I'm a twit.

Twitter this.

I'm as dull as dishwater but FMS (Fear of Missing Something) forced me to join.

It's hard to make a comeback when you haven't been anywhere.

I'm baaackkk. Maybe. I feel like flexing my blogging muscles again but do I stay here and churn out the same old crap, or move to Wordpress (and churn out the same old crap). Or choose a more interesting theme other than my life.

It's the mid life crisis talking. 40 years and I feel like a teenager (mentally ... physically I can positively hear the arthritis settling in).

You choose. Let the people decide ....

Advise. Criticise. Let me have it, I can take it. Just don't make me cry.

Elephants and Hens

Fate, coincidence or just plain luck ? Last year my Mum, having already lost her husband, had to go through the pain of euthanising her cat of 17 years just weeks after my Dad passed away. I remember thinking that she actually cried more for the cat than my Dad but grief is a mofo and I'd like to believe that the almost endless sobbing that day wasn't just about a family pet.

So, this happened a few weeks back, on the eve of the first anniversary of the fambly cat's departure a young wayfaring stray turned up at my front door. He looks exactly like my Mum's cat apart from the gender reversal. My Mum's cat was a girl. What else could I do but take him in? I have 2 other cats and they're the opposite of thrilled by the new arrival.

I am indeed Aunt Millicent, the crazy spinster who lives in the crooked house with lots of cats.

All of my thoughts

I used to be really good friends with someone I worked with maybe 10 years ago, and as these things go we gradually lost touch with each other. Except this is a person I actually want to hang out with again. She is one of the very chosen few. Here's the thing. I can't remember a thing about her. I know where she lived back then and the ex stalker in me would've have driven by her house but I've moved on from that kind of obsessive behaviour (little bit). Her name is Mel and every time I try to get her surname the answer = Giedroyc. Total brain blockage.

Why is it that I recall every single detail of the people I want to forget yet she's elusive?

[Note : she's straight, or at least she was, this isn't a lust thing. Or maybe it is. We all know I fall for the straights]

Purgatory blues

Father's Day. It was always going to be difficult. I berate myself for not going to the cemetery. My Dad's not buried there, his ashes are in the wind, but his grandparents are there. A strange kind of comfort used to surround me there but today I mostly paced around the house and garden trying to stop ... something. Brother #3 became a proud parent last year and today was his first Father's Day. HIS day. We used to be so close and now we're not. I've thought long and hard about it and I'm ashamed to say I'm jealous. His relationship isn't perfect. His family unit (?!?) live with his fiancée's Mum because (allegedly) they can't afford a place of their own yet. To complicate matters future sister-in-law has divorced parents so my GodDaughter is in a giant tug of war for affection. Plus I feel kind of sorry for my Mum. She only gets to play Grandma for one afternoon a week. And now my guilt rises to the surface. As big sister with a proper education, a whole bunch of ambition and some degree of success in my early to mid 20s I failed both my parents ... and myself.

Fuel for the feeding end

I have no sympathy for the Shell tanker drivers, to be perfectly blunt. Maybe if they were protesting the price of fuel they'd have a small share of support but, as far as I can see, it's pure and simple greed threatening to reduce the to country scenes resembling the fuel crisis of 2000. When any company takes the decision to contract out part of their business there's only really one question to answer "Will it save us money?" Clearly, the answer was "yes" and, no I don't agree that Shell's directors (or any corporate droids) should personally profit from outsourcing. But that's not the point. The idiot tanker drivers want the salary that they should have been paid had Shell NOT outsourced. And let's face it, a basic salary of £31,800 isn't anything to complain about.

Back to normal maudlin stuff tomorrow. It's Father's Day. My Dad is dead. It's complicated.

I think I’m gettin lost for a while

In an idle hour or so I watched the Spiderwick Chronicles today.  Kids movie or not it still featured Mary Louise Parker so I figured it was worth the effort.  I'd give it 2 stars out of 5 right up until the end until father and daughter were reunited in some magical heavenly garden ... and then the tears came.  Somehow I've fooled everyone into thinking I'm OK.  That I don't need their help.  While they're not looking I'm falling deeper into the rabbit hole.  And sometimes I do so want to be floating around in the ether with my Dad because I see nothing in the future, and little motivation to better my situation.