Wednesday 29 June 2011

Free Theatre Tickets for Kids (do they deserve them??)

Kids Week in the West End have just announced that bookings open on the 12th July. When you buy an adult ticket to a performance between 12th - 26th August, you can get a kids ticket free. There are also some workshops available (for example learn a routine with the cast etc.) I have never taken Mini-Me to The Lion King. If I manage to remember to book it on the 12 July, and if an adult ticket is not prohibitively expensive, and if I haven't booked a place at camp for her already, that's what I'm aiming for.

The last time I took her to see something major was one of the last performances of the Sound of Music at the Palladium. It was fantastic. As we glided (glid?) up the escalator at Oxford Circus tube station, Mini-Me was singing The Hills are Alive and talking about how excited she was and the lady in front of us turned around and told us she was in the show playing one of the lead nuns!  However, Mini-Me's lasting memory of the day turned out to be the shock of seeing her mother slumped on a chair struggling to stay conscious and feeling like the life force was draining out of me, while an ambulance was called! (No, it was not boredom - more like excruciating embarrassment, actually). Anyway, obviously, I lived to tell the tale but don't need to because she brings it up every flippin' two weeks or so. I'm hoping that if I take her to see the spectacle that is  The Lion King, the joy we experience will supercede the drama of raindrops on roses so that she never speaks of it again.

Right. I have a zillion work emails to reply to. I'm going to do that now. In a minute. In a sec. I must not watch the dross that is Desperate Housewives. But of course I will. I must do some zapping. But of course I will not...

What is that noise outside? Is it my new Portuguese gardener diligently making up for lost raintime? Or psychopathic neighbour doing something damaging with a chainsaw?

Tune in for the next instalment to find out...

Wednesday 22 June 2011

The miracle, life-changing product has arrived.

I got the Adonia! Last Wednesday it came and I ripped the box open to find just 3 of the 5 attractive metallic boxes I had ordered. I swiftly emailed the customer service people, (mentioning that I would be writing about the product and Adonia's customer service) and they promised to forward the outstanding two units.

So, I smeared it on my arms and legs and face (and a few other places) and discovered that a) it smells nice, b) it has a pleasing, easily absorbed texture and c) it won't last long. Let's wait and see...

The parcel also contained a large glossy colour brochure full of other Adonia miracle products. I started browsing disinterestedly but by the time I had finished I had inadvertently stoked the embers of my latent desire for useless crap. I wanted and believed EVERYTHING. I am the SUCKER of all SUCKERS. Bring it on: eyelash growing serum, fat reducing serum, wrinkle filling serum. Serum serum serum. Is there a serum that will clean my toilet.? No I'm not talking Harpic. Like: can I spray a special tonic that will vacuum my carpet by osmosis? Or imagine a spray that could spray in your cupboards that would unfold and re-fold and rearrange their contents? It cannot be beyond the realms of physics to do this. It just takes someone with vision to make it happen...

Monday 13 June 2011

Up and running

It's still morning and I have uploaded 2006 - 2007 Mummy on the Edges. 2008 - 9 to follow later. It's fun for me because I haven't read them for years and am enjoying them as though someone else has written them. I hope you, the hypothetical reader enjoy them too.

Thursday 9 June 2011

So.

So. My sister told me about this cream that she read about in the Daily Mail. (I don't read the Daily Mail so I hadn't heard about it.) It reduces hair growth. It's called Adonia Hair Reducer and the reviews are good. She said it had sold out everywhere and that Harrods has a 10,000 long waiting list! TEN THOUSAND! So I googled it and found the official website (here) which boasts some official looking research papers but no actual pictures of the respondents. And I don't think there were that many respondents. In any case, there's not that much out there on the web but I did read a few independent reviews which said it works.

The website said it was in stock so I ordered it. I ordered 5 (yes, five) tubes because it was buy 3 and get 2 free. And I figured my sisters would want some. And my mum who had chemo last year and cannot use any thing harsh on her skin. (This Adonia stuff is made of plant oils.) The website says it will take 10 to 18 days to arrive at my door (depending on customs at this end - I mean Customs and Excise, not religious customs, or social customs!) Actually, will I have to pay duty or something?? I actually don't care. If it really does reduce hair by up to 40% in two weeks and up to 70 % in four weeks then it is worth it. And even if it reduces it by 25 %, that's something, right? I will keep this blog updated with my progress on the Adonia Hair Reducer front.

I've also been using the Boots Smooth Skin machine which I purchased in December. It's good. But  dreadfully laborious. Which is okay if you are a very organised, meticulous and methodical person. But if you are bloody lazy like me then it helps if your situation is loaded with a high degree of desperation to make you do it (which mine is). I was fairly meticulous up to the point where I went abroad with The Piton for 5 days and acquired a tan. (You can't use it if you are tanned- it is IPL laser type thing.) While I was out there, I hardly need de-foresting which was a wonderful, wonderful thing because I had more fun. But then when I came back with a tan, I did not continue with the zapping and stuff grew back. So I have started zapping again, in the last two weeks. It is working but it is a drudge to do large and hard to reach areas. And I cannot be arsed to do my arms. At the moment I would say I resemble a character from "Where the Wild Things Are." So bring on the cream!

When I told her that I had bought 5 tubes she shrieked "Five tubes!! But you don't know if it works!! And it's out of stock - you won't get it!!" She calmed down when I told her it was buy 3 get 2 free. And I don't care. One has to speculate to accumulate. Or to do the opposite of accumulate as regards to superfluous hair. If The Piton was here I would ask him what the opposite of accumulate is. But I won't disturb him with such trivial and idiotic questions while he is journalisticating in troubled territories. He's so clever and brave. And I'm so shallow and thick.

Now. I have loads of work to do. I also have to write my Families article by tomorrow. Which I will do. But I'm sitting here typing this, which sort of feels like work, even though it isn't. Is it stealing, if I take away from this session a feeling of undeserved personal well-done-ness in order to cushion my true sense of failing and uselessness and guilty lack of achievement?

Sunday 5 June 2011

Well

Well. Having just read all previous posts (last one being in FEBRUARY!) and noticed that I started the last two with "Ok" and "Right", I just made the decision to start this one with "Well". Hmm. what will it be next time. Ah: "So"! (I'm not racist - one of my best friends is Chinese... That was terrible).

Well. Again, I feel tempted to tell you that it's night time, Sunday the 5th (very nearly Monday 6th) June. But I won't because you will already know that. I'm just going to change the font.

There. That's better isn't it? The Piton (formerly and mistakenly known as MF) AKA Wikepeter is away in Tripoli playing NewsStud and not here to drive me mad, ergo is doing it remotely by not being here. No that's not fair or true. He doesn't actually drive me mad much any more. Quite the opposite. Keeps me sane and anchored to the rockface we call life.

So I promised him I would write. He agreed to let me read his near decade-old book proposal if I made an earnest promise to write. So I'm trying. I wrote a paragraph last week, or maybe it was the week before. And I wrote an email to my Saturday students yesterday. I know you're thinking (or you would if you, a reader, existed) "Email? Does that count as writing?"

Well, it was a long and detailed email. God, they must think I am nuts! It was all about how I had to change the dates a bit again so that I can spend a fun two-night weekend at a country house with Piton and our kids (his boy and my girl. Not "our" kids, if you see what I mean) for his friend's 40th birthday, along with uber-people invitees. Most people in my situation could have invented a perfectly plausible excuse for this thus maintaining a facade of sanity. Like: My Grandma died (which she actually did but I won't use that as an excuse to cancel a class). Or A Family Wedding. Or A Family Tragedy. Or more plausibly: The hall is not available that day due to a death/ wedding/ tragedy/ scheduled gas leak. But no. I had to tell the truth. In a way that quoted the need to take advantage of "stepping stones of happiness" and "rainbows over valleys" and the fact that sometimes, for many people, life is like "clinging to a dinghy by one's fingernails in a sea of misery". I'm using quotation marks even though I'm not sure if these were the actual words and I'm too embarrassed to go back and read what I wrote in order to copy and paste. Anyway. You get the picture. I'm supposed to be teaching them baby signing, not trying to play with their psyches. Jeez. I don't know how I'm going to face my Saturday class this week...

Maybe this is why I have to start writing properly. Otherwise it will come out in other, ever more mortifyingly shocking ways. Right. Now I'm supposed to be zapping but it's too late. Tomorrow is another day. Instead I will make a hot chocolate and read a bit more of The Pregnant Widow. I must finish that damn book and return it to the library. And renew it tomorrow. I'm so sick of seeing it lying around. And to write, you have to read. Those called "They" are said to say.

Goodnight. x