Uncomfortably Numb
2007-10-14, 9:45 p.m.
Sleep, perchance to dream.Actually, I�m not particularly bothered about the dreaming bit. You can have that if you like, I�ll just take the sleeeeeeeep. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz *snort snuffle* NO! I�m awake! Honest!
I�m just knackered, dear readers. Totally and utterly knackered. When I said Id do that bloody play nobody said �Its five rehearsals a week�that�s Ok isn�t it?� or I�m pretty sure I would�ve said �NO IT FUCKING WELL ISNT.� More on that later.
So, the weekend. Got up early to take Treac to tennis yesterday and managed to do the Lidl shop while she was rallying and backhanding and whatever else it is she does at these things. Her tennis instructor is about 12�.No, 17 (he�s got a car) and wears a baseball cap back to front. He�s very good with the children and they all seem to love him. I have no idea if Treacle is any good at tennis. I don�t hang around and watch. I think sometimes you just gotta let your kid run with something. Also, I am certain Shagnasty stands on the sidelines, possibly with a little book, taking notes on how his daughter�s game could be improved. As she is 7, I think she is going to be �quite crap at tennis� for a little while yet and I don�t think there�s any point in being anything other than encouraging. After all, it was pretty much all Shagnasty�s yelling from the sides and pointing out her shortcomings which made Jooj give up diving. They�re kids�isn�t it supposed to be FUN?
Anyway, Treacle now says she wants to take up piano lessons to add to Jooj�s newfound passion for playing the drums. She suggests that �If BF plays the guitar and mummie sings, we will have a real pop group!� I�m sure she�s thinking something cool and rockin�, me, I cant get this sort of thing
out of my head.
Incidentally, when Shagnasty found out Jooj was taking drum lessons he phoned me and said �Why is Jooj taking drum lessons? Who said she could? She�s not bloody well playing the drums in MY house.� I said, �Well, that�ll be why she didn�t tell you, then. Cos she CAN play the drums in MY house.�
Yesterday afternoon, both girls had friends round. Hannabanana and Treac played nicely upstairs (after changing into each others clothes. Seven year olds are WEIRD!) and Jooj and Beckie sat like zombies in front of the computer screen calling up unsuitable videos on Music Jesus. Mostly they seemed to be watching Stacy�s Mom and Lily Allen�s �Alfie� and arguing about subplots and missing lyrics. Sometimes they�d call me in to look, too. Then I�d say, �Don�t watch this shite � go do something more interesting.� until I got shooed out of the room again. Eventually they went upstairs and painted their nails.
In the evening, BF dragged me and Treac and Jooj down to the workies to see a band. They�d been billed as a �Pink Floyd tribute�. That alone was enough to make me not want to go. When we got there, the band were still setting up. An hour later�. the band were still setting up. Holy Shite, they had some gear tho. A stack of amps big enough to make Jim Marshall rub his hands together with glee (Ive met him, he�s a sweet old feller) and quite the biggest drum kit in the whole wide world ever. If they�d been setting up at Wembley, I probably still would�ve said to myself �Hmm, think they may have overdone it on the roto-toms there� but as they were setting up on the 20� workies stage, I just thought to myself �What a bunch of cunts to have brought so much gear. They�d better be fucking good to live up to all that hardware�.
They were crap. They opened with �Another Brick in the Wall�. Well, the first bit of it anyway. When they got to the tricky , yet crucial guitar solo in the middle, they just kind of strummed for a couple of bars and went straight back into �We don�t need no�etc�. I felt cheated. So me and BF played the guitar solo on the air guitar instead. BF can play it properly, of course, so I mostly copied him for the fingering and technical stuff�.but I did do my own posturing and essential facial gurning. I also did the noises
Biddley Weeeeeee wi wi, wadda weeeeeaaw, bee�dli beeeiw-ah etc (a special prize of a round of applause for anyone who TOTALLY knows what bit of the solo that is, obviously). Even BF says its almost indistinguishable from the real thing. At least Im assuming that�s what he meant when he said �Aww man. I wish *famous muso mate* was here to hear that.�
A couple of songs later, they moved on to stuff from other �artistes� and the chugging chords of �Alright Now� made Treac go �MUMMIE!!!! This one�s your FAVOURITE!!!! Lets dance to it!� . You cant turn down a dance with a seven year old. Its just not nice. Even if you�re going to be the only people on the floor. However, when you�re up on the floor, wincing slightly at the quality of the cover version, there is only one thing you can do when the band launches into a two minute DRUM SOLO* in the middle of what is, indeed, your favourite song. This is what you do: Stop dancing. Look at daughter. Raise eyebrow. Daughter stops dancing. Mother and daughter turn towards band with WTF expressions on their faces. Daughter and mother exchange slow blinking with each other. Daughter shakes head. Mother shakes head. Daughter and mother walk off the dancefloor mid song and sit back down. Daughter pats mothers hand and says �They spoiled that, didn�t they mummie.�
Then we left.
When we got home, the girls went to bed and I suggested to BF that, in order to cleanse our souls of the Bad Floyd, we should watch The Wall. He made a pissy face and said he wanted to watch some �funny telly� and would I please go find some while he did some important stuff (ie roll a J). As I was stamping huffily out of the room, he called after me �Find some standup or something�. After two clicks of the remote (Oh WhyohwhyohWHY didn�t I just stay tuned to QVC?) I found �100 Best Stand Ups EVER�. So we watched it. The first half an hour was OK, then it started livening up a bit and was reasonably amusing. I was gonna suggest after the first hour or so that maybe we should go to bed or something but by then we were hooked. We HAD to know who won. At 2am we finally found out. It was Billy Connolly.
As we trudged half asleep up the stairs at a minute past two, BF said through a yawn, �We should�ve watched the bloody film.� I like it when he admits that I was right, even if it is four hours later so he got the blow job anyway. I�m not totally heartless. AND he stayed awake til the end, which is always encouraging.
Had a bit of a lie in this morning. The kids were downstairs and BF was out in the new studio, insulating the ceiling.
I got up when I heard Treacle go �*gasp*���OhNO��..get mummie��.NO! Get BF.�
Some things travel fast. Some things travel slow. Cars, motorbikes, aeroplanes � fast. Snails, Old Ladies, Morello cherries � slow. The morello cherry, in particular, is not known for its extreme turn of speed. However, should you wrap morello cherries in a glass, jar shaped, container and then cause them (by reaching for the chocolate spread) to tumble from the high shelf, they suddenly become lightning quick and can cover enormous distances, almost at the speed of light. In the time it takes for a mother, say, to raise her eyebrow, shards of glass and morello cherries can disperse themselves at a speed of approximately 30ft/second. Which is a lot faster than they usually move.
Luckily I managed to get downstairs before BF arrived on the scene as there were still, at that point, some parts of the kitchen not yet covered in sticky purple goo. And pointy bits of glass. I am sure BF would�ve been able to rectify that situation had I not got there first. Two rolls of kitchen towel later, kitchen back to normal � floor, admittedly, cleaner than its been for weeks so that was a happy by-product. By the time Id got dressed it was time for rehearsal. Put a chicken, several cloves of garlic and some baking potatoes in the oven on self time and went to do my thing.
The dishwasher�s packed up again, thank goodness we�re getting a new kitchen.
Later
S
x
*BF says that drum solo sounded like �a five year old, building a shed�. Heeeee!
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