Thread 17 - TalkLair: "Okay, first of all, what's with the outfit? Live in the now, okay? You look like DeBarge."

[RasaSayangEh]

(Previous thread 16).

Spring is springing, daffodils blooming all over our LairGarden, which have not all been picked by a neighbour's kid...

In the TalkLair, the hearth is glowing, books by non-approved authors line the shelves, cosy rugs are down on the floors looking a bit stained by cat hairball regurgitation. The denizens of the lair are a welcoming bunch though, always eager for general chit-chat on all manner of topics. We just won’t mention the gnawed bones of our prey over there in the corner of the cave…

Thank you!

Interesting name. What does it mean?

Thanks, Kuc!

Hello, I hope you like this big bunch of daffs I picked ❤

Hello new thread. Kasper is getting his bearings

The daffodils thing reminds me of the time I picked all the primroses in my parents' garden and handed the bouquet to my mum. My dad thought it was hilarious, her not so much.

Daffodils smell like pee to me.

Daffodils smell like pee to me.

Christmas box - Sarcococca confusa - smells of pee to me. I walked into an elderly person's house once and thought they must have wet themselves but then noticed a few stems in a little vase and that was where the smell was coming from.

I also want to know the meaning of Kuc’s new name. Happy spring everyone!

Hello new thread! I can't get to to my preferred place with usernames on MN; I think I know why. Something else that can smell like pee, whisper it quietly,,,

Basil.

None of those smell of pee to me! OTOH there are several shrubs that I think smell of, um, 😳 male stuff Don’t know what shrubs they are.

My username is the opening line of one of the most well-known Malay folk songs. It means “the feeling of love” ❤️

Aww that’s lovely!

Excellent name.

And I've had to remind myself who DeBarge were. I seem to remember it was a reference outwith my cultural hinterland even the first time round.

“the feeling of love”

How lovely!

Lovely new name Kuc!

I love daffs and would be very cross if the neighbour kids picked them from my front garden. Luckily the neighbour kids are too nice for that so it’s only the squirrels who incur my wrath: they’ve definitely been rearranging bulbs.

I have a vague memory of that song - enough to be able to sing that line and the next one "rasa sayang sayang eh". It surely (the memory, I mean) can't date back to 1959-62, when I was a child in Singapore, can it? If so, it's taking up space that could perhaps be better used ... remind me, who am I? Out of curiosity, to see if this was a stuff-you-recall-from-childhood thing, I just tested myself on three Catalan songs (all political) and discovered I still know all the words. We left Catalunya in 2008. So it must be a song thing.

(Yes, I know we're on a new thread now

Oh, hang on ... disregard that last unclosed bracket! I see I am already on the new thread!

It's a lovely name @RasaSayangEh and you shall often be Rasa I think which I like the feel of.

Francis is still with me until next weekend. There is a hole that needs to be fixed in his new home which he is thin (ha!) enough to get into and fat enough to Winnie the Pooh in, so ... However, my darling boy played a blinder today. He was charmingly loving with his Auntie Imp who he's always had a soft spot for and weary of his new uncle and cousin (obviously, as time goes by there will be closer relationships, maybe a ma and a pa and a sister or a ma and grandparents. Anyway!) not long before they were to head off and we were all doing the goodbye dance he got onto the waist-height bookcase by the front door and Started rubbing against Mr Imp and being most loving, then the same with Sister Imp and looking at me as if to say "See, it'll be fine. I like them well enough, they'll fall for me, you don't need to worry." and my heart swelled and I cried a few happy tears because I know my boy will be just fine and he'll be in the best place he could possibly be with a lovely small garden and a shed whose roof he will love to sit upon. This time next week he will be a London boy and on a bit of a diet as I've been letting him away with so much in terms of eating too much because I have allowed the naughty little Fat Boy Fat manipulate me.

We also had a lovely walk along the seafront with Pater and daughter moving at normal person speed while Imp with her MS and me with my not being able to do anything remotely approaching normal speed brought up the rear and just chatted and whispered and laughed and appreciated just being together and talking as we love to do. I bothered two dogs one who was clearly a whore of the highest order and did not want me to leave his side. To be fair to him we were a lovely medly of matching colours, his fur and my outfit. There was icecream and then there was home and all of the above happening at the farewell end of the visit.

I was going to change my name but it's quite dark and I'm using it for the keeping up to date of those who need to be kept up to date WhatsApp group. Nearly Departed.

I seem to have something in my eye @FagsMagsandBags

I'm sorry and heartened all at once, Fags. It's nice to hear that you were able to get out on the prom and find a loving home for Francis.

All I can say is keep your chin up.

Me too sweet intuitive Francis.

I’m very sleep-deprived today, which is not handy as I should be preparing the plans and calculations for quite a complex experiment later this week.

It was a weird night and all very groggily remembered.

Started around half-past midnight, when Mochi suddenly jumped off the bed and ran downstairs. I became aware of music playing and grumpily cursed the antisocial people outside in the street. Shortly after, Mochi came back to bed and settled down. Music continued and at some point I realised it sounded like people talking animatedly, the inconsiderate bastards. Then it gradually dawned on me that the sounds seemed to be coming from inside the house. Staggered downstairs and yes, the TV was on! A panel of people punditing excitedly about a sport. The remote was on the coffee table, face down. I switched the TV off and crawled back to bed. Where I lay, awake with the dreaded middle-of-the-night headful of thoughts, for at least a couple of hours, listening to the chimes of the church clock.

Eventually I started to drift off - whereupon I experienced a set of bizarre mini-dreams which I am almost entirely unable to remember. But the main feature was that the dreams were almost real, i.e. they were all based around me and DH and the cat, in our exact positions in bed, but having very odd conversations or strange things happening. Each mini-dream would then be cut short by my conscious brain shouting “This is so crazy that it’s clearly a dream, WAKE UP!” and then I’d jerk awake and find myself in the same place as the dream… or was I still in the dream? At one point I wailed to dream-DH “It’s like Inception!”

When the alarm went off in the morning, I was genuinely confused whether it was real or whether all night had been one long weird dream.

I told DH about the TV being on and he suggested Mochi might have accidentally jumped on the remote in just the right way. Then I thought of checking our Ring camera that covers the stairs and hall…

There was Mochi going downstairs at 12:30-ish, with the music already playing. Clearly she had been attracted out of bed by the downstairs sounds and thought there was someone to feed her. Then a couple of minutes later, Mochi going back to bed, music still playing - she looks back towards the living room in a puzzled way. About 20 minutes after that, me wobbling down the stairs, with chatty conversation coming from the TV.

Woooooooooo…

That's a long-running woo thread right there, Rasa. I would be properly spooked by that, even if there was a very obvious explanation. (Dodgy battery connection in the remote? I had one that responded oddly/in a delayed way once and I think it was that the battery wasn't fully in and floor vibrations set it off.)

I'm extremely not woo, but I must admit it was a very strange night!

Might go in search of the woo thread and post my story.

@RasaSayangEh That reminds me of the many times I've got irate about people chattering in the corridor only to discover the chattering was actually Nick Robinson because I'd forgotten to turn off my alarm clock radio after waking up before the alarm. To be fair my neighbours do chatter in the corridor a lot.

My TV went through a phase of randomly turning itself on. Apparently it can happen when the batteries are going, but I couldn't find any AAA batteries so put up with it because I'm lazy and eventually it stopped.

We had similar with a computer many years ago, which kept turning itself off and on again. Almost every part was replaced until eventually the issue turned out to be a tiny bit of misplaced wire in the on/off button.