Smokey the Magnificent

Three points yesterday. Six today… more if I can find the mop. After some thought I added “curl hair” and “clean stove” to the one-point category and “send letter and photos of the pig to Grandma” to the three-point one. I am well on the way to being solvent.

Went to mega-thrift-store SaveMart today and couldn’t find a thing, except for an extremely nice jacket that didn’t fit. It’s somewhat depressing to spend over an hour in an op shop the size of Tasmania and still come out empty-handed.

In other news, the snortlepig has reached a new level of unsanitary. Last night after choir practice she filched two sandwich cookies, un-sandwiched them, sucked them well, tossed them on the floor and then carefully stepped on the filling side of two of the cookies. The filling having adhered to her tights, she spent the next few minutes happily clunking around on the floor wearing biscuits. It was cute, but nasty.

Tonight I continued my project of educating my Small Sister in the world of film. Having restricted the viewing of us older lot to things that were Safe and Wholesome, my parents apparently forgot somewhere down the line that the younger ones hadn’t been around that time we watched The King and I in 1989. As a result, my Small Sister’s knowledge of cinema is somewhat attenuated, and as a former usherette with an almost entirely useless degree in Screen and Media, it seems my moral duty to correct this flaw. Since the matter was brought to my attention we’ve watched Spider-Man, Pirates of the Caribbean, E.T. and (tonight) Casablanca and Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Not the most representative sample of great film, but our local DVD store is rubbish. What kind of two-bit operation doesn’t have The Truman Show?

Ooh, guess what? Another of my sisters might have actual swine flu. I mean realio trulio swine flu. She was at a rave or a seance or something in London, and a waitress fell to the floor gushing blood, and as the trickle of it touched my sister’s foot she began to feel a tickle in her chest, and by the time she got home her limbs were beginning to ooze and her nose to clog. It turned out the waitress had had swine flu, but when my sister dragged her festering limbs to the emergency room to be lanced they were out of swabs and couldn’t determine whether it was real swine flu she had or the regular kind. A masked man thrust a vial of Tamiflu into her boot right before she was loaded onto the business end of a trebuchet and launched into a neighborhood of undesirables. She ended up calling me from inside a broken pipe, while she fended off the rats with her least favourite limb. As a result the reception was a little shoddy and some of the details of the above story might not be quite the thing… but it’s true about the swabs. Isn’t that bizarre? Who runs out of swabs? Kidneys, yes.

I think I’ve revised the points system to a usable format. To wit:

Tasks Worth 1 Point

• Take snortlepig for a walk
• Give chickens fresh water and food
• Vacuum
• Have dinner ready before Helpdesk Man gets home (main dish, that is, not veggies; we eat late)
• Complete Bible study homework before 5PM on Wednesday
• Try out a new recipe
• Empty compost bin
• Post article on Suite

Tasks Worth 2 Points

• Clean out chickens’ cage
• Take snortlepig to Mainly Music
• Get toy from toy library
• Change sheets and pillowcases
• Mop

Tasks Worth 3 Points

• Run errands in town
• Plant veggies/flowers in garden
• Have guests over for dinner

Tasks Worth 20 Points

• Write and have published a print article

Other One-Off Tasks with Values As Specified

• Finish sister-in-law’s quilt - 10 points
• Finish snortlepig’’s mini-quilt - 8 points
• Mow entire lawn - 6 points (not really one-off, but sporadic)
• Make snortlepig’s felted jacket - 3 points
• Make snortlepig’s winter hat - 2 points
• Make snortlepig’s green winter top - 3 points
• Make jeans gardening apron - 3 points
• Finish painting sewing room - 4 points
• Sand and paint sewing room windowsills - 10 points

As for the bribes,  I had the brilliant idea last night of simply calculating it at one point per dollar. Duh. Not including shipping, though, because that’s confusing and I don’t feel like it. And it’s my blog. Yah boo sucks.

So anyway, starting from today my grand total is 5. Yay! Those being posting a Suite article (on Victory Rolls, which are my new favourite hairdo), feeding and watering the chickens, taking the pig for a walk and taking her to Mainly Music.

The latter was surprisingly pleasant. I’ve been putting it off for yonks but I accidentally woke up in time today and felt I should get it over with - largely because the snortlepig has started moshing and dancing jigs every time she hears music. Of course, as soon as we got there the selfsame pig thrust out her lower lip and scowled for the duration, declining either to wiggle like a worm or clap, clap, clap her hands. I couldn’t really blame her; the songs were no Billy Joel.

Afterwards, though, she cheered up, aided by a handful of crackers and a sippy cup. They had a sippy cup for each child with just a little water in the bottom - I was in awe at the brilliance of this. The poor kid even got to try a bite of banana, a substance I rarely allow at home because the smell gives me the perishing feebles.

Also, there was a kid called Edge. Edgy, no?

After it was over I decided to carry on down the road to see if the op shop had a brown woollen extra-large sweater I could felt down for the snortlepig’s coat. It didn’t, but I did run into a girl who enthused about my crown braid and asked me all sorts of questions about growing her hair long. I was waxing lyrical about biotin when I realised this was all an elaborate preamble to selling me a copy of The Baghavad Gita As It Is. Hmph.

Also, in a radical executive manoeuvre I have decided to christen this Gratuitous Pig Shot Week.

Well, minions, I feel it is time to shake things up. This afternoon in a listy mood I devised a cunning stratagem to keep me on the baking-apple-pies-in-a-ruffly apron side of the tracks. (Having led a sheltered life, I’m not entirely sure what goes on on the other side of the tracks. Scarification? Hash beef Wellington? Power-padded shoulder suits?) I have decided to bribe myself.

Basically, I’m gonna use my Suite101 earnings to buy nice things for myself and the house; but given that many of the items I like aren’t strictly frugal, I’m going to use them as a reward for being clean and virtuous. With points. For example, small domestic tasks such as giving the snortlepig a bath, taking her for a walk or changing the pillowcases are worth one point. (So is “eating a piece of fruit”, which might be seen by some as a copout, but given that from one season to the next scarcely an apple touches my lips, I thought it was worth an entry. I don’t like to brag, but the future of the human race would probably have been a good deal brighter if I had been the one kicking about with Adam.)

Slightly more complex, time-consuming or unpleasant tasks, such as cleaning out the chickens’ cage or taking the baby to music class, get me two points. Running errands in town and planting veggies in the veggie garden (to which I have a strong weather-related aversion) get me three; and so on. I have assigned various values to several one-off tasks I need completed, such as finishing various sewing projects and painting the house; and have further decided that the successful sale of a print article is worth an entire 20 points.

Then, of course, I have to assign values to the things I want. I’m not quite sure how I’m going to go about that; probably intuitively rather than mathematically. I was thinking the Dieselpunk bodice I want might come in at about thirty, whereas something really marvellous like this ought to be worth, ooh, a hundred and fifty? Difficult to say. It has to be hard enough that I have time to actually acquire the funds via Suite, otherwise the whole bribery thing is a bit moot.

And not everything will be quite as frivolous as steampunk corsets, I hasten to add. Mostly I’ll be using it to buy fabric, I suspect, for my ever-growing list of Quilts  I Want to Make. And a hat rack.

Helpdesk Man, as usual, treats this scheme with tolerant amusement, telling me that I can buy myself dieselpunk bodices whenever I please without having to assuage my guilt by cleaning out chicken cages. He is a pleasing sort of husband to have; which is all the more reason to clean out the chickens, innit.

Don’t you think Deviated Septum is a good name for a rock band? Anyhoo. Today I wish to share with you a staggeringly oose occurrence.

I took my vitamin.

My quality of life has now improved by approximately six per cent. If I hadn’t had chocolate trifle for dessert it would have been seven.

I also started writing two Suite articles, wrote several immensely long paragraphs describing Calvinism to a poster on my message board (think I have convinced her we are not a cult; now to lure her to the compound and persuade her to sign away her life savings and adopt the name Sister Sunshine), and took the snortlepig to the park, where she continued developing yesterday’s game of Fling the Stick. It is a game which provides me, if not the snortlepig, with great tension and excitement. Partly because of the breathless anticipation of the dude tripping and embedding the stick in her eye; but also because after every Fling there is a giddy pause while the dude determines whether or not, according to her tiny criteria, the stick has been improperly Flung. This being the case our somewhat jerky journey homeward is interrupted yet again while she retrieves the erring twig and Flings it again, usually with greater success. One particularly errant stick this afternoon required three Flings before honour was satisfied, and I tell you it had all the suspense of getting the Olympic figure skating results, if you’re into that sort of thing. Which I am.

The reason I took her to the park was that my earlier Challenge attempt at good parenting met with doom. I had planned to take her to Mainly Music for the first time on the ground that it’s just across the road. You know the sort of thing - parents bopping along with their tots to weedy music and smiling inanely. Or so I assume, which may be unfair of me - perhaps it takes in a smoke-clouded room and involves absinthe-fuelled discussions of comparative literature while. I guess I’ll never know, at least not this week, because by the time I rang the woman she was already there.

My YouTube treat for you today is Out of the Blue, Oxford’s a cappella group, singing the theme song from Casino Royale. Yes, Oxford has a singing group. This wish to have been born a man so I could sing in such a group is beginning to feel like more than a passing whim. I suppose it would upset the snortlepig, though.

Last night while Helpdesk Man was out I smeared honey on my head - not out of a desire to end my lonesomeness by being attacked by killer bees, but to take advantage of the humectifying properties of honey to give my hair some much-needed moisture.

As you might imagine, smearing slightly diluted honey on hip-length hair without covering the entire bathroom in a thin film of goo is no mean feat. I tried to contain the mess by dipping my two plaits in the honey over the bathroom sink and sort of kneading it in - very glamorous, I assure you - and I was just about to reach for a plastic bag to put over my head (also not death-wish-related, it keeps the honey on) when I noticed the snortlepig standing by the throom.

“No!” quoth I in a stern, I’m-bigger-than-you voice as she lifted the lid. “No-o!” I quoth again in a reasonable, we’ve-been-through-this-before voice as she reached the tip of one finger delicately towards the water. “Nooooo!” quoth I again in a my-plaits-are-dripping-honey-down-my-back voice as her tongue came out…

I am pleased to report that I managed to catch the snortlepig’s festering hand before she managed to give herself TB or cholera or whatever vile diseases are lurking in the waters of the throom. As parenting achievements go that is not, perhaps, much to be smug about; but it is better than the alternative.

So. Let me recap

• do something around the house that’s been nagging at me forever

I refilled the salt grinder and cleaned the stove. Do not think that “forever” was hyperbole in the latter instance. Hoo boy.

• do something Real Mothers do (such as organising a playdate, getting something from the toy library, visiting the actual book-laden library, initiating Messy Play as distinct from mealtimes, etc)

Um, not really. I did refrain from selling her to the Jesuits after she indirectly caused the bathroom to become splattered with honey, though. And I arranged my morning schedule in order to accommodate her tender sensibilities - apparently she prefers that I flit from task to task and room to room like yon roving bumblebee, so I managed to accomplish quite a lot in five minute chunks. I may end up contracting ADD if I have to keep this up, but at least she won’t wail piteously.

• sew for an hour

Oui! I made a not-quite-right winter hat for the baby, which I am now thinking I will donate to a smaller-sized baby and try again. I also finished the blanket stitching on her pyjama top, sewed a bit of my chevron quilt and cut out 20 sunflower petals for a project for my sister-in-law’s impending dude.

• write for half an hour (magazine article, queries, Suite, this blog or heaven forbid, even my novel)

Yup. Mostly researching a Suite article about Heavenly Creatures, which will probably turn into several articles. Gosh, I love that movie. It is practically the pinnacle of filmic oose.

• make a manful attempt at taking vitamins

Sigh. Nope. No done did do.

And for the first time since the inception of this blog a Challenge isn’t springing to mind. Nothing’s really calling to me. Of course, if I just did stuff rather than waiting for it to call to me, I’d probably have a cleaner house. “Honey, I know intellectually that the dishwasher needs emptying, but I didn’t feel convicted about it”. Not too far from the truth, actually.

Anyway. Stuff needs doin’. So every day this week, I will:

• do something around the house that’s been nagging at me forever
• do something Real Mothers do (such as organising a playdate, getting something from the toy library, visiting the actual book-laden library, initiating Messy Play as distinct from mealtimes, etc)
• sew for an hour
• write for half an hour (magazine article, queries, Suite, this blog or heaven forbid, even my novel)
• make a manful attempt at taking vitamins

I don’t know what it is about taking my vitamins, but I didn’t manage to do it once last week. Perhaps I am beginning to process a traumatic capsule-related event in my youth, such as being shot into a sun in a Starfleet coffin.

Sooo, Wednesday didn’t go quite so virtuously. I wrote most of a Suite article about polyphasic sleep and started writing interview questions for another article, but didn’t actually complete/publish either of them. And I haven’t taken my vitamins this week at all. I shall sit in the corner and gnaw off my own arm in despair.

What I did do was bake a milktart for Helpdesk Man and finish my Bible study homework, so all is not lost. As for the dude’s pyjamas, they only lack a bit of blanket stitching, the pupils on the owl’s eyeballs and the elastic around the wrists. With any luck she’ll be able to wear them tonight.

Speaking of the dude, I finally got around to taking some photos of her last night. And yes, I realise that by posting photos of my baby online I have officially condemned this blog to the lowest category of self-indulgence, but tough. She has an aunt on the other side of the globe, innit.

Well, my second Suite article actually went online at one minute past midnight, but nevertheless: How to Plait a Rope Braid and Recipe for Pumpkin Rye Bread. I also finished the snortlepig’s pyjama trousies and worked a bit on my quilt.

What quilt, you ask? This quilt.

The snortlepig on the right is not avant-garde applique but my daughter, who shows a callous disregard for the niceties of Art and also, it would appear, for getting dressed in the morning. Wee slattern. Will turn out badly, mark my words.

I have been hand-piecing this quilt top for approximately four hundred years. It’s not difficult - mind-numbingly simple, in fact, just chevrons joined with straight seams. Unfortunately I once bought a nice wooden box from a craft fair to house its accoutrements, and it looked so comfy in there that I couldn’t bring myself to drag it out and expose it to the light of day. Plus, I’m now of two minds about the colours and have no idea where I’d put it once complete. But the strips are fairly portable and easy to sew while watching DS9, so I’ve taken it up again… for now.

Speaking of theme songs, have you ever heard the full version of “Superman”, the theme song from Scrubs? Neither had I. Here, listen:

What do you think? I think I like it, cautiously. One cannot commit to a theme song lightly, or one ends up withered and torn like an autumn leaf that’s passed through an embarrassingly feeble jet engine.

This week I gotta:

• Do my Bible study homework before Thursday
• Write two Suite articles every day
• Take my vitamins every day to stave off perishing
• Email editor re various writing thingies (attempting, incidentally, to wow her with the clarity of phrases such as “writing thingies”)
• Email hair care site guy
• Cut out more 5-inch squares for my patchwork skirt from the new fabric I got
• Work on the snortlepig’s pyjamas

Yawn. Too sleepy to write anything profound, so instead I offer you this:

They don’t make music videos like that any more, I’m fairly certain. Is it just me, or does one begin to expect the girls to start hefting machine-guns and gaily slaughtering at around 2:25 or so?

Much of today was squandered on the manufacture of an obese pear.  Unfortunately, as neither Helpdesk Man nor myself is into photography, this was the best picture we could obtain of it.

Check out all its majesty!  I made it sans pattern after looking at a few tutorials online, and I’m thinking of making another once I’ve adjusted the template to be less squat and blunt and Neanderthal.  Still, it pleases me.  It pleased the piggy too - she discovered my cotton stuffing and made several very noble attempts to eat it.

Tonight Helpdesk Man and I are going with some friends to see the new Star Trek movie.  I don’t hold out great hopes for the film, but it will be nice to go out without the company of the snortlepig for a change - Mother very gallantly having agreed to babysit.  Gosh, I could even wear a non-breastfeeding-friendly top!  If I still have any, that is.  Will check dregs of wardrobe.  My, I’m daring.

Finally, let the record show that on this day the snortlepig uttered her first moderately English sentence.  It was also her first word, depending how you look at it: “There she is!”  As in, “Where’s Rowan?  There she is!”, which for some reason we say instead of “Peek-a-boo!”  Given that she’s learned to say it, of course, that’s probably a good thing.  “Peek-a-boo” is hard to work into a conversation unless you happen to be a psychotic serial killer; “There she is” has many useful applications, including answering the question “Where’s the psychotic serial killer?”, so there you go.  It’s parenting like mine that saves lives.