Cinderella

I am still working on the blasted presentation. Worse still, I realised today at about 4p.m. that I had made a complete mess of it. I’d accidentally mis-sorted some of the columns in the spreadsheet, and so had rendered the analysis worse than useless.*  I have had to ditch the lot and start again. It must be 30+ hours of work down the toilet. Speaking of which, the Boy Wonder really has the most remarkable intestinal function. You cannot believe the odours that boy emanates.  I am very proud of him.

Batman has gone out for the night. This is unusual. He goes out about twice a year, with the same two friends. Last Christmas, they claimed they were never drinking again. On questioning, it transpired that he only had had four pints, which seemed not unreasonable, even to a hardline teetotaller like myself. The Boy Wonder and I dropped him off to meet his friends at a horrid bar, filled with posh twits. I suspect that Batman is a bit underdressed, as he was wearing a tuque, sporting the legend “Vancouver 2010″ and the Winter Olympics logo, and also a faded and no longer waterproof anorak. I have been told not to wait up. I wish. I am going to be up all night at this damned work.

* Worse than useless because if I hadn’t noticed (and I only realised by good fortune when I was doing some triple-checking), I might have been called out in front of a lot of scary people.

 

 

Brain Melt

Even though I’m off on me holidays, as it were, there are jobs from the real job that have been hanging over my head. One of them is a review of the management of a particular patient group, in the light of new national guidelines for their treatment. I have (with assistance) constructed a Big Spreadsheet. I am trying to remember how to turn that into graphs, and it is melting my brain. The Boy Wonder has been moderately compliant with Mammy working at the computer, and has now given up altogether and gone for a sleep. Amazing child. Greatest thing ever to dribble upon this Earth. He popped out two teeth last week, quite to my surprise.

We spent the weekend in the Wild West with Batman’s family. It is very nice, even if all I do is sit around in good clothes and eat big feeds. I am not a fan of good clothes all the time, they are very uncomfortable. I am currently sporting:

  • A vest (it is very cold).
  • A very aged brown stripy Primark t-shirt, now bagged out to four sizes too big.
  • An even more aged Dunnes cardigan, pink, all furballs.
  • Positively geriatric Monsoon cords, now sans most of the corduroy. Mended on left thigh where I tore them climbing a barbed-wire fence to steal sticks (for Mammy), when I was expecting the Boy Wonder.
  • Socks and shoes. Socks on longterm loan from Mammy (because the elastic on mine was too tight). Shoes c. 1995.

I am not much of a fashion guru.

I am going back to the mad spreadsheet.

 

Wet Wednesday

The Boy Wonder and I have had a quiet day at home. In a flurry of domestic efficiency, I have even washed the breakfast dishes before Batman comes home from his cover job. In fact, I have also made a casserole and am now going to get the spuds on. See, my life is exciting! Poor little Boy Wonder has had a snottery cold for ten days now, and although I wanted to go into town and/or get some coffee made for me and/or consume buns, I thought it was a bit cruel to take the short one out on what is an immensely filthy day. Also, I couldn’t be arsed combing my hair and putting on tidy clothes.

Batman, The BW and I were round visiting my sister, the brother-in-law and the delicious nephew last night, for we are making plans to get a nice nanny-like figure to look after the chaps when we go back to work. I dropped Batman’s phone down the side of the car seat and was footering about after it:
Batman: Where is it?
FB: Down here, I just can’t get a hold of it.
B: Well, ring it.
FB: What do you expect it to do? Come when you call it?

Anyway.

Embrace your inner geek

I was at a meeting today in the lab where I will be working. I go to these occasional meetings to try to frighten myself into doing some reading, as the new lab has some common ground with my previous research, but not a lot. Today was terrifying, as I truly did not understand either of the two presentations. The pictures were good, though. Oh, look at the pretty green blobs! And the red blobs!

The best bit of the day, the moment when I suddenly felt like someday I’d fit in, was when there was a discussion about needing a new liquid nitrogen storage container for some various wotsits. The chat was about the price of such items:

“Well, the one we got for that other project wasn’t too bad. I think it was about £900.”

“How big was it?”

“It was about (indicates with hand), you know, this high, R2-D2 high.”

I love it already.

Good things, bad things

I thought it might be fun to come over all Transatlantic and see what I could be thankful for, given that a couple of weekends ago was Thanksgiving in Canada, where I spent such happy times. (In honour of my favourite holiday, I made a vast dinner for us and Jeff’s family. Thanksgiving is my favourite holiday because it involves an enormous dinner, a gentle snooze on the sofa, and that’s it. No cards/presents/nonsense. Truly excellent.) Of course, my Norn Ironish sensibilities forbid me from being thankful unless I can also think of something bad as well.

I am definitely going dotty. Batman and I went up to the airport today to meet his two sisters, who were arriving separately from England and then travelling together to the Fatherland i.e. Derryhi. In my defence, now, it was very wet and misty. I saw a plane and remarked was it not coming in at a very odd angle. Said Batman, “Ah, well, that would be because it is taking off,” thus explaining why it was pointing upwards. To his credit, he did not add, “you numpty/womble/twit”, which is what I would have said if I’d been him and he’d been me, and he (as me) had said what I’d said; or if I’d been me and he’d been him and he’d said what I’d said.

In case the point of this is unclear, the good things were seeing my nice sisters-in-law, and not being ragged by Batman for being a twit.

I have been purchasing things on the Hinternet. It is quite bad. The problem is that I cannot remember the course and relations of the aorta, but I can recall my credit card number, expiry date and security code with absolutely no difficulty whatsoever. I have been exercising my very small self control muscle, with only some success. This month I have bought:

  • a secret thing that Batman doesn’t know about, but it might be a handbag. Actually, it might not be a handbag, it is more like a new briefcase for work, but just a bit less square than the one I have been using for the last eight or nine years. See how I am trying to justify it? Also see how sad I am that I think a new work bag is a cause for celebration? But it is a secret, so don’t tell Batman or he will think I have lost my marbles.
  • a 2012 diary. It is violet, with a cunning elastic to hold it closed, and lots of room for notes. I am trying not to think it is wasteful because the College (of Surgeons, another of the outfits of which membership is compulsory, fees are high and benefits are…) send a diary every year, but have made theirs small enough to be inconvenient. See how I am trying to justify…
  • another secret thing that Batman is getting in his Christmas stocking. It is small but quite cool, not unlike the Boy Wonder.
  • a high chair (although that is out of family funds and not my account, so it doesn’t really count).
  • a lot of beads. More later about the beads.
  • two lovely wooden toys. Because this house needs more junk. But they were heavily reduced in the sale. See how I am jus…

Oh dear, that is quite a lot for someone who is on holiday. I think I maybe should do something like Ganching’s John Lewis list, but in an effort to shame myself into not buying so much stuff. Oh dear, oh dear.

What I done did on me holidays

Yes, it has been a while. Would you rather the full unadulterated or the Reader’s Digest version? Hmm, thought you might prefer the latter. Well, then, here’s what I have been at:

  1. Actually, what I have not been at was properly backing-up my blog and I have therefore lost all of it. I am at fault, and I deserved it. It is a nice outlet for my background guilt complex. It is time for a reinvention, in the manner of Stars In Their Eyes. I will be coming over all Madonna or Lulu or Kourtney in a minute. Or whatever.
  2. Becoming an Auntie. Excellent! Also a Godmother. Am awaiting the wings. They are very slow to grow. I should have known that from my previous Godmotherly outings. Jeff (previously known as The Sister; I have a feeling she’ll be featuring more often and Jeff is faster to type. Pls. see Dramatis Personae) and I have been enjoying a lot of time together.
  3. Been ill for exactly 241 days. Really not properly ill, just permanently bilious and sick and yuk to the point of wanting to fall into a hole and never come out. But then this happened:
  4. I had a baby!

    Cadger

  5. Given up any pretence that I was ever interested in clothes. I now don’t wear anything unless it is sporting a boke stain, a dried patch of pee, or both.
  6. Got a new job. I am still an indentured surgical trainee, but only half the time. The other half, I am going to be back in the University, footering away in the lab. Oh joy! I’ve not started yet; I’m not going back to work until next year, I hope.
  7. Eaten a lot of buns, pie, cake and other items of a fattening nature.
  8. Stopped eating items of a fattening nature. This is a work in progress.
  9. Considered what to do with this here blog. I’ve missed it, and all the Dear Readers.
  10. I can really only think of nine general things.