NS November 28th, 2007

I thought I’d dig into my archives and find some posts from the last two Novembers for entertainment value. I wrote about the wonder that is British meat-flavoured food in 2005

Meat is good, I’ll be the first to admit it. I ain’t no vegetarian. However, I have limits. I don’t like meat intermixing with my desserts, potato chips, or pastries. Call me meatist if you must, but meat or meat-flavouring doesn’t go with just anything. Britain seems to be a bit behind in realizing this, however, and you can still find the following dishes being served in homes and pubs across the nation(s):

Beef, Oyster and Kidney Pudding ~ steamed beef, oyster and kidney with onions, tomatoes and mushrooms, baked in a suet pastry. This is what they ate during the Plague, so consider it a history lesson as you gag your way through it.

Cock-a-Leekie Soup ~ beef, chicken, leeks and PRUNES. Since we all know that prunes are eaten only in a last-ditch effort to cure constipation, I think it would be more aptly named Ass-a-Leekie Soup. (continued…)

Then in November 2006 I wrote about TNC’s first cold

Snot. More snot. Yet more snot. And then, just when you think it’s over? It’s snot.

The Noble Child has her first cold and snot is flying out of her at an amazing rate. It’s mystical, really. If she were a superhero her power would be to render people’s limbs and faces immobile with a web of green goo. It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s…SNOTTY BABY! (continued…)

The joy of English bathrooms in winter

No place so cold, no place so wet
as the English room in which is set
the throne, the basin, and the tub
Mould all around the room I scrub

From this, the damp, o cursed thee
’tis this, not drink, the English disease
Double glazed and waterproofed
even with an ironclad roof

It matters not, the damp prevails
causing my poor health to ail
And then the cold, o wretched chill
is this what drives good men to kill?

For lads ’tis fine, their visit brief
but ladies shiver w’ chilly cheeks
Semi-clad and frozen through
such is a visit to an English loo

And in keeping with a meme I was tagged for by Vol Abroad, a list of strange things about me

* When I laugh really hard, I lose all control of the muscles in my right hand, making it impossible to hold or grip anything. Everyone from my elementary school teachers to my husband has tried to say I’m making this up, but I’m not. It’s inexplicably, strangely true. Do you think I want to drop my drink or have my handwriting turn to that of a drunken kindergartener just because someone made me chuckle?

* My eye squeaks. No, I’m not making the noise with my mouth, it’s really my eye. I know it’s gross, I don’t care. Would you care to hear a rendition of ‘Jingle Bells’ on the squeaker before you go?

* I can’t bend the two littlest toes on my left foot. They just stick straight out if I try to curl them. But other than that, I have adorable, dainty feet that any foot fetishist would be lucky to lick, suck and generally adore

* I am incapable of letting a microwave complete its alloted time and beep to signal it has finished heating whatever it was I put in there to be heated. I have to stand there and watch the timer and then press ‘Stop’ or the ‘Open Door’ button just before the buzzer goes. The Noble Husband thinks this may stem from a rather loud microwave we owned many moons ago but I don’t remember such a microwave, which is even creepier. Maybe all that radiation I absorbed while standing there waiting to pounce on the ‘Open’ button have erased that part of my memory. Interesting, nonetheless. Or completely neurotic, whichever

* I once inadvertently got into a taxi with two men (one of whom had just been released from prison), who were covered in swastika tattoos and had been drinking heavily. The driver didn’t speak much English and the men started yelling and throwing things at him as the taxi made its way to their destination, which was in the middle of nowhere BFE. One of the guys licked my neck as he got out. Charming. Then the driver got lost and spent almost two hours finding his way back to the city. What should’ve been a five minute cab ride turned into a nearly three hour adventure. Things like this happen to me a lot. I have accepted it as my destiny

* I go into a homicidal rage if strange men on the street tell me to “Smile, it’s not that bad!” Serious. Homicidal. Rage. Fellas, if you see a lady purposefully striding down the street with a scowl on her face, do not, I repeat, DO NOT tell her to cheer up, call her ‘baby’ or ask her smile so you can see how pretty she is. You could end up like the guy who did this to me and get a whack across the head with a roll of Pillsbury cinnamon rolls. So just, you know, beware, mothafuckas

* I have a routine in the shower that I do in the same order every time and if I am spaced out and mix up two of the steps, I always swear internally and panic a little bit before I realise that it’s just a SHOWER and the world is not going to end if I wash my face before I condition my hair

* I have a pretty extensive vocabulary (even though I hardly use it) so you would think I’d be good at Scrabble, but I really suck at it. I don’t have whatever it is in the brain that one needs in order to be able to ’see’ where the letters you have on your little tile-holder-thingy fit in with the ones already on the board. I can see all sorts of words with the letters I have, but to have to look at my letters, then at the letters on the board and try to come up with words involving the two is beyond comprehension to me, apparently. I’m like “YES! I have the word ‘xanthodont’ (one who has yellow teeth), suckers! That is gonna score me some MEGA points! Haahahhaha. Oh, wait. There’s nowhere to put this word. Damn it! How can I use the R and the U that are available when there is neither an R nor a U in ‘xanthodont’? I have to come up with another word? But I have this freakin’ fantastic word right here and it’s soooo frustrating not to be able to use it. I hate this game, it’s stupid. Hmmph.”So you see why TNH just looooves playing Scrabble with me

* I do things like run up and down the hallway screeching like a wild banshee and waving my arms around while singing songs about how good broccoli is to get TNC to laugh and/or eat her dinner. It only works half of the time but it keeps me freshly insane and is a great workout. I just have to remember to shut the blinds so the neighbours don’t call the cops

* I hate fruit combined with chocolate. Seperately, I love them both. Together? Blech! This baffles the British minds that think a box of chocolates should contain 90% fruit-based delicacies like ‘fudge covered apricots’ or ‘chocolate orange’ or ‘hazelnut cherry confection’. Vomit. I’d rather not eat chocolate than eat one of those and that’s saying a LOT

* I curse like a sailor at sea most of the time but, oddly enough, did not curse once while in labour with my daugther. This helps in my theory that we become supernatural alien-beasts completely unlike our true selves when giving birth in order to get through it without maiming or killing. Just a theory, folks

* I thought that Napoleon Dynamite was the stupidest movie ever made and don’t get why so many people thought it was funkin’ hilarious. It was just a dork saying dorky things and speaking in a monotone, or was I the only one to get that? And the whole ‘dry humor/subtle irony thing, mixed with the 80s theme? Done, done and done to death. It’s not original, it’s not funny, and it’s not a reason to start using stupid cathcphrases and wearing Vote Pedro t-shirts, you sheeple

* Only four hairs grow on my left armpit

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