Mrs Facebook

I am a social networking addict. There, I've said it. I just can't help it, I love Facebook, Twitter and more recently, Google+.

I didn't realise quite how much stuff I was posting until someone stopped me in the supermarket and saidt "Hello Mrs Facebook, you've been getting around a lot!" I must admit I was quite taken aback and since then I've had quite a few more comments thrown my way of a similar ilk. 

So, what to do? Do I ignore the comments about my frequent Facebook presence or has the time come for me to justify my Facebook habit? After all what I choose to post and the emphasis here is definitely on my choice, is my decision and the truth is that I won't post anything that I feel doesn't have a place in the public domain. I have a strictly private and family life that is not up for discussion at all. I post what I want people to see or what I think they will find interesting or funny. 

We lead a global life in this, the second decade of the 21st century. I have friends and family all over the world, it's impossible to keep in touch with everyone on an individual basis all the time. Facebook allows me  to share news, views, photos and interests, send birthday wishes, greetings, even condolences with the people in my life and on the periphery. I have rekindled friendships with people that I lost touch with over the years, I even belong to a photographic group where we share and critique our pictures on a weekly basis. 

What I want to say to those who think maybe I'm making my life too public, or sharing my location with too frequently is this; if you don't like me block me! You can choose not to have me in your life. I love Facebook and I have no intention of signing off just yet...

Barbie Doll Chicken

My 15 year old nephew has been staying with us for a few days and I have been trying to keep him amused. I'm uncertain about what he thinks of me even though I've been trying very hard, maybe too hard to be cool...

Last Wednesday I picked him up at the station and decided to show him round town. We were walking round the shops when I came upon a trendy card shop. I love card shops and I really enjoy reading funny and inappropriate greetings cards and the more toilet humour in them the better. I have a couple of friends who share my card habit and we like nothing more than to stand in Clinton Cards laughing till tears run down our faces. So there I was in this particular shop perusing the cards and having a jolly good laugh.  I had found a really hilarious card and without thinking I gave it to my nephew. "Just look at this one!" I said, regretting it as the words left my mouth. His face was a mask of uncomprehending horror, how could his Aunt do this to him, how embarrassing could she be?  I realized that I had made a BIG mistake...this was not cool, I was acting like the15 year old teenager giggling in the card shop and he was the adult!

Mistake two was on Friday. I had cooked chickens for dinner and noted, while cleaning them that they were a bit deformed. They had huge breasts with tiny little spindly thighs and legs and they looked as if they had been given silicon implants. Actually I think they must get injected with some kind of hormones to give them big juicy breasts, which isn't really fair because in our family we like dark chicken and I would much rather have a chicken with big juicy thighs and small breasts.

We had guests for dinner including my best friend and her husband. Now my best friend is one of my greetings card shop buddies and we share the same sense of humour. A few years ago we went to see the film Johnny English  with our kids and laughed so hard and so loud that our kids moved to the other side of the cinema in order to distance themselves from us. Anyway, back to Friday night and I was serving the chicken. My friends are breast people and I commented that they happened to be particularly large that evening, I said, "Do you know these chickens look like Barbie Dolls, they have huge boobs and tiny little thighs." My friend fell about laughing and my 15 year old nephew looked at me with disdain and horror..again!

My mother- in -law has made it an art to be embarrassing in public, she thinks nothing of repeating the rude jokes that her niece emails to her, no matter who the company is! I think she does it because she doesn't want to disappear. I don't blame her, I can see how easy it is to just drift into being old and becoming grayer and grayer until you blend in with the walls. She is saying "I'm still here, don't ignore me!" I really admire her despite sometimes being excruciatingly embarrassed by her, she is fighting old age like a tiger.

So I'm going to keep giggling in card shops, snorting in cinemas and making remarks about chickens' anatomies and who cares if it's not cool!

The first post..musings on absentmindedness

I've done the teenage angst, I've brought up three boys and they have all fled the nest. I'm just about to turn 50 (on August 6) so what's next? I am now over the hill waiting for decrepitude to set in or is life just about to get interesting?

The purpose of this blog is to record and analyse the next phase on my life, and to see what happens next...

I can't decide whether my absent mindedness is a cute character trait or just damned annoying. Sometimes it's so bad that I'm convinced that Alzheimers is setting in and I think that I should start leaving little Post-Its round the house to remind me of all the things I shouldn't be forgetting.

I left my iPhone charger in the Thistle hotel at Heathrow airport on Sunday morning, which was a particularly silly thing to do considering that I am addicted to my phone. The thought of a dead battery, no Facebook, no Twitter, and no Angry Birds was too much to bear. Eventually the very nice receptionist at the Queens Hotel in Brighton very kindly allowed me to borrow her charger as long as I left the phone at the desk (hidden of course), so a potential disaster was averted. As soon as I got my fully charged phone back, I downloaded the Amazon app and ordered a new charger.

I am also a little clumsy..I've never been a particularly dexterous person but my propensity towards dropping or spilling things seems to be getting worse. At the wedding reception we were attending in Brighton, I managed to spill something greasy on my beautiful turquoise silk camisole. I had to go to the Ladies where I managed to sponge it down with soap and water and was then left with a huge wet patch spreading across my chest. What else was there do to but position my bosom under the electric hand dryer and turn it on so a jet of hot air would dry the offending marks. It goes without saying that someone walked in while I was standing there, and gave me a very odd look. However it was effective and I managed to preserve my dignity and take my place at the table for the rest of the meal.

The question is, do I embrace these quirks of mine, laugh at them, be accepting that these traits are a part of my personality, or should I suppress them and treat them like defects that need correcting. Can I turn them into something positive, attractive or funny? I suppose this is a theme which will run through my blog and hopefully something positive will come from it.