10 hours a night to get the equivalent rest of 7 or 8 good hours, but that's ok. Tonight it was the temperature issue again.

I'm cold. I'm always cold. It's a fact of life.

Pirate is hot. (My god is he hot!) He generates heat like a little sea-faring blast furnace. So I want loads of covers and he wants none. USUALLY.

Except the last few nights. It finally got cold here, and he's been complaining that his shoulders are getting cold, because I like to have an arm on top of the blankets and he likes them all the way up to his chin, but when I put an arm out it pushes them all down to the level of his armpit and his shoulders get cold.

So all night tonight as the covers have been sliding all over with their usual independent-mindedness (why the hell do blankets not stay where you put them????), I've been adjusting them to keep Pirate tucked in the way he likes.

When I woke up to move or pee (it's hard to tell sometimes what wakes me) I discovered ALL the blankets and duvets piled on top of me like a 4-foot-deep dollop of wool whipped cream. I couldn't move. I woke Pirate and said "AREN'T YOUR SHOULDERS COLD!??!?!".

"No," he replied. "I'm baking. You can have the covers."

Aaaaaaaaaagggg!

I dumped them all on top of him and got up to blog and eat chocolate chip cookies.

Historic

2008-11-05T16:30:00.003Z

While the last bricks of a long-held, deep-seeded American bigotry were being pulled down in Tuesday's historic election,

a new one

rears

it's ugly, ugly head.

I'm absolutely thrilled that America finally decided a black child can have the same dreams of growing up to be president as a white child. I'm utterly appalled that a lot of those same people think they get a say in who people marry.

Eighteen THOUSAND couples in California who got married this summer, thanks to the acknowledgment of their rights by the CA legislature and supreme court, have just been told that their marriages aren't valid. That despite the licenses, vows, parties, and cakes, they are no longer married, because of a bunch of bigots decided so.

I can't imagine how I would feel if someone came a long and told me that I was no longer married to Pirate. That for some reason the public disapproved, and without my consent, invalidated my marriage.

I think I would kill myself.

What happened today in California is utterly despicable.

Today I'm thrilled for Obama, but I'm still weeping for the state of civil rights in America. Congratulations, African-Americans, you're officially off the bottom rung of the latter. You've been replaced by a deeper loathing of gays.

It's finaly happened.

2008-11-02T22:55:00.001Z

I've actually begun dreaming about the election.

In my dream last night Obama won the popular vote but the electoral college was tied. Since I have no idea what happens in that (highly unlikely) scenario, my dream came to a screeching halt as my brain tried to figure out where to take the plot next.

Does anyone know what happens if the electoral college ties???

Wake-up Call

2008-10-28T09:41:00.003Z

Every now and again a news story comes along that I feel compelled to share.

MORON STUNNED THAT ALLOWING 8-YR-OLD TO PLAY WITH UZI RESULTS IN ACCIDENTAL DEATH

This is my favorite part of the story:

"This accident was truly a mystery to me," he said. "This is a horrible event, a horrible travesty, and I really don't know why it happened."

Um, it happened because you thought it would be cute to let your kid fire an Uzi. Jesus H. Christ in a hula-hoop. Are people really that dumb?? Yes, yes they are.

The Point At Which I Thew Up. The First Time.

2008-10-26T07:49:00.006Z

Thursday was Traf Night on the base. Yes, I know that Tuesday was actually the anniversary of the battle of Trafalgar, but they didn't celebrate until Thursday. It was a personnel-only night, so I couldn't go and join in the reindeer games. Instead I had a neighbor 'round for tea. (How very English of me.)

Pirate came back at quarter past one in the morning and announced that we were spending the weekend on a yacht with a bloke from work, his bird, and some other people he'd not met.

I have never been on a yacht. My most recent memory of being on a boat that was powered by something other people was a fishing trip my parents took me on when I was 10 out on to Lake Michigan. My dad and I spent the whole time trowing up, and we didn't catch a single fish.

I agreed to go on the grounds that I'd never done it before, and as a rule I like to try new things. I was apprehensive, however, as this seemed to me the kind of activity that was highly dependent upon 2 things:

The quality of the company, and
The quality of the weather.

If the company was lively and the weather calm, it was sure to be a good time.
If the company was dull and the weather lively, it had disaster written all over it.

It started out well enough. The dawn broke radiantly over Rame Penninsula.

Red sky in the morning; Sailor, take warning!

(That was the actual view out our bedroom window on the morning of the excursion.)

We tootled in to Plymouth where we met the crew at the marina and went aboard.

All aboard the HMS Upchuck!

Our skipper had recently passed his Master Yachtsman qualifications, so we were in good hands. All seemed to be going well, and I started to get excited. (Not that way, you filthy sots.)

We got through the lock and out of the marina with no trouble, and set a course to take us around Plymouth breakwater on the west side, then head east for Shag Rock and up the River Yealm, where we moor in the harbor, have dinner in a charming pub in the charming village of Newton Ferrers, sleep on the boat, and return home Sunday morning. It seemed like a good plan. Essentially camping, but on the water. This sounded good to me.

Initially, it was all going very well.

Pirate, relaxing.

Then it all started to go horribly, horribly wrong.

As soon as we got past the breakwater the water got really, really rough, and so did the rest of us. Pirate, despite being an experienced sea-farer, has no sea legs. He was the first to go green. He went below deck to lie down, but that was a mistake. As soon as he got down the steps he lost his stomach, but managed (rather heroically) to hold it in his mouth until he could get back up to the cockpit and spit it over the side.

(Is this all getting a bit too disgusting? Deal. Reading this isn't a fraction as bad as living it, and I survived. You will, too.)

For a while I was doing OK. I stayed up in the cockpit, keeping in the fresh air and my eyes on the horizon. It worked, too, for about 20 minutes. And then I committed a fatal error. Getting bored with looking at nothing but an empty horizon, I just happened to glance down at the water at the side of the boat. The waves were swelling and undulating seductively beneath me. I instantly threw up.

I had no warning. One second I was fine, and the next I was spewing that morning's sausage and spetzle into the wind, spraying the two women who were sitting aft of me.

And then I did it again. And again. And again.

I spent the next 10 minutes heaving over the side of the boat in rapid succession. It was too winding for much of it to actually reach the water. Mostly it just blew all over the place.

I didn't know it at the time, but one of the other guys was on the opposite side of the boat, doing the same thing. The remaining few were standing in the cockpit between us, desperately trying to dodge flying chunks.

Having offered the entire contents of my stomach to the fish, I got a bucket and doused down the deck, then settled in to endure the rest of journey. As we reached the mouth of the River Yealm I saw the calm water on the leeward side of the land and began counting down the seconds until we reached it.

We finally got ourselves bouyed in what might well be the prettiest little harbor village in the British Isles.

I'd really like to go back and spend some more time in the village. It was a really lovely place to be. But next time, I'll take a FUCKING BUS.

After we were securely moored they let me play around in the dinghy, and that was the best part of the whole trip. I really like that bit.

Conclusion: the only boats worth being in are the ones you power yourself.

After a long walk along the coast and dinner in the Pub, Pirate and I couldn't face going back to Plymouth the same way we'd come, so we phoned a cab and went home by car. Last night we got a peaceful night's sleep in our own beds. Today the weather is shit. I can't imagine what the rest of the crew are going through to get home.

And people do this for fun????

Update: The skipper and his gf came by today to drop off our bags. Apparently it was a rough night on the boat, with lots of wind blowing it about the harbor, and people got little, if any, sleep. We totally made the right call. Boo-yeah.

TAFKACB

2008-10-13T11:22:00.002Z

(The Artist Formerly Known As Chaucer's Bitch)

Timorous Beastie recently brought it to my attention that there might be some confusion over what to call me, now that my name has changed:

"Bitch, I don't know what to call you now! I can't call you Pirate, as that's him indoors. Mrs Chaucer seems too formal, and besides, it's you, not him with the Chaucer connection. Any suggestions?"

It occured to me that other people might have been wondering the same thing, so I thought I'd better address the issue.

I guess the answer is: whatever you want to call me is fine.

One thing I've noticed is that just about everyone called me something different, anyway. People seem to generate their own pet names, and that's cool with me.

Dave used to refer to me as "Chaucer's Lady-friend." (He has an excellent sense of propriety.) I suppose now that I've become respectable he'll call me Mrs. Pirate, and that's fine, or he may come up with something else.

A lot of people referred to me as CB, which I quite like, and anyone who fancies is invited to continue to address me as such. Or perhaps people would like to switch to CP, my new initials? That certainly works.

Herebe Monsters took to calling me Ceebs, which I always found rather endearing. I hope he doesn't stop.

Some people have called me simply Bitch, which is also fine. Hell, I've been called that since I was 11 years old, and getting married is unlikely to change that, so by all means carry on!

Annie Rhiannon tends to call me Chauce or Chaucer's, and again, that works just fine.

It's funny how the blonkosphere (if I may commandeer a term of Annie's) reflects the real world. In meatspace just about everyone I know has their own nickname for me. I've been called everything from Snowblower Lips (thanks to Andre Wajtusik in first grade) to Wench (first bf in college), as well as all possible variations on my given name, of which there are many. I like that.

Naming things is, on a fundamental level, a sign of ownership (Yes, I've read Genesis and I think that part is spot on.), but it also says "you are special to me." You don't go to the trouble of naming something to which you are completely indifferent. It takes effort and thought, even if your goal is to insult. (Cheers, Andre.)

People sometimes ask me when they first meet me, "Do you prefer {my full name} or {the obvious nickname}?" and I always tell them that either is fine. I like people to make up their own mind about what to call me. They always have in the past, and I think that's A Good Thing.

Worth Watching

2008-10-10T11:31:00.002Z

This video is over an hour long, but why don't you give it a go tonight instead of Big Brother or Antiques Road Show? You won't regret it.

You waited long enough, so here they are!

2008-10-09T15:34:00.005Z

I'm really torn as to how to present these. My instinct is to do it chronologically, which seems more factually documentaric. But it won't be the most dramatic. No, I want to give them to you with the big splash at the end. So this is going to be a bit random, but I'm sure you can cope with that.

All the photos with the little watermark in the corner were taken by Hamish Roots, owner of Light Over Water Photography. He is the shiznit.

The others were taken by my parents' friend, Joanie.

The Infamous Cake

My dress
(And no, this shot wasn't posed. I didn't even know it was being taken. I always stand that straight.)

Me and Pirate leaving the church

The Wedding Party (from left to right): The Cake, Vi, Miss Mellville, Me, Pirate, and some dudes.

Dancing with my Daddy

Dancing with the Pirate

Sharing a giggle after all the photos have been taken
(Isn't Hamish an awesome photographer???)

Walking across to the hotel for the reception
(I love the way you can see the movement of my dress in this shot.)

There's drama, and then there's drama.

Eat yer heart out, Julie Andrews/Princess Di/any other Royal
(Poised, but not posed. This one is candid.)

A Pirate's Wedding, Part III: Walking the Plank

2008-10-09T10:06:00.002Z

Walking to the church was almost the best part. I was with my dad and my amazing awesome wonderful friends, who were the best bridesmaids in the universe. (Seriously.) The sky was blue, it was a crisp, early autumn day, the kind that make September your favorite month of the year. Though I never would have admitted it before hand (I would have said that the weather didn't matter so long as, at the end of the day, i was married), it was exactly the kind of day I'd always wanted for my wedding, since I was a little girl.

We crossed the street, I with my dress tucked up around my knees, and headed for the church. We approached the church from the south door, through the garden. If you know St. Mary Redcliffe, you know what a pretty walk it is. Walking down that cobbled path towards the 14th c. gothic church I felt like an absolute queen. It was impossible not to let a few tears slip through. I knew that when I saw my Pirate waiting for me I would either get it under control or lose it completely, but I had no idea which and I was terrified. Not terrified of getting married, you understand, just of totally losing my composure in front of a hundred guests, friends, and family. And video camera.

(Oh, the video arrived today! Hurrah!)

We stopped in the porch of the south door to give everyone a chance to take their places. (Mom insisted on waiting for me at the church door and wouldn't sit down until I'd arrived, and then insisted on being shown to her seat by one of the groomsmen. Nothing like making things more complicated than they need to be, is there?)

The Cake attached my train, which she'd been carrying for me, the groomsman went to give the musicians their cue, and the round and vibrant notes of Holst's 'Jupiter' filled the church from the corner where the brass quintet was sitting next to the giant organ.*

And that's all I remember with much coherence. After that it all becomes a bit of a blur. We sang "Simple Gifts," the old Shaker hymn about love and happiness. Pirate's brother played the violin while we sang "This Is The Day." They sang "Eternal Father Strong To Save" while we signed the register, which is good because it meant I didn't have to sing about "those in peril on the sea," which is the last line of every verse of that song. Ugh. (Pirate really wanted it.)

We had two readings, the one from Corinthians that everyone uses, and one from the Song of Songs about the difference between love and jealousy, which had a neat line about "deep waters cannot quench love," which I thought was quite apt.

Oh, how could I forget the sermon??? Poor Rev. Wendy had no idea what she'd done. She launched into this metaphor of marriage as baking a cake, and needing all the right ingredients etc. Poor woman had absolutely NO CLUE that I'd made our wedding cake, or about the dozens of hours of practice and all the drama that went along with it. I got such a case of the giggles that Pirate at one point even took my hand and squeezed it in that "get control of yourself" gesture. My mom and bridesmaids were absolutely wetting themselves in the front pew. The verger, John, who runs a very tight ship, was utterly scandalized by our behavior until we explained to him afterwards what all the giggling had been about.

And I remember keeling before the altar, barely able to keep myself from sliding off the kneeler, which was too high and made very slippery by all the sating and chiffon between it and my knees. I took Pirate's hand and he held me up so I wouldn't slide off.

I remember spending a lot of time looking at Rev. Wendy's vestments, which were clearly all hand embroidered and centuries old. They depicted scenes from Christ's life, and were very medieval in style.

And I remember listening to Pirate say his vows. Unlike the rehearsal the night before, where we whispered them in practice and didn't look at each other, he looked me straight in the eyes and said in full voice

I, The Pirate, take thee, Chaucer's Bitch, to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth.

The exchange of rings was even better...

With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow.

I love the line "With my body I thee worship." It's so beautiful and so potent. I like the fact that the C of E recognizes and exults the physical, as well as the emotional and intellectual, aspects of marriage.

I did have to restrain myself so that I didn't giggle when it was my turn to say "and with all my worldly goods I thee endow." I was thinking both of all the carloads of crap that the poor man spend so many hours hauling, driving, and unpacking for me. I was also thinking of my huge student debt. Friggin what worldly goods? I'm poorer than a churchmouse. (Except for the dozens of houseplants and suitcases full of rowing apparel.)

And then it was over. Suddenly they were playing the Ode To Joy and we were walking out. I looked up and there were all these smiling faces, all these friends and family that I love so much were beaming at us.

At the back of the church we ducked into a side chapel and hid so the bridesmaids could shoo the guests outside. That was our fist chance to be alone together as husband and wife. I turned to the Pirate to demand a proper kiss (the one during the service being heavily laced with Social Propriety), and saw that he was crying. It was the first and only time I have ever seen a tear roll down his cheek.

That's all for now, but there's more coming. I have lots to tell you about the reception and things, which was great fun. And there are photos coming, I promise!!! xoxoxo

*Hehehe. I said 'giant organ.' Geddit? Organ?? Oh, never mind.

My eyes, my eyes!!!! blood curdling scream

2008-10-08T13:48:00.005Z

Part III will have to wait because guess what? I have impetigo!* In my EYES!

It started last Saturday as an itchy bump on the bottom of my chin. Monday morning I had developed what i thought was a cold sore on the corner of my mouth. As luck would have it, I had to see the doctor that day anyway to get my gym pass signed off. (If Pirate brings it back today I can go use the gym on the base for free any time I want, including all the classes and stuff. cool!)

Long story short, it's now on my chin, the corner of my mouth, my left ear, and both eyelids, which are swollen, blistering, oozing yellow puss, and itching like the blazes. You have NO IKEA how miserable this is.

Good thing Pirate and I are having company for dinner tonight -- some of his work colleagues. I look awesome!

(And yes, I asked the doctor when I went back this morning if it was safe for me to prepare food for people, and he said it was. Now I'm using an antibiotic cream and taking oral antibiotics. That should kill the little feckers.)

*Do a Google image search. I dare you.

A Pirate's Wedding, Part II: Full Speed Ahead

2008-10-07T14:59:00.004Z

Gak! I wanted to get loads of beauty sleep the night before my wedding. I wanted to relax, read my new issue of New Scientist, maybe blog a bit, or spend some time in the spa that is in the hotel. Alas, to no avail. I didn't even have time to go for a swim in the pool in the bathroom that was masquerading as a tub. (The hotel really came up trumps with the room, and gave us this gargantuan suite with a superking bed and shower you could throw a party in. And it was cheap. They really treated us like royalty.*

No, instead I was up dealing with cake things until bloody midnight. Miss Melville SHOULD have stayed over with me, instead she wound up taking a cab back to her hotel and breaking inn. (Did you see what I did there?) Ask her nicely and she'll tell you all about it.

After printing off the readings for the service tomorrow (which I'd completely forgotten to do beforehand, sending me into a panic about what other totally obvious things I might have forgotten), I took a sleeping pill and went to bed, worrying about the cake in the fridge downstairs and whether the soupy frosting would set overnight to something useable. (It didn't.)

I woke up, took a shower, pinned my hair up, put on some jeans (thank got the wedding wasn't until 3 pm), and went downstairs for breakfast, where I was assaulted by my family, all my parents' friends, my future in-laws, and all their friends. It took me 30 minutes to extricate myself and I never did manage to eat anything. 9 am is WAY too early in the day for social niceities.

I got the marvelous people at the hotel to get the cake out for me and take it up to the Forrest Suite, where the reception would be held. The frosting was still soup. I called The Cake on my mobile. "Cake, we need more frosting. Can you run to Sainsbury's and buy 6 tubs of whatever they have that's white?"
The Cake: "No, because I'm so bloated I can't zip my dress up. I have to go into town to buy expensive suck-me-in underwear. I'll send The Pud."

The Pud, bless his heart, showed up with 6 tubs of Betty Crocker vanilla frosting. Perfect. (I still haven't paid him back for that. I really must remember to do that.)

Big Wally kept Smally Wally entertained while Vi, MM and I frosted and assembled the cake. Except for the 2nd tier, which was too big and rather misshapen, it looked great. That took a while. My brother and Sister-in-law set up the place cards and favors, and MM took my phone away from me and made herself my P.A. for the day, so I wouldn't have to answer the 4,000 phone calls that came in.

Eventually I had to go get my hair done. The cake was assembled, but I hadn't put the crystallized flowers on it yet. MM and I ran to the hairdressers, where Zoe did an absolutely AMAZING job. It looked so beautiful I lost the plot right there in the salon and broke down in tears for the first time that day. I'd never felt so pretty in my life. It cost a bleeding fortune, but it was worth every penny.

It was a stunningly gorgeous blue fall day. After the shit pissing wet summer we've had, with cold and rain and blowing every day, the sun broke through and it was utterly glorious. MM and I walked back from the hair dressers holding hands and singing "Going to the chapel" and "Get me to the church on time" with the sun on our faces. I'm sure the local onlookers though we were lesbians. I'm OK with that.

Then I ran back up to the Forrest Suite to put the candied pansies on the cake. By now it was after 2, the service was at 3, and I hadn't even started getting dressed yet!

My dad came up (looking very dapper I might add) and took the flowers away from me, saying he'd finish it for me (which was great because he's probably the only person in the world I would trust to do that) and ordered me to go get dressed.

When I got to my room it was a frenzy of half-naked bridesmaids throwing clothes around and attempting to apply makeup while stuffing me and themselves into a variety of cumbersome dresses.

I put on my makeup (very minimal, only took 5 minutes), and then someone had to help me into my underwear. My aunt and my mother showed up at this point, and so got an awesome view of my uber-sexing wedding-night smalls as The Cake (and this bit is absolutely HEROIC) spent 10 minutes on her knees behind be, my ass full in her face, as she attempted to connect the tops of my stockings to the little garter strap thingys. The woman is a saint. MM can attest to this.

I did not feel at all on display while this was going on and random family members came in to watch. No, not at all. Why is it that watching a bride get dressed is such a big damn deal? Why do people feel the need to be a part of the audience??? You wouldn't believe how long it took me to convince the videographer and photographer that I didn't want them in there. They refused to believe me. The photographer showed up anyway and I sent him away and told him to get pictures of the guests arriving at the church. Argh.

Eventually we were all ready. I have no idea what time it was, nor did I care. (It's not like they were going to start with out me.) Dad, who was standing patiently outside the door and only knocked every 23 seconds to see if I was ready yet, gave me his arm and we, accompanied by my bridesmaids, headed over to the church.

Stay tuned for Part III!

*I'm accustomed to staying in youth hostels and cheap roadside motels, so it was a rather novel experience for me to be able to pick up the phone by the bed (the room was so big it came with TWO phones!) and say to the French accent at reception "This is room 504. Could you please arrange a taxi for me and send someone up with a luggage trolley right away? Thanks." And it would happen. Just like that. Ask, and it shall be done. It was frightening how fast I got used to being waited on hand and foot. Maybe obscene wealth isn't such a bad thing after all?...

A Pirate's Wedding, Part I: A Bottle of Rum

2008-10-05T10:07:00.004Z

There was a lot of drinking. There needed to be. After the stress of cleaning and moving out of my flat* the arrival of my bridesmaids was a more than welcome relief. Miss Melville came down from Aberdeen and Vi flew in from America with her husband, Wally, and their son, Smally Wally. The Paleo-embryologist (also known as the Welsh Cake, or 'Cake' for short) was the only one of the three who actually lived anywhere near me, and had been keeping me sane all summer by taking me to The Ram and pouring rose' down my gullet whenever I got stressed out.

So Thursday, the day before the wedding, exactly 3 things needed to be accomplished. They were
1. Print out the service books for the wedding and tie them with ribbons
2. Bake, frost, and decoarate the wedding cake
3. Attend the rehearsal

That's still a pretty full agenda.

The service booklets would have been done the day before if I hadn't fucked them up and if my printer hadn't wasted all the good paper I'd bought by printing off the fucked up copies even after I pressed the "cancel" button and dozen times and finally turned the thing off. So first thing Thursday it was hop it off to the stationery shop to buy more paper, phone dad and get him to come over to my hotel room where I'd set up my computer and laser printer and get him to supervise the rest of the printing, and then get Aunt Sr. Pain-in-the-Ass to fold, punch, and ribbon-tie all 90 copies.

That was accomplished by 10:30 am.

Then it was grab all the cake supplies and get a cab up to the University of Bristol Chaplaincy, where they have a full-size professional kitchen with TWO ovens, which i'd booked out for the purpose of baking my cake. (IRONIC: the reason I was able to use the chaplaincy is because I'm a member of the UofB Atheist society, which is part of the multi-faith forum, which has access to the chaplaincy office. Thus I, a godless heathen, was able to use my atheist connections to bake a cake in a chaplain's office for my giant, pompus church wedding. Brilliant.)

The bridesmaids were all supposed to meet me there at noon, and yet somehow, not one of them managed to make it there without assistance. I would take me too long to go to into the convoluted scenario when they all kept phoning me saying "I'm at the corner of pillarbox and lampost. Where are you and how do i find you?" but it took a while and became far more complicated than it ever should have been. You goofballs.

Finally cake-baking and wine-drinking commenced. The first thing that needed to happen was grating the 20 pounds of carrots for the carrot cake tiers. That took a while. The whole process was reasonably well organized though, and once we got the first cake in the oven it all went fairly well. At The Cake (the human one, not the eating one) and Miss Melville went to get my dress from The Cake's flat and take it to the hotel where i was staying, and I went with Vi and the Wallys to the church for the rehearsal.

The rehearsal was extremely rushed. We only had a 25 minute window, and the minister really rushed through everything. Which was kind of good because it kept my mother from interfereing and interrupting every 10 seconds with questions about irrelevancies, but it also didn't give time for the readers to practice their readings, which I thought was rather important. Pirate and I did get to practice our vows, using the names of Marge and Homer and not looking at each other. I managed to get through all the God bits without rolling my eyes, which was an accomplishment.

After that it was a fast dinner at the nearest restaurant** and then back up to keep working on the cake. This is where it all started to go tits up.

For one thing, the chaplaincy had double-booked the kitchen, and when I got back there were 3 muslim blokes there cooking a feast for Ramadan for about 50 people. I wasnt' able to get in the door. They said they would be gone in 10 minutes. An hour later they were still there so I just started working around them as best I could.

They finally left but the place was a mess. I was able to work around the mess, but when they came back to clean up it really go hairy. I needed the sink to keep washing mixing bowls and utensils as i changed back and forth between carrot and lemon cake and frosting, but they were using the sink. That killed another 45 minutes of valuable time.

Then at one point one of them TURNED OFF THE OVENS!. Thank GOD the Cake noticed and we turned them straight back on so there was no damage done. If she hadn't seen that happen 2 tiers of my cake would have been ruined.

And then finally one of the batches of frosting didn't turn out. For some reason it was complete soup. It wasn't usable. So we weren't able to get the whole cake frosted that night.

The Cake's b.f. (The Pud) turned up about 11 pm from York where he's doing his PhD in entymology. We called a cab to take the cake (small c) to my hotel where they agreed to refridgerate it for me overnight. The 4 of us -- The Cake, The Pud, Miss Melville and myself -- piled into a cab, and between us we were able to hold on to all 4 tiers of cake and the bowl of soupy frosting. It was nearly midnight when we got to the hotel, and the cake was still only half frosted!

Stay tuned for part II: The Big Day

*I vacated my flat on the Wednesday before the wedding and moved in to the hotel. On Thursday morning I woke up and discovered I'd left ALL my socks and underwear behind.
**The Rehearsal Dinner isn't a custom over here in the UK, which is good because I was able to eat and run

WE'RE MARRIED!!!!!

2008-09-26T08:49:00.002Z

Hi all! I'm sorry I haven't been able to blog. As you know, I moved out of my flat last Wednesday week. The days leading up to the wedding were manic, despite my best efforts at preparation and organization. (Remind me to tell you about baking the cake.)

The wedding last Friday we beautiful. After 4 months of rain and grey and utterly shit weather, the sun broke through and we we had absolutely spectacular weather. My bridesmaids were fantastic, and as we walked to the church with all our flowers, me on my father's arm, I felt like a queen. (Looked like one, too. Might as well be honest.)

The service was lovely. Even the minister said it was the nicest wedding she'd ever presided. The light was blazing in through the stained glass, and all the church was aglow with autum flowers and amber light. I will post photos as soon as I have some. I, obviously, wasn't taking pictures, so I don't have any off my own camera to upload.

The reception was a blast, and by 11 pm the dancing was getting very silly indeed. I got thrown from person to person during Cotton-eyed Joe until I passed out, and Pirate's sea-faring friends did some very inappropriate things with his mother. Oh, and I have to tell you about the paper airplanes!

During dinner Pirate began writing his speech (nothing like a little preparation, is there?). He had a pad of paper, which promptly got confiscated by his mates for paper airplanes, which were thrown all over the room. There were dozens of them going back and forth, landing in people's food, the candles, hitting people in the head, etc. It was a great laugh. Then when it was time for speeches, when Pirate stood up the entire room threw all their paper airplanes at him, as well as a few napkins and anything else they could lay hands on. It was absolutely hilarious. Despite having the air of complete spontenaity, we found out later that my dad had orchestrated the whole thing during dinner with a particularly effective game of 'telephone'!

Anyway, now that i'm back online I'll have lots more stories to tell, and hopefully some pictures soon.

Married life is great! xoxooxoxox

Exhausted

2008-09-17T07:34:00.002Z

It's taken me 3 days to clean up the nasty-ass fucking mess my disgusting flatmates left behind for me to deal with.

I had to mop the kitchen floor 5 times. (The third time I did it the water was still black at the end, and the kitchen is less than 10x10 feet.) There were rotting vegetables in the fridge drawers, the bottom of the fridge was full of fetid water. There was rancid yogurt spilled all over the shelves. There were EMPTY wrappers from smoked fish tucked away in the back. Yes, at some point someone unwrapped some smoked fish and put the oily WRAPPER back in the fridge.

There was grease all over everything -- that filmy grease that floats in the air from deep frying and settles everywhere. They left me pots, pans, cutlery, plates, dishes, bowls, mugs, chopsticks, 8 tubes of assorted plastic wrap and tin foil, knives, and rusty rice steamers to deal with. They took their trash out of their bedrooms and left it in bags on the kitchen floor for me to take out to the dumpster. In the last 48 hours I have removed 9 full bags of garbage, none of which was mine.

The kitchen is finally done. I am shattered. I've barely slept in 3 days. Last night I finally had 8 hours to myself, and one of my bridesmaids sent me a text at 6 am, waking me up. Instantly my mind started spinning with everything I had to do today, and it became impossible to get back to sleep.

I'm so tired I'm ill. I don't feel awake, but my adreneline is keeping me going. Living on adrenaline is not fun. It gives me the shakes, like too much caffeine, and I feel agitated and jumpy. I've got a pounding headache (also from the adrenaline) and I feel slightly nauseas. I just want to go to sleep.

Now I get to clean my room -- it will take about an hour to vacuum and wipe all the surfaces and clean the bathroom -- and then I move out of here altogether. When that happens I will move in to the hotel for the rest of the week, at which point I won't have email. It's unlikely I'll post again until after the wedding, or even have a chance to read your blogs. If Pirate's done his job and gotten the internet hooked up in Plymouth I should be back online sometime next week, a married woman.

Stay tuned.

And yes, there will be photographs.

Short Human

2008-09-16T14:11:00.003Z

One of my teammates just announced she's pregnant, so I had this printed up for her at the T-shirt place up the road.
Well what the hell else do you get a knocked-up rower??? (Someone better get me one of these when I start spawning, that's all I'm saying.)

Alone

2008-09-14T22:38:00.004Z

Tonight I am alone. Pirate has left for the week. (When we woke up this morning I looked at him and realized that the next time we wake up together it will be as husband and wife. Wow.)

Not only that, all my flatmates have gone. I am the last person in the flat.

I am also the last person in the entire 8-storey, 200-occupant building. Everyone else left Friday, or Saturday at the latest, but I got special leave to remain since I had no where else to go before the wedding.

Now, my flatmates were pretty fucking anti-social. I rarely saw or spoke to them. I knew they were there because the kitchen was constantly filthy, but that was the only evidence of their existence.

But somehow without them here the place is eerily quiet. It doesn't help that Pirate has also taken Goebbels (the evil, aryan, Nazi dwarf hamster) as well as Wong-Foo, Studly, Preggers, and Gluon (my Betta, 2 guppies, and their quantum offspring, respectively). The hamster wheel and aquarium bubbler have been my constant night-time noises for 3 years.

And because it's Sunday, there aren't even many drunk people outside screaming. There are fewer ambulances. There are no live bands at the pub downstairs. Even the seagulss have gone. (Thank fuck for that, anyway.) Except for the hum of normal traffic around St. Augustine's Parade, it is completely quiet.

I have never felt so alone in the middle of a huge city.

This is the first time since I arrived I'm locking myself in my bedroom while I sleep.

Awkward

2008-09-11T11:11:00.002Z

Remember the whole chocolate fountain thing? One thing I left out of the story was this:

After the idiots told me they couldn't set up at the agreed time I began looking for replacement suppliers. I Googled "chocolate fountain Bristol" and just started phoning down the list. One conversation went as such:

Me: (briefly explains situation)

Chocolate woman: Well, I suppose I could do it. I am technically free that day, but I'm not really taking bookings for the month of September. My teenage son was killed in a car crash on Monday and we haven't had the funeral yet... *starts to get choked up* ...but you're in a pinch...

Me: No! No, chocolate is not important. I don't want a fountain. Never mind. Oh God I'm so sorry... *hangs up*

Crisis du Moment, III

2008-09-11T11:08:00.002Z

Yesterday a bill arrived from FedEx. They seem to think I owe them 175 pounds in import duty for a package my mother sent me 6 weeks ago. It was a personal gift with a value less than $400, and so no duty is owed on it. For some reason they refuse to believe this. Moreover, the irritating letter came with huge writing across the top: FINAL WARNING. It was the first notice I'd received. Assholes. Somehow I need to convince them I don't owe them anything and get that in writing before they phone Experion and fuck up my credit rating.

Crisis du Moment, II

2008-09-09T18:39:00.003Z

or, Why You Should Not Take Driving Lessons With BSM

This afternoon's crisis was dealing with fucking BSM again. My god those people are fucking incompetent. It absolutely astounds me that they are still in business. (I even wrote that in the letter I sent them this morning.) Let's go in order, shall we?

Fuck up #1: The instructor never showed up for my first lesson. No phone call, no notification, nada. Just didn't show. I waited outside, in the rain, for 90 minutes, during which time I phoned them repeatedly to complain, and they insisted that, despite their failed attempts to contact the driver, they were sure everything was OK and he would be along any minute. It took an hour and half for them to clue in that something was amiss.

Fuck up #2: Against my better judgment I rescheduled the lesson, but I insisted on a different instructor. He showed up on time and was very nice and apologetic while he told me that he couldn't take me for a lesson. You see, I didn't have a provisional license. No one told me I needed one. When I first phoned BSM to book lessons I explicitly told them that I had an American driving license. No one said anything about needing a provisional or in any way indicated that having an American license was a barrier to receiving driving instruction.

Fuck up #3: After that I phoned and demanded a full refund. They were not apologetic. They tried to keep my business by offering to reschedule my lessons in Plymouth after the wedding, but they gave me no incentive whatsoever to do that. I insisted, and they said the cheque would be in the mail. Then I got a phone call three days later explaining that there had been "a clerical error" and that my refund would arrive in 2 separate cheques, on 2 separate days, so I should not spaz out when the first one arrived and it was for less than the full amount. At least they gave me a heads-up.

Fuck up #4: After more than a week an envelope finally arrived. It did not contain a cheque. It contained a letter explaining that they can only give refunds directly to the card with which I made the purchase. That's fair enough, but why were 2 different employees on 2 separate occasions convinced I would receive a cheque??? Furthermore, the letter said (and I am not making this up) "Will we refund you the full amount of [my postode]." Yes, they actually put my postcode where the amount should have gone. Someone doesn't know the difference between a monetary sum and a postcode??? It's also highly suspicious, since because of that error nowhere did it say in the letter how much they owed me. The letter committed them to paying me absolutely nothing because they neglected to include the amount. Frankly, I don't think it was a mistake. I think it was them being slimy. So I sent a copy to my solicitor, along with a copy of my reply to them (which basically said everthing I've just written here).

It's going to take forever to get that 222 pounds back, I can tell. I must say, I felt a profound kinship with GSE all day. This is just the sort of shit that seems to happen to her with statistically improbable frequency.

Crisis du Moment

2008-09-09T18:25:00.002Z

So this morning's crisis was the chocolate fountain people* emailing me to inform me that despite our agreement, they would not be able to have the table and fountain set up in the reception hall before 5 pm. Instead, the earliest they could do it is 7 pm, and I would just have to deal with the fact that they would be hauling in crates and boxes and tables while the guests are seated at dinner. Um, noooooooooo.

So there I was, 10 days before my wedding, trying to hire a replacement chocolate fountain (Pirate really really really really wants one). I spent 3 hours on the internet and phone getting quotes from the few places that had availability. The best I could get was 75 pounds more than what we had originally paid. I said I would check with the Pirate and get back to him in the evening.

Then I called my contact at the reception hall just to let her know what was going on. "No problem," she said. "I'll take care of it." She asked for the details of my arrangement with the original chocolate people, which I gave her. 10 minutes later she rang me back to say she'd found a reputable place that would do everything we wanted and more for the same price. She's worked with them before and she trusts them. Brilliant!

So I phoned back the chap who gave me the quote that was 75 pounds above our budget to tell him we didn't need him after all. Here's the kicker: "I've just been on the phone to your friend at the hotel" quoth he. "She's booked me for your wedding." She got the same place I wanted, but she did it 75 quid cheaper! Brilliant!

Crisis averted. And since we're naming and shaming people, let's also give some good press to the wonderful people at the Mercure Holland House Hotel, who are being absolute stars. Thanks, guys!

*Clearly no one should ever hire these people. I believe in naming and shaming. (Now I just need to get my fucking 400 quid back.)

Sorry sheepish

2008-09-07T16:13:00.003Z

I am rubbish. I haven't posted in AGES, and for those few of you who give a shit it must have been really irritating. I'm sorry.

I can only make the excuse that planning a wedding, moving house, and trying to write a PhD is taking its toll. It's been frustrating for me, too, because I keep having all these thoughts that I want to share but don't have time to write down right away, and by the time I get the time I've forgotten them. But here are a few of the highlights from the past couple weeks:

Fringe:

Met Hendrix Cat for coffee and a truly great She Elephant for dinner (along with the Pirate). We had a delightful time and I was thrilled to meet both of them. I sincerely hope we have the chance to repeat the experience.

Saw Ed Byrne, who did half his routine on wedding planning. We were in pain from laughing so hard. That one really hit the zeitgeist's funny bone.

Politix:

Yay for Sarah Palin! She's going to destroy the GOP ticket. They talk big now, but at the end of the day a significant chunk of the Republicans won't vote for the McCain/Palin ticket for 2 reasons.
1. After all the flack about Obama's lack of experience, she's got even less. And everyone knows that if McCain gets elected, there's a better than average chance he won't live out the full term. She's so inexperienced she even said "Can someone explain to me just what the VP does all day?" Even the republicans, when pressed, won't vote for that kind cluelessness.

2. Her so-called "family values." She was brought in because McCain is too liberal (snort) for the evangelical right wingers. She's certainly nutty enough, but she's a mother with 5 kids all in school including an infant with a serious disability. The extreme conservative right think she should be home taking care of them! A man with her positions might have been a boon to the ticket, but not a woman with a baby.

She was also brought in to pick up some of the Hillary camp, but (most) women won't be stupid enough to vote for a vagina that is hell bent on taking away women's rights to control their own snatches.

And finally, she's so right wing wacko conservative that she'll put off a lot of the moderate undecideds that Obama is trying to woo and send them running to his camp.

So at the end of the day a lot of Republicans won't vote for a ticket with Palin on it, and they sure as shit won't vote for Obama, so they'll stay home. Result: low voter turnout on election day and victory for Obama. Thus spake Zarathustra.

Bridal shower:

Bridesmaid tried to plan one for me. Not one person came. So she tried again. ONE person came. They don't have showers over here, and I don't think anyone really "got it" or understood how important it was. *sad*

Wedding:

AAaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
The bridesmaids dresses were supposed to be rust-colored, not pumpkin orange. I sincerely hope my friends don't feel like they're walking down the isle in giant traffic cones. The swatch did NOT look that bright, I swear!

House:

Pirate has just collected the keys to our future house (only 12 days away!) and has begun taking carloads of my stuff down to Plymouth. I haven't been to Plymouth yet, but he brought me pictures. The garden and views are fantastic, the furniture is acceptable, and the kitchen appliances are strangely nonexistent. I really don't know how you can call something "fully furnished" and not include a refrigerator! So guess who's going fridge shopping this week? Yup, not me!

Fringe Bingo

2008-08-25T15:53:00.003Z

After last year's storming success, Pirate and I decided to go back to the Fringe this year. It's not a cheap 3 days, but is seriously good fun. There is loads to see, but inevitably there are dead spots during the evening when you are between shows, have already eaten dinner, and need to kill an hour when the museums and galleries are closed. This is where the real Fringe entertainment happens.

The Edinburgh Fringe is, no doubt, one of the best places for people-watching on the planet outside of NYC. There is some serious variety, and some proper weirdos.

But Pirate and I, being competitive by nature, found a way to make people-watching a contest. Enter Fringe Bingo, stage left. Plonk yourselves outside a pub or cafe' on the Royal Mile, pull out your FB cards, and go to town. I have provided a sample card below. (Obviously if you are going to play you need to print out 2 copies, but cut one up and rearrange the squares to make the second copy.)

From the Fringe veterans I would love to hear your suggestions for adding to the card for next year.

Out with a fizzle

2008-08-24T16:56:00.003Z

Today was my last regatta. I am officially retired from rowing. If I find myself in a position (read: location) to take it up again, i probably will, but for the time being that's it.

And i got spanked. NOT how I wanted it to end.

The race in the quad was OK. It was a decent row, but we lost by 1/2 a length. They got up on us in the first 200, and there just wasn't room to come back. But we rowed pretty well, they were just better. It happens.

The double, on the other hand, was entirely my fault. I was just shit. There's no other way to put it. I was rowing as though we were fighting horrendous conditions like gale force crosswinds and whitecaps on the water, except we weren't. There was a steady tail wind and a few ripples on the canal, but I was tense and smacking the water (my blade work was shocking), and by the time I got myself together and began rowing properly it was too late. They had 3 lenghts on us by 200m, and the whole race was only 600m.

So there it was.

At least it was fast. The day, that is. I arrived, rigged the boats, launched the quad, paddled up, lost, got out, racked the quad, launched the double, paddled up, lost, got out, de-rigged, and left. All within the space of a couple hours. Today had all the joy and efficiency of a well-ordered execution.

And now I'm done.

2008-08-12T08:41:00.002Z

Oh sweet Jesus. Whatever we do, we must not, under any circumstances, elect John McCain. He has supported every one of Bush's proposals, and will carry out any legislative or governmental changes enacted by Bush, including this new catastrophe. We cannot allow this to happen.

On a more cheerful note, I am leaving today to visit Pirate and the in-laws for a week, then Pirate and I are going up to the Fringe for a few days. I will still be available on Blogger and email, so I will be in touch with Edinburgh bloggers. Whee! (I don't have time for a vacation, but holy fuck do I need one.)

Well so much for that

2008-08-09T21:01:00.004Z

The driving instructor from BSM never showed up today.

When he was 15 minutes late I phoned the BSM office and asked "where is he?" Give him more time, they said.
When he was 30 minutes late I phoned again. They apologized profusely and tried to contact the driver on his mobile. They rang me back to say they couldn't reach him, but they left him a message to call me. He did not.
When he was an hour late I rang back and said "tell him not to bother. I want my money back." They said I'd have to ring my local office to arrange a refund or a re-schedule.
When he was an hour and 15 minutes late HE rang ME to say "I'm running late. I won't be able to make it." NOW he tells me! Jerk.

I will reschedule on condition they give me
a) a different instructor
b) a free lesson
Otherwise I'm demanding a full refund (they require you pay for 10 hours of instruction up front, a total of 222.50 pound).

Also, where the hell were these guys when I was in Manchester, being kept away EVERY SINGLE NIGHT BY ASSHOLES PLAYING LOUD MUSIC???

If only they responded to seagull complaints. Oy vey.

Blogger Hook-up in the Burgh of Edin

2008-08-08T09:41:00.003Z

Pirate and I are going to spend a few days in Edinburgh at the Fringe this month. We'll be arriving in Edinburgh on Sunday 17th and staying for 3 nights, leaving on Wednesay 20th.

If anyone fancies a get-together for a meal or coffee or whatever, do let me know. (GSE??? Hendrix-cat?) Pirate and I would love to see you.

Stay off the roads

2008-08-05T22:03:00.002Z

for I am having my first driving lesson on Saturday.

Now, I can drive perfectly well. I've had a valid driving license for 13 years, with a near perfect record (1 speeding ticket, which was so long ago it's now off my record).

The trouble is that I've only ever driven an automatic transmission. Well, that's not completely true. I drove a manual (an old Chevy S-10 pickmeup truck) for one month my senior year of high school. I hated that truck and begged my parents to sell it, which they finally did to shut me up. (The replacement was a gas-guzzling 1987 Buick LeSabre which promptly received the nickname "Manatee Mobile" for it's flat grey color and gentle, lumbering, boat-like ride.)

But now that I'm in England I have to learn to drive a manual properly, for the simple reason that Pirate's car is a manual and he, quite understandably, does not want me to be dependent on him for lifts. Nor do I wish to be dependent. I can cope quite nicely with a bicycle, thank you.

But there will be times when I will simply need to be able to drive his car, and to do that I need to be able to drive a manual well and safely.

The problem is that I fundamentally resent the need to learn. As far as I can tell there is no need whatsoever for manuals transmissions to exist anywhere outside of professional racing vehicles. I grant you it's probably very helpful for Louis Hamilton. I'm sure he's better at shifting than any automatic, and in his profession fractions of a second matter.

But for the average idiot going to work and the shops there is no need for it whatsoever. It is a dangerous, archaic technology that could and should be completely replaced by newer advances. There are a myriad of alternatives, every single one of which is preferable to a standard stick shift, but which are perplexingly slow to catch on. They are:

(the obvious) automatic transmission (A surprising number of people don't know that every car with an automatic can be put manually into a low gear for when you need it, such as descending steep inclines or getting out of snow banks. You've got more control than you think.)
clutchless manual (This is an option on both the Smart Car and the Toyota Yaris. You still change gear when you want to, but there is no clutch to operate. The car does the clutching for you. Much easier to drive, and still affords all the control of a stick. WHY OH WHY HASN"T THIS CAUGHT ON YET???)
spiral transmission, such as are found on the Toyota Prius and several Lexus models. This is not an automatic transmission because there are no gears to transmit. Instead of gears of different sizes, the transmission is one, great, conical gear with a spiral arrangement of teeth. When you accelerate from a stop it is completely smooth. This freaked the hell out of the Pirate when he rode in my parents' Prius 2 years ago at christmas. I think ultimately this will be the winner in the transmission war (that I'm attempting to start).

But instead of any of these sensible alternatives, I am forced by the nature of circumstances to exert time, money, and mental energy (none of which I have in excess) to learn to use a dangerous and outmoted technology.

I repeat: Stay off the roads (of Bristol this Saturday from noon to 2).

I officially declare

2008-08-04T22:53:00.003Z

blackberry season to be... OPEN!

At Pirate's cricket match on Saturday I went down the lane while the guys were warming up and picked a kilo of early blackberries to put out with the tea. Yummers!

Amongst the brambles and nettles were several big buddleja bushes in full bloom

And on one of the bushes was the most beautiful butterfly I have ever seen in England. It was lovely, and so distinctive I knew I had would have no trouble identifying it after I got back and consulted Prof. Google.

And do you know what butterfly it was, sucking happily away at the buddleja bush? It was this one!:
This is a peacock butterfly. (I didn't take these photos, btw. I didn't have my camera, so I borrowed these from t'interwebs.) You can read about it here.

Oh, and the match went well. Pirate didn't take any wickets, but he batted 46 (not out) off 22 balls! Aw yeeeah. Das my man, hunnachile.

Pirate's Awesome Match at Lord's

2008-07-31T19:11:00.003Z

Pirate played a cricket match at Lord's recently. It was quite the red letter day. (For the Yanks who don't know, Lord's is the most prestigious cricket ground in England.)

He opened the bowling and took 2 wickets, more than anyone else on his side, but not until the opposition had racked up 165 runs with their opening partnership. Ouch.
During lunch the crowd (yes, there was a crowd of about 3,500 people. We were all seated in the Grand Stand, where I took these photos from, so looking across the pitch all you see are empty seats, but that's because all the spectators were behind me) was entertained by a very good band.

At teatime the players were introduced to Princess Anne (that's her in the yellow dress. I was too lazy to paste an arrow in for you). I asked Pirate what he said to her and he told me that she enquired about his job, which he described for her. Then she went on to feign interest in the next player.

Finally Pirate got to bat. When he came on to the pitch it was looking dire for his side, as they had lost a lot of wickets quite quickly and gotten few runs. The team and the crowd were getting despondent. Then he came out and smashed a 4 off the first ball and the crowd cheered. He continued hitting 4s until he had taken the team from a position of almost certain defeat to a likely draw. At one point the crowd was even chanting his name! Pi-rat! Pi-rat! Pi-rat!
When he was eventually bowled they put his photo up on all the big scoreboards. He is even awesomer than I am. The end.

My Awesome 80-mile* bike ride

2008-07-28T16:33:00.009Z

I thought my little diversions about burning piers and silly memes would keep you distracted while I put this pots together, but apparently not. It seems some of you are paying attention.

And no, you can't have a lollipop. Because I said so.

After cleaning and re-oiling the gears on my bike, tightening and re-balancing the brakes, I set off yesterday morning at 10:40. It was a beautiful day, and already hot. I followed National Cycle Route 4 from Bristol to Bath, and then on to Devizes via Bradford-on-Avon along the Kennet and Avon Canal. I kept to the minimum allowable clothing, a sports bra and bike shorts. (Sorry, not photo of that.) Here is a series of pictures I took to document my journey.

Along the Avon Valley Antique Railway I spotted this gem of sarcastic graffiti:

As I was crossing over the River Avon (and stopping to eat some malt loaf), I saw this lovely red canal barge pass under the bridge. This is a bit of the Avon I know well, as it's part of the stretch of water where I scull. I've been under this bridge hundreds of times myself!

On the other side of Bath it was a bit quieter (just a bit, mind) but this wee faun didn't seem to mind all the families out enjoying the sunday sunshine:

An aquaduck! It's hard to tell from this photo (I couldn't get a higher vantage point), but this aquaduct on the K&A canal crosses over the River Avon, which is about 60 feet below. (That's my bright green bike in the foreground.)

A typical stretch of canal: peaceful and shady. Looooooooovely.

My dream home:

Thistles and lustrife in a cottage garden so charming Miss Marple herself would barf a rainbow at the sight.

*Proof! At this point I am 11 miles past Bath, which is 17 miles from Bristol, and I still have 10 to go. (I realize that doesn't quite add up to 40, but it's close. Work with me here.)

There's not much in this photo. I just liked the banding effect of the blue sky, ripe wheat, and green aquatic grass thingys.

An obliging heron:

Haystacks! Eat your heart out, Claude.

Yellow water lilies behind pink things. What do I look like, a botanist? Oh, yeah. *slinks away*

The Caen Hill Locks. This photo doesn't do them justice. This is one fucking spectacular piece of Victorian engineering. Absolutely astounding.

I wanna uh I wanna uh I wanna uh I wanna uh I wanna really really really really wanna Zig-a-Zig ah! (and Himself.)
We had a delightful time. Ziggi and Himself came to pick me up at the Devizes sports center, which was an easy landmark, right off the canal, and I know it because Pirate has played cricket there on several occasions. They took me back to their house and Ziggi made a very yummy lunch with chicken and potato salad and rolls. I was offered copious quantities of happy-making beverages (and I must say that the strawberry wine was especially scrummy), we sat by the pond-fountain-waterfeaturewithfish thing and talked all afternoon about life, politics, what have you. There were creature comforts in the forms of Fern, Suze, the Fredster, the rabbits, and Dolce the cat (who left large quantities of fluffitude on my shirt). What a great day!

On the way back I snapped this photo of the Locks from the top looking down. You can't see the series of locks well from this angle, but the sky is pretty.

That's a little better. (And yes, I had to ride all the way up that hill on the path to the left to reach this point. This at the end of a near 40-mile journey! Going back down again was fucking great, I can tell you.)

My favorite photo of the day: the pub beside the Bradford-on-Avon marina, with a hot air balloon. (If you click the bigness you will see the balloon is doing a burn, too!)

Close-up of the balloon. Hang on, what the fuck's that on the side? It's the porn balloon!

Another aquaduck. Even though I had a fairly high vantage point for this, you still don't get the sense of the valley that bridge is spanning.

Ah, that's better. I took this photo standing in the middle of the above aquaduct, looking off to the left. See what I mean now?

How stunning is this light? It was raining when I took this at about 9:30 in the evening. I was still east of Bath, and had about 20 miles to go to get home. My legs were fine. For the time being.

Just before getting in to Bath I spotted this unconventional, hippie-occupied canal boat. The chap who lived in was very friendly (and very attractive if I'm being honest. In another life, I totally would have.)

He has cool, homemade sculpture on the front of his boat. It reminded me of the water creature in The Abyss.

A field of asters

Entering Bath. This photo really doesn't capture the twinkliness of the city in the twilight.

Bath Abby. No, I did not steal this photo from their website. I took this myself, last night, with my fully automated little digital camera. Not bad for a total amateur, huh? (except you can see the handles of my bike in the foreground. whoops.)

After that it was too dark for much photography. I got home at about 11. It took me 3 hours and 40 minutes on the way out, and 4 hours coming back. By the time I was 10 miles from Bristol my legs were starting to shake. Fortunately the last few miles are the easiest.

Today I am fine. The only evidence of my journey, besides the photos, are
--> the blister on my ass
--> my incredibly tight right hamstring
--> the layers and layers of dust and filth caked on to my bike, which was sparkling clean at the outset.

It was a brilliant trip, and I will definitely take more pedal-powered roadtrips in the future.

In a word

2008-07-28T14:59:00.003Z

I was just thinking yesterday, on my 80-MILE BIKE RIDE, that I haven't done a good meme in a while. I found this at Slaminsky's today, so I done stoled it. Here goes:

1. Your cell phone? Fisher-Price (it's hyphenated. That makes it one word. Word.)
2. Your significant other? Perfect
3. Your hair? Boring
4. Your mother? Trying
5. Your father? Adorable
6. Your favourite thing? sculling
7. Your dream last night? bizarre
8. The room you're in? MESSY!
9. Your fear? Alone
10. What you're not? Organized
11. The last thing you did before logging on? Cook
12. Where did you grow up? Bumfuck
13. Favourite drink? weissbier
14. What are you wearing? shorts
15. Your TV? nonexistent
16. Your pet? Nazi
17. Your computer? paperweight
18. Favourite place? river
19. Your mood right now? worried
20. Missing someone? Pirate
21. Something you're not wearing? perfume
22. Love someone? Eternally
23. Your favorite color? green
24. Kids? sooooooon
25. Your life? good
26. Tagging? Everyone!

Sad... and suspicious

2008-07-28T10:07:00.004Z

The Grand Pier at Weston-Super-Mare has been destroyed by fire. It's quite sad, really. I've been there a few times. Hairy Man used to take me there for ice cream.

It also seems a bit suspicious to me. The new owners just spent loads on restoration and renovation. Can all you boys and girls say "insurance fraud?" Sure, I knew you could.

(off)road-trip!

2008-07-26T12:33:00.002Z

Tomorrow I am going to bicycle from Brizzle to Devizes and back! It will be over 80 miles round-trip. I am very excited. I will follow National Cycle Route 4 along the Avon from Bristol to Bath and then along the Kennet and Avon Canal from Bath to Devizes.

The weather will be beautiful, there will be aquaducts and kingfishers and shady beach forests and ice cream, and best off all there will be Ziggy!

News on Monday.

SCREWED

2008-07-25T10:20:00.002Z

Pirate and I registered our wedding list through this company.

Now they are bankrupt. People have already bought gifts. They, and we, are screwed. This is the last thing I need right now.

Wank shit bugger balls damn shit fuck arse shit bugger goddamnit.

Most refreshing cocktail ever conceived

2008-07-23T17:13:00.003Z

I'm drinking this as I type, and it's lush as Eden. Goes down a little too easily, to be frank.

In a pint glass add:
juice of 1 sweet, ripe grapefuit
several splashes of gin
top up with tonic water.
Drink like it's goin' outta style.

Now it needs a name! Suggestions in the usual place.

If I knew you were coming...

2008-07-22T22:52:00.002Z

Who could have imagined that a blog with photos of cake-decorating travesties would be so fucking hilarious!

*wipes eyes*

15 minutes ago I was still a bit nervous about baking my own wedding cake.

No longer.

I blame the sea gulls

2008-07-21T17:40:00.002Z

for the absolutely shitty morning I had.

It was because the seagulls were squawking that I leapt from my bed and lunged for the water gun on the desk to shoot the fucking bastards,

Which caused me to get dizzy and black out because I got out of bed too fast,

Which caused to lose both my balance and my consciousness

Which caused me to fall off my desk (where I was kneeling to reach the window to shoot the sea gulls)

Which caused me to (somehow, I really don't know how this happened) to fall off the desk in such a way that I scraped my back against a corner of it, catching a raised mole on my back and ripping the thing off my flesh, creating a 10-inch long vertical gouge in my back.

The pain of which caused me to go in to shock (after I came to in a pile on the floor)

Which caused me to get all hot and feverish and nauseous

Which caused me to throw up all over my laundry before I could get it together enough to ring the doctor, which I eventually did, hauled myself up to student health, and got myself bandaged up nicely.*

I could have done it myself save for the difficulty of reaching my own back.

All because of the GODDAMN FUCKING NOISY SEAGULLS.

*The bandages all fell off in the 15 minute walk back to my flat. Fucking NHS can't even apply a bandaid properly.

Why xkcd is my fav comic of All Time

2008-07-18T13:01:00.002Z

link is here.

I need this

2008-07-17T22:32:00.001Z

Seriously, I do.

Not 'want,' neeeeeeeeed.

The Quantum Fishies

2008-07-15T11:12:00.002Z

This is Wong-Foo:

Wong-Foo is not doing his job.

Wong-Foo's job is to eat the Quantum Fishies. The Quantum Fishies are the offspring of my two guppies, Preggers and Studly. (I'll get some photos up as soon as I remember to charge the batteries for my camera.)

Preggers and Studly are very good at their job. Their job is to make snacks for Wong-Foo. Wong-Foo's job is to eat the snacks so the tank doesn't become overcrowded. It's an eco system thing. Keep up, people.

But Wong-Foo has gotten lazy, and there are FOUR more fishies in the tank than there should be. They are the Quantum Fishies: Nuon, Gluon, Lepton, and Quark. They are little more than a pair of eyes each attached to a small, transparent body and tail. They do not swim, they do not move. They disappear from one location and instantly reappear in another place in the tank. It is not magic: it is Quantum Tankanics. They are here, there, and everywhere, few in number, but nearly impossible to count. They are the Quantum Fishies.

How I pulled my ass cheek

2008-07-14T12:42:00.004Z

This weekend Pirate and I were going to see Wall-e, but I got the date for the release wrong and it wasn't out yet. Grrrr.

So instead we went to the club and stuck me in the nets to teach me how to bat properly. (Apparently the half-ton I got this weekend for the Bowl Movement CC was a fluke.) It turns out I'm a left-hander.

I started out as a right-hander, which is what would be expected, since I'm right-handed. But i just couldn't get the coordination right. It felt forced and contrived and totally unnatural. So I switched sides. After 10 seconds of feeling slightly weird it all came together and I was blocking shots like a pro.

Pirate is a good coach, if slightly exasperating. In his job he is a pirate trainer, taking kids off the street and instilling in them all the best pirating values. I got a good sense yesterday of how his wee piratettes see him.

Several buckets of tennis balls later (i didn't have any pads, so we used softer balls), Pirate's bat was feeling very heavy indeed, and my back was getting sore, so we called it a day. I woke up today with a pulled ass.

Movie Review: Prince Capsaicin*

2008-07-10T18:37:00.004Z

"Nothing ever happens exactly the same way twice."

Except for, apparently, that line, which occurred word for word in the move twice.

That said, it was actually better than the book. I give it 2 1/2 musky gussets.

Oh, and Reepicheep was awesome. Eddie Izzard was perfect.

*cuz he be HOT, bitches.

Mega-girly Girliness

2008-07-10T18:25:00.004Z

Not my normal scene, I know. But yesterday I had an uber-girly day out with one of my bridesmaids. After a nice lunch of posh salads and white wine in the Slug & Lettuce we went lingerie shopping for The Big Day.

I bought an ivory satin bosque that has more lift than a Saturn 5 rocket. It turns out I have tits.* Who knew?!

Then we went to see Prince Caspian and drool over the hot kid with the faux Spanish accent playing PC. *fans face* The really sad and surprising thing is that despite PC's hotness it was the wet-chinned public school prat playing Peter who got me going in the scene where he fights Usurper Shiraz. I mean god DAMN I loves me a shiny suit of armor. *fans faster* Really, it wasn't Peter, just the way he wore that tin can with the red tabard and looked all "I'm about to die but I'm so taking you with me you fake-accented fucker." Mmmm.

(this pic would be better if he wasn't pouting. that's susan's job anyway)

Then there was more food at Frankie & Bennies where we ordered some very contrived menu item calling itself 'The Americana.' I don't know what made it American, but it were tastee. Also more wine.

w00t for (occassional) girlyness and very decadent 2-meals-out days.

*Really awesome ones

Apropos

2008-07-10T14:04:00.002Z

So there I was, wandering around the House of Fraser going-out-of-business sale, listening to U2, I still haven't found what I'm looking for, coming over the loudspeaker.

2008-07-09T09:06:00.001Z

Best. News. Story. EVER.

Good Day, Sunshine!

2008-07-08T18:54:00.003Z

What an amazing day it's been! I was going to write about the bloody awful day I had on Sunday at Pirate's cricket game, where the people at the Arundel Castle cricket ground were so unbelievably rude to me that by lunch time I was sitting by myself in the car, in tears, and wouldn't come sit at the table. Never in my life have I been treated so badly by complete strangers. So now I would like to proclaim loudly to all who hear that the Duke of Norfolk's 11 are the biggest, snottiest, nastiest, most condescending collection of stuck-up, aristocratic pricks I have ever met, and they can all go rot. To be fair it wasn't the players who were awful, it was all their hangers-on and the staff in the clubhouse. Cunts, the lot of them.

Some of what was said to me was so horrible it was funny, but to convey the true spirit I would have to type in an accent, which I suck at, so instead I'm going to tell you why today was so wonderful instead.

It started off with another mess of wedding reply cards, which are always fun. I haven't enjoyed going to the box to get my mail this much since I was 10 years old and expecting birthday cards with cheques in them.

Today I received a very, very formal acceptance from Pirate's great aunt Peer, who is the family aristocrat. I could barely make out her handwriting as it creaked off the personalized stationery, but lo and behold she's coming. No-one expected her to. Isn't that lovely? Yay for aged and decrepit relatives who do the unexpected!

We also got our first wedding gift today! Yay! It's the solid, Michigan maple, 3" thick, end-grain chopping board I asked for. It's 4 square feet. Proper chopping board. Very generous. (Now who will get me the knives to go with it, I wonder?)

Then I got an email from an old friend from High School that I haven't heard from in, like, geological time. He saw the announcement in the news letter and sent an email to the last known account he had for me, which still feeds in to my current account. We spent the day emailing back and forth, it turns out he's moving to Germany shortly, and would like to come and visit me over the summer, so I asked him to come to the wedding, and he said 'yes'! Whoopie! I haven't seen him in over 10 years. Amazing.

And last but not least (and this is the real cherry on the cake), the Hairy Man* I.M.'d me. We haven't communicated in almost 2 years. He took the breakup pretty hard, and I've never stopped worrying about him and wondering what he's up to. It's been a bit of a loose thread that I was never able to tie off. I tried to get in touch a couple times, but he ignored me, and so I left him in peace. And then tonight he Skyped me, right out of the blue. He's living with his new girlfriend, which makes me very happy. I wish them both well, and I hope it works out for him.

Oh, and a gift I ordered for the Pirate from Amazon arrived, so I'll be able to give that to him when he comes over on Friday.

Yay! Happiness abounds! (As does stress, but we don't think about that.)

*If you're new around here and you want to read more about the Hairy Man, click the 'hairy man' category on the sidebar. It's all there.

To all my British colleagues:

2008-07-04T15:04:00.003Z

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY, MOTHERFUCKERS!

*sheepishly*

And, um, can we come back? Please?

FREE JEWELRY!!!

2008-07-03T09:37:00.003Z

I'm not making this up. All you pay is shipping and handling, which is not expensive.

The US site.

The international site.

There's no limit and no strings. Get involved, bitches.