Swedish Smedish

The first part always lures me into a false sense of joy because I will be eating Very Cheap Meatballs with lovely gravy, chips and some sort of jam on the side. That's all I really want from life generally. So with stomach full, I go to pick up the one wardrobe that I have already chosen from the catalogue in the comfort of my own home.

I just need one thing.

But hang on, there's a cuddly scorpion that's only 39p, so I'd better get 5. And something which makes my cupboards seem bigger. And a set of wine glasses. And a watering can. And, and...

OK, now I really do have everything I need, I just need to get to the bit where the flatpacks are kept. But there is a couple walking in front of me veerryyy slowly with a wide trolly and wider bottoms. I will have to stay behind them at their pace until I get to a junction because the path is very narrow and my only alternative is to clamber over the fitted kitchen. They are very slow. They are very wide.

Eventually I duck past but am soon met by another obstacle. A fueding couple who are blocking my path by holding oversized soft furnishings. "I don't want to make a SCENE David." "I'm not making a scene, I just don't think those will go with the curtains, and I don't think you really see the seriousness of that."

I would love to stay and see how this develops but I want to GET OUT but I am on a seemingly never-ending winding narrow path peopled by wide couples or arguing couples or other people blocking me in equally inconsiderate ways.

And I still haven't seen my wardrobe even though I've been through 3 wardrobe sections (or have I been to the same wardrobe section 3 times?).

I decide to ask a member of staff for help. There are none. I continue to search and eventually approach someone.
Me: Hi, I wonder if you can help me?
Employee (without looking up): Yeah?
Me: I'm looking for the Bonky Wardrobe.
Employee: You'll need to check the catalogue.
Me: Great, where can I find a catalogue?
Employee: On that stand over there.
Me: Ah, I did just check there, there aren't any.
Employee: That one over there then.
Me: Oops, none there either!
Employee: Sorry, can't help then.

Undeterred I continue to wind my way around the endless pathway until I locate the Bonky Suite, and copy down the corresponding code to find the flatpack. I can now get to the flatpack bit, but I have been here for 15 hours so my energy is beginning to flag, plus I have been carrying 35 unneccessary essentials with me for the entire duration.

I locate the flatpack I need and am physically unable to move it at all.

I ask for help and a kind employee takes it to the till. I pay and hand over my loyalty card which is scanned.

Me: This doesn't seem to have made any difference to my bill.
Cashier: No, it just gives you a free cup of tea in the canteen you were in 15 hours ago.

The employee helps me to wheel the flat packs to my car, taking me past the returns area. The facial expressions and body language of the people there make it resemble a waiting room for a doctors' surgery where there is only one doctor who is only in on an unspecified day and you are not allowed to know which one.

The flat pack will not fit in my car.

There is one thing (except the meatballs, and the joy of assembling the furniture once it's home) that redeems this company. That thing is Anna. Try saying these things to her: 'You are pretty.' 'Will you go out with me?' 'Are you married?' I love the way she becomes so anxious - it's OK, I'm not really interested in you, you're a picture! And I love the way she pronounces Ikea! If you can make her say anything else amusing, do let me know.

Oddbabble: Can't tell her Bonky from her Shlonky.

Ladies Who Lunch

Pam -Soozie-Doreen-Jean

Pam: Helloooo, and welcome to LADIES WHO LUNCH!
Audience of middle-aged women: Wooooo!!
Pam: We've got a fantastic show for you today. We'll be discussing 'Does my bum look big in this?' 'Should I dump my man?' and a Serious Political Debate!
Audience: Wooooo!!
Pam: OK, so let's start with our first topic. Ladies, do you ever worry about the size of your bum?
Jean: OMG are you joking?
Audience: Wooooo!!
Jean: I mean, if panties could talk!
Other panel members: Hahaha! What is she like?!
Jean: I remember a time when I said to my boyfriend, 'does my bum look big in this?' and he said, wait for it girls, he said 'well you know what you always say to me darling, size does matter!'
Audience (hysterical at the mention of a slight penis innuendo): WOOOOOOOOOO!!!
Pam: Hahahaha. What about you Doreen?
Doreen: I love my bum I've always been happy with my bum. I think all women who don't like their bums are stupid and fat anyway. It's obvious that the answer is to eat fewer pies.
Jean: Doreen, how can you say that?! What about all the wine you drink?
Audience: Wooooo!!
Pam: I do have to admit ladies, we did have a couple of bevvies last night!
Doreen: A couple? Only if you mean the equivalent of newly weds' body weight!
Audience: Woooo!!
Jean: What is she like?!
Pam: OK girls enough about drinking and bums...
Audience: Wooooo!!
Pam:...it's time for our Serious Political Debate!
Doreen: Oh I don't know, I've got such a headache from all the wine last night!
Soozie: She's an alcoholic!!
Audience: Woooo!!
Pam: Now now girls. Our topic today is 'Should the government be making so many cuts?' What do you think girls?
Jean: No way! They're just making cuts all over the place! It's awful! They should be giving us money, not taking it away. How are we meant to pay for things?
Doreen: It's ridiculous. I grew up with nothing as a kid. We all had to drink rain water from the gutter and eat out of bins. But it's not as bad as it is now. It's awful.
Pam (reading from an autocue): But how else will the government tackle the deficit.
Panel: ...
Soozie:....well, I mean, they have to make some cuts I guess...
Doreen: As long as they don't tax alcohol!
Audience: Woooo!
Soozie: Yeah, or penises!
Audience: Wooo!!!
Pam (fanning herself): Well ladies I'm afraid that's all we have time for today! But tune in tomorrow for more topics relevant to ladies today! Bye!!

The next day...

Pam: Helloooo, and welcome to LADIES WHO LUNCH!
Audience of middle-aged women: Wooooo!!
Pam: We've got a fantastic show for you today. We'll be discussing 'Fad diets' 'Is my boyfriend cheating?' and a Serious Political Debate!
Audience: Wooooo!!
Pam: And as it's Soozie's birthday today, we'll also have a random semi-naked man bringing in a cake!
Audience (several of whom have passed out): WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
Pam: OK girls, let's start with Fad Diets. Have any of you tried to lose weight?
Soozie: I'm starting my diet tomorrow!
Doreen: That's what she always says!
Audience: *Falls about in apoplectic laughter*
Doreen: I'm on a wine diet!
Jean: What is she like?! She's hungover again!!
Pam: Oh wait, who's this I see coming in with a cake?
Audience: *Screams hysterically at oiled pretty boy who is blatantly homosexual*
Pam: Happy birthday Soozie, just a little suprise for you. It was either that or a sausage!
Audience: Woooooo!!
Jean: Yes, or a little package!
Audience: Wooooooooooooo!!
Doreen! Or a big one!
Everyone falls about lauging until the credits roll.

The next day...

Pam: Helloooo, and welcome to LADIES WHO LUNCH!
Audience of middle-aged women: Wooooo!!
Pam: We've got a fantastic show for you today. We'll be discussing 'How do I get rid of my cellulite?' 'How do I know if he's the one?' and a Serious Political Debate!
Audience: Wooooo!!

You get the idea...

Another Post On Suffering

At the risk of repeating myself (I've gone over similar lines here) allow me to bang a drum I like to reprise every now and again. And allow me to do it again in a couple of posts' time. Thanks.

Unfortunately for any small group or Bible study I may grace with my presence, I am that irritating token person who always points out the unresolvable, willfully invisible elephant in the passage, just when we all thought we were agreeing pleasantly and coming to the same comfortable conclusions as usual.

On one such occasion the study was on Matthew 7 and I pointed out 2 uncomfortable realities, one of which I will now unpack.

I pointed out that when our Father gives out his gifts, he doesn't do so equally. He gives much blessing to some, and little blessing to others. To some he gives much suffering, to others much less.

One person's response was this; "This is true, but when I've spoken to people who have suffered, their experience of Jesus has been all the sweeter."

I gave a silent reply because of my hideous combination of a wildly emotional histrionic drama queen trapped inside the body of a painfully self-conscious, cringingly English woman. One who knew she had already rocked the boat too many times that evening to add an embarrassing, tearful rebuke (plus, well, my period was due, so the whole thing would have been monstrously amplified and very un-Bible-study-ish).

What I wanted to say was this:

How many suffering people have you actually spoken to in real life? Because what you're saying actually sounds like what you imagine suffering people to say while you are trying to square this difficult circle in your head. Yes, there are wonderful Christian examples like Brother Yun, who are able to count their suffering as a blessing but dare I say it, he is an exceptional man - a true hero of the faith. How many ordinary people with everyday ordinary unequal sufferings have you actually had an authentic conversation with?

Let me give you an example. My own sufferings are very, very small compared to a lot of people. Nevertheless as many readers know, my testimony is mostly not exactly jolly. I was asked for it by someone on the board of a well-known evangelical conference, only to have it returned to me with this feedback - "Thanks for your story. Do you think you could add a sentence or two just mentioning how God made up for what you've sacrificed in other ways?".

My answer was that no, I was not going to bolt on a contrived happy ending. My story is my story and actually, God has not 'made up for it'. There isn't an automatic equilibrium in my life - or anyone else's - which means that bad stuff is always weighed up somewhere with good so it all comes out equal and fair in the end.

Life is not fair people!

Life is not equal!

Even, *gasp* for Christians!

It may well be that my friend had spoken to a lot of suffering Christians and that they gave in to the pressure to give a happy ending and added an experience that was not really felt. Going back to the previous example of Habakkuk in my last rant about this (see the link at the start), sometimes, there really are NO FIGS! Sometimes we don't get peaches to make up for the lack of figs! The right Christian response, as in this passage, is to trust God anyway. To trust that there will be figs and peaches overflowing when we die, yes, but that in this life, some get crops of figs, some get none.

Sometimes that lack of figs creates a 'Heavenly Man' type of Christian. Sometimes it creates an OddBabble type of Christian who is far less heroic in response to her far, far, far lesser sufferings, who actually has a pretty impoverished faith in response, which actually a lot of the time is holding on by a thread, and a lot of the time, the One holding on to the thread is not her.

I am not wishing for fewer Heavenly Men, or for less joy in suffering or for less discipline in blessing-counting. God knows these are all things I desperately need to learn from in my life. I know that part of my response here comes from a gross lack of godliness and I'm not boasting in that.

All I wish for is a bit of honesty and authenticity. Sometimes (often, in my experience) the best response to someone's suffering is not to look for the silver lining, or to make one up when there isn't one, but actually just to weep and grieve with them while they are in their cloud and give them the balm of acknowledging that being in a black cloud just feels shit right now.

Scarecut #2

Today I got my hair cut - an acutely anxiety provoking activity which I wrote about once before here.

I don't have too much to add to what I said then, except to say that all my worst nightmares came true on this occasion.

Kayla, ever the professional, smilingly said the following: "I'm just gonna pop a tissue on you there because I seem to have taken the top off a bleeding sore on your head with my comb."

I took in the scene in the mirror before me: Kayla smilingly holding a blooded tissue above my head, my own blushing, horrified face, and the face of the woman next to me which read "OMG, that woman has actually got leprosy?"

Oddbabble. Glamour is her middle name.

Miscellany

A collection of oddbabblings, anecdotes and misdemeanors from the last few months...


On Becoming a Grown-up

I recently had to attend my first multi-disciplinary meeting in my newish job. This meant that I had to persuade other adults that I am competent and professional, whereas thus far, I have only had to convince 6-11 year old children, who are frankly gullible. I was very disappointed therefore, to find that during my cycle ride in, a piece of debris flew into my eye, meaning that I was compulsively winking throughout the meeting. The middle-aged women around the table must have thought I was either some kind of creepy flirt, or unusually moved (I was also crying, but only out of one eye), or secretly trying to tell all of them something that they couldn't quite decipher. Either way, it wasn't how I had hoped it would go.

Cheap Seats

Someone I know was delighted to have been given tickets to go and see the famous Riverdance show. Unfortunately, the seats were in a very poor position, meaning she could only see the dancers from the waist up. Thus she was able to watch hours of people wobbling everso slightly while looking straight ahead and holding their arms tightly by their sides.

Unprofessional Footwear

Since I am a counsellor, a friend bought me socks with the following statements on them, to help my clients to know that I'm really there for them:
"I'm not listening!"
"I understand, I just don't care"

Autocounsellor

After a particularly long day (in fact, almost a duplicate of the one described in my last post) I was waiting to be picked up from a distant station, looking at some trees with lights that flashed in different patterns - some fast, some slow, some sporadic. I found myself auto-empathising and thinking "I see, so you're flashing quite fast now. Perhaps you're feeling quite frantic? OK, and slower, yes. I sense there's a calmness between us now." I genuinely had these actual thoughts about lights on trees. That's tiredness.

Sweet Nothings

Oddbabble: I love you.
Companion: Wow, I think I have 5 layers on today.

Evidence for my Sanity

Genuine quotes from the 'Stickers Are Evil' group on Facebook:

"Stickers are the most disgusting thing in the world, I want to be sick if I am near them."

"yess! finally stickoraphobians unite! i get teased so much but really, IT'S A REAL THING! i demand some friggin respect..."

"i really hate stickers! they make me vomit and cry, ewwwww!!!!!!! ;("

"no way!!! i thought i was on my own. they make me sick! especially when they are curled up. makes my stomach chern!!!"

"The sight of a sticker peeling off with fuzz from a shirt stuck to it makes me nauseous. And little kids with stickers on their faces. It makes me gag EVERY time. I never can understand how ANYONE allows stickers to touch them."

"Stickers make me vomit too!!! I think they are the nastiest things ever. I have to cut off the stickers from apples, I can’t peel them off. I usually buy apples without stickers so I don’t have to deal with gagging when i see the sticker."

"stickers r fricken disgustingg, especially the thought of getting them in my hair, it makes me cringe just to think about it"

I have to stop now because I'm making myself feel sick, but I think I've made my point. I am right.


Childhood Sweethearts

These are the names of the teddys I had when I was a little girl. They seemed genuinely straightforward and logical to me at the time:

Fat
Pepper
Tray
Petrol Girl
Terrorhawksstayonthischannelthisisanemergency
Kevvy Boobs



Bum Geography

During the snowy season, I fell flat on my bum. The bruise the next day was in the shape of a perfect map of Australia, complete with New Zealand next to it, to scale.

Travel Sickness

Has anyone been to Gatwick Airport recently? While waiting for a delayed plane, I was horrified to be 'entertained' by The Gatwick Factor (like the X Factor, but cleverly renamed, and without any of the elements of enjoyment). They piped it out so loudly that there was literally no escape as we were already airside. I had to endure an elderly lady singing Hey Big Spender, complete with 'sexy' dancing. Old lady, I do not want to know with whom you may or not pop your cork. Frankly, I don't want to think about your cork at all.

Oddbabble: Writes this kind of crap down in her little book.

A Day in the Life

I was going to write this as a Facebook update, but it was too long, so it's going here:



Today I left the flat at 8:30 am and returned home at 8:30 pm. During that time I took 6 buses, 5 trains, 3 tubes and 1 DLR, and walked many miles pulling a wheely shopper containing 13 books, 4 large puppets, 16 finger puppets, some plasticine, some art materials, loads of sheets of important paper and some miscellaneous objects.

I gave 100% of my concentration and empathy counselling 3 troubled children and 3 troubled adults, and was a client myself in an expensive, tearful session.

Of these 12 hours, I was paid for 3, and spent 72% of that wage doing the above.

I am tired. I am post CYFA camp tired. Brother, sisters, do you hear me? Holler!

The Signs of Ageing

Two things happened this week that made me feel like a 70 year old woman.



The first is that I purchased my very first wheely shopper, pictured below.Isn't it just sex on wheels though? If you look very closely, you will see that it has a cylindrical side pocket for accomodation of a walking stick!



In my defence, I bought it as a convenient way to lug tons of toys around the primary schools that I work in. I thought the children would find the ladybirds appealing, and hoped it might earn me the nickname "The Ladybird Lady". I'll let you know.



The second geriatric incident was when I lost my bicycle glove. I lamented to my friend on the phone how I am always losing things like that and will have to buy yet another pair.



It wasn't until several HOURS later, that I discovered upon looking at my reflection in a mirror, that it was in fact caught in my hair.



If I'm like this now, I dread to think what I'll be like when I really am a crazy old woman.