Random Grumpiness #1
Tuesday 10th June 2014
I’m not in a bad mood. No, really. I’m fine. I’m almost always in a mood that can be defined as quite to rather good. I’m usually such a happy person, that if my mood-o-meter only registers ‘OK’, people who know me well ask if I am sad…what’s wrong, Ali? You seem down today…? But in fact, I’m just marginally less happy than usual.
This makes me sound either simple, or annoying, or both. I am simple. I like many simple things and they make me happy. I can be annoying. I suppose. Being annoying, also, makes me happy, especially to Lily. But I am
not a constant ray of sunshine. Even when I am happy, I can be, and often am, scratchy with short spells of grouch. ‘Sarky’, my old form teacher called me. I was twelve.
I am therefore bringing you the first in what will probably be a very intermittent series of Things That Can Make Me A Bit Grumpy.
Here are two such things. First (and this just about qualifies for
Leaf of the Day too) is the Beech leaf-husk. When the leaves (or it might be the tiny flowers, but I think it is the leaves) start to emerge from the bud, they first shed a fine husk, a case. These – and there are literally millions of them – then invade the garden, house and car. For weeks. I really think, given that the beech tree leaves are an absolute bane of my life, and then it is sometimes infested with hairy caterpillars, which I fear the dogs will eat, thus dying or at the very least losing part/all of their tongues (I once read about this. Therefore it has become an Obsessive Thing), and it needs thinning every 3 years, or else it will up-end the cottage – that the time may have come to get rid of it. Oh no! cry the family. You can’t be serious. Oh, but I am. Unless you, family, wish to take over operation-beech every year?
The other thing? You want more grouch? OK. Gym territorialism. You know that space, in the gym studio, where you always stand, right by the air fans but with plain sight of yourself in at least two mirrors? It’s not yours. Or mine. We have membership, not ownership.
I know we all like to go to the same places/seats/spaces etc, we can’t really help it, we are programmed that way. There’s a great ‘joke’ I heard about Methodists. I was, by the way, brought up as a Methodist, and I heard this
hilarious ‘joke’ in church, so it’s OK for me to tell you. There was a chapel in Jamaica where they worshiped with the doors open because it was hot in there. Every Sunday, about half an hour after the start, an old dog wandered in and just flopped down in the cool shade. They knew he was a Methodist because he always went to the same pew. Boom Boom! Oh yeah, we knew how to have a good time!
But anyway, gym space – the place you set up your bench, or stand before a class begins – is just a rented bit of space, for that hour. If I move to a new space, I sometimes get mild to moderate passive-aggro from other users, such as: you can’t stand there!
You always stand
there, (pointing to a space about 2 meters away). Or: you! Go stand at the front/back! This is
my space. And they do actually mean it.
Oh dear. It’s not your space. Or mine. It’s just a bit of floor, plus air and light. I do it on purpose sometimes, not just to wind folks up, though that is of course a nice bonus. I do it because it breaks me of that Methodist repeated pattern behaviour to which I know I could become a slave, in much the same way as I steadfastly refuse to salute magpies or throw salt over my shoulder.
Next time in grump-corner, supermarkets, newsreaders and radio ‘phone-ins.
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