A memo from the desk of TMI

I have vericose veins. On my...






...fanny flaps.



Apparently vulvar verices (as they are technically known) are common in around 10% of pregnancies (though that's considered to be a wild underestimate as it is believed the condition goes largely unreported), and appear most frequently in the fifth month (check) of a woman's second pregnancy (aaaaand check).



God I have being unoriginal.

Wake-up Call

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.

Awkward

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*

Commando

I had a very interesting day at the office yesterday. It stemmed from something which started out as a very minor and occasional nuissance but has since grown into a full-blown lingerie catastrophe.

Of course I'm talking about that annoying sensation when your underwear slices in to your bikini line and feels like cheese-wire that is on the verge of amputating your legs.

I have a couple pairs of knickers with inadequate leg elastic that tend to create this feeling. They annoy me and so I stopped wearing them (despite their being extremely cute and pretty). But lately ALL of my underwear has been doing this, even the old, saggy, stretched-out, cotton granny panties.

Yesterday it reached critical mass. They got so painful I had to take them off. In fact, so fed up was I with the whole dilemma that I got angry at the offending underwear and threw them away, right there in the office (well, in the sanitary disposal bin in the ladies' room) and went commando for the rest of the day.

Yes, I went commando at work.

(I was wearing a knee-lenght corduroy skirt, so it was ok. I didn't have any scary four-corners crotch seams in trousers to contend with, and the skirt was completely opaque, so there was no visible lack-of-panty line.)

It was quite nice, really.

Today I wore the most comfortable pair of knickers I could find, and they're driving me nuts. They're cutting it to my skin so badly it's like wearing pants made a dental floss. I don't know what to do. I can't spend the rest of my life commando, but right now the thought of having to wear underwear every day for the rest of my life is making me cringe. Surely there's a solution to this, and it probably involves replacing all my underwear with something more comfortable, but I can't imagine what that could be. Any suggestions?

ps. The current underwear is mostly low-rise bikini. I've worn them for decades without difficulty. I don't know why they're bothering me now.

pps. I've considered switching to high-leg bikini, but they ride up my ass and I spend my life attempting to subtly remove wedgies.

ppps. No, I haven't gained weight. Not an ounce. In fact I've lost a few pounds. So my legs haven't gotten any fatter if that's what you're thinking.

Baking disaster

Did I tell you about the 2-fold baking disaster I endured while attempting to create the Pirate's birthday cake? No? Well let me tell you about it now. I would love to know if any of you have experienced similar problems, because I am completely flummoxed by what went wrong, and I really want to try this recipe again.

The recipe was for an orange cake with white chocolate frosting. Sounds tasty, yes? I thought so too.

It was an odd recipe. There were no leaveners in the batter. Rather, the butter and suger were creamed together, then egg yolks, flour, and fresh squeezed orange juice added. The loftiness off the sponge was meant to come from the egg whites, which were beaten in to a meraingue and then folded in to the batter.

At least, that was how it was supposed to work. Here's the odd bit: I could't get the egg whites to beat stiff. I've made meraingue dozens of times before, but for some reason on this occasion I could not get those little puppies stiff. They just got all foamy, but stayed very wet and soupy. That was the strangest thing I'd ever seen... until I tried to make the frosting.

The frosting called for melting some white chocolate and folding it in to some creme fraiche. Except the chocolate wouldn't melt. I kid you not. I was using Green & Black's white chocolate, and I put it in a double-boiler so as not to over-heat it, but it wouldn't melt! It got all pasty, like mashed potatoes. I thought maybe there was some wierd additive in the chocolate, so I tried again with another brand, Nestle Milky Bar. Same result. I mean dude, WTF???

I wound up beating the creme fraiche stiff with some powdered sugar and a touch of nutmeg and just using that for the frosting. And actually, it was marvelous. So good, in fact, I'm going to do the same for my wedding cake. But I still want to know why my white chocolate wouldn't melt. Damndest this I ever saw.

Has anyone else ever had these problems? I'm baffled.

Warning: Crucifixion may be bad for your health

The Filipino government is urging people to practice crucifixion as safely as possible.

Um, Oh-kaaaaaay.

I have no idea what to make of this story. On the one hand, it's sick and weird that people do this at all, let alone volunteer for fun. Humanity is in a fucking dismal state if there are people in the world who think this has any positive effect.

On the other hand, the slant of this article is utterly fucking hysterical. Don't forget to sanitize your whips, everyone!

Does this look normal to you?

I have discovered, in my on-going wedding planning frenzy, that it appears to be normal over here to get married at about 10 am, have giant, 3-course wedding breakfast at lunch time (so why they call it 'breakfast' i surely do not know), and then have a full-on buffet dinner in the evening with dancing, etc., thus making the wedding an all-day affair that lasts from 9:30 a.m. (realistically, when people start showing up) to midnight or later. That's a 14+ hour party, people. Fucking 14 hours!!!

This seems to be the norm because whenever I ask for prices for food the venues all hand me a figure in the range of 45-70 pounds per person, and they automatically include the 3-course wedding breakfast and the "disco buffet" for the evening. Who does this??? I have never in my life heard of such a thing.

In the states if you have a morning wedding you have an afternoon reception and everyone goes home at 6 pm. This is much more sensible. They don't hang around until midnight getting drunk and expecting to be fed again like some kind of spoiled zoo animal.

I have been having a very hard time getting any place to quote me a per-head price for

• a starter
• a main course

period. no buffet. no dessert. why would anyone have dessert at their wedding? That's what the bleeding CAKE is for!

argh. you people are weird.

oh, and is it normal to not offer your guests a choice of main course for the dinner? every formal party i've been to in the UK (and i've been to a few, what with office xmas dos and all Pirate's formal stuff), and every time the invitation has included a dinner card to send back with my menu selections. But they tell me that at weddings everyone is normally served the same thing! Really? Or am I being scammed?

must be getting old

i was accosted today by a half dozen children (and i do mean children--the oldest was no more than 10), who pulled me off my bike and tried to rob me. it was pathetic. they clearly had no idea what they were doing, and i had nothing worth stealing. finally the impetulant punks literally demanded the shirt off my back (i just bought this shirt at a regatta. i love it. it says 'set the water alight'), to which i announced they would have to take it off me. i was acutally hoping they would, just so i'd have an excuse to pound the midget miscreants (some stress relief would do me good right about now), but they caved. i'm looking forward to riding my bike home. if they're still on the path setting up little barricades i'm just going to plough right through them. can we say "bowling for street urchins?" as i rode off, i actually found myself muttering "kids these days. what's the world coming to?" yep. gettin old.

From the mouths of babes, part II

from a 4 1/2 year-old girl:

"What's your favourite cheese? Mine's Jarlsberg."



the hell?

Laws of Physics Need Not Apply

I have recently determined who are the best candidates for developing all the whiz-bang technoligical developments that Star Trek has been dangling in front of our noses for decades (tricorders, warp drive, transporters), but the scientific community have poo-pooed as being physically impossible: British postal carriers. Yes indeed; there is an entire army of hardworking civil servants out there who are completely immune to the laws of physics. I suggest we round them all up, put them in a room with some coffee, donuts, and random bits of electrical equipment, demand functioning transporters within one year and let nature do the rest.

Why, you ask, are British postal carriers (as opposed to American postal carriers, who are dejected, disgruntled time-bombs waiting for an inopportune moment to go off) going to succeed where the best current scientific minds (Steven Hawking, Lawrence Krauss, Marley) have failed? Because this morning there was a parcel on the floor of my hall, which had arrived there by being stuffed through the letter slot, but which could not POSSIBLY have passed, unscathed, through an opening that size. I stared at it, awestruck by the physical impossibility of the scenario. Then I tried it myself. Mr. Bean-like, I stood on the front stoop of my house for 25 minutes trying to fit the package through the letter slot again before finally carrying it back inside with me, considerably worse for wear.

I now live in constant terror of what may fall through my letter slot, which is apparently a minor tear in the space-time continuum. Today, oversize packages; tomorrow, livestock; next week, a Romulan war-bird. Oh god, where does it end?