Gormless-ness Insurance

Next week I will be making an utter Fochaber of myself by pretending that I have bottomless reserves of cool and can snowboard exactly like someone who does not have my unique "gifts" in the realm of physical prowess.

Every year I imagine myself, poised at the top of the slope, ready to glide down as if born to ride, maybe carving a few turns deep enough to lazily allow my hand to drift over the surface of the powder. Steep patch? No problem! I can turn the board as if it is on rails. The sky is an unlikely shade of blue, the mountains are like swarovski crystal and I glide along with mindblowing skill. In my mind.

Reality is more like this: Warmly bundled, my be-bootened form is as graceful as a rollerskating polar bear. (This year's boots more streamlined look are an improvement on last year's, which made me look like 2005's elephantiasis sufferer of the year.) This level of padding is enough to impede my balance, never mind my non-existent boarding ability. I've seen horrifying videos: my vast arse pushed out behind me like an airbag, knees bent, face as per Donald Sutherland pointing out the non pod-person in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" virtually catatonic with fear, hands flailing like Tyrannasaurus Rex reaching for a bowl of mashed potatoes.

Why do I insist on putting myself through it? Petrushka* only knows, maybe it has something to do with the rush of pure joy and ecstasy caused by reaching the bottom without breaking any bones, gashing flesh open with my own board, or cracking my skull open on a passing skier**. Any accusations that the happiness I feel is caused by imbibing luscious quantities of Vin Chaud (or "hotbooze") will be ridiculed while I knock back another shot and start snorting/giggling helplessly into it.

In any case I am taking no chances. I have doubled up on the holiday insurance.

*She's as likely to know as anyone else.
**If anyone can do it I can.

Updating Your Ass

'Cos it's just so yesterday.

I know it, I am lazy. I spent my two week Christmas break lolling about the house, increasing my waist size by consuming fat-based food and listlessly spending money that I do not yet have, on things that I don't need.

Gob Less Visa.

I could try to turn inactivity into some sort of art-form, but that would be too much like work.

Frankly, little has changed since last I wrote, dear diary, besides the following:

• I invented a miniature jet propulsion suit for dogs which has really taken off in Japan.
• I took up air hockey professionally.
• I now know exactly what hedgehogs having sex sound like*.
  

One of the above may be true. Or not. I have also taken up being non committal about most things. That's all folks, nothing to see here. Move along, move along.

*Grunt, grunt grunt. Groo! Grunt grunt. Seeing as how as you asked.

Never Again "Just Taking A Walk"

Seeing as how smoking is now as socially acceptable as admitting a liking for kissing dogs' bottoms, and also on account of it not being advised for sufferers of my own weird disease**, I have committed myself to quitting the evil weed.
Apparently it is bad for you or something, Christ, why didn't someone mention it? Fuck, I've been smoking for about ten years! If only I had known.....

I checked out various websites a while back with a view to the big quit, hoping for a bit of encouragement and advice on how to go about it. I downloaded a little animated cartoon guy from an Australian website because he looked cute, and I honestly thought it would help. Of course, on running the programme the little blighter popped up every ten minutes, interrupted whatever else I was doing and barfed up a lung. Literally. With sound effects. I was so disturbed by this that I have continued to smoke for months. But now I am ready, I am prepared for the worst.

I fully expect to have gnawed my own arm off by the end of the weekend.

*My dad is a member of Ash and I still haven't mentioned the fact that I smoke lest he disowns me or summat. I just "go for walks" a lot when at home.
**Henoch Schonlein Purpura. It's odd! It's rare! It's my body acting like my kidneys are foreign bodies and mobilising the white blood cell army against them! Out, Damnable kidneys! Out, I say!

The Tower of Meat

One of the most interesting things about my job is illustrated by a little passage almost hidden right at the bottom of my contract which says,
"and apart from all the usual stuff, typing and such, you'll also do pretty much whatever weird shit we need you to do, or just fancy watching you do whilst we snigger generously, ok? Thanks".
This has led to me:

• carrying out a desperate, all-across-town search for brown card (or thick paper) for fashioning reindeer antlers.
  
• forcing colleagues to take home a haggis after someone over-ordered the blasted things for a Burns night supper. Ten of the fuckers, I ask you. Only twenty people work here, and not so many are fond of sheeps intestine stuffed lightly with more intestine, barley and, well, blood. And seasoning! Don't forget the the seasoning.*
  
• buying a selection of garden lights (solar powered, not plug in, thank you very much) several of which I had to return the next day as they were too "glitzy".
• driving the comedy van thirty miles along the motorway for an MOT. At thirty miles per hour, no faster, as pieces of trim kept falling off, not to mention some of the smaller engine parts easing themselves free of the structure, presumably bouncing off to enjoy a happy life of liberty.
  
• and finally, the coup de grace, catering.

Sometimes, we do lunch, and not in the way you might think, oh no! We could just get a caterer in to provide food for conferences and courses, but that would be no fun! Much better to force me to go to Asda and pile a trolley high with such delicacies as wee willie winkies**, various meats on sticks, horrid little samosas, mini pork pies***, baby-bloody-bell cheese, and so on. I also have to cut the crusts off sandwiches, I mean honestly, I didn't realise anyone did that any more. Happily, one of the other girls at work helps me out with this crap sometimes, which led to us taking things just one step further and producing the "tower of meat" special. It went a little like this:
"Let's do a whole platter with rolled up bits of cold meat - I mean, we've done the half grapefruit/cocktail sticks/wee willie winkie/cube of cheese/pickled onion hedgehog extravaganza. Twice. We could just go for it and get that 70's party vibe...."
"Oh God yes".
Picture the magic: a platter measuring roughly 60cm by 40cm piled to a depth of 15cm with rolled up tubes of ham, with a choir of mini pork pies nestled atop it. Then we did another one, beef this time, with more pork pies, and in the centre, the glory of yet more wee willie winkies, arranged so that they reached for the ceiling. And then cherry tomatoes, as a concession to health.

Tell me you don't want me to cater for your next party, I won't believe it.

*Scottish food is actually perfectly pleasant, and haggis is very good fried. If you can avoid thinking about what you are eating.
**It's a sausage, just a sausage.
***Only 40% trotter and snout. The rest is pastry. And seasoning.

An Apology

For Sidekick, O light of my life.

There are some people who are easy to care for when they are unwell. They are gracious despite their discomfort, remaining cheerful no matter what.

It may surprise you to know that I am not one of these fabulous people.

Some say that women can bear more pain than men could ever take, and that a cold for a woman becomes flu for a man.

I like to buck a trend, me.

This week I hosted a cheery little gastric fluey virus, which did it's best to lay me low. Here is a short exchange between me and the saintly Sidekick, just to illustrate my point:

Me: "My head hurts." Pause. "My back hurts." Pause. "Have I got a temperature?"
Sidekick: (laying a kindly palm on my forehead for the nth time that day) "Yes, You are still pretty hot. Want a drink?"
Me: "No, I can't drink, I'll BE SICK!"
Sidekick: (Patiently) "Come on, you have to drink, you'll make yourself even worse."
Me: (Petulantly) "OK. Fizzy water. With the juice in it."
Sidekick: "Here. Try This."
Me: (Sipping a microscopic amount of fizzy water with the juice in it) "Bleiurgh! I CAN'T DRINK IT! I'LL BE SICK!"
Sidekick: You have to drink. I got you Ginger Beer, to settle your stomach, it's not the cheap crap either. Want a glass of that?"
Me: (Snappy now) "I can't drink it, when the fizzy hits my throat it makes me feel like I'm gonna hurl."
Sidekick: "OK, can I get you anything else? A bowl in case you throw up?"
Me: "I DON'T WANT A BOWL IDONT'TWANNABESICK! A damp towel?"
Sidekick: "OK....." (Rummages in the cupboard) "Er. Is a tea towel alright?"
Me: "YES whatever." (I slap the teatowel on my head and relax for approximately 30 seconds before...) "OH GOD now I'm too cold again."
Sidekick: (tucking me back under the covers again) "OK now? Just take it easy"
Me: (wailing and whinging, I disappear beneath the covers)

Repeat this endlessly until I feel better*, and Sidekick needs a week off work to recuperate.

Bless you. I think you are ace. And thanks for the teatowel, it was actually quite soothing.


*And I do! Today I could drop kick a horse.