There is a branding, marketing, styling opportunity in the tea-cosey market which is woefully or wonderfully underdeveloped depending on your perspective. This collection didn’t prompt me to part with £5.37
My main tea-cosey was hand-made by my talented sister-in-law. My name is sewn on the inside incase a moment of scattiness leads to my losing it (the tea cosey). It fits on my head as snug as a custom-made hat. That kind of personal tailoring does take some beating and these shop displayed tea coseys just aren’t up to par.
Words of wisdom from an almost stranger*. in this case one of my neighbours when I was returning my front door key after I’d locked myself out for the 4th time since moving in:
Don’t put a spare door key in your garden under a plant-pot. They’re always under plant pots… …ours is.
I am following this advice, and making regular trips round to my neighbours .
* past tips provided by Alan the hairdresser. Lucia the hairdresser, an anonymous manicurist, a Jackson’s sales assistant, a bus stop philanthropist, a mini salesman and Reading Police
a sleepy morning
one white tube on the bathroom shelf looks like another
E45 on my toothbrush
toothbrush squiggling over toothipegs
BULUUUUHHHH
not recommended
chap: I have to smoke in bed, I wake up at 3am every morning regulalr as clockwork just to have a fag
wendy: oh (signifying: failure to segue effectively into another topic)
chap: I can’t give up, I have a fowl temper if I do (his hand is shaking as he scrunches his face while taking a long deep draw from his hand-rolled, warped, filterless cigarette)
wendy: oh (recalls him slamming doors, stamping his feet and throwing things all with a fag balanced in his mouth) I’ve locked myself out, got to go and pick-up my spare key.
chap: do you want a lift?
wendy: no, I’m alright (signifying: no way am I getting in a car with a chap demonstrating signs of emotional instability)
chap: where are you going?
wendy: not far, bye (signifying: no way am I letting this chap know where I store my spare house key)
When spottydog visited the Wendy House I gave her a full 1 minute tour. The full 1 mintue tour is the executive version of the 30 second tour. It is akin to the 15 minute Hamlet only quicker and with less literary credibility. As audience, spottydog’s role was to provide her unique insight into potential lifestyle developments. Half way through the tour, near the end:
Wendy: this is my wardrobe (US = closet. A closet is a place where you keep skeletons, hence the title of this post)
Spottydog: that’s orderly
Wendy: its half empty
Spottydog: its organised by colour and size, even the shoes
Wendy: Errrrrmmmmmmm……. …is that bad?
Spottydog: its not scatty
Lifestyle development suggestions involved, ‘open the beers’ and ‘you need more plants’. Spottydog, spot-on again.
Phone.
bouncy hot whites cycle.
It was bound to happen one day.
sign me up for the water-proof, slimline, aesthetically pleasing cellphone.
Reasons to retire Darling, part 4
1. Increasing requirements to contact computer support services
2. I am developing obstreperous-w intolerance.
3. 8loody hail, breeding task manager
4. I WANT Vista
I’ve used a Vista machine and I love all the search-stuff (start menu, control-panel), I no longer have to remember where I put things.
Its got a thing called ’snippit’ which takes pictures of what’s on your screen in a much easier way that control-print-screen, open-paint, then paste.
It’s pretty! The computer I used running Vista is a rather ugly thing, unlike Darling. I want to marry the two, prettiness of Darlings body-work with the human-memory-complimenting functionality of Vista.
While packing a day-bag to attend a local water-festival I noticed that my Oakley prescription sunglasses were not, as expected, nestled amongst my collection of spectacles dating back to 1979, in my spectacle drawer.
There was a minor panic outbreak because I will need these glasses for my rapidly impending Greek Sailing Holiday. I quickly searched all sensible places where I may have put a pair of sunglasses. They weren’t anywhere sensible. The following morning I double-checked all the sensible places, the following morning I looked in a few down-right silly places to put sun glasses (e.g. spare tea caddy).
3 days later, my morning random search for the oakleys included my winter-jumper draw. There they were, between two wool jumpers…..
The passport under the sink and the sunglasses between the woolly-jumpers are two of the Wendy House mysteries that may never be explained…
<Essay warning>
Not distributed within the mind, distributed across people and other things. The work of Yvonne Rogers in the 1990’s introduced me to the idea of distributed cognition. Here are some examples from my everyday life:
- placing my empty bottles by the front door to remind me to take them to the bottle-bank when I leave the house (memory distributed between bottles and Wendy’s absent mind)
- going upstairs to get my passport, when I get upstairs I’ve forgotten why I went there, going back downstairs and seeing the holiday (excitement level: Amber) details on Darling I remember why I went upstairs. (memory distributed between holiday details on Darling and Wendy’s absent mind)
- At the pub quiz, trying to name a song title from hearing a snippit of the tune, I can only hum the continuation of the tune, another team member can sings the lyrics to my hummed tune, a third team member can now name the band then the fourth team member can remember the song title (memory socially distributed between team members).
- I can’t remember my password as letters and numbers, I can’t remember the layout of a keyboard, when infront of Darlings keyboard I can reliably produce my password (memory distributed between keyboard layout and Wendy’s absent mind). The recent move from US to UK keyboards has been a bit password-disruptive.
- I can’t remember how to get from St Nicolas’s market to Clifton, but when I am in Bristol I can walk the route directly with no trouble whatsoever, very pleasant it is too (Memory distributed between the city-scape and Wendy’s absent mind). Note that the Schrocks recently experienced the way that St. Nicholas market can suprise you by turning out to be exactly where you are wandering.
People, sensibly, strategically delegate the effort involved in constructing some memories to post-it notes, lists, calendars, address books, mobile phones, bag-contents, places, blogs, photoalbums, family and friends.
A die-hard cognitivist might say this is just context-cued recall. Both paradigms provide the means to describe human behaviour, but the approaches to psychological theory building and research are radically different. The cognitivist would attempt to identify the specific cues that work most effectively and assess them in a lab, one specific unusual context, rather than analyse everyday activities in commonly meaningful contexts. These different research techniques would yield different practical, application, recommendations.
The cognitivists make the research language and approach to understanding human behaviour their domain as specialists, ‘everyday’ approaches enable results to be readily recognisable, understandable and communicable to people outside of a specialist discourse. They also afford more meaningful pragmatic applications.
<Essay warning over>
My next essay will probably be on Reading’s buses…
also known as: Remembering what to remember
I first encountered the currently popular (in Psychology of memory circles) ‘prospective memory’ as a term to describe remembering what to remember through Baddeley & Wilkin’s 1984 article ‘Taking memory out of the laboratory’ . The Laboratory, Lab, was typically where British psychologists studied human memory using rigourous exprimental methodologies. The lab was normally a windowless, beige, unadroned room lest participants, then ’subjects’, be distracted or inadvertantly influenced by non-experimental phenomena that might undermine the effect of the experimental manipulation.
I liked Baddeleys work because he’d systematically estabished the positive impact of re-instating memorising context on recall levels through various studies including the influence of alcohol (Vodka) or physically being under water (diving) when memorising, and recalling. Both these experimental studies sounded fun, were themselves memorable, and were even repeatable* in less rigorous forms with colleagues at University during normal studenty nocturnal activities.
‘Taking memory out of the laboratory’ was published in a book called ‘Everyday memory, actions and absentmindedness’ . This was ground breaking news to me in 1984. There I was in the middle of a degree course, approved as official content and jargon by the British Psychological Society, where I had focussed my study on memory research. I had just about got the hang of the technically specific language of psychological memory research such as retro-interference, auditory-loop, digit-span, recognition vs recall and much more. Then, THEN! Those gosh-darn leading memory researchers sprang some non-technical terms that made sense and weren’t part of the current disciplin jargon. How cheeky is that?
Absentmindedness?
Cognitive psychologists study the absense of mind. It was too much, I had a couple of vodkas and fell in a local canal with my miss spelt revision notes to celebrate.
PS: If I remember I’ll tell you why I’m telling you about prospective memory in a later post…
* Actually conducting the experiements makes them more memorable and easier to understand an evaluate than just reading or thinking about them over a cup of tea.
In the US car ownership is established with a Title. When you sell your car you transfer the title to the new owner. Loosea’s title has gone AWOL. I looked everywhere, honest. Luckily a swift check online produced a form for declaring her title lost and releasing it to a new owner. My signature on the slightly confusing form had to be notarised. The Notary had to ask for a second opinion about what should be filled-in. All turned out well in the end. Hoorah, despite my relocation induced scattiness Loosea will get to go to a new home, across the road, the house opposite, she’s a bit of a home-body
Condensed recap of the story so far, I
- lost my passport-1 in my US home
- applied for a replacement
- received replacement 10yr passport-2
- lost the replacement 10yr passport-2
- found the lost passport-1 while looking for lost passport-2
- sent passport-1 back to Washington DC consular and passport services with an application for to replace passport-2
- received ditsy-person replacement passport-3 that will only last for 1 year – until November 29th – must be renewed at Washington DC consular and passport services
- found lost passport-2 in September and sent it to Washington DC
- Sue from consular services phoned to say that she will hold onto passport-2 and renew it (10yr version) when she receives my renewal from for passport #3 towards the end of November.
- Accepted UK job offer to start on November 26th. Planned to fly to the UK on November 23rd with my old passport then mail it to Sue in Washington DC for renewal promptly upon arrival thereby getting my 10yr passport back.
- My belongings are being shipped to the UK, they require passport details. Shipping service confirmed that having my passport renewed should not be a problem.
- Completed passport-renewal form on November 13th promptly after returning from a UK visit to secure a place to live when I arrive on the 23rd. I can now complete this form in less than 10 minutes due to regular practice. The last page before signing includes a set of statements that I hadn’t yet memorised If you squint you might be able to see the unforeseen challenge in bold-type:
The new stuff:
“I am, today, in the country of application and will be at the time of issue.” This says to me that when I get to the UK I can only renew my passport in the UK. This is at odds with the ditsy-person renewal requirement of only renewing in the Washington DC office where they have my 10yr passport-2. I can’t renew in the US because I discovered this requirement 5 working-days before I am due to fly to the UK, insufficient time for passport renewal US-side before I repatriate. I phoned the Washington British Consular and passport services who charge at a rate of $2.45 per minute for the luxury of talking to a real, expert, person. I explained my situation and the passport expert said:
OH, that is a tricky one
Then put me on hold to discuss the options with other expert people. We made some decisions that will get me to Britain on the day that I sell my home here and 2 days before I start work there. I suspect this is not over yet. Stay tuned.
OOOOPS! the BBC reports that the UK govenment has mislaid the indentity information of people who claim child-support benefit. Everyone with a child under 16 is entitled to this benefit.
Alistair Darling does have a fabulous name, at school in the 1970’s my teachers referred to boy-pupils by their family name, can you imagine referring to him as Darling in class. Character building all around I’d say!
Unsuitable for sensitive people
I hurridly put my keys (car, both house, mailbox) in my back pocket when I came in. I don’t normally keep them there, too uncomfortable to sit on I was in a hurry to use the 0.5 bathroom. After relief I flushed, pulled-up my trousers, and heard
shhhhplink
I turned to catch a brief horrorful glimpse of my keys sitting in the bowl before they dashed around this bend swiftly followed by my hand. Never to be seen again. Panic followed by thankfulness for my spare sets. Must get another spare set quickly because this is the sort of accident that gravitates towards me at times when I need more composure than normal.
The symbolism of losing my house and car keys this way could be a tad disconcerting if I was supersticious, which I’m not.
Shipping (air or land) frieght to the UK requires that the owner have a valid passport at all points when the freight will be moved. Frieght moval times are unpredictable because of seasonal and weather variations and because frieght, especially home-frieght, is very low priority. Remember by ditsy person’s annual passport? It’s due for renewal this autumn… …while the Wendy House is in transit…. Apart from guffaws of laughter this is what dad had to say when I asked him if I could hand-carry some stuff over to his home and leave it there ready for when I arrive, just to be sure it would actually get there…
Mum says that will be OK… …Passports and Passport timings are highly critical factors in travel – at least it is not as bad as in war time when you had to bring your Ration books with you if you were going out of the country – these had to be checked and if you had used next weeks rations woe betide you! That still applied the first time I came to England after the war – I nearly was not allowed to leave!
I should have guessed that it was worse during WW2. I’m lucky that Britain and the US prefer peacekeeping to war or I’d probably have to live in a bunker at the bottom of the garden.
sixty-second in as unstructured Wednesday series of posts explaining my singleness.
Reason #62: easily confused.
The not being single thing is all way too complicated. My theory is that when it isn’t complicated then that’s the right match for me! Slam dunk, I’ll know because its all effortless and unconfusing. It will be like an atronought landing on planet Wendy.
In November I lost my second passport in one year. I found lost passport # 1 when looking for lost passport #2. When the UK Govt. sent a replacement passport #2 they put me on a special limited edition. Limited to 1 year validity. They call it the scatterbrain edition.
Tonight I found lost passport #2. It was under an unused dusty note-book, in a cupoboard, under a sink, in a bathroom, a cupboard that I didn’t think I had ever used.
Passport. Bathroom undersink cupboard. Now I think that’s a bit silly.
taking my life as I take my alcohol
uncloudy, straight, not on the rocks
It’s unclear how I get mixed-up
where the clouds come from
Ma’am! (check-out person)
….oooops…. (Wendy)
I forgot to pick-up my cash-back when leaving the check-out. I don’t recall ever having being called ‘Ma’am’ before. The uses I’m familair with have subtle intonational differences that get drowned in regional accents. Familiar uses are:
- mumsie talking to, and of, her own mumzie, a Northern English term.
- a way of addressing the Queen directly used in the film.
- an abrieviation of ‘Madam’ used for troublesome girls: “she was being a right little madam“; people who run establishments that comodify the female physique; in the French sense a mature women beyond maidenhood.
I wonder whether the check-out person meant one, some or all of these?
This passport is a replacement for a passport ‘Declared LOST’, urgh. I anticipate delays and humiliation at US immigration. My new 10yr UK passport ID page has this special warning printed on the back:
Pretty illustrations of different birds on each page and dual language (English and French) almost make up for the likely extra detailed questioning when trying to get back into the US. Sigh.
The spiral:
- losing things is distressing.
- distress induces scattiness.
- scattiness promotes losing things.
- losing things….(ad infinitum)
The onset of Wendy-(ex)-centric scattiness is predicable. Keys will use my scattiness to make a bid for freedom. I can normally track them down after 15 minutes of focused crime scene recreation. Some items, things rarely used are more cunning. Today was a day when a cunning item successfully escaped.
After 8hrs of searching every (list warning):
- pocket (suitcase, bag and coat),
- book (removed from shelf and shaken),
- CD rack (all CDs removed, dusted then replaced),
- drawer (empied, contents shaken, stirred and neatly replaced)
- furniture (under the bead, the sofa crevice, behind shelves)
I’ve decided to let scattiness win. This time. Costing me some ‘replacement’ dollars and worse than that the time to complete at least four official forms and report the loss to at least 3 government agencies. Poooeeey, must kick this cycle soon. Given alcohol’s known impact on memory beer could give my keys a good opportunity to make a run for it, not a good idea….
For a typical night-in the dining room table has recently regained its status as the happy-hub of my singletudiness pleasures: painting, cheese, wine, charismatic lighting, texture (soft velvet & heavy gold brocade), scent (food and candles), research and blogging…
…not enough room to dance around it… …moving it slightly might solve that…
W pretentious-pseudo-rennaissance-womb’n
by 6pm I’d temporarily mislaid
- Car-park that I’d put the car in
- Laptop power cable
After finding my car and power cable, while hurrying back to work, I walked into a ceiling-to-ground glass wall. Messy. I left a trial of nose-blood all the way to the rest-rooms. Suspect I’ll have a couple of black eyes tomorrow.
An excuse to wear my Oakley sunglasses to hide my black eyes and walk into even more glass walls, doh!
Meanwhile, I missed my reminder for my lawyers appointment. Arriving 30 minutes late as a thunderstorm took out the power so we had to sign and witness documents using a torch (US = flash-ligh).
For the person who found my blog using the search terms “tinkerbell nasty pictures“, frankly, that’s just way too naughty.
Imagine a 700 point scale of ’scattiness’ where
- 1 = memory of a goldfish & the perceptual skills of a dead-ant.
- 700 = high resolution digital quality reproduction & Tele-kinetic focus.
In summary, this week is on schedule to achieve a rating under 100…..
I’m not depressed, I’m British
W without-where-abouts
The Oxford English Dictionary Online refuses to recognise that ’scatty’ is a legitimate word. Bloody-mindedness I’d say! Meanwhile, the ever faithfull slang dictionary provides a description that clearly matches my colloquial understanding:
scatty Adj. Absent-minded. Possibly from scatterbrained. {Informal}
Here’s a short (who am I kidding?) account of this autumn’s scattiness that excludes normal stuff like losing my car keys, my car in the car-park, and occassionally the car-park I’ve left the car in. This autumn has proved exceptional. My outstanding achievement of absent mindedness this autumn includes, but is not limited to:
- Left handbag in downtown restaurant. August
- Left jumper in Bristol. September. Will be posted as packaging around a B’day present (hooray!).
- Left camera battery charger with battery plugged into a wall in Portsmouth. October. Currently in the post.
- Lost Passport and Advance Parole documents (2x). October. Found them each time within 2 hrs.
- Lost boyfriend. October. Partially retrieved in October.
- Lost Mobile phone power 2x. October.
- Left slippers at friends temporary home just before he moved out. October.
- Left company entrance card-key inside the building when I left, house keys & lip-balm. Today. Retrieved all.
- Lost my appetite. October.
- Lost sleep. Monday. Found Tuesday onward… hoorah!.
Do I get an award or what? Just feel the attitude. Sleep deprivation does wacky things to the superficially normal gal. I must remember to be polite to my colleagues tomorrow, or should i….
Wendy where-did-i-leave-my……
