A Negative List

Thank you so much Debi (Hawai Bound Bandster) for nominating me for this blog award!

To show my appreciation in a new way I thought I would think about it and what it means… and with help from PhotoShop I played around with the colours – and I also thought that as I’ve written lists about myself before and don’t want to repeat myself, this time I’d give you a list of my neurotic hates.  I wondered if anyone shares any of them...

My Top Twenty Neurotic Hates

1.   Selfish parking

2.   No lock on the bathroom door when you’re away from home… I once stayed somewhere for a week where the bathroom was shared with the children’s room on the other side of it, and both bedrooms had their own access door to the bathroom. Neither of them closed properly, never mind locked.  It was impossible to stop children running in and out… I think I was constipated for the week.

3.   Having to get out of bed any earlier than 9 a.m.  I’m a total night owl.

4.   Dinner guests who arrive early, builders who say they’ll be with you from 8.30 a.m. and at 7.45 you hear them crashing outside your window bringing in their equipment.

5.   Male testosterone behind the wheel, and macho behaviour generally.

6.   Snobbery, intolerance.

7.   Pulling rank, metaphorically or otherwise.

8.   Cruelty to children and animals.

9.   People who ask “Sooo… how much weight have you last since I last saw you?” – I hate it whether or not I have in fact done so.

10.  Sporty people who make me feel guilty at least once a day for taking the lift/elevator, or not doing more exercise – they know who they are!

11.  People who don’t understand the term “13:00 to 14:00 = Lunch Hour”.  In my case that applies to every person who works in a hospital, whether clinician or admin.  I’ve never seen anything like it in my previous working life.

12.  The combination of two or more of the following colours where orange is one of them:  pink, red, yellow and grey.  And if you have red hair, ditto.

13.  The following bodily habits:  hawking and spitting, blowing your nose and then looking at it, productive burping for bandits, men who think nothing of scratching their b*******s and arses in public, people who publicly pick their noses and then … ugh, I can’t go on.

14.  The 3 F’s – finding farting funny.

15.  Having to clear up after my cat Rusty when he’s been scent-marking and having to suppress any instinct to bawl him out (comment added by John “…at which you’re not very good.”)

16.  Snow after the novelty has worn off.

17.  This one is anal – so sue me.  I hate people not even being interested in understanding the difference between “hung” and “hanged” (meat is hung, people are hanged); "uninterested" and "disinterested" (not interested versus not for personal benefit).

18.  Phrase 1:  Anyone heard using the following phrase will, when I’m dictator, find that it is a self-fulfilling prophecy.  When one says in virtuous tones to one’s children: “If I should ever get like that when I’m old (senile, annoying, incontinent, rude, etc, insert whichever adjective applies), I want you to shoot me or put me to sleep.”   Translation = “If I DO become like that, I want you to remember this conversation.  Be nice to me, it won’t be my fault.  I wish to hereby disassociate myself from my future self – and by the way, I won’t want you to shoot me, thank you very much, and of course I fully appreciate that you wouldn’t be planning to commit murder...)

19.  Phrase 2:  To start a sentence with “With respect…” or "with GREAT respect...", one of the most hypocritical, stupid, dishonest and cynical ways to say something and mean the exact opposite.  Told you I was anal.

20.  Two of John’s less endearing habits:  feeding titbits to the cats by placing them on the carpet because he can’t be bothered to get a plate, and then saying “it won’t do any harm”, later denying all knowledge of the strange little stains on the carpet around his armchair;  pouring unused paint down the drain on the drive outside because it’s plain silly to think it’ll harm the pipes.

(Deep breath Caroline, you got a bit carried away there.  Right. )

The only bit about blog awards I have an issue with is that we have to nominate too many others – it rises exponentially, and you find inevitably that everybody you know and like has long since been ‘done’.  I think it should just be one blogger, not 10, not least because it will mean more. 

I would love to nominate Tina at Losing It! because she’s an inspiring bandit who is BELOW target (for goodness sake) and yet still has issues she struggles with.  Go read her blog, you’ll enjoy it.  I'm hoping it might be possible to meet her when she comes to England in July.  Isn't blogland wonderful?

-oOo-

And to finish off...

From my Eavesdroppings blog. No. 44. Sleep Baby Sleep

 

Scene: Various couples dining together who met at antenatal class, and having all had their first babies recently, are enjoying a rare night out. The discussion centres around how to ensure that the young breast-fed babies sleep through the night as far as possible.

Mother 1 (26): We’ve tried soothing music, lullabyes, giving him more at the midnight feed so he’ll sleep through the night… everything. Nothing works, and we’re both knackered…

Mother 2 (28), (note of smugness in voice): The secret with night feeds is not to switch any lights on, speak or move around much before or after breastfeeding – that way the baby doesn’t wake up altogether. Works for me.

Mother 3 (34 and wordlywise): We don’t seem to have any problems – I breastfeed her at midnight and she goes right through to 7.30.

(Gasps of envy)

Father 1 (27): At two months? Through till 7.30? Oh we're so envious (aren’t we darling?)

Mother 3: Well, it’s not without a little help…

Father 2 (28): Aaaah, now we’re getting somewhere – so what do you give her?

Mother 3: Not her, me. Two large brandies.

-oOo-


Photo Finish
from Lonicera's photo archive

Digital:  Yum-yum in Gilbert & Sullivan's The Mikado, 2009

Non-Digital:  Japonica

Non-Digital:  Kite Festival, Bristol

Non-digital:

Bristol Opera Company production, early 1990s

Non-digital:  Bristol Church, Broadmead

Non-Digital:  One of the results from a "Let's kick the

tripod and see what happens" experiment...

Non-digital: 

Dodgem cars at a funfair on the Downs, Bristol, early 1990s

Non-Digital:  Marina

-oOo-