Phew!
OMG ... the relief ... to find that it is Typepad and not my own computer that had hidden most of my favourite blogs. This morning I sat frozen as I realised I was reading posts from last week .. and then they stopped. My brain obviously refused to take in anything so awful as I managed to convince myself that not only was it actually last Monday but the posts looked familiar as I had read them late last night and no one had written anything since. Then I turned to Squid and everything was dated five days later. Okay .. it is not actually the week before after all .. I accept that now. So my computer must be faulty .. perhaps it is caching the latest posts (as it does with the ones I write) and if I look later it will all be fine. ... It was not.

I am stunned that I was so upset. Get a grip. You can live without reading about these people's lives surely? Ring up your local friends ... write a few letters ... or even Chr1stmas cards. No ... Noooo ... I want my cyber-world ... please give it back and I will never be mean or lazy again.

Well, that was quick. One e-mail and Badger has sent me the name of their temporary multi-blog. That is so handy and perfect .. it is almost like reading a magazine.

Of course I now face an endless future without meanness or laziness ... but it is so, so worth it.
- posted by Iris @ 12/17/2005 12:24:00 AM (0) comments comment

 
Post.
I was struck by Badger (and her friend) writing about trying to re-find lost fun. Exactly. My first resolution is to write here more but shorter. I have been using the computer every day to find presents and it is a totally different thing from dragging across the house and warming it up and saying half a sentence and then the phone rings. At the moment I skip around reading blogs and bits of news and e-mails all through the day and could easily jot down fascinating SHORT posts endlessly. Otherwise it is like sitting down to write an essay and the natural 'putting it off' mode is therefore activated.

In passing .. I made every effort to buy a new 'stove' as that was obviously the sensible option but now they all have a 28 day delivery so I am f.cked. So I have returned to baking the smell away with only minor success and the house does not smell 'Chr1stmassy' in the normal sense but does have an authentic whiff of the stable.

I had an idea for a film which would be silent and therefore sell easily all over the world. It would be called 'The Address Book' and would be an old woman writing her Chr1stmas cards and as she turns each page she is reminded of the person with a short scene or flash of a moment they spent together and then she crosses the name through as they are now dead. Until she gets to 'Z'. I thought that would be cool ... or incredibly depressing ...
- posted by Iris @ 12/15/2005 07:38:00 AM (90) comments comment

 
Unusual.
I have an unusual problem ... related to Chr1stmas ... and I think that the chances of anyone being able to advise on it are pretty small. It also has a disgusting quality which makes me realise how totally ... and probably beyond ... un-anal I must be. I seem able to get used to ANYTHING.

It is that a rat must have been living IN my electic cooker. I was surprised myself, obviously, I am not THAT relaxed and slutty. My house looks fairly normal in a bohemian sort of way and has flowers around and washing-up done etc.

When I was making the pumpk1n pie for Hall0ween I used this cooker for the first time for weeks. It is next to the agA* as a back-up and normally only useful for pastry things. After a short while the kitchen filled with a smell so terrible that the others actually started gagging and had to go outside. It had a peculiar undertone which we somehow 'just knew' was baking urine. 'A rat must have been going around behind it .. waiting to come out and eat the cat food', said my daughter. True .. when pulled out there were 'droppings' and a horrific slidy brown mark where it .. or (eeuww) 'they' ... had been squeezing past. So I hoovered and washed the floor and everywhere with undiluted disinfectant ... and turned the oven back on. And the smell was exactly the same. The others went out into town and I cooked the pie anyway as I had no choice .. with all windows and doors open. You could see that the rat had no way of getting into the INSIDE of the oven .. I'm not totally unhygenic and mad.

So I then forgot all about it until now. As I have to use the electric one since the oil has run out (temporarily). Yesterday I placed a fish pie into the oven and OMG there was the smell .. fresher and possibly stronger than ever. Oh why and how? Under (?) the cooker were more droppings and as I was hoovering them up I noticed that they were mixed with fluffy stuff. That looked like ... wadding. And on inspection there was a gap on the back of the cooker that someone determined and squidgy could probably get through. A buried memory surfaced. Last time my daughter was here we were standing around chatting on her first morning when a rat zoomed out from behind the cooker and left the room by the hall door. 'Isn't that weird?', she said. 'A few weeks ago I would have jumped onto a chair, screaming, and now I couldn't give a f.ck'. 'Yes, I must have disturbed it eating the cat food when I came down and it hid under there'. We thought no more about it.

A quick explanation ... in September , round here, rats come in from the fields and try to find places to live for the winter. There are always a few weeks when they look for every possible entry point into the house and in ours there are endless little gaps round outside pipes and cracked floorboards etc. and we have to track them down and fill them with wire and concrete.

BUT .. now I see that it wasn't hanging about on whim, it was LIVING between the two walls of the cooker. And although that was obviously it leaving ... the wadding must still be completely 'soaked' and worse and I'm not sure if the smell will ever go. I left it on for hours yesterday and again today to see if it would dry out and bake the smell away ... but no ..not at all.

What I mean about the 'un-anal' is that left to and by myself, I would probably do nothing. Just always have the windowns open when I baked a pie. But Chr1stmas is the one time when this cooker is vital .. we use it constantly .. and it is in the middle of the kitchen in the middle of the house. And everyone sits there all day and it is the setting for Chr1stmas lunch and every other meal including those where we might have guests. And my husband has the exquisitely tuned sense of smell of a w1ne connoisseur. Even without that, however, the smell is UNBEARABLE. If you would like to experience my life for a moment .. leave a small saucepan of urine boiling on YOUR stove while you are having dinner. And then perhaps you could give me your thoughts on what could possibly be done.
- posted by Iris @ 12/11/2005 12:33:00 AM (1) comments comment

 
Genet1cs.
My husband and older daughter have gone to madretsmA* for the weekend to the opening of the @t1uqs3M* exh1bit1on. (That had better be really well concealed as he will snap up here briskly if Googled by them). Spookily they are BOTH experts on his work as he is relatively unknown and my daughter used my husband's c0llection as the base for her Un1vers1ty d1ssertat10n and then did research in H0lland. So mouldering in the un1versity l1brary is her essay ... probably called upon by the person who set up this sh0w. This type of expedition is unheard of as she is VERY impatient with her father being vague or drunk or anal. Luckily one of my oldest friends is hctuD* and my daughter can spend time with her to water it all down.

I sometimes feel as if I have a d0ppelgang3r as my daughter looks so similar to myself at her age that people spring on her from across rooms saying 'OMG ... you just HAVE to be Iris's child'. This means that many of my old friends, particularly ones who I haven't seen for years, treat her as if she was me. I have also over time ... and now she is grown-up ... told her so many stories and indiscreet anecdotes about all these people that she might as well BE me as far as they are concerned. The down side is that as I slid into depression and lurkiness I was able to send her out to parties and pr1vate views in my place. This was once useful and fun for her but now she has a full life of her own and I have lost the habit of social bothering.

But, as she is so amusing and sympathetic, all these old friends think of HER as their friend too now and are really just as happy to spend time with her as me. One man .. who I have known for decades and used to flirt with on a regular basis when younger ... actually gave her a lift home after a party; parked and poured out intimate details of his marriage problems and then leapt on her. After she had fought him off he apologised saying ' It's just that in this light you look exactly like your mother'. Though he never leapt on ME.

When she was living in NY for a few months some years ago she spent her entire time with one of my once closest girlfriends and the godm0ther of my son. This friend IS younger than me but even so. They bonded so intensely that all thought of me seems to have disappeared from this friend's head as she has practically never bothered to write to me since but sends the odd warm message to my daughter. And at a major l1terary party last week ...which I backed off from assuming it would be crappy and full of unknown assh0les and then it wasn't .. she had a really fun time talking to various people who started off disappointed not to see me and then saying everything to her instead. As I talk to her so much she always knows their references and even remembers ancient gossip ... what an unexpected gem for a middle-aged bohemian to find in the crowd.

So ... my beautiful hctuD* friend will probably be sorry that I didn't go as well but will soon be consoled by well informed chatting .. especially from someone whose looks remind her of our peak years and who won't drag the mood down with tales of fatness and despair.
- posted by Iris @ 12/09/2005 09:52:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Strangers?
A few months ago I stopped writing because I didn't feel I had anything to say anymore and I was about to go into a long period of being here with nothing happening. And I seemed to have come out of being depressed and sad ... always good for pages of rambling.

AND .... a surprising number (for me) of people wrote here and by e-mail saying .. 'Don't stop, we are happy for you to drone on about nothing. It doesn't matter if it isn't riveting'. I think the words 'Even just write your shopping list', were used. So I re-considered and have been recording the equivalent of my shopping list ever since.

With NO comments .. apart from the kindly badger and occasionally visiting Squid and Minnie. I have a site meter. I can SEE that many people ... and regularly the same people ... are reading this. I don't ask for much .. nodding and smiling or the word 'Really?' would be sufficient. I am only still here because YOU said it would be all right. And who I miss particularly is Jo who was once a mainstay of supportive remarks . I notice that she now has about forty blogs to get round every day ... but MONTHS of nothing at all ...
- posted by Iris @ 12/09/2005 09:34:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Warmth.
There have been some difficulties over the past two days. I am trying to keep track of many threads which will twist together into a final perfect plait-like thing on Chr1stmas morning but have been hampered by forgetfulness and random onrushes of 'not caring'. I had ignored the notice stuck by the breadboard saying 'OIL' for a week and then forced myself through the inertia to call. And they said they would 'Try to fit me in' before Chr1stmas. 'AAArghh! Do you mean that you might not?'. 'Well, we'll do our best .. I can't say more'. 'GULP'. F.ck.

Late that night I came down to heat up a small extra supper of leftovers and was idly reading an old colour suppl3ment ... for ages. A hideous suspicion arose .. and yes ... the agA* was OUT. What are the chances of that happening? I had thought we did actually have enough oil for another month and had only been panicking in an anal 'I want to feel safe with a full tank ' way. I actually cried and ran swiftly through a stream of visions of ... mainly ... my husband screaming throughout the festive season, ( fair enough, for once), and the coldness and horror of the kitchen without the stove. Our kitchen is massive and is 'the house' for most of the year as we don't really use any of the other downstairs rooms much and it has the stove at one end and an open fire at the other. Also the electric cooker beside it is too small to take the ham or... the turkey. I felt very, very afraid.

I rang the oil company at first light and told them of my desperate predicament in a trembling tone .. not put on ... although I did exaggerate (or 'lie') and said I was all alone with no cooking facilities or hot water. 'Right', said a brisk secretarial voice, ' Well, I'm afraid we can't get to you until next week'. 'What!'. 'No, sorry, we are snowed under here and there aren't any lorries going your way'. 'But ... but ... will you come before CHRISTMAS?' 'Oh, yes', light laugh, 'We'll be there by then'. Rings off. Bloody he11. To them I am alone with no way of cooking or heating water ... and they couldn't care less. If I was a truthful, frail old lady I might die in the next week. So .. lucky I was lying then as it turns out. Especially as they ARE now definitely coming in time. The silver lining scenario strikes again.

Even before this it was very, very cold here ... inside ... with many whistling draughts coming in all directions including from behind a picture. When I investigated I found that the picture had obviously been hung specifically to conceal a hole in the plaster .. leading directly outside. And I'm sure that it is only one of many. Into this inhospitable environment have arrived a stream of parcels and pre-chosen 'gifts'. Under already stressfull circumstances you wouldn't ask for more .. but I have, thoughtlessly. My middle daughter's present .. ordered by herself .. are two oib- serehps* which are sealed and contain living m1cro-f1sh things which survive for years in their tiny world ... apparently. The sender rang me four times to check the weather conditions as the b1os can only be in darkness for a few hours so the postage transit time has to be arranged with military precision. He put off sending for a week because of the snow and then rang again to remind me to 'keep them at a constant temperature' 'Or you'll just have a gl0be full of dead f1sh for Chri1stmas'. For f.ck's sake. Where in our house is ever at a constant temperature .. unless you count freezing. They are now in my bedroom on a shelf in 'filtered daylight' and above .. but not directly of course .. their OWN radiator. For f.ck's sake.

The next day a van arrived and handed over a massive yellow orch1d, nearly four feet high .. which I am giving to my neighbour for all her endless help. I saw her gazing at it in the flower shop window and I KNEW she would love it and would never afford it or be given it. It is insanely heavy and brittle and I managed to get it across the kitchen to the wall, out of the way. Forgot about it for a day and then picked up its 'care card' from the floor. 'It is very important to keep the orch1d lightly watered at all times and to ensure that it is always at a ... CONSTANT TEMPERATURE'. FOR F.CK'S SAKE.
- posted by Iris @ 12/08/2005 09:43:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Relief.
I wonder why I only write about domestic trivia. You might be surprised to know that other things actually happen to me and I go out and meet people or am told riveting things on the phone or go to London every so often. I think I have practically never written about my social life or my friends except as part of the distant past. Of course I DO spend huge amounts of time on my own here ... but not ALL the time. I think it started out like that because I was so paranoid about my blog being discovered ... because if it was I would have to give it up. 'Why would anyone care about your self-involved moaning over the weather or your husband's shortcomings?', you might ask .. puzzled. Well, because it was not always like this.

What do you do if most of your most interesting revelations and gripping retelling of parts of your history are now buried miles back in your archives? I am not going to write any of it again because either I can't be bothered or I don't feel that way any more. I notice that some people bring up old posts occasionally or have their 'best' ones listed but I feel peculiar about doing that. Maybe because the 'best' ones are probably the most ranty or emotional and it would be weird to have them in a row down the side of the page. I really can't imagine a passing stranger looking at my blog now and thinking 'Good god ... what a fascinating woman. I must read more ...'. (DON'T write any kindly comments about this .. I am not fishing here. I am being objective).

Though I suppose I could pick out a tiny selection which cover my life over the past twenty years to give a quick overall picture. But I rather like my minimalist blog with no information or links and do I actually WANT creepy passing strangers hovering here or ... commenting ... In fact, probably not.
- posted by Iris @ 12/08/2005 09:20:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
None.
I can't believe that I am saying this ... another of the children's friends has died. I am not even going to write about it but am just recording it as a phenomenon. This obviously has to end soon .. by all the laws of probability. Actually he was the husband of their friend and they hardly knew him as she is a work colleague but they are all very fond of her .. and so really mind. And he was only in his twenties.
- posted by Iris @ 12/08/2005 09:14:00 PM (0) comments comment