Foible, gaffe, blunder

It has been decided; in an effort to write more, I must write less.

Today let's work with the more inane of my recent experience:

My cat, Arrow, created upheaval by bringing a half-dead pigeon (which she surely felled and maimed) into the house and tossing its feathers - EVERYWHERE. Let me just say, dead bird on my door-step = okay. Half-dead bird in my house - not on your life. She has been duly told never to half-kill again. Stupid cat!

In an effort to describe the concepts of EMPHASIS and VARIETY to my all-black, post-Apartheid design class, I brought up the image of one black person in a room of white people - HA! - (of course paired with the similar idea of a white person in a room of all black people [me] or a person in a red shirt in a room of all blue shirts). Crikey, I really wasn't thinking! .... an all-too-easy foible in this part of the world. Or maybe gaffe is the better word to use.

I only discovered AFTER I ran my new oil lamp for 2 hours in a room darkened by a power outage that my lamp-oil was only intended for "well ventilated areas outside". My poor white cat is now grey and her mouse? Well definitely not white anymore. Everything is covered in grey soot. Ouch. Blunder.


Definitely make sure to turn the cap fully tight on your hot water bottle in the cold of autumn. Otherwise your bed might wet you. Happened last week. Idiot's slip.

Do we actually get smarter as we get older or do we just find new ways to make old mistakes?