A large pizza (with stuffed crust), plus two large fizzy drinks: £23.50.
Two puddings (that we knew we shouldn't have had after the pizza, but hey): £6.
Tip: £3.50
A great evening out: priceless.
...But...
Watching the body quivering, tail windmilling, pure and unadulterated joy demonstrated by your dog as he scarfs down the entire large slice of pizza that you brought home just for him*...? Well, that is better than priceless, ladies and gentlemen: that is absolutely bloody marvelously wonderful.
That is all.
Alice x
* To any horrified onlooker that may be reading: I am aware that yes; pizza is a bad food to give to a dog (or a human, for that matter), but no; I don't care. He loved it, it's not something that happens every day, and it's not going to kill him. So! If you disapprove (...as they say on American sitcoms...): bite me.
Wednesday, 30 October 2013
Thursday, 24 October 2013
Two Brief Conversations With The Dog:
CONVERSATION 1:
~START~
Scene begins in living room. Alice & Bingo are sat on sofa and bed respectively, the former reading and the latter chewing on a tennis ball, when Bingo leaves his tennis ball, gets up and walks across to where Alice is sat...
BINGO: (walks across, stares at Alice for a moment, then realizing that she is not paying him any attention, hits her hard with his paw)
ALICE: (having been unpleasantly jolted out of wherever the book had taken her, she looks at dog over the top of the her glasses) ...did you want something, Bingo?
BINGO: (wags tail)
~END~
CONVERSATION 2:
~START~
Scene begins outdoors. Alice and Bingo are walking home after a nice, long and successful walk. As it has been raining heavily, not only is the river high against the banks and moving rapidly, but there are large puddles lining the pavement along which they are walking. Alice is both bemused and ruefully amused to note that Bingo is carefully avoiding the puddles by treading with the utmost delicate care along the precariously narrow dry edges. A conversation ensues...
ALICE: (bemused) So, you'll jump into a scarily fast moving river without a moments' hesitation, but getting your feet wet in less than an inch worth of puddle is out of the question??
BINGO: (wags to show willing then goes back to careful and delicate treading)
ALICE: (sighs and shakes head) Right-ho...
~END~
~START~
Scene begins in living room. Alice & Bingo are sat on sofa and bed respectively, the former reading and the latter chewing on a tennis ball, when Bingo leaves his tennis ball, gets up and walks across to where Alice is sat...
BINGO: (walks across, stares at Alice for a moment, then realizing that she is not paying him any attention, hits her hard with his paw)
ALICE: (having been unpleasantly jolted out of wherever the book had taken her, she looks at dog over the top of the her glasses) ...did you want something, Bingo?
BINGO: (wags tail)
~END~
CONVERSATION 2:
~START~
Scene begins outdoors. Alice and Bingo are walking home after a nice, long and successful walk. As it has been raining heavily, not only is the river high against the banks and moving rapidly, but there are large puddles lining the pavement along which they are walking. Alice is both bemused and ruefully amused to note that Bingo is carefully avoiding the puddles by treading with the utmost delicate care along the precariously narrow dry edges. A conversation ensues...
ALICE: (bemused) So, you'll jump into a scarily fast moving river without a moments' hesitation, but getting your feet wet in less than an inch worth of puddle is out of the question??
BINGO: (wags to show willing then goes back to careful and delicate treading)
ALICE: (sighs and shakes head) Right-ho...
~END~
Sunday, 20 October 2013
I've Been Doing This Job For Too Long...
...my last dream consisted of a very real seeming shift at work: sweeping and mopping and so on. Things progressed as normal until I straightened up, wiped my hands together and declared in a bright cheerful voice:
"Right! I'm about to wake up now, so we need to pop the wet floor signs out..."
We did. And as the last one was opened up and placed firmly down, I woke up.
So! Even when I am asleep and dreaming, and my mind KNOWS I am asleep and dreaming; instead of nice happy things - bunnies, for instance, or flower filled fields, or a flying carpet ride with John Hannah - my brain decides that what I need is more work related content.
=SIGHS=
"Right! I'm about to wake up now, so we need to pop the wet floor signs out..."
We did. And as the last one was opened up and placed firmly down, I woke up.
So! Even when I am asleep and dreaming, and my mind KNOWS I am asleep and dreaming; instead of nice happy things - bunnies, for instance, or flower filled fields, or a flying carpet ride with John Hannah - my brain decides that what I need is more work related content.
=SIGHS=
Thursday, 10 October 2013
Bits n' Bobs:
* It's my birthday on Saturday.
Well, Sunday, actually. But I'm working on Sunday, so have made an executive decision to move my birthday to the day before. Hence; my birthday is this Saturday, and it is going to be great. Not only do I have a day out planned that should be highly enjoyable - a dog walk followed by a visit to the SeaLife Centre in Birmingham followed by another dog walk followed by a meal out followed by a couple of nice stiff drinks - BUT, BUT my dear (missing?) reader; there will also be cake. And homemade cake at that.
Good, eh?
* I chased a toddler with my broom yesterday. That sounds really bad, but actually it was an event encouraged by all involved - well, by the toddler and me. His dad didn't appear all that thrilled - and made everybody smile. Until a passing manager saw me and called a stop to it, that is.
Spoilsport. The poor kid looked really disappointed...
* Mother was chased by a spider on Sunday evening in the middle of her viola practice. A big one. So big that she shrieked and didn't stop until I went to investigate. Then she was so hysterical she didn't want me to touch it so I could pop it outside. I had to fetch a glass and a piece of cardboard and physically shove her out of the hallway - also known as our Music Corridor - before I could rescue her from the terror of the spider and the spider from the terror of her terror.
On a related note, once one has pushed one's mother out of the way and realizes that the spider has vanished; "uh-oh, where's it gone?" is NOT a good thing to say out loud. Particularly if one's mother is just on the other side of the door and her hearing is quite acute.
* Did I mention that it is my birthday on Saturday?
There will be cake.
* Bingo has inexplicably started scavenging for cat muck and if I don't notice or reach him in time, he gobbles it up. It's a distressing habit that he has suddenly developed, previously having scavenged solely for food - particularly meat, with bonus joy if it's got bones to crunch - and spent his life seeing muck as something delightfully smelly to roll in, rather than to eat. And I have to say, not only am I ignorant as to why this trend has started, but I am also bewildered as to how to stop it. I can't watch him every single second as he roams around. I can't have him on his lead all the time either, because that would just be cruel. Of course there is the fact that though it's disgusting to us, it doesn't seem to be doing him any harm, so I suppose that is a plus.
Another puzzle, of course, is where all this muck has come from. I thought cats liked to bury their business once they'd finished. When did that stop happening? Ours always certainly have, as do all the cats of all the people I know, so why the sudden influx of felines that aren't bothering??
* The Bitch still isn't back. Apparently she 'forgot' that the sick note that she hadn't bothered to send in was actually for four weeks, not one. And apparently she is still suffering from this breakdown/agoraphobia that suddenly struck her out of nowhere anyway, so we're not too sure what's going to happen now.
Interestingly, though she is now in horrendous debt and also emotionally unable to leave the house, she still has both the gumption and the cash to go out drinking with friends. And also is stupid enough to write about it on that God awful Facebook that she frequents. With pictures.
One good thing is that our new Area Manager (henceforth known as AM) is as bewildered as us by the company's strange refusal to address this (or any other of the problems) and is not happy with either The Bitch's attitude and behaviour, or the lack of effort on behalf of her superiors to resolve it. So she is trying to find a way to force them to take action.
So you never know; there may be hope yet. Watch this space...
* Autumn is in full swing and the air is getting chillier by the day. This makes me happy. The skin on my hands isn't too thrilled with it, but the rest of me is. I love this time of year. My hay-fever is coming to an end, too.
* I know that being stupidly clumsy is part of my nature, but I am getting supremely fed up of continually injuring myself. I tripped over a step and slammed the right hand side of my body into a table yesterday, and the damage I did to the tendons in my left leg when I fell over at work - out of a walk in shower I was trying to clean onto a stone floor - is still causing me to limp three weeks after the fact.
Fed up is what I am. Fed UP.
* It's all change at the SENSE shop. The people that run the show are making some very funny and questionable decisions that are causing reverberations throughout the whole of the company. I am terribly glad that I am only a volunteer and only for 6 hours a week, so my dealings with the results are kept to a strict minimum. I just go in, check and tag stock, serve at the till when needed and then go home again. I'd hate to be a paid employee working there right now.
* There is an ongoing debate raging over the fact that certain individuals have taken to standing in front of the Town Hall - right in the middle of the town centre - and started preaching Hell & Brimstone type sermons to the passing public with the aid of an unshakable belief (that they are right and everyone else is wrong) and a very powerful microphone. One side of the debate is that the law protecting free speech applies to everything and everyone, another is that the right to free speech ends when said free speech is used to loudly heckle members of the public - with examples being cited that prove that in circumstances not involving "the word of the Lord", the law agrees with this - and yet another claiming that sod free speech; his/her/their business is being effected because paying members of the public are being actively driven away from their shops to avoid being shouted at.
Personally, I have sympathy with sentiment three and completely agree with sentiment two. There is a time and a place to share your views and in the middle of a busy town in front of shops armed with a microphone isn't one of them. What's happening here isn't a person opening a debate or trying to exchange views; it's a bully screaming in people's ears - people that are merely going about their business and incidentally, do not have microphones at their disposal to scream back at the bugger - that they are all evil and are going to burn forever in hell because they don't agree with him. And in my opinion, that doesn't equate to 'free speech' being exercised, but plain and simple verbal abuse.
That's what I think, anyway.
...Anyhoo, got to go, so that's it for now. Dinner won't cook itself.
Mores the pity. Don't you think?
Alice x
PS: did I mention that it is my birthday on Saturday?
There will be cake...
Well, Sunday, actually. But I'm working on Sunday, so have made an executive decision to move my birthday to the day before. Hence; my birthday is this Saturday, and it is going to be great. Not only do I have a day out planned that should be highly enjoyable - a dog walk followed by a visit to the SeaLife Centre in Birmingham followed by another dog walk followed by a meal out followed by a couple of nice stiff drinks - BUT, BUT my dear (missing?) reader; there will also be cake. And homemade cake at that.
Good, eh?
* I chased a toddler with my broom yesterday. That sounds really bad, but actually it was an event encouraged by all involved - well, by the toddler and me. His dad didn't appear all that thrilled - and made everybody smile. Until a passing manager saw me and called a stop to it, that is.
Spoilsport. The poor kid looked really disappointed...
* Mother was chased by a spider on Sunday evening in the middle of her viola practice. A big one. So big that she shrieked and didn't stop until I went to investigate. Then she was so hysterical she didn't want me to touch it so I could pop it outside. I had to fetch a glass and a piece of cardboard and physically shove her out of the hallway - also known as our Music Corridor - before I could rescue her from the terror of the spider and the spider from the terror of her terror.
On a related note, once one has pushed one's mother out of the way and realizes that the spider has vanished; "uh-oh, where's it gone?" is NOT a good thing to say out loud. Particularly if one's mother is just on the other side of the door and her hearing is quite acute.
* Did I mention that it is my birthday on Saturday?
There will be cake.
* Bingo has inexplicably started scavenging for cat muck and if I don't notice or reach him in time, he gobbles it up. It's a distressing habit that he has suddenly developed, previously having scavenged solely for food - particularly meat, with bonus joy if it's got bones to crunch - and spent his life seeing muck as something delightfully smelly to roll in, rather than to eat. And I have to say, not only am I ignorant as to why this trend has started, but I am also bewildered as to how to stop it. I can't watch him every single second as he roams around. I can't have him on his lead all the time either, because that would just be cruel. Of course there is the fact that though it's disgusting to us, it doesn't seem to be doing him any harm, so I suppose that is a plus.
Another puzzle, of course, is where all this muck has come from. I thought cats liked to bury their business once they'd finished. When did that stop happening? Ours always certainly have, as do all the cats of all the people I know, so why the sudden influx of felines that aren't bothering??
* The Bitch still isn't back. Apparently she 'forgot' that the sick note that she hadn't bothered to send in was actually for four weeks, not one. And apparently she is still suffering from this breakdown/agoraphobia that suddenly struck her out of nowhere anyway, so we're not too sure what's going to happen now.
Interestingly, though she is now in horrendous debt and also emotionally unable to leave the house, she still has both the gumption and the cash to go out drinking with friends. And also is stupid enough to write about it on that God awful Facebook that she frequents. With pictures.
One good thing is that our new Area Manager (henceforth known as AM) is as bewildered as us by the company's strange refusal to address this (or any other of the problems) and is not happy with either The Bitch's attitude and behaviour, or the lack of effort on behalf of her superiors to resolve it. So she is trying to find a way to force them to take action.
So you never know; there may be hope yet. Watch this space...
* Autumn is in full swing and the air is getting chillier by the day. This makes me happy. The skin on my hands isn't too thrilled with it, but the rest of me is. I love this time of year. My hay-fever is coming to an end, too.
* I know that being stupidly clumsy is part of my nature, but I am getting supremely fed up of continually injuring myself. I tripped over a step and slammed the right hand side of my body into a table yesterday, and the damage I did to the tendons in my left leg when I fell over at work - out of a walk in shower I was trying to clean onto a stone floor - is still causing me to limp three weeks after the fact.
Fed up is what I am. Fed UP.
* It's all change at the SENSE shop. The people that run the show are making some very funny and questionable decisions that are causing reverberations throughout the whole of the company. I am terribly glad that I am only a volunteer and only for 6 hours a week, so my dealings with the results are kept to a strict minimum. I just go in, check and tag stock, serve at the till when needed and then go home again. I'd hate to be a paid employee working there right now.
* There is an ongoing debate raging over the fact that certain individuals have taken to standing in front of the Town Hall - right in the middle of the town centre - and started preaching Hell & Brimstone type sermons to the passing public with the aid of an unshakable belief (that they are right and everyone else is wrong) and a very powerful microphone. One side of the debate is that the law protecting free speech applies to everything and everyone, another is that the right to free speech ends when said free speech is used to loudly heckle members of the public - with examples being cited that prove that in circumstances not involving "the word of the Lord", the law agrees with this - and yet another claiming that sod free speech; his/her/their business is being effected because paying members of the public are being actively driven away from their shops to avoid being shouted at.
Personally, I have sympathy with sentiment three and completely agree with sentiment two. There is a time and a place to share your views and in the middle of a busy town in front of shops armed with a microphone isn't one of them. What's happening here isn't a person opening a debate or trying to exchange views; it's a bully screaming in people's ears - people that are merely going about their business and incidentally, do not have microphones at their disposal to scream back at the bugger - that they are all evil and are going to burn forever in hell because they don't agree with him. And in my opinion, that doesn't equate to 'free speech' being exercised, but plain and simple verbal abuse.
That's what I think, anyway.
...Anyhoo, got to go, so that's it for now. Dinner won't cook itself.
Mores the pity. Don't you think?
Alice x
PS: did I mention that it is my birthday on Saturday?
There will be cake...
Sunday, 6 October 2013
Saturday, 5 October 2013
Alice Has Donned Her Moaning Minny Hat Again:
{WARNING: this is angry and rambling and I'm not altogether certain that it will make any sense. I do need to get it out, however, nevertheless. So bear with me.}
Here's the thing.
I try not to let things regarding MJ to get to me, really I don't. After all, I can't change them, or him for that matter, so why bother? And I try to see it that way, I really do. But every now and again it just...just GETS to me!
Things like:
* He doesn't wash (either clothes or himself). He doesn't work. He doesn't have the WILL to do anything other than eat, sleep and watch television.
* Because of being on benefits, all prescription costs and medication costs (including glasses and dental work) are completely free. I on the other hand have to pay between £16-£20 just to SEE the dentist, or optician, let alone if I need any treatment. The pair of glasses that I am wearing now cost me near-upon £250. The time before that I saved a bit because I was able to keep the same frames, but I still paid £189 simply for the lenses.
* He receives £154.90 every fortnight for doing NOTHING. Until very recently out of this he had to fork out a grand total of £25 per fortnight. Now the benefit system has changed he has to pay a lot more: £120. That still leaves, however, £34 per fortnight to buy food and so forth. Divide by two and you are talking £17 per week. Not a lot, I know, but it is for ONE person. ONE. There may not be a lot left over, or indeed any left over, for treats and so forth, but it's manageable. DO-ABLE. So does he manage it? Does he do it? Does he heck! He has NEVER budgeted, EVER. He ALWAYS runs out of money - and always has done so, even when his only bills were £25 a fortnight and he had a full £129 just to himself to spend on whatever he wanted - within a few days of receiving it; it doesn't even last a week, let alone the two! And it's FREE money. He hasn't earned it; he doesn't even have to deal with the job-centre to get it, because it goes through the doctors (it being 'Incapacity Benefit' rather than Job Seekers Allowance).
* Leading neatly on from the last point; to make up the deficiency he always has because of not budgeting and running out of money up to nine days early, mother tops it back up again, buying him food drink and even cigarettes.
We spend an average of £45 per week on our main weekly shop. Because of MJ, she also spends a quarter or so of that AGAIN on top of it just on him. Every week!
In a fit of (possibly hormone induced) moral outrage, I worked it out:
- Cigarettes (one pack per week) = £4.00
- Fizzy Pop (he always takes at least two of ours, usually without asking) = £1.00
- Bread (on average one loaf worth per week) = £1.00
- Crispy Pancakes (two packets) = £2.00
- Cheese (two 250g packets per week) = £.4.00
- Other (he occasionally walks off with toilet rolls, toothpaste etc) = £1.00
So! That is a grand total of £13 per week, every week, that mother spends on him. And yes, I can hear my reader saying; it IS her money. And yes, she CAN do whatever she wants with it. And yes, doing this helps to ease her conscience over having to turf him out when his mood swings and drug use caused him to become too violent, and also makes him visit so she is reassured that he is still alive and his life - such as it is - is still going as it should be. I know all this, and I tell myself this over and over again, but on days like today when I am feeling as I am it still infuriates me that it should be this way.
And one of the reasons that it infuriates me so is the WAY it happens. For one thing, we can't stockpile any of the things that he eats; taking advantage of offers and so forth, because of the way his brain works. He doesn't see, say, TWO blocks of cheese and think; 'oh, here are two blocks of cheese. That means that ONE of them is for today's visit and the OTHER one must be for my second visit, later in the week'. Nope, he just thinks 'ooh, extra cheese! Whee!', and he eats them both, all at once. Which wouldn't be so bad, except that because, again, of the way his brain works, he will STILL expect to receive another block of cheese on his next visit. Which leads neatly into the other thing. The way in which he RECEIVES these gifts.
Because he isn't grateful, you see - or at least very rarely - for this help. Nope. He seems to feel entitled to it; as though it is somehow his due, something that we SHOULD be doing, rather than a nice thing that we are doing out of the kindness of our hearts. So much so that if something is missing or different to the norm, his reaction isn't so much disappointment as mild annoyance. Take the double cheese on one day analogy for example. On Saturday he would find and eat two blocks of cheese rather than saving one (which mother, or I, would have brought because it was on offer and saved us money buying two at once rather than one two on two separate days) for Tuesday. Then on Tuesday, the following scene would ensue.
"...Oh..." he'll say, as he routs through our - OUR - cupboards to see what is there; "...no cheese then?"
And his voice will be a mixture of jokey, disappointed, and actually annoyed. He is ANNOYED that we didn't spend the extra money all over again and buy him even more.
Of course, there is always the fact that we could have a 'once it's gone, that's it' policy. We should do it like that. Just as we should hit the roof that he takes anything that he fancies that isn't tied down without asking - including any money that he can find - like our toilet rolls and pop and vinegar and...oh, lots of silly things that sound as though they shouldn't matter, but they do.
We should put our foot down about this, and other things as well, but we don't. Because mother doesn't want to. Because mother wants him to be happy and him being happy - or at least not UNhappy - makes HER happy. So she bends over backwards to not do anything that would cause any confrontation or bad feeling, and she asks, neigh, BEGS me to do the same. Which for the most part, I do. Because I want her to be happy. So I put up with her - and often me - being inconvenienced so that he is happy. Because that makes HER happy.
What else can I do?? I make occasional stands and they occasionally - but not always - have an effect, but that effect is temporary; before long things slide back to how they were before and muddle along until I have had my fill and begin seething again.
It's not a healthy way to be. I know that. And as I said, most of the time I let it just roll over me. 'Let the two of them do as they will', I say to myself blithely. But every now again, something will happen and it will just GET to me. Like today. Food and necessities are going up in price alarmingly; enough that we are having to consider cutting back drastically by the end of the month. But not HIS stuff, obviously. The ungrateful scrounging shit mustn't be hurt by the recession; oh no. It'll just be us, the two hard working tax payers, that have to go without.
Anyway, that's set me off. And that, along with a *reminder* text from him to get his cigarettes this morning, means that I am at screaming point.
So now I am going out to see Best Friend 1 and Squidgum and leave the bloody lot of them to it.
Before I really DO start screaming...
Alice x
Here's the thing.
I try not to let things regarding MJ to get to me, really I don't. After all, I can't change them, or him for that matter, so why bother? And I try to see it that way, I really do. But every now and again it just...just GETS to me!
Things like:
* He doesn't wash (either clothes or himself). He doesn't work. He doesn't have the WILL to do anything other than eat, sleep and watch television.
* Because of being on benefits, all prescription costs and medication costs (including glasses and dental work) are completely free. I on the other hand have to pay between £16-£20 just to SEE the dentist, or optician, let alone if I need any treatment. The pair of glasses that I am wearing now cost me near-upon £250. The time before that I saved a bit because I was able to keep the same frames, but I still paid £189 simply for the lenses.
* He receives £154.90 every fortnight for doing NOTHING. Until very recently out of this he had to fork out a grand total of £25 per fortnight. Now the benefit system has changed he has to pay a lot more: £120. That still leaves, however, £34 per fortnight to buy food and so forth. Divide by two and you are talking £17 per week. Not a lot, I know, but it is for ONE person. ONE. There may not be a lot left over, or indeed any left over, for treats and so forth, but it's manageable. DO-ABLE. So does he manage it? Does he do it? Does he heck! He has NEVER budgeted, EVER. He ALWAYS runs out of money - and always has done so, even when his only bills were £25 a fortnight and he had a full £129 just to himself to spend on whatever he wanted - within a few days of receiving it; it doesn't even last a week, let alone the two! And it's FREE money. He hasn't earned it; he doesn't even have to deal with the job-centre to get it, because it goes through the doctors (it being 'Incapacity Benefit' rather than Job Seekers Allowance).
* Leading neatly on from the last point; to make up the deficiency he always has because of not budgeting and running out of money up to nine days early, mother tops it back up again, buying him food drink and even cigarettes.
We spend an average of £45 per week on our main weekly shop. Because of MJ, she also spends a quarter or so of that AGAIN on top of it just on him. Every week!
In a fit of (possibly hormone induced) moral outrage, I worked it out:
- Cigarettes (one pack per week) = £4.00
- Fizzy Pop (he always takes at least two of ours, usually without asking) = £1.00
- Bread (on average one loaf worth per week) = £1.00
- Crispy Pancakes (two packets) = £2.00
- Cheese (two 250g packets per week) = £.4.00
- Other (he occasionally walks off with toilet rolls, toothpaste etc) = £1.00
So! That is a grand total of £13 per week, every week, that mother spends on him. And yes, I can hear my reader saying; it IS her money. And yes, she CAN do whatever she wants with it. And yes, doing this helps to ease her conscience over having to turf him out when his mood swings and drug use caused him to become too violent, and also makes him visit so she is reassured that he is still alive and his life - such as it is - is still going as it should be. I know all this, and I tell myself this over and over again, but on days like today when I am feeling as I am it still infuriates me that it should be this way.
And one of the reasons that it infuriates me so is the WAY it happens. For one thing, we can't stockpile any of the things that he eats; taking advantage of offers and so forth, because of the way his brain works. He doesn't see, say, TWO blocks of cheese and think; 'oh, here are two blocks of cheese. That means that ONE of them is for today's visit and the OTHER one must be for my second visit, later in the week'. Nope, he just thinks 'ooh, extra cheese! Whee!', and he eats them both, all at once. Which wouldn't be so bad, except that because, again, of the way his brain works, he will STILL expect to receive another block of cheese on his next visit. Which leads neatly into the other thing. The way in which he RECEIVES these gifts.
Because he isn't grateful, you see - or at least very rarely - for this help. Nope. He seems to feel entitled to it; as though it is somehow his due, something that we SHOULD be doing, rather than a nice thing that we are doing out of the kindness of our hearts. So much so that if something is missing or different to the norm, his reaction isn't so much disappointment as mild annoyance. Take the double cheese on one day analogy for example. On Saturday he would find and eat two blocks of cheese rather than saving one (which mother, or I, would have brought because it was on offer and saved us money buying two at once rather than one two on two separate days) for Tuesday. Then on Tuesday, the following scene would ensue.
"...Oh..." he'll say, as he routs through our - OUR - cupboards to see what is there; "...no cheese then?"
And his voice will be a mixture of jokey, disappointed, and actually annoyed. He is ANNOYED that we didn't spend the extra money all over again and buy him even more.
Of course, there is always the fact that we could have a 'once it's gone, that's it' policy. We should do it like that. Just as we should hit the roof that he takes anything that he fancies that isn't tied down without asking - including any money that he can find - like our toilet rolls and pop and vinegar and...oh, lots of silly things that sound as though they shouldn't matter, but they do.
We should put our foot down about this, and other things as well, but we don't. Because mother doesn't want to. Because mother wants him to be happy and him being happy - or at least not UNhappy - makes HER happy. So she bends over backwards to not do anything that would cause any confrontation or bad feeling, and she asks, neigh, BEGS me to do the same. Which for the most part, I do. Because I want her to be happy. So I put up with her - and often me - being inconvenienced so that he is happy. Because that makes HER happy.
What else can I do?? I make occasional stands and they occasionally - but not always - have an effect, but that effect is temporary; before long things slide back to how they were before and muddle along until I have had my fill and begin seething again.
It's not a healthy way to be. I know that. And as I said, most of the time I let it just roll over me. 'Let the two of them do as they will', I say to myself blithely. But every now again, something will happen and it will just GET to me. Like today. Food and necessities are going up in price alarmingly; enough that we are having to consider cutting back drastically by the end of the month. But not HIS stuff, obviously. The ungrateful scrounging shit mustn't be hurt by the recession; oh no. It'll just be us, the two hard working tax payers, that have to go without.
Anyway, that's set me off. And that, along with a *reminder* text from him to get his cigarettes this morning, means that I am at screaming point.
So now I am going out to see Best Friend 1 and Squidgum and leave the bloody lot of them to it.
Before I really DO start screaming...
Alice x
Thursday, 3 October 2013
Just For Larks...
...I've updated my profile. Nothing too outlandish, really; editing a few words here and there (apparently I wasn't concentrating too well on the day that I wrote it) and generally tweaking it (is that the correct phrase?) to make it a bit better.
One important change that might be seen as a bit drastic is the picture. No longer when you look at my profile will passers by see me. What they will see instead is a picture that I drew using the 'PAINT' application on the computer I was using during my college course. It is a little yellow chicklet with a green felt-tip pen sort of outline and is, as pictures go, incredibly bad. Nevertheless, I am fiercely proud of it; enough to sign my name to it and use it as my profile picture, anyway.
Why, you ask? Well, two fold. First, because I was bored with the original picture and fed up of looking at myself every time I logged in to write a post. And second...well...simply because I can. So there.
=sticks out tongue=
I'm feeling very mature today. Can you tell?
Tara.
Alice x
One important change that might be seen as a bit drastic is the picture. No longer when you look at my profile will passers by see me. What they will see instead is a picture that I drew using the 'PAINT' application on the computer I was using during my college course. It is a little yellow chicklet with a green felt-tip pen sort of outline and is, as pictures go, incredibly bad. Nevertheless, I am fiercely proud of it; enough to sign my name to it and use it as my profile picture, anyway.
Why, you ask? Well, two fold. First, because I was bored with the original picture and fed up of looking at myself every time I logged in to write a post. And second...well...simply because I can. So there.
=sticks out tongue=
I'm feeling very mature today. Can you tell?
Tara.
Alice x
This Just In:
* It's pelting it down with rain, so I have a dog that is refusing to go for a walk.
Yeah. You read right. HE is refusing to go.
* I nearly fainted as I waited to pay for something in a shop today.
This cold is beginning to royally kick my arse.
* My head is pounding.
The cold again. But I think it merits mentioning twice.
* Choir practice tonight. I feel quite shitty but because I was so tired last week I didn't go, so now this week I have to go.
...Don't I?
* The dog is wriggling on his back. He wants his tummy stroked. My head is pounding. Bending hurts.
But he wants his tummy stroked.
=SIGHS=
EDITED TO ADD: It's ten minutes later and regarding the final matter, yes, I did it. Of course I did it. I had to hold my head with my other hand as I did it, but I did it. So Bingo is happy.
He is now lying with his amazingly bloody heavy head resting on my aching and rapidly going numb foot (which is also cold and damp; having been just seconds ago licked all over for reasons best known to himself).
Ow...
Yeah. You read right. HE is refusing to go.
* I nearly fainted as I waited to pay for something in a shop today.
This cold is beginning to royally kick my arse.
* My head is pounding.
The cold again. But I think it merits mentioning twice.
* Choir practice tonight. I feel quite shitty but because I was so tired last week I didn't go, so now this week I have to go.
...Don't I?
* The dog is wriggling on his back. He wants his tummy stroked. My head is pounding. Bending hurts.
But he wants his tummy stroked.
=SIGHS=
EDITED TO ADD: It's ten minutes later and regarding the final matter, yes, I did it. Of course I did it. I had to hold my head with my other hand as I did it, but I did it. So Bingo is happy.
He is now lying with his amazingly bloody heavy head resting on my aching and rapidly going numb foot (which is also cold and damp; having been just seconds ago licked all over for reasons best known to himself).
Ow...
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