Shoes
Some Exceptionally Rude Person* emailed me today to say that she was shocked–shocked–to see in yesterday’s photos that I was not wearing All-Stars.
Those are my indoor shoes, of course, you silly person. Do you wear your ordinary outdoor shoes on the furniture?** –With or without the company of your dogs, cats, ponies, hamsters, boa constrictors, what-have-you.*** It’s true I don’t wipe the hellhounds’ feet before I let them up, but they had their feet wiped at the door when I took my All-Stars off. And that’s an old bedspread protecting the sofa†.
Never mind the caterpillar track on the soles: I have no idea what the makers of these shoes think those human-fly†† soles are for. The shoes are fleece-lined suede for pity’s sake: I don’t care how magnificently you’ve everything-proofed suede, it wouldn’t last a single hellhound walk in bad weather around here. Also the fleece makes them squishy, which is delicious in a wintertime house shoe, and hopeless in something you’re trying to cover miles in.
And furthermore I have a second pair of these lovely warm luxurious slippers with the joke all-terrain soles at the cottage. You’re shaking your head wisely: this is the drawback of living in two††† houses: you keep having to have two‡ of everything. Nonsense. It’s a glorious opportunity. My second pair are PINK.
‡‡
And that curious circular object you see vanishing off the left-hand margin is an empty hellhound bowl. It’s been a good day: hellhounds ate dinner.‡‡‡
* * *
* You Know Who You Are
** On second thought, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.
*** Do parrots do curling-up-and-going-to-sleep-on-your-lap equivalents? I know they can be very affectionate, but will they roost on you? (Do parrots snore?) I still have fantasies of a parrot^ and I know a lot of the bigger parrots take no guff from other members of the household, including the predator-shaped ones. And I already have hellhounds, so it’s not an issue, but I admit that if I were limited to one species I would not want one that didn’t want to lie with you in heaps occasionally.^^
^ I’ve told you about my poor budgie who only lived a year. That was sufficiently traumatic I keep thinking ‘not this year’ when I think about trying again. And it’s coming up Easter, so it’s Is It Going to Be This Year? time of year for a young budgie again. Sigh. I do not need any more complications in my life right now. +
+ A budgie isn’t complicated! ~
~ Shut up.#
# And you could teach it to talk! =
= Sure I could teach it to talk. Now let’s discuss the language it would actually learn in this household [having just spilled peppermint tea all over the Aga and indulged in a suitable linguistic meltdown|]
| Evil cow! it would say. (Among other things.) Evil, evil, stupid, clumsy cow! –Note that I make peppermint tea with loose peppermint leaves.
^^ Although the hellhounds take exception to the occasional. They wish to renegotiate terms of occasional.
† Which needs a wash. All substances, objects and human limbs that come in contact with hellhounds need washing sooner rather than later. I’ve been putting off washing the blankets in the dog crate because my sitting-room has been full of jungle which is where my Magic Heated Laundry Airer gets put up, whereby I am not mauled by wet hairy blankets for a week while the wretched things dry. I did finally have to do a set of my sheets, since I’d run out, and was mauled by wet sheets for two days. But it was only two and they aren’t hairy. Well, they aren’t very hairy. Meanwhile I’m missing my opportunity, while the jungle is outside (mostly). It’s going to get seriously cold again. But washing dog blankets is so . . . epic.
†† Did anyone else feel old, bereft and tragic at the news that Lux Interior died?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/feb/05/lux-interior-the-cramps-dies
††† . . . or three
‡ . . . or three
‡‡ And today’s All-Stars. 
‡‡‡ This almost makes up for having rung like death and taxes at bell practise tonight. Sigh. Some of the problem, I suspect, is that my piano lesson was rather too interesting^ and I was/am tireder tonight than is desirable. I did however have the extremely pleasant experience of offering Leo Tips for Ringing Stedman. Leo’s the one has kids, a family, a life and only comes to one bell practise a week,^^ so while he’s been ringing longer than I have and is higher in the tower hierarchy^^^, he’s only just learning Stedman. My advantage as a tip-offerer is that learning Stedman is still horribly fresh in my mind. I know from bitter experience that a lot of good ringers’ tips about things are based on a greater understanding of bells and ringing than you have in the first place or you wouldn’t need the frelling tips.
^ If I can get my head around it, I may blog about it tomorrow.
^^ Speaking of things that are hard to get my head around. And I may be going to have a Brand New Tower Experience on Monday. Our handbell third is encouraging Niall and me to come to his tower practise. I’ll see how well I’m walking on Monday. The upright thing is still pretty challenging.
^^^ He has his own set of keys to the church. When I am occasionally pressed into letting-people-in-and-out duty Vicky has to lend me hers. The front door has your actual bar on it, like a besieged castle, but the back door has one of those old-fashioned monster keys that needs its own scabbard. It is not a key you carry idly, on the off chance you might have a sudden passion to play the church organ.
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