you'll be happy to know

that i've snapped out of sanctimonious self-pitying bullshit mode and have reverted back to my general oh well better get on with it mentality.

these days i am spending my mornings doing job-hunting sort of stuff - emailing long lost colleagues, agencies, trawling through job sites - it's fun, oh yes. that is once i get up - which i have this sort of delusion that i do at 8 am to join n and the dawg for the morning walk. what actually happens is n comes back into our bedroom (he has been up for HOURS at this point) and i sometimes don't wake up at all, or if i do, i mumble, what, 8 o'clock already? and roll over and snooze for another hour, because i can. 11 hours of sleep a night, people. it's a beautiful thing. i haven't slept this much since i was a teenager and i love it.

afternoons are spent foraging (elderflowers at this time of year, soon gooseberries and cherries), running errands, trying out new recipes, like this artisan bread in 5 min a day thing which is cool, or will be once i figure out the right moisture balance so i can make loaves instead of discs.

tonight i taught n how to play dutch blitz, on a pack i rescued, forlorn, from my parents' box of board/card games last time i was in canada. ironically, for a game that i am guessing was designed to keep good mennonites (or whatever) away from evil cards, it will make a great pub game. i'd love to say i trounced him, but he is a quick bastard and picks up on games remarkably quickly.

it's all good, or good enough, anyways.

well hello

i've begun the inevitable. i've begun looking for paid employment. i've been putting this off, but my inner task master (damn you! DAMN YOU!!!) has demanded action and i have thus coughed up. i have been enjoying my holiday - i have been enjoying my holiday so much that enjoying sounds like some sort of euphemism. i have been reveling, lolling, nay, luxuriating in my holiday.

i was going to write about the horror of hearing my voice slip back into work mode, and the tenseness that came with it, and the feeling of education that comes from finally working out a bit how the whole networking thing works so i'm working names properly (i hope) for a change, but -

ugh

we have to do these things. and believe me, i know i'm lucky to have these things to do. i do know that. it's not just hard work. i was lucky to be born into a family where a work ethic was taught and expected, and where i saw everyone around me work, and work hard, and teach me how to work hard. and my friends and family who support me and are proud of me and cheer me on. i know, and i'm grateful. and i don't mind working hard.

but

our corporate model is corrupt and dangerous, and benefits no one but those lucky enough to be at the top, and i do mean lucky. it's not right. it's not justified. and by participating i am complicit.

so i am proceeding with a heavy heart, like in so many things. is this age? maturity? the gradual weight of your heart until you are stooped and shuffling?

contentment

it's a bank holiday weekend here in the uk (not that this makes much difference to me, unemployed sloth that i am!). the town rugby club always has bands and a beer tent out in the recreation ground next to our house on this weekend. the last two years it has been wet and cold. this weekend has been beautiful, but the weather gods must be down on rugby as the afternoon has ended in thunder-showers of biblical proportions.

we checked out a bit of the music, but mostly were just enjoying hanging out, reading the accumulated papers that i didn't get around to over the weekend, and wallowing in the contentment of a fun weekend with lots of food and wine, old friends and new friends, bbq's and sunshine. i can't remember the last time i was this relaxed.

*happy sigh*

now you must excuse me, i have a packed agenda this evening of sipping wine, picking at the roast chicken carcass, and, if we can be bothered, starting season 5 of the wire.

btw, humphrey really did run through the screen door the day after we put it up. the mesh held, but he broke all three hinges off. we managed to repair it, and it is still hanging, but dog-destruction remains a problem. we have temporarily solved this by putting a small free-standing gate on whichever side of the door humphrey is, but this turned out to be such a pain on saturday's bbq that we ended up propping open the screen door; an open-door policy, if you will, for bugs. we hope that perhaps humph will learn with time but i fear it may be yet another instance of humphrey successfully training his humans.

screen door!!!!!!!

people - behold - in all its glory, the marvel of a screen door. now i know the canadians among you will be bemused, possibly befuddled by this, but back here in the old country this is cutting edge. spain and italy have screens, so it seems implausible that there is some european moratorium on the use of mesh screening in window and door applications, yet they consistently elude us in the uk. when we have previously enquired about the possibilities of their installation, we are considered mad, and quite possibly dangerous. (see poppy seeds, below. btw - i have since discovered that what the uk calls blue poppy seeds, canadians call black poppy seeds - they are in fact the same thing. thank you geo for clearing that one up.)

we have sighed, and added lack of screenage to our growing list of british eccentricities, joining their brethren of separate hot and cold taps with no mixer tap and the complete absence of plain cheerios (honey nut? check. 4 grain? check. plain? what are you - some kind of freak??? *sigh*)

but the buggies, they continued to fly into our house by their multitudes. fruit flies - arch enemy of the home brewer. something had to be done. i concluded that if i had to buy the damn door in italy and carry it back i would, so long as there was a screen door by summer. as i was hunting online for said door (i'm more of a carry-on girl myself), i found a site that sold screen door kits.

the kit arrived, and it was proper. way too proper for n and i to unleash our grubby mitts all over it. i left strict instructions for n and our friend j, who is diy-inclined, to make the door up while i was gallivanting in canada for several weeks. sadly, screen door construction paled in the light of an empty house, a full bottle of whiskey, and axies and allies. i can't complain, i would have done the same thing.

so today, n and i, inept as we are at anything requiring manual dexterity, tools, measuring, etc etc etc - we girded our loins, we read and re-read, we measured and re-measured (and re-re-measured) and we tackled the kit.

and it went quite well actually.

now for the windows...

i'm on vacation

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

ha ha - i would never - oh wait.....

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

gosh is that the time?

dear (______),

i'm sorry i haven't written for (days/weeks/months/years).
you know how it is. or you don't. as i understand it, the whole schrodinger's cat thing actually means that without a universal viewpoint, which as humans we do not possess, none of us knows shit. more or less. i paraphrase, obviously.

so what have i been up to, you ask.

well

being between contracts at work (oooh euphemism i adore thee), i have the luxury of angsting full time about the two 4000 word papers i need to hand in next week.

that's fun.

i also have a new camera so i'm taking loads of stupid pics of the dog:









yup. i'm busy.

how 'bout you?

caution - unwarrented rant ahead

i have lived in this wonderful country, england, my adopted land, for 12 1/2 years. and after all this time, there are still occasions where the entire system completely eludes me and i find myself wailing and teeth-gnashingly screaming why? WHY????? WHY IN GODS GOD NAME WOULD YOU EVER EVER SET SOMETHING UP TO RUN LIKE THIS???????????

i have found that the answer to the above question usually has something to do with the fact that the system in question worked perfectly fine in neolithic/norman/edwardian times and the fact that you have a problem with it is probably because you are a new world softie and if you don't like it you can bugger back to where you came from.

but can anyone, anyone explain to me the rationale behind supermarket organisation???? and why there are no goddamn poppy seeds for sale even though you can buy poppy seed buns? and why when you go into a shop and ask for something perfectly normal, like, for instance, poppy seeds, the staff look at you almost pityingly and say, oh no, not here. as if you are perhaps asking for, say, keys to the nearest moon base.

and how, exactly, i am going to make ukranian poppy seed cake without poppy seeds????????? hmph.

head exploding for all the wrong reasons

how can we be living in a world where the following can be read in the saturday edition of what is generally considered to be a progressive left-ish (though admitedly disgustingly middle-class) national newspaper:
"'i'm sure one of the things that attracted me about harry,' she says, sweetly, 'is that he's a very equal person. it's not like i looked at him and thought 'i want your babies', it's just that he's very fair. i did the lion's share, for sure. i gave up work for a long time, to look after the children. but for a guy, he does a lot, a lot, a lot."

AGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

yesterday, a woman at work who has a very young baby (less than a year) was saying how she took off her hat to any working mother because it was so hard. she explained she worked all day then went home and had all of the laundry, feeding, cooking cleaning to do and by the time she had a minute to herself, it was 11 pm. i asked her why her husband didn't help and she said, oh - he just wouldn't - grew up with a maid, a real momma's boy, wouldn't lift a finger. and she puts up with this. like its some kind of force majeure or something.

what planet do these people live on? one where men turn into fairy dust if they clean a toilet? don't men find this insulting? of course, cleaning sucks. duh. and yes, in a world view where women are not-quite-human, it makes sense for them to do all of it. but if you believe women and men are both equally human, then you'd better be doing your share of the shit shovelling.

hey! happy friday!