A handful of things in bullet-point format

[narcasse]

• My TurboJet lighter is a distinct thing of wonder when it comes to lighting cigarettes outside in windy conditions.
  
• Unfortunately, it’s not really of use for the main purpose for which I bought it. It certainly shoots the flame down into the bowl well enough but it scorches the tobacco horribly and makes it taste absolutely vile.
  
• Filling said lighter, on the other hand, was a novel experience. And I now have 2 canisters of highly flammable chemicals at either end of my bedroom. WD40 being the other one.
  
• My code switching has reached new levels, as my ‘front of house, conference centre’ voice is apparently unrecognisable on the phone to people who do normally recognise me.
  
• Curiously, while I do think said ‘receptionist voice’ admittedly could have a character assigned to it, and in my more whimsical moments I’d suggest that it’s the sort of voice you’d expect from a former public school boy who was very well presented but a little on the pretentious side, I seem to have developed some sort of speech impediment to go with the characterisation. It’s not quite a lisp but it’s getting frighteningly close these days and there’s no real reason why, especially since I don’t have anything similar in my regular voice.
  
• Since it’s getting to that time of year again, I’ve started taking propolis again because 3 doctors have suggested that my current problem is being run down due to stress.
  
• I’m also laying the blame for the fact that I now know far more than I’ll ever need to know about queen bees piping, firmly on the fact that I was doing some skim reading on propolis, and got distracted.
  
• I’ll make a start on the manuka honey again soon too. Sadly, I can’t just pick up the strength that I want from the supermarket.
  
• My hair has been falling out again recently, which is a long-standing stress-related symptom for me, but for some bizarre reason, other than the bits falling out, the rest of it is looking absolutely fabulous these days.
  
• I’m also losing weight at a fair pace, and the slight hollows at the side of my face, under the cheekbones, are coming along nicely.
  
• Today, my digestive issues started playing up again and I took a new indigestion remedy to deal with it, only to discover that ranitidine can also cause a false positive for methamphetamine in drug tests.
  
• Since the weather is changing, I really need to start cooking autumn stews again. I’ve been fancying something with parsnip in for at least a month now and I always get rather over-exited about parsnips at this time of year for some reason.
  
• In fact, I need to start cooking more often, because as the weather gets colder I start to get crankier if I don’t get the right nutrients in my meals.
  
• And I probably ought to start re-ordering my wardrobe and exchanging my summer clothing for the autumn/winter selection. The way the weather’s turning it won’t be long before I’ll need to start digging out sports socks and thermal vests again.