Smokey the Magnificent

It is Tuesday morning, and The Canadian remains unmulched. Aren’t you proud? I had Mother’s billets over last night for dinner - also Canadian, as it turned out - and we waxed very merry and all was well. One of the girls gained my approval by being properly sensible of the perfections of the snortlepig - in fact, she was pretty enthusiastic about everything. Apparently, not only is my lasagna better than her momma made and my butterscotch chiffon mousse the best thing she’d ever tasted, but Helpdesk Man and I are the perfect couple. Which, uh, we don’t get told a lot… at least not in a good way. So there that is.

Today I plan to spend playing catchup with the housework. Having an extra person in the house kinda throws me off, which is unfortunate. So when this pig wakes up I’ll finish cleaning the stove, hang out the washing, vacuum and try to nip down to the shops between squalls of rain.

Yesterday the billets came over and helped paint the sewing room… or junk room, as it should more precisely be called. We only got one coat done, but it already looks considerable brighter. It’ll do my psyche no end of good to be able to keep my sewing machine out all the time without cluttering up the kitchen table.

In other news, we have a camera! My photography skills are non-existant, as this blog so amply demonstrates; but with a more-than-six-pixel camera they may improve.

So, tell me. If you could have any job in the world, what would it be? I mean a job that actually exists (ie. not “chocolate taster at the Cadbury factory” - unless that does exist, but I doubt it); and a job category rather than a person (ie. you can’t just say you want to be Bill Gates, although I hope my Gentle Readers wouldn’t dream of wanting to be him). Helpdesk Man, when asked this question, immediately said “Graphic designer”, which happens to be exactly what he’s starting up a business doing. And while that gives me a warm glow and all, I had to question his imagination. Wouldn’t he rather be the swordfighting consultant for movies, I asked? He wasn’t sure. But anyway, I can hardly complain, given that my own choices were eqully second-guessy. They included:

• Travel writing, my initial response. But on the other hand, it’s not a career which meshes well with a snortlepig. I’d always be wanting to take Helpdesk Man and the pig along, or feeling guilty about leaving the former at the mercy of the latter.. and the chances are high that I wouldn’t last ten minutes on foreign soil. I’d lose my toothbrush or my sense of direction or my life or summat.
• Designing theme parks. Which I would very much enjoy, I think. Only I have no engineering or draughtsmanship experience, and not a very practical mind. Plus, the first yobbo to kill himself by attempting to leap from a moving roller-coaster to the Ferris wheel would unleash crushing guilt upon me, not to mention the scorn of public opinion and a hefty lawsuit. And then the Dead Frogs haunted house ride would get clogged up by someone’s vomit, and the hedge maze would become littered with Coke bottles and lose its woodland charm, and I’d end up hating the human race and wearing a dingy red bathrobe, rolling cigarettes with crabbed hands in a tower. And I’m not sure that’s healthy.
• Being a midwife. Which again, I’d enjoy… but out of all the careers in the world? Not really. Not when it would involve staying up all night, a fet I’ve never successfully managed to accomplish. Pretty near, the time we saw the midnight showing of Return of the King; but not quite. And again, too much potential for crushing guilt, the sc. of pub. op. and a h. laws.
• Writing fiction. Possibly the strongest contender thus far, with the caveat that said fiction be successful. Doable from home, own boss, no capital, and the potential for travel and glamour should things pan out - and of course, the prospect of being able to say to people in singles bars, “Oh, I’m a writer”. Too many careers have been chosen without due deference to this criterion, and the world has suffered accordingly.

But then, being a movie reviewer would have its charms. As would working in the movies, as a director or writer or something I mean, not the Best Boy Grip. And I’ve always fancied being a clockmaker or a jeweller. Or a chocolatier. Even being a really top-notch waiter in a v. swanky establishment sort of appeals, but I do not have the moustache for it.

Yourselves?