Fish

This week has been a fishy week. First, there has been a want that has been growing all week - so far unsatisfied - for fish and chips. Then I end up watching Big Fish (Tim Burton, good film), eating mackerel for lunch and having conversations about the follies of making fish wear jumpers. (The jumper would get wet, so they'd just be colder. So don't take a fish for a walk in winter.) And then I go to make myself a cuppa, and discover Darwin in the tea cupboard. I'd forgotten I was meant to be fish sitting. And this time around, she isn't playing dead.

This week I have also been trying out contact lenses. The most bizarre feeling in the world, after nearly 18 years of wearing glasses, is to be able to look around, and realise that there is no wire rim around my sight, above which everything is blurry. Although, looking at the little booklet that has a list of do's and don'ts, I wasn't aware that people had a desire to lick their contact lenses. I certainly don't.

The trying of the contact lenses shows just how much a creature of habit I really am. After putting in the lenses the other day, I saw my glasses. And thought, hang on, I'm not wearing any glasses. So I put them on. Everything, of course, went very blurry, so I decided that I hadn't got my glasses on, and went looking for them. It was only when I found my spare pair, and went to put them on as well did I realise. I think that leaving the lenses for hitty-hitty LARP fun in the future is a good idea.

Chocolate has also featured. One birthday cake, and one birthday, well, you can't rightly call it a cake. Or anything other than rich-gooey-chocolatey-maltezery-mess. 335 weight watchers points for the whole thing. Ouch. but ummm. It's a good thing birthdays aren't everyday.

Speaking of chocolate, it is time to feed the fish. And the sister. And decide what is for tea.

The three modes of me.

I have three modes of action. Thinking, doing, and apathetic.

If I am thinking about doing something, I tend to become blond in all other aspects of my life, and everything I'm doing sort of, well, grinds to a halt. I still say someone forgot to tell me where the on/off switch was for the rest of my mind. Thinking also seems to kick in after doing something. Often something silly. It's funny how these are sort of joined. Like on a boat on tow on a very long rope. Sometimes the swell and such will bring the thinking closer to the doing. And then, indeed, I can seem almost normal. Post-doing thinking is often triggered with a 'Hannnnnnnnaa! what have you done?!' or such similar words.

Heh. I've just realised I have compared my brain to a sea. Big and wide and wet. I am...wet, and apparantly bigheaded. Hmmm. not entirely sure how well that one worked out.

Then there is the doing. Doing usually involves little thinking, either during or beforehand. I am often quite blond then as well. There's nothing more I can really say about the doing, except that it has produced some epic fail, but some equally epic win at times, so overall, it is a neutral mode. And then there is apathy.

Apathy is something we all experience from time to time. Even the most energetic of us. Times when our Get-up-and-go Gets-up-and-goes. When you just can't be bothered to do anything. Anything at all. (Truly, and amusingly, I have had that paragraph sitting on my computer for about three months before I could be bothered to do anything with it.)

Obviously, as a member of Homo sapiens I have other emotions and modes and ways of being. But to my mind, they all seem to click into these three categories. (it's amazing how simple we really are when we get down to it.) Like now. I am in blog mode, whilst also desperately tired. but the doing mode has taken over and I will finish this blog entry. Which I think I may have. it does seem to have come back to the beginning.

So, ah, well. Goodbye.

pology

I meant to add at the bottom of the last post, it came from a cartoon that should be found at www.nearingzero.net I've lost it but I'm sure it is still there. If it isn't, there are plenty that are.

Dinosaurs and Marshmellows

Everyone knows that the dinosaurs died out because of a meteor that landed in the Yucatan, right?

Wrong. The dinosaurs died out because of food problems. What food problems? Marshmallows.

The dinosaurs, when they first started out, ate meat, plants, sometimes a bit of both. Then they got clever. They invented technology, buildings. They went environmentally friendly. And therein lie their downfall. For the more advanced a society gets, the less evidence of themselves they leave. This is why the paleontologists haven't figured it out yet: no evidence. None whatsoever.

Anyway, back to the marshmallows- the dinosaurs made a planet-wide treaty to respect one's fellow dinosaur and the environment. So they did. they found a special mind altering substance that, due to their specific physiology, made them think they were eating the thing they loved most. And this drug provided them with all the necessary nutrients and antibiotics and so forth.

This amazing drug is called the marsh-1,3- diol where the marsh had many different functional groups. Because it was derived from the photosynthetic pigments of the Mallow plants, it soon became known as marsh mallow. The photosynthetic pigments by the way, is the reason for the dinosaurs being green (it's not easy being green!) Eventually, use of marshmallow led to dinosaurs being able to photosynthesize.

But they got hooked. Completely addicted. The scientists hadn't realised that it was a pan species trait. So they went and ate more and more marshmallow. Eventually, some dinosaurs modified their genes, leading to their offspring being able to breathe fire (the dragons of myth).

This gave these dragons an evolutionary advantage over the other dinosaurs. Eventually, however,- due to the fact that everything, if it is loved by enough people in one spot - (take tea in England) Something strange happened. The marshmallow achieved sentience.

By this point, The dinosaurs were so hooked they didn't care. So they carried on hunting the marshmallows. And the Marshmallows, as all good underdog species will (read any scifi aliens-invade-tech-inferior-earth to find out) fought back. And eventually they got so good at it that one by one, the dinosaurs died. Except for the dragons. Being able to breathe fire meant that they were able to hold the marshmallow off. and they found, oddly enough, the marshmallows actually taste better lightly toasted. This meant that the dragons were able to survive until people evolved and were able to tell stories about them that turned into the myths we have today.

Eventually though, even the dragons died out.

And it is thought , by those in the know that the marshmallows, deprived of their natural enemy and their OWN food source died out as well. Before this happened however, a dead marshmallow was found by a young lad in ancient Egypt, and he figured out a way to replicate a none- sentient version of them. However, there are other who believe, that on occasion a poor supermarket worker is unpacking a crate of marshmallows and mysteriously disappears...

'pologies and soup

I've realised, I've been rather remiss in posting recently: My last post was over a fortnight ago. And I have also realised that I have missed it a little. So thats the apologies bit of the title. As for the soup bit...

I have come to the realisation that our oven needs replacing. Badly. Most of my flatmates have gone home this weekend, leaving me and one other to cook for two. Yes. Of course. And it is doable. I used to do it all the time when it was just me and my father. Apparently now I can't.

We decided that on Friday night we would do a chicken and lentil hotpot, and that it would be nice. So we did all the prep, put in maybe a FEW more lentils than we were meant to and put it in the oven for the half hour it said to. We took it out and the vegetables weren't cooked. you needed a hard surface under them to even get the fork to consider stabbing it. so we put it in again for another half an hour, looking at each other, nodding and saying yep. defenatly need to precook the veg next time. And the lentils. Even if it doesn't say to. Half an hour later again, and we took it out. the veg was a little more squishy, but the lentils were crunchy, and lentils are not meant to be crunchy.

So we sat down and tried to eat it. The chicken was nice. And cooked as well. the rest got sent back to the pot, and the pot got put on the hob and cooked. And it looked so much like soup that well, it became soup. Unfortunately, we had to keep adding stock to the lentils could cook, so from a meal that was big for two people, we had something big enough for eleven. Literally. Eleven big bowls of soup we had. A few emergency phonecalls later, and we ate most of it. (by the way, thanks for coming round) But there is still some left in the fridge. so yesterday, we invaded the flat next door. The fish came out all right. They have a shiny new oven. Here's hoping one arrives for us.

But seriously, what really took the biscuit was that we put some pease pudding in as well. An hour it should of taken. Lucky we forgot about it. Over four hours later, and it was only just done.

Sorry about the griping. It is actually fairly amusing now I think on it. At least the kitchen is clean.

Remembering Sunday

This last Sunday was Remembrance Sunday. When you were little did you turn on the telly hoping for the cartoons, and catch the parade? All those people, in uniforms. So many in wheelchairs or using sticks and crutches. So many old people in uniform. And they all look proud to be there. Proud, and somehow guilty. And the woman, whose medals were always on the other side of the chest to most of the men.

Now I'm older I realise that parades like that, they are proud to be there. Proud and happy that they are being remembered. And even more that the people who can't be there were being remembered. And thats where the guilty comes in as well. The fact that they are there and their friends weren't. Why were they spared? in some cases, some may well be thinking why wasn't I? And the woman, and the sons, with the medals on the other side of their chest, walking in a dead man's shoes. They shouldn't be there. their husbands, fathers brothers. They should be there.

But they aren't. They are the folk who were buried with all honours. Or those who have a cross because there wasn't enough bits to find to bury "missing presumed dead".

"And their words echo back from the graveyards of Flanders, singing old Jack Judge's song."

And now it has come back into the spotlight. War I mean. Irak, and now Afghanistan. As the adverts say, every day is remembrance day for some families. This has always been the case, but now it is more noticeable perhaps. because now it is our generation who are dying, and being remembered. There are now so many more people who buy a poppy, and actually stop and think about what it means, what it represents.

When we were kids, poppy day, remembrance day was history. part of that rich tapestry that so many people don't understand, and in some cases actively resent. People forget that their grandparents were once twenty, thirty years old. That they served in the war. The males in my father's side of the family have a history of military service. But my grandmother and her sisters - they helped as well. Land girls, Plotters under the hills of Portsmouth, Ambulance drivers. they all did their part for their country, and did it proudly. They wanted desperately to help any way they could. And their parents, they had been through it all once before, in the first world war. Our parents had the troubles. The IRA, Ireland. "In a station, in a city, a British soldier stood" According to my father Harvey Andrews captured Ireland during the troubles in that song. He said that the first time he had made pretty much anyone listen to it the first time, it moved them to tears.

We don't have that. We don't have the experiences of our parents, our grandparents. And we can't imagine what it must be like. And deep inside, whilst I rage against our shallowness sometimes I'm glad that we probably never will. Because I'm not entirely sure how I would cope, how I would stand up to the legacy that that parade has left for all of us. So I will wear my poppy and try to understand what it must really be like for the people who were there.

Sausages

I do apologise. I had meant to post this in national sausage week. Last week in fact. but I managed to click save as draft rather than post. In my defense (is that s? I thought it was C.) I was rather tired at the time. so here it is. A week late but the 10 20 to sausageland has now arrived...

Have you had your sausages today? For today is national sausage week. Yes. show your support for sausages. Go out! Buy some! And eat them!

We have a lot of very strange festivals out there. Like Bonfire night. As was pointed out by a friend from Denmark today, we are basically celebrating a terrorist. although it is more, now I think of it about the fact that he failed at being a terrorist. And cheese rolling. thats odd. fun, but odd. And then there are the truly fringe ones, like international toilet day. And Welly boot week. now that one is odd. If I remember rightly, it's held in summer...

But truly. What a way to show your support for something you like. I like it therefore I shall eat it. What would happen if we approached everything we liked like that? What would life be like? What about if you had a passion for toxicology? And what about Mothering Sunday? Our mothers wouldn't last past our first birthday. We would all, excepting twins and some very fortunate circumstances be single children. And then, well, where would it end? Father's day? Birthdays? Barring the fact there wold be no humans in short order, we would be eligible as a species for a Darwin Award, I recon one of two things would happen:
1. We would all become Jehovah's Witnesses. Why? No birthdays. Therefore we would have more of a chance for survival.
2. The world would be a very different place.

Well, yes. Of course this last is true. But I think that polygamy would become commonplace. Well, that would make the Mormons happy. Except they wouldn't be Mormons. Or at least, a strange mixture of Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses would take over.

But some good would come of it: STIs would be a lot less common. Because, lets face it, girls would be a LOT more careful about things. Kids wouldn't be spoilt rotten, no mothers would mean they would have to do a lot more around the house. And, I suspect that there would be a lot more teachers; people who wanted children but didn't want to die. Also, The world wouldn't get overcrowded because cannibalism would be in full force. One born, one dies. More men than girls then.

This all sound like an horrific world. Not entirely sure it is one I would want to live in.

Remember: A sausage is for life. not just for national sausage week.

But don't let them go mouldy. That's just a waste.