Drink Me

Alice - possibly the best discovery of my year. Maybe just of the week. At least, the find of the night. Next time I shall dress in peacoat and opera gloves, with my best string of plastic beads. I'm not normally one for novelelty drinks, but coudn't resist the china pots of tea. Drinking lemon and honey from a bone china cup makes one feel qite innocent (and must be good for my cold, I thought, especially since the added shots of Jaegermeister normally taste like cough syrup to me anyway).
I fell in love with the next pot, a dumpy brown-glazed lump sticky labelled 'Mama Bear', like something out of my Brownie days. The mint tea and vanilla vodka it was filled with were slightly less reminiscent of childhood... Best of all, the old Tenniel illustrations on the walls gave me an idea for tonight's Mad Hatters tea party costume.

Cereal Killer

I suspect keeping my cats as indoor moggies may have blunted some of their predatory nature. Or possibly given them an abnormal sense of what constitutes 'Prey'.
I've started letting them outdoors, and someone brought me back their first kill the other day.
A piece of toast.
I like to think that they stalked it for hours, slinking belly low over the ground until the fatal pounce, killing it with a ferocious shake of the head. A spurt of crumbs showered the birds who had been dining on it, as they looked on, disbelieving. And moggy, mrowling the happy killer mrowl, dragged the carcass back home to show off to me.
I must teach them to hunt me chocolate...

Opinions vs Rectums

Jesus apparently died that I may -
...eat a lot of chocolate in the shape of a pagan rabbit.
...hide brightly dyed eggs around my house, so that in three weeks time, the still hidden beasties will force me to evacuate, and move to Nairobi.
...not be able to partake of a glass of wine UNLESS I have the foresight to have bought it yesterday, or be wanting fries with that. Or unless he resurrects himself near my tap and performs a miracle.
...still have to go to work, despite the fact the rest of the country is on holiday, and look after the animals of the aforementioned holidaying population. All of whom appear to have eaten chocolate/rabbits/decaying eggs, and are displaying their gastrointestinal displeasure. Explosively.
...be woken up at irregular intervals during my one sleep-in of the week by the sonorous clanging of the church bell ten metres from my bed.

Inked

Since my 30th birthday present from the boy was meant to be a tattoo, I've been trying to assemble my scrambled brain cells together long enough to decide finally on a what and a where. This is something I have long been pondering (since getting my first at the age of 21, they seem to be rather like Pringles), and you would think it shouldn't prove too daunting a task. I've narrowed it down to the idea of a few lines of text, written in a stylised typefont, probably on my lower back.
And now, the words.
Something meaningful to me now that's not going to make me feel like a complete and utter pretentious wanker when I am 82.
Something that won't make me look like an illiterate knob when someone else catches a glimpse of it.
Something that really represents the inner Nine, now and forever.

Or I could just pick random lines from whatever books I'm reading? Page 65, line five, first three sentences -->

'Oh. But he's dead'
'You can still be cool when you're dead. In fact, its much easier, because you aren't getting old and fat and losing your hair'
You know, that one actually has a certain something to it?

'As long as cardiac output and renal prefusion improve with therapy, renal function is usually maintained. Poor glomerular filtration is more likely to result in overdiuresis, excess vasodilation, or severe mocardial dysfunction. Reducing the diuretic dosage may restore renal function.'
Useful for when I sit MACVS exams, but I suspect I'll need a hell of a lot more tatts if thats the way I'm planning on getting through.

'A crowd flowed over London Bridge,so many, I had not thought death had undone so many. Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled, and each man fixed his eyes before his feet.'

Bollocks to this. Maybe I'll just get a snark instead....

Endo Metra

Three hours of laparoscopic examination this week revealed a constellation of renegade cells within me. Not renegade in a cancerous sense, more in a wayward schoolchild way. I look on my surgeon as a truant officer, really. Some of these rebellious endometrial cells had apparently decided they didn't appreciate the confines of my womb, and had instead decided to explore more exotic territory, loafing around on organs that I currently have far greater use for. Some had even gone so far as to create a beautifully termed chocolate cyst on my ovary, and I suspect Cadbury's will never look the same to me again.
Sore and tired, the two weeks off work which were earmarked for catching up with Masters coursework, are rapidly being consumed by sleep, and surfing youtube for amateur transplant humour.
That'll do, pig.

Wax on, Wax off

So no-one actually told me that a Brazilian was one of those things I had to do before I was thirty. Maybe its not. Maybe everyone just assumed I had already been there, done that. Maybe my friends just prefer not to think about my nether regions (a status quo I am happy to preserve).
But for whatever reason, I veered into "Snip n'Strip" today, and am a Brazilian virgin no more.
Step One - Say the words. Sneak it in there in between another request, if you need to. “I’d like an eyebrow shaping, please, a brazilian, and my upper lip”. See now, these people are professionals, they aren’t going to bat an eyelid. Plenty of women have a little facial hair.
Step Two - Resist the urge to turn and run. You can do this. Everyone up to and probably including Margaret Thatcher has had this done, and realistically, you do need more painful experiences in your personal compendium of Ouch, just so you can compare things with other people. (For example…Brazilian - worse than a tattoo, better than a three year old screaming in the seat next to you on a non-stop from Jakarta to Dehli).
Step Three- Get over the fact that the aesthetician/beautician/sadist is a size 3 and is about to see your inner thighs in all their glory. She’s obviously into pain, she’ll only get more of a kick out of the fact that you are embarrassed.
Step Four - Disrobe. Stare blankly at the moist towelette that she has handed you with the instructions to ’Wipe’, with a vague gesture to the portion of your body between your chin and your knees, realising it was not intended to cover such a large surface area. Oh. Right. Wipe. Gotcha.
Step Five - Discover that the foot of the table faces the door, which opens into a full waiting room, which in turn leads to a crowded shopping mall. Realise this before the Wax Wielding Warrior Princess returns. Wrap yourself tightly in the provided sheet to resemble an Egyptian mummy.
Step Six - Drift into a vague trance, musing on the fact that the Egyptians were one of the first civilisations to wax many parts of the body…wondering what that stuff is in that pot over there….finding out that indeed it is sticky, and doesn’t seem to want to come off your hand….removing any stray hairs from the inside of your left elbow, your right hand, and the sheet in the process.
Step Seven - Attempt not to have a heart attack when Mistress Pain flings the door open. Remember, adrenaline is your friend.
Step Eight - OK, there is no getting around it. This is not going to be dignified. Nothing that involves another person snapping on a pair of blue latex gloves and putting your ankle on their shoulder is intended to be dignified. Close your eyes and think of your happy place.
Step Nine - That buzzing you hear/feel is her using a pair of clippers to remove excess hair. Please come back down from the ceiling.
Step Ten - Yes, that is hot. That is very, very, very hot. That is hot in a place where hot really doesn’t belong. Try to remember that if you attempt to run now, your legs will be glued together with wax, and you will fall into the waiting room (crowded, remember?) like a lassoed calf. A lassoed calf with no pants on. I don’t advise it.
Step Eleven - Happy place, happy place, happy place, happy plAAAWOOOOO HOLY MOTHER OF DEAR FUCK!!!!!!!!!
Step Twelve - Grit your teeth, try to smile, and squeeze out the words “That wasn’t too bad” to Madam Snatch n’Grab when she asks how you are doing. Show no weakness.
Step Thirteen - Repeat steps 10-12 as needed for the duration
Step Fourteen - Try not to look completely bewildered when she asks you to roll over and “spread em” . She is not about to search you for smuggled contraband. You wish.
Step Fifteen - Repeat step eleven, this time with feeling.
Step Sixteen - Thank the nice lady. (she can hear you mumbling under your breath, and for all you know she does speak German. I’m sure her mother is lovely, really.)
Step Seventeen - Pay. No soap, no moisturiser, no nookie. Got it. Smile, you made it, its over, you did good kid.
Step Eighteen - Walk to the door, with the slow realisation that any tiny bits of wax that are left are going to randomly rip any stray hairs/skin you may have left out for the next twenty four hours.
Step Nineteen - Repeat in 4-6 weeks.

Looping the Loop

The Boy was given an aerobatic flight for his birthday, and when we woke up to sun and blue skies yesterday, we hassled Ray, the pilot, mercilessly until he agreed to meet us at the airport. I pictured myself spending the afternoon lounging on the deck outside the airport café, watching Boy as he was put through the paces, glass of wine in hand, ready for resuscitation if he stumbled out of the plane weak kneed and white with fear.
Instead I found myself signing up to do a flight as well. And then the fear really began. Butterflies the size of parakeets flooded my stomach, and I felt my hands beginning to shake, as Will, our safety instructor, detailed what was about to happen. What had I got myself into? Waiting for the others to go first nearly killed me, but inevitably, there was no avoiding it. I too had to stand on the scales, and have my weight read out to the room.
With the worst over, I practically ran to the plane, squirming my way into the front seat of the Pitts Special, and donning authentic flight helmet and aviators. I whooped enthusiastically into the intercom as we took off and did a few preparatory banks and turns, pushing my lungs somewhere into the region of my knees.
And then…then the first flip upside down. When it suddenly dawned on me that, due to the confined nature of my seat, and the fact that most of the buckles were between my legs, the actual securing of the harness had been left up to me. Yes, someone had told me which bits clicked where and what to pull to tighten, and there had even been several good yanks on various sections to make sure they were on. But I was upside down. With that harness (and a flimsy bit of plastic canopy) between me and the deep blue sea.
At that point, I abruptly abandoned the ‘weeeeeeee!’ and instead gripped onto the harness for dear life. With something of a muffled ’meeuuuuuphh!’ noise . Until another thought struck (and yes, we were still upside down) what if there was some kind of quick release system and I accidentally pulled it? The ‘meeuuuuuuph!’ increased slightly in pitch and volume, as we flipped right side up again. But then…then the looping and rolling and plunging headfirst at the waves began, and with the security of centrifugal forces pushing comfortingly against me, I giggled and cackled like a kid on a sugar high.
I think Ray thought this might have indicated hysteria, rather than glee, but each time he asked if I was ok, and up for more, I gave the 'ok' signal with both hands (wrenching them away from the harness, to which they still appeared to be glued), and we zoomed into another 6G plummet.
Fear factor? Pure blood fizzing exhileration aplenty. A few seconds of absolute terror until I realised that I had, in fact, managed to put the harness on correctly.
Fun factor? Sky high.