There are no brown cows*

Okay, I really am the worst. I know I haven't blogged in ages. And all I left you with was the worm stories. It was cruel, and I really am sorry.

In brief, here are some of the things that have happened since I last wrote:

• I went to London to see my Mom. I rode on the tube, and a bus, and on trains, all of which just to make paranoid people cringe. Nothing was shady, nothing was scary. We didn't actually do much that feels worth writing about now, partly because it was almost a month ago, and partly because we really didn't do much. See, the two days, they were almost identical. They went like this: breakfast at club, to museum for exhibit (Stubbs on Saturday, Reynolds on Sunday). Lunch at museum with bottle of wine. Another glass of wine with cheese course. Taxi back to club, take drunken nap. Wake up, think about dinner, decide I am not that hungry and so not in a hurry. Descend into childhood as I wait ages for my mother to get ready for dinner and realise that I am really hungry, and really dehydrated from getting trollied at lunch, and therefore really, really cranky. Whine a little and threaten to drink water out of the toilet like a dog. Dinner, with another bottle of wine. Bed.
• This was followed by a fairly normal week of trying to get work done and be a good girl. Highlights include finally figuring out how to make refried beans without resorting to the actual Mexican way (which uses straight lard, I think. I do use a lot of butter, but I like to pretend that isn't as gross as lard); a really good yoga workshop in which I finally conquered at least a little of my hatred for all of the triangle positions (I have a very long torso, and therefore some troubles with the alignment); a 'Black and White' themed party at Keith and Dave and Gill's (the party was really very good, though the theme was a little pretentio-morbid seeming for my taste. Actually, the party was good until Keith and Doug treated us to a wee, twee, Tiny Monkey jam. That was the point at which we left. I remember parties as a child in which everyone has to trot out their performing skill, and it still makes me vomit when peeps start to do the masturbatory party performance. Sorry, Keith. The Pie tells the Life like it is)
• This rather lovely week of food and yoga and booze was followed by The Most Boring Conference In The World. I won't bother with what it was about, because you guys won't know or care, but it was in very rural Ireland, and it was dull. Luckily the hotel was in some very pretty countryside, so I got to take some nice little walks when the actual doings got too much for me. I met, for what I believe is the first time, some cows up close. Please don't think that this is Pampered Princess of Southern California speaking-- I have seen cows before, and I spent my formative years on a horse ranch, but I don't actually remember being very close to cows. So, I searched them out, only to find that up close they are very, very big (they make my sisters 18-hand horse look like a fairy-land pony), and that they have exceedingly gross tongues, like enormous slugs.
• Even more disgusting than a big sluggy tongue was the woman at the conference who offered me my greatest entertainment during the lectures. On day 1 she rearranged all of the seats around her so she could put her feet (from which she had removed both shoes and socks) up. On day 2 she was bored of the lectures, and so brought along her romance novel, and read through the lectures (Okay, I was bored too, but seriously! Pretend to take notes while making grocery lists, or something). Days 3 and 4 brought her even closer to me-- I had the joy of sharing her table at a lunch and a dinner. At dinner she skillfully commandeered the conversation for 40 minutes to relate her entire family tree-- apparently her great-great-grandfather had ten brothers and sisters, all of whom had ten children and of whom had eight children... I got to hear about all of them. This was nothing compared to the next day, though, when she sat down at lunch and immediately declared that she hoped she hadn't been in anyone's pictures as she had gained a stone of weight and would look fat. (A side note: she was very, very fat, perhaps obese, which was why I didn't think too much of her feet-raising action on Monday, as she could have had diabetes, or swelling, or whatever. But what do you say when a fat person does that whiny 'I'm fat' thing that is wretchedly annoying and awkward even in very thin women? Do you follow the rules of politeness and act a total hypocrite and say, 'No, you aren't fat!' even though the woman is pushing a deuce, deuce and a half?) This unfortunateness was swept away on the final day of the conference, when during my supervisor's lecture she proceeded to clip her toenails.
• I returned to Edinburgh for a weekend of birthday celebrations on Friday and Saturday nights (Josh and Steph), and a week of trying to get work done while planning for further brithday celebrations (Josh and Jez). Saturday night was the party for which everyone had been waiting, and while I unfortunately had to cop out a bit and take off before the good stuff really started, I think everything worked out quite well. My pilot/stewardess costume idea worked well enough to win the peeps the Best Dressed award at Vegas, which was pleasingly gratifying for me, and I think chest-swellingly joyful for Josh. Pictures can be found here. There was a great deal of gossip to be relayed afterward, always the sign of a good (read: boozy) evening. Meanwhile, Jeff and I were in Fife walking the dogs and eating take-away and napping (actually, I was napping, and Jeff was tending to less pleasant things. It seems that the dogs took any possible opportunity that I fell asleep to have some excrement-related troubles, leaving Jeff to clean up while I snoozed peacefully.)

And that brings us pretty much up to date. From here on out, though, it is all work and no more spending of copious amounts of money. My sister arrives in T minus 16 days, and I am hoping to get most of my corrections hammered out before she gets here. So, expect frequent blog entries about absolutely nothing, my home-grown specialty. Until then, peace out.

* This was, for a period of time, a matter of great debate in my family. See, there is a grand McHugh tradition of instilling a great deal of truth in whatever you say (no matter how unlikely, or impossible, it is) with simple confidence. My sister is the master of this technique, and more or less runs an in-sorority-house medical clinic through a basic medical knwledge and her sheer ability to convince people she is absolutely correct, all the time. I have also been accused of a similar practise, though I don't necessarily admit guilt. This talent was learned from the great master, my father, who on an early date with my mother pronounced that 'there are no brown cows.' My mother was suitably surprised by this pronouncement, especially as her mother had grown up in farm-land, and they were aquainted with many colours of cows. An arguement ensued, as my mother is one of the few people on whom our McHugh Liarly Tricks do not work.

The point, my friends, is that there are brown cows. Many of them. And like all other cows, they have big slimy tongues.

The other point is that when I tell you things, there is a very good chance that I am lying.