Friday, June 30, 2006

fish and foolishness

My head is full of all the wrong things, I should be finishing off some work from home, trying to create a nest from a building site and making sure things like my overnight bag are sorted. Instead I'm dreaming of fish and making a man at work think I have mental health issues.

The fish in particular that's occupying my brain is an origionally named specimen, Goldie. He's actually a koi rather than a goldfish, which basically in his case means he's like a goldfish but a lot bigger. He's got a bad mouth. Fish pond man (who despite being notified of leaking pond and promising to show up to resolve the problems he's 'fixed' twice now, has been notably nowhere), said last time I needed some anti-groth stuff. Off I dutifully popeed to fish supply shop, yet still, Goldie's growth grows. He's a poor fish indeed now, unable to do that 'boob' 'boob' thing his species are so famed for. There was a point last week when he floated so lethargically that any outcome bar the flat on his back, eyes up to fish heaven seemed a remote dream. Then, with a slug of fresh water added to the pond, he perked up and fueled my 'go fighter fish' admiration. Now howeever his mouth is so sore that he's stopped eating, plus he seems to have some kind of wound on his fin. His pond mates are all verging on instant obesity as I keep throwing little pinches of fish food in his path in the hope he'll make it to a pellet, and bigger clumps elsewhere in the pond to distract the healthy fish from the food with his name on. He nearly makes it, gets to the surface, sees the pellet, sometimes sums up the energy to head towards it then, 'wham' either a better fed fish beats him to it or swims nearby blowing his fading frame off course.

He's going to die despite all his progress and knowing it, waiting for it, has obviously pervaded my subconscious. Last night's sleep was filled with images of goldie in various states of rigour mortis.

Awake, i'm contemplating a range of strategies, like moving him to a pond water with some hand dredged slime for familiarity filled bucket so he can feast in peace. But I suspect having watched him grab one tiny pellet last night that actually the food is proving hard to swallow with all the swelling round his mouth. Please fish pond man, show and know.

Honestly, here I am, the proud exclaimer of 'fish are really not my thing', several times this week, traumatised by the plight of the poor fellow. Must be the Aquarian in me.

Meanwhile the goldfish pond is hemorraging at an ever faster rate. Luckily I've been lent a (legal for fish ponds I'm assured) hosepipe, so the bucket trekking is over. Sadly, I'm not sure that so much fresh water is good for the fish and I now need to go find some special stuff that apparently makes it easier for them to adjust to being in a refilled environment at least twice a day.

On the warmer blooded front, there's a man from work I want to get to know. He's a man who's impressed me by being incredibly kind and having vats of integrity. Now, were he a woman, I'd just have got to know him, but as you know, I'm spectacularly rubbish at being relaxed around most hetrosexual men, and whilst this guy has nothing threatening about him whatsoever, I seem incapable of just being me around him. The inevitable conclusion to be drawn from this is that I have a crush. Which I haven't ruled out, but on many levels that seems wrong, he's, even for someone as unwedded to a 'type' as I am, not it. Or maybe I've just grown up and started to realised that looking like Mr Depp or a member of a boy band, is much less sexy than being a decent human being.
I haven't decided. And in fact, have no idea whether deciding is even something I'm ever likely to have the privildge of doing. He may not be single, or, if he is, he may decide that a heavily pregnant bisexual woman with a house full of holes and an fish obsession, is a very bad bet.
What I do know is that even if I don't have a crush, and it is just that I like him, I want him around. Maybe I'm so wedded to the idea because my circle is so female dominated and I want Freddie to know a few more lovely men than I do. Or maybe it's the eerily erotic dreams I keep having about this guy that is making my brain go wirey.

Anyway, I decided to just go for his friendship and take it from there, but I think I went for it a tad too enthusiastically and he now thinks I'm nuts.

This is not new, this is a lesson I should have learnt by now, I keep hoping that one day, someone will come along who goes 'exhurberance, marvellous' rather than 'lunatic, leggit' at the let's just get to know each other stage when I do brave and uncensored. I think I'm so nurtured by folk who know and love me that I forget those who don't, don't, and then by not moderating myself I overdose them. I feel like the problem I have is being my balanced self, either I'm none of me and a tongue tied idiot, or so much of me that the none of me seems more appealing.

It's all a tad embarrassing, given I work with this guy and that most of my friends at work are his friends too. I'm contemplating sending a 'sorry, should be more temperate' email, or even a 'damn, so easily scared' but know Ailsa would scream 'just leave it woman' so I've parked that thought until at least the end of next week. On the up side, I'm out of the office now and will have plenty of other stuff going on to distract me from my own blushes.

Thursday, June 29, 2006

oh happy return

Finally I'm pc-re-enabled. So much has happened.....

The baby was a girl. Iris. Until they found testicles on my 7th scan. Apparently it was just how he was lying that hid them previously - the nice 7th scan lady even printed me off a picture of his tackle to 'give your husband, show him, everything good size'. No pictures of a face or ought but I've got his well formed baby bits nestled amongst the pages of a Salam Rushdie novel in case I locate that husband.

Marvellous.

The reason I had 7 (now 9) scans was cos said baby (we'll call him Freddie as I intend to) was worrying large. His head in particular was shown on scan 8 to be wider than any woman attached, as I am, to the notion of getting her flaps some action in the future, would want to contemplate.

Then today it turns out it may not be. It turns out that the nasty 8th scan man who seemed more interested in 'accidentally' rubbing my breasts whilst taking the last set of pictures, may have so distracted himself that the measurements he took were frankly, way off. Either that or by some strange quirk of fate my baby has actually shrunk in the last three weeks, a time known for being a growth spurt. Naturally I've now got to have scan 10 to check that the amazing growing baby isn't actually shrivelling.

I'm tempted to go find 8th scan man (who I should have known was bad news when his phone rang mid session with the Bond theme tune) and reduce his testicles to Freddie's size given that on the basis of freak scan, I missed one of my best friend's weddings as the Dr wouldn't give me a certificate to fly through fear that elephant head would drop out somewhere between London and Dublin.

I've moved. My house in London got flooded and I'm trying and failing to coordinate decorators so it can be rented. The prospects of two mortgage payments and no income on London for this month and next seems impossible to avoid. My new house in Hastings will be beautiful, but it's currently in that state of transition from hideous to gorgeous that requires everything to be worse before it's better. There's a hole where my kitchen wall should be, chunks of cement that came off with the wallpaper round the skirting of every bedroom, and my sink and kitchen units are currently propped up by the back door. Nothimgs unpacked to allow the builder / decorator space to work, so I climb over my life every morning to find a fresh pair of knickers.

I've got fish. Very fancy expensive big koi fish, and thousands of goldfish in two ponds that the previous inhabitants were due to empty and didn't. They are beautiful, and whilst they may be totally impractical to keep in a house I expect to fill with my neices, nephews and new baby, I would probably have enjoyed their beauty, had they not been the source of more trauma than both houses and all ten scans combined. So far three have died. It transpires through cancerous lumps rather than neglect, but I spent a few days self-flaggellating before fish pond man turned up to do a post mortem. One of the ponds is leaking and having entertained aforementioned fish pond expert three times with more cups of tea, and a wildly overpolite audience for his fish fettisism, I still seem to find myself running up and down steps at 8 months pregnant lugging buckets of water to the gasping goldfish so they can stop shivering in two centimetres of water, and swim again.

Fortunately amidst all this the pregnancy hormones seem to have finally kicked in a way that's worth talking about. I'm floating in a sea of calm and great humour. My friends and family have also been fabulous beyond even their own usual high standards. I managed to move with a posse of helpers who united to ensure I didn't lift so much as a glove. Jane Durks in particular who did both legs was superhuman, she was well aided at the London end with Ails and Renee, and in Hastings managed to get everything shifted with a posse of injured assistants, Dad in need of a hip replacement, Ray with a bad back, and Clare with pluresy. Great Grandma was on hand to get under her feet and mention repeatedly how big the house was.

Mum has been magic, running me to the hospital, buying groceries, coming round to help me clean up when the decorating debris gets too much. Dad has overseen the work on the house and keeps finding useful and expensive items like a spare sert of french doors, in his garage. Added to which I've been showered by a million acts of random kindness. Ames cooked dinner for all the helpers on move day, Simon invites me round to watch the footie on their telly, Cathy sent me sexy pink pyjamas in the post so I can sparkle whilst I tear on delivery day, my colleagues at work have picked up the pieces time and again whilst I've missed meetings due to collapsing ceilings and yet more hospital visits. Ails and Damo have lifted futons from dust drenched lofts and tucked me up on their sofa bed on a regular basis. Kate brough me a set of glamourous pashminas with breast feeding in mind, a lady at work knitted me a baby cardy......

I feel, amidst the mayhem, like I am still blessed with being the luckiest girl in the world.