What the …? Where the …?
Suddenly I was, if not upright, at least fully awake with my head still on the pillow. The panic of not waking up to my wedding band nicely lodged on the appropriate finger got my mind working. I remembered the arduous task of taking off my wedding band and plopping it into my coin purse.
I had to take it off for the Easter flight.
The Mista, Petunia, and I had been talking about this trip for almost a year after we saw the girls on America’s Next Top Model do it. We meant to do it in June, then August, then November. We finally got round to the planning. We did our research, made the booking, and rented the car we needed to get to the exciting destination of Milton Keynes.
I can just about hear the collective gasp of those of you who know anything at all about Milton Keynes. You ask, “Milton Keynes? For God’s sake, why?”
To fly!
I have to admit. I thought it was going to be a rip-off: the price of the rental car. The trip up to Milton Keynes. The general headache of the overall journey. Not to mention the cost of the flight itself. All the cost and aggravation for 2 minutes in the flight chamber. I was poised to pooh-pooh the whole ordeal.
As we sat in a line on the bench in the antechamber, my nerves began to attack my stomach. Despite having agreed that the Mista would go first, somehow Petunia found herself positioned to be the first of our little group, followed by me, followed by the Mista. She got up to enter the chamber, and my heart dropped into my gut. I had to pee.
For Christ’s sake. It’s not like you’re jumping out of a plane!*
My turn came. I focussed on the position as described by the instructor in the “training” session. I floated! I flew! Up and down and side to side! An irrepressible grin consumed my face, much like Butters when she’s running through the high grass at Hyde Park.
All the aggravation, the price of the car, the price of the flight: all worth it. I want to go back!
My wedding band is now back where it should be.
*I have actually properly jumped out of a plane, so the fear of entering the indoor flight chamber strikes me as absurdly irrational.
I’ve been thinking to you a lot lately. Addressing, only superficially, those immediate tasks at hand
(called life),
my mind drifts toward you and thinks words to entertain you. Masterpieces formulate at inopportune times. Like just when I’m falling asleep. Or even more frequently: an hour before the alarm is due to chime the start of my day.
Oh brother! Why now?
I can’t be bothered to pull myself away from the dark warmth.
(or warm darkness???)
of the pre-dawn.
The masterpiece atrophies in the groovy little recesses of my brain, lost in the intestinal resemblance of a maze that is my brain.
My grandmother was a smoker. My mother is an artistic soul. I would never say my mother encouraged my grandmother’s smoking habit, but when grandma came to visit, mom would make best efforts to accommodate her smoking mother. In preparation for one of these maternal visits, my mother, with artistic eye in tact, bought a little ashtray formed out of some sort of metal or another (it’s quite heavy for its size and has a the greenish-blue patina of a heavily weathered metal) in the shape of a little bird with an open beak. One is meant to extinguish one’s cigarettes in the little bird’s open mouth.
The little bird is now in my possession.
When my parents divorced after 40 years of marriage there was a great division and redistribution of familial possessions accrued over a lifetime. I got the little bird. I always loved that little bird. It carries so many associations of both my grandmother and mother.
So when the painter came a-calling this weekend and asked if I had an ashtray available, I reached for the little bird.
“Here you go, Sammy.”
“Thank ya, sista.” Sammy has a low volume voice that resonates with deep tones and Caribbean accents.
We needed a painter to pay a visit thanks to some damp a while back. One of the walls of our reception (living room) had been re-plastered, and we took advantage of this opportunity to repaint the entire room.
Sammy was supposed to come the week before last. He called the Mista on the Saturday morning that he didn’t come.
“Mista, I’m not gonna be coming today. Is next weekend ok?”
“Ok, Sammy.”
“Much respect, blood.”
The Mista loves Sammy. I noticed he even has him filed as “King Sammy” in his mobile phone address book. When I began to make fun of the Mista’s inside joke (between him and his phone), the Mista informed me that Sammy’s surname happens to be King.
Oh. Excellent!
So, King Sammy came a calling to apply a new coat of paint to our reception this weekend.
He was sitting in the garden and having a break when we overheard him talking to the ashtray.
“Hey little birdie, whatcha ya doin smokin my spliff?”
Needless to say, the little bird ashtray has just adopted a new association. My grandmother, my mother, and Sammy.
My grandmother was a smoker. My mother is an artistic soul. I would never say my mother encouraged my grandmother’s smoking habit, but when grandma came to visit, mom would make best efforts to accommodate her smoking mother. In preparation for one of these maternal visits, my mother, with artistic eye in tact, bought a little ashtray formed out of some sort of metal or another (it’s quite heavy for its size and has a the greenish-blue patina of a heavily weathered metal) in the shape of a little bird with an open beak. One is meant to extinguish one’s cigarettes in the little bird’s open mouth.
The little bird is now in my possession.
When my parents divorced after 40 years of marriage there was a great division and redistribution of familial possessions accrued over a lifetime. I got the little bird. I always loved that little bird. It carries so many associations of both my grandmother and mother.
So when the painter came a-calling this weekend and asked if I had an ashtray available, I reached for the little bird.
“Here you go, Sammy.”
“Thank ya, sista.” Sammy has a low volume voice that resonates with deep tones and Caribbean accents.
We needed a painter to pay a visit thanks to some damp a while back. One of the walls of our reception (living room) had been re-plastered, and we took advantage of this opportunity to repaint the entire room.
Sammy was supposed to come the week before last. He called the Mista on the Saturday morning that he didn’t come.
“Mista, I’m not gonna be coming today. Is next weekend ok?”
“Ok, Sammy.”
“Much respect, blood.”
The Mista loves Sammy. I noticed he even has him filed as “King Sammy” in his mobile phone address book. When I began to make fun of the Mista’s inside joke (between him and his phone), the Mista informed me that Sammy’s surname happens to be King.
Oh. Excellent!
So, King Sammy came a calling to apply a new coat of paint to our reception this weekend.
He was sitting in the garden and having a break when we overheard him talking to the ashtray.
“Hey little birdie, whatcha ya doin smokin my spliff?”
Needless to say, the little bird ashtray has just adopted a new association. My grandmother, my mother, and Sammy.
Turns out my digging, and transplanting, and hiring out to professionals yielded more than a more functional garden. Everyone agrees: “I” have created a spiritual sanctuary. I suppose ORP** will need to work on her direction before she can earn salvation.
Other than that, she’s come a long way.
1. She is a master of sitting upon the command of a hand signal.
2. She generally goes to her little den upon the command ‘go to bed’ (although if she’s just woken and come out of her den, then she demonstrates a touch of willfulness).
3. She lies down when told, ‘down’.
4. She gives a paw when told, ‘shake’.
5. Without fail, she shits outside (very important).
Other than the figuring out which way to kneel to Mecca, it would be really nice if she stopped sporadically weeing indoors.
Still, not bad for two weeks***.
*Not an original joke.
**Our religious puppy
***Two weeks of being under our beneficial influence. She is 10 weeks old.
I’m not sure how I feel about this: colour pics. It seems to go against the grain of the blog. But hell, I’m on holiday soon so will be out of The Smoke … seems a little colour is in order.
Before I go, I have to adorn my hand in a latex glove and deliver upon another (foto related) request.
Now, where are those gloves?
It really is true: everything is bigger in the U S of A. The Rocky Mountains. The Grand Canyon. Houses, people, cars. Pets, guns, Sequioa trees. But, most notably, the American refrigerator outsizes and outperforms with seemingly endless functionality its European counterparts.
Using what can only be described as an astute power of observation, a girl who dates London (a lot), noted from my spending list that I must have been in the throes of a home improvement binge. This is true. I was.
One of my biggest frustrations with my what-was-current domestic set-up had to do with the size of my refrigerator. I’m a girl who likes a big fridge. Not that I really need a big refrigerator. During one of my periodic episodes of refrigerator based complaining, the Mista was quick to point out that we’d gotten by just fine with our diminutive icebox. I didn’t want to get by “just fine”. Particularly during the summer months when we tend to “entertain”. I craved the luxury of chilling wine and beer and stocking perishable refreshments without having to put my powers of spatial orientation to the test.
After banging on (and on and on) about the inconvenience associated with our small refrigerator, I wore the Mista’s spartan resolve down. He made a most romantic gesture. He surprised me with a 2nd fridge.
I’ve only ever owned a car for 1 year of my life (I was sixteen. Jeezus praise the U S of A). Now I’m the proud owner of two refrigerators. They are both small.
Filed under: projects
For those of you eco-bloggers out there, fear not. When I uprooted the beautiful, yet ill-placed Laurel tree, I did not let it wither on the vine. I merely gave it a more appropriate home, and it is thriving most nicely.
I’m no dummy: I knew that the uprooting of the Laurel tree would leave a gap in the centre of my patio.
Before shovel hit dirt, I had devised a plan for the would-be-hole. A plan not quite on the scale of, yet inspired by, the architects of La Mesquita in Cordoba, the Alcazar in Sevilla, and the Alhambra in Granada. A masterpiece mosaic as the focal point of the garden, that would be discovered in a thousand years time by the future’s version of Time Team. I would find the tiles. I would design the centrepiece that could be tread upon and admired simultaneously during summer bbqs. I would mix the concrete, affix the tiles and lay the grout like a professional. I would be famous, if not in my lifetime then in a thousand years time when my genius would be uncovered. How hard could it be?
First: find tiles. A quick Internet search and voila: supplier of Moroccan tiles identified.
Task completed.
Second: procure tiles. A trip to previously identified supplier of Moroccan tiles, a swipe of the credit card, and a back-breaking trip from shop to curbside to an awaiting mini-cab.
Who would have thought that one square metre of tiles could be so heavy?
Task completed.
Third: design the centrepiece. Some hemming. Some hawing. Some puzzling over the piecing together of 5cm x 5cm plain tiles and 10cm x 10cm decorative tiles.
Oh, that’s nice.
Task completed.
And then my plan came crumbling down around me.
By this time, the would-be-hole had become a real-live-almost-one-square-metre-and-1-foot-deep hole. A hole that would need some filling before I could get down to the serious business of laying pretty tiles. I was not to be intimidated. I would fill that hole. I would. I would!
So, I returned to the local hardware store where I was becoming all too familiar with the things DIY. Now at this point, I must interject my philosophy of DIY. I hate it. I think it’s stupid. I think UNLESS you can do a quality job, you shouldn’t be messing with DIY. There are certified professionals to do such things. Outsource, outsource, outsource. This philosophy has only been confirmed by living in a flat where the previous tenant seemed to fancy herself a DIY guru. She wasn’t. I’m still hiring people to clean up the mess of things she made. DIY. AAARrrrrgG!
My project had nothing at all to do with DIY. It was to be art. It was to make history.
“How is your DIY project coming along?” the well meaning bastard who owns the hardware shop asked as I slapped 3 bags of some plaster/concrete/cement type substance and a box of latex gloves* upon the checkout counter.
A shiver ran down my spine.
“Oh, great. Thanks.”
8 hours later, I had a lot of dried plaster in my hair and very little in the patio hole. I had learnt something: mixing plaster/concrete/cement is hard work. Laying it down smoothly right upon the naked face of Mother Earth herself is even more difficult. Such challenges can prove to be frustrating.
I can do this! I know I can. If the Egyptians can build the pyramids then I can fill this god-damn hole and lay some fucking tiles!
I turned to the Internet for guidance. What was I doing wrong? Should I have gotten something more specific than the general plaster/cement/concrete substance.? Oh, woe to the plaster/cement/concrete virgin. There are as many types of plaster/cement/concrete substances as there are people. Each is unique and performs a most specialised function. My eyes began to cross. I began to hate the Internet. I began to hate the hole in the patio. I began to hate the Mista who sat smirking as he played Pro-Evolution Football.
I need help.
I turned to the supplier of the Moroccan tiles for guidance. I was politely informed that plaster wouldn’t do. Not in this climate. Not with the porous nature of the Moroccan tiles they had sold me.
A scene flashed before my eyes: a future owner of my flat cursing me for my inept attempt at DIY.
“Do you know anyone who can lay these tiles for me?”
Two days later the job was done. Not by me.
*Having thought about buying latex gloves for cleaning up after the impending puppy, I spied a box at the hardware store. Eureka! I’m sure those will come in handy while I mix this plaster/cement/concrete!
Like Greavsie, I too have recently contended with a hole.
However, unlike my more imaginative blogging colleague, I knew with no uncertain certainty that my hole was definitely not a portal. Not even a secret passageway to China, despite the fact that I had dug all day. When one isn’t accustomed to such an extent of digging, one harbours the secret expectation that something exotic will come of it — if not an encounter with a Chinaman, then at least a Roman pottery shard or Venetian glass trading bead. I got nothing but dirt under my nails …and a not-quite-one-full-square metre hole in the back patio.
I’m not one to typically spend my free time randomly digging, so, there was a point to the dirt under my nails and the resulting not-quite-one-full-square metre hole. And, that point was to rectify just one of the many decorating faux-pas* made by the previous owner, namely the placement of a Laurel tree smack dab in the middle of the patio. A lovely tree, but poorly placed causing summertime guests to dodge and dance around the greenery.
I dug. I tugged at roots. I left a hole in the middle of the patio.
*What is the plural of ‘faux pas’?
