More screws than you can poke a stick at...

Have you ever noticed when you are assembling something that there are always screws left over? No? Well there are. Should there be? Probably not. Or maybe the manufacturer was really generous and thought I will give all these customers extra screws, washers and plastic things that they won’t know what they’re there for. What am I rabbiting on about? Blinds. I have been putting them up. Last weekend I made a half arsed attempt of it. I am very much a creature of mood. If I don’t want to do something at Chez Amarinda then it doesn’t get done. I am the mistress of my own sloppy domain. Anyway today I thought “Bugger it. I am sick of tripping over blinds (left in boxes on the floor in the sunroom) I will put them.” So, with that thought in mind, I figured it would take me a couple of hours to put up 7 roman blinds and then I would mow the lawn. It took me all day, in between washing and cleaning, to get 6 of those suckers up and no lawn mowed.

Putting up blinds means pulling furniture out to get a ladder to
window. Problem with this is you see years of built up dust. How does it get dusty under furniture? How is that possible? It’s not exposed to the air that circulates freely around. It’s most annoying to see it as I then have to then clean it. I have this theory when it comes to cleaning. If I can’t see something then it doesn’t exist. Dust under beds? I’m not sleeping under the bed so why would I look? Anyway, after I vacuumed like a mad woman, I then pulled at the curtains and thought “Crap they need a wash. Hmmm, when did I last wash those? It had to be this century surely.” So all curtains came down and got washed. Then I looked at the windows. “Frig! Now I have to clean windows?” Okay so then I washed the frigging windows. I have to drink plonk tonight for therapeutic reasons. I am cleaned out. The alcohol will address the chemical balance. Yes, that is a load of crap but that’s what I’m going with to justify the plonk.


So, the extra screws. I looked at the diagram. It was in what looked to be English translated by Chinese. It had obscure phrases like “Grab nuts and bolt to curtain.” Hmm, that seems wrong. “With 4 screws in one hand place drill against window pane.” No, that’s seems a tad dangerous. "When blind is up no choking.” Uh huh. “The fabric can be combustible if lit with flame thrower.” Whoa! Thank god I got rid of the one I had stored in my bedroom. So, as you can see the directions where not that helpful, though the one that indicted “Blinds to be dropped for personal reasons” was I guess caring. As was the one that ‘recommended’ I did not eat the silica gel packing. Whew, I had been contemplating it too. Sara, mate and ex-colleague who lives in Taipei explained to me that there is a special section of people who spend all day making up silly phrases to piss off and confuse Westerners.


Where was I…screws…that’s right. Each blind has 2 brackets with 4 holes each. When I went to school, and I sucked badly at math unless a dollar sign was involved, 2 x 4 = 8. Okay, so why did they have 17 screws and a weird plastic clip thing that was not in the instructions? Hmm…so, this means one of two things, the blinds will drop like rocks to the floor tonight and I will swear a lot or maybe the manufacturers are just playing mind games. The last blind did not get up as I was starting to lose consciousness. It is currently leaning up against a wall and it looks pretty good there, in an Andy Warhol urban art kind of way, so I think it may stay there another week. By the way…anyone need a good screw…metal of course. What else would I mean?

Anny, laughingly thinks she need to be 'kinkier' - go check out what she means on http://www.annycook.blogspot.com/. Kelly is either talking about the price of mangoes or how to perserve
eggs for 100 years. Check it out on www.kkirch.blogspot.com.


VALENTINE'S CONTEST

What could you spend an eternity doing? What is your passion? Your hunger? Your deepest desire? Each day beginning February 5 and running through February 14 one of the ten authors will complete the line, "My darling I could spend eternity…" on either their blog or website.Collect all ten answers and e-mail them to anny@annycook.com with Eternally Yours in the subject line to win some hot, romantic books.

There will be three lucky Valentine winners.
The prizes
1st prize--5 books
2nd prize--3 books
3rd prize--2 books

Entries must be in by February 16 at midnight EST. All books and prize winners will be drawn randomly.List of Authors….Brynn Paulin, Bronwyn Green, Cindy Spencer Pape, Kelly Kirch, Amarinda Jones, Anny Cook, Mona Risk, Sandra Cox, N.J. Walters, and Elyssa Edwards

www.freewebs.com/amarindajones/
Go ahead: Live with abandon. Be outrageous at any age. What are you saving your best self for?