"Let me get your advice."
As promised, the bloggery she resumeth.
One of the many distinguishing features which dot my personal landscape is my openness to taking advice, even of learning from other people. I may be obnoxious and arrogant in real life, but I am not proud, if youseewhatImean.
The extremely lovely and wildly gracious Poppy clues me to Nueske's bacon and it's firmly imprinted in my frontal lobe forever, the lovely and gracious Badger suggests Tito's vodka and I nod assent. I ask my global audience -- which, granted, skews heavily towards the Australian Knitter Guild* -- to help me decide between X and Y and I allow the will of the people to manifest itself in my life.
Why, you can imagine how the conversation plays out at Chez Joke when the answer to TFBIM's inquiry as to why the remodeled kitchen must feature a cheese drawer is something like "Because Blackbird said it was vital."
And so, given the human condition, it is also natural that I am asked for advice. What's weird is that anyone taking my advice is so damned infrequent that modern statisticians give up calculating the infinitessimal and quit in despair (or possibly disgust) and say it cannot be done until microchip technology catches up.
What's even weirder is that people who ask my advice and then studiously avoid even the merest resemblance of following it then ask me for more advice later. No, it makes no sense to me either. Many a husband of one of TFBIM's benighted friends has come asking for advice on how to dress for Event X...or even just how to dress better and they all walk away shaking their heads. To such as these, a pocket square is an outward sign of manifest idiocy and wearing any cologne or even aftershave -- regardless of the very desirable, er, consequences at home -- indistinguishable from the most virulent form of transvestism.
But yet these repeat customers return in waves.
Over the weekend, we had people over for brunch (rapidly becoming my new favorite team sport) and at one point someone raved over the sausage and asked for the recipe** but caught herself and said "No, wait. If it's your sausage recipe, it probably starts off with 'wean a Berkshire piglet and then...'"
Mind you, I don't mind giving unheeded advice. I know I'm invariably right and I enjoy the process of exposition. Telling someone how best to proceed in any given situation is both a gift and supremely enjoyable for its own sake, and the frequent "Y'know, I should have done what you suggested..." can scarcely add to that.
Nowhere is this more prevalent than in the bosom of my very own house. The only problem here is that one's beloved, whose bonhomie and/or irritability are indecipherably...uh...cyclical (diplomatic enough?) in nature does not take well to my smug chants of "See? I told you so!" and that does tend to dampen my glee somewhat.
In other news, my regularly scheduled Annual Slim-Down hath begun.
-J.
* DISCLAIMER: Not all the knitters are Australian, and not all the Australians are knitters. Some, I have been informed, are neither.
** Recipe to follow
One of the many distinguishing features which dot my personal landscape is my openness to taking advice, even of learning from other people. I may be obnoxious and arrogant in real life, but I am not proud, if youseewhatImean.
The extremely lovely and wildly gracious Poppy clues me to Nueske's bacon and it's firmly imprinted in my frontal lobe forever, the lovely and gracious Badger suggests Tito's vodka and I nod assent. I ask my global audience -- which, granted, skews heavily towards the Australian Knitter Guild* -- to help me decide between X and Y and I allow the will of the people to manifest itself in my life.
Why, you can imagine how the conversation plays out at Chez Joke when the answer to TFBIM's inquiry as to why the remodeled kitchen must feature a cheese drawer is something like "Because Blackbird said it was vital."
And so, given the human condition, it is also natural that I am asked for advice. What's weird is that anyone taking my advice is so damned infrequent that modern statisticians give up calculating the infinitessimal and quit in despair (or possibly disgust) and say it cannot be done until microchip technology catches up.
What's even weirder is that people who ask my advice and then studiously avoid even the merest resemblance of following it then ask me for more advice later. No, it makes no sense to me either. Many a husband of one of TFBIM's benighted friends has come asking for advice on how to dress for Event X...or even just how to dress better and they all walk away shaking their heads. To such as these, a pocket square is an outward sign of manifest idiocy and wearing any cologne or even aftershave -- regardless of the very desirable, er, consequences at home -- indistinguishable from the most virulent form of transvestism.
But yet these repeat customers return in waves.
Over the weekend, we had people over for brunch (rapidly becoming my new favorite team sport) and at one point someone raved over the sausage and asked for the recipe** but caught herself and said "No, wait. If it's your sausage recipe, it probably starts off with 'wean a Berkshire piglet and then...'"
Mind you, I don't mind giving unheeded advice. I know I'm invariably right and I enjoy the process of exposition. Telling someone how best to proceed in any given situation is both a gift and supremely enjoyable for its own sake, and the frequent "Y'know, I should have done what you suggested..." can scarcely add to that.
Nowhere is this more prevalent than in the bosom of my very own house. The only problem here is that one's beloved, whose bonhomie and/or irritability are indecipherably...uh...cyclical (diplomatic enough?) in nature does not take well to my smug chants of "See? I told you so!" and that does tend to dampen my glee somewhat.
In other news, my regularly scheduled Annual Slim-Down hath begun.
-J.
* DISCLAIMER: Not all the knitters are Australian, and not all the Australians are knitters. Some, I have been informed, are neither.
** Recipe to follow
Comments
You know, somehow I don't think this would end well.
The parable of the sewer and the cookies.
I need new glasses.
Know where I can find any?
(Oh, and psst! Patron Citronge instead of Cointreau. Cheaper AND mixes better. You're welcome.)
I told you about Glacier vodka, should there be a sudden shortage of Tito's. Like, say outside TX.
-J.
There is something very satisfying about the whole I told you so thing. I admit it.