In keeping with my ability to be both a glass is half full AND a glass is half empty kinda gal depending on just how mental my brain is being, here are 25 things that either make my neck itch or shit me to tears:
- drivers who slow to an almost complete stop when turning a corner or pulling into a turning lane
- men and 20-something-year-old girls (normally wearing white plastic accessories and some cotton knit clothing from Supre) who do not stand for pregnant women or the elderly on public transport
- that men think it is perfectly acceptable that they need to be asked before they will do any form of domestic chore
- Big Brother
- humidity
- crowds
- that the dogs persistently drop big steaming turds right where I stand to hang out the washing
- dogs
- no oil dressings with dried herbs somehow miraculously suspended in them
- Chicken Tonight
- That saturated fat isn’t good for you
- drivers that sit 5-10kms below the speed limit – as if it’s a goal not a limit
- alfalfa
- That’s So Raven, The Suite Life and any other program that is this generations’ very poor version of Family Ties, Diff’rent Strokes or even Full House
- my shocking recollection of the apostrophe rule when it comes to scenarios like the one in No.14
- poorly made sourdough
- people in positions of power or leadership who do not deserve – or have the skills – to be in a position of power or leadership
- people who behave as if they are helpless or a victim when reality indicates they are neither
- religious zealotry
- the flawed intelligence of Australian tv programmers who seem to think we need House and Californication live streamed from the US but not America’s Next Top Model or Hells Kitchen
- overcooked vegetables of any kind
- people making presumptions on the behalf of others
- those drivers (normally male, 40-something, in the Commodore company car) who refuse to merge in an orderly and good-spirited one-car-from-this-lane-one-car-from-that-lane manner
- failed recipes
- people who think it is OK to say, ‘I don’t mean to be rude but…’ and go on to be awe-inspiringly inappropriate/insulting/malicious/stupid.
and to add a few to my list from yesterday:
26. brunch
27. men opening doors for me
28. proper custard speckled with vanilla bean
29. family traditions – like making the christmas pudding and everyone having a turn stirring in a threepence or sixpence… or when my mum and nan used to spend the whole day bottling peaches, nectarines and apricots we’d bought at the fruit stall on Mt Ousley on our way to Nan’s house in Wollongong. The day would be blazingly hot, the kitchen even moreso but there was a harmony, an industriousness to it all that was infinitely comforting to a child.
30. great music
31. happy songs
32. baking sweet treats
33. the promise of a new day
34. writing lists
35. fine quality paper
36. stationery and office supplies. The amount of time I could spend in Officeworks is just plain wrong.
37. magazines – National Geographic, Frankie, Vanity Fair and virtually any food magazine (except those hideous constructs with covers emblazoned with the promise of ‘quick and easy dinner solutions’)