Will it do my bit of grey?

Am I the only person who thinks that line in whatever hair dye ad it is sounds a bit rude?

Overheard in my house

Me (coming downstairs): 'What are you doing?' Boy Wonder: 'Just looking at tambourines on E-bay...' It's a good job we found each other.

Naughty Pets - Mogbad

I loved Mogbad very much, so much so that I wrote a song about my love for him to convince the Boy Wonder to let us foster him which went thus (to the tune of 'A Very Good Year' by Frank Sinatra): When I was 27, I met a very nice cat A very nice cat, who was very sad His name was Mogbad However, his appeal did not extend to impressive displays of intellect, resulting in the following rules being written in an attempt to 'train' him: * Dribbling may be a sign of your pleasure, but please don't feel the need to share your joy with the contents of my bag * Just because you fell off the sofa and we laughed does not mean you have the right to anchor yourself to my leg to save future embarrasment. In fact, if you fall asleep in an odd position, it is rarely acceptable to use my skin to grapple your way back to safety. * Although you are funny when you have catnip, jumping on top of the fridge and eating an entire box while I am at work will probably make you feel queasy and paranoid. Do not inflict your come-down on me by alternately hiding in the waste paper bin and attacking used tissues and then lolling around in doorways staring at cupboards. * If the stairs have always baffled you, but you have taken the plunge and decided to see what's up there, don't try to hide your adventuring spirit by shooting under the bed when you're rumbled and then sneezing in the dust for 20 minutes before emerging with fluff in your whiskers. *I asked the vet and he said there is NO reason for you to be licking soot from the fireplace. I did tell him that I thought you were super intelligent and capable of identifying minerals which were lacking in your diet, but, as you may you recall, he laughed and said he thought you were just a bit stupid. Because it was during my spirited defence of your intelligence that you fell out of the scales and off the examining table, I decided not to pursue the matter, but I don't think I am to blame for his opinion of you. *Also, the fire in the grate today is about as hot as it was yesterday when you burnt your nose on it. It will be that hot again tomorrow, and every day from then on until the weather is warmer, whilst the available sympathy levels will diminish every time you do it. Please don't be offended if we laugh at you. *I know you're a bit old a creaky, so don't be surprised if I am not impressed that you found a dead mouse and brought it home - I am well aware that you are too slow, stupid and lazy to catch anything which was alive, and so whilst you are welcome to do whatever you want to it outside, stop bringing it through the catflap every half an hour in the hope that I will be moved to raptures by your achievement. * The cats next door can get back out of the shed via the hole in the back panel, whereas you seem unable to navigate it, so it might be best if you didn't follow them in there. However it was sweet watching them trying to 'explain' to you how to get out while you sat there looking confused and crying. * If you play that game where you jump in and out of the box, it will eventually flip up and trap you underneath. If urgent rescue is such a priority this time, you shouldn't have just fallen asleep under there last time as it gave us the impression you weren't that bothered. * This is the most important one, so pay attention: I know that I wanted you to stop weeing in that plant, but I do NOT remember endorsing the use of the 8 way plug extension next to it as a suitable alternative. Continued weeing on it will have one of two outcomes a) you will get electrocuted and I will come home to find a dead moggy covered in wee behind the TV b) I will get a call from the fire brigade telling me that they have had to put my house out and curiously the point of the fire's origin seems to be a dead moggy covered in wee behind the TV. Neither of these scenarios appeal to me, so please use the cat flap you walked past to access more suitable territories for relieving yourself.

100 things (71 - 80)

These ten will be dedicated to the things I don't like about myself, not in a spirit of being down, just because I thought I would do the next 10 about things I like about myself, and starting with the bad is a better way round to do it. 71. I am very bad at keeping in touch with most people - I can never work out whether it's because I just don't have that much in common with them or whether it is just a social awkwardness thing about leaving it for so long that I then feel like I should have some big news to share when I do and I will never live up to the length of time it has taken to get in touch. I believe this to be genetic as my brother is exactly the same, only much worse. 72. I am lazy. I tend to think of it as laid back, but as my weight creeps up and the filing mounts and even the things I want to do don't get done, I really have to accept that I am a lazy person. I do the least amount possible to get by unless I am really inspired by something (although this mostly relates to my working life rather than my personal life). I don't feel bad about it most of the time, but occasionally I do wonder whether life will drift past me as I lie in bed and whether I will regret the time I have spent watching detective dramas in years to come. 73. I can be a horrible bitch, and when drunk, even more so. Despite the fact that I generally like people and get on with them, I do find myself drawn to their negative points, probably because I see the same negatives in myself, which bring me on to: 74. I am pretty hypocritical. I hate it when I can see someone using a trick or technique I use to get by, which is possibly because I am scared that I am that transparent and that people are looking at me and thinking the same thing. I also judge people on their looks, assuming people who are pretty will be vain and making wild asssumptions about people who spend any time or money on their appearance. 75. I have an overinflated sense of my own uniqueness. When Derren Brown did his show about pretending to be psychic and pretended to be able to analyse people's personalities from a personal item of theirs but when it came down to it they all had the same description, I immediately thought: 'that would have caught me out'. Not that I believe in psychic ability, or would have thought that he had somehow divined the inner workings of my mind, but I am convinced that all my foibles and insecurities are specific to myself and assume that other people all know what they are doing and I'm the only one who isn't sure. However, this also means I think that I am cooler than I am and get frustrated with people who don't appreciate the same things as me because I can't believe they will settle for the 'crap' they like when there's so much good stuff out there. 76. I can be very manipulative, which annoys me because I never really realise I'm doing it and it's only afterwards that I think 'that wasn't really called for, I should have just admitted that I was wrong instead of trying to spread the blame' by which time it's too late to change it. 77. I can be really uptight - despite having a pretty laid back attitude to most things, there are some aspects of life which really grind my gears and I find it impossible to chill out about them, such as unwashed hands, the whole other people eating thing and numerous other petty irrelevances. 78. I am nervous and inhibited in many aspect of my life, and despite attempts to 'face my fears' they all seem so petty and pathetic that I can't even bring myself to think about them most of the time. 79. I am very worried about being like my Dad, who never passes up an opportunity to get a laugh, even if it means saying something hurtful about someone. I know I sometimes take it too far with the Boy Wonder and it makes a hole in my heart when I turn fun into annoyance by taking it one step beyond amusing. 80. I have an immense talent for self-pity masked as introspection and reflection whereby I lose all sense of proportion, blowing small incidents up into terrible tragedies as though feeling bad about something absolves me from the responsiblity of having said or done it.

43 things

It's been a year since I started an account on 43 things, and as yet I have only 8 items on my list, one of which I have completed and that was about getting married which I was going to do anyway! I don't think it's so much that I lack ambition as that I am reluctant to put down things that I am not sure I will achieve, whereas I suspect the point of the excercise is to put down things that you want to do regardless of whether you can see a way that they will happen. So, rather self-fulfillingly I am going to add 'think of 43 things I want to do' to my list, which will hopefully inspire me to think of more goals, and be a bit more generous with myself!

Moonbow

Last night as we were faffing about feeding the animals the Boy Wonder called me outside to look at the moon, and lo and behold we witnessed a moonbow. Now, I was vaguely aware of such a thing existing, but I hadn't seen one (or possibly just hadn't looked properly). The Boy Wonder managed to take a photo which I will post as soon as I work out how, but it's a weird effect as the moonbow looks like a product of the shot rather than the subject of the photo itself. It's odd - I never realised that I wanted to see one (as you can tell because it's not on my 43 things) but now I have, I'm glad I did.