The Ebay Catnip Conspiracy Theory

My latest resolution is to reduce my scary debts, so I’ve been trying to sell stuff on ebay. I don’t know if you’ve tried this, but before you can even START there’s so much fiddly stuff with paypal you just feel like resting your face on the keyboard and screaming. Once 2p and 8.9p or whatever have been put in your account, you’d think it would get easier, wouldn’t you? But it doesn’t.
I put two pairs of shoes and a dress that I didn’t like much on there, and they all went through the auction process etc, and made a decentish amount of money, but then I got an email from the MAN who had bought them. Why? Are they the sort of thing transsexuals would want to wear? This is so worrying!
And he said he couldn’t pay for two weeks and would I bear with him. So I said I would, and then of course I wandered about on ebay, spending all the money he may possibly be going to give me on perfume and mascara and a mini-brush for my handbag. So I’m now even worse in debt than before. Oh, and I also bought a catnip cushion for Mirabelle because all the catnip thingies I’ve ever bought her don’t seem to work properly . They hardly smell of anything. I’m beginning to think there’s an international dud-catnip conspiracy, with millions being made from selling snipped-up hay (or tumbledrier fluff) instead of catnip. (After all, who ever looks inside a catnip toy?)

Dog Waistcoats and Bad Thoughts

The day before yesterday, on the tube, there was this horrible, shuddersome thing on that strap thingy you are supposed to hold on to in the ceiling: a used condom. And then I read in one of the Woo’s posts that she’d found a turd on a tube seat. Aren’t these terrible? How did the city ever get so bad?
Ho well, I try not to think of such things, as I’d much rather be cheerful and optimistic. Also, I’m trying to keep a pleasant, about-to-smile look on my face at all times, which is much harder than you’d think. Though a lot more people have been asking me for directions and chatting to me in shops lately, so it must be having an effect.
I walked casually past Michael’s house lately, wondering whether he’d been affected by the banking collapses and general financial meltdown, as it seems middle-ranking very rich people are being wiped out, having their homes repossessed etc, while the uber-rich are happier than ever, buying up jet-loads of champagne, ordering fresh Vivienne Westwood diamond waistcoats for their dogs and so on. I don’t know which he is: rich or uber-rich. His house looked unoccupied, like it had been empty for weeks and weeks. And I found myself wondering if I’d even find him attractive – or want to have anything to do with him – if he was poor. Which was a very bad thought.

Baclava Love

Rache rang me very excited saying that Vasilius, the unhappily-married Greek shopkeeper she met on holiday has just sent her a postcard (with a donkey on it) saying he is coming to London to see her. I can’t see that this is exciting at all, especially as Rachel read THE BOOK on Saturday, and seemed at the time to completely take in all it said about having nothing to do with married men. (The book said that, statistically, the only time a married man is likely to leave his wife for you is in the first three months of your relationship. After that, there’s no chance. And anyhoo, married men are an all-round bad bet in the romantic stakes.) Her reply was that she’s only known him three weeks (or 5 days if you just count the days she spent with him), so she’s a long way off three months. And anyway she’s not sure she wants him to leave his family.
I just feel v.sorry for Vasilius’s wife, who looked about twice his age, was shaped like a bolster-cushion, and had a sad, bitter look on her wrinkly face. And spent her whole time scuffling around sorting boxes, stacking shelves, cooking etc etc while Vasilius flirted with the female customers and gave them free slices of baclava.

THE BOOK - and cheesecake

Well, the weekend has just been DOMINATED by that book. I took it in to work on Friday and people kept wandering casually up to my desk and leafing through it, and then wondering, in an off-hand way, if they could borrow it. (I said No, as I knew I’d never see it again.) Then all weekend people kept dropping in to read it. The two Japanese girls got engrossed in it on Sunday, after appearing (with Mirabelle, who had escaped again, this time to their flat, because they have a sun-roof thingy and she loves basking in it.)
It’s engrossing not just because - as Topiary said, it is based on honest research, rather than just the stupid opinion of some self-appointed guru – but because everyone who reads it seems to have a story that backs it up. I was discussing it in the deli, esp the bit that says if you want to get married you HAVE to have a particular serious conversation telling your man that you do, and the woman behind the counter, Pixie, said that that was exactly how she got married. She had a long-live in relationship that went bad, having had two kids by the guy. And then she met her present husband, and really liked him. And one day, when they were in bed – yet another proposal-situation that happened when both people were naked – she summoned up all her courage and said to him that she really really loved him etc but she’d already tried living with someone and that hadn’t worked out, so this time it was marriage or nothing, and if he didn’t want to commit she’d have to end things. And then she felt so ashamed and self-conscious she pulled the duvet over her head and hid. And after about five minutes she poked her head back out and he was sitting up, smiling, and he said ‘I’m still here!’ and that was that.
We were smiling and laughing about this, and I was trying to choose between two low-fat cheesecakes (lemon or mango) when her husb appeared. And guess what! He was fat and bald! But in a very nice, attractive way.
This morning, two men have come casually up to my desk to leaf through THE BOOK. So word is getting round.

GoodbyeToAllGooeyCakes - Probably

What an amazing book that is, that Topiary recommended! It’s called ‘Why Men Marry Some Women and Not Others, and basically, it tells you what you have to do to get married. Especially if you are getting on a bit. The advice could be boiled down to:
1)Diet until you are around size 10
2)Put makeup on and groom yourself
3)Wear nice (not tarty) clothes
4)Be a very nice person
5) Spend all your free time going where men are
6) When you find a man (and you have to be prepared to accept balding, fat guys) determine whether he is a serial non-committer or not. If he is, dump him and find someone better
7) After you’ve get into nice relationship with this balding fattie, make it very clear that you want to marry him desperately and are expecting a proposal. If you don’t get it, dump him and…etc.
I never realised you had to try that hard. But I suppose it’s obvious that you do. I immediately got Rachel and Jasmine to read it, and we’re all now practising ‘looking pleasant’ (you have to look as if you are just about to smile)(No grinning madly). And you’re also supposed to walk about with rolled-up washcloths on your shoulders, to get a nicely erect posture.
Anyway it is just amazing, and everything in it is backed up by reams of research. I just wish it wasn’t ESSENTIAL to lose all that weight.

Buster-Collar Blues

Took Mirabelle in to the vet’s yesterday to have her neutered (on Topiary’s advice). It was just terrible, as she hated being in the basket and kept miaowing. And then we had to wait in the waiting room next to a v hostile man with a huge sweating pitbull. (He told me that the dog ate cats. Very tactful of him.)
Anyhoo, now Mirabelle has a plastic collar on to stop her biting the stitches. She really hates it. She spends a lot of time walking backwards and/or trying to jump up the bookcases and dislodging all my magazines and books. It looks so horrid that I’ve been and bought some lace and ribbons and glitter to make it prettier.
I was talking about this to Rache who isn’t very sympathetic. Her awful cat (Oskar) started limping a while ago so she had to take him in to have a plaster-cast. An hour after getting home he had bitten it off. So she had to take him back, and get another one. They told her to keep him in a confined space, so she put him in the downstairs loo, and an hour after putting him in there she opened the door and found he’s bitten it off AGAIN. So then she had to keep him in a cage thingy they lent her. And he kept peeing through the bars at her. So I suppose I’m lucky with Mirabelle, who is just ceaselessly (night and day) stumbling around in her collar, knocking things over.
Every time I pass the stairs now I look so see if there’s a man sitting underneath but of course there never is, so I must have misheard what the Japanese student said.

Worrying News About the Kitten

Dropped in on the Japanese students on Sunday to thank them for looking after Mirabelle. (I took them some flowers and chocs. I spent a long time looking at Tesco sushi and wondering if they’d prefer it to chocs, but decided they probably wouldn’t. It always tastes wrong to me. I’m no expert on sushi but surely it shouldn’t be that stodgy and tasteless? I like the box it comes in, mind, and the little containers of sauces, chopsticks etc. Always reminds me of airline food, which I adore. Airline food tastes wrong, too, of course – but in a charming sort of way. The portions are so small it is like eating doll’s food. Ventriloquists’ dolls’ food. )
Anyhoo, only one student was there (not the one called Teg) and she got quite giggly and confessed that while they were looking after her, Mirabelle had run away. And been missing for a whole day, having nipped out of the door and streaked down the stairs. Just as they were beginning to worry about whether they should wander out into the street yelling Mirabelle’s name, or put up reward notices (thus tipping off the landlord to the highly illegal cat-tenancy going on in one of his flats) someone had brought Mirabelle back, tapping on the door of the students’ flat before handing her over. Who was it? The non-Teg student didn’t know the name, just that he was a ‘nice man’ who sometimes sits under the stairs.
It’s really frustrating trying to talk to people who can’t speak English properly, however lovely they are in other ways. I kept saying ‘But NO ONE sits under the stairs!’
And the student kept saying. ‘Yes. Sometimes he is there!’ very insistently.
Afterwards I went downstairs and looked at the cubbyhole under the stairs, but of course there was no one there.
So now, the question is – did Mirabelle meet a tom cat while she was out? Would it be wise to take her to the vet for a morning after pill? Can you get them for cats? And would they work after a week has gone by?
She certainly looks very pleased with herself nowadays.

Liver Spot Worry Gone

It was just a bit of chocolate, luckily. Due to a fairy cake.

Tanning regrets

It’s so strange the way, on holiday, the more tanned you get the more beautiful you feel. And the more men stare. So you get this feeling you are just looking more and more gorgeous. (Also start to feel great about being in a bikini because the tan makes the flab OK somehow, also the beach is full of really flobbly people or people of 70, all proudly wearing teeny bikinis. Also monstrously furry Greek men in teeny Speedos but I won’t talk about them.) And on the flight home everyone is smiling, like members of a new club. And then you get into your flat. (Smelling, strangely, of old dog. And of a mouse that Mirabelle somehow managed to find, half-eat, and hide down the back of the sofa, where it now has maggots. Ugh.)
And the first time you look in the bathroom mirror you reel back in horror cos your face looks suddenly all dry and scaly and flakey and coarse. Horrific. I’m completely slathered in anti-ageing cream now. Glistening like a slug at my desk. It’s so cold I’m having to wear tights so no one can see my gorgeous brown legs that I lavished so much basting attention on. And no one has commented on my tan. I can see one freckly thing on my arm at the moment, that just CANT be a liver spot. Surely you don’t get them at 36, do you? Aaagh.

Fish Frenzy

Rache and I discovered that you can feed bread to the fishes in the Mediterranean, exactly like feeding ducks on the Serpentine. You wade out till you are up to your waist, then throw bits of dry Greek bread on the water and fish boil round it. It's like watching piranhas feeding.When we first did it the other people on the beach thought we were mad, but then a few other women came out, out of curiosity, and they got into doing it, too. One was trying to get the fishes to feed from her hand, but they were too shy.
Rache's Greek guy is called Vasilius. Apparently he's married but does not get on with his wife etc. This was not a surprise to Rache as somehow all the men she has ever had relationships with have been married (or bitter and recently divorced, like the guy who left her Oskar). She told me she's kissed Vasilius. (In the back roomn of the shop where gas canisters are stored.)It was great, apparently. Apart from his beard being tickly. (His lips are too red for my taste.)
Anyhoo, we have all the delight of waiting hours in a Greek departure lounge now, and the holiday rep has just told us the Greek are very very severe about overweight luggage so I'm wondering whether to just eat all my halva and baclava and olives NOW rather than pay extra euros for taking them home. Sigh.

More Greek Thoughts

Well, here I am again, typing at the unbelievably slow internet connection in Greece. I take back all i said about Greek cats. Today Rache and i found a nest of kittens in the bushes round the back of the apartments. There were six of them, about five weeks old, all spotty and gingery and really tame. They were COVERED in fleas, though. Things Greek cats like eating: lizards, tinned sardines, slices of Bologna and Emmental. The kittens' mother will grab a slice of Bologna and carry it off like it's a rabbit, walking sway-footed, Then she eats it, lashing her tail. Things Greek cats won't eat: Greek yoghourt.
I'm feeling quite cheerful as three Greek men hooted at me as I was walking down the road in my bikini.Also they keep staring at my tits. i can't recall A SINGLE Greek man looking at my face this holiday Another one bunched his hand into a sort of pointed fist at me and then opened it. What does that mean?
Rache has given the Greek man in the shop her address in London. I feel this was not wise.
Feeling really sad I have to go home soon. I wish i could live here forever.