Tottering on

One of the friends I told the Blighter & Bounder story to went home & told her husband, & he went to a friend of his who knows someone who works at Blighter & Bounder & the friend said judiciously,  Hmm, yes, they aren’t good with women.

SO I GUESS MAYBE.

Although it is reassuring to have an outside source—especially a Scots male outside source—confirm my suspicion, & the suspicion of all the female friends I’ve told this story to, about this.  & a male friend—who unbent the whole detached British thing enough to look totally disgusted at my description of events—said something else, which hadn’t occurred to me.  Blighter & Bounder is a private firm.  The garage he uses & recommends is part of a national chain & every time you go there the head office sends you a dorky little form that says, How did we do?  If some other Mr Personality gives me stick there, I have options.  & as it happens, a female friend goes to this other garage, which we will hopefully name Shining Example*, & she says they’ve always just fixed her car, no roaring or breast-beating.** 

Something else I was thinking about—this is not the most robust economy the history of civilisation has ever seen.  Blighter & Bounder can afford to throw away a paying customer for the sin of being the wrong gender & wearing All Stars?  What?   

I’m still tired.  Arrrgh.  I was supposed to go to dinner last night—Saturday—but the friends had friends visiting.  I was still invited, but I didn’t go.  I’m a little sorry to have missed the friends, who are also members of that benighted race, the Americans***, but as I told the person who had invited me, when the ME is in a snit, I can either talk to strangers or I can work, & I’d rather work.  & possibly get another blog post started. †

A day or three ago I met someone, while out hurtling, whom I know very slightly & would probably like if I knew better.††  We contrived not to run her over, & I further successfully heaved Genghis back to very short lead (he was not pleased with this) so we could exchange a few words.  She asked me how the ME was, & I said not great, & she said she’d had it when she was younger but had got over it, & I said, lucky you, I’ve just learned to manage it, & I would have asked further, but the light changed & Genghis & I took off at Formula-one speed, & I was thinking, as we shot down the pavement, what she must be thinking.  ME?  You’re telling me you have ME?  Well, yes.  But this is the management thing.  Everybody has ME/chronic fatigue differently.  I have some slack with mine, which means I’m surviving the invasion of the Mongol Horde—although part of my management technique, learnt the hard way, is that any physical energy I have I HAVE TO USE IT, or it goes away—like you have to keep going to the gym, only in the case of living with ME, it goes away a lot faster.  You don’t go to the gym a couple of weeks or so, maybe your belt is getting a little tighter.  You don’t perform your dog-walking or equivalent for a couple of weeks with ME, & you can’t get out of bed.  But Genghis is a little more extreme than strictly necessary, & the result is, weeks like this one just past, all I do is charge across the steppe with my relentless master the Khan, keep us both fed, & work on story-in-progress.  & maybe write a blog post or two.†††   I know:  first world problems, & the sound of the world’s smallest violin.  It’s a nice life really, I just wish there were a little more of it.

* * *

* Please note that I am an elderly, cranky fusspot, & I am using ‘hopefully’ correctly, which means ‘full of hope’ not ‘I hope this is what is going to happen,’ & that NOBODY GETS IT RIGHT ANY MORE MAKES ME CRAZY.^

^ I do not deny that I am made crazy easily.#

#Also, any more is TWO WORDS.  CRAAAAAAAAAAZY.

** Did you know that gorillas have tiny penises?^

^ I was just looking up# dominance displays in gorillas, & apparently they may bite off a leaf while roaring & breast beating.  I love this.  It sounds like a Monty Python## routine.  I AM A BIG STRONG BREAST-THUMPING MALE & IF YOU DON’T BOW & GROVEL I AM GOING TO BITE A LEAF AT YOU. 

# Yaaaay internet

## I do keep reminding you how old I am.

*** I don’t think there were any All Stars involved.  My friends would have told me.

† The unmet Americans are now off on a tour of the Highlands.  It’s what Americans do.  & I’m going to indulge in a nostalgia break.  I’ve told you that Peter & I barely made it as far as Paris a few times because the American wife was so fixated on seeing as much of the UK as possible.  We spent a statistically significant portion of that travelling time in Scotland.  Our first gambol through the Highlands we stayed at some castle on a crag that was so drop-dead romantic that it wouldn’t have mattered if the food was terrible (the food was fabulous) or the sheets were damp (the sheets were not damp & the giant fourposter was totally in keeping with the castle vibe, even though it was probably out of the upscale hotelier’s Ikea catalogue).  Their bar was large, shadowy, very well leathered in the upholstery department . . . & had a bit of a speciality in single-malt Scotch.  I discovered Laphroaig at an early age & haven’t really wavered in my loyalty since, but this place had like fifteen single malts I’d never even heard of.  I think I also gained a bit of credibility, despite my accent & the fact that I appeared to be married^ to a man a good twenty years older than I^^, when I confessed I was a Laphroaig enthusiast.  Oh, well, in that case, said the man behind the bar^^^, you have to try this.  & he poured me a shot.  Ooh, I said.  Here, he said, now this one.  Oooh, I said.  & this one, he said . . .

He seemed to be having as good a time as I was, & I don’t think it was only the marks he was putting on our tab.  Single malt aficionados tend to be zealous.   I’ve never had any head for alcohol, & I’m usually careful.  But—single malt.  Single malts I’d never heard of.  By the end of the evening I was so legless I literally couldn’t get up the stairs.  Peter had to carry me, like that scene in GONE WITH THE WIND, only with more giggling.

^ the wedding rings are not conclusive, but they are persuasive

^^ twenty five in fact

^^^ or the Scots bar equivalent of ‘oh well in that case’, ‘hae the wee nossock then’ perhaps+

+ Any true Scot reading this please do not damage yourself laughing

†† I did briefly & timorously think of suggesting we get together for a cup of tea some time but I don’t think fast on my feet anyway,^ & especially not when all the blood is pounding in those feet, sprinting after himself . . . & I probably don’t have the nerve anyway.^^  I’ve never learnt British social mores, the Scottish ones are different, &, worst of all, she remembered my name & I didn’t remember hers.  I NEVER REMEMBER ANYONE’S NAME.  I have enough trouble remembering my own, there being kind of a lot of it.^^^

^ Nor is there a graceful way to specify ‘some week the ME isn’t sandbagging me’  

^^  I mean, conversation, with another human being.  Yeep.

^^^ Jennifer Carolyn Robin McKinley Dickinson+ in case anyone has forgotten.  I think it’s on the web site somewhere.++

+ yes, I still use the Dickinson, & no, not because my poor stepson got me up here & feels obliged to keep an eye on me#

# that might be an argument for stopping using it.  ‘Oh, there’s an American writer named Robin McKinley who lives near here?’ he could say blandly & dispassionately.  ‘How interesting.’

++ I REALLY HAVE TO GET BACK TO PLUMPING OUT THE WEB SITE.  In my copious free time.  That should be an acronym, we can all use it:  imcft.  It needs to be more fun to say however.  Imcuft perhaps?  IMCUFT.  That sounds sweary & aggravated.

††† Reading murder mysteries gets a look in.  Sweeping the floor does not.