first world problems

I'm in that dopey, la-la, mood, where I keep half-doing things and getting distracted and half-doing something else. I have loads to do, I am sure of it. But you know when you don't quite know what to do first, and you think: I know, I'll write a post? And then I'll feel better, having given myself the illusion that I have achieved something.

• My laptop gave up the ghost last week. When you try to turn it on, it starts patting its pockets and saying: Oh, ssshit. Now, where did I put my hard drive? Hang on, I am sure it's here somewhere. It must be... oh, how embarrassing, maybe it's... no...
  Then it makes some unreasonably loud electronic pings at you, while presumably it searches around its flat frantically, throwing stuff around, looking for its vital bits.
  Nothing, according to the young man in the laptop clinic, can be saved from it. It is officially banjaxed. I am trying to take this in cavalier fashion. After all, I did back up sometimes and what the hell, it's just a sort of forced de-clutter of all the detritus I collected over the years. Onward, and less encumbered by crappy freeware programmes!

• Likewise banjaxed is my car. Battery is defunct.

• Teaching is making me feel a bit lonely. I want to be on the other side of the desk, where you have friends to complain to - it's so much funner, more collegial. Boo. But, oh, fellow teachers! Oh! It's all (almost) worth it for that wondrous moment of squeeeee! freedom when you escape from the classroom until the next time! OH THAT BIT IS MARVELLOUS, isn't it?

• PKitty, though, now, the kitty, has been doing her best to cheer me up with little gifts. True, had I been in a position to choose, I might have preferred a pink Moleskine sketchbook, or perhaps some lavendar soap rather than - say - a half-dead fieldmouse, but, you know how it is, it's the thought that counts. So far I have not witnessed the delivery of the afore-mentioned rodents into the kitchen for bragging purposes but the JB has reported that she even went to the trouble of putting on a mini Christians and Lions type show for his entertainment. Mousey, mousey, I release you! Ha! No, I don't! Yes, I do! NO, don't be silly, OF COURSE I DON'T! CRUNCH.
  And so on. Anything to offer on this, anyone? I understand Nature is all red and rude, and so forth, but I feel sorry for the mice. She's so mean.

Here she is, the murderer herself:

I fear she is about that fat. She might have lost a few ounces recently. My human friend R, to the cat, when she came to visit:
Ooh, you're enoooormous!
BODY FASCISM, that is.

Anyway. How goes the mood with you?
T

 

Comments

[May]

It's all those mice young Lady Nero is adding to her daily diet. High-calorie, mice.

(I'd feel sorrier for mice if they were continent. As they are incontinent, and as we are troubled therewith, I am feeling peculiarly nasty towards mice these days (also, one has chewed a perfectly circular hole in the little bit of chipboard used to block the larger hole the incompetent plumber left in the floor when installing the radiator. Which is convoluted, as sentences go).

My laptop is also tottering on the brink of the abyss. She (my laptop has been a 'she' since the day I got her) makes horrifying noises whenever she gets a smigeon warm, and then promptly gets boiling. Laptop menopause.

My job is ladening me with agida at the increasing amount of time I am spending dealing with daft students (I swear, they get dafter year on year). Is not my job to deal with daft students. NOT WANT. But the light-hearted feeling when the shift is over and I practically skip to the back office, hurrah! - I imagine that's similar.

[Twangypearl]

Yes! Skipping is absolutely it. More of that sort of thing.

Sympathies with regard to the dafts. THE PATIENCE required is MASSIVE. OH EYEROLL, May. EYEROLL.

[Dr Spouse]

Mice deserve everything they get...

[a]

My mood is now grim, as I believe I left you a long comment last night which does not appear here. Grrr.

Take heart, though. If you get the kitty fat enough, she will stop bringing you half-live presents...

[Womb For Improvement]

I love the word banjaxed, but my accent is too posh to get away with saying it. But sorry about the actual banjaxing of your laptop and car.

[Andie]

My mood is FABULOUS. And it is also CALM. Because exams are over, and all is right with the world.

Oh the bringing of mice. Well. I do have a cat and I do have a cat that lived on a farm, and would bring very large rats (as well as mice) to the door and inside. On one memorable occasion she left the head on the kitchen floor (not the rest, the rest was never found). Because, you know, she loves us.

[bunny]

Heavens! Having multiple things blow up is enough to make anyone distracted.

Being the authority figure is a bit lonely. I sometimes can't resist joining in a conversation between students before class starts (because it's not like I can't listen, and if I'm listening, it can be impossible to resist...) but the moment I do, I always feel like such an idiot. I'M NOT ONE OF THEM! But as you say, the sweet reward is that I'm also not one of them when it comes to having to do the work I've set them or having to be a STUDENT. (Although, come to think of it, didn't you have some plans to be a student again? What ever happened there? Did I just miss it?)

One of the reasons I can't have a cat is that I can't bear the reality of what they do to the small animals. I know logically that life is not a Beatrix Potter book (although, some of her stuff is actually a bit grim...) but I don't need to see it on my floor. I can only hope the mice will learn to avoid her. Of course, then there's the birds...

[Bionic Baby Mama]

prosperous. p-kitt is prosperous, as befits a cat of her station.

the moment i try to escape class, some nitwit comes up to me with big eyes about how GOOD he's sure whatever he's written this week is and will i read it -- oh, but no, it's not in the stack of papers i collected, because he never printed it. i call that very feeble.

[Adele]

I always find it slightly distressing when a lovely, cuddly creature can kill in cold blood. Wonder Dog drools after squirrels. We think it's sweet. Mother Nature asserting herself. But I think that if he ever actually caught one we would be devastated by just how awful MN can be.

So sorry to hear about your laptop and auto woes:( I hope all of your projects were backed up? Don't you love questions like that? And how they always come just after the fact?

And, yes. I live for that moment when the class is over. When I think, "Okay, there were some good moments and maybe a few rocky moments but the cage door is opening...and this little birdy gets to flyyyyyyy."

[Jane G]

Our wee kitty who appears to be the most charming sweet little thing is also a cold blooded killer. And she's not beyond putting on the kind of floor show you describe. I've rescued a couple of her little victims in my kitchen. I don't know who was more traumatised, me or the poor little field mouse.