Oh, woe is me.
The new Dishwasher Initiative that started a few weeks ago in this house is failing miserably. The mother decided the children were old enough to rinse out their own dishes and place them in the dishwasher themselves after eating. Sounds easy enough to me.
More often than not they just get slung anywhere in the vicinity of the sink, resplendent with gunk left over from whatever they ate. I am at that jaded stage of feeling like it's just easier to clean up their mess since even if they do it themselves I generally have to re-do everything anyway. Was I a horrifically messy pre-teen? I have no recollection of this.
It's as if I just came out perfectly formed, with the mind of a 30 year old even as a new born. This is why my Grandad called me 'Here Before' perhaps.
This can't be true, yet the level of detritus left in the two sweet girls' wake leaves me frequently incredulous. The worst thing about the abject failure of the Dishwasher Initiative is that the parents contribute to its failure on a daily basis by slinging their own plates in or near the sink rather than putting them in the dishwasher. It's as if I am the dishwasher conduit and nothing may be cleaned unless it has first been placed artfully in the machine by my own fair hand.
The other day the mother made a note on this aloud telling me 'That little girl is going to need reminding to put her dishes away!' while simultaneously shoving her own dish in the sink, oatmeal quietly crusting at the edges.
Showing posts with label WTF?. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WTF?. Show all posts
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Friday, September 10, 2010
Seething While Polishing Makes Things Shinier
This evening, I was seething as I polished the granite counter top. (Don't ever get a black granite highly polished counter top if you value your time in any way whatsoever, unless you can afford a slave... I mean 'help')
To be honest it doesn't take that much to make me seethe, as I quite enjoy it. But this was not seething in a venty, let's-rant-about-it-over-cocktails kind of way, it was serious having an argument in my head type seething.
The arguments you rehearse are always so much more eloquent then anything you can conjure in real life ( TV never reflects this truth - remember the verbosity of Dawson's Creek?) and almost always you decide precisely what you want to say after the fact.
Anyway - I hate being told what to do. In the most perverse manner. Even if I wanted to do the thing I am being told do a little bit, I will stop wanting to do it if someone keeps insisting that I go ahead and do it. And then I will absolutely not want to do it, at all, ever. This might be to my detriment but it doesn't matter, as long as I win, and I only do what I want to do and not what someone said I should do.
Of course there is a loophole - at work I frequently do what people tell me. But this involves using a whole other facet of my personality that barely would see the light of day otherwise, in which I try to be helpful at all times (providing there is a cash reward). This is leftover conscientiousness from when I was Lisa Simpson. I mean, a child.
Anyway this evening the sister of the lady of the house decided to give me advice/barrage me with probing questions and accusations on my relationships. I have to say, I could assume this is a cultural difference. Perhaps in Canada it is not rude to tell someone you barely know what they should be doing with their love life, even instructing them in a patronising tone that you need this book. (Don't follow that link - it's new age self help, you don't want to see it.) But in reality I think unsolicited advice on relationships from a virtual stranger is as rude here as it would be at home, especially when it comes from a sixty year old single woman who's had 3 different love interests since I arrived here (they are a frequent topic of the family). Plus her nosey assumption of my 100% straightness was really irritating and she kept labouring the point of my waning fertility (not outright or I might have poked her in the eye).*
What really rubbed me up the wrong way is that I am not 19. I don't even look it. One more grey hair spotted this week! (Scratch that - today I picked up the little one from school to discover I was in the same outfit as most of the kids - skinny jeans, converse and a hoodie. I don't look 19; I look either 28 or 12, depending on the clothes.) Not being a teenager means I have accrued 11 years experience at loving people other than my family, and you can learn plenty in 11 years.
This extemely annoying bright-orange-haired lady then proceeded to recite to me the following saying with an up and downy 'you know what they say' warning tone of voice:
'If you always do what you always did, you'll always get what you always got.'
For anyone who even knows me a fraction, it is obvious that my current stance on relationships (as in, I'm only bothered about myself) is certainly not indicative of me doing what I always did.
For the first time since the year dot, a/n other is not the top priority. Obviously this allows too much time for navel gazing (re blog) but it does allow for trips all over England and abroad to see friends, and the realisation that I'm feeling relatively good about being by myself right now.
I must add to this that the lady of the house, (and now her little dog sister too) are trying to hook me up with a local guy they vaguely know. My time out has stretched a bit longer than I thought, but I've been on dates, kissed friends I probably shouldn't have and fallen inappropriately and disproportionately in love with a French intern's accent...but unless you are this guy, in the flesh, then my plate is full enough thank you very much.
p.s. I realise that links to a photo of Lee Min Ho in flip flops sitting in what could be a teenage boy's bedroom (only much cleaner), which denotes he is too young for me. This aint Vancougar for nothin'.
* Yes, it's a sensitive subject already in case you couldn't tell
To be honest it doesn't take that much to make me seethe, as I quite enjoy it. But this was not seething in a venty, let's-rant-about-it-over-cocktails kind of way, it was serious having an argument in my head type seething.
The arguments you rehearse are always so much more eloquent then anything you can conjure in real life ( TV never reflects this truth - remember the verbosity of Dawson's Creek?) and almost always you decide precisely what you want to say after the fact.
Anyway - I hate being told what to do. In the most perverse manner. Even if I wanted to do the thing I am being told do a little bit, I will stop wanting to do it if someone keeps insisting that I go ahead and do it. And then I will absolutely not want to do it, at all, ever. This might be to my detriment but it doesn't matter, as long as I win, and I only do what I want to do and not what someone said I should do.
Of course there is a loophole - at work I frequently do what people tell me. But this involves using a whole other facet of my personality that barely would see the light of day otherwise, in which I try to be helpful at all times (providing there is a cash reward). This is leftover conscientiousness from when I was Lisa Simpson. I mean, a child.
Anyway this evening the sister of the lady of the house decided to give me advice/barrage me with probing questions and accusations on my relationships. I have to say, I could assume this is a cultural difference. Perhaps in Canada it is not rude to tell someone you barely know what they should be doing with their love life, even instructing them in a patronising tone that you need this book. (Don't follow that link - it's new age self help, you don't want to see it.) But in reality I think unsolicited advice on relationships from a virtual stranger is as rude here as it would be at home, especially when it comes from a sixty year old single woman who's had 3 different love interests since I arrived here (they are a frequent topic of the family). Plus her nosey assumption of my 100% straightness was really irritating and she kept labouring the point of my waning fertility (not outright or I might have poked her in the eye).*
What really rubbed me up the wrong way is that I am not 19. I don't even look it. One more grey hair spotted this week! (Scratch that - today I picked up the little one from school to discover I was in the same outfit as most of the kids - skinny jeans, converse and a hoodie. I don't look 19; I look either 28 or 12, depending on the clothes.) Not being a teenager means I have accrued 11 years experience at loving people other than my family, and you can learn plenty in 11 years.
This extemely annoying bright-orange-haired lady then proceeded to recite to me the following saying with an up and downy 'you know what they say' warning tone of voice:
'If you always do what you always did, you'll always get what you always got.'
For anyone who even knows me a fraction, it is obvious that my current stance on relationships (as in, I'm only bothered about myself) is certainly not indicative of me doing what I always did.
For the first time since the year dot, a/n other is not the top priority. Obviously this allows too much time for navel gazing (re blog) but it does allow for trips all over England and abroad to see friends, and the realisation that I'm feeling relatively good about being by myself right now.
I must add to this that the lady of the house, (and now her little dog sister too) are trying to hook me up with a local guy they vaguely know. My time out has stretched a bit longer than I thought, but I've been on dates, kissed friends I probably shouldn't have and fallen inappropriately and disproportionately in love with a French intern's accent...but unless you are this guy, in the flesh, then my plate is full enough thank you very much.
p.s. I realise that links to a photo of Lee Min Ho in flip flops sitting in what could be a teenage boy's bedroom (only much cleaner), which denotes he is too young for me. This aint Vancougar for nothin'.
* Yes, it's a sensitive subject already in case you couldn't tell
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Noonchee Oppsah
If ever there was a backhanded compliment contest, the one I received today wins hands down.
The mother of the house got an email from a girl who had wanted to work for her from the aupair/nanny website. She has another job in the vicinity and wonders if we could introduce her to any other young women, show her round etc. This morning over breakfast the mother told me the reason she hadn't hired her.
'She was just drop dead gorgeous! I saw her picture and I was thinking there's no way she's coming into this house!' The last part of this sentence was delivered with a nod towards the much younger Mr of the house who was sitting in the next room.
This was followed by about 5 minutes of glorification of this hot 19 year old German's hair, figure and everything else. It was blatantly obvious I had been hired because I would not pose such a distraction.
Another 5 minutes later and the implication of her raving about the German made the mother backtrack a little 'I'm not saying you're not pretty. I just realised that sounds like I was saying you're not pretty. It's just you looked a lot more down to earth and more like us.'
Being called down to earth is not a compliment, it's a consolation.
Don't worry lady, I certainly won't be pretty after I've eaten you out of house and home and acquired a forehead that needs Botox from all the frowning I'm doing.
The mother of the house got an email from a girl who had wanted to work for her from the aupair/nanny website. She has another job in the vicinity and wonders if we could introduce her to any other young women, show her round etc. This morning over breakfast the mother told me the reason she hadn't hired her.
'She was just drop dead gorgeous! I saw her picture and I was thinking there's no way she's coming into this house!' The last part of this sentence was delivered with a nod towards the much younger Mr of the house who was sitting in the next room.
This was followed by about 5 minutes of glorification of this hot 19 year old German's hair, figure and everything else. It was blatantly obvious I had been hired because I would not pose such a distraction.
Another 5 minutes later and the implication of her raving about the German made the mother backtrack a little 'I'm not saying you're not pretty. I just realised that sounds like I was saying you're not pretty. It's just you looked a lot more down to earth and more like us.'
Being called down to earth is not a compliment, it's a consolation.
Don't worry lady, I certainly won't be pretty after I've eaten you out of house and home and acquired a forehead that needs Botox from all the frowning I'm doing.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Where am I? Why am here?
This might be the fifth blog I have started and while the other 4 are languishing somewhere in cyper-purgatory, I think I can do this.
I have enough free time, a computer, and many things to complain about. Plus, I occasionally drink at home (thanks Jack Kerouac) so my ideas and plots should be forthcoming.
In my earlier blog incarnation I wanted to Explore Issues Important To Me, which is probably why it got stuck as all the socio-political concepts and thoughts whirled around in my head. This time I just want to figure out why I have voluntarily moved to a place that is making me so frustrated and miserable I just ate 3 caramel Mars bars in one day for lack of anything better to do. (And due to a nearby WallMart.)
Why aren't I blaming my lack of self control? Might be the first question. Well usually my self control is very highly evolved - I take pleasure in my willpower like Frog in 'Frog and Toad'.
Perhaps it is because in my new role as domestic wench I have just been asked to 'do a daily vomit check' on each floor of this 3 story house (for the aging cat's splendiferous hair ball churning), and 'occasionally check for poop' in the back garden (for the witless yet lovable dog). Perhaps I wanted to drown out the fact that I am in fact stupid enough to accept a position which includes monitoring of all feline and canine excretions, or because it never occurred to me in the first place that such things would be necessary. Ever, anywhere. I grew up in an environment blessedly free of vomit and poop (I'm the youngest child so all the vomit and poop was mine and I never had to clean it up). Also animal bodily functions are much grosser than human ones, in if you ask me. They're stinkier, and harder to anticipate.
Yes, I wanted to drown it all out. Drown it out in caramel.
I have enough free time, a computer, and many things to complain about. Plus, I occasionally drink at home (thanks Jack Kerouac) so my ideas and plots should be forthcoming.
In my earlier blog incarnation I wanted to Explore Issues Important To Me, which is probably why it got stuck as all the socio-political concepts and thoughts whirled around in my head. This time I just want to figure out why I have voluntarily moved to a place that is making me so frustrated and miserable I just ate 3 caramel Mars bars in one day for lack of anything better to do. (And due to a nearby WallMart.)
Why aren't I blaming my lack of self control? Might be the first question. Well usually my self control is very highly evolved - I take pleasure in my willpower like Frog in 'Frog and Toad'.
Perhaps it is because in my new role as domestic wench I have just been asked to 'do a daily vomit check' on each floor of this 3 story house (for the aging cat's splendiferous hair ball churning), and 'occasionally check for poop' in the back garden (for the witless yet lovable dog). Perhaps I wanted to drown out the fact that I am in fact stupid enough to accept a position which includes monitoring of all feline and canine excretions, or because it never occurred to me in the first place that such things would be necessary. Ever, anywhere. I grew up in an environment blessedly free of vomit and poop (I'm the youngest child so all the vomit and poop was mine and I never had to clean it up). Also animal bodily functions are much grosser than human ones, in if you ask me. They're stinkier, and harder to anticipate.
Yes, I wanted to drown it all out. Drown it out in caramel.
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