Reading my last post, it would seem that I have blamed my lax parenting on the ABSENCE OF EGG TIMERS. Outrageous. I am shamed.
Ahem. Moving on then, to Friday. After a whole half-day of quite a bit of working and only a little bit of facebook stalking/twittering/Elle perusal/cake-eating, I whipped out for a child-free walk to Waitrose via the Post Office.
[A word on British Post Offices. As per usual, the Post Office in Queensway had a strong whiff of wee. It is always a bit trampy, a bit wet-dog-smelling, and everyone in there always has a wild-eyed sweaty browed Michael-Douglas-in-“Falling Down” scent of barely-contained mania about them. Occasionally there are proper mutters in there, like the spitting walking-framed ancient Italian woman who swears at me every time she sees me, and the young fella who one time sat on the floor in the queue and refused to move and warned everybody in a loud voice that he would ‘soil himself soon’. The queue is always very, very long, and it is narrow so that the pushchair doesn’t quite fit, and I run over other people’s toes, and they shoot dark and angry looks at me, and scowl at the children. The children always shriek very loudly in there, and try to get out of the buggy and pull all of the pamphlets off onto the skanky floor. No one is happy in a British Post Office.]
Anyway, I took a little detour to Blockbuster in order to fill the house up with movies so that we will not fight over watching Arrested Development vs odd 80’s slightly pornesque violent movies with muffled sound that you find under the catchily titled Sky channel “Movies For Men”. And as I crossed the road onto my beloved Westbourne Grove, I accidentally caught sight of Pete Burns. He looked like this:
Eek! And then I thought that he is starting to resemble Madonna! See?
Eek again! And this naturally led me to wonder who would win in a fight. Although Pete is clearly quite mental and burly, I think Madonna would use those arms as ferocious weapons and overpower him with her pillowy cheeks. Imagine the dance-off! Ugh. It was all really a bit traumatic, when you are only going out for movies and milk. And I love Madonna, so it pains me to see her looking so oldyetyoung. The new Dolce ads are a case in point.
So that was Friday, which was supposed to end on a high note, with George Clooney in “Up in the Air”, GBK burgers on the couch, Oyster Bay Sauvignon blanc quaffed in a pseudo-binge fashion. But the baby got all cranky and woke up, and the movie was a bit dull, and then we had that dreadfully boring fight over the right way to clean up the kitchen. There are two ways to clean it up, of course. The proper way, where the surfaces are cleared, the dishes put away in the dishwasher and the bits of food and unidentifiable wet stuff wiped up. And there is the half-arsed way, which is where you push everything to the back of the bench, do a big yawn, stretch, scratch yourself then head off to bed.
So we had that fight. Again. And woke up all not-speaking and sulky, and headed off in different directions – me and two kids to Borough Market, Mark to (haha) Hyde Park. (Going to Hyde Park for me is like going to the office on the weekend – that’s why I put the “haha” in, dudes.) It was all just a bit teenage and boring, but I do maintain that cleaning the kitchen properly is just a nice, kind and grown-up thing to do.
Questions to put to The Readership:
1, Does the kitchen clean-up disagreement warrant a cranky weekend, or should I just let it go?
2. Where does one put the full stop after putting a sentence in brackets?
3. Is it wrong to eat two-thirds of your birthday cake by yourself?
4. Is it wrong to have had to buy yourself the said birthday cake?
Answers on a postcard, please.
The Harridan 
1. Let it go. No sense in ruining a good weekend. Or pretend you’ve let it go, and then use it as leverage for a new dress/handbag/necklace.
2. You did it correctly. The full stop goes within the brackets.
3. I’m not sure, but it sounds like the kind of thing I’d do, so I’m going to condone it.
4. Very, very wrong, but (sadly) to be expected when you are the only female in a 6-person household, and your husband is not the metrosexual type 😉
Delurking to say
1. Yes and you shouldn’t let it go – cleaning of the kitchen in a half ass way is more infuriating than no cleaning at all.
2. Where you did inside the brackets.
3. No particularly when you bought it yourself.
4. Not if if you get to eat most of it!
1. that’s a fight you’re never going to win, so best to just give in – boringly so.
2. I would get rid of the full stop before the brackets, keep the full stop inside the brackets and then put another after the brackets. Otherwise the brackets seem a bit null and void as it’s a new sentence/thought. However, I have a tendency to overuse commas so don’t take my word for it.
3. definitely not. I would think 3/4 would be more appropriate in fact. that’s none for the chidlers, 1/4 for the husband and the rest for you.
4. yes, but I am also likely to have to buy my own cake (and card, flowers and gift). I even pointed out the cafe where it could be bought and the exact cake I wanted but, apparently, he finishes work too late to get there in time. If I’m lucky he may use up the two rotting bananas to make me a banana cake – tempting but….
P.S: you know I only commented so I could offer my opinion on the grammatical conundrum – I love punctuation!!!! (see)
You know, if you want actual postcards I could send one. But meantime:
1.) Kitchen fights are like all fights. They really depend on the Big Picture of Life at that time, how full of energy you feel, and how happy you are, or they are. Times with young children are times which are eternally messy and eternally exhausting, so there are more fights about trivia, I think. Personally, I like a clean kitchen, but also cannot do anything about it last thing as I am exhausted. That’s why end of day clean up is M’s job. I also like having tasks which are his and mine. Less fighting. Here endeth the slightly confused lesson.
2.) See the helpful numbering system, which uses brackets and stops. (Same for sentences.) But now I am full of self doubt and await correction.
3.) Of course not, it is your cake.
4.) GOD yes. But at least you got what you wanted?
All love, as ever. x x
Dean NEVER cleans the kitchen or does any domestic duties (cooking, food shopping etc) and we both work full time.
He does earn a rather spiffing wage though. And he’s rather nice to live with.
I tend to try and dwell on the positives not the negatives and this makes a successful marriage.