Pasta and death

I have been in London all weekend and I loved it. I was MC at Oxford Jongleurs, and I can’t believe how many people love to ride their bike in the dark with no lights, it was almost like a middle class cull with my mate John at the wheel. “Hit him he has no chin” I shouted lots.

Though Oxford is spectacularly beautiful, those buildings are amazing. I am a tit for lovely buildings and can look at them for ages, maybe I was a stone mason in a past life, or maybe just a wife beating mason? I am not sure.

Sometimes when I go through Oxford I wish that when I had been young I had gotten the chance to go to university, but that’s just crazy talk, in my family you left school and you either got pregnant or married or you got stabbed for being different. So I got married. I hate being stabbed.

Years down the line, even through my wistful thinking I know I could never have gone to university, for one, I had the attention span of crack head at 18 years old and I didn’t know anyone who had been to university. I wasn’t one of those bright inner city kids that some lovely philanthropic teacher takes time out to help; in fact in my school the teachers must have breathed a sigh of relief when I walked out on my 16th birthday. I was and still am very annoying, I know this as my husband tells me that a lot and he should know- as we have been married since we were 18 years old. But then he has a strange unexplained bruise on his arm and I know how he got that (in his sleep when I bit him) because we have been married since we were 18 years old.

So I flew home on Sunday, the flight was delayed and that always cheers me up as I love nothing better than waiting for ages in airports watching people moan and bitch. I actually lay down on the floor near the window, which annoyed people, I am a middle aged woman, and I have no right to appear so sloppy and young, throwing my belongings about me and sprawling my wee fat body on the clean carpet. I made a pillow out of my jacket, and snoozed until I heard the flight being called.

Husband picked me up at the airport and reminded me how annoying I was because we have been married since we were 18 years old and I might have forgotten my annoying personality had he not been there to remind me.

Ashley was asleep but had made a big meat ball pasta oven baked dish, it was so tasty. Husband didn’t like it much but I was happy to eat hot food. Later on Ashley got up, peered into her oven baked pasta dish and said “How did he heat that up? Did he stir it? All the pasta is mashed up and broken?”

She looked really angry, Ashley doesn’t like her pasta strands broken and yet the evidence was there, her dad had clearly vigorously stirred her precious pasta dish.

“Did he fucking stir my pasta?” she shouted.

I was scared, her hair was all bushy and she looked like a strung out Amy Winehouse. “I don’t know it tasted great Ashley” I offered.

“Was the pasta all broken like this when you ate it? Did he microwave it?” she shouted and now looked like Amy Winehouse straight after her crack had run out and there was no crack left in the world to have.

I calmed down my daughter, reassured her that her pasta was fine, she wasn’t happy- she went into my bedroom, woke up her dad and shouted “Did you stir this pasta?”

Husband sat up all bleary eyed and said “Yes, I microwaved and stirred it and it wasn’t that good actually”

I stood in the hall and shut my eyes hard and held my ears as Ashley shouted “Don’t ever fucking stir the pasta or microwave it again, do you hear me?” the slammed the bedroom door.

“You shut up” shouted husband.
“No, you shut up” shouted Ashley.

That went on for about ten minutes.

Ashley doesn’t have a boyfriend, she went to uni and she didn’t have to get married at 18 years old as we relaxed the rule of stabbing children who don’t get wed young. But she is rather intense about her baked pasta goods; I hope she finds a nice man when she wants one and I hope he is the kind of man who doesn’t mind the rule about stirring pasta.

Life goes on.