Category: rant

idiot of the week award

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I know it’s difficult to believe, but from time to time I am prone to feeling rather stupid.  Until, that is, I read something like this news story – and realise that stupidity is really all quite relative.

What am I going on about? Well, the other day three guys broke into allegedly broke into a house in Markham, a bedroom community just north of Toronto. They drove their Hummer up to the house and went right in during broad daylight.  This is the street where the alleged burglary took place:

In other words, the Hummer looked way out of place in the street.  Not exactly the most inconspicuous getaway vehicle in the world.  I mean, why not just put up a neon sign as well while you’re at it?

Anyway, some nosy neighbour apparently called the cops – who arrived at the scene just in time to see the three accused walk out of the house, stolen property allegedly in hand.  They got out of their unmarked police cruiser and told the guys to halt.  

So, what did these rocket scientists do? 

Run out to the Hummer, jump into it and try to drive over the cop car, that’s what.  And they managed to drive partway up the windshield before reversing into another cop car that had just arrived.

So now, instead of just being charged with “theft under whatever”, they’ve now been charged with “mischief endangering life”, “fleeing the scene of a crime”, and (my personal favourite) “dangerous operation of a motor vehicle”.  And I’m sure the Crown will come up with some more of the hundreds of criminal charges which fall under the loose category of “disobeying the cops”. 

Not to mention, no doubt, being read the Riot Act.  And yes, the Riot Act is alive and well up here in Canada:

In Canada, the Riot Act has been incorporated in a modified form into ss. 32-33 and 64-69 of the Criminal Code of Canada. The proclamation is worded as follows:

Her Majesty the Queen charges and commands all persons being assembled immediately to disperse and peaceably to depart to their habitations or their lawful business, on pain of being guilty of an offence for which, on conviction, they may be sentenced to an imprisonment for life. God Save the Queen!

Unlike the original Riot Act, the Criminal Code requires the assembled people to disperse within half-an-hour, and substitutes punishment by death with life imprisonment.

Hmm. Well, it could have been worse for them then, I guess.

But these guys certainly weren’t the brightest bulbs in the pack, now, were they?

Unlike this one:

Isn’t that cool?  It’s in the Royal Scottish Museum in Scotland.  I guess JJ is right when he keeps telling me the Scottish should be known for more than haggis and fried Mars Bars!

Well, back to the mysterious Project Blue which is shaping up quite nicely, thank you. 

Happy Sunday!
 

 

neatness: just say no!

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While at the office yesterday, I was quite tickled to read this tagline to a story in the Toronto Star:

You may see a disaster, a desk that looks hurricane-ravaged, strewn with papers and debris. Josh Freed sees creativity in the making.

This is the office of Josh Freed, a journalist who has just made a documentary about the “evangelism of neat freaks”.  He suggests that they worship at big churches otherwise known as container shops.  But he’s had it with being judged as a lazy slob just because he is messy.

His theory: a messy office means a creative mind:

I find almost everything fairly quickly. I think the issue with a mess is the aesthetics. There is an organizing principle underneath. I work with the archaeological system – the farther down in the pile, the more years back. While thrashing through, you find other things that give you ideas. It creates accidental thinking.

I love this guy! So, there is a method to my madness in not cleaning up that spare room after all!

Now, ironically enough, the head office of the organisation I work for just instituted a “clean desk policy”.  Ordinarily a neat freak myself at the workplace, I’ve noticed that clutter seems to have built up on my des, perhaps as a form of rebellion.  How dare some big shadowy boss/CEO make rules about how I organise my work, anyway! Sheesh!

Perhaps I could bring a constitutional challenge on the grounds that the clean desk policy stifles my inner creativity… hmm.

Anyone care to join me?!

Happy Saturday.  Now that I don’t have to tidy up the house, I’m going to indulge in some knitting.

for the love of coffee?

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Warning: here comes a big sized rant about coffee snobbery. No fibre content whatsoever as today is PayDay and so I won’t have anything new to show until tomorrow. Please feel free to press your back button now.

Correspondingly, unless you have been reading my blog since March 2008 in which event you’ve already been subjected to my strong views on coffee: if you want background info on my coffee rants, feel free to click here for a tale on $400.00 per pound coffee, and here for my personal views on coffee consumption.

Now that you’ve been duly warned:

Yesterday morning, I was running a bit late for work.  This was unfortunate, as it meant I actually had to stand in line at the place I’ve been getting my coffee of late instead of just swanning to the front counter.

But, all guid.  I had my iPod in and was actually starting to groove with the wait.  That is, until I heard my regular coffee server asking the person in front of me how she could be helped.  The person in question was yakking on her cell phone, I should note.

After three polite requests by the coffee server, I was ready to butt into line.  Unfortunately, Ms Cellphone woke up around this point, told her caller to hold, and said.. wait for it:

“Gimme a coffee.”

Well.  Although she presented as such, I suspect this person was not Canadian.  Why?  Because:

(a) she said “gimme” rather than “Give me a coffee, please;

(b) she did not say “Oh, sorry, I kept you waiting… give me a coffee, please… and sorry”;

(c) she did not say “I’d like a a double double, please”; and

(d) she didn’t seem to appreciate that one has to specify the size of coffee one wants these days if one actually wants to get a coffee to take out.

Then again, her important phone call had been interrupted… not that I was willing to cut her any slack because I was waiting for my fix.

But I, despite whatever appearance I might give on this blog otherwise, am a polite Canadian person.  So, although I was fuming inside, I did not protest when the woman in front of me demanded to be shown each size of coffee cup available before deigning to choose which size she wanted (medium, as it happens).

Then came the other inevitable question from the beleaguered Patient Server (and believe you me, I’ve been there.  It is very, very painful to work in foodservice and to be forced to pull each choice out of the customer, let me tell you.  And if you don’t believe me, just ask my mother who was a deli queen for some years until she was forced to run screaming when the simple question “mustard or mayonnaise” started turning into “well, let me taste both and then decide”):

“Dark roast, light roast, or flavoured – today it’s irish cream…””

The answer from O Rude One, who had since recommenced yakking on her cell phone?

“DON’T YOU HAVE MEDIUM”???

(And yes, she was shouting.  I don’t use all caps lightly.)

The Patient Server said “No, we don’t have medium.”.  Now, if I were the Patient Server, at this point I would have quickly turned Impatient and said “Get your @$$ out of here and over to Starbucks, NOW”.

Ms Cellphone then said “Well, I want medium.”

And, let me tell you, it’s a very guid thing that I’m not serving coffee any more.  By this point, I would have pulled out the garotte.  But instead, the Patient Server said, “Well, I could give you half dark roast and half light roast, so that would be sort of medium, right?”

Well, my remaining swig of Diet Coke nearly exited my nostrils at this point (so, don’t feel too sorry for me, I wasn’t jonesing all that much for caffeine).  Good call, Patient Server.  And, in fact, Ms Cellphone accepted this solution, got her coffee and made way for me.  So much for coffee snobbery.

So, all was guid… until I got to the station where you actually fix the coffee and Ms Cellphone was still there lamenting the fact that they had run out of lids.  She actually tried to engage me in conversation on this point (“This is completely unacceptable.  They expect me to carry this coffee across the street to my office??? How dare they??? My boyfriend’s a lawyer and I should just sue them.”

Gentle Reader, I wish I could report that I tore a couple of strips off her at this point.  I didn’t.  Instead, I just reached underneath where I know they store the spare lids, took one for my own coffee, and walked away.

I did, however, drop an extra 50 cents in the tip cup on my way to picking up my breakfast bagel… and, by the way, when I paid for that at the front cash, the Friendly Cashier there told me that this same woman pulls that same stunt every single day – and, funnily enough, word had travelled to the back cash that I was to be treated extremely well because I had given an extra tip.

Moral of the story?

Tip generously – and if you’re used to getting to work before the rush hour, resist that temptation to hit the snooze button on the alarm.  Really.  It will save your sanity.

Happy Thursday!

billions are the new millions

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Already irritated beyond belief at the late news by ten minutes past eleven, I started to practice some little meditation techniques that came out in the latest head office Email yesterday (you know, the ones where the bosses pretend to care about you by telling you to manage your stress levels and stay healthy).  To my astonishment, this actually seemed to work. 

That is, until two minutes later when the following statement wafted into my consciousness in the anchorman’s dulcet tones:

Billionaires are the new millionaires. 

Exit large mouthful of Diet Coke through nose.

Man, I haven’t even made my first million yet, and they’ve already upped the bar a thousandfold?!?

Where the hell did this nonsense come from?!?

Humph.  I should have known.  And of course being the idiot that I am, I’d actually bought a copy of this issue yesterday on the way home from work.  (Perhaps if I’d stopped buying this at all when it started to get on my nerves and invested the money instead, I, too, would be a billionaire.  Note to self. 

Well, of course I had to crack it open.  Inside was a list of 19 billionaires who live in Toronto.  Hardly a trend.  But then again, they’re hoarding all the money and keeping it from all those wannabe plain old millionaires, I guess. 

At the top of the list is David Thomson with $19.72 billion.  He controls the flow of media information to the Western world owns Reuters.  Next is Galen Weston Sr. with a paltry $6.33 billion. (I guess it’s true what they say – Loblaws, his food store chain, is hurting these days!)

Now, there’s a big difference between those two figures, no?  (I can’t find my calculator and I don’t have nearly enough fingers and toes to count that high.  Another reason why I’ll never be a billionaire.  By the time I got to the end of the list and the people only had $1 billion each).

I mean, do you ever wonder what these guys discuss at parties (and I say “guys” because there’s only one woman on the list, and she’s only there by virtue of marriage, I think).  

“Yo, Galen!  I’ve got $13 billion more than you do, nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah!!!”

“YEAH?!?  But did you ever play polo with Prince Charles?? Huh??? Huh?????”

“You wanna take it outside to the $900,000 padded and chandeliered boxing ring which I’ve built in my Forest Hill mansion for such occasions?!?!?”

Nah, on second thought they probably all get along very well.  I imagine that they spend most of their time coming up with secret handshakes and discussing purchases such as these:

A $2,000 speaker system for your $150.00 iPod.  I mean, don’t these guys have enough money to buy a whole stereo?!?

And this:

A $50 clip to put on your dashboard to hold those pesky parking passes.  I don’t know why they don’t just do what I do and toss them all on the floor, actually.  

Hmm.  Actually, I have lots of helpful tips for these guys to help them earn even more money.  Do you think one of these would give me a job? 

Good idea.  Off to meditate now.  If I repeat the word “Money” enough times, maybe some will actually fall into my lap. 

pride goeth before some serious ripping

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Well, it’s official.  I’m not actually a genius.

(I know it has taken in until quite late in the day today to make this admission.  But it was really, really hard to come to terms with ).

You see, I always wanted to be a designer when I grew up.  And, silly me, I thought this meant that I could just sit down one day and whip up a lovely designer item right off the needles!

Yes, yes, I know that all the other designers actually sit down with graph paper, pen and pencil, maybe even a sketchbook.  But I have another dire confession to make… I can’t draw.  And … graph paper?  Man, I didn’t skip maths class for nothing all those years!  Why would I, Genius of all Geniuses, need to use graph paper?!)

Well, colour me dorky.

I spent much of yesterday coming up with the ideal, most brilliant lace design of all.  But – it doesn’t work… because I don’t have graph paper.

(At least, that’s what I’m telling myself!)

And, my brain is just not big enough to fit all those little diagrams.

Man o man, do I ever feel humble now.  Icarus (the real almost-god one, not this one:

has nothing on me.)

To top it off, they didn’t bother to tell us that they’d be testing the fire alarm system at the office for half the day today… intermittently!

RRRRRRRING… RRRRRRRRRING….

Aughghghgh!

So, I’m off to hunt down some safety pins to make this Safety Pin Jacket:

And then I’m off to Currys to buy some… you guessed it!… graph paper.

I figure that I might as well do something productive!  Hard to accomplish, when one’s brain looks something like this:

Happy Monday (um, er, I guess).  Hope you’re having a fun one, at any rate!

a parable for the 21st Century

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Well, gang – being as it’s Saturday and I’m recovering from a drinking session with the gnomes busy at housework, I thought I’d reprise a post that I put up on another blog I started in a blog binge last month.

So, if any of you have read it on the other blog, my apologies and I’ll be back tomorrow with more gnome adventures (there’s a new member of the Gnome family!!!) and maybe even some photos of knitting.

And, JJ and I are off later today on a trip to Michael’s craft superstore.  Yippee!

Now for my little fable.  WARNING/AVERTISSEMENT/ACHTUNG: if you are a member of the Conservative Party… well, read at your peril.  And don’t whine to me that you weren’t warned!

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There is a land far, far north of where most people live, and in that land is a little fiefdom called Kanadha. Many people flocked to Kanadha, even though it was a fiefdom, because it was one of the best and brightest places in the world.

However, Kanadha mostly exists in the shadow to its neighbour to the south, Murca. Murca is far larger than Kanadha and is run by a group of dictators known as the Archconservative Party. This is their leader, Exalted Ruler Godfrey. However, Mr. Godfrey prefers to be known as “God” – and this is what most of his people call him (although some of them give him the surname “Damn” underneath their breath).

This is a rare photo of God wearing evening dress. God doesn’t like wearing tuxedos, actually, because he likes to pretend to be a man of the people. However, from time to time he finds his tuxedo a useful tool to intimidate visiting dignitaries, such as The Right Honourable Steve.

Oops, sorry – wrong photo. This is actually the Father of Confederation, Sir John Eh?. However, the new guy, Steve is the current Supreme Lord and Master of Kanadha. He spends most of his time drinking, lying to his serfs and forcing the other nobility to keep silent about whatever it is he is up to, for example, hanging out with suspicious characters:

This is his way of emulating God, with whom he pretends to be best friends. No one is sure whether he actually believes this to be the case or not.

One thing is certain though – Steve has allowed God to scare him about the possibility of harm from this man, Lucifer.

Now, no one knows very much about Lucifer at all. According to God and Steve, Lucifer is a lawless type who hates Murca and should therefore be extinguished. However, people in Kanadha and Murca are not quite sure where he lives, what he believes in, and even whether this army exists or not. (God and Steve might actually know the truth – but if they do, they certainly have not been sharing it with their people).

Despite this, lots of money is spent every year by both Murca and Kanadha to engage in combat like activity far, far away in countries where Lucifer may or may not be found.

In Kanadha, they get the money for this fighting from people like this:

This is taxpayer John Doe. He is just one of millions of Kanadhonians who pay lots of tax money every year to Steve and the rest of the lords. He doesn’t really know where all of that money goes, as that is secret information known only to Steve and his Inner Circle of other nobility.

(It should be noted that In Kanatha, there is currently no right for taxpayers like John to vote. John doesn’t really think that is a big deal because he never voted when it was allowed anyway. Having said that, he does like complaining, though.

People like John, however, typically do not complain about the people in charge, because it’s easier to blame other people like themselves for all the problems in Kanadhian society. Steve encourages this, because it distracts the people and helps them forget that they are actually living in a fiefdom.)

Here are some other taxpayers, Quack and Daisy Duck:

You may have noticed that Quack and Daisy look quite different from one another, and from John Doe. This is because Kanadha is a multicultural fiefdom, although the Lords and Masters all still look like Steve (and like God, for that matter).

Quack and Daisy are hardworking types who don’t really have a lot of time to question what is going on in the wider world. Or maybe they just don’t care.

But that’s not a very kind thing to suggest, really, because I’m sure they’re busy looking after their two kids.

First up: Tina Duck.

Tina is still a young, naive little thing who doesn’t quite understand yet how the world works. Sometimes, especially after being picked on at school because her parents look different from one another, she wonders why everyone just can’t get along.

Everyone, that is, except her and her little brother, that is:

This is Brat Duck. He’s prone to stealing Tina’s crown and running around with it for kicks. He also squawks loudly, sometimes incessantly. This makes him potentially much better suited to get on in the fierdom and the wider world than Tina, unfortunately.

And finally, there is me, your humble chronicler, (Kris)tina.

I live in a place very much like Kanadha. It’s called Trana.

In Trana, unlike in Kanatha and Murca, there is no supreme being. Oh, wait, I’m wrong: of course there is a supreme being in Trana – the Almighty D*llar.

And here I must confess that I actually misled you a bit above. In fact, the Almighty D*llar is also the Supreme Being in both Kanadha and Murca. God and Steve just pretend to be the top entities, really.

I’m not allowed to show you photos here, just as I am not allowed to type out the name in full without changing a letter. However, in Kanadha one version of the Almighty D*llar looks like this, and in Murca like this. The version that you buy things with is referred to as a “dollar”.

As you can see, the Almighty D*llar is a shapeshifter which presents Itself amongst the rulers and mortals who spend their lives in search of it in various forms. And these days, you need at least one hundred of them to buy anything that you need.)

Trana is not a fiefdom, but some – nay, most – days it’s hard for me to believe that.

So, I just content myself with fondling luxury silk yarn, smoking cigarettes and indulging in general apathy like everyone else surrounding me.

Sigh.

social responsibility and … booze?

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Well, summer has arrived!!!

How do I know? Because the LCBO has come out with its early summer issue of the Food and Drink magazine!

Now, this has got to be the best free mag going! Not only does it have lots of free yummy recipes:

(A note: if you’re trying to diet, never, ever look at this magazine. Although the photos look so good that you could probably end up eating the paper they’re printed on…)

…but also lots of important lifestyle tips. I mean, I don’t know how much longer I can survive without buying some chocolate covered sunflower seeds:

…Dufflet chocolate bark:

…or a $32.00 lemon juicer!

(But here, gentle reader, I must confess that I actually now own one of these. In my defence, JJ bought it for me as a gift, knowing how much I love lemon, and it cost quite a bit less than $32.00 where he got it.)

And, here’s the perfect hostess gift for the next time you need one: a “chip ‘n dip” set

Only $240.00!! (Hmmm… how many bags of chips could I actually buy with that, though – and hey, they taste the same coming right out of the bag, no?).

Now, the only reason that the LCBO can actually offer this mag for free (which, by the way, has in past inspired a complaint to the Ombudsman from companies which actually sell their magazines) is that it is government controlled.

That’s right, folks – here in Ontario the government sells us our liquor. At a premium, of course.

What cheeses me off more though of late is that we’re also paying to get lectured while buying booze these days. For example, the LCBO used to have plastic bags like this:

Now, let me tell you, these bags were famous. They were the best plastic bags ever. This was the topic of many of those banal smoking area or elevator chats. Seriously. You could have a whole five minute conversation on “Don’t the LCBO have the best bags?”. I even know one landlord rep who used them as briefcases!

Well, alas, no more. Seemingly overnight, they discontinued the plastic bags in order to save the environment. So, instead, you can get either a free (paper) bag – great if you’ve driven in your gaz guzzling SUV to the liquor store, not so great if you are walking any distance – or, you can have one of these “enviro-bags”:

…which costs $1.95.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I think it’s a good idea to do away with plastic bags. However, because they didn’t bother to announce that they were doing this but landed it on us, I was actually forced to buy one of their bags when I stopped in on the way home from work one day.

But then perhaps whinging like this is not socially responsible of me. As a consumer, however, I’m just getting tired of corporations taking the moral high ground, lecturing me about my (lack of) commitment to the environment, then turning a profit from it.

It strikes me that if the LCBO were really serious about encouraging people to use these bags (rather than paper, which as I understand it, involves trees being cut down), they would sell them at cost. And although I don’t know for certain I would venture to say that the LCBO does not itself pay $1.95 for each bag.

I mean, it’s not as though they’re hurting any!

The LCBO transferred a record $1.275-billion dividend, not including taxes, to the Ontario government in fiscal 2006-07. It is the 13th straight year the LCBO has increased its dividend to the province and the fourth consecutive year the dividend has topped $1 billion.

I’d love to know how much of next year’s billion plus “dividend” (is this a fancy word for “profit”?) relates to the sale of enviro-bags, myself.

And is it “socially responsible”, pray tell, to hawk $240 chip bowls rather than encouraging people to donate that kind of money to – oh, I don’t know – Mothers Against Drunk Driving, perhaps?!

Humph.

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The Forest Adventures of Brouhaha

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I keep telling people I live right next door to a forest. No one believes me, given that I also live in an apartment building five minutes’ walking distance from a subway station in Toronto.

Well, here’s the proof: the view out the front entrance to my building:

I decided to venture out this evening and take some photos of the ravine. No small feat, given that I’m afraid of heights and depths.

But it was quite lovely, really:

Hard to believe there’s a major thoroughfare 50 metres away, isn’t it?


But then I spied some evidence of civilisation:

Hmm – maybe that’s why those bloody kids were whingeing outside my balcony on Saturday?!

But everything else appeared to be untouched by humans…

…until I spotted this.

Now – who would pitch a bike down a ravine, I ask you?!?

A-ha! Millionaires’ Row. Must be them. But then again, the world is their trashcan, no?

I keep having to remind myself that The Rich Ones don’t control everything. After all, check out this UFO!

(And no, this isn’t one of those ones I keep flinging off the balcony in a fit of pique. It’s the real thing. Honestly. Big lights started flashing off it but just as I raised my camera to take a photo, it vaporised.

Sigh. Now no-one will ever believe me!!)

And, just as I was about to come in, I spotted this.

The Easter Bunny, come early?! (Orthodox Easter being this Sunday)

But apparently not. No chocolates in sight. Just a rabbit, pigging out on grass.

Too blissed out by all that green, apparently, to notice the carrot right next to it!

Dumb bunny.

Happy Thursday!

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sex selection, anyone?

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And no, not that kind of sex. Get your mind out of the gutter! This is a knitting blog, after all…

I really should stop drinking Diet Coke when watching the news. My nose still hurts this morning after snorting a big mouthful out last evening after seeing a certain news item (don’t you hate it when that happens?)

Long story short: do you want to conceive a boy? Then eat…

That’s right. (And JJ was right chuffed, as you can imagine…).
You see, some people got together and did yet another study (this time in the UK).

740 pregnant first-time mothers were asked about their eating habits before and during early-stage pregnancy:

The study found that 56 per cent of the women in the group with the highest caloric intake at conception had boys, compared to 45 per cent in the group with the lowest energy intake.

Hmm – does this mean that boy children have more fat in their brains? That would make some sense…

The women who had sons were also more likely to have eaten a wider variety of nutrients, such as potassium, calcium and vitamins C, E and B12.

But this begs the question: how about Vitamin B?

I guess I’ll have to read the whole study to find out, as the rest of the sound byte was lacking in some detail, saying only:

Women who ate breakfast cereals were also more likely to have sons.

Now, if I hadn’t been paying attention I would have just assumed that this was a snippet from some conversation that a bunch of Greek grandmothers were having with a young woman. You know, old wives’ tales time honoured traditions as to how to keep the family name going.

However, the Greek yiayiadhes wouldn’t be using such high-falutin’ language to describe the theory:

Our results support hypotheses predicting investment in costly male offspring when resources are plentiful. Dietary changes may therefore explain the falling proportion of male births in industrialized countries.

And here I thought this trend was simply proof of social Darwinism – or did I just read that in some other study?!?

Well, you know what? I can write some pretty fancy language, too, when I so choose. So now I’m off to write a funding proposal to Health Canada for a study of my very own:

Can knitters influence the gender of their children based on what colour of yarn they are knitting with when they try to conceive?

I mean, imagine how business would soar at the yarn shops! This could bring down yarn prices for the rest of us…

So, what gender of child do you think would result if knitting with, for example, this:

Or would the seacell content skew the results (because this is, of course, Handmaiden Sea Silk)? I’m so confused…

Good thing I’m not planning to conceive any time soon. With all the oatmeal in the house, all the mystery would be taken out of the process.

Don’ts for Wives

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It’s 9:00 a.m. on a Saturday
and I do not have to work
so here I sit, smoking cigs and s**t,
and fig’ring what duties to shirk…
(apologies to Simon and Garfunkel)

So, what can I do instead of getting out my steamshovel and clearing away all the crap currently filling my apartment? I promised myself I wouldn’t knit anything until at least the living room and spare room were done…

I know – I could read. That’s educational, anyway.

This should be fun. Let’s have a look:

From the intro:

Art is a hard mistress, and there is no art quite so hard as being a wife.


Damn tootin’!

Moving along to the main text:

Don’t worry about little faults in your husband which merely amused you in your lover. If they were not important then, they are not important now…

Faults? Hmm… such as bugging me to comb my hair all the time? Wanting to be given a medal for washing the dishes? Never throwing out an empty toilet paper roll? who says those aren’t important?!?!?

…besides, how about yours?


Mine?!? My faults? I don’t have any faults!!


Hmm… on second thought… hey, how do you like my loud hawaiian-style elephant shirt, anyway?


Scored it in Thrift Villa in Parkdale some time back for $5! Not really something a housewife in 1913 would have worn, though, I guess…

But I digress. Back to my reading.

Don’t live on top of a spiritual mountain. Try to be “a creature/not too bright and good/for human nature’s daily food”.

What?!? That doesn’t even rhyme? What the hell is this supposed to mean? I’m confused. But then I don’t live on top of a spiritual mountain, so I guess I don’t have to worry about it.

Let him be as messy as he likes in his own home…

Sure… that is, until I get tired of it and throw away all of his “important paperwork” that he keeps hoarding (junk mail, old newspapers, etc.) later today.

Don’t spend half the morning in bed because “there is not enough to get up for”. The day is not long enough to do all of the things you might do if you liked.

Oh – such as cleaning up after your husband?!


Anyway, the only reason I sleep in half the morning is that I’m suffering from a bit of the Tenant Advocate cheer the night before. But I guess that wasn’t the housewifely done thing in 1913, either. Good thing the list of tips doesn’t say: “Go out with the Tenant Advocates for several beer and Irish nachos every Friday after work.” I don’t think I could stick to that one.

Don’t greet him at the door with a catalogue of the dreadful crimes committed by servants during the day.

No fear of that. This is the only servant in the house:

Or is that “helpmeet”?

(Don’t feel too sorry for me, though. I think I may have mentioned before that I don’t even know how to operate this iron…and I’ve never quite mastered putting up the ironing board, either. Anyway, substitute “clients” or “boss” [in past!] for “servants” and that is probably a tip I could learn from.)


Don’t object to your husband getting a motor-bicycle; merely insist that he shall buy a sidecar for you at the same time.

Hmm – I wonder how JJ would look in a sidecar? What do you think?


JJ – King of the Household.

Don’t buy expensive food, and have it ruined in the cooking. If your cook isn’t up to French dishes, be satisfied with English ones cooked to perfection.

Well, since I had to let the cook go, the Husband will just have to content himself with this:

At least it fits the “not too expensive” category!

Don’t permit yourself for a single instant that nothing is more annoying to a tired man that the sight of half-finished laundry work. The remotest hint in your home of a “washing day” is like a red rag to a bull.

Bull, indeed. Two answers for that guy:
(a) do it yourself, then; or
(b) drop it off at the Wash n Fold!

Anyway, I think I’ve read enough. Time to get off my lazy @$$ and clean the damn house. I guess I’ve learned something from the book, eh?