Or maybe that should be 'things with which I cannot be bothered'?
1. Doilies. What is the point of them? They look hideous, slip on surfaces and need washing. If you are under 40, you are probably asking 'what is a doily?' well, it is a sort of crocheted mat to go on dressing tables and other precious surfaces to protect said surfaces from drinks, perfume, make-up, water from the flowers in your vase. 'What's crocheted?' OK enough.
2. Ornaments. As above. Most of them look hideous and they need washing. Or at least dusting. And, if life is too short to stuff a mushroom, it is definitely too short to dust the set of woodland animals you were persuaded by a Sunday supplement would look good on your mantlepiece. I realise that some ornaments might be delightful in themselves but the trouble is that most people don't know how to display them. Lilliput Lane thatched houses are cheek by jowl with balletic figurines and the rustic bowl you bought in a continental market. Trinket boxes jostle for position with balletic figurines and tiny replicas of the Eiffel Tower. Basically it's just a mess and the best place for the whole lot is a skip. My friend, Rose, is an interior designer and her new gaffe - basically a converted cave in the south of France - boasts a row of brightly coloured jugs on one side of the vast kitchen and a row of brightly coloured plates on the other side. None of these items match one another in any way, shape or colour. The only thing they have in common is that they are jugs. Or plates. I like that. But then, it might be an OCD thing.
3. Shopping. I know it's not very girly, but I fail to understand the term 'retail therapy'. Maybe that's because for me it has always meant a credit card up to the hilt and no chance of paying it off. Some therapy! I thank the god-of-all-things-virtual for internet shopping; meaning I can sit in my home with a cup of coffee and browse dresses and shoes and furniture and not actually have to do battle with crowds of badly-dressed chavs and their whining children.
My worst nightmare is IKEA and the maze they send you through to get to the one aisle you want to be in, though Mr F assures me that short-cuts can be found. Even the allure of Swedish meatballs and whipped ice cream is not enough.
And supermarket shopping. Well, I can manage about two aisles, which includes the wine aisle, then head for the tills. It's so labour intensive. You put stuff in a trolley, then you put it on a conveyor belt, then into the trolley, then into the boot of your car and then on the kitchen table to sort into cupboards, fridge etc... Thank the god-of-supermarket-competetiveness for home delivery.
Shopping is essential or we would have no food, clothes or household essentials, but it's the experience of shopping that I so dislike. The crowds, the too much baffling choice (except when you do choose but they don't have it in your size), the sheer leg-work (I'd rather go for a walk in the country) and the hammering of your impulse-buys on your plastic. I really cannot understand recreational shopping because, for me, there is nothing recreational about it. It's just an ordeal. Now, if we need to go to B&Q, for example, for something for the house, Mr F seats me in the cafe at the edge of the store and brings offerings for me to choose from while I enjoy a piece of carrot cake and a cappucino. He says I'm like a toddler and should be in a soft-play area. If it has books and newspapers in it, that's an appealing thought...
Monday 2 August 2010
Thursday 1 July 2010
work-shy
Today Mr F drove me in the rush hour to his place of work. It took one hour 15 minutes, which is one hour 14 minutes and 55 seconds longer than it normally takes me to get to work. But I am very spoilt as I work from home and my daily commute is from the bedroom to the office, both of them on the ground floor of the house. 'I wouldn't stick this for a week', I said, 'and then I'd be begging for a fortnight on a Greek island to recover from it.'
I have a zero tolerance of meetings that entail travel in the rush hour. Too stressful and time-consuming. To be honest, I have zero tolerance of work, yet am a workaholic at the same time. That might seem like a contradiction, but I guess it depends on your definition of work. Many people labour in jobs they hate at worst or tolerate at best and can't wait for the weekends and holidays. My Grown-Up Art Graduate Daughter has an admin job and, after 10 hours a day out of the house, returns to her bed-sit chez moi to whirr away on a sewing machine making designer bags or to pore over her computer creating unique greetings cards using images from her camera. She has to have her creative outlet. I have been lucky enough always to work in jobs I love only moving on when more exciting opportunities have presented themselves. Rarely has it seemed like work, but the proof was in the pay-slip. If your work is your passion, you are indeed blessed.
The nature of work has changed dramatically in the past few years. Thanks to the IT revolution, more and more people are able to work from home these days and it's not seens as sciving. Hot-desking means that workers are actually encouraged to work from home to save office space. The human energy that would have been wasted on commuting is lavished on an early start on the lap-top. Sometimes in bed in my case.
The danger is not switching off. Yes, you can have your personal email, favourite blogs and facebook open in windows alongside your work email and the report you are writing, but it's also tempting to take a peak at the work stuff in the evening. The technology is around us all the time and boundaries blur. Worse than that, colleagues know this and exploit it for instant response even out of work hours.
Sometimes Mr F works from home. We sit side by side quietly exercising our workaholic muscles, pausing only to make cups of tea requested via Facebook.
I have a zero tolerance of meetings that entail travel in the rush hour. Too stressful and time-consuming. To be honest, I have zero tolerance of work, yet am a workaholic at the same time. That might seem like a contradiction, but I guess it depends on your definition of work. Many people labour in jobs they hate at worst or tolerate at best and can't wait for the weekends and holidays. My Grown-Up Art Graduate Daughter has an admin job and, after 10 hours a day out of the house, returns to her bed-sit chez moi to whirr away on a sewing machine making designer bags or to pore over her computer creating unique greetings cards using images from her camera. She has to have her creative outlet. I have been lucky enough always to work in jobs I love only moving on when more exciting opportunities have presented themselves. Rarely has it seemed like work, but the proof was in the pay-slip. If your work is your passion, you are indeed blessed.
The nature of work has changed dramatically in the past few years. Thanks to the IT revolution, more and more people are able to work from home these days and it's not seens as sciving. Hot-desking means that workers are actually encouraged to work from home to save office space. The human energy that would have been wasted on commuting is lavished on an early start on the lap-top. Sometimes in bed in my case.
The danger is not switching off. Yes, you can have your personal email, favourite blogs and facebook open in windows alongside your work email and the report you are writing, but it's also tempting to take a peak at the work stuff in the evening. The technology is around us all the time and boundaries blur. Worse than that, colleagues know this and exploit it for instant response even out of work hours.
Sometimes Mr F works from home. We sit side by side quietly exercising our workaholic muscles, pausing only to make cups of tea requested via Facebook.
Thursday 24 June 2010
Wish Lists
Mr F has been looking for a new job. His current job is 80 miles away from where we live. A couple of job interviews ago, a Christian friend announced she would ‘be praying extra hard’ that he would get the job. He didn’t, as it happens, but I was bemused by the idea of praying extra hard. Does that mean you focus better when praying? Or that you stay on your knees longer? Or that you keep repeating your request? And that made me wonder if God would consider that to be nagging? After all, surely he would understand the request the first time. And what do we mean when we ask God for things? Don’t we really mean that we’ve decided already what would be a good outcome for us and we’re lodging that thought with God in case he hasn’t already thought of it? And what does it do to these people’s faith when their request hasn’t been granted? I’ve noticed a double-headed penny system working here. If God doesn’t deliver their shopping list, some people conclude it wasn’t ‘God’s will’. Fair enough, but why not just pray for God’s will anyway then? Or to be aligned to it. It seems to me that Jesus taught a prayer to that effect which contains the phrase ‘thy will be done’ and that’s good enough for me. Did Mr F get a new job? Stayed tuned!
Wednesday 23 June 2010
Arseology
Mr F came up with a brilliant idea yesterday. He was massaging hemp cream into my dry, cracked feet. Or hooves, as he likes to call them, and I started to tell him about reflexology. Each bit of my foot is connected to a part of my body, I explained. Or an organ in it. That big toe is actually my brain and it needs a bit of help so I can out-wit The Teenager, so rub it extra vigorously, I suggested. He laughed cruelly and asked if I really believed in such drivel. You’re very cynical for one so young, I said, right now you are massaging my left buttock and very nicely too, as he stroked the heel of my left foot. He retorted that he’d much rather be stroking the actual buttock and that’s when he came up with the idea. I wonder if every part of your arse could relate to a part of the body, he mused. I’m sure it does, I murmered, enjoying the new focus. I could develop a new therapy called arseology, he went on. People would pay good money and I could develop an ‘arse-map’ to give it some credibility. I bet it would catch on.
I blame it on him reading ‘Suckers’ by Rose Shapiro which sets out to de-bunk alternative therapies as un-scientific at best and downright dishonest and harmful at worst. Everything from reiki to hopi ear-candling gets a bashing and even the common practice of giving children water to drink to aid learning is shown to be, erm… difficult to swallow. Actually I rather like so-called alternative therapies. There’s something cosy and non-threatening about them, though it does make me giggle when I get told to drink water to ‘flush out my toxins’ after a massage. And I am a bit of a sucker for pseudo-science, though I draw the line at the notice I saw in the sauna at my local health club, which advised bringing in a towel to soak up your body fluids because ‘it’s not fair to expect other people to sit in your melted fat’. But pseudo-science is OK with me if it justifies an enjoyable therapy like, well reflexology actually. Or arseology for that matter.
I suppose alternative therapies become insidious when they become the last hope of anyone with a terminal illness or cash in on unhappiness. I know people in unhappy relationships who spend loads on tarot card readings and ‘personal’ horoscopes, but the tough truth is that if you have to consult a ‘psychic’ to tell you how your boyfriend feels, you might as well admit ‘he’s just not that into you’. The cheap and simple alternative is to just ask him, but that would mean facing up to the answer.
But I digress. If Mr F wants to develop his craft, I am enough of a sucker to let him. Or maybe he is?
I blame it on him reading ‘Suckers’ by Rose Shapiro which sets out to de-bunk alternative therapies as un-scientific at best and downright dishonest and harmful at worst. Everything from reiki to hopi ear-candling gets a bashing and even the common practice of giving children water to drink to aid learning is shown to be, erm… difficult to swallow. Actually I rather like so-called alternative therapies. There’s something cosy and non-threatening about them, though it does make me giggle when I get told to drink water to ‘flush out my toxins’ after a massage. And I am a bit of a sucker for pseudo-science, though I draw the line at the notice I saw in the sauna at my local health club, which advised bringing in a towel to soak up your body fluids because ‘it’s not fair to expect other people to sit in your melted fat’. But pseudo-science is OK with me if it justifies an enjoyable therapy like, well reflexology actually. Or arseology for that matter.
I suppose alternative therapies become insidious when they become the last hope of anyone with a terminal illness or cash in on unhappiness. I know people in unhappy relationships who spend loads on tarot card readings and ‘personal’ horoscopes, but the tough truth is that if you have to consult a ‘psychic’ to tell you how your boyfriend feels, you might as well admit ‘he’s just not that into you’. The cheap and simple alternative is to just ask him, but that would mean facing up to the answer.
But I digress. If Mr F wants to develop his craft, I am enough of a sucker to let him. Or maybe he is?
Monday 21 June 2010
Teen Wit
21st June
I’ve just been in The Teenager’s bedroom. It contains the usual detritus of clothes hung on the floor, penicillin in coffee mugs, Robert Pattison competing with blue-black hair dye that has somehow made it to the walls. In vain, and knowing that my words would fall on skull-candy ears, I commanded she clear the place up. OK, maybe I didn’t so much command as ask politely? Suggest mildly? OK I virtually begged. She may have gone to do it now. I don’t know. More likely – and I’ll check in a minute – she’s on Facebook holding ten conversations, dishing out relationship advice and organizing a take-over bid of the local ‘emo park’. Actually, what am I thinking? Her bedroom is the command-centre of local teen activity. What right do I have to impose my bourgeois tidying up regime when so much teenage angst and happiness is at stake?
I find myself out-witted at every turn. The other week The Teenager returned from town without most of the items I had given her £60 to buy. She had £28 worth of underwear & hair dye and handed me £15 change. Reluctantly. When asked. And I was lucky to get that. Now I did maths at school, when adding and taking away was in fashion, and worked out that I was £17 short. Some probing revealed she had had to buy a birthday gift for a teen friend. Some other friends would be chipping in with their contributions at an unspecified date, meanwhile I was subbing them too. Oh, and a trip to MacDonald’s for lunch. The Grown-up Sister weighed in that The Teenager had still not paid her whack for a sibling Christmas present syndicate and that was another £15 owing. And then there was the phone bill. I decided to take action.
After much discussion with Mr F (my new husband and former Head Teacher), I decided that The Teenager should earn some money. At 14, she’s too young for most jobs and she walks too slowly to do a paper round, so I had the bright idea of jobs around the house. I stopped short of paying her to tidy her own bedroom, that’s what she’s meant to get her pocket money for, but she could clean my car. And Mr F’s car. And her Dad’s car. Inside and out for five quid a car. Then maybe a bit of ironing, though I’d have to teach her how to do it!
After much cajoling she managed to clean our cars, even if she did miss one side of mine, so was £10 better off. To speed up the debt-paying process and stash enough cash for travel to a concert she had tickets for, she set about selling some of her clothes to her friends. Once again Facebook came into its own. I thought she was quite enterprising, even though I had only bought said clothes a few weeks earlier brand new.
I paid her a fiver to do some ironing. But her greatest triumph was when her father gave her £5 to NOT clean his new car! At this point, she was able to pay her sister back and get to and from the concert and buy her tea at Subway.
Guess who did not get paid. And was 15 quid lighter having paid her to do chores I had invented so she could earn something. Hmmm… way beyond the wit of Jan.
I’ve just been in The Teenager’s bedroom. It contains the usual detritus of clothes hung on the floor, penicillin in coffee mugs, Robert Pattison competing with blue-black hair dye that has somehow made it to the walls. In vain, and knowing that my words would fall on skull-candy ears, I commanded she clear the place up. OK, maybe I didn’t so much command as ask politely? Suggest mildly? OK I virtually begged. She may have gone to do it now. I don’t know. More likely – and I’ll check in a minute – she’s on Facebook holding ten conversations, dishing out relationship advice and organizing a take-over bid of the local ‘emo park’. Actually, what am I thinking? Her bedroom is the command-centre of local teen activity. What right do I have to impose my bourgeois tidying up regime when so much teenage angst and happiness is at stake?
I find myself out-witted at every turn. The other week The Teenager returned from town without most of the items I had given her £60 to buy. She had £28 worth of underwear & hair dye and handed me £15 change. Reluctantly. When asked. And I was lucky to get that. Now I did maths at school, when adding and taking away was in fashion, and worked out that I was £17 short. Some probing revealed she had had to buy a birthday gift for a teen friend. Some other friends would be chipping in with their contributions at an unspecified date, meanwhile I was subbing them too. Oh, and a trip to MacDonald’s for lunch. The Grown-up Sister weighed in that The Teenager had still not paid her whack for a sibling Christmas present syndicate and that was another £15 owing. And then there was the phone bill. I decided to take action.
After much discussion with Mr F (my new husband and former Head Teacher), I decided that The Teenager should earn some money. At 14, she’s too young for most jobs and she walks too slowly to do a paper round, so I had the bright idea of jobs around the house. I stopped short of paying her to tidy her own bedroom, that’s what she’s meant to get her pocket money for, but she could clean my car. And Mr F’s car. And her Dad’s car. Inside and out for five quid a car. Then maybe a bit of ironing, though I’d have to teach her how to do it!
After much cajoling she managed to clean our cars, even if she did miss one side of mine, so was £10 better off. To speed up the debt-paying process and stash enough cash for travel to a concert she had tickets for, she set about selling some of her clothes to her friends. Once again Facebook came into its own. I thought she was quite enterprising, even though I had only bought said clothes a few weeks earlier brand new.
I paid her a fiver to do some ironing. But her greatest triumph was when her father gave her £5 to NOT clean his new car! At this point, she was able to pay her sister back and get to and from the concert and buy her tea at Subway.
Guess who did not get paid. And was 15 quid lighter having paid her to do chores I had invented so she could earn something. Hmmm… way beyond the wit of Jan.
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