Smokey the Magnificent

This is Miles.

.

You will notice Miles is a catfish.

Miles mocks you with his eyes.

No, I jest. He likes you.

Miles don’t take no guff, though.

Miles fears no Commies.

Miles fears nothing.

Yet this tough exterior cradles the soul of a poet. Sometimes, for instance, Miles feels a pang of melancholy in the produce section, because he gave up brassicas. For Lent.

Miles is a delicate soul. Sometimes things that amuse coarser mortals shock him to the core.

Then he silently judges.

Take, for example, his large, tiny sister.

His sister has body art and drives a motorbike.

She is pretty hardcore.

Miles recoils from some of her lifestyle choices.

But he still likes her.

Life goes on. I still find myself getting dizzy and having to sit down every time I stand up. Doctors are flummoxed. It isn’t low blood pressure and it isn’t anaemia, or hypothyroidism, or gestational diabetes, or indeed poor potassium levels. I had ‘em checked. So I have been informed that it’s probably hormone-related and may or may not last for the entire nine months, but that if I continue to feel worse I should get checked out for mono and/or hepatitis C. Also, while the second trimester has not delivered the relief it oughta, it has endowed me with intermittent heartburn and pelvic girdle pain. So there’s that.

In other, potentially more cheerful news, I am today sitting my restricted driver’s licence test. It is manly of me to admit it, as the custom among my family is to pretend one isn’t going to do it until one has passed, only to admit years later, once the sting has gone, that it was on the second try; but this is a weaselly attitude, and unworthy of a Smokey. If I fail, as is very possible, I shall darn well blog about it, and revel in the condolences of my friends (many of whom failed themselves the first time, and they’re much more savvy than me; so there you go. Of course, they were mostly like fifteen when they did it, which I am conspicuously not; but still though.) Plus, I need my father to drive me to the test.

Asking friends and family for advice on how to pass has proven to be an interesting exercise.

FRIEND WHO TEACHES BURLESQUE: Wear a low-cut top. Show a bit of leg. That worked for me.

LAID-BACK FRIEND WHO MEDITATES: Oh, you’ll be fine.

FRIEND WITH WHOM I DROVE ONE TIME, HAD TO PARALLEL PARK WITH REAL CARS FOR THE FIRST TIME, AND SHE SQUEAKED A LOT AND MUTTERED THINGS: [Don't know, too scared to ask]

FATHER: Oh, it all depends on who you get. There are some real rotters in the business; they fail you for anything. In Australia they always fail you the first time on principle. Just don’t take it personally. [This is, of course, a man who considered it his fatherly duty to tell me before the births of my little sisters that Mum might die in childbirth; before anybody had surgery, that they might die on the table; before my wedding, that most marriages end in divorce; before I had the snortlepig, that a lot of marriages break up after the birth of a baby; before Helpdesk Man started working from home, that most home businesses fail; and so on. It is his way.]

PREGNANT SISTER-IN-LAW: You should try some Hypnobabies techniques to relax you. Just don’t fall asleep.

FATHER-IN-LAW WHO MOSTLY TAUGHT ME HOW TO DRIVE: [doubtfully] Well, you’ve come a long way.

MOTHER: [tactful silence]

EHOW: Even if you’re not a makeup person, it’s vital to wear some matt foundation and a bit of lippy for your photo, or you’ll look washed out.You don’t want to cringe every time you pull your licence out to buy beer.

HELPDESK MAN: Honestly, stop being so negative! This is the problem with you, you never think you can do anything! If I thought like that, do you think I’d have started my successful home business, Information Highwayman? [He talks in hyperlinks. He really does.]

SNORTLEPIG: OOH, Mummy going for a DRIVING lesson! So clever! I come too?

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.

So Helpdesk Man and I are watching our way through the Harry Potter films. Hermione’s eyebrows notwithstanding, I’m enjoying them more than I expected. The Order of the Phoenix, which we watched last night, was positively arty in a few spots. That bit where Fred and George were consoling Nigel after he’d been using Dolores’ torture quill was actually moving. Also, I’d never before considered the awesomeness of the name Dolores Umbridge. She’s good with names, is JK Rowling.

Here’s the thing, though. The Triwizard Cup. Now, clearly it didn’t matter how the contestants got to the cup through the maze: they were being judged on results, not the wizarding prowess they showed during the process. (Which made their previous accrual of points kinda redundant, which was silly, but never mind.) So if Harry proved himself a one-note wonder, it wouldn’t affect his win. That being the case… why didn’t he go with “Accio Firebolt” again? He could have zoomed over the maze looking for the cup found it in seconds. Better yet… why not “Accio Triwizard Cup“? I can buy that the Cup was maybe enchanted to keep it in place, but the broomstick thing should have worked. Silly Harry.

Also, I like that they didn’t tart Hermione up too much. They de-bushified her hair movies before they were supposed to, and put her in civvies when she still should have been wearing robes: but she wasn’t in crop tops and miniskirts, and that is something. There are Standards left in the world. And hoodies, apparently.

Anyway.

Much to my surprise my one-hour-of-housework-a-day resolution has left me eager and sprightly, so my added challenge for this week is to tie up loose ends. Which sounds like killing my ex-bosses, but it isn’t. I’m fairly fond of most of my ex-bosses, with the exception of Simon the evil manager from Rialto who once spent five minutes castigating me for stealing a piece of company scrap paper to write an amoosing story on to pin up by the freezer. Oddly it wasn’t the story he objected to: it was the stealing. Of the scrap paper. Which never actually left the premises, so technically it would be what, vandalism? Graffiti? Anyway he ended up filching $400 from petty cash, so ha.

Most of said loose ends are fairly routine - I have to fix a few flagged articles at Suite, complete my shopping tote bags and mend a few clothes. Sadly, I also feel morally compelled to do my taxes. Yes, those taxes. The ones that should have been done last March, or whenever it is one traditionally does taxes. Helpdesk Man and I have made a date to stare them in the face tonight, and I am hoping to contract fulminating lupus before then in order to gracefully back out. It’s not the money - I’m pretty sure I owe a paltry amount, plus of course the late fee - it’s the psychology of the thing. Ever watch Black Books? Exactly.

The snortlepig and I have broken a cup each this evening. I wonder what it portents. Thirst, probably.

You know how one occasionally buys a kitchen appliance and then never uses it? I have personally moved the majority of the food processor attachments from house to house three times, while being absolutely convinced I will never use them. Yet somehow, I can’t bring myself to break the set by chucking them out. What if Helpdesk Man loses his job, the snortlepig requires a brain transplant and I have to sell the food processor on TradeMe in order to afford a pair of nifty wristlets?

Beside the point. Where I was going with this is that our new ice cream maker (Helpdesk Man’s present to me and vice versa for Christmas) is not one of those items. We’ve had it for ten days and have already used it five times… seven by tomorrow. I love it dearly. Lemon sorbet, frozen Coke, vanilla ice cream, butterscotch maple ice cream and strawberry sorbet so far… and another strawberry sorbet and some mango sorbet are in the offing. For the record, sorbet is an excellent answer to the question of What to Feed One’s Vegan Sister, as well as What to Feed One’s Lactose-Intolerant Friend.

Speaking of lactose, the snortlepig has finally mastered the word “milks”. Until today, I had thought that this was a good thing - arguably more subtle than clawing at my chest, would you not think? Only today I was sitting on the piano stool at church, eagly alert for my cue to play “I Stand Amazed In the Presence”, when the snortlepig eluded the clutches of Helpdesk Man and ran up to me shouting “Milks!” Helpdesk Man had to carry her down the aisle as she shouted “Mummy! Milks! Mummy! Noooo!” in full-blown tragedy voice. The congregation was most entertained. I think I’ll pack a cosh in my handbag next week.

You will be happy to hear that so far, I have not broken any of my New Year’s Resolutions. On New Year’s Day, despite the fact that it was a public holiday, I put in my time and did my hour of housework. And didn’t I feel smug! I have also made some progress on the road rules, although it may come down to working the psychology of the multi-choice quiz rather than actually knowing the rules. The test is kind of passive-aggressive, so when it says things like “How fast can you drive if you see a school bus letting off wee cherry-cheeked urchins?” and the options are A) 20 km/h, B) 3o km/h, C) 40 km/h and D) 50 km/h, you can just tell it’s waiting for you to tick D and then scream at you “FIEND! BLACKGUARD! WON’T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!” So you tick the holier-than-thou-est answer listed, A, and lo and behold, you are right. (Don’t even get me started on its smugly leading questions about the Effects of Alcohol.)

Tomorrow Betty Scandretti, as she is known to her adoring fans - Uncle Bizzy, as she is called by the snortlepig, and practically my only sister - is gracing our township with her presence. The plan is to watch Up while Helpdesk Man and Betty’s somewhat male nattily dressed counterpart go out to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie. This is partly a Plan B occasioned by the inability of the snortlepig to behave in a movie and the inability of my mother to babysit said pig, on the grounds that her home became inundated with fleas while they were on holiday (!) and has to be fumigated. However, let it be noted that I am also not attending “Sherlock Holmes”* because, if the trailer is any indication, it is a travesty and a farce and should be boycotted by all right-thinking people. K? (Uncle Bizzy and I were going to see The Lovely Bones, but it is not to be. Up is smashing, though.)

Then the following night, several of my dearest friends (a phrase virtually synonymous with “only friends”, for the record, meaning “ones I can run into without having to say things like “Hey, didn’t you have a baby?” and “So are you and, um, still - no? Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Oh, well, OK then!” “) are coming over to eat nachos and watch Star Wars. As little as watching Star Wars needs a reason, we actually have one - my belly-dancing friend codenamed Perdita, it transpires, has never seen it. Can you imagine? And I met her working at an arthouse theatre, of all things. So this is very exciting. We have managed to work her into a state of cautious anticipation, and will do our best to avoid peering at her avidly and nudging her in the ribs to make sure she takes in all the good bits. From time to time I feel a moment of panic, thinking “What if she doesn’t like it? S– from the movies didn’t like it. What if she thinks it’s rubbish?”… but then my inner Yoda calms me, replying “S– is dead inside, and Harrison Ford will work his magic. You are trying too hard. Do, or do not. There is no try.”. And then I am calm anew.

Do you remember the first time you saw Star Wars, then? I will always associate it with Raro, a repellent powdered drink mix, because I first saw it on TV with the Raro logo popping up at vital moments. It wasn’t as earth-shattering an experience as the first time I saw The Fellowship of the Ring or even The Princess Bride, mostly because I initially watched half of The Empire Strikes Back late at night and didn’t have a clue what was going on, and had to get my friend’s little brother to fill me in weeks later on who was doing what. But it was still pretty awesome. And much more memorable than my first taste of Star Trek. (”Dark Page”, the one in TNG with Deanna’s dead sister. I mostly remember a lot of shots of people climbing down Jeffries tubes… not exactly the stuff of legend.)

Also, I am making the snortlepig a pair of shorts. And the mango sorbet is almost done, and tastes pleasing. And that is all.

*I usually italicise movie titles. This is not an inconsistency. Those are scare quotes, meant to indicate a withering sneer at the thought that THAT film is worthy to lick the boots of the great detective himself. K? K.

Right. After much deep thought I have finalised my list of New Year’s Resolutions. Here they do am.

• Get learner’s and restricted licence
• Spend one solid hour a day (Monday to Friday) doing housework and/or food preparation. Counting up the random minutes of domesticity during the day and hoping they came to an hour does not count.
• Have nine articles accepted for print
• Get singing group ready and worthy to busk by November
• Write one hour’s worth of fiction a week
• Learn to make ferments a la Traditional Foods
• Increase my Suite101 income from *ahem* dollars a month to *cough* dollars a month by December

Now I need to figure out some kind of spreadsheet dealio to put on the fridge and tick things offa, because we all know ticking things off is the essence of success. (Or crossing things out, if you swing that way.)

I also need to hunt up my old road codes. I’ve been taking this test several times a day with increasing levels of success, but I’m still a bit fuzzy about the colour-coding of cats’-eyes and tbe exact applications of the Give Way rule. Once I figure out the soonest time I can go in to take the test, I’ll make a plan of study. (Does anyone know? Do you have to book, or can you just show up?)

Last night we had a successful if sparsely attended braai in order to celebrate the New Year. We drank peach-flavoured grape juice (forbidden under Levitical law, but extremely nommy), watched Zombieland and got sat on by the snortlepig.

We had it. I shall not dwell on the particulars. Always forward-thinking, is Smokey, despite an occasional yearning to travel back to 1977 in a time machine and see the first showing of Star Wars. (Wouldn’t that be awesome?)

Anyway. The fallout: my excellent mother gave the snortlepig a potty. This means we have to house-train her. So far she has had a fine time prancing around the house naked, smacking her squish and trying to remove the receptacle part of the potty in the hopes of using it for water play (which… never mind). Signs of Elimination Awareness are notably lacking, but I will keep you apprised.

The passing of Christmas has given me thoughts about the next milestone, New Years Resolutions. I have not always kept Resolutions, excepting an annual angsty determination during my troubled youth to become thinner than my thin sister (which never eventuated; still hasn’t; but I can make puff pastry from scratch and she can’t, so ha. Come to think of it, there might be a causal connection here.) Two years ago I had a very specific and concrete list of Resolutions, which worked to some degree - not the degree of actually fulfilling them, ’cause that’s crazy talk, but the degree of doing more of whatever it was than I otherwise would have done. F’rinstance, “read one theology book a month” didn’t quite pan out, but I did read several, which I otherwise might not have done.

(Interruption: snortlepig throomed on my trousies.)

Then the next year I abandoned concreteness in favour of vague general intentions, and pretty much did squat. Moral: concreteness is key.

So this year, I have some fairly specific goals and slightly less than a week in which to revise them.

(Interruption: snortlepig throomed in the potty while reading Animalia, another Christmas gift. Go snortlepig! Yay for throom! Rah rah rah, etc.)

Let me tell you them.

-Get my learner’s and restricted licence. This is a tad intimidating and I’d really rather not… but come on. I’m 23. It’s getting pathetic. And I have a copy of the Road Code… somewhere. My friends assure me that the learner’s test is dead easy, but I’m not sure they have fully engaged with the cluenessness of a Smokey on the road. Where others subconsciously pick up road rules just by driving around with their parents, making the whole process seem absurdly intuitive, Smokeys… don’t. A quick readthrough of the Road Code was something of a revelation, similar to the discovery of Tolkien’s hobbit runes, but slightly less obvious. Still, we shall do our best.

(Interruption: the snortlepig throomed on the floor again. Twice. I guess she peaked early.)

-Publish 9 print articles. I had a vague aim for 12 last year but totally didn’t make it - I published what, four? Not very many. But it’s good money and keeps the old synapses perky, so I should make more of an effort.

(Interruption: good golly, that’s one leaky pig.)

-Handmake all gifts. I’m of two minds about this, mostly due to laziness, but I feel faintly obliged as a blogger to have at least one goal that’s eco-friendly or anti-sweatshop or similarly noble. And I feel even less inclined to vow only to eat the produce of my veggie garden or live on $30 grocery money a week, or whatever the cool people do. I could manage a “no buying clothes new” thing, but that wouldn’t really be a challenge now I’m into sewing. I will think on it.

-Learn to make ferments, a la Traditional Foodism.

No more ideas as yet… but note that in a rare moment of realism, I have not put “learn Spanish”. I might have to add “Potty train the snortlepig”, though…

• Nobody is going to come to the baby shower-cum-Tupperware party tomorrow. I can’t blame them. I’m tempted to ditch it, and I’m hosting. I did finally get hold of the Tupperware lady, and she assured me she’d “only speak for half an hour”. Half an hour? How much is there to say? What if I bring up bisphenol-A in a fit of rebellion? What if I panic when nobody buys anything and end up with microwaveable jelly moulds? What if the woman gives me a Look to indicate scorn and hatred for my having dragged her out on a Saturday? Only one person has RSVPed, and she made very sure to say she couldn’t stay long - presumably so she could scarper at the first sight of a pourable cereal container.
• I have no idea how to structure this article of mine that’s due on Monday. None. And it’s 800 words too short.
• I also have 6000 more words to go on NaNoWriMo. Most of them will probably be rewrites of the article. Feh.
• I was supposed to go shopping for groceries with Sister-in-Law today. She is not online and has not shown up. How am I to get the ingredients to make the lemon slice, the chocolate cornflake slice, the focaccia, the puff pastry cheese straws, the pecan tarts, the forgotten cookies and the cupcakes? And how will I have time to make them?
• Also, the baby quilt. It is Not Done. Not remotely done. It is barely even a flimsy. I can chain-stitch the stems this evening in theory, but only if the snortlepig isn’t climbing all over me. Hah.
• And I have to tidy up the garden, otherwise the church ladies will turn up and want to investigate every nook and cranny of it. And there’s a dead bird on the back lawn. Helpdesk Man, informed of this in panic-stricken tones, says consolingly “Don’t worry, it’s not going anywhere”.

Ha! Word from Sister-in-Law. Am still in PJs. Half an hour, she says. This is OK. Will give the pig more time to nap. I will think of calming things, but not the ocean because that makes me nervy. Maybe the sky, although I had a horrible dream last night that - oh, never mind. I am clearly wibbling. Into the breach!

Busy week this week. Whose crazy idea was it to put NaNoWriMo in November?

I gotta write approximately 17,000 words, including one 2000-word print article and a couple of catch-up haircare pieces for Suite.

I gotta plan and prepare for a baby shower this Saturday, which is also - and I stress this was not my idea - a Tupperware party. I guess after the first two babies a plain ol’ baby-themed baby shower seems passe. The odd thing is the mother doesn’t even want to buy Tupperware, just to replace some cracked stuff under its lifetime guarantee. I’ll probably end up buying a dozen lettuce crispers out of guilt for dragging the poor demonstrator over; and I can ill afford ‘em. Hmph.

I gotta finish the baby quilt before the baby shower. Maybe I could quilt it in vaguely Tupperware-shaped patterns, as a subtle nod to the occasion? No, bad thoughts.

I gotta do my taxes. Nothing new. I was supposed to do ‘em in, like, April. The bailiffs will probably seize this blog any day. (Wait a second! “Seize” violates the “I before E” rule! When did this happen? Who authorised it? Good golly. Procrastinate on your taxes for a mere seven months and the world goes topsy-turvy.)

I gotta send a bunch of leaflets off to various churches, a task that was foisted upon me by a woman upon whom it was also foisted, by another woman who came over with the vapours at the mere thought. I have in turn foisted the task on a corner of the kitchen floor, which doesn’t work as well as you might think. Better send them off before the event they are advertising takes place; that, or pitch them in a storm drain and feign oblivion.

Oh smeg. There was something else I gottaed. I cannot remember now. Ooh, we watched Twilight. I was curious. It was rubbish. Helpdesk Man didn’t help. (Me: That’s a nice pagoda. Helpdesk Man, darkly: I’m a pagoda. Etc.) Also I went to my dear friend Nat’s house today after church and we watched the new Star Trek movie. And I have learned how to make tabbouleh. It has bulghur in it, whoda thunk? Right. Gotta wash. Ten-four, minions.

Oh, smeg. NaNoWriMo is kicking my cotton-clad hindparts. 2000 words a day isn’t too bad if one keeps up, but flake a few days on account of relentless partying and tiens! how it creeps up! I need to write 5000 words by tonight, and it’s nearly 4PM.

On the bright side, by relentlessly churning out articles I’ve learned a lot. Adipositivity, for one thing, is very interesting; so is uncanny valley, Disneyland’s accommodation for autistic and gluten-free patrons (quite impressive, incidentally) and the health risks of pasteurised milk. And I’ll stand a bar of choccie for whoever can link those topics via Wikipedia articles in 50 steps or less.

My dear mama remains at large in England. Apart from a brief phone call shortly after her arrival I have not heard a peep, which leads me to conclude she misses me tremendously and is afraid to hear my sweet dulcet tones, lest they open the floodgates and cause her to come over all peculiar in the Bird and Baby. But today I got a pleasing card in the mail, indicating that she is still a) alive, b) kicking and c) having the jolliest of larks. Of course, that was a week ago now. She could be at the bottom of the Seine as I type. But we will dwell on cheerier matters. For instance: what is the funniest book you’ve ever read?

I’m torn on this myself. The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy would probably be the obvious pick, or 1066 And All That. But then I found Professor Branestawn high-larious as a youngster, and the Jennings books likewise - and while I don’t find them as funny now, I’m not sure HG2G and 1066 made my older self laugh as heartily as my younger self did with the aforementioned. But that could, of course, be due to my gradual shrivelling into a Scrooge-like, cynical shell of a woman.

On a related note, I am not a fan of Terry Pratchett. His parodies are laboured and overly in-jokey, making it very difficult to dive into a series without having already read several previous books (which is obviously unacceptable on the grounds of creating a universe-ripping time and causality paradox). I’ve read a half-dozen or so of his novels and tried gamely to find them funny, but… nope. Nothing. It’s like waiting for a sneeze that doesn’t come. PG Wodehouse on the other hand is corking, but doesn’t come into the running because I find his books witty rather than funny. What is the difference, I wonder? Some kind of viscerality to the humour, a response reached by the head rather than the gut? A “Heh!’ rather than a “Haw!”? A certain distancing from the humour, appreciating it rather than letting it sock you unawares? Three years, $12000 and a BA and we never covered this. Tsk.