Catchy Uppy

I really want to blog y'see..

.....but I have a bad case of Bloggers Block. It's fame hogging cousin, Writer's Block, only hangs around for a mere few days (or weeks if you're an unlucky beggar and you've succumbed to making hand puppets with your socks, putting on nightly shows) but the Blogger's is a bit like that annoying elderly neighbour who always calls over for a traybake and a gossip just as you've found your 'comfy' position on the sofa. Urgh.

I should have blogged about spotting bears in Canada, playing the 'deaf card' in Berlin, my new *free* MacBook Air (an excuse to get back to blogging again if there ever was one, eh?), epic dodgeball games with the workies, the little boy who has become my lil hero over the past few months as well as the fact that I finally bagged the job I have been after for just under 2 years *does idiotic happy dance*

Speaking of the latter, I start tomorrow, new desk an' all which is just as well as they've lumped my current team in that section of the building completely devoid of windows to the outside world  - oh hello, artificial light.

Gotta suit up (well, Google style...), look sharp and nail that role tomorrow - I be riding on the crest of a wave!

google.com

March times...

Ah hello there, long time no blog, eh?

The last wee while has been taken up by a whole lotta work and a whole lotta movin' (i moved twice in one week, sigh!)  This hasn't really given me ample blogging material sadly, and since I was always tapping away on this overworked laptop of mine, it took all my will not to throw it out the window by the time the ritual evening hobby of browsing the internets for funny cat pics rolled round (i'm kidding of course..*shuffles awkwardly*..)

Anyhoo, here are a few pics that sum up my last few weeks:

I wish i celebrated Paddy's Day with cute cupcakes,  went for the alcoholic beverage version instead, uh-oh!
@lovefromtheoven.com

...table quizzes (especially when using my superior lip-reading skills to spy on rival team's answers! @sheen

Gnocchi Mac and Cheese - perfect Sunday night noms! @cuttingedge

Hopefully some big changes coming....
@NatalieMay




Sarah Kaye, the Spoken Poet.  She's simply great; what are the things that you know to be true?

Ah, to be here...

Image: Hakuna Matata

Shiny, vibrating pebbles: one girl's story

So I was in town yesterday and suffered a truly morto moment.  Its been 24 hrs and i think my face has just about returned to its original colour.

Let me set the scene:

It was Friday, 'payday' Friday to be precise.  I was in town and feeling like my underwear drawer could do with a touch of something scarlet-y and silky.....enter Miss Ann Summers.   

Sure enough, there was plenty of silky, lovely things for the taking, but I quickly got distracted by...shall we say, 'props'.  There was the usual suspects: the furry cuffs, the whips, the penis-shaped pasta and what have you.  Then I happened upon a section devoted to Cosmopolitian products and started playing with what can only be described as a giant shiny pebble.  I quickly discovered it was a massager for every nook and cranny of the female and male form; a classy pebble-shaped vibrator; a bit of an all-rounder really.

All you had to do was push down the top part and off it went, vibrating like there was no tomorrow.  Push again and you have the slow-mo vibrate.  Give it another push and you have the rythimic pulse.  There was about 12 different modes in all, such fun!  Once I'd got bored and drained most of the batteries, I decided that I had enough of said 'shiny vibrating pebble' and searched for the off button...which was nowhere to be found by the way.  It was a shiny vibrating pebble - where the heck does the 'off' button go??! Blind panic set in and I tried to look casual as a fumbled around with it some more. "Christ!" I thought, "I only came in for some knickers".  I couldn't just shove it back on the shelf otherwise it would make that horrible sound your mobile makes when it vibrates on the bench in the middle of a lecture at university, except the pebble was on the 'steady thrust' mode at the time, and that just wouldn't do.

"Er, can I help you with anything?" was the sweet, sweet sound of rescue.  Concerned shop assistant must have spotted my pathetic self looking less than casual at the new Cosmopolitian promotional stand.  And said concerned shop assistant was a dude who looked like he had a crazy love affair with his GHDs. 

"oh yah..er..i can't seem to get this thing to stop...its going a bit crazy on me.  Heh heh...(*awkward laugh*)".  I handed it to him and he held the top of the pebble down for a few secs and that was it.  that was it reader!! All I had to do was stop madly flicking between the modes and hold the bloody thing down for 5 secs. Of cooooourse.  I quickly hot-footed it out of the shop, my silky, scarlet-y vision in tatters.

I should have just went for the pasta, at least the packet comes with instructions.

{Image: Flickr}

Movin' on out...

So after 2 years of fun, tears, laughter and even a little blood, I have decided to move to pastures new and have bagged me a cute new crib in a cooler part of Dublin town!  The big move isn't happening for a couple of weeks but I have already mentally picked out the new cushions to go with my new black 3 seater (bless you TK Maxx and your interior decorating department).

While I'm so excited I could poo rainbows, there's that niggling feeling that I won't warm to the whole scary concept of living on my own.  Yep, its me, one apartment, and a whole lotta freedom to walk about starkers.  Okay, the last bit is a bit of a cliché but one does have to wonder what it is like not to have to grab a towel/hoodie/large coverable object, and dash across the hall on tiptoes when you realise you have left your bra in the laundry room.  There's also the 'naked chef' idea, for which i'm game if it involves preparing salad or similar that won't spit hot oil onto my lady parts and result in an obvious John Wayne-style waddle for weeks afterwards.  

Naked mishaps aside, my main worry is that I will turn into one of those sad, lonely females that politely decline all social invitations in favour of crafting new hats for her cats, and becomes so obsessed with the comings and goings of her neighbours that she spins elaborate lies in her head ("That Peter from No.4 is a member of the Ku Klux Klan so he is.  Wears an awful lot of white so he does...")

I think i'll brave it.  I can stink up the place when i want some fish for dinner...I can have impromtu visits without worrying that we are in the flatmate's way...I can wash my clothes anytime knowing the washing machine is empty...and best of all, the place is mine, all mine! Plus, I'm a cat person anyway :)

{Image:Moonface}

Meanwhile in GaGa-land...

{sofapizza}

Meeting the Parents....

So last weekend was a monumental one considering i brought a boy home with me.  An actual boy reader!

I had been hiding him away for a year.  Bless my parents; they saw the pictures, they laughed at the stories, they even waved and smiled like loons when a video chat with boyfriend was interrupted over Christmas.  But alas, they hadn't met the man himself.  It didn't help either that I was practically a part of the furniture at his place - his mother and I were swapping cooking tips the weekend before no less. 

So when it turned out he had a football-free window in his calendar last weekend; I pounced.  I made sure I booked my parents in for some 'pally time' and dragged the poor fella up the road for a couple of days of smiling politely and accepting endless offers of food.

In the end, I had nothing to worry about; my father was ready to offer my hand in marriage as soon as they both sat down to watch 22 men chasing a ball, shaking their fists at the screen every now and then.  Mother was charmed when she was presented by a box of chocolates on arrival and promptly gave me a not-so-subtle thumbs up followed by a wink.  It was actually the dog that turned out to be the one he underestimated; even chicken-flavoured bribes wouldn't suffice as she kept eyeing him up, looking for the most exposed part of his body to lynch on when the opportunity arised.

At one point in the weekend we gathered around to watch an episode of 'Hands On'. This is a TV programme for the deaf, rather like those programmes that you see when you switch on the box just as you stumble in from the pub at some unreasonable hour.  I had already shamed myself on screen before Christmas with my stint on the programme but of course, they were having a 'best of' special that meant I had to relive the whole sorry thing again, with 7 extra pairs of eyes in the room with me.

Mercy!

Don't get me wrong,  'Hands On' is great, but me? I'm still learning how to sign. If you saw me talk to one of my fellow deafies you would most likely see my hands flapping about madly in every which direction; think 'directing-traffic-in-central-Mumbai-rush-hour-traffic' style and you're pretty much there.  You can see for yourself at 7:38 mins below, but Lord knows the vid itself may disappear in order to help my face go back to its original colour.