We plan ahead

My parents will be coming to Canada for Christmas, and we are talking about tourtière, which is a pie of meat. I am hoping it is an important Christmas foodstuff in French-Canada (where I live),  because I like pie and I like meat, so the combination is a surefire 'winner'.


JM is a) a French-Canadian veterinary research histopathologist; b) my husband.

Me: What do people eat in Quebec on Christmas Eve?
JM: Turkey.
Me: What do people in Quebec eat on Christmas Day?
JM: Turkey.
Me: What, everyone has two turkeys?
JM: It depends on the family.
Me: OK, so what did your family have on Christmas Eve?
JM: Turkey.
Me: And Christmas Day?
JM: Turkey.

Whatevs.

News round-up

OK here's what's up in this, my third week of literal non-workingness.

Dentist
I am there every week having my English teeth attended to. "They aren't made up, you know. They're a real phenomenon", says the hygienist. "Whassat?", I say, mouth awash with blood. "BRITISH TEETH. They're really terrible. Crooked. On the other hand", she says, scraping so hard I fear my teeth will pop out of my head, "nothing is as bad as French teeth. Crooked AND dirty."

Cupboards
The story goes like this:  husband is driving to work, shoe is weird and tight, he takes his shoe off and a bloody mouse pops out.  Husband pulls over (n.b. he is on the motorway) and releases said mouse into the Canadian wilderness. Mouse lives.

These mice - whether they're re-enacting Point Break or not - have been our loving companions for some time. Sometimes we electrocute them, sometimes we get the cats round, sometimes we play Sting and/or Chris Martin. Sometimes it's winter and they do whatever mice do in the winter.

Then the spring comes and they come back and they engage in a number of activities including but not limited to:

1. Eating bags of popcorn;
2. Getting lid off peanut butter and leaving mouse footprints;
3. Doing mouse plops in my giant oats that I discover 2 seconds before putting porridge in my gaping maw;
4. Playing poker, watching TV, smoking tiny spliffs, changing the pre-sets on the radio and generally taking the fucking piss. 

All this means that the cupboards need to be cleaned, what with the mouse plops, the mouse wee, the leftover bits of chewed up popcorn and wood, the dust and whatever else lurks. I do this with The Archers, rubber gloves, old tea towels, a mini vacuum thing and a great deal of strong chemicals in a bottle. It is satisfying, and I am happy.

Swimming
After 5 years, a man comes round to mend the filter on the swimming pool and gives information that transforms the pool from 'indistinguishable from the septic tank' to 'now I know why I live in Canada!!!'.

Now I just swim up and down and up and down. It is great.  Also, the weather in Montreal is like this all the time:

I understand it is not like that in England, but do not be jealous because in 4 months the snow will come and that's us fucked until March. Like "Game of Thrones", but without a monster made of black smoke emitting from anyone's ladyparts.

That is it for the moment. There is more to this post but I realised after finishing it that it was over 100 pages long, so I will post the second bit tomorrow.  It is about what I have been reading and it basically says, "I have read a lot of books about the Mitford sisters and all their friends", so if you don't like the Mitfords, don't tune in tomorrow.   If you do like TV and film reviews, tune in on Sunday. Maybe.

Pip "Poo in my oats" Pip

NWM

Baker Cat

"Where are you?", say the emails sent by the people. "Why, at home", I say, "not working, drinking cups of warm water, eating thin omelettes and watching this":



Infinite (and better) version here.  

I'm back in the room

I am, once again, a literally non-working monkey. This time, I was subject to forces beyond my control (unless I had chosen to evolve into the sort of person that wears flesh-coloured 'pantyhose', enjoys using a Palm Pilot and can think of nothing better than being on interminable conference calls with lunatics in the Far East), but I have left my last employer with affection and good heart, and all is well.

And yet. When you lose your job, people go odd.  It is not realistic to walk around with a sandwich board saying, I AM 42 I HAVE BEEN HERE BEFORE NOT ONLY IS IT OK IT IS SUPER STOP LOOKING AT ME WITH THOSE EYES.  It is also not realistic to expect that others are as blasé as I am about the whole affair, but still, here are some Tips if someone you work with is let go/made redundant/fired etc. OK here goes.

Do not pretend it isn't happening

If Bob has been laid off and Bob is packing up his boxes, do not pretend you do not know who Bob is. The chances are that you have, at the very least, worked with Bob for some time and are on speaking terms.  Bob will appreciate it if you say, "I have heard what is happening and I hope you are OK with it" (or similar).  If Bob is not OK he will cry, shout, rant etc. If he does, say nothing and back away. However, the chances are that Bob will like the fact that you are at least reacting to the Truth and not hiding in the lavatory having pretend wees.

Do not speculate on the reasons why

Unless there have been cross-company layoffs, a factory closure or (in my case) the loss of a big client,  havin' a chitchat with Jackie in accounts on what terrible thing Bob may or may not have done is not helpful. You will never probably know the full reason why Bob is leaving, and unless Bob is a good pal who tells you all the dirt, you never will. For all you know, Bob is very happy about it as it will give him the chance to do something he really wants to do and/or move to the South of France and set up a nudist cycling club.   So assume the best and let Bob go with a smile and a wave. (Unless he is the office pervert.)

Do not ask the person if they have a new job yet

If they have it's OK, but if they haven't and they are worried about it, this is is not a good thing to ask. Equally if, like me, they have no intention of looking for a job for a good long while, it can put them on the spot, because that leads to the next terrible question, namely:

Do not ask the person what they are going to do

If you are not an expert in the skill of literal non-workingness, as I am, you are probably still in a bit of shock and working out how much money you have to keep going for a while.  Asking people what they are going to do puts them on the spot; they can't very well say "I am going to sit at home with my boxes, wonder what happened and then pick myself up off the floor and hope to find some sort of purpose to my life."

As we all know, I am quite the expert, so here is what I said:

"I am going to try and write the first 3 chapters and synopsis of the novel I have been talking about  for five years, and go the gym a bit."

This is true, but it will also include:

"I am going to sleep properly, spring clean my flat, think about letting it before I go to Europe for a bit, write my blog, eat properly and look for pictures of cats in hats."

It will also include:

Seeing my husband properly for the first time in a year, remembering everyone's birthdays, sending the knitted monkey that I bought five months ago to my niece, wondering if we are going to move back to England, watching "Community" and stalking Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire.

Do not have a pitying look on your face, especially if the person is older than you

If you are 27 and have never lost your job, the idea is probably terrifying. I can tell you right now that unless you have many dependents (unlikely at 27) and/or are very unwell, it is really not that bad. Something else always comes along, and every time - and this I know from experience - the period of literal non-workingness focuses the mind; the chances are that the next job you have will be far more the sort of thing you should be doing.

If you are young and the person who has lost their job is a lot older than you, be careful. 1) because they may be like me, i.e. very wise, etc, and not that worried about it; or 2) they may be really worried. In either case, being patronised by a 27 year old is not going to help.

Do not say "Are you worried?"

About what? My sanity? Money? The future? Whether or not I will have to go and see headhunters again?  Whether there really is such a thing as teacup people?  As it happens I am not one jot worried (to the point that I have decided I am either very well-adjusted or completely bonkers), but that is probably not true of most other people, so do not ask. 

This is all I can think of for the moment, but if anyone else has any tips please flood the comments box and watch as this centre of online job-loss expertise becomes richer by the minute.

Pip "Cats in hats" Pip

NWM

Oh good God

SHRIEK SHRIEK etc, so much to write about and so I will, the words spurting from my monkey fingers like chocolate from a fountain at a second-rate wedding somewhere in a banqueting hall in Laval.

Topicks will include things I am for and things I am against.

For: 

• Gel/shellac manicures (and pedicures)
• Technological products created by the Apple Corporation of America
• France, where I will be from Sunday for two weeks (on a "holiday")
• Reality TV
• Impending unemployment
• Having clothes made by a lady in Shanghai 
• Stealing ideas from Belgian Waffle
• Fuck Your Noguchi Coffee Table 
• Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire's memoirs 

Against: 

• Dell computers
• BlackBerries
• Use of word "curated" by people who couldn't pick a decent-looking ham sandwich if it bit them on the arse, let alone have the right to posit themselves as experts with the god-given right to 'curate' which pieces of journalism/nude accessories/bell jars with fucking plants in them etc I am to be exposed to
• Sting (plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose)
• The Royal Bank of Scotland

OK more to come on these topicks and more. 

In the meantime I remain, in this as in all weathers, 

NWM

What?!

The possibility of literal non-workingness looms. Do I run towards it with grasping little monkey hands, or fight it with all my simian might?

Only time and lady luck will tell.  In the meantime, there is absinthe.

Pip "UB40" pip!

NWM

Expressions I think should be used more often (by everyone)

"And you can put that in your pipe and smoke it."

"Calme-toi le pompon, ostie."

"Tell him to go pound it."

"You'd be sorry if I were dead."

"Whatevs."

"I'm sorry. Did you say something?"

"Get back to work."

"La la la, I can't hear you."

"Who just joined?"

"Poke it."

"What is WRONG with you?"

"What. Have. We. Become."

"What have YOU become?"

"OK. I'm going to go get a tiny little gay coffee now."

When this is all over

It will make a very, very good book.  It is to do with work, of course, and cannot be spoken of.

In the meantime, I am here a lot, pinning things on imaginary walls and realising that I may in fact be a Danish lesbian. If I were the type of lady that does moodboards for her wedding hair, I would be in company. Thankfully, I am the sort of monkey that knows of the man who does this, and who also does this, so I am (mercifully) in good company.

For my next trick, I will join another call with APJ, bang that fucker on mute (as apparently they say), settle back with some lukewarm Jack Daniel's mixed with flat lemon sodapop, and watch "Smash"

Pip "China Team?" pip!

NWM

p.s. I have not forgotten about the caption competition

I run a caption competition

Regular readers will be aware of the work of Corndog The Cat, who had some kittens and hid them in the branches of a bush, where they all lived quite happily until she (Corndog) was adopted by my husband, a French-Canadian veterinary histopathologist (who enjoys pre-clinical safety biomarker validation).  (The kittens were also adopted and not used in any pre-clinical trials.)

Here she is. Corndog. When I look at this picture, I think: it will not be physically possible for my adoring readers and/or fans to resist engaging in a "Caption Competion" when they see this snapshot!!!

Come on. You know you can't resist.  So here you are. Give it your "best shot":

NB: no captions along the lines of "I am sad I am so fat I wish my owners would not give me so much food!", if you please, for the simple reason that passive-aggressive first-person anthropomorphism is just what it sounds like, i.e. a pile of wank. Plus we are not blind OR stupid, but it is hard to control this simple fact: Corndog is very fat because she is able to open the refrigerator door and eat all the butter. This is not a joke. 

I am having a strange day

I woke early, just before six, and thought it was Tuesday; it was not; it was today, i.e. Saturday.  I got up and thought, O I know, I will do the washing the ironing etc, have a shower, have a cup of coffee and maybe a boiled egg, and then I will go to the hairdresser and get the weird hair clump left over from the Amsterdam haircut cut out.

It didn't go well. The washing machine, which is cheap and accessed from the top, spun out of control and forced the water pipe to spring gleefully from its rear, causing a low-level flood.  I mopped it up and thought, O I know, I will have a shower now. The tap ($600) came off in my hand and the water went all over the walls.  I thought, O I know, I will have a cup of coffee. I put the coffee pot on (I have written of this before, many years ago), but before I could place it on the ring, the handle came off in my hand.

I had a go on some Wet Wipes and a cold tap and went to the hairdresser, which is precisely 2 minutes' walk from my house.  On the list:

1. Eyebrow tidy
2. Colour
3. Haircut

Let me explain.

Eyebrow tidy

Fuck knows there's not much going right when it comes to my physical appearance, but my eyebrows have always been clear and unexcitable. I am afraid of 'tidying' them myself, though, as there is not much room for error; every 5 years or so I remember this, and get someone else to do it. They always look better, but as the ladies are plucking, they ask if if I have facials and I say I have had 2 in my life, and they say, but how is this possible?, as if I have said I have never had a bath. I will not go in to my theory on skincare (don't fuck about with it, use lots of moisturiser, people squeezing your blackheads is weird), but I think I left with a verbal agreement to go back so they can "cleanse my skin for the better accommodation of product".  I am unlikely to honour the contract.

Colour

When I was about 21 I got a weird hormonal thing I and I got very fat and my hair (which until then had been thick and slippy) got thin and crap.  That was OK but I am 42 now which means the colour is fading. I wouldn't care if I was going grey - in fact I would like it - but the colour of my hair is that of "un souris qui est en train de mourir très lentement", as I said to Bob (in a French accent), the "Colourist Host".  I therefore have it coloured a bit so I do not look like I too am a mouse who is in the process of dying very slowly.

Haircut

For some time - despite a brief foray into the 'choppy bob with fringe', which suited me but was a pain in the arse to keep looking OK - I have shared a haircut with Dan Gillespie Sells, lead singer of one-hit wonders, The Feeling. There is no point arguing; it is the best haircut for me, unless a mentalist gets her misguided scissors on it in Amsterdam and makes me look like a portly visitor from the island of Lesbos. Today it has been righted.

Anyway, I managed to get through the eyebrow and colour bit before my hairdresser pointed out that I had toothpaste all over my chin. I take consolation from the fact that it was only on my chin, but wonder that I managed to make it through an hour without a) noticing it myself; b) having it pointed out by anyone else.

It is, now it is less disastrous, a strange day. My husband, a French-Canadian veterinary research histopathologist who cuts his own hair, is in Geneva sulkily ski-ing with clients he does not like, and I am alone in Montreal where I moved about 4 years ago.  It is at the weekends when you are alone in a city that is only 53% home with nothing to do that you realise that your oldest friends are not in the same place as you, and you rather wish you could see them.  I also wish I could still be excited by 4 inches of snow, which is what I think is falling in England at the moment. (In Montreal people don't even put their proper coats on until it is  -20 and there are 3ft on the front doorstep).

I do not talk about being homesick because there is no point; whining about it doesn't change anything, but still, I am feeling the distance and wondering if there is anything I can do about it, short of installing videoconferencing facilities (with conference phone option) in the sitting rooms of all dear friends and sending out a meeting request for a status meeting.

In other news, here is a film you should watch. I found it very funny.