Day sixteen: what happened to fifteen?

Does everyone have a miracle cupboard? A cupboard of promise? A rogue tea-bag, a stale quarter packet of Brazil nuts and out of date pills? I fear mine is breeding, mutations of chewable Vitamin C & oversized Cod liver oil capsules, they have their own lock to the cupboard and the weak cannot enter, it is for immune systems who can cope only.
I was just sucking on an energy gel prior to my shattering in Tabata: round 2, which I had earlier discovered in such cupboard, after asking the Hobbit from next door to force the lock. I believe the gel was purchased stuck to the front of a glossy fitness magazine, a promotional hoodwink that drew me in-this time last year, when I made similar promises to bulk hulk up. It made the magazine feel like a quality purchase, a snip at £4.99 and so many advertisements to read! Thank you…but in 12 hours I would have a cover model physique, FACT.
The taste didn’t lead to any worry, the energy boosting gel tasted like what I imagine plastic surgery to taste like. The gold wrap, the fluorescent lies and list of energy performance substances were giving me the belief I would conquer Tabata (if you are wondering this is no Lance Armstrong confession)

The BB Date tattooed on the miniature sachet said 1st Jan 2012…so I spat it out and suffered another pounding of burpees, squats and planks. Even the brail magazines will refuse my cover audition. I puffed, I panted, I blew my lungs down. The cat likes my salty sweat though and licked my head upon a warm welcome home. Meow…you look ill. lick.

Forgive my lack of blog yesterday. I’ll simplify my excuse.
Football match (soccer) in freezing frost.
boring.
two pairs of socks.
forgot hat.
boring match.
forgot gloves.
Extra bloody time!
boring game.
We lost.

Tomorrow may be a struggle too, a late night teaching the staff room lot how to turn a computer on! They only come for the cakes.

Day fourteen: ‘Cracking job Scribbler’

The flurry of snow didn’t quite cause the tizzy I had hoped for.  That tizzy being a day off work.  Instead the staff-room was the usual draining affair, menopause and diets (spat through biscuits) and gossip over who may be the female phantom 2pm pooer. I do most of the draining I am sure, the miserable bastard who doesn’t like hearing about labour pains or massive poos whilst he eats his sandwich…call me touchy!  The rest of the day involved a meeting in which, quite frankly, I wasn’t in, but I was, but wasn’t at the same time, it passed me by like a Big Issue Seller.  The remainder of the day consisted of talks about our moral compass: mine is pointing North West due to the Big Issue seller.

I avoid the changing rooms these days, you only pick up influenza, athletes foot and a sight for sore eyes from Talc-Tackle-Ted & his scrotal spectacle…enough to scare you stiff. On editing that is a poor word choice. I’m talking of the gym, from whence I have come, which was done after my boring day and beans on toast.  Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers was on the gym television, a source of enormous motivation to all. Call me a Doubting Thomas, but that on its own is hardly a surge of adrenaline but the fact it had subtitles several seconds behind the plasticine animation hardly made me row quicker.  The Roly-Polys enjoyed it as they sat on the bikes, made a screening of it in fact, sausage roll crumbs and cheese & onion fingers washed down with an energy drink.  The peddles were glad of the rest I am sure.  I suppose they are easing themselves in, and I am sure they had to do that on entrance: greased the door frame and went in with the second class post and a good kick.

This moaning is all part of my crisis by the way: it defects from the arthritic pains and growing weakness that is catching me.  It creeps up on you like the hair on your bum, which as we know is tugged from your scalp.  In a sick turn of events I am booking myself back for a Tabata session, perhaps I didn’t make it clear to them first time I am actually this fragile.  I wonder, if I ask nicely, do you think they will put Wallace & Gromit on?

You have called me Touchy and a Doubting Thomas today, stop it.

I am the Scribbler.

Day thirteen: In the shade of idiots

That’s a big house.

So is that.

That’s a big house.

Ohhhh, look at that garden, that’s a big garden.

That’s a big house. No not that one- that one over there.

(points at big house over there)

We have been out for a walk in the chipper breeze today. We walked wrapped in wool, like two knitted people.  To cheat the cold we carried coffee, frothy coffee to be precise, a drink that takes liquid and turns it to cloud, a lickable but not very drinkable drink.  It was made at home, with a real take-away cup…The world really is changing.   How we smugly pranced past Costa-lotta Coffee, sipping our home-brew and  burning our lips.  We walked past some big houses too, I believe that is clear, and into the park.  There was a lady training her dog- I didn’t know what she was teaching it (and I couldn’t be 70% sure she was a she).  Her ramshackle face enhanced with a  5-o’clock shadow suggested it was best not to ask. It wasn’t 5 o’clock. This figure was also knitted, but it didn’t look as cosy, knitted with medieval wire I think.  She stood there and glared at young love…her eyes bitter, her tongue hanging out and drooling…I’m talking of the dog now, the Alsatian fixated on two scabby pigeons frolicking in the twigs above.

Perhaps this old goat (back to the woman) thought we were mimicking her due to our milky-lathered lips, albino-moose-tache, not imitating her foaming at the mouth pet, just her bristly upper lip (woman again not dog!). I say this as whilst casually observing, she refused to teach the dog new tricks in front of us.  Top secret training  in an open public space, crafty! Was it to juggle apples? To steal handbags? Could this dog do voices?…I would have loved to hear a Nelson Mandella impression, we all like to think we can do that don’t we?  Try:

“In my country we go to prison first and then become President.“
Nelson Mandela

Most likely  it was to turd on the path and camouflage it with leaves.  One will never know.  Further down our journey there was a Russel in the shade of the trees.  Well, I never actually asked for names, but several pensioners were hibernating having a flask of tea.  At least that’s what I hope they were doing: strange as there was plenty of picnic tables too choose from yet they decided to snuggle under the canopy of brambles and the undergrowth of weeds.

I don’t like that house.

That’s a shit house.

That’s a shit house.

That house is hideous.

We walked back a different way.

A pleasant enough afternoon in Northern England.

The sleet is now washing our cars and dampening the paths… gracefully descending like baby feathers… this will likely cause mass hysteria in the morning, I for one cannot wait, but my mind goes back to the pigeons in the sky. I wonder if they saw what trick the dog was up too?

Day twelve: bad timing

Two pints. Oh I am weak. Not even twelve days into January and water disguised as beer has parted my lips and walked on my tongue: bless me bloggers for I have sinned. I have many meagre excuses and stories of why, some involving Albino Hamster, some involving cat, mostly involving lack of will power and a hot & sour soup…all of which I am looking forward to sharing. My arms still ache due to Wednesdays Tabata, my eyes ache from writing to strangers, my ears ache from Ol’milky red eyes in its wheel. It appears to have gotten louder, the wheel that is, spinning out of control (like the tabloids chasing a celebrity pervert) it picks up momentum and only shows signs of gathering more pace….a noisy guest if ever I have had one.
…A question, whom or who or what/when/why was the noisiest guest you ever had the misfortune of inviting into your abode?

As it is Sunday tomorrow I will pray. I will pray for all the idiots in the world as there are many. I look forward to explaining my lack of will power and planning out some more mid-life crisis.

Day eleven: Albino chilli red eye

I rubbed a finger in my eye.
Oh eye?
Oh aye!
Shortsighted I had fresh red chilli on my pointer. Longsightednessblindness now….ow! Who knows what I’ll tripe?

So with red eye like my new visitor…the Albino hamster, chalk white with a weekend pass, we wonder what Saturday will hold. As he canters in his wheel, rut a tut tut tut, rut a tut tut tut…the nocturnal vermin tells me to sleep, this is his time…the night is young, the views are new… this wheel will NEVER get repetitive. Well hang on their fur purse, what about cat? He has never seen a hamster before, only an albino monk named Silas: he got right mad with him, so easy you little fair-haired Dwarf…

Russian…

…Hamster. Cats shits run the mill these days, no more constipation-she don’t want no aggravation.
There will be no bad-blood between these two fuzzy pets, so please readers do not fret.

As for Saturday, when I hope to awake, it will bring a yawn in bed and morning breath. I’ll stretch, I’ll scratch, cat will stretch and scratch, I guess the hamster might too…it’s Saturday for goodness sake, what else to do? The weather is planned chilli…just how I started today my blog , it’s almost gone full circle, like the hamster on the jog.

Day ten: End of the week as we know it

Nearly Friday: I’ll cling to that tonight, I’ll cradle it like a benefit mums litre of wine- forefathers or four fathers? I couldn’t comprehend.

It’s Friday tomorrow.

I may cry with happiness in the morning and dance like Tina Turner when Friday is fulfilled, for we work far too hard.

For some, everyday is a Friday- and what then have you to look forward too?

Day eight: Cats got a bite

I was in a flap yesterday, not of the cat variety, how ironic that would have been. It was back to work ultramarine blues.  My full wrath of anger and bellyaching will come over the coming weeks, but not tonight: I am letting it swell into a mightier force, a tsunami of ill temper that I will unleash.  Remember this mid-life crisis comes early and it is planned.  No hasty decisions here.  Things on my agenda will include staffroom protocol… my blood boils.

I see the cat had a go yesterday instead of me, did a fair job too, perhaps we should form a coalition and scrawl together.  What do you think cat?… She’s not paying attention, she’s back on the hard stuff today. Biscuits that is, not heroine or smack but to her it’s probably just as good. Moments earlier the biscuits fell into her band-aid coloured bowl, it was a scene from a parachute drop in third world gratuity land – although with a cat and no helicopter, and due to personal preference as opposed to famine and desperation.

Snaffling and biting her way through the meaty atoms with aplomb she screams like a diva:

I-AMS a GO-CAT!

Yes you are.

***I had aspirations to blog everyday this year, but eight days in and already the cat is passing me a white flag purrrring for me to wave it aloft and have done with it.  The beers are doing exactly the same but so far I have been controlled.

I shall depart for the evening.  I am brewing a decaf tea for the other half, her new thing…

both cat and I will be on the look out for withdrawal symptoms.

What’s that cat? You’re passing her the white flag too?  Give her half a chance, she reads this.

Day seven: The cat taketh over

He made it then, my owner, made a big song & dance didn’t he?  Anyone would think it was him who had to lick his anus in the hope of jump-starting his bowel movements. He came in all a fluster not long ago, 6PM our time. Looked thoroughly pi hissed off, like someone had farted as he pulled up his socks, that sort of look.  I must admit it was nice to have the pair of them out of the house, they’ve been under my paws these past few weeks, three’s a crowd and when you’re ill you don’t want people encouraging you to take a shit every few minutes.  I can’t believe he’s been wasting time rambling writing scribbling about it on here to be honest, no wonder he was flipping-a-lid last night mumbling  ‘I’m not ready, I don’t wanna go back, I hate it, is it really Monday?  ARHHHHHHH!!! Where are my work pants?’ Pathetic really, I told him as much.

It’ll do them good to work, she went back too, earn honest money to pay for my dentures – which I presume I will receive in due course after having my chompers torn out last week.  I like licking my gums though, you know, where the holes are, kinda painful but kinda nice…you keep going back for more – like Pringles.

I thought about going outside to stretch the joints but just one look at the weather and my nipples went dense, as solid as brass buttons.   I ran a bath and had a long soak instead, thought, whilst the cats away this c…a…t      w…i…l…l    p…l…a……… that doesn’t make sense, must be the dope the vet has asked them to ‘hide’ in my food.  I didn’t even have a bath.

I did really.

I didn’t have bath.

Anyway, after my bath, he returned, looking thoroughly cream-crackered, I don’t know what it is he does but it does nothing for his sense of humour.  I begged for some biscuits, some crunch to work my jaw…
but he said I’m still not allowed.  bastard. I’ve sprayed all over his beer bottles as he lead me to believe he’s not drinking alcohol this month, so if he lapses, …..WHEN he lapses, justice will taste sweet (and the beer will taste of piss).

Considering I only have paws I think I may have done rather well here.  I’m going to log out as I have some hair to strategically place on the pillows and cushions and those trousers he is getting prepared for tomorrow.

Over and Me..owt.

P.S: I have attached a picture of me pre-op (not that sort of op!! har har) sat on the books that my owner was supposed to do something with but had ‘better’ things to do over his two weeks jollies,  like write to you lot.

Day six: The smell of nerves before the alarm

sniff sniff.

sniff.

sniff.

No, not another dirty job, nor is it the sniffer dogs from last weeks forensics case, wet nosing their way through suspects (of which I am not one) though my sense of fear and loathing may well arrest me for that assault on gluteus maximus as someone has to pay the price and I look shifty, on edge, about to break.  I am merely using a descriptive to show the nerves.  What else could I have used?

My nerves don’t really smell, but there certainly is an issue here.  Two weeks off and as always, with good intentions at my core to be ready, prepared, one step-ahead I am none.  Fail to prepare I am fully prepared to fail and THAT is causing an almighty stink.

Who else out there in this world has… I’m not even going to finish the question, it is just me, the one idiot who has spent the past week writing about a cat licking it’s arse when I knew full well I had real work to do.

When that alarm sounds in the morning I think it is in for a bigger shock than me.  I have a thwack ready.  I will probably not clean shave, my shoes have not been polished, I never visited the barbers, I have not purchased myself a new outfit as planned so I will basically look no better than my dishevelled cat; rushing around trying to catch it’s tail.

So when everyone tomorrow congratulates themselves for looking so well rested, smug at how prepared they are, dancing in the corridors of new year optimism I will blame WordPress.com! I know it is not fair, but I will look each and every equipped member of staff in their bag-free eyes and suck their hope of a good beginning into my needy veins, because of YOU.

I had two weeks for all this stuff (papers about papers, folders with things in, charts about results that I don’t understand but promised myself I would understand by now) and yet I find myslef writing to nobody…what on earth is my problem?  Do I like to take a beating? Am I into that?  Oh my.

Oh no…

…….it will happen, tomorrow some ‘ever-so-nice’ person with an easy life will ask ‘did you make any new years resolutions?’

I hope I can hold myself together.  I am choking at the thought of it, and also on fresh air-mile Almonds (from California) and Soft Apricots (from Turkey)…I love eating local produce!  I am close to ranting…I can feel it.  Can you?

Day five: Write the list, tick the list, re-write your list (neater) tick it again.

It is what it is.

What is it?

Life.

Oh.

Let me gloss.  I have just completed a large project, operation Wash Up.  I feel almost snooty in the completion.  It involved the usual but multiplied by three.  Yes three.  One more than double, that is why it progressed to operation and not just loads of washing up.  But that is life currently, jobs are building up and concluding them seems less inviting than starting a new one.  We all like something new don’t we? Shiny, shiny, new. Take operation Wash Up as prime example, midway I lost focus of the job in my bubbled hands and went to visit my stricken cat – a cement mixer with construction team on strike- her poo remains concrete and imprisoned, her hair remains unstylish and her voice is a meek meow.  Poor cat.  Yesterdays nugget remains on the mantelpiece as a reminder that when push comes to shove rewards do come. I have advised cat to take inspiration from this trophy of achievement but she stares at me and says shit a brick son.  I digress, again, just as the point of my post.  I was talking of taking on new rather than completing what you have started last night with a friend whilst watching a Scandinavian thriller (Headhunters…worth a cross-your-legs-edge-of-seat-watch).  We agreed there is something largely satisfying in finishing a job, rubbing your hands together on completion, ticking the list with flamboyant vigor.  It is also a great feeling telling someone a task is complete knowing they still have to complete it! Strut, posture, swank… mwah ha ha.  It doesn’t happen to me often, usually I’m the one bent out of shape.  Back to operation Wash Up.  As the water started to cool and discolour I decided breakfast as a breaker, to give me the energy to finish the initial task.  This only created more washing up, one step forward two steps back.  I must not make that a mantra this year or I’ll end up back in 2012.  The cat would love that.  Oh the days of regular body hair, regular bowel movement, a happy time when she wasn’t spaced out and flaked out on antibiotics.  My fiancée also, rewind to before she grew a third rear cheek and I am sure she would be thankful.  We still don’t know how it occurred, forensics are still trying to get to the bottom of it! Cheap.  Buy cheap you get bitten – all fingers point to a creature from the black lagoon that was hidden within the sheets of toilet roll… we should have gone for double-downy-fleecy-velvet-double sheets but how were we to know?  Once bitten twice shy – I hope she doesn’t abandon trust in toilet paper.

A dirty job.

I am starting to panic slightly, not due to her bum, that will sort itself out I’m sure…unless an exotic spider has laid… let’s not go there (she reads this).  I am panicking as I am back to work on Monday after two weeks off.  I had plenty of work on my list to tick off: I can’t even find my list.  I shall spend time on writing a new list.  Blogging was not on my list.  Operation Wash Up should not be on a list but it will and furthermore ticked off instantly to give me some form of boost, similar to the poo trophy that cat won yesterday.  I best get ahead or I’ll be behind or worse still bent out of shape come Monday when every other staff member has ‘done’ their work.  Critters.

As for my job.  I am not a Headhunter.  I am still not a vet.