A Few Grumbles

(Two days later)… c’mon, surely my Bryce picture wasn’t that bad! We struggling artists need encouragement. I sent some photos I was quite proud of to a friend, and after a week’s silence (and a cautious prod) he said “oh… they’re fine.”

On the subject of grumbles and moans, here are a few more:

(1) When you tear tissues in half, you have to tear with the grain so that they don’t break off in bits. That’s fine, but different tissue manufacturers fold their tissues different ways, so that a tissue from Manufacturer A tears across the fold, and a tissue from Manufacturer B tears along the fold, and you’re never sure what it’s going to be. Somehow I always tear the wrong way…

(I always promised myself I wouldn’t complain about that as it’s so trivial, and I wouldn’t actually demand that all tissue manufacturers standardize, but… rrr! It can be aggravating).

(2) Handwash pump-action spouts that don’t work. (The one we bought in Aldi’s said “turn anti-clockwise to release pump”. I did as suggested, and the whole thing turned round and round and nothing happened. I took it out of the bottle and washed it so I could secure each end, but no luck. I will just pour the soap into the previous Radox bottle. I don’t think they should even bother manufacturing spouts for those other bottles… they should put that they’re refills only!)

(3) My Mac is so sluggish and slow. Sometimes I highlight a word and it gets stuck halfway through, or nothing happens at all for about 5 seconds. It takes Firefox an age to launch. WordPress is extremely sluggish too, in the editor… it would drive me mad to have to compose posts there, so I’m glad I’ve got ScribeFire.

(4) Mum and I went for a small meal in a coffee shop, and the flies came along and kept trying to sit on our food while we were eating it. We swished at them, and they just buzzed right back, so that we were flapping like windmills even while we ate. Flies these days don’t have the manners they used to…

I thought I had more, but that’s all I can remember for now! Next blog post coming up soon (and not about grumbles).

Stray Thoughts

What do we focus on?:
People notice what you’re wearing on your feet, but not me. I don’t go around checking out people’s footwear and laughing at open-toed sandals unless I’m suddenly curious about something, such as whether all the schoolgirls wear Doc Martins, and what is people’s favourite shoe colour. You could wear trainers instead of Manolo Blahniks, and all I would think, as we swung down the street, would be “at last – a reduction in noise pollution!”

Things that aren’t funny:
Lots of people laughing at trivial stuff is strange – somebody falls over and they giggle. Another person says something lame and they roar. I’ve never understood it. Of course, it could be sheer politeness – a desire to seem lively, happy and ‘part of the group’. That could be why there are so many bad jokes around – people think “well I don’t think it’s funny but never mind – I know people who laugh at this kind of thing all the time.”

Working with others:
Some time ago I was watching the Top Ten Love Songs on TV. Someone said “The real geniuses have always been the ones who are most difficult to work with.” It could well be that geniuses are difficult to work with but I think a huge number of non-geniuses are too, so that’s not really saying anything.

Dark times get darker:
The thing about stress is that it makes people withdrawn and irritable – people will react negatively to all that if they have no idea of where you’re coming from. When I was having a bad time some years ago, I kept catching the tail-end of dark looks from people I didn’t even know. There’s nothing more annoying than people who think they know all about you when they’ve never so much as said ‘good morning’.

Goodnight!
I can’t believe there are still fireworks being let off when the 5th is well over, in this weather! I hope they’re jolly well getting chilled to the bone. Goodnight to all bloggers.