 Unlike me, Terry does not feel compelled to write down every single thing that ever happens to him. (I guess that’s what he has me for, mind you.) When we go on holiday, however, he does like to record our movements, in a little journal I bought him after his operation, thinking he might like to write down some of the deep and important thoughts he was having at the time. He did that, and then he moved on to recording every time I dropped something on my foot or tripped over the dog or whatever, so that particular gift worked out well, I thought. Anyway, in lieu of the holiday wrap-up post I was intending to write when we got back from Tenerife a few weeks ago, but abandoned in favour of lying on the couch eating as much food as I could fit into my mouth, I now present to you – with his permission, of course – some excepts from Terry’s holiday journal. (And, in a neat little role reversal, while the words in this post are Terry’s, the images are mostly mine, other than the ones I’m actually in, obviously.)
Over to Terry…
December 7th, 2010
Got up at 5am and tried to call airline to make sure flight was still on. They were closed. Got onto M8. It was like a disaster movie. Got to Glasgow at 7am, but flight delayed until 2.30pm. Sat on runway for 90 mins waiting on de-icer. Arrived at Tenerife at dusk. Amber was scared on road, freaked out. Terry freaked out right back at ya. Got room 1007. Changed it as it looked onto car park. Terry is Amber’s hero. Changed to room 303. Went to one of our old favourite haunts for something to eat/drink.
Ways Amber hurt herself: stubbed toe twice; hit leg on door; cut finger on suitcase; hit head on sink
December 8th, 2010
Got up, put on shades, went outside – very bright! Breakfast buffet was very good – dozens of types of bread, lots of different egg dishes, fruit, fresh fruit juices and bananas for the monkey park, which we went to right after breakfast.
Went to beach for a walk - sun was lovely and warm – bought Amber shoes and a sailor’s top. Went to dinner at the hotel, which was much better than expected. It was raining when we went in but had stopped by the time we were finished, so we walked over to the 5 star sister hotel next door, whose facilities we’re allowed to use, and had a drink in their bar. Managed to convince Amber that the English translation of the chorus of one of the songs the band was playing was “My left thigh hurts”. She believed me. (Note from Amber: this is totally untrue!) The next singer sung in German, which prompted a brief panic from Amber, who informed me she was having trouble understanding him – lolzers!
Ways Amber hurt herself: sprayed water in her face while turning on shower; punched drawer while trying to remove plug adaptor from hairdryer; burnt herself on hotplate at dinner.
Favourite photo so far:
December 9th, 2010
Buffet breakfast again, then we went for a super-long walk along the coast. We sat watching the sea at dozens of viewpoints, basically taking any opportunity to soak up the amazing warm sun . Along the way we saw sprays of water coming from caves under the cliffs:
We also saw another natural wonder about a mile along the coast:
TMI!
Went to Mango. The toilets in the mall had opaque glass doors so people can see you through them. The ladies had a queue so Amber had to go with everyone watching. Lolzers!
Went to dinner in the hotel again. People keep staring at Amber, so we have developed a code word so that we can point out the starers to each other. The code word is secret, though, so you can never know it just in case we catch you staring one day. (Amber’s note: I have no idea who he was addressing this to…) Annoying guy one table away is trying to perfect the art of making trumpet noises with his nose.Went out for drinks after dinner. Amber tried to befriend a cat at the bar, but it liked me better and decided to share my seat:
The staff at the cafe seemed pleasantly surprised the cat had found love. It was short lived, though – after about twenty minutes it rained and the cat left me. Not sure I will ever get over it, but that night will forever be warm in my heart.
Amber update: opened cupboard door, slamming it into her foot. Did a little dance, something like a Morris dancer, shouting “OW! OW! OW!” Amazing!
December 10th, 2010
Left the hotel at 10:30 and went for a trip to the Masca Valley. Lots of roadworks because of landslides and the roads down to the valley were the craziest I have ever seen – bad vertigo a lot of the time, which made both Amber and I a little nauseous.
On the way there, Amber declared a Thumb War:
(Amber’s note: we’ve no idea what’s actually going on in this photo. When we looked back at it that night, “Thumb War” was our best guess…)
Amber didn’t hurt herself today: amazing!
(Amber’s note: if you’re particularly bored, there are a few more photos from Masca over at Shoeperwoman today…)
December 11th, 2010
Breakfast in the hotel again, yum. Amber had a screw loose on the way back to our room. Nothing unusual there except this time it was on the leg of her sunglasses. The leg fell off and Amber freaked the hell out, then got excited thinking she would have to buy new ones. Unfortunately for her, I managed to find an optician’s and got them repaired. Sorry, Amber.
December 12th, 2010
The 10th anniversary of our relationship. Going out for dinner tonight – looking forward to it. I have got something special for Amber which I will give to her at dinner. By the time she reads this diary entry she will know what it is!
Spent the day at the pool. VERY warm again. Just finished reading a book about 13 of the biggest mysteries of the universe. Enjoyed it. Amber is reading a book about a mysterious house, just for a change. (Amber’s note: yes, I am obsessed with stories about creepy old houses which harbour devastating secrets…)
Stayed in the sun for as long as we could, then came back to the hotel to read some more. Just watching the most amazing sunset yet, while Amber rams herself in the shoulder with her hairbrush. That’s the first time she’s hurt herself in two days!
December 13th 2010
Sunny again, OMFG! Went to the beach. Still full from dinner last night. Note to self, no more big bowls of pasta. I headbutted a beach umbrella today. Not to be outdone, Amber headbutted her sun-lounger.
It was a beautiful starry night, so after dinner and cocktails we went back to our balcony to relax with a cup of coffee. Amber and I saw our first shared shooting star. Until yesterday, Amber hadn’t even seen one, but tonight we saw five. They are so fleeting but so worth seeing.
*Amber just punched the cupboard!*
(Amber’s note: speaking of the cupboard, here’s a sneaky photo Terry took of my side of it:
Did I ever mention I like stripes?)
Tagged tenerife 2010, Terry
So, it turns out that the Box O’Doom isn’t the only thing Terry has been hoarding lately.
You see, a couple of weeks ago, we bought a new TV cabinet. I know, it’s a rock n’ roll lifestyle we lead, to be sure. Anyway, Terry put the new cabinet together, and when I came downstairs a little while later, I was impressed to find that he’d cleared up behind him, and the OLD cabinet was nowhere to be seen. Impressed and, let’s face it, suspicious. I mean, our house is approximately the size of a shoebox. There’s just not that many places to store an old TV cabinet, and I knew it wouldn’t fit into the bin, so I had a feeling that I’d be seeing it again, sometime, some place.
That time and place turned out to be two days later, in the back seat of my car. The cabinet was there, and hey! So was that box! You know, the one that was inside the one that’s inside my living room?
“We meet again, my old nemesis!” I said with an evil chuckle, before heading back inside and asking Terry what the hell was going on: were these items expecting me to drop them off somewhere? Where do boxes and TV cabinets hang out, anyway?
“Oh,” said Terry, “I just put them there so we can take them to the tip. We’ll go tomorrow.”
Well, “tomorrow” came and went. The box and cabinet didn’t. Fast-forward to yesterday morning. I was getting ready to go to the gym, when I suddenly remembered that I wouldn’t be going alone: in fact, I would be going as Amber’s Amazing Travelling Rubbish Skip. “That’s it,” I told Terry. “When I get home, I’m taking them out of the car, and I’m going to chop them to pieces on the back lawn. Or I will take them to Fakehenge and sacrifice them to the Gods of Rubbish.”
“I’ll tell you what,” said Terry. “Why don’t you just take my car to the gym?”
So I did.
Now, I don’t drive Terry’s car every day, or even every week, but I do drive it every now and again, which is why what transpired when I left the gym is still something of a mystery to me. Or it would be if I wasn’t already quite used to my random acts of stupidity, that is.
I got to the gym without incident, and completed my run. Then I left, got back into the car and put it into reverse, to get out of my parking space.
The car rolled gently forwards.
I braked, checked it was definitely in reverse, then tried again.
It rolled even further forward.
You know that saying, “Stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results?” Yeah.
The third time I tried, the car once again rolled forward.
Well, I got out and had a look around to see if there were, I don’t know, magical forces at work, propelling me forwards when I had specifically asked the car to go backwards. There weren’t. So I got back in and employed the old “switch it off, then switch it back on,” trick. This time, when I tried to reverse, the car simply roared at me.
At this point, I broke out in a cold sweat. You see, Terry LOVES that car. He loves it so much that I’m pretty sure if I called him and said “there’s been an accident,” he’d ask about the car first, and me second. So I sat and I pondered and I worried. And then I worried some more. But the car wouldn’t budge, so finally I plucked up all my courage and called Terry.
And, of course, I HAD NO CREDIT ON MY PHONE.
So I emailed him instead, with a vague, but urgent, “call me!” Then I sat there and wondered if there was any way I could escape before Terry got to me. “At least I’m wearing my running shoes,” I reasoned. “I’ll just leave a “sorry for breaking your car!” note on the windscreen, then I’ll make a run for it…”
Before doing that, though, I had one more look at the gear stick, just to make sure I was, indeed, in reverse.
It was in neutral.
OF COURSE IT WAS.
I had been sitting there for ten minutes trying to get a car to reverse, without actually engaging the reverse gear.
And that’s why I’m not allowed to drive Terry’s car any more.
Oh, there was also this:
 Oops In my defence, the wooden thing was already at that angle. (Maybe I did that the last time I was at the gym?). And the car doesn’t have a scratch, seeing as it just, you know, nudged it. While it was in neutral.
On second thoughts, maybe I should just never leave the house?
Tagged car wars
Remember the time I lost my favourite dress? And also a top?
I think I know what happened to them both. And the reason I think I know what happened to them? This weekend, I almost did it again.
This time around, my innocent clothing victim was a skirt. I’d bought this skirt a couple of weeks ago: it was just a cheap, cotton thing, but I thought it would come in handy for holidays (and yes, it had stripes on it, SO?), so even although it was a size too big for me, I decided to buy it anyway and get my long-suffering mother to alter it for me.
As with the Sorry Tale of the Green Dress, the first part of the plan was executed smoothly. The skirt was delivered to my mum, who altered it successfully and gave it back to me when Terry and I went round there for dinner on Saturday.
You can see where this is going, can’t you?
Well, we had dinner, then Terry and I drove home, where I spent a bit of time tooling around on the internet before going to bed. For some reason, though, as soon I opened my eyes on Sunday morning, the skirt was the first thing I thought of. “Hmm,” I thought. “I don’t remember hanging up that skirt last night, I wonder what I did with it?” I pictured myself siting at the computer the night before, putting Rubin to bed, brushing my teeth… No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t picture the stripey skirt taking part in any of these scenarios.
The more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that something BAD had happened (again), so I got of bed and went to look for the skirt. It was not in the office. It was not in the wardrobe. It was not in my handbag. It was not in the house AT ALL, in fact, and so my fear grew. Had I… ? Could it be…? No, I told myself, absolutely not. Not even I am dumb enough to make exactly the same mistake twice, after all, so surely all we could gather from the absence of the stripy skirt in my life was that I had forgotten to pick it up when I left my parents’ house, and they were, even now, finding it hanging across the back of the chair in their conservatory, and saying, “Look, that dumb-ass of a daughter of ours has forgotten the stripey skirt again!”
The thing about that though, is that, as I’m sure everyone is well aware, by now, I AM dumb enough to make the same mistake twice. And probably three or four times more. So even although I went back to bed to drink my coffee and read a book, as is my Sunday morning tradition, I did so with an unquiet heart, and a strong sense of deja vu. Terry, meanwhile, headed downstairs to begin HIS Sunday morning task of painting our back door red (That was just a one-off, by the way. He doesn’t do that EVERY Sunday. That would be weird.), little realising that we were in the midst of yet another Missing Clothes Crisis.
Which is why he was really quite surprised to find a stripey skirt lying smack in the middle of our driveway when he headed out to put something in the bin later that morning. “Look!” he said, eyes wide in surprise, when he brought the item upstairs to show me. “I found a SKIRT in the middle of the drive!”
For a brief moment, I was tempted to just tell him that, why, the Stripey Skirt Fairy had obviously paid us a visit in the middle of the night! But Terry knows perfectly well that if there’s something covered in stripes lying around somewhere in the vicinity of our property, it’s probably connected to me, so of course, the truth came out, and the conclusion was that I must have dropped it as I carried it from the car to the house the night before.
Luckily, the stripey skirt was none the worse for its night under the stars. The green dress, I would assume, was not so lucky.
From now on, no item of my clothing will leave this house unless it’s on my body. I’ll just have to hope I’m not QUITE stupid enough to manage to lose myself…
Tagged things I lost, things that are stripey
THEY WERE HANDED IN TO DOROTHY PERKINS!
I am amazed! And happy! Something I lost… has been found! And so has my faith in humanity, because I seriously thought that if someone found them, they would either keep them or stick them on eBay. But no: some lovely, kind person has found them, and has handed them in, my special, bought-on-honeymoon sunglasses, which I will never, ever let out of my sight again once I get them back tomorrow!
I have to thank Terry for this development. Having called the mall and established that they hadn’t been handed in to the lost and found there, Terry felt it would perhaps be worth calling each of the stores I’d visited last weekend to ask if, by any chance they’d been handed in directly to them. My mum also suggested this, and even volunteered to do the calling-around herself.
“Nah,” said I, slipping effortlessly into the character of a sullen teenager who feels the world is OUT TO GET HER. “There’s no point. They are GONE. I will never see those sunglasses again! NEVER! Remember the green dress? And the top? THEY NEVER CAME BACK. Also: I went into exactly one thousand and eighty-two stores, so I’d need to spend the rest of my life calling them all, only to have my hopes dashed over and over and over again, JUST LIKE ALWAYS. Woe! Woe! And again: WOE!”
And then I put on one of my Smiths CDs and sulked in my bedroom for eight hours.
Luckily for me, though, Terry is an actual grown-up, and still HAS his faith in humanity. So this afternoon he started calling round all the stores, and… well, you know the rest.
Thank you Terry. Thank you, kind stranger who handed in my prechus. Thank you, universe. I promise I will try to be more careful in future.
(I will also try and buy that handbag I spotted this afternoon that would be less likely to allow things to fall out of it. Well, it’ll be cheaper than buying replacement sunglasses.)
Tagged sunglasses, things I lost
So, I lost my sunglasses.
And yes, I know what you’re thinking. Other than, “Holy hell, is this woman going to lose EVERY. SINGLE. THING she owns?” I mean. (The answer to that, by the way, is surely “yes”. Yes, it would appear that I am. ) “So what?” you’re thinking. “It’s just a pair of sunglasses! It’s not like losing a dress, say. And it’s February, it’s not even sunny for God’s sake!”
You’re right, of course. It is just a pair of sunglasses, but the thing is: these were SPECIAL sunglasses. (Have you noticed how I always lose the spechul stuff, never the totally ordinary, take-it-or-leave-it stuff? Yeah, me too.) I got them on my honeymoon, as a “reward” for agreeing to almost kill myself on a quad bike, so they had sentimental value, and I LOVED them.
Also: I’ve been surgically attached to those sunglasses ever since I got them. I know I’ve probably mentioned this before once or twice or fourteen times, but my eyes are super-sensitive to sunlight, so I always, always have a pair of sunglasses with me. Or maybe three pairs:
 The passenger seat of my car, last year (Oh God. The pair at the very front? Is THE pair. The LOST pair. It makes me sad just to look at them. Where are you now, oh sunglasses? Where did you sleep last night? Is some other girl loving you the way I loved you? Or are you perhaps sleeping in a cardboard box somewhere, probably under a bridge near a railway station?)
You see, for years now (since I was a teenager, in fact) I’ve had this paranoia that I’ll be out somewhere and it’ll all of a sudden turn SUNNY, and I’ll be dazzled by it and, I don’t know, go blind or something. (On a more practical note, if it’s sunny AT ALL, I can’t drive without my sunglasses, and I also whine a lot. That last bit has nothing to do with the sunglasses, by the way, I just whine a lot.) So I carry my sunglasses everywhere, and because I wear them so much I am generally prepared to pay a bit more for a pair I really, really like. That’s what I did with these ones, and for the past three years, they have been my constant companions. They have been to America with me. They have been to Spain with me. They have been to… well, they’ve been to America and Spain, OK? They appear in almost every single one of my holiday snaps from the past three years, and I had optimistically thought that we would have many more happy years ahead of us, my big-ass sunnies and me.
And then yesterday I lost them. Because that’s what I do.
Actually, that’s not quite true. Well, the “losing stuff” bit IS true, but not the “yesterday” bit. Yesterday I found out that I’d lost them. I actually have no idea when I lost them, and this is because the horrible weather we’ve been having lately means that I can’t even remember when I last had to wear them. Unfortunately for me, the whole “carrying them with me at all times” thing means I could have lost them ANYWHERE. The handbag I use has two zips which both have to be closed to make it secure, and because I’m lazy, I normally don’t bother, which means it would’ve been all too easy for them to have fallen out somewhere. Especially when you consider that it’s ME carrying the bag.
So, yesterday was one of THOSE days, and by that I mean, “One of those days which Terry and I spend turning the house upside down as we hunt YET AGAIN for something I have lost.” We searched the house. We searched both cars. We searched in the rubbish bins. We called my parents and asked if I had, YET AGAIN left something at their house the last time I was there. We called Terry’s mum and asked if I had, YET AGAIN, left something at her house the last time I was there. Terry called the mall I went to last weekend and asked if anything had been handed in.
Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
Obviously, as the photo above shows, it’s not like I don’t have other, (albeit non-spechul) pairs I can wear for now, but seriously: how do I learn to stop losing stuff all the time? Is there some kind of a course you can take for that? Should I start tying all of my belongings to me with string (if I can find the string, that is), or should I just admit defeat and never leave the house ever again? I’m starting to think that might be the best idea…
Tagged sunglasses, things I lost
Well, I’ve always suspected it, but now I know for sure: I was born without a brain.
The proof of this came on Sunday afternoon, when I decided to hit the town and do a little bit of shopping. This, I might add, was in addition to the shopping I’d already done on Saturday, and which had merely served to whet my appetite for the much larger shopping expedition that would be known as “Sunday”. Oh yes, Saturday’s shopping had been but the appetiser: Sunday’s event would be the main course, and I drifted off to sleep on Saturday night happily envisioning the long, leisurely stroll around the shops I’d enjoy the next day.
Of course, what I’d failed to take into account was the fact that the next day was Sunday, and that I generally like to spend my Sunday mornings languishing in bed, reading books, drinking coffee and basically being a lazy-ass. Yesterday was no different, so by the time I got myself showered and caffeinated, it was already almost 3pm, and most of the shops would be closing in another couple of hours. Undaunted, I quickly threw on whatever clothes were available at the time, and headed out on my grand expedition.
It was only as I walked from the car park to the mall that I realised something was wrong. I felt… different, somehow. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but I felt like I was walking funny. (Funnier than usual, I mean.) And the more I thought about this, the more I realised it was true: in fact, when I finally entered the mall and started walking across the tiled floor, I realised I sounded different too, in that one heel was making a particularly loud “click” every time it made contact with the floor, while the other one was pretty much silent.
“Damn!” I thought. “I bet the heel tip has come off this boot, and I’ll need to get it replaced!” So I stopped, and I looked at the offending boot. “Strange,” I thought. “The heel tip’s still there, and doesn’t look like it’s coming off any time soon. And even stranger: THAT’S NOT THE BOOT I PUT ON BEFORE LEAVING THE HOUSE! In fact, I can clearly remember pulling on a different boot altogether. OMG, I must be going mad!”
But I wasn’t. Or, no, actually, I was: but not for the reason I first thought. Lookit:
Do you see anything wrong with this picture, readers, DO YOU?
OK, how ’bout now?
Yes! I went out wearing TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT BOOTS! Witness:
Two. Completely. Different. Boots.
Well. As soon as I realised what I’d done, I felt like there was a giant spotlight shining down on me, out of which a disembodied voice was shouting, “Your attention, shoppers! Crazy lady here wearing two different boots! Feel free to mock her mercilessly!” Now, I’m 100% sure that most people in the world – and, more, specifically, in the mall – have better things to do with their lives than look at my mismatched legs. BUT. When you’re out in public wearing two different boots (and walking with a slight list, thanks to the fact that the heels on said boots are not exactly the same height, GOD) you just don’t feel like that. In fact, I felt like all eyes were upon me. I felt like everyone had noticed, and was laughing. And also that, if I was particularly unlucky, some of them would be saying to each other, “Hey, isn’t that the chick who has the blog about shoes? And who calls herself ‘Shoeperwoman‘? Could she not have at least tried to make sure her shoes matched before leaving the house? Doesn’t she OWN a mirror? Or a brain?” Or maybe, “Quick! Someone call The Fashion Police! Oh no, wait: that IS The Fashion Police!” Hoist by my own petard, people, hoist.
I tried to continue with my shopping, but it’s actually pretty hard to shop when you’re having to duck behind a rack of clothes every time someone comes near you, and of course, because The Others have such a strange fascination with me, it’s absolutely impossible for me to occupy a space inside a shop without at least six other people appearing and trying to squash into that space with me. I knew it was no good: something would have to be done, and by that I mean, “shoes would have to be bought, what a shame!”
Luckily for me, one of the stores near the entrance of the mall is New Look, and New Look is a veritable haven of cheap n’ cheerful shoes. I lurched into the store, looking like a mad, drunk woman, grabbed a random dress from the first rail I came to, and used it as a shield to cover my legs while I ran rolled to the shoe section. Once there, I bought the cheapest pair of shoes I could find, which I put on as soon as I’d finished paying for them:
OK, they may not have been the absolute cheapest, but they were the reddest. I may be mad, but I’m not stupid. Oh no, wait…
(Do not be fooled by the appearance of these shoes, readers: they may look harmless enough, but these shoes are made of EVIL and they proceeded to rub my ankles raw as I walked around in them. Which I guess is what I get for not being able to dress myself properly. I’d like to say I’ve learned my lesson, but I think we all know I probably haven’t…)
Tagged shoes, Things I Bought
Quick swine flu update: Terry had the vaccination yesterday, and, much to my surprise, so did I. In fact, they gave me the vaccination for the regular flu at the same time, so I felt a bit like a walking pincushion. Contrary to what we were told last week, it turns out that a lot of people who’ve been offered the vaccine have turned it down, and it also seems that new supplies have arrived, so there now does seem to be enough go around, and thank goodness for that! Despite the dire warnings we’d read about the vaccine, we’re both absolutely fine – sore arms, but nothing more, so hopefully we will live!
Now, who wants a random act of stupidity? Oh. No one. Well, here’s one from last week, anyway:
So, picture it: I’m at the gym, plodding through a run on the treadmill, and thinking about the half-assed fancy dress “costume” I’m going to wear this weekend. (Because, yes, we’re going to another fancy dress party this weekend. Hee!) Suddenly, though, the music I’m listening to is rudely interrupted as something small and rectangular goes flying past my head and lands with a sickening crash on the floor behind the machine. I twist myself round, while still trying to keep running, and, whoops! It’s my iPhone!
I hit the “Emergency Stop” button on the treadmill, and do a kind of comedy lurch as I try to keep my balance while the machine shudders to a halt. Then I jump off, grab the phone, and, oh, miracle of miracles! It works!
So I get back onto the machine, re-set it and start running again, this time thanking my lucky stars that I DIDN’T just wreck my phone, and wondering how on EARTH I managed to throw it across the gym. The phone, you see, was sitting where it always sits: on the shelf at the front of the treadmill. It had never taken to the air before, and I was just pondering the theory that I must have somehow got my elbow caught in the headphone cable and kinda flicked it across the room, when…
My music cuts out suddenly and a small, rectangular object goes flying past my head.
WHOOPS. I. DID. IT. AGAIN.
I once again performed my comedy lurch, and once again rescued the phone, and I am both surprised and amazed – totally AMAZED – to report that, once again, it was still working. Not even a scratch! My reputation in the gym, however, was in tatters, because although it was fairly empty at the time, needless to say, everyone there was crowded around me like paparazzi. D’oh!
(Oh, and just in case anyone thinks I exaggerate about this strange behaviour of The Others, my friend Mhairi goes to the same gym, and has noticed exactly the same thing. So either the folks there really are weird, or both Mhairi and I exert a powerful magnetism that draws Others to us like Rubin to a radiator.)
I did get back on the treadmill again, but I’d only been running for five minutes (with my eyes firmly fixed on my phone and my elbows clamped to my sides) when Bambi Girl arrived. Bambi Girl is my shadow at the gym. No matter what time of day I go there, she’s there. I think she might actually live there or something. And no matter which machine I choose to use, she chooses the one right next to it, or just one away. I’ve experimented with using different machines, just to see if this theory of mine holds true, and yup: it doesn’t matter which one I use, she’ll be right there next to me, like me and my shadow. I call her “Bambi Girl” because after walking slowly for ten minutes or so, BG will suddenly ram the speed up on the treadmill, execute this weird kind of Bamb-like leap into the air, and then run for a few minutes before her twenty minute cooldown. It’s actually quite impressive.
Not as impressive as my iPhone-flicking maneouvre, though. I think The Others will have to go quite some way to beat THAT one…
Tagged bambi girl, swine flu, the others
I’m just going to keep this short, but slightly hysterical:
WE LOST OUR PASSPORTS.
We turned the house upside down looking for them. We searched for an hour. I even called my parents to ask if, by any chance, we’d left the passports at their place when we got back from Florida this summer. (There is a reason why every time my mother sees my number on the caller display, she answers with “What’s wrong now?” rather than the customary ”hello”.)
Finally, just as I’d started to type the phrase “OMFG I lost my passport!” into Google…
Terry found them.
IN THE VERY FIRST PLACE WE’D LOOKED.
Isn’t that always the way of it? (Answer: “No, Amber, not really. Not unless you’re an idiot, obviously.”) And the first place we’d looked? Was a certain drawer in my filing cabinet which I tend to think of as “the passport drawer”. No, there are no prizes for guessing why I call it that.
The thing is, though, I SEARCHED the passport drawer. About ten times. In fact, so certain was I that if they weren’t there, they must be gone for good (I know I’ve managed to lose almost everything else I own this year, but I am actually pretty careful about the passports. No, really.), while Terry systematically ransacked the house, looking under rugs, behind mirrors and inside the dog’s ears, I just kept circling back to The Passport Drawer and going through it over and over again. Mostly while shrieking, “I can’t believe we’ve lost our PASSPORTS! Someone’s probably pretending to be me in Cuba or somewhere by now!”
Then I would search The Passport Drawer again. And again. I know I’m something of an unreliable searcher, too, so Terry ALSO searched TPD, at least three times that I can remember. The passports WERE NOT THERE. And then suddenly… they were.
I can only assume from all of this that at some point last night, our passports discovered how to make themselves magically invisible, and did it just to screw with us. It’s the only possible explanation. (Because it can’t POSSIBLY be that Terry and I are just STUPID. No.) If so, I can only hope they don’t ever decide to do it again, because I had to switch on my SAD light this week, and my sanity now depends on getting out of the county for a couple of weeks at least.
I think I’m going to give the passports to my parents for safe keeping. Also my green dresses. And… just everything, really. It’s the only way I can guarantee their safety.
(Oh, hey, that story wasn’t really short AT ALL, was it? Whoops.)
Tagged things I lost
Yesterday, Terry ran his first 10km. Everyone say “Yay, Terry!”
It was a proper race, too: with hills, and other people and stuff. Not like the 10ks I run in the gym. He got a t-shirt and a banana at the end of it and everything, which, quite frankly, is begging for some kind of “I ran for 10 kilometres and all I got was this lousy banana” joke, but I will refrain. (I don’t think he even ate the banana, either.)
Anyway, as I said, Yay, Terry! You rock! And also: roll. And that’s why last night we decided to go out to dinner to celebrate. I wore The Dress. You know, the one that was lost, and then was… well, was still lost, so was re-purchased, after huge amounts of whining on my part? THAT dress.
What I failed to consider, though, was that the dress is question has a huge skirt. And it was a very, very windy night. Which meant that, the second I stepped out of the car, the wind snatched up the skirt of the dress and pulled it right up over my head. Like Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch, only much less classy and my whole head was covered by it.
Just to make matters worse, when I finally managed to tear the fabric away from my head, I saw:
a) Terry doubled up laughing next to me
b) An entire balcony’s worth of people outside the restaurant, all just sitting there watching me as if I was the floor show. One man in particular stood and blatantly stared as I walked the rest of the way to the door with my skirt clutched between my knees and the wind still trying to drag it up around my face. That man was NO GENTLEMAN, let me tell you.
We had a nice meal, though. And I managed to keep my skirt in the proper place for the duration of it. I’m starting to think that dress is just unlucky, though…
Tagged missing green dress, running, Terry
Remember the sorry story of how I lost my TAX DISC? And had to apply for a new TAX DISC? Because the old TAX DISC was lost, and when something is lost, you don’t have it any more?
(Don’t worry, the caps are there for a reason. I haven’t just developed a weird case of car-related Tourettes. TAX DISC!)
Did you, at any point in that story, get the feeling that, “Oh my God, we haven’t heard the end of this yet?” Because if so, you were right. Sigh.
First I had to print out and fill in a form. You know, to get the DVLA to replace my missing TAX DISC? That was a bit of a saga in itself, partly because I really suck at filling in forms (I used blue ink rather than the required-on-pain-of-death black ink, and I put my date of birth in the “today’s date” box), but also because this form contained a bunch of questions like: “Please enter your BlahBlah number. This can be found on your TAX DISC”. And I was all, “Oh, my TAX DISC, you say? The one that’s LOST? As in, I don’t have it? Sure, let me just grab my LOST TAX DISC that I don’t have, so I can fill in this number from it, so that you can replace my LOST TAX DISC!”
It also contained the question, “How was the original TAX DISC lost?” Which stumped me a little, I have to admit. I considered two different answers:
1. Provide them with a link to this post.
or
2. Write something along the lines of “If I knew that, I’d have a chance of finding it, and I wouldn’t have to fill in this stupid form, brainiacs.”
But in the end I went with option 3, which involved the laborious printing (in block caps! That I had to write with my hand! I don’t ever write by hand now. I barely remember how to do it, to be honest.) of a lengthy explanation that went something like, “Well, it was on the worktop in the kitchen? Next to the kettle? Or maybe the toaster? But the original tax disc still had a few weeks to run, and I was about to go on holiday, then with all of the excitement of the holiday (I touched a dolphin!!) I forgot all about it, and then suddenly the tax disc wasn’t there any more, and I think I might have thrown it out by mistake, but I’m really not sure. Do you know? Also, have you seen my green dress?”
It was at this point that I realised I’d used the FORBIDDEN blue ink, though, so I had to print out a new form and start all over again (this time I just wrote “I think I threw it out. Whoops!”), then I had to write out a cheque for £7, and I haven’t used cheques since about 1999, so first I had to find my cheque book, then I had to hunt down my Vehicle Registration Document, which they also needed, and I had to put these items into an envelope along with some powdered unicorn horn, a 4 leafed clover gathered by the light of the full moon, and a clipping from one of God’s toenails. Then I had to get into my car (which, did I mention, does not have a valid TAX DISC?) and drive to the post office, because apparently it’s still 1987 at the DVLA and you can’t just do all of this online, like a normal person. I bet they still use typewriters there, too.
So, all of this just to get a replacement TAX DISC, and do you know what the DVLA sent me this week?
Yes, they sent me…. a replacement VEHICLE REGISTRATION CERTIFICATE!
So that sucked. Remember the bit where I had to send them my existing Vehicle Registration Document? You’d think that would’ve been a clue that this particular certificate WAS NOT LOST. Unlike, say… actually, no, I can’t bring myself to say it one more time. And then I had to pick up the phone (I never “phone”) and go through the whole “Press 1 if you’d like to sit in a call queue for an hour, 2 if you’d like to be transferred to someone who does not speak English, or 3 if you’d prefer to just die now,” thing, so they could tell me they have no idea why they sent me a Vehicle Registration Certificate rather than a You Know What.
They tell me a replacement YKW will be on its way to me later this week. I await its arrival with bated breath.
P.S. TAX DISC!
Tagged car wars, things I lost
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