In which Ms Jeanie ponders strides, superstitions and the relative superiority of vacuums - all while attempting to string them together cohesively

...strides...

Julie asked us to ponder our stride relative to that of "the crowd" so I did.

Unfortunately it didn't result in a post offering insight and wonder and allow you to be even more amazed at my skills in analysing the situation regarding the world and my place in it, nor will it get you rocking back on your heels saying "I hear you, sister".

Nope, I thought long and hard about how the world and I are not in synch and have never really achieved that precision.

Then I realised that it was not that world and me have problems, per se - more that no-one really has the measure of the world and marches to the beat. Its just that it is slightly harder to keep up the pretence for some more than it is for others.

Of course, I could be completely wrong - won't be the first time - and there could be a whole gaggle of people out there who have always known the rules because their parents followed them and it is innate to them and there could be another mob who got the textbook on the right day, studied hard and now have degrees in being a great conformers - but I don't think I am. Wrong I mean.

Why not? Well, because all of the people I chose to associate myself with have something, some individual way of looking at and feeling for and getting through life and it really seems to me that most of us are doing the best that we can to be ourselves in this crazy system.

And because it is a trait common to all the wonderful people I know and love, I feel it is only fair to extrapolate this to mean that its pretty much an everyone in the whole, wide world deal.

Once upon a time I prided myself on my unique ability to really steer my course and make my choices in life and my goodness, I made them (to the chorus of my family saying "anything to be different" with accompanying eye-roll).

That was, of course, pre-child, pre-separation and pre-dealing with total crap life can throw at you from every other direction bar the one you are looking. Now I am wiser. Well, more baffled really - but now I realise that it is not just choices because we wish to define ourselves to stand our but chosing not to go under and be covered by the wallpaper.

And see, that is why some people probably think my time would be better spent on other pursuits rather than philosophy, cause if it confuses me, the thinker, I can only imagine how you folk are feeling. Luckily I put lines between my thoughts so you can scroll down to the next one fast.

And luckily for me, I do have something else to focus on today other than my two-bit theories...

Yes, indeed, tonight there is a football game... And here is where I march in tune to many who have maroon pumping through my veins...

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...superstitions...

Now, some of you may not know that there is a direct relationship between sporting events and housework (in my home anyway).

Even though we have a superior side just through geographic spawning merits alone, the fact that the selectors have made court jesters out of themselves by overlooking the prince means that I may have to lend a shoulder.

(Warning - the previous sentence will make NO SENSE WHATSOEVER to anyone who doesn't follow the media reporting of Rugby League representative selection) (Oh darn - you are meant to warn before aren't you? Sorry)

Combine that with the fact that I was feeling fat, my feet were going crunch, my computer projects going nowhere - well, what better way to use my day productively than to do heaps of housework? I mean, I could have read blogs and crap, but how would that help my state pride?

Not only will it, hopefully, get the boys over the line more often tonight (although if they don't I am totally blaming the Scott Prince fiasco), but I now have muscles telling me they saw some action and feel it, I have a cat beside me perplexed at the noise and commotion and lack of his food tray on the floor and I have wet floors where they should be wet, and fluffy where they ain't!!

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...the relative superiority of vacuums...

While doing this, of course I multitasked - I am a woman after all. One of my special powers is the ability to whinge in my head simultaneously to doing physical activity. Well, mainly in my head - sometimes I may say things, but as no-one else was around you will just have to take my word from it.

One of my little whinges started as a reminisce. It went along the lines of this:

Sigh. Plug. Click. Vooooom. Darn, this thing isn't sucking. Click. Silence. Pull it all apart. Blow in every tube. Reconnect. Click. Vooooom. Not much better. Pull it all apart. VOOOOOM. Okay, its not that bit. Blow in the tube. Not that bit. Blow in the head. Not that bit. Reconnect. Vooooom. Swear at it and run the cleaner over the same piece of fluff 10 times. Clean the head. Run over the same piece of fluff 10 times. Clean the head. (You can see why it is such good exercise)

Repeat this 10 times for the spare room (only used for folding and the occasional family member anyway, doesn't really get much in there). Move to the living room. Do the living room to the tune of Oprah telling us ALL that we should ALL feel alive when we are over 40. Scraped in there. I still have a year before I have to do what she says.

Vooooom. Darn, this thing isn't sucking. Click. Silence. Pull it all apart. Blow in every tube. Reconnect. Realise that the suck is more impressive at the bit where the hose joins the machinery than the end where I need the suck. Curse the machine. Curse modern machinery that sucks when it doesn't suck properly. Miss my old vacuum cleaner that didn't suck this much because it did. Pick the matted cat hair and Jeanie hair off the head.

Vooooom. Move on to 'Salina's room. Manage to suck up a thousand little bits of
project and avoid most of the moving mess that reminds me of how like me she truly is. Pull it all apart. Blow in every tube.

Voooom. Only our room to do now. The suck level is down to where I am sure a straw would do a better job. Pull it all apart. Blow in every tube. Get the motor end to try and suck the bits the other way. Doesn't work. Reconnect it. Try again. Give up and decide to blog.

Ah - housework - who said it was a mindnumbing task?