Birthday

Happy Birthday to you

Happy Birthday to you

Happy Birthday dear Skip to the End

Happy Birthday to you.

My blog is a year old today.  Sort of. 

I’ve only been at WordPress since March, but it’s exactly a year since I took my first tentative steps on Blogger.  Admittedly, I only lasted about 2 months there before I deleted the whole blog and prima donna-ishly demanded that the two people who’d linked to me take down their links.  Then I was a commenting-only presence in the blogosphere until I made the move to WordPress.  But, anyway, I’ve decided to celebrate a year of blogging today.

Sometimes I’ve hated blogging but mostly it’s been a pleasure.  I’m still excited when I get a comment and blogmeets are great fun.

Now, who’s for some birthday cake and champagne?

Stuff

As I may have mentioned before, my job is not as mentally stimulating as I might wish.  Don’t worry, though, this isn’t another “I hate my job” post.  No, sometimes, in between staring out of the window and surfing the net, I have filing to do and that involves using the date stamp.  Oh yes.

Now, for those of you who don’t spend their lives engaged in an endless round of administrative drudgery, a word or two about how it all works.  Everything that crosses my desk is stamped in (for ease of filing later).  As well as the date, there are spaces for the initials of the addressee, action, action date and job reference.  In practice, I usually only fill in the initials and the job reference, but that job reference could be a number or a word (just stop me if I’m getting too technical or you need to, you know, take a break).  Once the date-stamped correspondence has done the rounds and been scribbled on a bit more, I put it all in a pile until I can put it off no longer and I have to sort it out and file it. This is a straightforward process which involves making one big pile into lots of smaller ones before, finally, filing them.  A model of efficiency, I’m sure you’ll agree.

So I was a little confused recently when I picked up a letter which, apparently, was to be filed under “stuff”*.  Even by my, admittedly low, standards this seemed a little lax.  However, it provided me with a nicely meandering introduction to this post about some of the stuff I’ve been up to in the last couple of weeks.

1.  Went to the Festival Theatre to see the Carl Rosa company performing Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Patience”.  I love Gilbert’s lyrics and the whole thing was a trip down memory lane for me as it was the first thing I ever went to see in the “proper” theatre, with my dad, when I was seven.  Great fun.

2.  Saw the Andy Warhol exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy.  I have to confess I didn’t know a great deal about Warhol’s work before this but really loved it nonetheless.  I couldn’t help wondering, looking at the paintings of Marilyn, Judy Garland and Jackie and JFK, if he wouldn’t have painted a Diana series if he’d lived.  Thought-provoking and very enjoyable.

3.  Went to see “The Singer” starring Gerard Depardieu.  This is the kind of film the French make so well; genuine, funny and touching without ever becoming overly sentimental, quite a feat considering its central character is a washed-up night club singer who is attracted to a much younger woman.  A lovely film.

Oh yes, and now I’m stuffed** with a cold I caught from Daisy (no. 1 daughter).

*  It was, of course, “staff”.

** Did you see what I did there?!

Paranoid

Does anyone else’s blog make them paranoid?  For the best part of  a  month now I’ve been in the grips of  real love-hate feelings about this blog.  I’ve made up my mind several times recently that I’m giving up, only to start blogging or commenting the very next minute.  I’ve been doing all those things you just shouldn’t do, especially if you tend toward the paranoid at the best of times, like obsessing about stats, length/frequency of comments etc (fortunately I’m too technically incapable to check my stats properly.)  I’m also convinced, at least twice a day, that I’ve made a bad impression/pissed someone off or irritated someone somewhere in the blogosphere.  Add to this the fact that I tend to have a lot of time on my hands doing a job I hate, but would find difficult to leave for various boring reasons and you have the perfect recipe for blog-paranoia.

But, despite this, blogging has also been a life-line, especially recently, and I don’t think I could give it up.  I hope this post doesn’t come across as fishing for compliments (not that I’m averse…no, stop it!)  It’s just that, as I don’t know anyone in RL who blogs, I’ve no-one to discuss this with.  Most of my real life friends consider this to be such a bizarre waste of time pastime that I’m sure they’d have no hesitation in telling me to give it up.

But I can’t and I won’t.  So there.

A struggling young poet from Knock. Had terribly bad writer’s block. Erm…

You know you might just have run out of blog-juice when you start recycling other people’s blog posts. 

I’ve never been much of a one for games, really.  Brian, on the other hand, comes from a family where games, especially card games, are a way of life.  Consider the following scene:

Interior-day.  A woman is dealing a pack of cards.

Brian:  Stop, stop, what are you doing?!

Marsha:  I’m dealing the cards.

Brian:  Yeah.  ANTI-clockwise!!

Marsha:  Yeah, so?

Brian:  You NEVER deal cards anti-clockwise.  Ever.

Marsha:  Why?  Does it conjure up the devil, ha, ha!

Brian:  It’s a CARD-PLAYING CONVENTION, that’s why!

Now, just in case you think we were playing blackjack, or some other serious card game, I should point out that the above exchange took place during a game of Happy Families.  Played with our children on holiday.  In a caravan.

A few years later, Brian bought “Risk”, a strategy board-game and, for a while, occasional  ”Risk evenings” would be held in our house.  Needless to say I took no part in the proceedings, choosing instead to decamp to a friend’s house to share a bottle of wine and a good movie.  Once, however, I lingered for a while and, while lingering, ventured to suggest that “Risk ” was “only a game”.  Big mistake.  I was informed, in no uncertain terms, by a member of the party (not Brian) that, far from being “only a game”, board-games were nothing short of a blueprint for how to lead your life.  This person told me (and he was deadly serious) that children should be MADE to play board-games as they could learn so much about life from them.

As I said, never much of a game-player, me.

There are, however, two honourable exceptions to this rule.  Quiz games and word games.  So I thought we could have a go at a word game, limericks to be specific.  Ideally, the limerick should contain your town or city of residence in its first line but, apart from that, anything goes really.  My offering is as follows:

A woman from Edinburgh town

Had a job that was getting her down

So for a quick fix

She tried politics

Now she’s looking to oust Gordon Brown!

As you can see, flights of fantasy are not only permitted but to be positively encouraged. Knock yourselves out!

Girls’ Night Out

Friday night found me about to embark on my first “girls’” night out for ages

(Inner voice:  Why d’you think you don’t go out like this more often, Marsha?  Is it, perhaps, because you use words like “embark” when you’re writing about having a few drinks and a bit of a laugh?  Hmm?)

One of the female staff from our parent company had organised the night out in response to the golf outing which most of the male staff had taken part in earlier in the day, the company dividing, as it does, along traditional gender lines.  Anyway, as the only female in our office, I was very touched to be asked.  The women involved ranged in age from mid twenties to early sixties with me sitting  fairly and squarely in the middle of the age range.  So far, so what?  Well, I suppose I thought I’d be well placed to chat to both groups – not too out of touch with the twenty-somethings, but more than able to give a nod in the direction of the older women too.

I had my first inkling that, perhaps, my take on the situation was incorrect when, having decided to order cocktails, one of the youngsters (all of whom are delightful, charming young women) asked me if I would have one.  Nothing remarkable about that, except that her tone of voice suggested that such exoticness might be beyond my ken.  To use a parental analogy, it was that tone of voice adults use to children eating in a posh restaurant for the first time (“Would you like to see the menu, sir?”)  That kind of thing.  I don’t think her intention was to patronise me.  I think she really thought I might be  a bit confused or unsure about the contents of the cocktail menu.

Deciding that my sparkling conversation would soon convince everybody that I had a foot in both camps (and maybe even a little bias towards the younger end of the spectrum), I ploughed on, undeterred.  The youngsters began teasing each other about the male staff and who fancied whom.  After a while, when no-one had teased me or enquired who I might fancy,  I protested, laughing, that I felt left out, only to be told that they were sure SOMEBODY could be found for me!

It gradually dawned on me that, while I was viewing the age range as a contiuum, the youngsters were dividing us into two groups, young and old, and I was definitely in the “old” group and this despite the fact that one of the other women has a SON who’s only three years younger than I am!

Resigned to my classification, the rest of the evening played out in much the same vein (I was asked, at one point, if the music I was singing along to was something my kids listened to).

This morning I had a phone call from one of the youngsters, checking that I hadn’t been offended by her (perfectly normal enjoying-a-night-out) behaviour.  I think she was worried that, as a “mature lady” (her words), I might have been shocked by the sight of someone dancing.  I reassured her that, far from being shocked, I was pleased to see her enjoying herself, as she’s having a bit of a hard time at work just now.  I didn’t add that I love a dance as much as the next person, but, when you sweat like a horse, dancing’s a risky business.  I didn’t mention this because I’m sure that, even if I’d explained that I’ve always been a “hot” person, she would have assumed that I was menopausal.

Really, whoever said “Life begins at 40″ should have thought to add “and ends shortly after”!