My days have a pattern to them. I try not to deviate from my pattern too much because, while I enjoy the frailties of life and the adventures that come with it, it doesn't mean I love constant "swing your pants" kind of days. You know the kind. Where you walk a new route to work and trip over the curb finding a winning lottery ticket, only a hungover leprechaun intercedes and steals your ticket when you're busy trying to straighten your skirt for the inevitable press that will follow?

Those kind.

The days tend to start the same, regardless of whether I am hot-footing it on a train to London or spending the day in my pajamas glued to my PC and two phones (yes, it's that bad). Unless I have a super-early meet and have my alarm set, Angus' alarm goes off first (both of us only use our mobile phones as our alarms. Truly, deeply sad.) He gets up, dozy and cute, with his hair smashed into a flattened shape in the back and sheet crease marks on his cheek. He shuffles into the bathroom and locks the door and I take a moment to come to. The bed is comfy and wam and there are invariably two little wadded up pieces of kleenex floating around the bed looking like forelorn mice. Because my beloved Angus snores. Loudly. So I keep kleenex under my pillow to tear off sections from to stuff my ears. Said kleenex often wind up getting pushed behind the bed so from time to time I move the bed and remove what looks like a Johnson and Johnson factory from behind it.

Relationships are all about compromise.

I get up and make coffee. We make real coffee in this house. Good stuff. None of that Sanka or Nescafe watery rubbish here, we like the strongest possible coffee that will smack you upside the head and twist your colon in its threatening fingers. We boil water in the electric kettle (I compromised on that front, but we did buy an electric kettle that whistles when the water's boiling, so best of both worlds, really). We grind the coffee beans in the electric grinder and use the Bodum. And-this is key, here-I try to make sure my favorite mug is ready every morning.

My favorite mug is, in my opinion, the world's greatest mug. I bought it at Culloden in Scotland, and the mug is painted in bright colors with an enormous smiling cartoon-like Loch Ness Monster on the front. He is wearing a Scottish tartan hat and the whole mug is curved like the back of a sea monster. Not exactly the tribute the fallen clansmen at Culloden deserve, but I love my wonky mug (except when the satellite guy came to install our satellite. I gave him a cup of tea but the only mug we had clean in the house was this Loch Ness one. Since the satellite guy was Scottish, he was not amused).

After Angus has showered, I go in. Sadly, our rented home not only doesn't have a power shower, it doesn't have a standing shower, so you have to sit down while showering and holding the hand-held shower unit. Seriously. Sympathy gratefully received here. I shower with all my Lush products and with two rubber ducks looking on, and I always have a song in my head. If I am alone and confident the neighbors aren't home, I will sing at the top of my lungs. If I am not alone, I keep it to myself.

This morning's ditty was Grease's Born to Hand-Jive, which is an unfortunate selection if you forget you are holding the shower nozzle in your hand.

Then it's time for Angus' blood pressure check. His follow-up doctor visit is this morning, so we will at least get some answers (and I am arming myself for battle with Angus He swears he will not take medication, and while I am a pushover for love, I have limits. I am also very frightened.) It's been an interesting week armed with a sphegmometer in the house. Angus often doesn't want his blood pressure taken and it's occured more than once that he's sprinted naked from the room in the middle of undressing, so I follow his cutely rounded white butt as he whips around the house trying to avoid me, while dragging the blood pressure monitor and a pen and paper and shouting: "This isn't optional, dude! Get your butt back in here!"

After playing our own home version of doctor, we then get dressed

Him: Why are you wearing socks with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer on them?
Me: They were the top pair in my drawer when I just reached in and grabbed them.
Him: That's not on. It's not Christmas.
Me: I'm lazy. And Santa is so watching you.

Angus leaves for work and, if I am working from home, I arm myself with a bottle of water and wearily log in. I post on my blog and then spend the day working. Usually my entire day is taken up with conference calls with my team (which I usually greet as I log in as the chairperson as "Hello my Chickens/Ninjas/Grasshopper/Babies") although sometimes I am on conference calls that just require my attendance in some form of "needing a warm body count", so on those I am free to surf the web. Free to pay bills. Free to draw up lists to places I want to holiday in, with little stars beside the ones I really want to go to but know that Angus doesn't (please can we go to the Maldives? Pretty please?).

When the day is done around 6:30 I whack dinner in the oven and power up Sims2 before Angus gets home somewhere around 8 or 8:30. We eat together and then it's TV time. If it's yoga or Pilates night, I go off to yoga/pilates and then head home. I sometimes dread those classes as I am still the new girl. I hate being the new girl. I would rather just know it all so I could be left alone. My self-confidence is bad enough, I do not need to be in a Gumby position just to hear a resounding "Helen, we must lengthen the body and feel the stretch, we must move into the breathing. Can you raise your ass higher, please?"

We're not that big on TV in our house, but there are some shows we love. Desperate Housewives is a big one here, as was the show Life Begins, which just concluded but that's probably ok as it was getting a bit too melodramatic for me. And since I love me some catastophies so it has to be pretty dire for me to be sick of it. I have just discovered the show Dead Like Me and I absolutely love it, and we are both big Jeeves and Wooster fans. We also watch a show about salvage yards called Reclamation, which we watched last night.

We sipped some wine and he rubbed my back and let me lay on him (men that will let you lay on them are keepers). The show shows you some amazing finds while, at the same time, shows you things way out of our league. I would be happy to buy a 3rd century Roman sarcophagus for £50,000, let me just go rush off and get my checkbook! Or: 14th century stained glass? With my cats and clumsy track record that'll be perfect! Last night they showed a place that had over 30,000 antique shoe lathes. Said lathes were used as the molds for making shoes about 50 years ago, and the chap has two whole walls covered floor to ceiling with them. He takes one off and shows how it is hinged and cracks it open.

With the sound of the hinge, Angus and I follow up with an "Oooooh" sound. We now both want some of those shoe lathes. Badly. So it might not be candlesticks now, it might be lathes that come out of this. What the hell we would do with them, I don't know (learn to juggle? Doorstoppers? Start making shoes and call each other Gepetto?) but we are truly victims of marketing.

Bedtime comes and we fall into bed, allowing wandering fingers and a bit of How's Your Father about 40-50% of the time. I go and drain afterwards and then curl up in the sleepy embrace of my boy, happy and warm, as he drifts off to sleep.

Then I reach for my kleenex under the pillow.

-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 07:49 AM | Comments (23) | Add Comment
Post contains 1459 words, total size 8 kb.

1 You have a Loch Ness Monster mug! Now THAT sounds like the perfect thing to try and contain a snarling cup of coffee! I need a monster mug too. I like my coffee like I like my guys... strong, but sweet. Happy coffee drinking and happy weekend, dear Helen!

Posted by: redsaidq at April 08, 2005 09:59 AM (KEz7T)

2 Sit down showers could be....interesting.

Posted by: Simon at April 08, 2005 10:09 AM (UKqGy)

3 If he snores that loudly, you might want to have him checked for sleep apnea. It could mean he wears an astoundingly ugly mask for a CPAP machine, but it can also mean he gets a much deeper sleep, which could help other areas of his health.

Posted by: Z. Hendirez at April 08, 2005 10:22 AM (djkkI)

4 Shame there isnt an operation for blood pressure - you could maybe have bribed them to take his adenoids out at the same time..... :-))

Posted by: Cheryl at April 08, 2005 11:20 AM (MEmY8)

5 this is one of my favorite posts. ordinary....and wonderful. (maybe try some of those cheap foam earplugs?)

Posted by: sn at April 08, 2005 12:16 PM (6FCAy)

6 I hope Angus does alright this morning at his check up. I am just like him, hate taking the meds, but with my "crazies", not a question. I have said it before, and again, here I go, I love reading you. I think you need to write a book. And I am not joking. You definitly have a way with words, my dear. And, Desperate Housewives....delish!

Posted by: J at April 08, 2005 12:33 PM (25YT4)

7 I hope all went well at the doctor's office! And Angus is a lucky guy if you are willing to play "nurse".

Posted by: RP at April 08, 2005 01:19 PM (LlPKh)

8 I am with Z. Hendirez. Maybe Angus should have a sleep study done. If he snores a lot it could very much affect his health. Sleep Apnea is very serious and could explain the high blood pressure. Hope all is well.

Posted by: karen at April 08, 2005 01:24 PM (PWjza)

9 Ordinary? Ordinary? Ordinary Girl? ...as she takes an ordinary day and makes it extraordinary! Ordinary? Yah, right! Take Care Michael

Posted by: Blogin Idiot at April 08, 2005 02:03 PM (OEVsR)

10 Dead Like Me is awesome. Awesome and tragically cancelled. I hate the people who decide that Dead Like Me has to go and that The Bachelor can stay. WTF?

Posted by: emily at April 08, 2005 02:38 PM (plXME)

11 Here I've been reading all this time and I never realized that you worked from home when you weren't in London. I know it's tiresome and all that... but at least you get to wear your reindeer socks with cats afoot instead of plugging away doing the same tasks in a cube somewhere. my man returns today from London... seems to like your side of the pond, especially the persian/indian food.

Posted by: suz at April 08, 2005 03:10 PM (GhfSh)

12 i like this post. it felt like a sneak peek into your life. sorta like those glances you get of the inside of people's homes at night when their lights are on. i also enjoyed dead like me. you might also like "huff" (do you have "on demand" over there? i watch a lot of shows like that, all in a row. it's lovely.) xoxox

Posted by: kat at April 08, 2005 03:47 PM (8cFtB)

13 I have high blood pressure every time I see that cuff coming at me in a doctor's office. But every time we take it at home, it's low. I took it for two weeks at all times of the day, and it was always either normal or high-normal, once in a while even low-normal, but never at the terribly high level it always is in the doc's office. They kept bugging me about medication, and I kept refusing. Finally, Dan came in with me so they wouldn't bully me. Just having him there made my blood pressure go down and for the first time in a doctor's office, my blood pressure was normal. Now he comes with me every time so they'll shut up about my blood pressure. Thank god!

Posted by: Amber at April 08, 2005 04:18 PM (zQE5D)

14 If they wish to medicate him, that for heaven's sake make sure they don't use the pills that eradicate sex drive. They SO forgot to tell me about that little side effect until I cornered my doctor demanding to know why I had just gone through the month without it occuring to me to pounce on my husband. Sure, CD and I may have our problems but let's be clear here- I am a modern, 30-something Scorpio woman and SEX IS NON-NEGOTIABLE. Just saying. Make them explain all side-effects. Take a cattle prod if you must. I love this post, I LOVE "day in the life" vignettes. I have walls of books about life through other eyes, in other times. And this was beautifully written, so that I could smell the coffee and feel the bumps of the keyboard. Such a lovely life you two have built, so sane and warm. (((Helen)))

Posted by: Elizabeth at April 08, 2005 10:12 PM (qbefm)

15 Off topic: have you heard of the band called everyday stranger?

Posted by: Marian at April 08, 2005 10:13 PM (tAGqP)

16 Have any ear plugs left from the Virgin gift bags ?(which they only give on the way to the US I'll have you know - on the way to the UK is a little zip case with half the stuff in there!) Those could be handy for sleeping - though they irritate my ears. Lovely ordinary post I must agree

Posted by: Juls at April 08, 2005 11:40 PM (SDeyC)

17 Do you get the show '24' there? We are quite addicted to it. Please respond as it is my birthday and it seems that everyone but my mother forgot this year. Major pity party!

Posted by: Marie at April 09, 2005 01:16 AM (3Y1np)

18 My husband remembered too. But it seems more of a duty than a party to him these days...kinda sux

Posted by: Marie at April 09, 2005 01:18 AM (3Y1np)

19 Marie-we do, but I buy them on DVD and watch them! And Happy Birthday Marion-I googled myself once and saw that band. I've never been to Santa Cruz so I don't know anything about them, and I've never heard their music. Freaks me out that two people came up with the same strange name on opposite sides of the ocean. Juls and SN-the foamy ear plugs make my ears ache

Posted by: Helen at April 09, 2005 07:44 AM (Oxw5k)

20 The biggest joy in life, I think, are the little ordinary things that you share with that someone special. You are so sweet to share you joy with us and so beautifully written that it does not read ordinary at all! I absolutely loved "Dead Like Me" as well and really cannot understand why it was cancelled! For me it was great to watch the locations because so many of them were familiar. Take care and thanks for sharing.

Posted by: dee at April 09, 2005 03:10 PM (0LGEQ)

21 I love Jeeves and Wooster too!!! I love Hugh Laurie, I am going to run away with him some day.

Posted by: Calla at April 09, 2005 05:05 PM (LQUM0)

22 Hello There. I found your blog using msn. This is a very well written article. I’ll make sure to bookmark it and return to read more of your useful info. Thanks for the post. I’ll certainly comeback.

Posted by: Woodrow at December 10, 2012 07:34 AM (uszdd)

23 I’m a extended time watcher and I just thought I’d drop by and say hello there for the extremely 1st time.

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