1. I still haven’t found The Dress. This is much to the distress of Terry, because it seems that I just can’t stop talking about it. I mean, I thought I’d maybe be OVER IT by now. But no. The loss of my preshus dress is as fresh and as painful as it was on that dreadful day that I realised it was gone. GOD.
2. I have, however, bought another dress. It didn’t really make me feel better, to be honest. I mean, it’s a nice dress and all, but it’s JUST NOT THE SAME.
3. See, still can’t stop talking about it.
4. On a positive note, I haven’t lost or broken anything else this week. Not that I know of, anyway. I DID think I’d lost Ted this morning when I was making the bed, but it turned out he was just hiding under a pile of Terry’s clothes. Here’s what he was wearing:
I just hope Nike are paying him well, is all I can say.
5. When I was coming out of the gym yesterday, SLEET started falling out of the sky. And, OK, it only lasted for a few minutes, and then we were back to brilliant sunshine (then torrential rain. Then brilliant sunshine. Then thunder. Then torrential rain. Then brilliant… oh, you get the picture.), but still, SLEET. Sleet.
6. Because of the whole non-stop-rain thing, my lawn hasn’t been mown for three weeks now, and has consequently grown into a small jungle. I’m actually afraid to let Rubin out there in case he never finds his way back. (Thought: could The Dress be in the Jungle Garden?) Weirdly, though, all of our neighbours still have perfectly manicured lawns. HOW DO THEY DO IT? Are they mowing their lawns during the middle of the night or something? No, really, how?
7. Number 6? That right there tells you why updates have been few and far between this week, because THAT’S how interesting my life has been, really.
8. At least Rubin has been helping me with the blogging, though:
(Note: for those of you tuning in because you’re concerned about The Melting that was scheduled for today, I bring good news: yesterday my phone changed its mind and decided that rather than the “SUN MELTING, OMG!” it had predicted , we would just be having “non-stop rain” instead. So THAT’S good. We can stand down the vigil at least.)
Yesterday I broke my favourite coffee mug.
I was reaching into a cupboard in the kitchen to get one of Rubin’s treats, and my elbow knocked against a tub of Marshmallow Fluff, which fell to the counter and landed on my mug.
The Fluff was fine. The mug was not. And, OK, it was just a (FAVOURITE!) mug. But given that this week has seen the lost of my favourite dress AND my favourite mug, I have to wonder: WHAT NEXT?
They say these things come in threes. I’m not going anywhere NEAR my favourite shoes this week, that’s for damn sure.
I know: how do you lose a DRESS, I hear you ask? That’s what my parents asked, anyway, and I tell you what I told them: if there is a way for me to do something inexplicably stupid, I will surely find it .
And I obviously did.
The green dress had been resident at my parents’ house for a week. I’d worn it and, because I am me, had spilled food down the front of it, leaving a huge, greasy mark. I tried to remove the mark, but succeeded only in making it even bigger, so I did what any self-respecting adult would do:
I took it to my mum and asked her to wash it instead.
My mum did this, and also ironed the dress, and then she placed it in a carrier bag, along with a little top I’d bought, which she’d altered for me.
And that was the last time anyone ever saw either of those items alive. Or, indeed, dead. They quite simply HAVE NOT BEEN SEEN SINCE. Which begs the question: HOW?!
I don’t remember taking the bag out of the house that night (last Saturday). No one else remembers seeing me take it. The assumption, though, is that I DID take it, because it is no longer in my parents’ house, and trust me, they’ve searched. They’re probably still searching now, actually.
But it didn’t make it to our house, either. Neither Terry or I can remember bringing it out of the car, and we’re both as sure as we can be that this is because we DIDN’T bring it out of the car. We’ve conducted fingertip searches of both the house and the car several times. Over, and over, and over again we have searched. The bag containing the clothes is nowhere to be found. It’s almost as if it DIDN’T ACTUALLY EXIST IN THE FIRST PLACE.
At the moment, the most likely scenario we’re pursuing is that it was lost on the way home that night. You see, we did not come straight home. No, we stopped at a local park to let Rubin have a quick run before bed, and the only thing we can think is that somehow when I opened the car door to get out, the bag must have fallen out of the car. This doesn’t seem all that likely, to be honest: it was a wet night, and I was wearing my new Prada peep toes (the walk wasn’t planned, by the way. I mean, even I normally wear something a little more practical to walk the dog), so I was having to look quite carefully at the ground, to make sure I didn’t step in a puddle. I can’t help thinking I was looking at the ground so intently – especially around the car, which was parked in a particularly muddy area – that I would’ve noticed something lying on it, but in the absence of any other explanation for the whereabouts of my dress, I guess this is the one we have to go with.
(Also, Terry used my phone to take some photos of Rubin and I walking, and the bag isn’t in them, so we know I wasn’t carrying it.)
This all happened last Saturday. It was a couple of days before I realised I didn’t have the dress, and when I DID realise, I assumed I’d left it at my parents’ house, so it wasn’t until Friday that I realised it was actually MIA. Terry did return to the alleged scene of the crime this weekend, but needless to say, there was nothing there, and the park warden said nothing had been handed in. So it’s a mystery. And it’s a mystery that has REALLY freaking annoyed me. I mean, this dress wasn’t an expensive one – in fact, it was one of the cheapest dresses I own(ed) – but I LOVED it. It was my favourite. And because I bought it ages ago, the shop has long since sold out of them, and so it’s effectively irreplaceable. Ditto the top. My only hope now is that one comes up on eBay, but the chances of that are slim, and so I think I’ll just have to accept that I’ve lost my favourite dress, and will never see its like again. This makes me sad.
Meanwhile, I am a woman tortured by the effort of trying to remember the events of That Night. Where did the dress go? Where is it now? SOMEONE must know something. Did it run away? Was I not a good enough owner for it? Did it quarrel with the top, and then something unspeakable happened between them? Did the top bury the evidence, and then go on the run, to escape justice? WHAT HAPPENED TO MY GREEN DRESS?! And how will I find out? Should I put up posters around town saying HAVE YOU SEEN THIS DRESS, REWARD OFFERED or should I just find a good hypnotist and see if they can unlock the key to my memory and uncover the grisly truth?
Or should I just buy another dress, instead?*
*Nothing will ever compare to it, though. Alas, poor dress, we hardly knew ye!
Look, though! We’re getting a sun obscured by a little bit of cloud tomorrow!
Do you know, that’s the first time I have EVER seen that particular icon, and I’ve had my iPhone for about two months now? It’s good that it turned up this weekend, though, because we’re going to a barbecue tomorrow, and “sun obscured by a little cloud” will be much better than the “rain of biblical proportions” we’ve been having lately.
NO idea what’s happening on Tuesday, though. It looks to me like the sun will be melting that day. OMG, WHAT’S HAPPENING ON TUESDAY? And how does the iPhone KNOW?
I also just wanted to say that comments on this site are now being moderated. Sorry about that – it’s not something I’d have chosen to do, but as much as I am able to laugh at the trolls (and at myself, which is what my last entry was really about) I AM getting a bit tired of the personal attacks. Needless to say, the vast majority of you are absolutely lovely (and I really, really appreciate your support on The Post That Dare Not Speak It’s Name. Actually, let’s call that post “Voldemort”. Can we do that?), so I hope you’ll not be put off commenting. One more thing for the trolls: when I say “comments are being moderated” I just want to add “and they’re not being moderated by ME”. So not only will your hate mail not be published here, I won’t even see it.
Still: sun! And a whopping 18 degrees! It’s as good as it gets, folks…
[Important Disclaimer: I wrote this post in a misguided attempt to be funny. Almost all of the posts I've ever written on this site are supposed to be entertaining. I don't actually care about the "scabby lips" comment, and I would've thought that was obvious, but judging by the first two comments on this post, apparently not, and apparently people are reading this post and thinking I'm all angst-ridden about it. I'm not. It was supposed to be light-hearted - I found these two photos at the weekend and thought they would make an amusing follow-up to my post last week. I'm a bit blown-away by the fact that people are reading it as anything other than that, to be honest, but there you go.]
That ‘Bitchy McBicherston’ post? That was all, “No scabby lips here, folks, move along now, nothing to see!”?
Yeah, you’re right: it was a clear case of The Blogger Doth Protest Too Much. I was hoping to throw you all off the scent and make you forget about my scabby lips, because it’s true, folks: I have, at various times in my life, had “like scabs”. And I’m SO TIRED OF ALL THE LIES!
Exhibit A:
Taken back when we used to live on the ranch. Man, how them prairie dogs used to howl! AOOoooOOO!
Now, you can’t really see it too well, but that? Is a Like Scab. On my lip. Yes, it’s true! This was my nursery school (kindergarten) picture, and from this point on, it just got worse. Much worse. Witness:
Exhibit 2:
(oh, shush. I was “growing into myself”.)
Aside: as well as revealing that I do, indeed, have Like Scabs on my lips, this has also been a useful excercise in proving to myself why I should never, ever get a fringe, ever again. Because I do That Thing? That Thing with the mussing of the fringe? And the creation of a Gateway Through the Fringe, a Portal to Another Dimension, perhaps? And every single time the school photographer was due to take our photos, my mother would see me off to school in the morning and she would BEG me to please brush my fringe before the photo was taken. She would BEG me. Sometimes my teachers would grab me as I exited the classroom en route to the photographer’s room, hold me down and BRUSH MY HAIR. But it was all in vain, because just as the shutter on the camera was about to close, I would reach up and I would MUSS IT ALL UP and create a Gateway. And there was absolutely nothing anyone could do about it.
Not that it really mattered, though. Not with the GIANT SCAB on my lip. The GIANT SCAB that would appear every single time we had school photographs taken, and I am not joking. Every. Single. Time.
This proud tradition of Having a Cold Sore During Every School Photograph was one I carried all the way through to university, and, indeed, to the day I graduated. Our graduation ball was the night before the ceremony itself, and I, of course, had spent many a long night or year planning what I would wear. When I was in first year at university I lived in Halls of Residence, which was where I met my friend Stephanie. They rent out rooms in these halls during the holidays, and Stephanie and I thought it would be fun to see if we could stay in our old rooms on the night of the ball. The University were happy to comply with this request, so on the day of the ball we checked in, had lunch etc, and then headed off to our respective rooms to get ready for the Big Night.
Our other friend, Morag, wasn’t going to the ball, but she decided to keep me company while I got ready, so we went up to the room and I headed off to the shower while Morag hung out in the room. I still don’t know what happened that day. I went into the shower looking normal. Well, as normal as it gets for me. The second I stepped out of the bathroom, though, Morag took one look at me and gave an almighty shriek. “WHAT’S THAT ON YOUR LIP?!” she said. And without even looking, I knew. I knew it was “Like Scabs”. The Coldsore O’Doom. It had returned for a final fling, and I don’t know how it did it, but somehow it had managed to burst from my lip and grow to its full size WHILE I WAS IN THE SHOWER.
Which is actually quite impressive when you think about it.
Of course, there was absolutely nothing I could do to disguise the Like Scab that night, and that’s why there are no photos of me at my graduation ball. Luckily it had gone down enough by the next morning that I was able to slap some concealer on it to make sure that it didn’t make an appearance in my graduation photos. (It didn’t really matter, though, because I managed to close my eyes/look drunk in almost every single one of them.)
The only slight surprise in all of this was that it was Like Scabs that ruined my graduation ball, and not a Second Head. I had been expecting a Second Head, you see, so the Like Scab was a surprise, and not a welcome one.
In the years that have passed since then, the Second Head HAS managed to surpass the Like Scabs as the main Harbinger O’Doom in my life, so I HAD hoped my reputation as Ol’ Scabby Lips would have died out by now. But I reckoned without Lil’ Bitchy, who has OUTED me, who managed to see right through my smooth-lipped facade and see that here was a girl who had grown up with Like Scabs on her lips.
Last week a comment flooded in to Hey-Dollface, from someone known to me only as ’Little Bitchy McBitcherston”. I hope she enjoys this brief moment of attention, as that is clearly something that has been missing from her life until now!
And what did Lil’ Bitchy have to say to me? She said:
“Ummm not to be mean but why do u have like scabs on ur lips?”
You know what, though, folks? Call me a cynic (I mean, I’ve been called worse. Like “scabby lipped”, for instance.), but I think Lil’ Bitchy DID want to be mean! I think she was… wait for it… lying when she said she wasn’t! Don’t you think she was probably lying? Because really, when you get right down to it, there’s never really a non-mean reason for calling someone “scabby lipped”, is there?
(These personal insults don’t bother me, by the way. I only take criticism seriously when it comes from people who actually know me and who I know have my best interests at heart. When it’s random kids who can’t spell, I take it for what it is: a pathetic attempt to be a little bitch. And I delete it. Oh, and I don’t have “like scabs” on my lips either. Or even just regular scabs. Just so’s you know.)
But what never fails to make me laugh about these stupid insults is the way people will always first of all make a transparently insincere attempt to pretend that they’re not just being a bitch. Seriously: “not to be mean, but…” That’s hilarious! What’s the point of even PRETENDING you don’t want to sound mean when you’re about to accuse someone of having “like scabs” on their lips? I mean, you may as well just admit it, right? It’s not like the person who receives that message is going to think, “My God, this person says I’m a scabby lipped ho! Oh no, wait… she says she’s not being mean! Whew!” is it?
And there are so many stupid little phrases like that. I’ve already mentioned the classic, “Sorry, but…” YOU’RE NOT SORRY! Don’t try to pretend you are! Just admit to yourself that you’re trying to make a complete stranger on the internet feel bad, and that that’s how you get to feel better about yourself. It will save you a fortune in therapy later!
Then there’s the rest. Last week, for instance, I was hit with, “I don’t want to burst your bubble, but…” And the thing about that? I didn’t even HAVE a bubble at the time! No, really, I didn’t. (It was a post about a new skin cream, and I think a lot of the time, people confuse “me blogging about something” with “me caring deeply about something”, though, which perhaps isn’t their fault) But if I DID have a bubble, you can be sure that person wanted to burst it for me. Oh, he may have SAID, “I don’t want to burst your bubble,” but what he MEANT was, “Excuse me, is this your bubble? Do you mind if I just… *BANG!*”
Basically, any phrase containing the word “but” is almost guaranteed to have me rolling my eyes. That and “Just sayin’”, which is a variation on this theme that’s used at the end of the insult rather than at the start of it and means, “I’ve just been a complete asshole, but, you know, just sayin’.”
Or how about “I’m just being honest!”, the clarion-call of the Big Brother generation. Let me tell you something: honesty is not always the best policy. You don’t actually NEED to tell someone you think they’re ugly, for instance. It doesn’t achieve ANYTHING, other than to make you look like an asshole. I, for instance, already know exactly what I look like. I see myself in the mirror every morning. I’ve known myself for … a while. I don’t need you to point out my flaws. Chances are, I already know what they are. Did your mother never tell you that drawing attention to other people’s flaws is rude? And makes the baby Jesus cry? And then Bichons come and bite your bum, and trust me, you do NOT want Bichons to come and bite your bum? DID SHE?
Bum-Biting Bichon
These people are not sorry.What they’re saying is, “I’ve noticed that you’re not perfect [and hey, who is?] and I’m worried that you might not feel quite bad enough about it, so I’m sending you this email/comment to make sure that you DO feel bad about yourself. Like I do.” That says a helluva lot about them, but it doesn’t actually say anything at all about me. My bubble remains intact.
Umm, where was I? Oh yeah, Bitchy McBitcherston, and all of the many, many other people like her recently, who try to make themselves feel better about their own problems in life by going out of their way to try to make a random stranger feel bad. I have a message for those people. To paraphrase a much better writer than me: my scabby lips* will heal. But you trolls will probably always be nasty little bitches. I know I’d rather have the scabby lips than the personality disorder any day.
*Note: totally don’t have scabby lips. No, really.
I still have the post-holiday blues. Especially now that it’s rained on St. Swithins Day, which means 40 days of rain for us! (Not that we’ll really notice the difference here in Scotland, obviously…)
Anyway, here, have a video, courtesy of Terry. I think he misses it too…
So, I just finished writing this massive post about how I totally thought I’d deleted a huge chunk of my novel (No, I haven’t forgotten I’m supposed to be writing a novel. I mean, I’ve TRIED to forget, but it WILL keep popping into my head when I least expect it), and had therefore freaked out ever so slightly before starting again from scratch, and how, really, that was the best thing that could’ve possibly happened, because at least I meant I didn’t have to feel obligated to keep writing that crappy novel any more, and could start a whole new, better one…
… and then I found the missing document containing The Novel.
I had re-named it “Hi”, and saved it in my “Accounts” folder. You know, as you do.
GOD, I really miss Florida.
And now I have to get back to the, er, two sepparate versions of the exact same story I’m currently working on. Gah.
I hate gardening. And, yes, I know, I’ve already made my point about that, thanksverymuch, so don’t worry, this isn’t going to be YET ANOTHER POST about how much I hate and resent the fact that I work hard all week, and then on the weekend, instead of relaxing, or doing something nice, I have to do hard, manual labour in the freaking GARDEN instead.
Well, to be fair, it kind of IS about that. But it’s mostly about Rubin. Because Rubin is insane. And as much as I hate working in the garden, I’m pretty sure Rubin hates it even more.
You see, Rubin hates being parted from Terry or I (or my parents, or Terry’s folks, or whoever his “humans” happen to be at any given time). On Saturdays, Terry goes hillwalking with his friends, which means it’s just me and Rubin, therefore I am the chosen human who mustnotbeleft. Unless, of course, I leave the barrier at the top of the stairs down by mistake (Terry had to make a “barrier” to place at the top of the stairs, to stop Rubin going down and peeing on the washing machine. We call it his “perimeter”. As in, “Quick, Jack, set up a perimeter!”), in which case he will be more than happy to leave me all by myself, while he goes downstairs to pee on the aforementioned washing machine. And sometimes the sofa.
Anyway.
So, Rubin and I are alone together, and I go out to GARDEN. (Did I mention how much I hate… I did?) Rubin cannot be left in the house, or he barks the place down. (Note: he doesn’t do this if we leave him to actually go somewhere. He’s fine with that. It’s only if I go outside and he knows I’m rightthere but he can’t get at me. Then he barks like a crazy thing. Which, of course, he is.) So I have to take him with me. This is OK while I’m working in the back garden. There are a few horrified minutes when the lawnmower gets switched on and Rubin reacts with shock and awe, but after that he will relax and go about his business, leaving me to go about mine.
(Unless The Man is out in the garden behind ours, because if Rubin can see anyone AT ALL while he’s in the garden, he will start barking at them like a crazy thing, and when I come out to bring him back inside, he will run away and force me to chase him.)
When I go round to the front, though? All hell breaks loose. I can’t take Rubin into the front because the garden there isn’t fenced in, so he could – and would – run out into the road. Having him on the leash isn’t an option while I’m operating a lawnmower, and you can’t tie him to something stationery either because he would freak out. So I leave him in the back garden. (I’ve tried putting him back in the house at this point, but he knows I’m out there and he gets hysterical. Like,REALLY hysterical. And he tries to climb the furniture so he can get out of the window.) But the back garden has a wrought-iron gate. HE CAN SEE ME. But… he can’t REACH me. And so he goes hysterical. You would be amazed by how much noise a small dog can make when he really puts his mind to it. The whole time I’m working in the front garden, Rubin will be barking. He will not stop. He will not take it down a level. No, he will remain utterly hysterical for as long as it takes for me to return to him. And then he’ll start up all over again when I return to The Front to pick up my gardening stuff.
Solution? Well, I can’t very well leave him barking like that, so this time? I had to pick him up and CARRY him with me. Like a clutch bag, basically, with him tucked under one arm, while I used the other to pull out weeds and people walked by going, “Who does she think she is, Paris Hilton?” . Rubin was perfectly happy with this. He just sat there like a little lord, gazing around the street like “Yoos better not mess with me, right?” And all was calm once more.
(And I know what you’re thinking: I could just have waited until another time, when Terry was home to look after the dog, but unfortunately you can’t really do that in Scotland – if you get a brief window of dry weather, you have to grab it before it’s gone.)
And that was how I passed my Saturday morning: carrying Rubin around like a furry clutch bag while I weeded the garden.
