The obliteration of the mending mountain

I like to think there are some people who have a canny understanding of their own desires and the sheckles and self control to ditch items of clothing that need alteration or repair. Sadly I suspect 99.9% of the pop. has a mending mountain that eventually gets so immense it  begins to swallow the entire wardrobe.  Those lucky enough to have a spare room probably open the door one day only to be flattened by an avalanche of too-long pants and button-less shirt.  Dogs have to be sent into the fields of debris to find the near-expiring bodies and excavation is required to dig them out before life ceases.

Today, after removing 2/3 cup of grease from assorted surfaces in the kitchen, I decided to tackle the MM.  Now those newbies can be tricked by thinking this involves everything in the stack.  "Hah", I say.  Certain categories can be safely ignored - items completely out of season, items for which the chances of your fitting them any time soon is a mere twinkle in the eye, and new bits of fabric that may turn into a piece of clothing should a miracle and some cutting and sewing occur.

No, just the things that, if they were the right length or the straps were reattached or were less holey or button-less, would be worn right now.  This reduces the problem down to 9 or 10 items.

Sadly, they were almost all sewing machine jobbies.  Even worst, every single one was a completely different colour, requiring me to dig through the hardly-used-thread tin and winding a new bobbin for every item.  What are the odds of that? 

The hand sewing ones tend to move through the queue faster.  There is nothing more satisfying than going for a loooonnnnngggg coffee on a Monday morning after disposing thoughtfully of the monsters at school.  I like to sit for several hours, casually disposing of a hand-sewing repairs in between bits of a newspaper and more caffeine than is good for me.

So, out comes the crappo sewing machine and off we go.  Several hours pass.  Swearing occurs.  Monster 2 is required to strip several times as she is acting as the model for her own repairs and her sister's.

I am now sitting here a model of hausfrauly excellence.  New items are ready for service.  Oldies return to battle for another bruising encounter.  Barbie's bridal gown and a fairy dress have their straps reestablished.

What can I say.  Boring as cow dung but done.

Duck, sadly departed.

You shouldn't paint the cat.

You shouldn't paint the cat.  There is just so much to that sentence.

I could mean that I can but you can't.  My cat, my colour choice.  Blue could be nice - we could pretend she is British and much pricier than her actual moggie-ness.

Secondly, I could mean "you shouldn't paint the cat".  Outrageous suggestion.  Right out of the question.  The RSPCA will be informed.  Charges laid.  Bad bad cat painter.

Alternately, "you shouldn't paint the cat".  A spot of stencilling, say, would be fine, maybe a leaf motif or butterflies to represent her favourite snack.  Light shaving would also be acceptable, as long as you don't shave swear word into her back.  Piercing, yes, painting, no, a little too far.

Lastly, and this is the meaning I intend.  If you are painting some doors and door frames, including the front door, try to maximise the application of paint on the doors and frames.  Hungry creatures who take advantage of an open door to nip in and snack should be discouraged just after you have painted the door step.  Also, rubbing against newly painted surfaces is a bad thing no matter how appealing it may seem to a young cat.

This can be a bit tricky when you have the front door ajar to let it dry so you can paint the other side, meanwhile you have your back turned working on another door.  It is not as though you can set up a cat containment zone in the front garden.  The screen door would work but that is in the shed having a dusty holi while you paint the door frame. 

Further, curious little noses and paws should should be gently shooed from the paint tray, especially a tray balanced somewhat precariously on top of a plastic box.  The problems with a painty cat are manifold and various.  Nobody wants painty cat prints on the carpet.  Sofas are also bad places.  Further, cats are somewhat reluctant to be cleaned.  "Just a little rub with a wet flannel, dear, it is water-based so it should come off in a jiffy."  Ha ha hahahaha!

I do wonder if paint is toxic to cats.  I will let you know.

Does she look ill?

Time to wonder (mostly about tanning but with some giant squid)

The problem with this whole stay-at-home lurk (aside from being responsible for grot-removal), is the time you have to wonder, as opposed to limited time to wander, because how far can you get before 3pm monster retrieval?  Not anywhere tropical, that's for sure.

I tend to spend whole acres of time considering the most ridiculous collection of crap.  It is like there is a random thought generator in there spitting out wildebeest and red dwarves (the suns, not people with small shoes and a tanning accident) all the time.

I tease the husband when he loses focus halfway through a conversation when his libido switch accidentally shuts off brain function.  I try not to mention when my brain zoops off somewhere obscure.  Much as I love to hear about the corporate policies of the big three IT companies on the planet, there are times when I might be considering the bait you would use to catch giant squid and how far down the water column you would need to set your bait.  Not that I am considering running away to sea to go giant squid-hunting, mind, just wondering.

Then there is the question of what would happen if you were to cross breed a high end psephologist (someone who studies elections - a variety of pointy-headed nerdiness I am particularly attracted to) with, say, some pop culture princess who is famous for a sex tape and the assiduous application of make-up.

Which genetic traits do you think would dominate?  Would the resulting offspring speak fluent Hare-Clark and operate a strict Robson Rotation on the kindergarten crayons, or would the capacity to keep the spaces between their toes a golden shade of brown dominate?

You see my problem?  I have now blown a ridiculous amount of time researching the tan between toes question (37 seconds I will never see again), and it turns out that should I ever swap my funereal pallor for a fake bronzing, I will probably continue to be pale-toed, between-wise.

Let's face it, Anthony Green is never going to marry me.

The problem with pedometers

The husband's work is having a spring fitness binge and is encouraging teams to get pedometers and compete for weekly aggregates.  At various times I have attempted to use pedometers as a way of measuring and promoting exercise. 

I have never had much luck with the little devices.  I have dropped them on tiles and concrete, had accuracy problems (possibly I have defective hips), and lastly, I have assassinated several by forgetting about them while visiting the loo and giving them unexpected swims.  They turn out not to be trauma-proof, much less water resistant to a depth of 4 inches.  It could be the corrosive effects of a weak urine solution but it seems an obscure topic for further investigation so we shall leave that thought there.

Many of the folks at the husband's work have intersected with a pedometer app for their fancy phones.  This would work very well as there are managers who are permanently attached to their phones, and the young folk the husband supervises, who are also permanently attached to their phones.  Different reason of course.  The fledglings prefer to be in touch with their little cadres at all times of the day or night, in case a friend's Facebook entry needs to be collectively analysed.  Maybe it is not that different from the middle-aged, middle managers, who are prone to strange outbreaks of collectivism themselves (new VW, anyone)?

Sadly, husb. has a work-issued phone that is so old and juvenile it does little more that make phone calls.  When I have to leave a message I am somewhat flummoxed by the fact I appear to be leaving a message for a strange "Mike", who is probably retired and dead by now.   Definitely pre-app.  In fact he has a whole drawer full of these fossils should anyone be writing a thesis on the history of phones and the old messages found buried deep within them. 

So, the dear husband purchased a pedometer - the cheapest he could find.  The Monsters had some fun adding hundreds of steps by running laps around the house just before bedtime.

Eventually the device went to work for the commencement of competition.  He dropped it in the first week.  Since then it has been reluctant to act as a measuring instrument.

Pointless conversation seeking outcome with MWM

The time is fast approaching when I am will send one of those awful Christmas letters in a card so that distant relatives can find out what we have been up to in 2012.

I only started producing them a couple of years ago after disliking the genre all my life.  "Tiffany is excelling at gymnastics and came 4th in the State Champs."  You know the stuff - it makes you want to vomit.

Nevertheless, it is a sadly efficient way to let people know what we are up to as the Monsters rip through the development stages, so I started writing them.

I have been having a little trouble this year.  You see nothing happened.  Lots of nothing.  A whole year of it, it transpired.  We are living on one income so our "holiday" this year was 2 nights in a 70s vintage caravan in the mountains about 3 hours away.  We saw cows.  We had flu.  It was crappy in so many special ways.

Can you believe the excitement?  We saw a hydro-electric power station on our holiday.  Better even than cows.

We haven't been anywhere or done anything on a fairly comprehensive scale.  I find myself writing that we have had picnics (very reasonably priced) and are painting the hall.  This is a dreadful letter.

To try and zazz things up, rather then printing a couple of photos and shoving them in the card, I thought I would include little pics in the letter this year.  Sophisticated, yes I know.  Consider me a newly-minted expert on the crop function.

The draft is written and the first version printed on our nasty printer.  The pictures have red lines through them.

So I said to the husband, "Why have the pictures got red lines through them?"

"Ah yes" he said, "That is an indicator the heads need cleaning."

"Can you clean them?"

"I believe so."

Can you smell the bullshit, people?  I take a calming breath and continue: "Do you actually know how to clean them?"

Several more iterations of clarity avoidance occur at this point, til finally, via my UN-unsanctioned interrogation technique he spits out, along with small particles of teeth and the last of his manly techno-pride: "I know they can be cleaned but I don't know how you actually do it."

So there you have it.  Crappy letter, zero content and red liney pictures.  Should be a collectors item.