Ah, I feel all refreshed.

I just reread the last post and I feel all refreshed.  Nothing like a good rant.  People are a bit odd that way.

Apologies for the radio silence.  I have been on a bit of a binge.  Books, that is.  My dear mother loaned me 10 books a couple of weeks ago.  They are not longies - mere snacks - but they sort of follow each other and as I narrow in on the end of book 9, I feel like I have eaten most of a chocolate cake and am gazing at the last couple of mouthfuls wondering if I can get them down.  These books are definitely the chocolate cake of the literary world with great goops of icing pooling around the plate.

Bugger.  Now I am getting hungry for cake and all I have for lunch is a metwurst samo.

On the chocolate topic, this is on my list of things to cook one day.  Phillipa Silby is a living goddess.  I think we can safely assume my version won't look this good.  The recipe can be found here in case you are tempted.  Send me some!!!

This is why wives and mothers leave.

Because we get sick of saying to husbands and children:

• Please don't leave bits of food and a foot of bubbles in the sink after you wash up. The detergent drops its payload of grease as the bubbles disappear leaving crusted-on crap to add to the decaying lumps in the sink.  If you want to use half a cup of detergent then deal with the bubbles.
• We have 3 square inches of sink top in the bathroom.  That means the shaving soap can not live there permanently.  Or toothbrushes.
• Your clean washing is in the hall. Don't just rustle through it scattering undies around the place instead of putting it away without my having to nag.
• Oh, about 6000 other things.

And finally, if I go away for five days to a funeral and you all discover you have itchy bottoms, move through the steps.  It is just fucking rude to mention it in passing two days after I get home.  I will now be joining in the worm treatment and washing all the sheets, etc.  It also means my one-woman campaign to upgrade the quality of hand-washing around here has been a complete fail.

I hate living with pigs.  Three of you are small children or furry quadrupeds so you have some defence.

Required attributes of a sleeping partner (cat perspective)

1. Prepared to provide physical comfort in the pre-sleep period.  Caressing around ears, under chin and tummy preferred.

2. Prepared to work around whereever I should choose to sleep in the bed - contortionists preferred.

3. Prepared to be leaned on.

4.  Excellent at falling asleep and sound sleeper - must not toss and turn.

5. Exothermic body preferred.

6. Must like being stood on in the early morning and getting up to let me go out for a morning whizz.

7.  Any reduction of these attributes will lead to fickle bed-hopping.  Deal with it.

Oxytocin levels enter the red zone.

Oxytocin, known as 1-({(4R,7S,10S,13S,16S,19R)-19-amino-​7-(2-amino-2-oxoethyl)-​10-(3-amino-3-oxopropyl)-​16-(4-hydroxybenzoyl)-​13-[(1S)-1-methylpropyl]-​6,9,12,15,18-pentaoxo-​1,2-dithia-​5,8,11,14,17-pentaazacycloicosan-4-yl}carbonyl)-​L-prolyl-​L-leucylglycinamide to its more intimate friends, is a bit of a chemical problem around here.

"Hey, I can handle it, its not that strong a drug.  Ha ha haha ha ha ha ahahahahhahhha ha haa!"

Sure, oxytocin has a bit of a rep as the hormone that stops you from abandoning the distended, slime-covered, mewling infant that has just reaped havoc with your perineum.  "Bugger that", says oxytocin, "give it a cuddle and devote the next couple of decades to meeting its every need."

No, oxytocin's real insidiousness is when it creeps up to flood level within the ordinary household.

I live with two girls, you see.  And then the husband is prone to the odd cuddlesome period himself - aided and abeted by testosterone surges in his case, there being a thin line between a cuddle and a grope.

How can you tell the oxytocin levels are red-lining?  You can't put your socks on in the morning because you are being cuddled.  You can't sort the dirty washing because there are girls wound around your legs.  Your sense of personal space is so squeezed, you contemplate running away and joining a comtemplative order where talking is forbidden and touching is right out.  

Even the cat is adding to the loving crowd, though in her case it might the onset of cold weather making me seem like an ambulating heat source.

I hate to complain but some days I am being loved to death.

Mission fail on chocolate addiction.

One of my aims as a parent was to raise kids without raging sugar addictions and in particular, chocolate.  As a lifetime addict I just wanted something better for my girls.

There is a theory peddled by child development types that if you keep babies and toddlers away from very sugary food they will not develop the taste for it.  So I assiduously kept the oldest away from sweets and chocolate and even sweet yoghurt, etc.  This meant warding off shop keepers giving out toffee apples and being pretty bloody firm with grandparents, those insidious, sugar-peddling fiends.

By the time the little one got to two, the oldest was allowed the occasional lolly because she knew about them and what can you say to a three year old when she asks why she can't ever have any treats obviously targeted to children.  And so the younger one got to start earlier.

In both cases, as soon as they had sweet food they loved it.  So much for that theory.  Maybe you need to keep them clear for 30 years rather than 2-3 years, which is all I could manage in our sugar-saturated society.

Sadly, they both took to chocolate like junkies.  They get some chocolate for Christmas, Easter and their birthdays but not really any in between.  Unfortunately, as the older monster worked out, if you eak out each lot of chocolate to say, 5-10 grams per day, you can get from Christmas to mid April with almost a continual supply.

Mmmm, eggy goodness.

That supply has now ended and the sustained intake has meant they are suffering terrible withdrawals.  Like many junkies before them, they are turning to crime.

The other day when we were leaving a friend's house, two little eggs dropped out of the jumper one of the monsters was very carefully holding.  She had to go back and return them and have a solid talking-to when she got home.

Two days later, I noticed little nibble marks in my chocolate supply.  A rat?  Not one that can open a fridge.  No, that is a girl nibble.  I asked them about it and the usual shifty lies followed, but it was perfectly obvious it was the other monster this time.  More talking-to.

Maybe I should let them have a little amount each day - a chocolate methadone program.  I prefer not. I prefer for them to dry out and have a chance to wind back their addictions.  (Best not to point out that I have a daily dose.  At least I have moved past the (extended) period of my life where I could not have any in the house lest I scoff the lot.)

In any case I think we can comprehensively fail my mission to have savoury-preferring children.  Sadly, I think the theory was crap and the application insufficient in length.