On the way back to the airport last week, we passed a restaurant that had the tag-line “Nuthin’ mo’ betta’.” No, seriously: it was written just like that. We didn’t stop there, unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) so I can’t confirm whether there really IS anything “mo’ betta” than Billy’s Shrimp Shack, or whatever the hell it was called, but it kinda sums up the holiday for me – and I should add here that I do not mean to imply anything about Floridian grammar by that statement. (Although, note to Disney: “sweets” does not have an apostrophe. Just FYI.)
For me, there is nothing, er, more better – no, it’s no use, I’m not going to be able to keep writing that, sorry – than being on holiday, and since I’ve been home, I’ve had the worst case of post-holiday blues ever. Ever.
It’s not just the weather. Sure, the weather is part of it, and a pretty big part at that, but just to pre-empt all of the people who will want to tell me that OMG, the weather was just FABULOUS here while I was always (Seriously, why do people do that? Why are they always so keen to tell you how wonderful the weather has been while you’ve been on vacation? Is it to try and make you feel like you shouldn’t have bothered going? Because it doesn’t work, if so. It’s like all those people who go, “Well, you don’t have much of a suntan!” as if they want you to feel like you have somehow FAILED at vacationing or something. But I digress.), the weather isn’t the only thing I miss. It’s all of it. Everything, right down to the sound of the crickets at night and the smell of the mall on my new sweater. Silly things. Inconsequential things. Things you don’t actually travel to see, but miss like hell when you come home.
Oh, and the weather of course. And Sephora.
So I’ve been feeling pretty sad these past few days, and although I always feel sad when I come home, this time the feeling has been much harder to shake than usual. Rubin, however, has been doing his very best to cheer me up. He’s been staying with Terry’s mum while we were gone, and while he was there, he managed to eat three pineapple cakes and a Kit Kat over and above his allotted food and treats. (Yes, I know dogs aren’t supposed to eat chocolate, but he stole it out of Terry’s mum’s handbag and suffered no ill effects, even although he ALSO ate the wrapper. He stole the cakes from her bed, where she’d placed them for a few minutes to keep them out of his reach while she unpacked her shopping. I have no idea how he got onto the bed, because he can’t normally do that. He must’ve REALLY wanted those cakes, is all I can say…) Terry’s mum and Keith, her partner, are absolutely amazed by his capacity to eat, and to keep on eating, even although he must surely to God be full, and can’t possibly be actually TASTING anything, on account of he’s swallowing it whole.It amazes me, too.
Anyway, it’s good to have him home, even if it’s not good to actually BE home. Since we landed on Friday, I have spent more or less every waking moment searching online for holidays to anywhere. Terry, meanwhile, has been making this:
I think I may have managed to conquer the packing. It took most of the day, though, because according to my Twitter, I first started to “think about” packing my suitcase just before lunch yesterday. Here’s what I had by 10pm:
packing fail
In fairness, though, that goldy/bronzey thing is my makeup bag, and it took me a LONG time to pack IT, because that’s just my travel makeup bag or The Travelling Makeup Bag, as I think I will call it from now on. THIS is my real makeup bag. I mean Big Ass Box:
The Sephora Case o' Doom
Distilling the contents of this into that was a long and arduous task, and I guess the fact that I found it hard to leave the comfort of my computer chair, where I spent many a pleasant hour yesterday reading blogs, tooling around on Twitter and doing anything, really to not have to pack, made it even harder. Like, look, this is Pinky:
My main man, Pinky
Everyone say, “Hi, Pinky!”
Haha, I made you speak to a stuffed rabbit! Hee!
Pinky is my travelling companion. Well, other than Terry and my parents, obviously, but none of them are pink, and they don’t like being squeezed when I’m scared the plane is going to crash, which is all the time. So Pinky is like a kind of stress toy. He stands in for Ted, who doesn’t vacation with us. (He’s just at that age now, where he’s all, “You guys are lame, I want to party with my friends!” He’s going to Goa this year, apparently.)
(Note: Pinky came free with a handbag I got, and didn’t actually have a name until a moment of stress somewhere high above the Atlantic one year, when he was named in a hurry. And clearly I suck at naming things under stress. Another reason never to have children - I’d probably give birth and name it “Screamy” or “Bloody” or something.)
Anyway, several hours later, I ended up with a packing win, of sorts. This is one side of the case:
Suitcase: one side of
Pretty full, no? But look! Here is the other side:
Suitcase, other side of
Lookit all that lovely space! Space which I will be able to fill up with… oh:
"Take meeeeeeeeeee!"
He’s going to stay with Terry’s mum while we’re gone. He will be treated like a small, furry Overlord there, and will eat much better than he does at home. But I will miss him, and every time I look at his little face, I want to cry. So, moving on, let’s weigh the suitcase (minus dog) with the handy gadget Terry bought for this purpose:
The Weigh-In
You can’t see from this photo, but it came in at about 14 kilos, which gives me 6 kilos of shopping to bring back with me. Yay! I win! Although not really, because GOD, shoes are heavy, and I might want to buy shoes… If I do, though, I will also have access to The Shoulder Bag With a Face:
The Bag With a Face
Seriously, it has a face, no?
Ahhhhh!
It’s drooling at the thought of all of the lovely shopping it will carry. Or maybe it’s just planning to eat my head when I go to sleep tonight, who knows?
And with the packing of TBWAF (which is actually much bigger than it looks here and is a bit like a Mary Poppins bag) I was finally done:
Phew!
Time on completion:
whoops
So it’s a good job I don’t have to get up, like, really early tomorrow or…. oh.
Now I just need to take stuff out, put it back, add more stuff, remove stuff and then, at the last minute remember that whoops, I haven’t actually packed any knickers/sweaters/bikinis/delete-as-appropriate, and we’re good to go.
Anyway, our flight is early tomorrow morning, so we’ll be staying with my parents tonight, because they live closer to the airport, and also, because it means we can mess-up someone else’s house when we get up at stupid o’clock tomorrow, rather than our own. Assuming we make it there safely, then, I’ll see you on the other side!
"Buh-bye!"
Ted is waving goodbye. Also: is clearly drunk. GOD.
There hasn’t been much time for blogging this week. Well, there’s been time for BLOGGING, obviously, because, well, that’s pretty much all I’ve done. But I’ve done so much of it here, here and here that there just hasn’t been time to do any of it, er, here. Sorry. I’d say that all work and no play makes Amber a dull blogger but I guess you already knew that. So!
Other than the almighty blogathon that has been my week so far, nothing has happened. I mean, AT ALL. I haven’t yet succumbed to swine flu, which has surprised me, really, because normally if there’s a flu going around, I will get it. Sometimes twice. I’m guessing Swine Flu is probably waiting until I go on holiday next month before it gets me, because, you know, no point in ruining an ordinary working week when you can ruin a much-anticipated holiday instead, is there?
(Did I mention I’m going on holiday next month? I am going on holiday next month. Yes, I am going to Florida. I cannot. wait.)
Anyway, where was I? I’m sure there was a point to this entry, but dammed if I know what it was. Look, here is a picture of my dog!
And we can only really guess at the ways in which this incident traumatised Ted, because here is what I found him wearing when I walked into the bedroom yesterday:
Yo, peeps, Rubinman in da house! Yes, it’s really ME, the R-Man! I’m here because, it’s like, I read Amber’s last entry? The one where she’s whining about me peein on that “radiator”? And it was as I thought. They see me peein’: they hatin’! So, like, here’s my side of the “story”. I think you’ll find it’s quite different from what Amber tries to to tell yoos.
So, I have called this entry “Watergate”, and the reason I have done that is because it’s about me peeing in the house. Hee! Do you see what I did there? Do you? Do you?
Anyway, yes, I have been peein’ in the house. Like, A LOT. I’ve not just been peeing ANYWHERE in the house, though: the Rubinman is more cunning than that. No, I’ve been peein on the radiator in the office, and I’ve been doin it every chance I get. Which, like I said, is A LOT.
Before I go any further here, I just want to clear one thing up. Amber and Terry? Them? They’re all, “Wah, Rubinman! Peeing on the radiator is not big and is not clever! Wah!” But, as with so many things in life, They are WRONG about this. Wrong, wrong, WRONG. They are so wrong they could not BE more wrong. Because peeing on the radiator IS big. And it IS clever. And don’t let anyone ever tell yoos differently, kids, srsly.
Here is how I do it, just in case yoos need any tips: I wait until They go to see “Gym” and THEN I do it. They go to see this “Gym” dude almost every day. WHO IS HE? Who is this mysterious “Gym” and why do they go to see him so much? (Also, I gotta say this, but they dress like a couple of asses when they go to see “Gym”. Sorry, but it’s true. Lycra pants, Amber? Really?)
Anyways, I put up with this “Gym” crap for a while. And then one day I was just like, NO. ENOUGH. I’m not puttin up with this ONE SECOND more. Because I like it to be all about me all the time, you know? And when it’s all about “Gym”, it’s not all about me? So, like, this “Gym”, dude? He is takin the attention that is rightfully mine. Srsly, I am ALL about the attention, so I am totally goin to hunt down this “Gym” and I’m going to bite his bum. It’s, like, Gym? If you’re readin’ this? You better worry, dude, and I’m not even jokin.
So, it’s like, that’s the story of WATERGATE. (God, I totally crack myself up sometimes, I really do.) I’m goin to keep doin it until they crack. I think that might have been today, actually, because when they came into the office and they saw the pee, their faces were all mad and they were, like, goin insane? Hee! And what’s funny about THAT is, they haven’t even found the pee I did ON MY OWN BED yet, either. LOL!
Absolutely nothing has happened here since The Great Wall of Clothing was removed from my hallway, so this is one of those completely pointless list posts, which I’m pretty sure no one will read anyway, because you’ll all be off enjoying the Easter break. Speaking of which:
Easter! Whee! It’s easily my favourite holiday because:
a) It’s the start of Spring.
b) You get chocolate
c) You don’t have to actually DO anything, unlike, say, Christmas, which involves many, many hours of shopping, and not the kind of shopping that’s fun, either, let me tell you.
d) Did I mention the chocolate?
Now that I’m completely self-employed, I managed to completely forget about Easter this year until yesterday, when I suddenly realised I don’t have to do any work tomorrow, and can have a long weekend. Yay!
I actually feel really, really guilty about planning to take tomorrow and Monday off, though. Oh, the extravagance! I expect the Internet will totally fall to pieces without ME here to watch over it and that will be oh-so-awful, won’t it?
I’m still planning on taking a break, though.
I will probably spend much of it lolling around in bed, reading.
Rubin will probably spend much of it peeing on the radiator in the office, because that’s what the little toad does for fun these days. WHY? Why must he do this to us? It’s not like he doesn’t get the opportunity to “relieve” himself before we go out, because he most certainly does and, actually, we’ve had to become pretty insistent on this point lately. Also, why does he only do it when we go to the gym, and at no other time? Does he resent the gym? Is he jealous of it? Is he trying to tell us something? WHAT?
I totally thought I had more things to put on this list, but apparently I REALLY just wanted to get that whole thing about Rubin and the radiator (again: WHY?) off my chest, so I will just wish you all a happy Easter, instead. I hope no one pees on your radiators!
Well, would you look at that: looks like I DIDN’T find anything other than my birthday surprises to write about this week after all! Let’s just pretend I did, OK? I won’t tell if you don’t…
Anyway, as I mentioned last week, I was a little apprehensive about what “Rubin’s Surprise” was going to turn out to be because… well, he likes to pee recently. Mostly in places he shouldn’t, and by “places he shouldn’t” I mean “on the radiator in the office”. When I turned around from my busy, important work today, though, and saw this:
I relaxed a little. I mean, I don’t think even Rubin would gift-wrap pee, although you never really know with him. As you can see, though, he’d gone to a not inconsiderable amount of effort here:
So I decided to risk unwrapping it, and here’s what I found:
Aww, books about doggies! He must have had to save up his pocket money for ages to buy those! And now I need to go and finish my work so I can read them…
Well, folks, The Great Haircut Wars of ’09 have left me feeling wrung out, like a limp rag, and that’s before I’ve even been anywhere NEAR the hairdresser. So, in a bid to post something that’s NOT directly related to my hair, I thought I’d do The Friday Five. But The Friday Five this week was a bunch of really boring questions about chocolate, and seriously, why would anyone care whether I know how chocolate is made or not? (I don’t, by the way. I don’t know how anything is made. And I don’t care. Cooking is why God made Other People.)
I still wanted to be lazy answer questions rather than write an entry with, you know, actual thoughts and ideas in it, though, so I decided to turn to my old friend Google Analytics, and answer some of the questions people have been asking the Internet recently, and which have led them to this here blog. For instance:
Can I wear black to a christening?
Well, I did. I wear black to absolutely everything, though, so I’m probably the wrong person to ask. My one piece of advice to you about attending a christening, however, is this: before I went to one, everyone told me that it would be “dressy, but not as dressy as a wedding.” Naturally, then, it turned out to be as dressy as a wedding. Maybe this was just some kind of freak occurrence, and not the norm for these events (I wouldn’t know, being a complete and utter heathen), but most people were dressed to the nines. This made it a lot of fun, actually, because there’s really nothing I enjoy more than looking at what other people are wearing.
My answer to this question, then: yes, black is fine, as long as you make it a “happy” black, not a sad black. Like, maybe lay off the veil and gloves, and use some colourful accessories to make it clear that you’re not at a funeral. Also: you’re being given the opportunity to dress up – seize it with both hands, my friend!
Do redheads have souls?
(Note: this is now one of my top search terms. Which really makes me wonder about humanity, to be honest.)
My answer: Don’t be silly, of course redheads don’t have souls. Redheads are another race entirely: we are, in fact, a little-known offshoot of the vampires, and we survive by drinking the blood of people who type dumb-ass questions into Google. I’d sleep with one eye open tonight if I were you. I’d also refrain from breeding if at all possible because… well, because the world has enough idiots, we don’t really need any more.
Is it normal to feel your pulse in your stomach?
Ooh, medical questions, I love me some medical questions! Actually, no, I don’t, and I have this to say to you, pulse-stomach-searcher: NEVER CONSULT DOCTOR GOOGLE ON THESE MATTERS. Doctor Google is not a good doctor. He is a wicked, evil doctor, and his answers will cause you to lie awake at night in a cold sweat, wondering who to leave your shoes to when you “go”.
Anyway, what I’m trying to say here is that the Internet is not a doctor and neither am I. (Note: Neither is Karl Kennedy from Neighbours, but you wouldn’t know it.) If it makes you feel any better, though, I last felt my pulse in my stomach in November 2007 - I actually thought I was about to give birth to an alien at the time – and I’m still alive. Take from that what you will.
Do you spend a lot of money on fashion?
Yes. Do you?
What is the most times a dog has peed?
Nineteen. No, I’m being serious, it was nineteen times. It was in 1978. Seriously, dude, what did you expect here? And why so vague? Do you want to know how many times a dog has peed in the space of an hour? A day? Its life? Does it have to be a particular breed of dog? Boy or girl? Ask and ye shall receive! Or actually, maybe not in this case, because honestly, who’s counting?
If you want to know how many times MY DOG has peed, well, I can’t tell you that in general terms, but I can tell you how many times he has peed INSIDE THE HOUSE this week: three times. Yes, three times. Mostly on his own bed (!) but sometimes on the radiator. He does it when we go to the gym. We don’t know why, because here’s the thing: he doesn’t do it when we leave the house to go anywhere else. Only when we go to the gym. What does this mean? What is he trying to tell us here? Who knows. (Oh! Maybe Google does! Must go and check…)
Anyway, these were just five of the questions my referrers have asked me recently. If you’d like to submit your own question to “Ask Amber”, be my guest. Just make it something I’m likely to know the answer to. You know, none of that “What’s the square root of 8.768?” rubbish, because I can’t help you with that.
I wrote a post earlier today, but I deleted it because, well, I suspect there’s probably only so much whining people can take from someone whose current main problems in life are the facts that:
1. It snowed a lot this week
2. She had the cold (AGAIN), and it made her feel, like, really tired and OMG, doesn’t that suck?
6. And RED WEALS. Because OF COURSE the red weals would return, on a week when my hair looked like straw, my face looked like that of someone recently exhumed, and I had two heads. OF COURSE they would.
7. Her husband is currently talking like Jack Bauer and complaining about the presence of “daggers” in his throat.
8. Gah.
Still. I wrote a big long whiny entry about all of that, and then I read it back and my abiding impression was that, yeah, it could be worse, couldn’t it? Boo hoo, I got a second head! So what, some people don’t even have ONE HEAD, how about that? Oh God, I’m talking to myself again, aren’t I?
Anyway, my point still stands: it’s not been the best week I’ve ever had in my life, but hey, it could be a helluva lot worse so, you know, rather than do a whole lot of whining about it, here are some photos of my dog, instead. You are welcome.
OMG! Fierce! Scary! Run! Save yourselves if you can!
Could. Not. Be. More. Cute. (Note the back leg resting on the desk : he lay like that for ages…)
Yes, folks, this “blawg” message comes to you from me, the Rubinman, Santa Claus, standing in for Amber because – guess what? Yeah, she’s freakin ILL. AGAIN. She totally got the cold, like really bad, on Christmas morning, and actually, yoos should probably all be grateful she did, because if she was here right now she’d just be all, “oooh, mememe, monkies, the cold, me, monkies, cry me a freakin’ river, ME, the end.”
And obviously, yoos would all be like, “Who gives a crap about you, Ginger? Tell us about the Rubinman, that handsome and yet really terrifying young WOLF yoos live with?”
Well Ithe Rubinman is doin good. It’s like, when Amber and Terry went to that “Tenerife” place, I went to live with my Norma and John, and not a moment too soon, because at least they know how to feed a wolf properly, you know what I’m sayin’? Since They came back, Amber and Terry have been callin me “Fatboy” and they just better watch their backs, because I got a bum-bitin’ here with both their names on it. I mean, the Rubinman has got one. Not me, because I am Santa Claus. Ho ho ho.
Yeah, so, for Christmas I brung Amber and Terry quite a lot of stuff. I, like, brung them a lot of clothes, and I also brung them “money”, and I brung Amber one of them “S.A.D. lights” so she can shine it in her face and, like, pretend she’s in the sun and stuff? So, it’s like, you never know, next year she might even write a “blawg” post or two that ISN’T all, “oooh, the cold, ooh don’t like it, gimme sunshine, gimme monkies, woe!” Yeah, right.
Also, They ate, like A LOT of food for that “Christmas”. A LOT of food. And They didn’t even give the Rubinman any of it. It’s like, yoos should totally send him food, ya know? They had a good time, even although Amber totally whined about how it was, like, the third time she’d been ill this month, and stuff. What a clown she is, seriously.
Thank Dog that handsome wolf was there to keep her in line is all I can say.
Now, clearly this isn’t the classiest post title I’ve ever come up with in my life, but let it be a warning to you folks: if you have “problems” with vomit (you know, like I DO), you’re going to want to skip this one…
So Rubin was ill over the weekend. I could tell on Saturday morning that Something Was Up, because he didn’t freak the hell out to quite the same extent as he normally does when the post arrived in the morning. Like, normally he reaches Excitement Level 10, but he only got to about a 9.5.
“Something is wrong with Rubin,” I told Terry and my parents, who we were visiting that night. “He is ill, is probably dying. Either that or is faking it for sympathy.”
“Pish!” said my peeps. “Is fine. YOU are one who is faking it. Rubin in rude health. Lookit him being all healthy!”
But I knew I was right, and so when he suddenly and extravagantly threw up the next day, all over his bed, I was not at all surprised, and I would have phoned my dad to say “I told you so!” if I hadn’t been too busy gagging at the time. Dad, if you’re reading this, though: I TOLD YOU SO.
Anyway, we washed Rubin’s bed (by “we”, I obviously mean “Terry”, by the way), and gave him an old towel to lie on while it dried, because, well, if he’d been sick once, chances were he would be sick again, and sure enough, not an hour later, that old towel was also making its way through a spin cycle, and Terry was once more down on his hands and knees, scrubbing vomit from the floors.
I, meanwhile, took Rubin out into the garden. You know, just in case. He issued out of the back door with all guns blazing, and proceeded to bark enthusiastically and hysterically at the imaginary postwoman who lives at our back gate, so I assumed he was feeling better. “Is better,” I told myself. “Whatever he’d eaten that didn’t agree with him, it has gone. He is fine now.”
And this was how I came to make my fatal mistake – bringing Rubin back upstairs and settling him down on my knee. ON MY KNEE. My knee, from which, Rubin was perfectly placed to vomit copiously ALL DOWN MY LEG twenty minutes later. GOD.
As this happened, I made my second fatal mistake: lifting him from my knee while he was in mid-vomit. Because my chair was right next to the open doorway of the room. The open doorway which Rubin soon filled with vomit, leaving me trapped in a small room with vomit down my leg and more of it barring my exit.
DID I MENTION I AM NOT GOOD WITH VOMIT?
(I hope you weren’t eating while you were reading this by the way.)
And that was how we spent our Sunday. Rubin is absolutely fine now, so we reckon he must have eaten something, probably while he was outside, ferreting around in the grass. We’re keeping a really close eye on him, needless to say, and are making a tremendous fuss of him, which he has been thoroughly enjoying.
As relaxing Sunday afternoons go, though… well, let’s just say we’ve had better.
