The Ditsy Chronicles

Bummed about the bottom line

2007-09-11T15:14:00.000+10:00

This week, while viewing my backside in the most unflattering of circumstances (a fluro-lit clothing store change room while trying on jeans), I acknowledged something I wish I'd known 10 years ago.
Yes, now I'm pushing 37, I think it's time to admit that my jelly cellulite-inflicted backside is actually never going to be transformed into tight-buns ... no matter how much bottom squeezing, leg lifts, squats, creams are lavished upon it.
(I also discovered that I am never going to be able to wear skinny jeans, because no matter what dress size I am, I still have mammoth calves ... I mean COWS ... and the jeans don't make it up to my knees)
Anyway instead of spending heaps of time trying to change my backside, I've changed my tack -After all, it's obviously going to be much easier to mount a campaign to convince the world that jelly bottoms are beautiful ;)

Note to self #1

2007-08-21T18:58:00.001+10:00

Don't talk to dogs using dopey doggy voice when there are other people around, particularly handsome ones. Sigh.

Well and truly booked!

2007-08-20T19:24:00.000+10:00

Yesterday I was on a plane. I sat next to a man who had a quite serious looking book to read, so I was trying to hide the fact that I was reading very girly 'Jane Austen Book Club'. Only it seems I didn't do a very good job of hiding it since he points to an article in a magazine and says "hey they are making a movie out of your book!"

I'm not sure if Amy Tan means her readers to think her book Saving Fish from Drowning is based on a true story communicated by a dead person through a psychic, but, I mean, that's the story she tells in the foreword. Anyway before I am able to check the veracity of the story (And discover that it's all made up), I tell four people ... that is mislead four people ... including an actor I saw in a play at a theatre in Sydney, which was funny because he'd just been to Burma, where the action in the book takes place. I hope the temple of Female Genitalia really exists because I assured him it did. (Although there was a long uncomfortable silence in the group of people when I asked him if he'd been there)

Ditsy (and embarrassing) event of the day

2007-07-24T10:25:00.001+10:00

I was at the gym last night. It was fairly busy in the changerooms. I bent down to get my things out of my locker and didn't realise a fully naked older woman was standing behind me. She was straight-out-of-the-shower sopping wet. So when I bent down I 'bummed' her and got all wet too. Embarrassing. She didn't say anything so I'm not sure if she was nonplussed or lost for words :)

Flood of ditsy events

2007-07-12T14:32:00.000+10:00

Sigh.
1. I caught my jeans in my bike chain and ripped the bottom off them.
2. Before I left the house, I thought 'I must take the toaster off the top of the washing machine' because the washing machine shakes when it spins the clothes and things fall off it. Of course I forgot and returned to find the toaster hanging off the side of the washing machine ... The worst thing was, it was ON (I'm not sure for how long but the whole house smelt like toast.)
3. I bought 'hydrogen peroxide' instead of hydrogen chloride, which I read you could use as a mouth wash. I only realised when I got to the end of bottle. There's not even any hair in my mouth to be bottle blonde. (Though maybe digesting hydrogen peroxide is the cause of all my recent stereotypically blonde ditsiness. Who am I kidding? I'm always ditsy!!)
THEN (and this is really ditsy) I poured the little bit left in the bottle down the sink. Only (this really is ditsy), we don't use that sink so it is not connected to any plumbing. We use the cupboard underneath to store bed sheets. So the Hydrogen Peroxide ended up on the bed sheets. DER!

Miracle cure - men's fashion medical discovery

2007-07-06T10:48:00.000+10:00

Well, it seems there is hope for those gentlemen ensconced in bad fashion. In fact, don't despair you people donning Harry High pants and tucking in your jumpers on a daily basis. You CAN become stylish, dapper, well-turned out chap.
There are rumors of a wonderful mauve shirt navy pants combo circulating at a medical clinic once inflicted by chambray shirt cream pants. Yes, a dapper-ly turnaround has occurred.
So it is possible. And if you can't remedy it yourself you really should see a doctor. Wink!

Ditsy Event of the Day

2007-07-03T08:45:00.000+10:00

I fell off the side of an armchair and knocked over a big gas heater. It fell heavily on a coffee table narrowly missing a wine decanter and all this dust snow blew out into the air and fell like dandruff on the furniture. Why am I so ditsy?!

Bad Men's Fashion - irresponsible politicians

2007-07-03T08:39:00.001+10:00

Words fail me

(photo from the I am Fashion blog)

Ditsy Event of the Day

2007-06-22T10:22:00.000+10:00

I was at the supermarket yesterday. I witnessed a woman smash into the car park barrier, which made me laugh heartily (because you can laugh at other people being ditsy when you are ditsy yourself).
Only immediately after that I promptly ...
- left the window of my car wound down for an hour while I was in the supermarket
- lost the car park ticket for half an hour before finding it stuck down the side of the passenger car seat (How it got there I'm sure I do not know)
- left my purse on someone's desk and went home without it.
I think I shouldn't have laughed!

The perfect man #1

2007-06-20T08:30:00.001+10:00

The perfect man doesn't hold doors open for women, he holds doors open for everyone.

Ditsy Event of the Day

2007-06-18T10:05:00.000+10:00

So I stopped at a coffee shop mostly because I needed to go to the bathroom. I asked the young man behind the counter where the bathroom was ...
"You have to go in the building next door, up one floor in the elevator, along a corridor, down some stairs, through a door and they are there."
Now I don't have the best sense of direction by any means, but by some fluke of anti-Cleo nature I actually found the toilets. It was when I came out of the bathroom that the trouble started.
I went through a door then on the left I see 'fire door do not use'. So despite the clear message I am convinced that is the door I came through and promptly go through that door (lucky it wasn't alarmed!). It must have been right, thinks I, because I come out by the elevators. So I get in an elevator and press the lower ground button. I press it and eventually the doors close, but the elevator is not moving. So, thinking the elevator must be broken, I get out of that elevator and get in another one. Only the same thing happens.
Then it slowly dawns on me. I'm already on the lower ground floor that's why the elevator wasn't going anywhere. I turn around and there is the door to go back to the coffee shop.

My scary tendency to share things that should not be shared

2007-06-11T17:01:00.000+10:00

I find it scary that I am increasingly beginning sentences with ...

"This is probably crossing the line, but I'll share it any way (laugh) ..."

It is obviously an indication of what I will be like as an old person. That is, sharing the excrutiating details of my bodily excretions with unassuming fellow bus passengers ... that type of thing. (Hmmmm, could be fun)

Spam bam thank ya mam (how I embarrassed the plumber)

2007-06-01T22:09:00.000+10:00

So a plumber actually came to our house and fitted our bath today.
But I managed to embarrass myself and the plumber (for the second time). Every time I think about it it makes me laugh out loud.
So everything is going well. The bath is getting installed. I'm helping (a bit) and chatting (a lot). After a little while I sit down at my computer to check my emails.
The plumber comes upstairs and only catches the end of my sentence, which was "...is your penis too small?", which, of course, WOULD make you stop in your tracks, lose all color from your face and ask in a hoarse voice 'what?'
What he didn't hear me say was "I've got four emails this morning that ask me 'is your penis too small?'"

Why it takes women so long to go to the loo

2007-05-28T10:11:00.000+10:00

A friend just sent me this. Unsure who it was written by, but feel it's a story that needs to be told. Wink.

When you have to visit a public bathroom, you usually find a line of women, so you smile politely and take your place. Once it's your turn, you check for feet under the stall doors. Every stall is occupied. Finally, a door opens and you dash in, nearly knocking down the woman leaving the stall. You get in to find the door won't latch. It doesn't matter, the wait has been so long you are about to wet your pants! The dispenser for the modern "seat covers" (invented by someone's Mom, no doubt) is handy, but empty.
You would hang your purse on the door hook, if there was one, but there isn't - so you carefully, but quickly drape it around your neck, (Mom or Grandma would turn over in her grave if you put it on the FLOOR!), yank down your pants, and assume "The Stance." In this position your aging, toneless thigh muscles begin to shake. You'd love to sit down, but you certainly hadn't taken time to wipe the seat or lay toilet paper on it, so you hold "The Stance." To take your mind off your trembling thighs, you reach for what you discover to be the empty toilet paper dispenser. In your mind, you can hear your mother's voice saying, "Honey, if you had tried to clean the seat, you would have KNOWN there was no toilet paper!" Your thighs shake more. You remember the tiny tissue that you blew your nose on yesterday - the one that's still in your purse. (Oh yeah, the purse around your neck, that now, you have to hold up trying not to strangle yourself at the same time). That would have to do. You crumple it in the puffiest way possible. It's still smaller than your thumbnail.
Then someone pushes your door open because the latch doesn't work. The door hits your purse, which is hanging around your neck in front of your chest, and you and your purse topple backward against the tank of the toilet. "Occupied!" you scream, as you reach for the door, dropping your precious, tiny, crumpled tissue in a puddle on the floor, lose your footing altogether, and slide down directly onto the TOILET SEAT. It is wet of course. You bolt up, knowing all too well that it's too late. Your bare bottom has made contact with every imaginable germ and life form on the uncovered seat because YOU never laid down toilet paper - not that there was any, even if you had taken time to try. You know that your mother would be utterly appalled if she knew, because, you're certain her bare bottom never touched a public toilet seat because, frankly, dear, "You just don't KNOW what kind of diseases you could get." By this time, the automatic sensor on the back of the toilet is so confused that it flushes, propelling a stream of water like a fire hose against the inside of the bowl that sprays a fine mist of water that covers your butt and runs down your legs and into your shoes. The flush somehow sucks everything down with such force that you grab onto the empty toilet paper dispenser for fear of being dragged in too. At this point you give up. You're soaked by the spewing water and the wet toilet seat. You're exhausted. You try to wipe with a gum wrapper you found in your pocket and then slink out inconspicuously to the sinks. You can't figure out how to operate the faucets with the automatic sensors, so you wipe your hands with spit and a dry paper towel and walk past the line of women, still waiting. You are no longer able to smile politely to them.
A kind soul at the very end of the line points out a piece of toilet paper trailing from your shoe. (Where was that when you NEEDED it??) You yank the paper from your shoe, plunk it in the woman's hand and tell her warmly, "Here, you just might need this." As you exit, you spot your hubby, who has long since entered, used and left the men's restroom. Annoyed, he asks, "What took you so long, and why is your purse hanging around your neck?"
This is dedicated to women everywhere who deal with a public restrooms! It finally explains to the men what really does take us so long. It also answers their other commonly asked questions about why women go to the restroom in pairs. It's so the other gal can hold the door, hang onto your purse and hand you Kleenex under the door!

Two bummers on a very ditsy day

2007-05-24T16:35:00.000+10:00

I began this morning waking up to the supermarket delivery man knocking on my door. He was having trouble getting his trolley up our step so I went outside (in my pyjamas. Will I ever learn?) and as I bent down to help lift up the stuck wheel, managed to expose some significant beavage. I couldn't even recover from my embarrassment enough to inform him beavage was the new cleavage.

Then...
I have been cooking up a comment for the (previously unseen) gentleman who owns the brand-spanking-new Hummer that is parked regularly outside our office. First understand that these massive gas-guzzling vehicles are actually hard to get in Australia and need to be imported. So the comment I was going to inflict when I finally ran into him was "where did you get that environmental travesty? It should be called a BUMMER."
Only today I was outside getting on my bicycle next to the Hummer when he opened a door. Well he was rather handsome, so when he said "oh I nearly wiped you out there" with a smile, instead of my cutting comment I went (embarrassingly) "Yeah" (loudly) and followed it up with a horrible girly (also-loud) giggle.

Today's Lesson: Think before you gush

2007-05-19T11:40:00.000+10:00

Incredible news. A plumber came to my house today. I was so excited that after 10 plumber-no-shows I finally found someone who fronted ... and he was even early!
Only of course I went a bit overboard, as per usual, and gushed so much that I actually said "I can't believe you're here - in the flesh"
And he blushed. I sincerely hope it won't stop him from coming back. I think I might cry if he doesn't show up to do the job (particularly if it coincides with evil RED week).

The very hairy perils of getting older

2007-05-10T14:13:00.000+10:00

I just can't emphasize how mortifying it is to set out to lunch with someone you are going to be sitting across from for two hours, close enough for them to see every pore, and even though you were feeling like you are having a good hair day/good outfit day, you come home to find that there is a very obvious thick black hair sticking out of your chin. (And I'm not talking a little hair hiding under my chin, no no, it was sticking straight out from the front)

No pyjamas guide to working at home

2007-05-07T08:59:00.000+10:00

Oh yes it seems like a good idea to work from home in my pyjamas all day, until two delivery men arrive unannounced, and a tradesman needs me to leave the house to use my key to let him into the communal garage. Oh yes, and I had wild sleep hair and sleep in my eyes too. Sheesh

Ditsy Event of the Day

2007-05-04T09:23:00.000+10:00

So I am having a meeting with a man I don't know very well. I have a big slurp of tea while he is speaking, but the tea manages to partly miss my mouth, partly dribble out of mouth, onto my chin and clothing.
If only he hadn't noticed, but he did ... and subconsciously wiped his chin.

BLOOMIN PLUMBERS

2007-05-04T09:20:00.000+10:00

It's been yonks since I bought a bath, but I am still unable to find a plumber to fit it. I've tried so hard to find one. The last one I spoke to sounded so promising.
I even said to him: "You know I've spoken to ten plumbers and they all promise to come round to look at the bath, and promise to ring, but they don't come round and they don't ring - in fact I never hear from them again"
He then launches into a big speech about how he's not like that and how good he/his company is ...
Then he didn't ring and he didn't come round. He's just disappeared into the plumber ether.

Ditsy Confession

2007-05-04T09:18:00.000+10:00

It's been more than one month since my last confession of ditsiness

Say four I'm sorrys and write three posts in a row

If we are made in God's image, I wonder if He is a bit ditsy?

The only time I have ever wished I was Madonna

2007-03-20T11:09:00.001+11:00

In a book due to be published Madonna's nanny or housekeeper says there was a rule in the house of no noise when Madonna was sleeping, not even running water.
I WISH I had the power to demand that. Yeah I'm talking to you the garbage collectors who come almost every day, the cars that speed past my house, the council workers who blow the leaves away with loud blowy machines, the furniture removalists who park outside my house at least once a week, as well as the late-night mutterers, car-door slammers, and arguing (sometimes crying) couples.
Come to think of it, i think i would allow running water.

Flying in the air with the greatest unease

2007-03-19T11:28:00.000+11:00

I think I have finally recovered from embarrassment enough to tell this story (well just about anyway. Cringe)
In January a friend asked me if I wanted to learn how to fly a trapeze. It was a free event and the trapeze was set up bang smack in the middle of the city of Melbourne.
I wasn't nervous, not one bit, after all the week before I flew a helicopter, so what was there to be nervous about. Nothing, of course ... only my body thought differently.
So I got there and I am in over-excited chat mode, talking and laughing with all the other people doing the workshop (including one 7-year-old girl).
So the trapeze instructors are telling us we have to climb to the top of this huge swaying-in-the-breeze ladder, grab the swing then launch ourselves into the air, get our legs up onto the bar and hang upside down by our knees, then fall on the safety net. Everybody else seems to be able to do this fine, particularly the seven-year-old, who is a star.
But when I get up to the top of the ladder, I am completely frozen. The instructor at the top has to wipe my legs from underneath me to even get me to leave the platform, then the instructor at the bottom is yelling at me to do things.
Swing! I shake my head.
Get your legs up! I shake my head.
Fall on the net! I shake my head.
Herewith, an unfortunate impasse, where my body refuses to do anything and even refuses to fall on the net. So there I am just hanging, unmoving, my hands in a bar death-grip..
There were no claps from the crowd either. You see the worst thing was that it was Australia Day and there was a big parade in the city, so I had a crowd of people watching me (and also meant I did my ditsiness to the tune of Advance Australia Fair delivered by bagpipes)

Melbourne plumber love affair over

2007-03-14T21:48:00.001+11:00

Dear Melbourne plumber - generic,
I am writing to let you know our affair is over - before it began. I rang you several times. Oh you sounded helpful on the phone, you even promised to come around, you even arranged a day to come; several days in fact. But I feel so betrayed. You didn't come, you didn't call ... you, you, you LIED to me.
And I even offered to pay - yes, I offered to give you money, but still you snubbed me; several times in fact.
Well I just wanted to let you know that yes, I'm over you. I'm well and truly over you (although I am thinking of kidnapping you so I can, after a month and a half, finally get ... my claw foot bath installed.)
Never yours,
Cleo Twyford

Dear all, I am starting a new group, it's called 'I Hate Plumbers Anonymous'. It's free to join. I'm expecting to be inundated ;)

Something odd about hair dye

2007-03-13T11:50:00.001+11:00

It strikes me as rather odd that when you use an at-home hair dye, you have to carefully put on plastic gloves to protect your hands from the chemicals, then you spread the same mixture all over your scalp...