Crepes and Mulled Whine in your pants

[Auriga]

Somebody had to do it

BD, I do think stuff with work in the past can v much affect how we feel about current jobs and that isn't necessarily constructive (see Monday's badly-handled row with client ). Can you disentangle that and see how it's another situation and indeed stage of your life?

Mr Inferior has gone off to work in major huff because he can't find his phone and it's on silent so he can't ring it either. This took the form of Blaming Me For Untidiness, which is a bit rich as I'm actually quite tidy. Apparently I "made him get rid of the magazine rack". I have no memory of this. Makes me want to go and find his phone and hide it somewhere REALLY secret.

And the cat brought in TWO rodents this morning.

I am trying to work out how getting rid of the magazine rack is connected to his missing (silent) phone!!

BTW he needs an iphone and an ipad with 'find my phone' on it ;)

Yes MI so true...... My behaviour says 'no'. but then why can't I just say 'no'?

I'd hide it where the sun don't shine.

DP back from three-day work trip, and I've noticed again how relentlessly negative he is with DS. It's all sulking, shouting, tutting, etc. Then he gets upset when DS says he wants me, not Daddy. Cue more sulking. I've tried hinting at this problem, but to no avail. A 'conversation' may be on the cards.

Stropps, get that email sent! And can you do it? Yes you can!

BD,there is no reason why this should be the same, but even if it was, you got over that and moved on. Think positive, whatever your decision

I have purchased my first Christmas item!!!!

(A packet of colourful bath ducks for stockings... but hell, it's a start)

Oh Herbs, yes, nip that in the bud. I do (occasionally - like last night) have to slap dp round the head for his behaviour - he is a wind up merchant, which is fine, to a degree, but not when ds is having a sensitive moment.....

I'm not perfect. I do shout at him, or get frustrated when he won't get dressed for school, etc, but it's a short-lived telling off, then we're friends again. DP lets it fester for ages. He's like that with me too, but at least I've finally (after about seven years) worked out that he's not actually permanently cross with me, but just moody. DS doesn't have that cognitive luxury.

Ha yes, moody men and the "What have you done with my...?"

I am going to ask to leave this job and be moved to something else. I drafted a paper three weeks ago, it has been chewed over and rewritten by everyone, and I have just worked out that we are on version 15. What is this exciting paper on, I hear you cry? It is to establish the date of a meeting between two eminent people. That is all. We are not on the substance of the meeting yet.

And I have the dental appointment from hell hanging over me.

Courage, MrsS, courage!

And WTAF about drafting papers to invite people to meetings??? Is this what people do all day in the "real" world (that teachers are obviously not in)?!

Thank God DH is not a sulker. Infact none of us are - we shout disagree and move on. But he is a wind-up merchant.

Yes Mrs S - what's wrong with sending an invitation in Outlook, like modern people do? Would the Very Important People implode if the invitation wasn't presented on embossed vellum on a silver salver?

Have signed DS up for the drama classes, at vast expense. He claims he wants to go back, and it would be good for his confidence.

Awaiting news of cat. Poor old boy, stuck in his cage.

Herbs, I had to tell DH (and model) that he didn't need to be whiny, negative or critical with DD. He (we both) got very good at phrasing things positively when saying 'no' wasn't an option. Saying 'please do this' instead of 'stop doing that' was a good start. It came as a revelation to DH (don't let me get started on the subject of MIL).

I am howling at the idea of sending an invitation in Outlook. No, no, no. The embossed paper and silver salver still rule here.

I still have my tooth! Dentist said that the infection will never go completely but a) it has been largely, but not entirely, killed by the metronidazole and shouldn't give me any immediate problems and b) if it does come back with a vengeance, he will reconsider taking it out. I asked him what he would do in my circumstances, and he said, hang onto the tooth. It is stable and I am not in pain, and the infection has diminished. He assured me that the infection is entirely contained to that tooth, and unlikely to spread any further.

Herbs, I think your DS will love drama. And maybe musical theatre?

MrsS - serious? (re the embossed vellum...) And glad to hear you are not a toothless hag. Yet!

Have been to search for elusive French Christmas present for friend in London at Galeries Lafayette.

Have headache! Really can't take the pace anymore.

Ooh yes - musical theatre is my ultimate aim for him. The lead in Oliver, for example, on Broadway. Though the Artful Doger would do. This drama group does do singing, so the West End beckons.

Right. Cat home from the hospital. His face is still all oddly swollen, so he looks like a Klingon, and though he now responds to a bright light is still nearly blind. He is confined to the kitchen, and has so far jumped on to the counter top, from there to the table, and back again. Pretty miraculous for one with no sight.

He's improved slightly since yesterday, so the hope is this is the start of an upward trajectory.

Re DP and grumpiness towards DS, I've bought a number of books and read out pertinent passages in a significant manner. Some of it goes in, but when he's rushed for work, for example, it all goes out the window.

Yay to the upturn in the cat and MrsS

DP has sent me an email apologising for being --an arse- stressed this morning. Continuing the dental theme, he is taking DD1 to have her braces removed later

I have realised I need to do the tree and pack, and sort the house all this weekend, as next weekend we go to the in-laws prior to flying off to Mexico -

I do apprecitate this is a first world problem, but AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Herbs, my cat has two working eyes and four paws and cannot jump onto the bed without falling off. (I have helpfully put a box at the bottom of the bed to help him get there without losing his dignity or ripping the sheets.) He is not old, either.

Yes, BTM, deadly serious re the paper! (Although we may send an e-copy in advance.)

He's just walked up the stairs, jumped on to the desk, avoiding all detritus thereon, walked behind the computer, then got on my lap. Either he's not blind at all, or he's been blind for ages and has mapped out the entirety of the house, including placement of teacups on desk.

He's having you on, Herbs. Mine has just jumped onto the sofa (he can manage that) and has knocked the remote control and a pile of magazines onto the floor...

How do you test if a cat is blind?

MrsS. that's worse than the job I stomped out of a while back where we had to devise a timetable to accommodate when exactly every effing blinding person in the senior hierarchy could read a few fecking thousand words, because obviously the idea of reading was massively difficult yet at the same time they couldn't just relinquish their stake on a mag that two perfectly competent journalists were producing for them...

Oh and I got told off because there was a mistake in the paper and I should have proof read it properly (there was a full stop instead of a comma - the result of some cut and pasting). I said, rather sarkily, that I had seen so many versions of the paper that I felt I was going word-blind looking at it, which was why the mistake had been made. So I had to withdraw the paper and re-issue it, apologising profusely for the earlier typo. Is this good use of my time?

MrsS - no....

Oh, there is nothing like being patronised to make the week go with a swing, I find.

I also realise there's a full stop instead of a comma in my post above. Oh dear. Yeah. Right.