How Tupperware is Seldom the Solution

I have a room dubbed ‘office’. Not a complete misnomer as the all three of us that run our corporate empire (the size of a small Caribbean island on a miniature globe seen through the wrong end of a telescope) forgather here. It was a tad chilly.
I turned up the radiator.
It started raining.

I have another room above the aforementioned room dubbed ‘bedroom’. Being a woman of logic I assumed that the rain was originating from bedroom. I lifted many a floorboard to discover a faulty pipe stop valve. I put a small Tupperware container in place.

Being a woman of logic I realised that this was not a long-term solution. Tupperware seldom is. So in due course I embarked upon a voyage of fixing. This is what happened:

In order to drain the heating system I had to open the back door.
In order to open the back door I had to apply a small hammer.
The room became chillier.
I drained the system.
The whole house became chillier.
I removed the valve and fiddled with pipe connections.
I refilled the system.
The one rain became two.
I placed two small Tupperware containers.

Tupperware escalation is not good.
I drained the system.
The whole house became chillier.
I fiddled with pipe connections.
I refilled the system.
I removed the Tupperware.

The next morning the house remained chillier. No radiators were working.
With a wandering Tupperware I removed air.
The house became warmer. Except the office.
I turned up the radiator.

The True-ish Confessions of a Guardian Soulmater

It’s time to fess up. It’s tidier than fessing down. Although cunningly disguised as a friend of a friend of a person quite likely to be a friend, I met him on the internet.

I know.

But everyone’s doing it. All the friends of friends of people one is quite likely to know. It has real advantages over real life. Things like:

We all know why we’re here.

It’s possible to talk to his/her photograph without ever having had the painful experience of having a photograph given to you as a token of love and then just being left with the token when the photographee has wandered off.

We can pretend to be better/wittier/saner/realer/less menopausal people without the real better/wittier/saner/realer people actually finding out that you’re sitting there having a hot flush.

There is no one to ask if you are really better/wittier/saner/realer. (Soulmates haven’t cottoned on to the whole reference thing which is the usual requirement of the matchmaker) (aside from being in those cute slidy boxes)

It’s nothing to do with one’s mother’s conception of who a nice boy/girl would be.

It’s possible to judge people on purely spurious basises like –
the quality of their punctuation,
whether they’re capable of making it through an entire form-filling process,
and how they look in a photograph obviously taken in a moment of desperation as they came to the bit in the form when asked to upload a photo (hence the lion-king pyjamas).
Their fondness for orange vegetables.

There is a great deal of interest in the subject of Guardian Soulmates. I have just designated myself in the role of spurious Soulmate expert. Experts, after all, are only people who know stuff that is basically unknowable. Questions like why? How? What? And most of all with whom? All of these, and probably many more questions, I might address in forthcoming posts. Next exciting episode, coming to a screen near you – First Contact – what really happened, what might have happened, and carrot soup.

How Not to Send a Valentine

So it’s nearly Valentines Day. Which, as many things do, led me to wonder what’s it all about? No, this is not a philosophical question, which of course would read WHAT’s it all about? We may move onto that later. Now I’m asking in a more historical way. We may move on to the hysterical later.

The story goes:
‘Saint Valentine, who upon rejection by his mistress was so heartbroken that he took a knife to his chest and sent her his still-beating heart as a token of his undying love for her. Hence, heart-shaped cards are now sent as a tribute to his overwhelming passion and suffering.’

Impressive stuff eh? No wonder the man was a bloody saint. Literally I guess too. Imagine the scene:

Valentine: I love you
Mistress: Fuck off
(this was all done by text)
(then in real life) (or at least in the same room)
Valentine: My heart is broken.
Heart: Don’t I know it?
Valentine: Well you’re no bloody good to me now.
Heart: I’m still beating aren’t I?
Valentine: That gives me an idea.
Heart: This brown paper is not as comfortable as your squishy squashy lungs.
Valentine: Don’t worry, you’re a token.
Heart: That’s ok then, just don’t tie the string too tight.

A few days later:
Mistress: Ah! A parcel. I wonder if it’s my Amazon order.
Heart: Erg squidge pitter-pat.
Mistress: Oh, quelle disappointment it’s just the butcher using a different wrapping from usual.
Heart: I’m a token.
Mistress: With peas and carrots then.
Heart: WHAT’s it all about?

So, as you send your card just think a little more carefully about true love and what veg might go well with that.

How Not to Cure a Broken Foot

I’ve been to have my foot scanned.

They were looking for something starting with a neur.

You may remember the age-old story of my purple foot, what not to do in the sauna and why metatarsal slippers are sexy. This is the continuation.

This is what happened:

After many years of waiting I arrived at the hospital.
After not so long of waiting I was ushered into the ultrasound room.
The ultrasound operative was not there but there was a kindly sort of nurse sort of woman who was folding pieces of paper towel in two. An important job I could see.

We had an in-depth conversation about ultrasound which mostly consisted of reminiscing about the days of pre-natal examinations and the pain of the full bladders. I was glad it was only my foot and not my foetus that was being ultrasounded considering the fact that the ultrasound operative was still AWOL and if I had been in a pre-natal pre-urinatal state during such a wait I would have been very much not pissing myself. As was required.

We continued to reminisce about daughters, universities, and the nature of holidays. We wiled away the time in that sort of way that hospital time works. Finally much to my excitement the ultrasound operative arrived. She was wearing a stripy jumper.

Dutifully she put the goo on my foot. Painfully (to me) (she didn’t appear to be in pain but on the other hand who am I to judge?) (her previous absence may, for all I know, have been to do with pain) (or maybe lunch) (which we hope isn’t the same at all) she applied her ultrasoundy thingy to my foot. The left. It’s always been the left.

She said that my foot was very easy to scan due to its slender nature. Was that a compliment? I took it as one. And compliments to a minor degree can assuage pain. To a minor degree. She reported that if there was a thing beginning with a neur then she would find it due to the apparent transparency of my foot. In ultrasound terms.

It looked remarkably like an alien landscape. Much as it feels really.

She didn’t find the thing beginning with a neur. But she did find an anomaly. Hope was on the horizon.

In a moment of technical wizardry, or witchery, (if that’s the feminine equivalent) she compared the ultrasound to the previously achieved x-rays.

It turns out I had broken my foot some time in the past.