Another One Down

Apparently, cats have nine lives. Wikipedia even has an entry about it... Well, a paragraph on an entry. But none the less, you'd be hard pushed to find someone that had never heard the saying.

People, in most cases, have one life. Sometimes something happens, and people think that person was very very lucky - surviving accidents or similar situations that, invariably, would have killed most other people.

I have a sneaking suspicion I am part cat. Or several cats. Because today, I used up another life. It's a good job I'm a gamer, because I either use the save-game slot all the time, or I have accumulated enough points to gain an extra life over and over again...

Tam was just in the bath, and I turned on the shower to do her hair, and the RCD Unit kicked the power off in the house. "Hmmm -" thinks your wily blog author, "- must be some water or something on the connectors" So I trundle out of the bathroom and get my screwdrivers.

Tam is bathed, hair washed and drying on the sofa. The bath still has water in it, and the power is still off. So, standing in the bath (of water), I open up the shower (with my trusty screwdrivers) and spy straight away that some water had gotten onto the connectors from a little pipe that was working loose. So I reattach the pipe, take the connectors off, dry them and reconnect them. I then poodle downstairs and put the power back on. All good, no more tripping out.

So I head up, and turn the shower back on. It runs, no cutting out, but what's this I spy - the little pipe is working loose again! So, I get into the bath, leaving the shower still running, pull the pipe off, trim it down a little, reattach it and voilá! The leak is no more. I press the off button of the shower...

And it occurs to me, I'm in an enamel bath of water, prodding a live, running shower, with a metal screwdriver that has already cut off the entire house of electric through a wet electrical connection.

I get out the bath, dry off, shut the door and think no more of it. Well, aside to share with the world what a complete nubcake I am. I really really need to come with my own warning label or something...



Edit: I got in trouble :(
It won't happen again, I promise

Oopsie Daisy

You may have noticed that there are two Musical Monday posts today. Two! And more's the point, they are both numbered the same to boot. Oopsie Daisy indeed.

Luckily I can explain. Firstly, I'm a plank, but we knew this. Secondly, the Who song I posted on Thursday morning while I was doing house work. I set it to post on Monday. However, I had forgotten I'd done it. The Ting Tings song I posted last night at about half nine while I was half asleep chucking photos over to Mand to put on the Interwebs.

Aside from that, I woke up this morning with a three year old toddler snuggled up against me stealing my bed space. I feel worse this morning than I did yesterday. Thankfully, it's germ-related and nothing to do with booze. Where I've been so busy over the weekend I've not let the germs take a hold, but getting in last night and just flopping down, the germ invasion took over.

I'm still all croaky and bunged up, but now I've upgraded to "coughing green stuff" which is always nice. It's Manly though, so it's all good.

Not got a clue what's happening today - school run, back to Ruths for coffee, pop a few doors down and get Sally back from Cel. The house is clean and tidy being that I worked so hard on it, so that's good. I can get in later with Tam, put on Playhouse Disney and then just veg out.

Blergh I feel rough!

Bad Daddy!

It's a common misconception about me, that I am in fact a good father. People often say to me "Awww you're so good to your kids" and I smile and nod, and make threatening "Shut The Hell Up!" looks at the kids. The fact of the matter is, I am a bad bad person, and likely, will burn downstairs for the things I've done.

Those of you that have been on the end of my sarcasm or "humour" will be pleased to know, I am an Equal Opportunities Bastard. Just because I take the piss out of you, does not mean my kids are immune. In fact, you have to bear in mind, they are here 24/7. They probably get it more than those of you that get ridiculed every few days.

When Jaysen was born, I became a Daddy for the first time, and, as he grew, and became a little more sturdy, the fun increased. Take a child that is learning to sit, surround them with pillows, hold tight and take bets which direction he'll fall. When his neck is strong, take two grown men, one armed with a baby, one armed with a soft ball. Baby Baseball was a big hit, and even when he was a toddler, if there were people over, he'd bring the ball over and want up in order to play.

Even Bethy was subjected to my harassment. With her insides all screwy, it wasn't quite so viable to play the physical games with her, but I used to offer ice cream and nice things to "Everyone with a spleen can have some!". Of course, Bethy was born without her spleen! Even in hospital - and probably some sort of defense mechanism to stop us wallowing - we used to laugh at some of the things she had done... When she was very ickle, they could not, for love nor money, get a line into her arms or legs - so they used a big one on her head. To protect it from Wandering Baby Hands, they taped a galley pot over the top which, for all intents and purposes, looks like a yoghurt pot. And Voila! The Fruit Corner for Cannibals was created/

Obviously, even now with Tam, she gets it too. She's not a fan of bugs or creepy crawlies, so guess what Daddy chases her with. She likes to be "shocked" with a BOO! so I do that fairly often. Probably too often. She's also been a member of Baby Baseball and Which Way Will It Fall. Of course, thanks to our shopping centre (Mall, for you Yankies) being made with marble flooring, Baby Curling was also a big laugh. Put the hood up on her coat, grip her by the front, and see just how far you can slide her. She was a pro at 18 months of age.

And so it continues, physical humour, dead arm/dead leg tricks, shocks, surprises... And this morning, I added a new (and, I add, unintentional) feather to my cap. I slept through three alarm clocks, five phone calls, a half-dozen text messages - and made Jaysen miss half a day of school.

Oops. Still, it's only the second time he's ever been late for school.

I'm not going to count the number of times I've forgotten to collect him...

In The Wee Small Hours...

Earlier today, my head started doing it's thing. That strange tingling sensation when - unlike Spidermans Spidey Sense alerting him to danger - mine alerts me to an incoming Migraine. Added to that, my constant *sniff sniff* "You smell that?" was a pretty good give away.

I managed to fend it off mostly in order to be both social with Lane, and to do the school run. Around five, I nodded off on the sofa, was woken up by everyone telling me it was dinner time, picked my way through dinner feeling more and more icky, only to find myself waking up in bed at about half one this morning. Apparently, I flaked on the sofa again and was put to bed.

The headache is still there, but no where near as bad as it was, but of course, after dozing/flaking for several hours, I'm wide awake. I tried laying in bed for a couple of hours thinking I'd nod off, but something was bothering me. I could not for the life of me place it.

So I set to prowling through the house. Had a moment of panic when I couldn't see Tam in her room, but she had turned around and shifted to the other end of the bed. Restarted her Spongebob DVD, turned it down, checked on the boy. He was curled up fast asleep - uncovered and shivering - on one of his Horrid Henry books. Covered him, removed book, turned his music down.

Checked the middle floor. Rats needed some water, so refilled their bottles. Various bits of crockery; glasses, cups, bowls, cutlery all around the lounge, so collected that all up and took it down stairs. Plonked it in the kitchen - which was a state - emptied the tumbler, reloaded it, filled the washing machine. Still, something felt wrong. Garden was empty. Front door.

NOT SHUT.

Now, it wasn't open a huge amount, and passing by the house in the dark, it might have appeared to just be a shadow instead of open. But none the less, the front door was ajar.

So, now it's 4am and I've cleaned up the kitchen, put away the drying up, put things in to soak, tidied up the front room, messed around a bit on WoW, and as they are doing a server restart, I figured I would blog.

And I am wide awake, with a head ache, feeling a twinge of paranoia at the what-if's.

Still - I knew there was something wrong...

Saturday Night Plan: A Blog By Pictures

Kids nailed down.


Chinese Food ordered

House MD Season One

And Booze

Lots of Booze

With more Booze

And something to mix it with of course...

And some Absinthe to boot.

Being the psychic that I am, I predict Sunday mornings blog to read something along the lines of uuuuurggghhhhh...

Gas Man TOO Funny!!

OK, this post was going to be detailing the man from the Gas Meter company. However, I changed this post to the following.

Jo
Stairs
Gravity
Tamsyn
A Crunch
A Loud Cry
A Laughing Dan
A Trip to Hospital

Yes folks, Jo somehow managed to stack it down the stairs with a thud. She fell down... you know.. nothing, and Tam ricocheted off her. Both girls, on the stairs, crying. Jo is a grown up so I checked Tam first - who was fine. Jo however. Well, she had issues getting up and her foot went a very nice bluey colour.

"Call your mum" I said.

So after she called her mum, went to Accident & Emergency, was amazed at the new system in the hospital which saw her in by 21:30 and out by 23:00, she managed to point out the bone in her foot she snapped in two. Comedy Gold I tell ya.

The idiot version - where your big toe joins your foot, she's snapped the bone above that joint. I'm sure it's a metatarsal but not sure (I remember hands are metacarpals and feet are metatarsals because the T in the latter is T for Toes) but none the less, she's on pain killers and sulking in bed, while I am - at nearly 2am - finishing this post and feeling rough as dogs with my cold.

She always steals my thunder!

Anyway, gravity striking again notwithstanding, I will post about the Gas Man tomorrow. And I don't mean *parp* stinky gas man.

Another Ouch

Many many years ago, when I was knee-high to a grasshopper, back in the days of people looking at me thinking I was a cute little kid, I tended to be a tad Accident Prone. The "occasional" bump, slip, cut, concussion, broken bone, gash, burn, impalement, poisoning and whatever else happened to be flavour of the month. One such "incident" involved me pelting at high speed down a hill on a bike, and for no apparent reason, falling OFF said bike.

Gravity had it in for me as a kid.

This "incident" involved me breaking my kneecap on my left leg, which ended up plastered, strapped, immobilised and generally left to heal. Yesterday, while doing that very daring act of Walking Across the Lounge my knee decided to remind me what it felt like all those years ago. I could almost hear the little bastard going "Surprise! Remember THIS!"

Now I assume it's because I'm getting old, and my old war wounds are playing up. Maybe the weather is about to change, and I'll be this old guy in 40 years rocking on the porch saying "Yesssireee, th' old knee be achin', it's gonna snow *cackle wheeze*" while I whittle a stick and chew tobacco.

But holy shit it caught me by surprise, and this morning it just "sore" and I'm hobbling around like an idiot.

My only concern is that some of my other "Childhood Mishaps" don't come back to haunt me. Some of them bring a tear to my eye just thinking about them, let alone reliving them.

*gulp*

Bloody Ouch!

Cast your mind back a few days, dear Reader, and you may recall me telling you of my large case of "The Zaps" in this post. Medicinal Withdrawal leading to the feeling of electrical shocks running through my body. Horrible but something I can deal with as it's more offputting than painful.

So, today. Bear in mind I am tired, achey and not really thinking straight anyway, especially after SHE led me to believe today was a school day. But, she wanted a cuppa, so out of the kindness of my heart, I went downstairs and set about making her one. While the tea was stewing, armed with my trusty teaspoon, I wandered to the bottom of the stairs and started to call up to see if she wanted anything else.

I never actually finished my sentence. While I was talking I was shooing a fly around with the teaspoon. SOMEHOW I managed to put said-metal spoon into the light socket that has no bulb in it. Added to this, SOMEONE had left the lightswitch on. The result?

Me receiving a sudden burst of electricity, cutting the light circuit out and dropping to the floor with a dead arm. This was a few hours ago, and my arm is still killing me and my fillings still feel all ozoney. The switch is now OFF, but there's not a bulb in there still.

Moral? Don't wander around with a teaspoon in this house as the WORST could happen!

Back To School... er...

Ahhh September, back in my own house, only a couple of weeks from the big Three-One, not to mention Talk Like A Pirate Day! But, more importantly, the return of school!

Yep, Jaysen is up another year to Year Four, new uniform, new knowledge, new teacher...

Except.

After getting up at the crack of dawn (after an awful evil night), after kicking the boy awake, ironing uniform, showering, shaving, dressing, feeding the boy, getting out the house and getting to Ruths, we happened upon an interesting discovery.

School restarts tomorrow.

So, suffice to say, when Jo clambers out of her pit in the next three hours, there WILL BE BLOOD!

Damn It!

As if it wasn't mad enough here, as if lack of sleep, lack of pain killers, idiot animals, extra housework and everything else, I found another surprise this morning.

My mobile has been cut off. So till Monday, I can't post from my mobile, can't send texts, can't call out. DAAAAAMN IT!!

You can guarantee when everything is going pearshaped, something else will jump on the bandwagon!

In other news, we had to pop to the doctors this morning to collect our prescriptions. The surgery is on Noak Bridge, an estate around here that many many years ago was Little Dans stomping ground. Shows how much time changes all things, as after working it out, I was six or seven when I used to charge around and play with my friends. Now, Jaysen is eight and I wouldnt dream of letting him out - too many weirdos.

But, wandering around Noak Bridge, seeing my old school, the old shop, the pond and park, even the streets - I don't know, it was nice to take a trip down memory lane. It's scary how much of that estate has remained as I remember it!

And so, phoneless and knackered, I need to sort out some laundry :(

Bit Of *BZZZ* A Strange *BZZZ* Day

There's one thing with being on Paroxetine. It's good in that it's an anti-depressant, but it's bad if I miss a dose. Like yesterday, and 3pm today while I realised I missed it this morning.

Now, you might be scratching your head in regards to this tablet name, but you know it, most likely as Paxil, especially if you're an American and know of all the controversy surrounding it.

Don't get me wrong, I noticed a massive improvement in my general self a couple of weeks after starting it, and while I have "Bad Days", missing a dose, or even missing it by just a handful of hours, brings on a side effect known as "The Zaps". I've had them all day, and they mess with my concentration, balance, train of thought... It's hard to explain, but various descriptions range from having a blanket of static dragged over the head, to low-level electrical discharges pulsing down through the body.

Added with the vertigo, I look like some really crap breakdancer. I'll be mid-way through a sentence, and will pause as I get a BZZZ! down through me which makes me pause and look even crazier than usual.

Now, hopefully, now that I've taken my tablet, and should remember to take it in the morning, I will be back to normal by lunchtime. But for now, I'm just the energizer bunny with a loose wire.