Boring Family Stuff
2007-09-16, 9:03 p.m.
Y�know, all weekend Ive been trying to find enough time to get here and just bitch and whine about my shitty birthday and now that Im here, I don�t feel like doing it.The only thing I feel like sharing was that, bearing in mind the whole day had been a catalogue of indifference, forgetfulness and �close but no cigar� from my nearest and dearest, I was starting to feel much less than cheery by 6 o clock when I was supposed to start teaching. Out of the landing window, I saw my singing pupil walking up the drive with some big thing in her hands. When I opened the door, she�d brought me this:
The first birthday cake that I have not had to make for myself in OVER TWENTY YEARS.
I did what any self-respecting grown-up, corporate, super-mum, singing teacher and all round totally cool and capable person would do and burst into tears.
Don�t look at it too closely or you may notice my proper name and then I�ll have to kill you.
The next day at work, I was generally having a good old rant about my cock-sucker of a boyfriend and my shoddily�prepared family and my (mostly absent) friends and my new guv came out of her office. She was kind of half-laughing as I was saying �And THEN, the little shit did�.�. Then she said �Oh, Stepfie. We�.ummmm�.need to Mystery Shop this company. Could you phone up and order�..ummm�.say�.something like�.a bouquet of flowers? Get them sent to you at home. Put them on the company credit card and let me know on Monday what they were like.�
Ok. She�s my boss. I did the Mystery Shop job. I got a huge bouquet of white lilies delivered to my house. I have emailed my report and some photos back to the office ready for Monday morning. But Im telling you now, there was no need for that job to be done. None whatsoever. Big bouquet of free flowers from your boss, anyone? Oh, no thanks, I already got one!
Other good stuff which happened on Friday: A redundancy hearing for Captain Skiver! Yay! Its only taken four years for me to get somebody to see sense (By �Sense� I mean �that he is a pathetic, skiving, racist, homophobic, misogynistic waste of skin�). He has a �consultation period� to go through where he (finally!) tries to make himself employable elsewhere in the firm � something he could have done at any point during his fifteen year Reign of Apathy and then he�ll be out on his ear.
I am a nice enough person to feel a little bit sorry for him as he is 62 and unlikely to find another job which will pay him the same as he currently earns (a ridiculous amount � nearly as much as they pay ME ferchristsake!).
With him gone, we can finally reorganise my department. That means The Incredible Sulk will move out of the department and into reception, taking with her all my shitty little admin jobs which are nothing to do with my department but which I do because there isn�t anyone else to do them (ordering business buffets, changing striplights, filling up the cups in the water cooler!). She, in turn doesn�t have to do �customer services� (= Complaints) any more as that�ll move into the call centre. See guys, when you change someone�s job title from �Telephone Operator� to �Customer Services Representative�, its kind of a no-brainer that someone is gonna say �How come we got all these CSR�s and yet SOMEONE ELSE does Customer Services?�. Anyway, the Incredible Sulk appears to have stopped sulking and has been very pleasant. The Call Centre people probably aren�t very chuffed but then, there�s worse call centres to work in than ours � aren�t there, Smashiepoos?!
Me and Slavey get the knock-on effects of this cabinet reshuffle in that she gets to do all the senior admin stuff instead of having to answer the phone for people who are too bloody bone idle to put their voicemail on, and I get a new title (and possibly a bit more money). I think Im gonna be Operations Manager now so if you need an operation, you know where to come. I�ll be able to manage that, no bother.
Speaking of Smash, he has once again proved to be a totally top mate by sending me a brand spanking new mobile phone!!!!! How cool is that!!! It�s a jolly fabulous one with a camera which is better than�ummm�my camera and it does all sorts of splendid things which I cant work. It also has the teeniest little buttons in the whole wide world and is very tricky to use with big giant fingers (like Smash has got) or with fabulous long girly nails (Like Ive got. And BF�s got) but Im getting the hang of it, slowly.
I spend loads of time talking on the phone to Smash. He likes a good gossip. Sometimes I lie on the floor in the hallway and talk to him. Sometimes my boyfriend takes my picture while I do this.
You can see I am surrounded by bits of crap as my house is like a junk yard at the moment. Also, my face is very red and shiny because I am laughing a lot at something Smash is saying � I cant remember what it was but its probably got rude words in it.
Friday night we took Jooj and Treacle down to the workies. BF taught them how to play pontoon and we played for matchsticks. Got home much later than we expected to which meant Treacle wasn�t very keen to get up and go to tennis on Saturday morning. I wasn�t very keen either as I had drunk my own body weight in Monarch of the Glen whisky (or some other �Happy Shopperesque� brand of extreme cheapness) on Friday night. I did the Lidl shop while she pretended to be Annabelle Croft.
Don�t shop for groceries whilst feeling the after effects of a night out. You wont do it properly. I bought lettuce, orange juice, Demerara sugar, wafer-thin pastrami and a bag of pistachios. And not much else. Not sure that will feed a family of four for a week.
Went with Jooj to get our hair cut in the afternoon and finally got around to packing up the prizes for the winners of the Poo Headline Competition from a couple of updates ago. Gentlemen � be prepared to receive Gifts of Awesome Crapness in the next couple of days.
Went back to the workies in the evening. Jooj had so much makeup on that Im surprised she could lift her head up. As a responsible parent I had to step in with the cotton buds and scrape off the worst of it. Actually, all I did was tidy it up a bit as, even tho there was a lot of it, it wasn�t tarty or �age inappropriate� somehow. She�d got one of those duo glitter eyeliner things, with a pot of clear �glue� and loose glitter stuff to go on top. I have to say, it looked really smart. She wasn�t wearing any face makeup, no eyeshadow, no blusher. Just some purpley lip gloss, a couple of coats of mascara and this fabulous silver glitter stuff. Knockout. The little bastard.
Luck was on our side with the entertainment as the regular band hadn�t showed up. The last minute replacement was the guy from Odyssey who BF gigged with a few months back. He�s got a great voice and even doing a one-man show in a shitty club in Chigley, he managed to give the impression of a big stadium gig. I danced with the kids and we were all fabulous. Even when I stood on a slippy bit of floor and fell FLAT ON MY BACK we were still fabulous. Even tho I was having a bit of trouble getting up as I had my skinny jeans on and couldn�t bend my legs. I was also wearing bubblegum pink patent kitten heel pointy toed Mary Janes with stripy socks. That doesn�t have much to do with the story, I just thought you might like to know what a respectable professional middle-aged woman wears on a Saturday night. BF danced a slow dance with me and everything was lovely.
Jooj has had to do a Food Diary for homework this weekend, which has meant that we have had to eat sensibly for a couple of days. We don�t want any social workers knocking the door and saying �Your daughter reports that she makes her OWN breakfast and that you condone the use of chocolate spread AND peanut butter on her toast. Further more, I understand that you are given to making your children beans on toast for tea and then eating all the good food yourselves when they have gone to bed.�
Im absolutely convinced that it is a ruse by the school to find out what sort of family life the kids have. Since Jooj and Treacle have been at state school we have done three food diaries, two Bed-time graphs and a �How Much Telly Do You Watch� survey.
Anyway, Jooj will be going to school tomorrow with a food diary which contains �Proscuitto Tortellini with roasted pepper sauce� AND a proper English Sunday roast with 5000 different vegetables and gravy which wasn�t made from granules out of a tub thank you very much. She also made a cake on Saturday afternoon. All by herself she made Apple and Blackberry Loaf. We had it for dessert today (with a bit of icecream on). Yum.
I haven�t really got anything else to say, so I�ll go now. I think I need to write about sex again soon. Havent done that for a while.
Later