The GirlAlive Blog

I had to go grocery shopping.  I hate that.  The walking to the store and buying crap and walking back home is all pretty tedious.  When I was working all the time, I had to go after work and it was always crowded.  But lately I haven't been working so I have to work out the best time to go to Tesco to get soup and toilet paper.

Morning is out.  I'm not so good at getting out of bed.  Noon is no good because that's when the kids from the high school down the street are off for lunch, and allowed to run wild in the streets.  (Apparently no one ever thought of closed high school campuses here.  The streets are lousy with make-up caked 14-year-olds every day at noon.)  One o'clock is no good.  Kids are still at lunch and Buffy is on.  It's one of my favorite seasons, with evil Willow.  If you wait until 2:30 or 3:00, the primary school kids are out for the day, and the place is crowded with mothers ineffectually trying to corral 7-year-olds who are running wild.  

So I have a small safe window for shopping.  If I get out of the house the minute Buffy ends I can get to the store just after 2:00.  It's pretty dead right then, other than staff trying to quickly clean up after the high schoolers.  There are a few mothers with pre-school kids trying to get the shopping done before the other kids get out of school.  But if you can navigate the aisles with military precision, you can get everything, pay for it, and get out of the parking lot by 2:30, thus avoiding all the children around here.  It's not that I dislike children.  I just dislike the undisciplined rabid zombie beasts that pass for children in this country.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 02:28 PM | Permalink

I shop at the 99p store a lot.  The one in my small town is not bad and sometimes has good deals, and it's a good place to get caulking guns and coloring books and hamster food at the same time.  I've even found pregnancy tests there.  But I wouldn't trust the 99p condoms.  There's a line.

Anyway, a while back my husband and I were just browsing the 99p store and looking for intersting stuff (and craft supplies for me) when we found some disturbing/funny items in the food section.  We found the following marked 3 for 99p.

I wouldn't have been so amused if it had been called Pot O' Fruit, or even if it had followed the lead of the British food item Pot Noodle and called itself Pot Fruit.  But by calling it FruityPot, the main thing they are selling you is pot, which happens to be fruity.   Not fruit in a pot, or fruit with some pot, but pot that is fruity.  I have eaten the pineapple in a sweet and sour dish, but the mandarin remains in my cupboard.

Then we found on the "2 for 99p" shelf, this brilliant little item:

In case you couldn't extrapolate, it is called "Celebrity" with the description "Danish Pork Luncheon Meat."  It is imitation Spam.  It may be made from pork.  It may be made from blonde Danish girls.  But it certainly isn't actually Danish.  Further proof of its lack of Danishness:

My Asian language skills aren't great, but that looks a whole lot like Chinese or Japanese to me.  Last time I checked, that's not the alphabet they use in Denmark.  If the fact that it is bargain priced meat of questionable origins isn't bad enough, it is also going to stay fresh until 2012.  I could hang onto this can and eat it while watching the London Olympics.  Or not.

In fact, I did eat the can of Celebrity.  I can't swear that it was actual pork, and I'm 100% convinced that it was not Danish.  It tasted like Spam, but not quite as good.  I had it with sweet and sour sauce and the pineapple FruityPot.  And I survived to tell the tale. 

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 11:59 AM | Permalink

I've added a new category to my blog called "craftiness", for all of my hobbies that involve making stuff.  I crochet pretty well and I knit, but only poorly crafted rectangles.  I haven't been drawing much lately, but I used to do it a lot.  I'm pretty good with painting and stuff too.  And I know how to sew and quilt and stuff.  As mentioned in my last post I've been playing around with weaving.

I've been thinking about crafting a lot lately.  Not just what to make next, but why I think crafts are important. 

For the last couple generations, people have not been making stuff much.  It has been a society of providing services rather than making things.  We buy everything we own and most of us don't even know how it's made.  More and more, I think that petty crime is tied to not making anything. 

I hate vandalism.  I hate people who randomly destroy other people's stuff.  I think I'm more sensitive to it because I make stuff.  I have a quilt that I made by hand when I didn't have a sewing machine.  That quilt represents months of cutting and sewing without even a table to work on when I was living in Seattle.  When I first lived here, I had the quilt on the couch, and I eventually had to move it into the bedroom, on my side of the bed because my husband had no respect for the quilt.  He threatened to spill things on it, and got guinea pig fur on it and squished it into the crack of the couch.  He has never sewn a quilt by hand, so he does not know why I'm protective of my quilt.  He's no longer allowed to touch it.  And none of what he did was on purpose. 

All over the place here I see trash in the streets and bus shelters that have been broken or defaced, just for fun.  I think that people who do things like that are people who have never made anything.  If they had ever had to build anything from scratch, they would not be so eager to destroy something someone else has made.  They were the kids who smashed other people's sand castles and Lego skyscrapers, and the people who contribute to the world are the ones who built the sandcastles and Lego skyscrapers. 

If you have kids, do them a huge favor.  Teach them to make things.  Teach them jewelry making and pottery and painting and cross stitch and quilting.  Buy them play-doh and weaving kits and knitting looms.  Risk stepping on some Legos for the sake of making your kids better people.  

Shop on Etsy.  Buy things that are handmade, to show your kids the value of the hands that made them.  Don't let your kids break things without understanding how much more work it takes to make things.  Make sure they grow up to be builders, not destroyers.  The world has enough destroyers.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 02:07 PM | Permalink

I've been weaving.  I got myself a Size 2 Spears Weaving Loom a while ago and I've been weaving up a storm, mostly making scarves.  It can only do things up to 5 feet long and about 6 inches wide.  But it is fun. 

I was having so much fun I decided to upgrade to a Size 3 loom.  It's a little wider and has a better system for handling the warp threads (the long ones that you weave onto).  Here's the problem: it took me about 4 hours and a huge pile of wasted yarn to get the warp threads onto the loom.  Then I started weaving and it just plain didn't work.  The heddle thingy is corroded and sticking to the threads, so it isn't moving them how it's supposed to.  Basically, the upgrade has been a bad thing, and I have just ended up wanting another new loom.  After a whole day working with my new loom, I have about 6 loose crooked rows of weaving done.

The first two looms cost me about 15 Pounds (don't have the little symbol on this keyboard) each.  The loom I really want costs about 80 Pounds.  I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do about this.  I like weaving, but I hate my new loom.  But I can't really afford to get a new one right now.  Back to the old loom I guess?

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 05:10 PM | Permalink

Last December you may recall that we had some issues with our guinea pig, Homer.  He was losing weight and generally a bit unwell.  After visits to the vet we found that it was a combination of things.  He was slightly ill, and he didn't like the brand of food we were serving.  We spent most of December desperately trying to get him to eat.

In the middle of all this trying to get Homer to eat, we found a new treat in the "natural" section of the pet store.  They are called Fenugreek Crunchies.  They're made of fenugreek and corn and nothing else.  The package said "Stimulates appetite", and I read online that fenugreek lowers blood sugar and makes you hungry.  So we bought a bag.

From the time we got Homer, he has been shy, afraid of people, and not overly interested in food.  He also never squeaked.  My brother was shocked and asked if Homer was okay when he met him because he was just so quiet.  His roommate Spike is a neverending squeak machine, but Homer barely uttered a peep.  Until recently.

From the first time we gave him a Fenugreek Crunchie, he snatched it out of our fingers and chomped it down quickly, then came back begging for more.  Anytime he sees anyone in the room get up to walk around, he puts his paws up at the front of the cage, begging for treats.  And late in the day, near dinner time, Homer lets loose the most ear-piercing squeal you've ever heard, letting everyone know that it has been far too long since his last Fenugreek Crunchie, and he's jonesing for a fix.

Last night I went to the guinea pig cages to move a plastic bag that Fudge had decided must be a tasty snack.  After I moved the bag out of Fudgie's reach, I gave Homer a treat.  Then I re-stocked their hay and pellets and by the time I was done with that, Homer was begging for another treat.  Instead of giving him another one, I picked him up to play with him for a minute.  He hates that.  After I put him back in the cage, I offered him another treat.  It was the first time I ever saw him hesitate about a fenugreek treat.  His little brain was saying, "There's a treat, but maybe it's a trick and she's gonna pick me up again.  But I want the treat.  But I don't want to get picked up again.  Uuhhhgggg!  Don't know what to do!"  I left the treat in the food bowl before his little furry head exploded.

The rest of the piggies couldn't care less about the fenugreek treats, but Homer is addicted.  He's a fluffy brown junkie.  I hate to think what will happen if the pet store ever stops stocking those things.

Alana

Posted by Alana at 10:19 AM | Permalink

Yesterday was my third wedding anniversary.  My husband and I have been married for three years and we have lived together for two and a half years.  (Marriage?  Fine.  Living together?  Don't want to rush these things.)

Yesterday we spent our anniversary bathing guinea pigs and running tedious errands.  But today, we went out for dinner.

We got on the bus to the town center to get the bus to the restaurant.  There was a group of people who were either going to a rave or were insane.  Neon colors and big hair and fishnet stockings and furry legwarmers all over the place.  I was happy that they were not on my bus.

We went to the neighborhood of the restaurant early to go to Lupe Pinto's to get American food.  Root beer and graham crackers and Nutter Butters.  Hooray!  Then we had time to kill before our reservations, so we went into a pub to get out of the rain.  I kept looking at the bar and thinking about my favorite game, Drunken Masters.  I had diet Coke.

Then we went to the restaurant, a little tiny place called Katie's Diner.  There are about a dozen tables and you absolutely must make reservations because they're very popular.  It is advertised as an American style diner, and I've never had the Scottish interpretation of American food, so I was looking forward to it.  It's a small place run by a married couple.  Geoff takes the orders and Kate is the chef.

It would be funnier if I could go down a list of how they got American food wrong.  But in this case I totally can't do that.  We started out by sharing an order of jalapeno poppers.  They were exactly like what I remember from home, but bigger, fresher, and presented better.  For a main course I had the Mexiburger.  It was a thick slab of top quality Scottish beef, topped with cheese, salsa, sour cream, and jalapenos.  It was quite simply the best thing I've eaten in a long time.  The burger was grilled to perfection.  The fries were fresh and hot and perfect.  I had been craving a proper thick hamburger, and the one I had at Katie's Diner could stand up next to (or even above) any of the top quality burgers in the US.

Then there was dessert.  I ordered double chocolate brownies.  It was a beautiful arrangement of little bites of brownie topped with ice cream.  The brownies were perfect.  Slightly crisp on the outside and warm and soft in the middle, with rich fudge sauce.  The ice cream was good proper rich ice cream, not the fluffy stuff you get so many places here.  

My husband loved it as much as I did.  In fact, he insisted on booking another reservation before we left.  So it looks like we've found a new favorite restaurant.  It takes two buses to get there, but it's entirely worth it.  It's a perfect cure for homesick Americans in Edinburgh. 

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 07:24 PM | Permalink

We bought our hamsters a couple months ago, and we were told that they were boys.  I was looking around the internet yesterday and I found pictures of male Chinese dwarf hamsters.  They all have scrotums the size of their heads.  Not just noticable, but disturbingly huge. 

I looked over at my hamsters.  There is nary a testicle to be found.  They're both pretty well fully grown, and completely nutless.  I looked in my dwarf hamster book and found pictures of hamster genitals.  Ours looked quite a lot like the "female" picture.  

So Nobby and Karot need new names.  They are apparently girls, so we're giving them new girl names.  And we have the difficult pronoun shift of getting used to saying, "she's so cute" instead of "he's so cute".   

Karot, the brown one, will now be known as Drusilla, or Dru.  Nobby, the white one will now be known as Fred, which is short for Winnifred.  So instead of hamster boys named Nobby and Karot we now have hamster girls named Dru and Fred.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 12:54 PM | Permalink

Okay, so I keep getting emails from family asking me to clarify my mention 2 posts ago about my husband being hit by a car.

He was crossing a 4 lane street (one that is generally relatively safe to cross - I've jaywalked across that thing right in front of a cop and he didn't care).  He had gotten to the median and there were stopped cars in the lane directly in front of him and it didn't look like there was anything coming in the bus lane beyond that.   He crossed in front of the stopped car and stepped forward a bit to check for traffic in the other lane, just in time to get hit by a tiny French car that was hiding behind the larger vehicles stopped in the other lane.  It really just bumped him, and it wasn't moving very fast because it was just pulling up behind stopped traffic.

He's fine.  His shoulder was a tiny bit bruised and he was sore for a couple days, but nothing was broken and there was no permanent damage.  His co-workers gave him a first aid kit and a neon yellow reflective vest.  He's done more damage sneezing than the car did.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 10:07 AM | Permalink

To the commenter calling himself Henry: 

You can leave as many comments as you want, and I will keep deleting every single one of them.  You are an ass and you need a new hobby.  Get a life.  If you hate my blog so much, no one is making you read it.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 06:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Next week is my third wedding anniversary.  My husband and I mostly celebrate the real wedding in April, even though we're more likely to get cards from other people on the anniversary of our fake wedding in October. 

Lately, being married has been not easy.  It has nothing to do with my husband.  He's great.  He's sweet and kind and we get along like best friends.  The problems are mostly with me being more used to being on my own.  For a long time, I lived alone.  If I did weird things or borderline stupid things, I was the only person I was screwing.  It's a lot harder being married and having to constantly consider how my personality flaws are screwing up my husband's life.  He's a very patient man. 

This week has sucked for a variety of reasons.  The aforementioned fantastic husband got hit by a car.  He's fine, other than some bruises and a tendency toward the melodramatic.  

A few days ago I was re-reading my last post and I had been planning to write something of a retraction because I was way too harsh on my co-workers.  There was another incident at work that prevented me from posting that retraction.  But I still think I was too harsh.  None of the other people in my office are dumb.  They have their frustratingly blonde moments now and then, but they're not dumb.  In fact, most of the people in my office hate their jobs almost as much as I do, but they have the advantage of being a lot closer to retirement.  Of that, I'm a bit jealous.  They can all just shrug and say, "I only have to be here (2, 3, 5, 7) more years."  I'd have to say, "I only have to be here 35 more years."  On the whole, the people I work with are decent intelligent people stuck in a job that used to be good, but is deteriorating at a rapid pace.

As for the management, the less said about them the better.

A quick update on the rodents.  Fudge is still humping everything in sight.  Elvis no longer seems to care.  Spikey has something wrong with one eye, but we think it's getting better.  Homer is putting on weight because he's become addicted to Fenugreek Crunchies.  Nobby is still a sweet little hamster and Karot is still a spaz. 

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)