A series of Christmas vignettes

I figured that rather than bore you all with the whole "I did this, and then I did that and then I went there..." rendition of Christmas, I would simply highlight for you the most entertaining segments in a series of amusing anecdotes. This may or may not continue for several days, depending on how much I can actually remember!

The one where we ate the cat:
On Boxing day I ate lunch at my friend Ali's the same as I did on Christmas day. Her brother and his girlfriend were there. In an attempt to steer the conversation away from what may have been an inappropriate topic for dinner conversation (I honestly can't remember what), Ali's mum turned to her and said, "How's the cat?"

She was, of course, referring to Tilly, the cat owned by the people Ali (and I, sort of) was housesitting for. Ali's brother, however, in a moment of incredible quick-wittedness that I can only envy, poked the meat on his plate gingerly with his fork, looked up at us with eyes full of concern and said, "The cat?"

The one with the SPLAT!
Boxing day evening Ali and I got the munchies and headed down to the BP garage to stock up on goodies. We were looking at the selection of crisps and trying to make a decision, factoring in several special offers. "Well," I said, "I like Doritos, but if we get Doritos we have to get dip, and I don't like those Doritos dips. Do you think they'll have fresh ones?"

"I doubt it," was Ali's cynical reply.

Well I headed off over to the chiller cabinet and there they were: a selection of 4 dips in little plastic pots, stacked and then surrounded by a cardboard sleeve. "Aha!" I said to Ali. "They do have fresh dips!" And I picked up the cardboard sleeve and brandished the dips at her.

At which point the bottom pot of dip slid out of the cardboard sleeve and landed with a resounding SPLAT on the floor.

After we had recovered from our hysterical laughter, Ali and I grabbed another pack of dips and ran away to pay for them. Yes, I am the type of person who makes a mess in a shop and then pretends to have had nothing to do with it. I'm a bad person.

The one with the song from Friends:
At my mum's I noticed a funny smell. The cat was winding itself around my legs at the time, but I expressed incredulity at the fact that the cat could stink so bad that I could smell it from there. My mum said its teeth are really bad and she should really take it to the vet, that it should have really had yearly checkups, but it hadn't, and now it had the worst cat breath ever.

Later that evening, I caught a whiff of the cat's halitosis again and commented on it, at which point my brother started singing 'Smelly Cat'. I joined in and we sang the song in its entirety. My mum told us to stop, "You'll give him a complex," she said.

"We can't give him a complex, he really does smell," I said. "You won't take him to the vet, he's clearly not your favourite pet."

"Shut up," my mum said, obviously feeling a bit awkward. "We can't afford to take him to the vet."

I looked around at the shiny new cabinets and the gleaming metal of the stainless steel hob. "Well, obviously," I said, "a new kitchen is far more important than your cat's teeth."

"Kolin," my mum said to my brother. "What would you like for dessert, because Laura's not getting any now."

The one with the reminiscent vomit:
We were talking, for some reason, about my mum's ex-boyfriend and my brother reminisced about the time he threw up all down himself whilst they had been staying at my mum's then-boyfriend's.

"I think it was the first time I smoked puff. I'd been drinking and then all [ex-boyfriend's kids] friends were there offering me this joint, so I was all, what the hell, why not. And then I was sick. A lot."

"You really were," my mum interrupted. "We had to put all your clothes in a plastic bag to take them home because they were so covered in sick."

"Yeah," said my brother. "And I was only 6 years old, mother, what kind of parent are you." He paused for effect and my mum gave him a look. "Not really, I think I was fourteen."

I don't do mornings....or afternoons....evenings I'm okay with!

It's been a busy weekend and I am still reeling from it. One day I will stop feeling tired. Don't know when that might be though. Maybe I am diabetic or have Chronic Fatigue. Or maybe I just need to get more sleep and stop being such a hypochondriac, haha.

I am so grateful to have most of this week off, although I still have lots to do. A huge backlog of housework being a major part of that. I also have to do a whistlestop tour of the London art galleries to do some background research for art. This may or may not be influenced by the fact that the Tate Modern currently has an exhibit consisting of actual slides that one can actually slide down.

WHEEEEEEEEEEE!

The weekend was okay. Being with my family is never exactly a walk in the park, but it was bearable and I was able to help my brother and cousin celebrate their birthdays, which is the important thing. They're 22 now - makes me feel so old! They were born on the same day, the two sisters (my mum and my aunt) being down the corridor from each other in the same ward of the same hospital. My brother is older by 9 hours. There was an article about them in a national paper when they were born.

I was supposed to go to a party when I got back last night, but after the two hour drive back I didn't feel much like getting dressed up and going out, so I caught up on all my blog reading instead. I know, I am the epitome of coolness.

However, I am about to go out tonight, so need to rush off in a minute to sort my hair out (cursed rain!) and reapply my makeup.

School Daze

So, I finished my first day of school. I have another placement day to do next Wednesday and then I start my block placement on 30th October and carry on until Christmas. I'm with a Year 3 class, which is nice, but I was with Year 2 last year, so it won't be that different, even though they're the next National Curriculum KeyStage up. The school is small - only one class per year group - but it's in an area where most of the kids have very disturbed home lives. A lot of them are Travellers.

Today during lunch, one of the Year 4 boys peed on another one. Right up his back so it can't possibly have been an accident.

During numeracy I sat with a girl who has a lot of problems focussing. Their task was to estimate and then measure straws of different lengths. Each straw was colour coded so they could colour code their answers on the worksheet. I held up a straw.

Me: Okay Sharon (not real name, could get in trouble otherwise!), how many centimetres do you think this is?

Sharon: Purple!

Me: Umm, okay, yes, it is a purple straw, but how LONG do you think it is? How many CENTIMETRES?

Sharon: Purple!

Me: *sigh*

To be fair, she did estimate a fair few and was pretty close to the mark, even when she wasn't, they were still reasonable estimates. But a few times she did just repeat the colour over and over.

At one point the teacher was asking the whole class about using different units of measurement. For example, what units of measurement would you use to measure a stamp (millimetres), a cup (centimetres), a garden (metres) and a journey (kilometres).

Teacher: So why wouldn't you use centimetres to measure from here to the moon?

Kid: Because there's no oxygen.

That kid's on the ball! I managed to learn all their names in one day, but I bet I forget most of them by next week. I'm still kind of ill, but not as bad as yesterday (thank goodness!). I got my dad the funniest card for his birthday. It's so apt.



Outside says: Here it is Dad - the latest breakthrough in birthday cards. Inside reads: You can read it without taking your eyes off the TV!

SO TRUE!

There's nothing like the bond between a father and his daughter!

It wasn't until I was filling out a form this afternoon and had to write the date that I realised, "Oh, CRAP! It's my dad's birthday!"

I'd remembered at the weekend and half-heartedly thought that I should 1) text him and find out what he wants (Sidenote: He is impossible to buy for because he buys himself all the latest DVDs, CDs, gadgets and gizmos and we always end up getting him something totally lame) and 2) actually go and get him a card and a present early this week. But then what with everything that's going on in my life right now, and the problem with my leaky brain, it TOTALLY went out of my head until this afternoon.

I'm not close to my dad at all. I usually see him about once every couple of months I suppose. He's usually pretty good with our birthdays - better than he used to be anyway - but it's kind of a bit, out of sight, out of mind. He's really not a big presence in my or my brothers' lives, so it is kind of hard to remember things like this. One year we all forgot Father's Day and he didn't speak to us for about a month. Ironically, we didn't realise for about three weeks, because it isn't like he rings us all the time anyway. And in the end, after I'd asked my brothers a few times if they'd heard from him and they'd said no, I eventually rang him and found out he hadn't been talking to us.

Well, that clearly worked.

Anyway, when I realised it was 2pm and I hadn't wished him happy birthday yet, I sent a speedy text message saying I was pretty busy this week, but if he wanted to do something to celebrate to let me know and I'd see what I could do.

This is the text I got back:

Thanks for your message. Am out in Thailand

at the moment. Back in UK on Sunday.

Perhaps we can do something next week.

This is the second time I've texted him on his birthday only discover he's not even on the same continent as me! This just shows how close we are. Thanks for letting me know, Dad!