todayiamadaisy | Entries tagged with questions

My week of leave is going well. We made a list of jobs that need doing and are ticking them off. Took some old electronics to the e-waste station. Came back to find two things I'd missed. Built a wooden border around a flower bed. Went through my wardrobe and threw out some old work pants and shoes. Took a box of stuff to charity. My mother rang the food bank to ask if they took fresh vegetables (they do). Took fifteen zucchini and fifty tiny tomatoes to the food bank, and that's still not the end of the zucchini and tomatoes. Read my way through a handful of my the books I bought last week. Made a rhubarb and custard cake.

Still to come: going out for lunch Thursday and Friday, getting a new battery for the clock, weeding and mulching the front garden.

March questions

1. If you built a themed hotel, what would the theme be, and what would the rooms look like?
I wouldn't, is the short answer to that, because I am not cut out for life as a hotelier.

But to engage with the question: clouds. Wouldn't it be nice to sleep in a cloud? Stay in the Cumulus room, bright blue with puffy white furniture. Or the Nimbostratus room, where everything is misty grey. Or the Cumulonimbus room, painted purple with weird yellow lights.

2. What was one of the most interesting concerts you've been to? What was interesting about it?
How about a concert I've been in? One year my clarinet teacher had me join a collaboration between the local orchestra and choir for a performance of Handel's Messiah. And it was fine, rehearsals went well, the crowd filed in for the Easter performance... until halfway through one of the pieces the choir went flat. They just took a turn downwards and couldn't get it back. So the conductor stopped us mid-piece and made us start again, and you could hear the ripple of confusion through the audience. So that was some unexpected excitement. ("It woke me up," complained my mother, who was in the audience.)

3. What did you Google last (or Bing, or Duck-Duck-Go, or otherwise search for online)?
I just did an image search for photos of old australian motel breakfast hatches. I was thinking of working them into my theme hotel.

4. What odd smell do you really like?
(I should remind the reader that, to an Australian, a thong is a rubber flip-flop. A thing for your feet.)

I enjoy the thong aisle of the supermarket. All that fresh rubber.

I am now on a week of leave. So far I have: been back to the neighbourhood second-hand book shop that is closing down and bought some more Chalet School and Miss Silver novels; driven past a car accident with flashing police lights everywhere; been to the lakeside farmers' market and witnessed a fight between two swans right in the middle of the market; seen a two-tailed lizard running along a fence; tidied my handbag and found a Nestlé Crunch bar I didn't know I had. Two-and-a-half days of non-stop action and unexpected thrills.

The car accident was the second time this week I have seen the Crime Scene Van in action (that's painted on the side of it). I walk to work past a building site on the TAFE campus, and the other morning the Crime Scene Van was parked nearby and there were two people in those pale blue hooded coveralls and two men in high-vis vests and hard hats looking at something down the side of the building.

(It occurs to me I should clarify when I say "swans" I mean black swans, so you can more accurately picture the fight at the market.)

February questions

25. What is the least inspiring/interesting meal you've eaten?
I'm sure as a student, I had plain buttered noodles as a whole meal at some stage. Once in a restaurant, I ordered a side salad and received a bowl of lettuce with two slices of tomato hidden in it. Once when I was little, my grandfather and I were alone for dinner, and he was so excited to make sausages the way he liked them, instead of the way my grandmother cooked them for him, and the way he like them was boiled. Boiled pink flesh with grey skin flaking off, they remain among the least appetising things I have ever seen. He hoed in with Rosella Sweet Mustard Pickles on top. I loved my grandfather dearly, but he had terrible taste in sausages.

Oh, and cakes! Sometimes in a café you might see a lovely cake, beautifully decorated, but it turns out to taste underwhelming. I'm looking at you, overly sticky and sweet orange and almond cake at Club Warrnambool. There are few things more dispiriting than a disappointing cake.

26. What really needs to be modernized?
A good few of Australia's politicians, media and business class need to modernise their ideas. We're currently in a bout of nonsense about some senior female politicians apparently being "mean girls".

27. "What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger!" Do you believe hardship make a person stronger? If so, under what conditions and at what point is it too much hardship? If not, what makes a person stronger?
No. What doesn't kill you physically is likely to get you hospitalised or leave you quite unwell for a long time, and there's no reason mental or emotional stress would be any different.

I think a person's reaction to hardship depends so much on context: their personality, their circumstances, what the hardship is, and so many other factors. And what is a strong reaction - persevering, overcoming, trying something else, or walking away?

28. What's invisible, but you wish people could actually see it?
After two years of Covid, it would be nice if people who had it grew, I don't know, bright green freckles or something. Not permanently. And not sore like pox. Just temporary, painless, surface-only markings during the contagious period.

Long weekend, which was good. I got stuff done. I threw some wildflower mix seeds around a patch of garden that doesn't do much, to fill it up while I think about what to do with it long-term. I planted my sweet pea seeds. I made a zucchini and walnut loaf. I tidied the computer desk. All go.

Only four days to work this week, then a week off. I can't wait. It's been a long first quarter.

Catching up on that daily meme I was doing. I ran into a patch of dull questions (or rather, questions to which I have dull answers), so I'll plough them in batches.

February

20. What makes you roll your eyes every time you hear/see it?
Not what, but who. And that who is the Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison. He was isolating with Covid a few weeks back and it was so nice not to have to see his smirking face on the news every night.

21. When was the last time you got to tell someone "I told you so!"?
I can't remember ever actually saying that aloud, although I've certainly thought it. Most recently about someone who took a job that sounded terrible, and it was, and they left shortly afterwards. They've had a bad enough time of it as it is; they don't need me being all smug at them.

22. If someone narrated your life, who would you want to be the narrator?
Well, that would be the world's dullest documentary. No-one in particular. Maybe if it didn't matter who narrated it, but they did it in a made-up language, so watchers could have fun guessing what it was actually about.

23. Is there something that you're interested in that most people aren't?
No, I'm not interesting enough to have esoteric, one-off interests. Apart from myself, I suppose.

24. What was cool when you were young, but really isn't cool now?
For some reason, Fido Dido popped into my head the other day.

February

13. What was the last song you listened to of your choosing? What was the last song you heard that was imposed on you (e.g. background music at a store, in someone else's car, etc.)?

I had music on shuffle while I was outside with Alistair earlier, and what came up was "Ti Amo" by Laura Branigan.

(I started writing these answers during the week, so this was written on a weekday.) The last song I heard that was imposed on me was in my work's weird upstairs foyer. There are a couple of armchairs for people waiting for something/someone, but mostly it's a place for passing through to somewhere else, and yet this is the one place in the building that gets piped music. I suspect it's our hold music, and it's a weird hodge-podge of pop songs from the seventies to... well, not to the present, exactly, but I have heard early Britney, so to the early aughts. You never know what you're going to get when you wander through. Today, I got this:

(I've never seen that video before. Those shiny suits are amazing.)

14. Do you play mobile games on your phone? If yes, what is the most addictive game you've played?
I have Merge Magic on my phone, which is one of those ones where you merge three plants to make one bigger plant and three eggs to make a dragon and so on. On my laptop I have Gardenscapes: New Acres, which is a match three game. They are both chronic time sucks.

15. Do you text more or call more? Why?
Text. I'm not big on phone calls.

16. Most important in a partner or best friend: intelligence or sense of humour?
What sort of intelligence? What sort of humour? I'd say kindness tops both.

17. February 17 is "Random Acts of Kindness Day". What random act of kindness would you like someone to perform for you?
It wouldn't be random if I had a say in it, would it?

18. What are you going to do this weekend?
Today is Saturday, and I had to go shopping this morning for assorted things: cat food, cyan and magenta toner cartridges, a USB adaptor cable, a cleaning brush that will fit into my olive oil bottle. In the afternoon I set up my new iMac. Tomorrow, I might go to the farmers' market in the morning, and that's as far as I've planned ahead.

19. Would you rather have all your meals prepared for you, but not have any say in the menu (outside of certain dietary restrictions e.g. allergies), or sleep eight hours every night, but not get to choose your bedtime?
How are either of these things ever going to happen, unless I end up in some sort of prison? I suppose I'd choose the food one; it might mean I've hired a personal chef.

Good news: Our zucchini plant has calmed down. We are no longer living on an all-zucchini diet.

Bad news: Our long, green vegetable nightmare isn't over. My mother picked eighteen cucumbers off the single cucumber plant in the last two days.

Friday was my half-day at work and I came home about at about one to find my mother on the phone. On the landline, which I want to get rid of, but which she insists on keeping for some of her elderly relatives. Apart from the elderly relatives, most of the calls to the landline are junk: surveys, charities, scams.

So she was on the phone, and as I came in she said, "Oh, here's my daughter, you can talk to her," and handed me the phone, saying, "There's a problem with the modem."

Now, our telco is Telstra, and we have had a letter from them recently about them doing work in the area this week, with a number to call if we have problems, and, indeed, the Telstra van was parked round the corner on my way home. So this was plausible; but if I'd had time to think, I would have realised that my mother would rather be waterboarded than call Telstra voluntarily. She would have waited until I came home and made me call. But I didn't have time to think, so I just took the phone to find out what the problem was.

The problem was a very angry man called Sean, who claimed that our modem was sending too much data and was going to overload the network. He thought our wi-fi had been hacked. He wanted me to tell him what colour the lights on the modem were and if they were flashing or not, and when I told him, thinking this was a stupid question, he repeated the answer back to me incorrectly. So I concluded this was some sort of scam and ended the call.

"No, it's urgent, he'll call back!" said my mother, and sure enough, the phone rang immediately with the same number. I let it ring out and blocked the number. It turned out Sean had called (not my mother), saying he was from "Telstra Technical Services" and started his nonsense about the modem, and my mother, sensing a scam, had hung up. He'd then called back twice more and was really aggressive, convincing my mother that he was legit and the problem was urgent, largely because he knew our phone number and address. I think he'd have run into a problem if he'd tried to get her to download something or give her credit card details, or whatever the plan was, but she was quite upset that that he'd got as far as he had.

Anyway, she's promised that she'll hang up on any more Telstra Technical Services calls.

(I've just checked the call list, and we had three more blocked calls from Sean's number Friday afternoon.)

February

( Not very exciting questions )

I received a text message today, reminding me to update the vaccination certificate on my phone so it says I've had three vaccinations. I thought it did that automatically, but okay, I'll do that. You'll be shocked - SHOCKED! - to find it didn't go smoothly. I was not feeling up to dealing with that, so I'll try again tomorrow.

The reason I wasn't feeling up to it was that my iMac was playing up, constantly rebooting itself and opening up with a pink and white striped screen. Very pretty, but not really what it's meant to do. Long story short, I think I'm in the market for a desktop computer.

(That reminds me, when I was little, the newspaper used to have a puzzle page with a logic problem on it, and the introduction every week said something about solving it with your "necktop computer". And every week I skipped over it, thinking, well, I don't have one of those. It was years before I worked it out. Clearly I wasn't ready for the puzzle if I couldn't work out the instructions.)

In happier news, look at my new dahlia! It's called Neon Sunset:

1 (2).jpeg

February

4. Regardless of your age, what "old person" thing(s) do you do?
I love a good cardigan. I like nice tins of shortbread, particularly if I can re-use the tin to store something afterwards. I have a bag of Werther's Originals in my car's glovebox. I take photos of my dahlias. Honestly, I'm just waiting to age into my old lady-ness.

5. Do you often get the hiccups? If yes, do you have a go-to cure for them?
I wouldn't say "often", but I sometimes get the hiccups after eating. There's no obvious reason why one day and not another. The hiccups themselves are annoyingly squeaky. I sneeze quietly, but I hiccup loudly. Quickly drinking a big glass of water fixes it. I can feel the water pushing through the... air blockage?

6. What's the best Wi-Fi name you've seen?
That's not really a thing round here. My wifi's name is the default name, and all my neighbours are the same (using the default name, I mean, not having the same name as me). Nothing very exciting at all.

Lunar New Year, and it's now the Year of the Tiger. That's me! It's my year. Look out, world.

We couldn't keep up with eating our zucchinis and declared defeat with eighteen in the fridge. They've been grated and frozen in two-cup lots, ready for use in times of less zucchini plenty.

Brian Next Door cut three perfect circles into his perfect front lawn a few days ago. Today I came home from work to find he's planted pumpkin seedlings in them. So that's an unexpected piece of whimsy.

February

1. Do you think your country would change if everyone, regardless of age or any other current restriction, could vote? If yes, in what ways?
I suppose that would mean younger people would be able to vote, and that might mean people less willing to vote for policies that entrench existing structures that don't serve them. So that might be good.

If the very, very young were able to vote, we might end up with the Wiggles and Bluey in parliament. And, honestly, that couldn't be worse than who we've got now.

2. Is there a movie or TV show you can watch over and over again without tiring of it?
As a child, I watched Little Shop of Horrors many, many times, and would happily watch it again if I stumbled across it. Actually, a lot of classical musicals.

For some reason, I have seen the 1980s Joan Hickson Miss Marple version of A Murder is Announced multiple times, and, again, I would watch that again if I stumbled across it. The universe obviously wants me to watch it.

3. If an actor who is really well known for one role turns up in another film or TV show playing a different character, do you have trouble not seeing them as their more famous character?
No, that's fine. I have trouble the other way, when a different actor plays the same character. I will never believe the chap playing Endeavour is going to grow up to be Morse.

It was my long day at work. Month end: I have to wait until everyone finishes so I can close off the financials. Completed uneventfully and home in time for dinner. Unlike November...

Back in November, I had colleague Brooke with me, learning what to do in case I ever get hit by a bus. That made a long day longer, as I had to explain everything and Brooke made copious notes and double-checked everything. So it was after seven when we finished, and a little later when we left our stuff on our desks and went into the kitchen to wash up our mugs... and then stayed in the kitchen when our swipe cards wouldn't let us back into the office. I swiped. Brooke swiped. I swiped again, just in case. Brooke swiped again, just in case.

This was bad. There are a number of exits, but all of them need the swipe card. If the swipe card doesn't work, we're stuck in the middle of the building with access to the kitchen, bathroom and a couple of meeting rooms. We couldn't even get back into our office, where we'd left our bags and phones.

Just as we were looking at each other, wondering what to do, the CEO's personal assistant came past on her way home and very kindly swiped us back into our office. Phew.

We have since had our swipe cards fixed to give us 24-hour access, so that will never happen again. (And if it did, I have realised, there are computers and phones in the meeting rooms, so we'd be able to contact someone that way.)

January

31. Toilet paper: over or under?
Over, and anyone who does otherwise is a monster.

It's Sunday, but let's do the Friday Five:

1. Do you write letters on a regular basis or just for special occasions?
I used to write a lot more. These days I have a couple of people I write to, slowly.

2. Do you stockpile cards and notepaper?
Cards, yes. I have a box of nice cards, mostly birthday or blank. You never know when one will come in handy. I think I've worn down my notepaper stash now, but I do have more photocopy paper than a person needs: reams of white A4, white A3, heavy A4 and tan A4, plus three or four smaller (50 sheet) packets of different coloured A4.

3. Are you in the habit of writing thank you notes or just send something via e mail and call it good enough?
Writing thank you notes seems to be a very American thing. I would only write them (or expect them) for formal gift-giving occasions (weddings, baptisms) or for something special. Other thanks can be by emails, text or even in person, depending on who and what the thanks is for.

4. Do you have any stickers or fun ink stamps?
I've got a date stamp. That's fun if you're me. Or it was fun, but we're now past the last year on the roller, so it's literally out of date. I also have a pad of stickers with unicorns and narwhals and stars, which I bought last year. I stuck one on each week of my diary for a bit of decoration. There were so many, I had plenty left for this year's diary, and for next year too.

I also have a label maker that makes sticky labels. Hours of fun, and a very organised spice drawer.

5. Without looking (and I’m going to have to trust you here), how many stamps do you currently have on hand (a roll, a sheet, something like that)?
I had to buy a book of stamps (meaning a folding sheet of ten) last year, when I needed some for work purposes. I think there's five or six of them left; they'll be in my work desk. Local stamps, $1.10 each. And there used to be an envelope in the kitchen dresser with assorted stamps in it: a Christmas card-only stamp ($0.65) from a few years ago and a couple of small denomination stamps, I think from when the local stamp cost changed a few years ago and I needed to add to the old ones to make up the new value.

January

30. Do you sleep with your sheets tucked in or out? If you don't use top sheets, if you stay somewhere that does, do you prefer your sheets tucked in or out?
I hate being tucked in. I have a doona (you might call it a duvet), no top sheet. When it's too hot for that, I have a patchwork quilt; when it's too cold, I have both together. When I stay in a hotel or wherever that uses top sheets, I untuck as much as I can.

Today I filled in my post-booster survey (no, I did not have any reaction other not sleeping well that night and a bruise-like feeling on my arm for a day).

My mother and I went out for lunch with her best friend, Colleen, and her daughter, Ali. Ali is a nurse like my mother. Today she was telling us about a troublesome visitor to the hospital she works at, and finished by saying, "Anyway, you just can't fix stupid."

"But you CAN sedate it," said my mother, and the two of them laughed uproariously. Obviously a bit of nursing humour.

Four more zucchini today, and a dinner of savoury zucchini crumble followed by warm zucchini brownie and yoghurt.

January

29. If you are an only child, do you wish you had siblings? If you have siblings, do you wish you were an only child?

I'm an only child and I do not wish it otherwise. Someone said to me once I didn't seem like an only child, meaning, I think, that I didn't fit her mental image of an only child as being loud and all about me. I'm quiet and all about me instead.

No daily entry yesterday. It was too hot and still and sticky to do anything. I had a shower before bed, so I left the bathroom fresh and clean and was dripping with sweat by the time I reached my bedroom.

The storm that's been coming for days finally broke this morning. Dark clouds gathered and in our brightly-lit office we must have glowed, had anyone been outside in the rain to see us. The Office Workers, a long-lost work by some Dutch master.

Imagine the scene: Dark sky and thunder, driving rain, lights flickering with every lightning strike. Half a dozen people spread out in a huge room, abandoning work to watch the roof below them fill with water like an infinity pool, shivering slightly in the now too-cold air conditioning.

And then: A voice, male, electronic, booming from the empty offices behind us. "WARRNAMBOOL. THREE. TWO. EIGHT. OH." We all jumped, f-list. "WARRNAMBOOL. THREE. TWO. EIGHT. OH. WARRNAMBOOL. THREE. TWO. EIGHT. OH."

It was the goods lift. It must have restarted while the power was going on and off, and this was part of its cycle.

January

27. Who was your worst teacher/professor? Why?
When I was university, the finance professor was... not great. He wasn't an academic, but a politician/business guy, and his "lectures" were a weekly hour of rambling about his magnificent investments and namedropping business people he knew. I strongly suspect he was given the job in return for providing funding for something or other. It was up to the tutor in his weekly session to set us work that was actually related to the course objectives.

28. Who was your best teacher/professor? Why?
I went to a tiny, tiny primary school. One year there were thirty of us in the whole school; one year only fifteen. All of us fitted in one classroom, and most of the time I was there we only had one teacher, an elderly nun called Sister Adalbert. Sister was an old-fashioned, old school nun. Managing thirty children across seven grades is a quite a skill, and one of the ways she managed was by having us all do the same thing at the same time, just at different levels, working our way at our own pace. I enjoyed that. Although there was also a lot not to like, Sister is definitely the teacher who had the biggest impact on me.

I woke up this morning to feel Sunday and thunder in the air. The thunder was right, but not the day. Mid-week public holidays are very confusing.

I used my day off to make zucchini brownies. I used vegetable oil instead of coconut oil and they worked well. Next time (and there will have to be a next time, as there was another five zucchini today) I'll toss in some toasted walnuts and orange zest for added excitement.

As well as the five zucchini, today's harvest also included two cucumbers and a bowlful of green beans. I could be self-sufficient for about a month, I reckon, provided I could survive an all-zucchini diet.

January

26. If you opened a business, what kind of business would it be?
My long-held (joke) dream job is to have some sort of twee little shop (selling only Golden Age detective fiction, say, or knitting supplies) that is also a detective agency for extremely minor problems. Or being a cobbler! A cobbler... who solves crimes.

My dog title the other day was the Australian kelpie, of which I had one called Silkie. And now, confusingly, today's title is the other dog I had as a child, an Australian silky terrier called Minnie. If only I'd had a mini dog called Kelpie to complete the circle.

Coles supermarket is doing a promotion at the moment, where you get so many points when you do your shopping, and you can use those points to "buy" a range of (actually quite good quality) cooking knives. This includes a pair of kitchen scissors, and, f-list, these scissors are good. Really good. We don't need any more knives so all our points would otherwise go to waste, so my mother used some points to get a pair of scissors. They were so good, she used some more points to get another pair to keep in the laundry. Her best friend, Colleen, lives in a town that doesn't have a Coles, so my mother used some more points to get her a pair. She liked them so much, she got my mother to use some more points to get a pair for her daughter. Then my mother used some points to get another pair for Kim Next Door. The thing is, the scissors are hard to get and are often sold out, so everyone else must think they're good too. So that's the City by the Sea: where everyone has the same pair of scissors.

January

25. How often do you stay up past 3:00 a.m.?
Rarely to never. I do have trouble going to bed. I sort of procrastinate about it. Not doing anything important, just pottering about. So when I was younger, I could easily get to two or three in the morning for a couple of hours sleep. I think I needed the time alone to recharge after being at work with people all day. These days I still need time alone but I also need a bit more sleep so I try to get to bed by 11:30, though it's often midnight by the time I turn the light off.

Finally, I am boosted! I was a little worried because, unlike last week, they hadn't sent me any reminders, but they had me on the list and happily jabbed me, so all's well.

Six more zucchini today.

January

24. If you could switch two movie/book/TV characters, what switch would lead to the most inappropriate movie/book/TV show?
Well, this is just asking for two wildly disparate characters, isn't it? How about Winnie the Pooh and Pennywise the Clown? Sauron and the man covered in saucepans from the Faraway Tree books? Dracula and Anne of Green Gables?

I didn't think I had anything to write today, but then I saw the dog breed for today's title. Amazing coincidence: tonight I watched the first episode of a new series about kelpies, in which five kelpie pups from the same litter are being trained up as cattle/sheep dogs.

I had a kelpie as a child, given to me as a pup when I was about eight. Silkie, black and white, half kelpie, half border collie. She was a pet rather than a working dog, but she was extremely good at herding our chickens, whether anyone wanted them herded or not. She was less successful herding our cats, who ignored her.

January

23. What is your favourite thing to eat or drink in winter?
That seems so far away in the middle of summer. If I imagine a cold winter's day... maybe a tender beef and veg casserole with some cheese and chive dumplings? Or just a big mug of hot chocolate with a shake of orange zest and chilli.

Today's haul:

I have plans for a curried zucchini slice and zucchini brownies, and my mother is thinking of zucchini soup. And by then, the next ones will be ready to harvest.

While I'm doing photos, last year, while people were doing sourdough in lockdown, I had a crack at croissants. ( How did that go? )

January

22. How often do you check your phone?
Rarely. In the Beforetimes I hardly ever turned it on. These days, it's on most of the time because my work phone diverts to it when I work from home, and because of checking in everywhere, but I try to ignore it as much as possible. I really do resent its constant demands for attention.

I work on the first floor (which, for clarity, because I know this is a term with different meanings depending on where you live, is one floor up, above the ground floor). I sit next to a window, which looks out on a tall tree in front of the building. And what only I and Colleague S, who shares the same window, know is that the tree top is full of orange butterflies. It's very soothing to look out on when thinking on a knotty accounting issue.

January

21. Do you like classical music? If yes, name your favourite composer(s).
I'm going to assume this is asking about what my flute teacher called chamber music in general, not just music of the classical period. I'm currently on a Mussorgsky jag, and I always like a bit of Satie.

It's so easy to do a daily update when there's the ongoing saga of my booster shot to report. Not that there is much to report today, just that I found out the "unforeseen circumstances" that made them cancel today's appointment. Apparently Thursday is meant to be for children, but they somehow managed to mix up who was eligible to book an appointment on which day. A whole lot of parents and children turned up for their appointments yesterday to find there were no children's doses, and had to come back today.

I received a text from the Department of Health this morning saying they would call me soon to arrange a new appointment. I wonder if they'll realise I've already done that?

I was quite lucky to get a new appointment at the mass vaccination centre next Monday. Payroll Lady at work was trying to make an appointment this morning, and couldn't get in there until April. She tried her GP, and couldn't get in until March. So she rang around the pharmacies, and managed to get an appointment on 1 February.

January

20. How fast do you read?
I'm a fast reader. Not speed reading fast, but in primary school the teacher didn't believe I was reading books so quickly until she tested me on them and realised that I did know what was in them. And if we ever had to share a book in class for some reason, I would find myself with time to wait at the end of the page.

Having said that, I don't always have a lot of time available for reading, so I can take a while to read a book. I slowly read a book quickly.

All week I have been receiving reminders about my booster shot tomorrow, both an email and a text, Monday morning, Tuesday morning, Wednesday morning. Then this afternoon, another text: my appointment has been cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances. So that's what I've been doing this evening, booking a new appointment, and I'm sure you will be shocked and surprised to hear that it didn't go smoothly. This time I had a password and the verification emails worked, but the captcha wouldn't accept my answer, even though I entered it exactly as it was in the box. Three tries later, I finally got in; I reviewed the page with my personal details; I clicked on all the questions about allergies and which vaccines I've had and when; I entered my postcode and selected my nearest vaccination site; then... the page timed out with a message to try again later. So I went away and had dinner and tried again later and finally got an appointment for 3:30pm on Monday.

The only reaction I had to my first two shots was extreme tiredness; this time round, I'm exhausted before I even get there.

January

19. Do you like reality/competition TV shows? Why or why not? If so, which ones?
I don't enjoy people plotting and shouting and eating cockroaches, but I am very interested in talented people being nice to each other. So the Bake Off, the Sewing Bee, the pottery one. Masterchef sometimes.

Something I learnt today: sharks have the same sort of reflective layer in their eyes as cats do. As the book I read that in said, if they walked on land, you'd see them at night when your headlights picked up their glowing eyes. So there's a free idea for your nightmares tonight.

January

18. In 40 years, what will people be nostalgic for?
Forty years ago was 1982, and the 1980s are having a moment now. So does that mean forty years in the future, people will be nostalgic about this year? Keep your masks, f-list: all the cool kids will be wearing them again.

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May 2022

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Page generated May. 28th, 2025 05:44 pm

Salt and corrosion

The infamous old enemies of the crime fighter

Entries tagged with questions

Bichon Frise

Bernese Mountain Dog

Bergamasco Shepherd Dog

Beauceron (Berger de Beauce)

Bearded Collie

Beagle

Basset Hound

Basset Fauve De Bretagne

Basenji

Azawakh

Australian Terrier

Australian Stumpy Tail Cattle Dog

Australian Silky Terrier

Australian Shepherd

Australian Kelpie

Australian Cattle Dog

Australasian Bosdog

Anatolian Shepherd Dog

American Staffordshire Terrier

American Hairless Terrier