Smokey the Magnificent

Yesterday I woke up with a headache and sore throat. For the past two days I have lounged around the house mooply, sipping ginger beer and ignoring my new writing schedule. Ten minutes ago I decided to get back into the swing of things, so pulled out a shirt from the wardrobe and put it on. A wasp stung me on the back. I am now back on the couch, clutching ice to my wounded flesh. My mother, to put this in perspective, is on holiday in Brisbane visiting the Australia Zoo. Some can. At least if she gets bit it’ll be by something impressive, like a cougar.

Today I was productive. I got up early (well, 8:45, which turned out to be two hours earlier than Helpdesk Man and the snortlepig), zoomed through my writing for the day, started (or Step Threed, technically) a sourdough loaf and breadsticks, made veggie soup for lunch, hewed a foam mattress in half and began constructing a cover for it (it’s to end its days as a squab on our window seat), then got distracted and started knitting a bowtie scarf. And now I gotta make chicken curry and watch Breakfast at Tiffany’s. And do something about the other half of the foam mattress. Anyone want half a dead foam mattress? It would be useful if you hated Helpdesk Man and wished to perform juju on his dead skin cells. Or if you wanted to clone him or something. Or if you were under the kind of gunfire that didn’t seem to warrant a complete mattress. Or if you had an incredibly narrow child. Or if you wanted to make a really rubbish teddy bear, or a moderately realistic mega-sammich. I’m not judging. I just want to get rid of it. Maybe I should make an auxiliary squab for Christmas, with holly on. Wouldn’t that make me the best wife ever?

Pair Three dried in time. But it turned out that was the least of my worries. Have you ever had a cervical smear? Crikey! The pamphlet told me it could cause “discomfort”, clearly using the same line of thinking as the chap who penned the immortal phrase “War is just a wee little bit like, kind of, you know, hell, but toned down a lot and really not so bad actually, you’ll like the food”.

I had to do it twice.

It was all the bally nurse’s fault. She wanted to test me for chlamydia.

Me: “No, that’s OK, I’m pretty sure I don’t have chlamydia.”

She (kindly but firmly): “Oh, yes, well I’m not saying you do, but it’s never a bad idea to check”.

Me: “Really, I don’t mind skipping this one, the chances-”

She (kindlier but firmlier): “Well, while we’re in there we’ll just take a swab, shall we?”

Me (feeling more and more like a streetwalker in denial, and I wasn’t even wearing Pair 1): “Um, I don’t think it’s necessary to test for that.”

She: “I’ll just tick the box”.

Me (meekly): “Mkay.” (Thinking: Oh well, at least it’s free.)

On the experience itself, though it has great literary potential, we shall not dwell. I tried employing the mental technique of going to my Happy Place - in a pinch, Disneyland - but it didn’t help, and will probably give me post-traumatic flashbacks on the Matterhorn. When it was over and I was trying to collect the shattered remnants of my psyche, the nurse suddenly said “Ooh! I forgot to take the swabs”.

Note: this always happens to me. The only time a blood test didn’t involve three tries was when I had high blood pressure from pre-eclampsia and the blood spurted out and splattered the bedsheets pleasingly.

Me: “These would be the chlamydia swabs?”

She: “Yes, I got distracted. I’m very sorry. Ach! Let me just pop some more gloves on.”

Me (fighting the urge to kick her in the face and dash for the door, leaving Pair 3 to their fate): “I’m really very happy to skip those.”

She: “No, no, no, while we’re here, good idea to do them.”

Me: “Really? ‘Cause I really don’t think I have chl-”

She (snapping the gloves on threateningly): “Let’s just do them quickly. Now, this’ll be easy - you won’t tense up this time, because you know what I’m about to do.”

Me: *hysterical yelp at the absurdity of this remark*

Some minutes later, I limped down to Reception to give them the form. The woman looked at me sullenly.

“Are you paying today, love?” she said.

“I thought it was free,” said I, pointing to the “BALANCE: $0.00″ on the sheet.

“Cervical smears aren’t free, love.”

$28.

Today, a thing of doom occurred. After successfully avoiding the medical centre’s reminders about having a cervical smear for nearly five years, a wily nurse rang up this morning and shamed me into a booking at 2:30.

This in itself is enough to cast a pall over an otherwise pleasing Wednesday, but it gets worse. After I got off the phone I realised, what with the weather we’ve been having lately, I am so behind on the washing that my underwear options are limited to three.

So, gentle readers, tell me: which would you rather wear to your inaugural cervical smear?

1. A G-string. I am not a G-string person, as tangibly illustrated by the fact that the snortlepig pulled off the wee pearly bit of bling at the front. Nevertheless, this single specimen of its type (black, lacy), by virtue of never being worn, is available. But it rather seems like overdressing.

2. A pair of enormous white cotton granny pants, bought by mistake in a packet which origami-ed them into a far less tent-like shape and implied that the bulk of the packet signified many pairs of knickers, not one really really big pair.

3. A pair of perfectly respectable black stretchy knickers, vaguely sporty, casual, neither risque nor Amish - but still on the line and slightly damp.

You perceive the Gordian knot of my dilemma? The knicker-twist, as the Greeks should have called it? Unless Pair 3 dries in the next two hours, I must face a member of the respected medical community in garb which makes me look either like a woman of the late afternoon or my own Aunt Mabel. If I had one. Which I do not.

These are the times, etc.

Today Helpdesk Man and I sallied forth, pig in tow, on a cast iron pot mish. Our previous frying pan (Analon anodised aluminium, we’re looking at you!) had begun to flake Teflon into the food and smell vaguely rubbery when heated. And then there was the matter of Helpdesk Man growing fingers out of his armpits and the pig speaking Cantonese for an hour every time she had a fried egg. So it was time.

We didn’t get Le Creuset, partly because of the half-mortgage price tags, but also because they’re enamelled and we liked the idea of absorbing iron into the food, which apparently happens with true cast iron. (And a similar thing with Teflon, apparently…) Incidentally, I may have been pronouncing Le Creuset wrong my entire life. Leh Crusoe, I thought it was, like the chappie - but the lady in the shop pronounced it Lah CrooSAY, which now I think about it makes more sense with the spelling. I am deeply shamed.

Nice pots, though. The Old Lodge, pre-seasoned, black, could kill a man. And a whisk, because our old one was of feeble construction and one wire kept pinging out and hitting you in the eye. We needed a new fish slice too, after Helpdesk Man used it to swat flies one time and I said “Don’t do that, it’ll break” and he scoffed at me and then it broke, but the pig was pesking around the shop and we forgot. The lady gave us a free teatowel, though, to wrap ourselves in on those cold winter nights under a bridge due to having spent all our money on cast iron pots.

I want a grain mill, also.

Further along the crunchy front, tomorrow I will be in possession of milk and water kefir grains. It is a little scary, like finding a chinchilla on your doorstep. I’m not sure how to make them not die, and I’ve never tasted… them, and what if I don’t like ‘em?

Also, becoming tired of my own stagnancy and lack of fame and riches (see above re grain mill), I am hereby setting up a writing schedule for me to stick to. I don’t want to, mind you. It sounds ghastly. But the one-hour-of-housework thing has worked surprisingly well this year, so here goes.

So.

Until I complete these goals every day (Monday to Friday), I will not surf the Internet:

• 20 minutes of Suite101 writing/editing/publishing
• 10 minutes of UTH editing/writing
• 10 minutes of marketing, ie. queries or invoices
• 10 minutes writing print articles, if they are due in 2 weeks or less (obviously, it will take longer once the deadline looms, but this will help, one hopes)
• 15 minutes writing fiction
• 10 minutes writing/researching/find agents for my non-fiction book

Making 75 minutes in all. This is a lot. But my ability to read xkcd depends upon it. And when I look back on my wispy existence in twenty years’ time, will I wish I had spend less time writing and more time googling “really awesome coat”? Probably not. I may wish I’d eaten more dietary fibre or refrained from trying to knock over a bank with a Sharpie, but those are different issues.

I feel virtuous already. Gonna go put trousies on, and everything.

Today I won a game of poker against three persons all older and more masculine than myself. It was very thrilling. I only became the big stack late in the game when I got several hundreds with two pair, Queens high against two pair, Jacks high - and then Helpdesk Man got lucky when Flatmate Man went all in and it was just the two of us, heads-up, eyeing each other over the chips in a Tracy/Hepburn sort of way, and we both played uber-cautiously for a bit until we got hungry for dinner, bleeding chips back and forth because the blinds have been raised sky-high, and ended up both going all in on a very dubious river with a combination of bluff and to-heck-with-it, but he had a pair of sevens and I had a pair of eights, and hah!

Also, the pig is picking up some of the nuances of the game. I’m pretty sure opponents of child-led weaning might say that when a toddler can rap on the table to check on their mother’s behalf, while having the milks, the world has become a slightly scarier place.

Feh! I am in a culinary mood, but all the recipes I know seem mundane and all the ones I find online have cacao nibs and creme fraiche in them. Not that that’s a bad thing, but judging by the reactions of the staff at Pak’N'Save when I asked if they had rennet, I don’t fancy my chances.

I have, however, completed two tasks of kitchenness today. The first, defrosting the freezer - well, technically, wiping the mould out from the freezer I started defrosting the other day until I got bored - we shall not speak of. The second was starting a batch of sauerkraut. I am not fond of sauerkraut. Nevertheless, Sally Fallon recommends it so sternly that I feel obliged to try it at least once. It’s pretty simple to make, in theory - all I did was mash half a head of chopped cabbage, two carrots, three cloves of garlic and some peppercorns and mustard seeds with salt for ten minutes. This draws out the humours and exhausts a small percentage of the snortlepig’s destructive powers, until she gets distracted and spills your entire bag of black mustard seeds over the floor. The kraut is now chillin’ on the bench, lactofermenting away, and in a week or two, if all goes well, my intestinal flora will be so lushly biodiverse that armies will quail before them. I’m also attempting a sourdough starter on the bench next to the sauerkraut, which now I think on it may not be wise. The beasties will probably hybridise into some hideous Frankenzyme and kill us all. Still, it is called wild fermentation; one learns to live on the edge.

Also, this will make you happy. If it doesn’t, that’s probably the universe’s way of telling you something.

OK, people. I need suggestions.

Next March or April we are planning a trip to Disneyland - about which I could write many thousands of words, but won’t for the time being. While we’re in the US we naturally wish to squeeze in as many activities as possible, particularly the sorts of things we don’t have in New Zealand. Like, well, everything. So we’re hoping to have dinner at Medieval Times, go to see Wicked, visit Universal Studios, see the San Diego Zoo and Wildlife park, and all that jazz.

And then it occurred to me… USA. Population. Subcultures. Geeks. Conventions!

Sadly Comic-Con is on at the wrong time and place, but thus far I’ve scouted out two potential conventions (in San Diego, I think) - ConDor and MegaCon. Guest lists aren’t up yet, it being a year away, but they both look promising.

So my question is: What costumes can I bring to wear that are portable, unbreakable, preferably washable, non-bulky and otherwise suitable for dragging halfway around the world and back?

The obvious choice for the snortlepig is Ensign Ro, although I’m not sure how to get her to wear the traditional Bajoran earring. Helpdesk Man wants to go as the Tenth Doctor (actually I think he wants to be the Tenth Doctor, but that’s another, deeper issue). Which leaves myself - redheaded but unchesty, which is an inauspicious combination for convention garb.

Any thoughts? I’m open to ideas from Star Wars, Star Trek, Firefly, Buffy, LOTR… pretty much anything except Twilight, in fact. My default option is to attempt to recreate Penny’s outfit from Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. This mostly appeals because I may be able to get away with wearing it at Disneyland too, even though it’d technically a costume and I’m over 9. And the anarchist in me goes “Heh” at the thought of illicitly wearing Unauthorised Character Garb under the nose of Walt himself. It’s how revolutions happen.

Or I could get around to making the steampunk outfit I’ve been threatening to make for years, and wear that. But Victorian clothing, neo- or not, tends to be bulky and I don’t want to clog my suitcase up with bustles and frills.

I await your suggestions with calm severity.

The snortlepig has adopted a new custom. You know how one blows a kiss? Well, she bites her hand instead of kissing it and then wipes it on my face. It is at once immensely threatening and self-defeating, like cutting off your own hand with a sneer and throwing it at the messenger of your enemy.

Also, I utilised the bok choi. That isn’t Navy Seal code. Cauliflower dish. It was passable.

Today I achieved another milestone of adulthood. I bought a bunch of bok choi, deliberately. Not because I mistook it for shmallows or anything. Full intent of wilting it into scrambled eggs, stir fries and similar dishes for the purposes of adding nutrients. $3.49.  Impressive, no? I felt a frisson of self-awe comparable only to the first time I looked at a cookie and decided I didn’t really need it, and the first time I mentioned querying an editor without feeling dizzyingly conscious of the glamour of this exercise. Self-awe comes pretty cheap round these parts, it must be said.