Smokey the Magnificent

Spam is getting cunning. I just deleted 17 off this very blog, and they were all “This is a very interesting blog, I havc read several of your posts and will refer it to my friends” and “Great content, I like how you are clear in the message you convey”. It’s a wee bit canned, a la “Smokering is a pleasure to teach” from my old school reports (administered to every student who didn’t actively try to sever the teacher’s thumbs) or “You have a lovely and unique VOICE” from Suite101, which is a bit of a joke as every single Suite writer gets told the same thing. Still, I have to admire the fiendish psychology that would prey on the ego of a tentative newbie blogger. I can just see it stammering now, eyes misting up behind its spectacles, “Q-quality content! I have quality content!”

Fortunately, being under no illusions about my content, I remain immune from pharmaceutical blandishments. Now, if they started sending messages like “Dude, that’s sick” or “Quit bugging the public with the mundane details of your parochial little life”, my bank account details would be skipping over the ‘net in a flash. And this is why research is the most important part of freelancing.

Research, and a Lovely and Unique Voice.

The party was OK… not spectacular, but not disastrous. We’ll get to that shortly. Firstly, there are two questions which have been bothering me, and both relate to bodily fluids. Perhaps you could help me out.

1. Blood is salty, no? I read somewhere that it has the same salinity as seawater, which was supposed to prove something meaningful and evolutionary; but whether that be the case or no, if one cuts a gash in one’s forearm and sucks the blood (accidentally, I mean; while making a flan, perhaps; not just for kicks), it tastes like salt. So. Wouldn’t drinking a whole pint of it, or however much vampires drink at one go, make you extremely dehydrated? I mean, vampire physiology is presumably constructed so as to cope with it; one does not envisage them carrying along a bottle of Evian. Well, Edward probably would. It’s the sort of marvy accoutrement one would expect a sparkly vampire to tote. But anyhoo. Blood. Salty. Yes. Interesting thought, no?

2. If one were alone in the wilderness, miles from civilisation, clean water, alcohol, antibiotics etc and a repellent crocodile bit off half your arm, would it a) improve your situation or b) otherwise to throom on your own stump? Urine is sterile and acidic, which makes me feel it would have antibacterial or cleansing properties of some sort. But mebbe not. And it would hurt. Helpdesk Man cautiously gave his opinion that it might be better to do so than not, but hesitated to make a definitive pronouncement. I like that in a man. It stops us from being sued. But what do you think, standard disclaimers aside? And if you thought it was the right thing to do, would you do it?

Anyway. Party. Yes. It was OK. Apart from the guest of honour’s family and my own family, there were only two guests present; fortunately, my family is capacious and the guest of honour had her parents visiting, so combined with our lack of chairs we managed to fill up the living room tolerably well. Much to my amazement, people bought Tupperware (!!); my small sister Ruth came over in the morning and baked practically all the food while I worked on the quilt, which I got finished (Is Better Than Perfect) more or less in time; and the snortlepig’s behaviour impressed the Tupperware lady so much (?!) she gave her a tiny pink container in a Handy Size. It seems the key to successful Tupperwaring is enthusiastically pointing out how any size of container, be it barely big enough to hold a crocus or large enough to host swim meets in, is Handy. I wonder if they conducted studies to find out the average household volume of leftover lasagna, or the typical quantity of Scroggin consumed by a family of four? At any rate we all agreed meekly that the various sizes were Handy indeed, and she got a bit cocky and asked me for an onion in order to demonstrate a device called, I kid you not, the Happy Chopper. It’s not a DC villain; it dices.

After this event my dear friends came over and we ate leftovers while watching American Graffti (kinda slow, Harrison Ford’s part smaller than expected) and The Lost Boys (all kinds of awesome; why do vampires have universally ridiculous hair? Is it a function of old age? “Ahh, I can’t keep up with the styles any more, I’m two hundred years old - here, love, pour a bottle of bleach on it and we’ll fling a bit of moose tallow in for texture.”).

Best yet, I discovered that my dates were all out of whack and my article isn’t actually due until Tuesday. Cue choruses of Mormon cherubs. Perhaps I will make it to Christmas after all.

• 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.

There are probably people reading this blog who haven’t read Their Eyes Were Watching God.

To whom this applies: I am flattered, nay, touched; but your priorities are so far out of whack I wouldn’t be surprised to see you selling your grandmother for a biscuit.

In eight days it will be the three-year anniversary of myself and Helpdesk Man. Year One, we stayed the night in a hotel (in town, because I was pregnant and unable to fit into my motorbike jacket), saw a movie (Resident Evil III) and had dinner at a Turkish restaurant. Year Two, we left the snortlepig to the mercies of her tiny aunt and went out for lunch at a nice restaurant out of town. Year Three, we are looking for ideas. Cheap ideas, because nothing says romance like saving money.

So, we were thinking of leaving the snortlepig with its grandparents (depending on the aimiability of said relations) and oosing out on the motorbike somewhere. I thought maybe hot pools, as I haven’t been swimming since before I was pregnant with the piggie. Then again, there could be bathing suit-related angst attached to such an enterprise. I fancy the idea of skydiving also, but it doesn’t really come under the category of frugal and also, Helpdesk Man is a gurly. What happens if one upchucks at 15,000 feet, I wonder? Could it kill a man? Would you be liable?

Anyhoo. Thoughts? Quaint restaurants with no mooseheads on the walls? Hitherto unsuspected theme parks in the Waikato area? The Amazing Maze in Maize? (I’ve been there; it was quite fun, acksherly.) Arty movie theatres playing arty movies? Do-it-yourself bungee jumping?

This is not the only impending celebration on the Smokey horizon, however. I have decided to have a Thanksgiving party for all my dear friends, and the dear friends also of Helpdesk Man. Negotiations are running hot as to whose house we shall have it at, what we shall eat and other such important matters. Not being American, we can be fairly Protestant about our choices of food and drink - a turkey is probably too rich for our tiny purses, for one thing. But it should be fun.

In other news:

• I woke up early this morning and hustled the snortlepig to the toy library for my mandatory volunteering duty, only to find out we were a week early.
• Helpdesk Man temporarily taught the snortlepig how to say “Nappy” properly instead of “nap-me”. I nearly weeped, but then she forgot again.
• I have now successfully cooked salmon steaks. Feel v. cosmopolitan.
• The snortlepig learned how to say “No no no no no” yesterday off, of all things, a Don Carson podcast. She’s said it before, but not with such rapidity and force of expression.
• My NaNo count is up to 32,123 plus a few hundred more I haven’t added on yet.
• They discovered water on the moon. Int’resting, no? I am pro- the moon. Go moon!, I say. Ask anyone.

Gentle Readers, I have hit a snag. I’m supposed to be writing an article about good wholesome films for girls - you know, the kind you could watch at a 10-12-year-old’s sleepover and not have parents ringing up later wanting to know why little Maisie is gibbering in the closet or where Susan learned That Word. Nudity-free, decapitation-free, the cinematic equivalent of organic grass-fed pastured beef.

Trouble is, I can’t think of any.

So far I’ve got Singin’ in the Rain, The Sound of Music, Pollyanna and Anne of Green Gables - the sorts of films it takes a particular type of modern 12-year-old to stomach, and even then I’m a bit dubious about the cake scene in Singin’ in the Rain. So I thought of adding some more recent, snazzy fare. But nope. Ever After? Has a bad word. The Disney/Pixar films? Most 12-year-old girls would probably think they were too babyish (not being old enough to know better), and besides, they do tend to have a fair amount of violence and even suggestiveness in them. Plus, a lot of parents are anti-Disney. Then there’s The Princess Bride, but nope, bad word again; or Labyrinth, but nope, David Bowie’s trousers. In despair I went back to the oldies, but even the cheesiest musicals I could think of have distinctly dubious elements. I briefly considered The King and I, Oklahoma! and The Wizard of Oz (no good, magic and witches, somebody would be bound to object) before giving up and pounding out an article on media portrayals of fat people, about which I am currently disputing Suite101’s editor on whether it constitutes an opinion piece.

So. Thoughts? I am looking in the 10-12ish category, so no Beatrix Potter, however immaculate. Something fun, girly or less girly as you please, but no guns, in which all the characters are clad neck to knee and say “Oh bother” when disaster strikes. Anyone?

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.

You know how people do things like reading the Thousand Books You Must Read Or Out Yourself as a Prole list, or wearing the same pair of Spanx for a year to protest the girdle industry, or vowing to eat no more dairy than can be produced by keeping a cow on their patio? And then they blog about it, and end up on Oprah, and write a book based on the blog called My Year Pretending to have Astigmatism: A Social Study, and become enormously wealthy? Yup. Well, I don’t think I could be oosed actually doing that, as it would require a modicum of effort (and look at me, I’m about 8000 words behind on NaNoWriMo). But if I did, here are some things I might do (but again, and this is important to remember, probably won’t):

1. Read through the entire adult fiction section of the library, A to Z, in alphabetical order, and make pungent comments on my blog about the new authors I had thusly discovered, as well as making arty charts showing the percentages of various plots, genres, stereotypes etc within said books.
2. Take a photo of my squish every day for a year and watch it expand and contract interestingly according to my diet and gluten intake and such. (Could be depressing, though.)
3. Attempt a different hairstyle every day for a year, photograph the results and make tutorials of the process (not a bad idea for a niche blog, actually. My photography’s rubbish, though…).
4. Watch films in chronological order from the very earliest motion pictures to the present day, choosing five of the top-box-office movies worldwide per year (at least, from when they started having a box office). Make sage comments about how films are not what they were.
5. Make a reproduction Gucci handbag, Christian Dior dress or similar object using only items gleaned from the neighbor’s trash and a bucket of mod podge. Do this once a week, prompting Thoughts about Waste and the like.
6. Try to stretch a single chicken into a year’s worth of meals. (I suppose the key would be to start with a live one and eat the eggs.)
7. Live solely off free food samples from the supermarket.
8. Read the religious texts of every major or semi-major religion… the ones that have texts, anyway - and draw deep theological conclusions from therein.
9. Take videos of self performing random acts of Broadway song in public places. Tenuously link this to anti-terrorism or the Universal Power of Song to break down barriers, find true love, get self arrested &c.
10. Attempt to teach the snortlepig one new animal a day, until she can name the obscurest members of the animal kingdom at an impressively tender age.
11. Track down classmates from primary school to make a point about Internet safety, the academic standards of said primary school, rates of early marriage among Dutch Reformed Christians, etc.
12. Declutter household down to a fixed number of items (say, 200).
13. Write a sonnet every day based on the news headline in the local paper.
14. Go on a quest to educate cafe owners in my town about how to make a decent iced chocolate. Become the Internet authority on the subject of NZ iced chocolates; add video tutorials to the website, and end up being flown down to Wellington by restaurants on a regular basis to review their iced chocolates and thus give them the coveted Smokey Seal of Magnificence.
15. Boycott all words derived from Romance languages to make an obscure political point.
16. Campaign for a knighthood, then insist on being knighted as Sir Smokey. (I’d totally do this if it ever came up, incidentally. Refusing knighthoods is weedy and smacks of false modesty and/or communism, but a firm yet tactful insistence on being Sir, not Dame, is all about equality. Dame Smokey. Eugh. Who needs it?)
17. Refuse to look in a mirror for a year and note impact on self-esteem, muse on body image and tally embarrassing spinach-between-the-teeth anecdotes as they occur. (Difficult to implement, though. Would have to avoid shop windows, driving and the like. Not that I drive anyway.)

Any further ideas?

Today is Guy Fawkes’ Day. Give Catholics a look of wounded innocence in commemoration.

Unless you live on the wrong side of the world, in which case you should wait until tomorrow. Otherwise it would just be mean.

Meself, I’ve had a pretty busy week. I had Bible study this morning, for which I had to make items of yumminess. Then tonight is singing group, which requires further items of yumminess; and Helpdesk Man’s singing shindig, for which he has to take a big ol’ plate of yummy items. Tomorrow night (Friday, try to keep up) Helpdesk Man’s three ex-flatmates are coming over for a post-Guy Fawkes barbecue, which means I will have to make savoury as well as sweet items of yumminess. And the next night, three ex-cinema-employee friends of mine are coming over for dinner and a movie, which involves feeding them… wait for it… items of yumminess again.

Too much yumminess! My head asplode!

Plus I’m supposed to be writing 2000 words a day for NaNo. So far, amazingly, I haven’t gotten behind. I haven’t even started today though - and I should, while I’m trapped under a sleeping snortlepig, because when she wakes up I will feel obliged to go make two kinds of pie. And cinnamon almond cookies. And rice-stuffed roasted pumpkin. And focaccia. And fudge.

If I had time and more spirulina in my system, I’d also make stock. I’ve been reading up on Traditional Foods and wallowing in angst and guilt as a result, so today I bought chicken carcasses and beef bones from the butcher. Also beef dripping, which is staring at me stolidly from the fridge and making me feel nervy. Anyone have any luscious dripping recipes?

And since I’m currently out of library books… what is the most hideously depressing book you’ve ever read? For me I think it was The Book of Sorrows by Walter Wangerin, Jr.