Meme award

Bless that Zoesmom, an award and a meme in one.  To claim the award, I have to list seven personality traits and nominate seven other bloggers who ZM hasn’t already nominated. That’ll be the tough part.

1. I can be readily comforted with food. Sometimes, tea, toast and marmite is all it takes to make me happy on a rainy afternoon.

2. I usually arrive early. This is because unpunctuality drives me mad, and I don’t subscribe to the ‘I’ll call when I’m on my way’ school of arrangements. Also because I overestimate how long it takes to get anywhere so that I have time to get lost on the way. It isn’t that I intend to get lost, it’s just that it happens.

3. I am completely crap at anything involving: geography, distance, directions or spatial awareness, or particularly any combination of the above. Driving is often a trial. Map reading is an arcane science.

4. I don’t do numbers, graphs, diagrams. I would rather read a couple of hundred pages than attempt to make sense of a diagram. Sciences were not my strong point at school.

5. I want what I want. If it’s not available/affordable/possible, then I lose interest. I don’t care about the compromises or substitutes.

6. I am bad at giving in to circumstances. I prefer to make circumstances give in to me. Sometimes, this is an advantage because it means I won’t give up until I’ve solved a problem, and it allows me to find new avenues of approach. Sometimes, problems really are insoluble and I still can’t stop myself from running my head against them repeatedly, usually in the early hours of the morning.

7. However critical I am of other people (which is very, because, you know, Virgo) I am always more critical of myself.

So now (rustle of envelope), the nominees:

Of Books and Bicycles

Cam’s Commentary

Noble Savage

Box of Books

Tales from the Reading Room (when she gets back from holiday)

Bloglily

Couch trip

Featherduster

I see that, in unwitting proof of #4, I have nominated eight others. I find that quite funny.

Demob happy

I don’t have to go to work tomorrow. Some holiday or other. La la la. This means:

• I can have another glass of wine. Or, I could if we had any more wine but because I didn’t have time to forward plan, we don’t. Plus my first glass of wine was huge.
• I don’t have to go to bed at 9.30pm but can have a proper, non-commuting grown up bedtime. Maybe 10pm.
• My travel coffee cup is still in the car, and defiantly unwashed. Because I won’t be using it in the morning.
• It doesn’t matter that I’ve run out of snack bars, because I will not be eating breakfast in the car.
• I will switch off my alarm clock. Although I fully intend to be up by 8am to watch Wimbledon.
• I don’t have to figure out now what I will be wearing tomorrow. Because I will be wearing pyjamas until the tennis is over.
• I don’t have to worry about the downstairs neighbour coming home at midnight with 14 of his mates and deciding that is an excellent time to light a bonfire and enjoy the summer evening by talking VERY LOUDLY outside our bedroom window.
• I won’t switch my Blackberry on until Monday.
• I don’t have to find a book to read on the train tomorrow.
• By the time I go to work on Monday I may have forgotten about today’s horrendous meeting, or will at least find it amusing rather than saying ‘That woman is a triple plated, five star bitch and This. Means. War’ (although, for the record, she is and it does).
• Tomorrow night I will still have a whole weekend ahead of me in which to continue doing sweet fuck all

An ABC meme

From the Queen, and also from Zoesmom. I’m not tagging anyone but play along if you want to. It’s always good to have a meme in reserve for those days when you are lacking in inspiration.

A – An advantage you have – being educated, and in the US, being English, and in business, not feeling the need to please everyone so that I don’t have a problem saying ‘No’.

B – Blue or brown eyes – Blue/green/grey, or so I hear. They look blue to me.

C – Chore you hate – Cleaning my bathroom. It’s really not that big a deal and not that time consuming since my bathroom is tiny, but it’s the one I really resent.

D – Dad’s name – Who?

E – Essential start of your day – washing my face at the very least.

F – Favourite colour – don’t have one, but generally I like rich tones.

G – Greatest thing you’ve ever done that made you feel really good – Completing the Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk; and finishing my MA.

H – Habit you have – gesturing with my hands a lot. Not sure if it’s a habit, I think it’s genetic.

I – Issue you hate that the world tries to make you pursue – Anything to do with ‘celebrities’.

J – Job title – Senior Online Product Development Manager. Yes, it is just a jumble of words that when taken together mean precisely nothing.

K – Kohls or Target – Target. I find Kohls depressing.

L – Living arrangements – apartment in old farmhouse in Easton, with my husband

M – Music you like – guitar based stuff with good lyrics; male angst music (Blue Nile, Ryan Adams et al); 80s British pop; country; cock rock (because I think it’s hilarious); classic crooners

Nicknames – Beck, Becks, Bex, B, Becky-Betsy, Miss C, La Cullena, Mrs H, Rbecca (ar-becca) are current. Past nicknames have included Beck-Becks, Liz and Nige.

O – Overnight hospital stay – 2 weeks when I was 12 or 13 and had a birthmark removed.

P – Pet Peeve – the use of ‘which’ instead of ‘who’ in written and spoken American English. Judging on ubiquity it seems to be accepted usage, but it never fails to make me mentally reach for the red pen.

Q – Quote that you like most – ‘History: it’s just one fucking thing after another’

R – Right or left handed – very right handed

S – Siblings – one sister, a step-sister, a step-brother

T – Time you wake up – I get up at 5.30am. I wake up around 9am.

U – Underwear – I aim for nothing that is going to show through my clothing, and never a VPL.

V – Vegetable you dislike – Peas. Nasty little blighters.

W – What makes you run late – trying to decide what to wear

X – X-rays you’ve had – for my back, once, when I trapped a nerve

Y – Yummy food you make – Pineapple upside down cake

Z – Zoo animal – I don’t think I have ever been to a zoo, certainly not that I remember. Unless it’s one with a strong captive breeding programme for endangered species that aims to re-establish them in the wild, I’m not remotely interested.