Well, the citizenship ceremony was a barrel of laughs. You might think I’m being sarcastic, but I’m really not. There were three other people other than my son and myself who were there to take part (plus a couple of visitors), two from Zimbabwe, bless them, and one from Brazil. Some of the funniest, not to mention goofiest, people I’ve met, and the woman running the ceremony just gave up on making it a solemn occasion, because nobody there was feeling particularly solemn. A good day out, overall.

Plus… I got a plate!

If you can’t read the inscription, it says “Presented by the Perth and Kinross Council on attaining British Citizenship”.  My son was disappointed he didn’t get a plate too, and the woman running the ceremony looked slightly concerned at his disappointment.  I told her not to worry, because he’d just put chips and cookies on it anyway.

And as hubby was driving us home, I examined the silver plate plate and pondered the inscription, thinking what a nice gesture it was, and I flipped it over … on the back it said… “Made in China”.   I guess the Scots are known for many wonderful things, but mass producing cheap commemorative knick-knacks isn’t one of them.

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Well, today is the big day. If you recall, back in August I took the British citizenship exam . Passed, of course, and today is the day I get to raise my right hand and swear my loyalty to queen and country or some such. I suppose it would be a good idea if I read the sweary bits before I go in, just in case I’m signing over my house or something.

I do recall however, that it starts out something like:

I do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare…

Really really truly truly I mean it I promise.

This is the option for people who, like myself, don’t feel comfortable with the “oath” version, in which you say something like:

I swear by Almighty God

So, you don’t have to bring the big guy into it… if you really really truly mean it.

Won’t be back this afternoon, because I’m planning to spend the afternoon finding out how to join the Scottish National Party… As soon as I really really truly swear my allegiance, I’m gonna hop on that Scottish separatist bandwagon and hoist the Saltire outside my house. We Scots have always been rebellious, and I have some catching up to do.

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Hello, dear friends! I’ve missed you so! Thanks very much especially to Hope who sent me a note yesterday wanting to make sure I was okay.

It’s been an incredibly rocky couple of weeks for me. I’ve been sick, my entire family has been sick, and priorities switched to things like keeping us all clean and fed. Nothing like a fever of 103 to make you readjust your “to do” list. I’m afraid 3 blogs was just too much for me for the last two weeks!

While sick I was sometimes at the computer, but find it difficult to be funny. Wait… scratch that. Word on the street is that I was incredibly funny. One night, apparantly, I was communicating psychicly with my cat. I gave a rousing speech on the color purple (the actual color.. not the film) and at least one or two of my friends seem to not be speaking to me anymore, although I’ve not been able to suss out why just yet. I’m sure I did something horrid.

I hesitated to post about my absence, not wanting my most recent post to be an “I’m not here” post, and instead let you mull about Suspicions for a while. Looks like you guys had fun without me!

So… I have some catching up to do, visiting and commenting those who’ve been here while I was gone, and trying to reawaken my bitchy side.

Meanwhile, I leave you with this thought….

Often in life, we don’t get what we expect.

But seriously… at what other place would we accept such a shabby version of what was advertised? If you went into a Jaguar dealership and picked out a shiny new X-type, and then when it was delivered, it had rust, dents, and scratches, would you take it anyway?

Why do we take it without complaint? Because of the price tag? McDonalds (although just about every fast food joint is guilty of the exact same thing) is eroding our self-respect one mushed-up, overcooked, lamp-heated, spat-in, 99 cent burger at a time.

And sadly, we call it “childrens food”. We must really really hate our kids.

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I have some topics I had considered blogging about whose titles I saved in my Dashboard. Things like “Guide to Effective Bitching” and “Breaking the Code” and “The Bitter Women Guide for Liars”. And then last week turned out to be a pretty overwhelming week for me, and so I considered writing about dealing with being overwhelmed. However since that mostly involves eating pie and taking naps, I decided that might not be as enthralling a topic as I had first thought.

But then I thought of something sinister. My dear friend, let’s call her Bunnie (hehehe), introduced me to an online game called Mafia . We play on a forum setup, and it’s basically a group of ordinarily nice people who get whipped up into a frenzy of suspicion, finger-pointing, and name calling for entertainment. Oh, and the person with the best command of the English language wins, because convincing others you’re innocent (even if you’re not) and convincing the other players why they should elminate someone else is part and parcel. (Woohoo… cliche alert! Do I get a prize?)

We’ve been playing our current game for a week, and it’s already changing my outlook. (Hmmm… maybe this is why life is overwhelming me. I’m playing forum games when I should be doing laundry. Naaah… nevermind that thought.)

Point is, I’ve started to see everything in terms of suspicion.

Here are two groups of people I find myself suspicious of. In Mafia game terms, we call this “The Finger of Suspicion”. I’ll just let you guys figure out which finger that is.

1) People who say they don’t dream. Anyone who went through the 5th grade knows everyone dreams, so why say you don’t? Is it to make yourself seem dark and mysterious? Well, I do wonder what kind of screwed up your brain life must be to not let yourself remember even random thoughts that most of us get while dreaming. I mean I get some good ones that are like epic movies, but mostly I get dancing hippos and wobbly landscapes. Even my sex dreams start out good, but then suddenly everyone turns into a rutabaga. Oh well. But at least I dream.

2) People who don’t read. I broke up with a guy once who didn’t read. I mean he could read, but he never did. No newspapers, novels, dry old biographies, comic books… not even a cereal box. I realise none of my Bitter Readers will fall into this category, because you’re reading this blog. (Ha! Caught ya!) But I tell you, it slightly distresses me that such people exist. The very concept that someone might get their entire view of life, culture, world events, and history based on Big Brother makes me just slightly short of breath (and not in a rutabaga way… in a panic attack way).

So, all of this to say to you non-dreamers, non-readers (you will tell them for me, won’t you?), I’ve got my eye on you, dammit.

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Plan: Take a shower before getting online.
Reality: It was too cold this morning to want to get naked before noon so I just bundled up in a robe instead.

Plan: Ignore stats, IMs, and email until I’d actually done some, you know, werk.
Reality: It was too cold this morning to want to work before noon, and I had some really tasty email, and my best friend IMed me with a “situation”, and I needed to look at my stats anyway so I could write my About Blogging article, so I might as well do it first thing. Not only that I was bundled up in a huge robe so it made it difficult to get the range of arm motion I need to type in a werkerly manner.

Plan: Look at placing google adverts in posting section of a forum I run.
Reality: After two hours of reading and browsing said forum, I forgot why I was there.

Plan: Look at ways to better monetise some of my non-goofy blogs. (i.e. not this one… haha)
Reality: Ooh, look! Shiny sparkly things on the internet! I wonder where this link goes!

Plan: Look for relevant Amazon products to add to other websites in affiliate sections.
Reality: Remembered that article I wrote about Amazon And Your Ass , and got distracted in the Sexual Wellness section of Amazon again and began to idly wonder what the flower is for on the Hitachi Magic Wand Massager .

My conclusion from all this self-analysis?

I’m well grounded in reality! Score!

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