Lovely Food Go Away – I’m Concentrating

As if the day couldn’t get any more shite, all the girls bar me and the other new girl ordered takeaway chips and gravy (possibly my favourite food ever) whilst I binged out on my apple.

I comforted myself with the thought that in three months time when I am a slimmed down version of myself in my bridesmaid’s dress at Lilsister’s wedding I would be so amazing that men would instantly fall dead at my feet and I would have my pick of future playmates.

Then I thought of a recipe I cut out of the paper, to make a butternut squash smoothie with chia seeds and felt more depressed than ever.

At no stage did the apple taste bad, I was merely not in the mood for its natural goodness.

I went to buy a scone after work, and bought a brown one.  It was not the same at all.

Foetal Position Time

Plodded into work this morning and was informed I would be doing an additional thing today.

Stared at my manager, horrified.  It was 8am.

Yes, I have had green tea, but that is not REAL tea, so seriously, don’t go rocking my morning before the caffeine hits.  Plus, did I mention, it was 8am and I have trouble stringing sentences together at that hour.  So, instead of screaming are you bleedin serious you mad cow all I could do was stare at her in the aforementioned horror.  I think I was putting stuff on my desk and I actually froze, terrified.  She said don’t worry, you’ll be fine, I’ll help you through it, and proceeded to make me do it without an ounce of training.

This is all fine I suppose, except I don’t know how to do my actual job yet, let alone all the little extras that make the day that much more shite.  So, having being accosted both pre-tea and early in the morning, I was completely thrown all morning, and flapped about like I had been poked in the arse.

During one of my many mini meltdowns that followed I requested help and it was duly given by my manager.  However, she then leaned in and said she understood where I was coming from, because ‘you know yourself, when you get to a certain age and you see all the young ones flying along on the system, your confidence is knocked’.

Right.

So I am fully aware I turned 40 last Friday.  I know I don’t look 20.  But I don’t look like a crumbling heap either and I have rarely been on a database that is so non user friendly that using a MOUSE TO CLICK ON IT actually FREEZES THE ENTIRE SYSTEM.  I am a child of the 80s and I can tell you, this ‘system’ is uglier and nastier that any black screen with the flashing green text on it.  I am not drowning because the bright young things next to me can use it, some of these world travellers have been in the company over 6 years using the same thing every day, whilst I was out getting my life wrecked, something that has clearly impacted on the lines on my face and contributed to me being referred to as ‘of a certain age’.  I have also been using systems that allow you to use the ‘enter’ button, and a mouse if required, and can copy and paste.  I know, what old biddy.

After that, I got a mug of tea and took several meditation-inspired deep breaths and felt like having a cry.

This starting from scratch crap at 40 is a lot harder than I let it look.

 

 

 

Ommmmm

It’s been a few days since I meditated, thought I to myself yesterday, and I’ve been feeling good so I’ll prolong the endorphins and give it a few minutes.

I can’t always meditate alone and after a week of tearing my hair out in the new job where you have to F3 this, hit space bar twice for that,  hold Control and F2 for that (seriously, what TWAT designed their system) I pulled out the laptop so I could YouTube a guided meditation for 30 mins and feel refreshed and raring to go.

Firstly, the computer took four days to load up.  No idea why.  I hit it, re-started, and went online.  My internet connection suddenly died.  Several deep breaths (handy for meditation preparation) and we re-started AGAIN.  Great, computer warms up instantly, I am online, seeking guided meditations for…happiness?  Confidence?  Abundance?  Select, lie back…great, there is no sound.  Uninstall sound.  Re-start.  Twelve days later I am so frustrated I am YELLING at the laptop, and cursing its existence.  I go and wash the dishes.  By the time I finish I am very warm and tired.  Look for guided meditations on post-laptop destruction, find none.  See that there is one for calmness, but there is no point.  Find something in the end and sit there for 30 minutes finding the guide’s Australian voice really annoying, and feel itchy.

 

Have Hissy Fit, Will Clean

A fantastic display of drama from one of my new work colleagues yesterday.  Upon being told he had to move desk, he bundled his notebook and pen together, and threw them down on his new work surface.  Finding that somebody else had had the gall to sit there previously, and had left their own notes and pens there, he then proceeded to pick them up and quite simply, throw them in the air, where they all fell back down in front of him again.  It appears that this was fine, his point had been made.  He then announced to the room that he had found a box of false nails and somebody better claim them.  No-one did, and he tossed them behind him.   Brilliant.

The best bit was when he pulled a spray can out of nowhere, sprayed it all over the desk and began scrubbing it with toilet roll.  I was engulfed in a smell of lemon that isn’t really lemon but some cleaning company’s chemical version of same, and used my choking on the fumes to disguise my tittering.

 

A Niece With Four Legs

Middlebro and The Baker have bought a dog. It’s a girl called Lola. It’s very nice, but it keeps trying to lick my face. This disturbs me greatly. I do not like my face being licked by a creature whose favourite toy is half of The Baker’s padded pink bra (played with in the back garden in front of all the horrified neighbours). The other half, we believe, has been killed by Lola. Or eaten. Both thoughts are disturbing.

Middlebro (AND The Baker) are insisting that I think of the dog as my niece. She’s not my niece. She’s a DOG. A nice one, but I can’t have tea parties with her like I do with Little Niece N or play ladybirds, like I do with Little Star.

More disturbingly, when the family was out for dinner last week, both Middlebro and The Baker professed their sadness at missing Lola. She was 20 minutes away. Probably eating the bra. They were due to have drinks in Lilsister’s apartment and actually had a discussion about picking the dog up and bringing her with them.

This is NOT my niece. However, that is my brother, and that is more scary.

Sorry, I’m Trying to Be Nice

Trevor rings me.  She speaks in a low tone.  I think she is either going to tell me about a terrible act she is about to commit, or she’s committed the act, gotten caught, and is ringing me from the courtroom where the jury has taken 16 minutes to decide she’s guilty.

‘I have to tell you something,’ she breathes down the line.

‘Of course?’ I gasp, in upspeak, as if to say, tell me if you want, but don’t expect  me to like it.  She keeps doing terrible things to her husband when he’s drunk such as standing behind him when he sits down to watch tv – she puts her hair over her face and stays still for the 45 minutes it takes for him to see a hairy creature in the mirror behind him.  She also blows up balloons and ties them to the inside door handle so when he falls in he has to contend with what he believes are ghosts grabbing at him.  Then she jumps out at him.  She has been known to lie in wait for two hours to do this, and I fear he has finally had the heart attack we all know is coming.  She’s killed him.  With hundreds of balloons.

‘So this is what it is.’

‘Okay.  Go for it.’

‘You looked very svelte the other night when I saw you.’

‘Right.  Did I?’

‘Yes.  I didn’t want to say it in front of the others because I know you’d kill me.  But you’re looking well.  Sorry.  I know you hate compliments.’

I hang up, but not before I scream at her that it’s a good thing we’re both in counselling because my giving out for receiving compliments and her apologising for handing them out is messed up.

See Through the Tunnel With Extended Eyelashes

As I strolled past the dry cleaners and through the TUNNEL that leads the way to the office block my counsellor works from (is that an eyesore metaphor?) I noticed a new place had opened up – the name of a girl, a number and the title ‘Wax Specialist and Eyelash Extensionist’.

The cynic in me thought to laugh, then thought no, she’s up here, waxing specially and extending eyelashes, while I am keeping my distance from dirty hand sanitisers at the welfare office and eating scones.

Who’s laughing now?

 

No to Cork, Yes to Elderflower

Best to try new things, especially with gin, so myself and Honeymonster were recommended an elderflower tonic by a bar man who seriously, and I am not just saying this because I am 39 and 7/8ths, was about 12 years old.  Very nice indeed, except we both felt very sleepy afterwards.

Have also been trying the soda water instead of tonic, to cut calories (I’m aware it would be easier to cut out scones, but would it?  Be easier?  To cut out scones?  No, it would not.).  I suppose I could get used to it, but there was no zing, even with the addition of cucumber (essential to a clean cut gin drink – barmen, take out that bloody lemon and throw away the lime!  Cucumber is the king of gin!).

Whilst purchasing my soda water, I was accosted at the bar by a Cork football supporter who had the temerity to ask me if Dublin had won the match.  ‘Of course we did!’ I yelped at him like a wounded dog, amazed that he could envision otherwise.  He then advised me that the ‘rebels’ (a name the ignorant Corkonians call themselves) would happily see off Dublin ‘soon’.  I reminded him of our quite recent victory over this alleged ‘team’ and then we both started snorting at each other like bulls.  My gin was ready, and I left him ordering Beamish, or whatever shite Cork people drink instead of Dublin Guinness.

Our Ball – the Dubs explain to Wexford that they are surplus to requirements

Clean Desk Policy?

If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what is the empty desk a sign of? wondered Einstein.  Had he been at my local unemployment office the other day, what would he have thought of the hand sanitiser that was sitting on MY side of the desk?  I was trying to look interested in what the welfare ‘officer’ was saying behind her bullet proof glass (no joke – and very inconvenient, all I could hear was Justin Timberlake on the radio behind me, meaning I had to lean forward a lot and develop lip-reading skills), but I couldn’t because all the time I was wondering why my side had been provided with a cleaning object.  Am I dirty?  Am I finally, irrefutably, now officially, part of ‘the great unwashed’?  And why did the dispensing part have a great big brown knob of dirt on it?

I also noticed the stubs of three airplane tickets to my left, and a long hair spreading over the part of the desk I was trying not to lean on.

The airplane tickets were to Berlin, the current owners of Ireland.

Justin continued to croon, I leaned away from the brown bit on the sanitiser and began to nod my head vigorously to imply understanding.

I came out with a headache, and did NOT buy a scone.

Diarmuid Does Dallas (Well, Phoenix)

The Tank – Dub Hero Diarmuid out making mincemeat of our country enemies

Sitting in the pub after Dublin dispatched Wexford in the Gaelic football at Croke Park, I was shocked to find that during the trad session there was an actual double of Diarmuid Connolly sitting in front of me.  Was it him?

It was not, it was an American from Phoenix with the same square jaw, sharp hair ‘do’ and rectangled body of the great man himself.  Lilsister proclaimed him to be Diarmuid’s double, made facebook friends with him and promptly sent him photos of The Great One.  He left pretty quickly after that, saying he was en route to Kerry.  We told him not to mention Diarmuid over there.