Journal Entries
NaJoPoMo 2011 - 23rd (Agapanthus and the indadequate birthday)
Posted Nov 23, 2011
Happy birthday, dear Scrumph. Sorry this one's all a bit pants, what with the hospital in the morning. Next year, we shall Rise Like Phoenix and Be Awesome. Pinky-swear.
Discuss this Journal entry [8]
Latest reply: Nov 23, 2011
NaJoPoMo 2011 - 22nd (Agapanthus flops)
Posted Nov 22, 2011
I've had a very hard day and my Grand Choral Husband is having a celebratory feverish cold, and that is all there is too it.
Discuss this Journal entry [5]
Latest reply: Nov 22, 2011
NaJoPoMo 2011 - 21st (Agapanthus kvells)
Posted Nov 22, 2011
I haven't gone to bed yet, so it's STILL the 21st. Yes it is. Bother the clock anyway, it only applies to GMT, which only applies to one tiny strip of the planet about 1000 miles wide at the equator.
And I have been having QUITE the evening.
Sometime last year my husband, who you may know, some of you, joined a choir, which led to a spate of Extreme Choir Joining (at one point he was singing in four different singalongathings, at work, near work, the other one near work, and near home). All this culminated with his now, I think, main choir (is this one your main choir, sweetie?) ending up at the Albert Hall (which is reallio trulio why Scrumph joined them. They were doing the Albert Hall! Squeeeeeeee! (Not that Scrumph would ever squeee. No. That's my job)).
Anyway, there were months on end of rehearsals. There was the ferreting out of a DJ, a white shirt, and a bow-tie. There was calm, cheerful, phlegmatic behaviour on Scrumph's part and just a wee bit of on mine. And tonight, well, tonight we all went to the Albert Hall and had our ears blown off by Mahler's Eighth and a choir of 700 voices.
Including Scrumph's.
He's a tenor you know (so proud), which makes him a highly desirable commodity in Amateur Choirs. Tenors are thinner on the ground than skylarks. (It helps that he can actually sing, too).
I don't know how to write about Mahler's Eighth. It's huge. It has everything, quiet, floaty, delicate sections, huge great thundering sections, sorrowing, rejoicing, yearning, meditatitive. It's an hour long, which is quite massive for a symphony, but it most certainly doesn't FEEL an hour long. I was both elated and exhausted when it finished (in triumphant thunder) - Scrumph, meanwhile, once we'd extracted him from the bowels of the Albert Hall, talked non-stop for ten minutes, and then demanded a pint and a burger-and-chips the size of St Pauls. Bless the man.
And now, I shall spend the mandatory boring Christmas parties saying things like 'when my husband was performing at the Albert Hall last month...'. Joy.
Discuss this Journal entry [10]
Latest reply: Nov 22, 2011
NaJoPoMo 2011 - 20th (Agapanthus achieves)
Posted Nov 20, 2011
When you both work full-time, both have hour-long commutes, and frankly, have some online internetting to get on with of an evening, housework tends to happen in Weekend Binges.
It needn't happen in weekend binges. It would perfectly possible for one of us to wash up every evening while the other cleans the bath and folds laundry. Perfectly possible. Yes.
Anyway, given we don't live in Perfectly Possible and we both hate house-work, today we dedicated to Cleaning All The Things.
Did you know the rubber seal of your washing machine can harbour black mould? No, I wasn't pleased either (and today it chose to escape and smear itself over the freshly washed sheets). I scrubbed the 
rd thing with escalatingly caustic cleansing products until I managed to cut myself getting my finger jammed between the inner seal and the steel drum, and then Scrumph took over while I found a plaster and then sorted out the Leaning Tower of Correspondance on the kitchen table.
And then he vacuumed while I scrubbed the grouting between the shower tiles with a toothbrush. Scrumph finished vacuuming long before I'd finished scritching away, so came into the bathroom to see what on earth I was up to. 'Oh, sweetie, it'll take you until midnight if you do THAT,' he said, patiently, because toothbrushing tiles until midnight was NOT an option as we were taking the in-Laws out to dinner and we both wanted to shower first and all...
'I can't NOT do this,' I explained, waving the toothbrush, 'The grouting's got MOULD on and I can't leave it. If I do something I have to do it PROPERLY. That's why I hate housework so very, very much. Anyway, you knew I was OCD about this kind of thing before you married me.'
'I did hope you'd grow out of it.'
'I have mostly. It just boils up when I'm stressed. And I am stressed. I WONDER WHY.'*
So Scrumph found another old toothbrush (we keep them for this very reason, also, I am a packrat) and clambered into the bath with me.
And that, dear reader, is why I married him.
The bathroom is now spotless**. Ithangyew.
* - I am stressed because I am having surgery on Thursday, you know. Not about the In-Laws coming to dinner, or Christmas, or anything like that. Last time I got into obsessive grouting cleansing, I was writing a dissertation. IT'S A SIGN. That I totally fail to recognise until I'm half-way along the bath and covered in lime-scale remover spray.
** - As is the kitchen sink, the stove-top, and the living-room carpet. So.
Discuss this Journal entry [9]
Latest reply: Nov 20, 2011
NaJoPoMo 2011 - 19th (Agapanthus Beatles off)
Posted Nov 19, 2011
We're watching Scorsese's documentary 'George Harrison: living in the material world'. It was on the telly last week and we taped it, and we're now deep into the second half (it's LONG). And the main conclusion I have come to so far, is I really do not like Paul McCartney. Not one bit. I didn't care for him in the first place, but now? No.
George was always my favourite Beatle (everyone I know has a favourite Beatle, even if it's Pete Best, just to be awkward). My preference (and disdain) had originally been based on McCartney and Harrison's POST Beatle careers. In that everything McCartney did afterwards was embarrassing, and Harrison's contributions to the Traveling Wilburys were Pure Gold. So.
Also, I have no idea why so many people thought, THINK, that McCartney was the best-looking. No, he wasn't. Prettiest as a very young man, maybe. But then, de gustibus non disputandum est. And anyway, looks, as we all know and Hollywood should have jolly well found out by now, are completely irrelevant to a person's talent and moral worth.
Meanwhile, it makes me sad, also cross, that Harrison was writing all these great songs while he was still Beatling and couldn't get them on the singles and albums because, the film seems to be hinting politely, McCartney would not release his iron grip. And yet Harrison wrote the songs anyway, and gave them to other people, just so they'd be OUT THERE. While McCartney, without Lennon to lean on, and being in the immensely privileged position of being The Beatle and having his own band, put out all the songs he wanted and you name me one single Wings song you care for. And I swear I shall google it or youtube it or whatever and if it IS a patch on Handle with Care, Heading for the Light, End of the Line, My Sweet Lord, Something, Here Comes the Sun... Well, I shall be very embarrassed, is what. And I shall write another NaJoPoMo about it.
Discuss this Journal entry [10]
Latest reply: Nov 19, 2011
Agapanthus
Researcher U235807
Write an Entry
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a wholly remarkable book. It has been compiled and recompiled many times and under many different editorships. It contains contributions from countless numbers of travellers and researchers."