Smokey the Magnificent

Today I spent a merry four and a half hours scrutineering NZQA exams for a boys’ high school, in return for a chunk of money that sounded generous until I was doing it. I think I strode about ten miles. I handed out innumerable tissues, prevented who knows how many acts of Dishonesty and Abetting, and earned the respect of one callow youth when I forgot my place as I was making him fill out the Toilet Roll and muttered “Sorry, I know it’s a bit fascist”.

Matters arising:

1. I’d forgotten that I quite like teenage boys; so many of them mean well. I’d been expecting a bunch of reeking, flatulent yokels - and, granted, after the first thirty minutes you could have cut the fug with a knife - but many of them looked up at me with earnest “I can’t think of the name of that author” faces, intent and free of malice, and it was sort of touching. Also, despite their no doubt numerous flaws, they were undisputably not teenage girls, and that is a virtue indeed. Which brings me to point 2:

2. I am old. Some of those young varmints were, like, ten years younger than me. A decade younger. Yet still the size of a tank. I was still a good fifteen years younger than most of the other scrutineers, some of whom had children in high school themselves; but that still left me in the oldest ten per cent of the room. I wasn’t sure if I should wear a Batman T-shirt next time to appear accessible and with-it, or just skewer a tight bun to my head with hairsticks and go with it. I do have hairsticks and don’t have a Batman T-shirt, so I might as well embrace my decreptitude. Still, though. Depressing.

3. It is a very tragic thing to watch a boy hand in his papers as soon as the first 45 minutes are up and he can legally go. A fair few of them did, either with quiet despair, or a jaded air of “I’ve put in my time, the world can ask no more of me”. I wanted to exhort them to think of the wife and chillun, and one of the scrutineers said that she always asks “Are you sure?” in meaningful tones, but I doubt it helps.

4. While stalking down the rows, I read snippets over their shoulders. It was fun. “The author creates tension by…”; “The movie “Inception” is about…”; “the key relationship in the novel”; “Finnegan’s Wake is a metaphor for…”. I wanted to stop and read on, and I suppose I could have - what could they have done? - but I refrained. Scrutineering the maths exam won’t be nearly so much fun.

5. That evening, I went to do a mystery shop at a supermarket and ran into one of the boys, who was stocking shelves and recognised me. We had a pleasant chat - he seemed sanguine about his prospects, despite only having filled in two of the four English booklets. It seemed a bit late to point out that unless he wants to stock shelves forever, he should probably attempt all four booklets. Still, he was nice.

6. Miles really ought to have a medal. He is the Best Baby Ever. I left at one and he slept until four; drank milks from a bottle like a pro, and was happily chillin’ with Helpdesk Man when I returned home at traffic-past-five, despite having suffered a slight plummet during my absence. (Helpdesk Man put him on the narrow window seat, turned to get a chair to wedge up against it, and told the snortlepig “Stay there and don’t let him fall off”. Which might have been due diligence, but the snortlepig wasn’t paying attention and drifted away, and Helpdesk Man turned back just in time to watch Miles roll over joyfully and plop to the floor. Luckily he did not land on his head but his tum, which has fewer brains.)

This post is only for the eyes of those* who commented on the last one. The rest of you: clearly you have failed to grasp my awesome pwnage of the sonnet form. Go back and read it again… peons.

1. Miles has awesome abilities. According to the smell of his lone tuft of hair, he has mastered the art of being sick onto his own head.

2. If your lover was beheaded in front of you by a savage madman, which bit would you cradle in your arms as you wept? I think I’d go for the body, even though it seems sort of counter-intuitive, just because my sense of decorum would probably fail at the vital moment and I wouldn’t want Sven’s** last ebbing image to be of me wearing a horrified smirk.

3. I have decided to become a medical man, just so I can waggle my fingers archly at patients and say “lobes”. Try it. “Mr Smith, I’m sorry to tell you that you have a tumour in your [waggles fingers] lobes.” “Inform the Countess that she will live until the season ends, but we will have to remove her [waggles fingers] lobes.”

*Mother.

**I mean Helpdesk Man.

***Probably isn’t though, honestly.

****To the disappointment of the snortlepig, who, upon being gently told about her Grandpa’s impending operation, simply responded “Will they use scissors?”. (”Do they gots trolleys?” would probably have been her next question, but she lost interest. Curiously, upon meeting my great-grandmother today for presumably the first time in her tiny memory, the question she most wanted answered was “Do you got a red wall or a white one?”, which threw said relative a bit. She rallied, though. White, apparently.)

Shall I compare thee to the snortlepig?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate
See’ng my clean dress (when she was small, not big)
With a thin coat of puke she would distemper it.

My first pig’s face was yellow like a fright
But no such jaundice see I in your cheeks
And, being changed, you kick with great delight
Cheerful and sweet, despite your poop, which reeks.

She screamed; you sleep. She wailed; you gurgle. She
-Though arguably cuter in the face-
Pooped only once a month (from neck to knee)
Your active bowels denote the Master Race.

But if you turn out bad (and I suspect it)
My abdomen shall sue you. ‘Cause you wrecked it.

Last week Miles pooped while having a bath with me and the pig. I’m not sure what was more depressing - finding myself suddenly in a poop-infested tub, or realising that I didn’t actually care that much. Come parenthood, “It’s only vomit” is a necessary attitude to survival; “It’s only urine” is passable; but when you get to the stage of thinking “It’s only poop”, you have crossed some sort of line. You will probably never wear mascara again.

Also, I have two questions.

1. If you were a ten-year-old child, would you rather lose both legs and your sense of smell, or both parents? I asked an impromptu* panel that, and the results were.. interesting.

2. Would you willingly die that all the fish might live?

*Reluctant is probably a better word.

1. The snortlepig has invented a new word: strinky. After some investigation we discovered it refers to anything wrinkly, corrugated or ridged; raisins, for example, or one’s fingums upon emerging from the bathtub. Or Morgan Freeman.

Also strinky.

The pig being a minor, I give the Internet this word on her behalf. So next time you’re inspecting the roof of a shanty house or the texture of a fine corduroy… or Morgan Freeman… you can be all “Hmm. Strinky.”

2. Today Flatmate Man left a lone sausage festering in the frypan, so Helpdesk Man and I tied a ribbon round it and left it on his pillow. He was less appreciative than you’d think.

3. The weather is unseasonably dry. Helpdesk Man’s lips have gone all strinky.

4. I have just spent the better part of an hour trying to take a photo of Tiny Miles. It is harder than you would think. Firstly, my photography skills are non-existent and I was sitting in a room with the curtains drawn; secondly, I had to hold Tiny Miles up with the one hand to prevent him plummeting to his doom; and thirdly, every time I held the camera up he would cease his adorable smiles and stare at the camera with the fixed intentness of a magpie; and that was not attractive. Also, sad to say, he has inherited the family lack of photogenicitude. In real life he is toothsome and comely, a marvel of chins and cheeks and more tender fleshy bits than his anatomy strictly requires. In photos, though… well, he could be anyone’s pig. This was the best I could get:

5: Ten minutes ago.

SNORTLEPIG [while drawing at the table]: Mummy, I stomped on Miles before.

ME: Don’t stomp on Miles.

SNORTLEPIG: He liked it!

6. Helpdesk Man, the pigs and I are currently watching TNG. (The pig likes it; I was most impressed the other day when she saw the spaceship in Forbidden Planet and said “That’s like the Enterprise!” On a recent playdate, however, she found a toy saxophone and said “Is this a trumpet?” and I said “It’s a saxophone; you know, like Riker plays on Star Trek?” and the Other Mother found it hilarious, which shocked me a little, because when one is insulated in a cosy cloud of geeky friends it’s easy to forget how the other half lives. This is the friend who said, just prior to the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, “Ooh, I’m a huge Harry Potter fan, I’m so glad to meet someone else who likes it!”, and then it transpired she hadn’t even seen the last two movies. Lovely girl, but really.)

Anyhoo. I’m not generally a fan of digitally remastering old films (coughLucascough), but I think I have hit upon a method for making TNG distinctly more awesome. They need to go back in and add a character whose sole function is to follow a certain Acting Ensign and say “Shut up, Wesley” every time he speaks. I shall provide a few examples so that you can see how it would improve the show.

PICARD: There’s no greater challenge than the study of philosophy

WESLEY: But William James won’t be on my Starfleet exams.

SOMEONE: Shut up, Wesley.

Or

WESLEY: We thought we could do it. We thought we could do anything. We were wrong. And Josh died.

SOMEONE: Shut up, Wesley.

Or

WESLEY: Sir… you don’t know this. No one knows this. Because I’ve never told anyone. All of the things that I’ve worked for - school, my science projects, getting into the Academy… I’ve done it all because I want you to be proud of me.

SOMEONE: Shut up, Wesley.

Don’t you see how it improves the flow?

7. Panna cotta is my new big thing. I’ve just discovered it, courtesy of David Lebovitz, who is now practically my favourite food blogger even though he routinely annoys me. I’ve made vanilla bean, raspberry (with freeze-dried raspberry powder I bought at the food show - intriguing, but underwhelming in the clinch), double-layer coffee-caramel, and (last night) double-layer chocolate and coffee with a thin layer of chocolate ganache on top. I am now harboring a tentative plan to make rosewater-coconut cream panna cotta, but I doubt I actually will. I am hampered by what a nasty man on the internet once called my parochial upbringing. In this respect I am not unlike my mother, who recently in a fit of daring painted one of her bedroom walls aubergine, but is clearly both proud of and a little embarrassed by this act. We neither of us would survive in LA.

Today the pig and I - and also the auxiliary pig, in a mei tai - wended our way to the local Playcentre. Playcentres are sort of like kindergarten for commies; parent-run collective deals which are handy for mothers like myself, who feel vaguely that their pigs ought to socialise but once worked in a kindergarten and are aware that toddler conversation around the playdough table would make a sailor blush. So instead of dropping off one’s pig, one hovers about it in probably-psychologically-damaging helicopter fashion and schmoozes the Other Mothers for playdates.

The pig was a bit shy going in, and would possibly have thrown a tantrum, except that the Playcentre had helpfully provided two tiny shopping trolleys. Instant bliss. The pig spent nearly the entire morning either pushing one around, playing cautiously with another toy with the trolley at her elbow, poised to leap up in case it made a dash for the border, or listening dubiously to my soothing monologue about Sharing and I’m Sure He’ll Be Finished With It Soon.

There was also a slide. And a mother more awesome than myself who dug through the earth-maker to find slaters and snails to show to the pigs. And a large, flabby, thuggish-looking boy, to whom I tried to be nice, thinking “Poor lad, everyone probably thinks he’s a bully, but he may have the sensitive soul of a poet”; only no, he turned out to be a bully after all, which prompted interesting reflections on my part. (If my nose had been calmer and more classical as a child, would I have been serene? Probably.)

All in all, it was a great success, and we intend to go back. I did, however, commit a faux pas. (I nearly committed two - the cheerful lady who greeted me at the door gave me a leaflet and said “Now, you get three visits, and we like to tell you a little more about ourselves each time”, and I, just having read a book about the Moonies, was about to brightly say “Oh, like a cult!” when I realised I probably shouldn’t. Near miss.)

Miles was having the milks (at the kai table - it seemed apropos) and the pig, loth to stray too far from my side, was getting bored; so I pointed to some books in the corner and asked her to go get one. When she came back, I took a look at the cover and said “Oh dear, pig; this one’s in Maori. I can’t read Maoi”. Whereupon there was an ahem from the helper, and I was told in a tone of kind but gentle rebuke, “We like to encourage te reo here”.

“That’s cool”, said I, “but I’m afraid I don’t speak Maori.”

“Well, actually, we offer classes on it”, she said. “I’ve taken some, and I’m really confident at reading to the kids now.”

“Wow, you’re fluent?” I said, impressed.

“Oh, no”, she said, “I don’t speak it, but I can pronounce all the words.”

“Oh”, said I, somewhat nonplussed. “Well I can do that, but she won’t understand it…”
The lady gave me a pitying smile and waited, and eventually, being well brought up and/or insecure, I caved and read the book. In Maori. The pig was somewhat bemused, but trotted off to get another book. This one was also in Maori. The helper smiled smugly and said “See, a lot of the kids end up being really attracted to the Maori books”. I resisted the urge to point out that the pig, being three, couldn’t tell the difference between Maori and English text, and was going more by the cover than any childish desire to do her bit for Te Tiriti. Instead, we sat there and read two more books in less than fluent Maori, while the helper looked on approvingly. I’m still not entirely sure what the point was. I mean, I have nothing against the pig learning Maori, but I somehow doubt that this is the way.

So, yesterday, someone dissed mah pig. I was at the supermarket with the snortlepig and the auxiliary pig, feeling vaguely skilly because I managed to wheel them around the supermarket with minimal tears and make my new credit card work on only the second try… actually the third, if you count having to push it in, not swipe it, but still… and as I loaded the goods into the boot, an old Chinese couple approached me with clipboards. At least, I assume they were Chinese - the clipboards were for a petition asking the Chinese government to stop persecuting Falun Gong practitioners, it being (according to the leaflet) a peaceful religion, with no post office and very few exports. This petition has been circulating around our fair city for approximately ten years - you can’t walk down to the Indian grocer in our suburb without being accosted by it, and again on the way back. I must have signed it about forty times. (And, side note, what’s with that anyway? Is an evil Communist regime really going to go “Oh, ten thousand people in New Zealand think we shouldn’t persecute a religious minority? Well, right-o then”? I mean, as I say, I sign the thing when asked; it seems like the pukkah thing to do; but it seems like there must be more effective methods of persuading governments. Nuclear methods, mebbe.)

Anyhoo, so I smiled benignly at the couple and said “I think I signed that one yesterday”, and the chap approached Miles in the trolley and began to make fond faces at him and chuck him under the chin, the way one does with pleasing infants. And then he said “How old?” and I said “He’s four weeks today”. Whereupon both petition-holders began laughing their heads off. There was a brief pause, and I said “Yes, he’s quite big” - because he is, and people do frequently make comments to that effect, which is fine. But they kept laughing and laughing. And after a moment it became Awkward, and eventually I gave them a smile of vague, frightened goodwill and hefted my laughably enormous baby into the car and drove off, thinking: they totally done just mocked my pig. And they were still laughing.

Suggestions? I mean, yes, he’s fairly sizeable, and possibly babies run smaller in China, but I wouldn’t have thought he was mirth-inducingly big. And is that really the way to raise support for Falun Gong?

Also, look at him. Who would mock such a pig? He’s squashy in the face and says “pla” when he sneezes.

In other news, the cat of Helpdesk Man’s dear friend just died. So, being a Woman and therefore full of Tact and Empathy, I made a commemorative mousse. It was less blurry in real life. Helpdesk Man’s dear friend didn’t have much to say about it, but he did eat the mousse.

RIP, Oogley.

Blow it all, I’m three and a half weeks postpartum and not up to my usual searing political commentary: so I shall amoose you all, Gentle Readers, with a series of quotations, melodies and other such media which I have recently found pleasing to the spirit.

DOMBEY sat in the corner of the darkened room in the great arm-chair by the bedside, and Son lay tucked up warm in a little basket bedstead, carefully disposed on a low settee immediately in front of the fire and close to it, as if his constitution were analogous to that of a muffin, and it was essential to toast him brown while he was very new.

That was Charles Dickens. This next one is Iron and Wine. It is a song I discovered from an online discussion about labour playlists, in which an individual - presumably one with a somewhat bleak outlook on parenthood - suggested it and everyone was all “Ooh, yus, that’s a nice song”. Which it is. Smashing, in fact. But would you really want to listen to it while giving birth? You decide.

Thirdly, I am very tempted to post some juicy quotes from Withnail and I, but some of the language is not quite the thing, and there are children present.

This one, for example. So I will instead merely link discreetly to IMDb’s Memorable Quotes, and those with unshockable dispositions can see for theyselfs. But don’t blame me.

[Some hours later]

Actually, I have some things to say after all.

1. The pig is learning tact. Her usual method, when faced with a nourishing dinner, is to eat three bites and then begin whining “I don’t want my dinner”; an attitude which wins her no friends. Last night, however, she switched tactics and said in a tone of polite regret, “Mummy, I love you and I’m very sorry, but I can’t finish my dinner”.

2. One hundred per cent of the friends I have thus far polled on the matter say that for $100,000, they would never eat peppermint or peppermint-flavoured foodstuffs again. I would scorn them for money-grubbing, but I’m sad to say I agree with them. I like peppermint, especially in the form of after-dinner mints and mint chocolate chip ice cream; but I could live without them. Chocolate-covered Turkish delights are a good substitute for after-dinner mints, anyway.

3. My knuckles grew during pregnancy. I tried to put my wedding rings back on the other day, and they wouldn’t go. And then I tried a week later, and they still wouldn’t go, and I made them, and it was a mistake. It’s mighty odd. My fingers don’t look swollen or indeed, in any way distinguishable from my pre-auxiliary-pig fingers; but there it is. The rings do not lie. Unless Helpdesk Man cunningly switched them during my pregnancy in order to mess with my postpartum head and cause me to off myself so he could collect the insurance and flee to Spain; which would be nasty, but I once knew a lady whose onetime husband would hide the rubbish bins just to mess with her head, so it just goes to show there are few depths to which humanity will not stoop. Flatmate Man consistently leaves numbers up on the microwave display so I can’t see the time without pressing “Stop/Reset”… for instance.

4. Still craving milk. I had two big glasses today and I yet I do not feel sated. Maybe that’s why my knuckles grew… calcium deposits. Anyway, it’s regrettably expensive, especially as Helpdesk Man has touchingly taken up the habit also. (Unless he’s just doing it to mock me, real subtle-like. See above. It’s not unpossible.)

5. I have to go now. I made Caesar salad and must eat it. This will be the second time today I have eaten poached eggs, although the first lot was in the context of toast. Did you know, you can poach two eggs at once? They separate beautifully after cooking, and it saves time. Once I get my Vitamin D levels back up and I’m brimming with confidence and self-esteem, I’ll try poaching three at a time. I should, like, televise it.

Since you asked, although I note you didn’t, we had many reasons for choosing the name Miles for the Auxiliary Pig. Firstly, we felt it conveyed a cosy, homely, English-old-man-in-a-tweed-hat-with-a-pipe vibe, which pleased us. Secondly, there was Miles O’Brien on Star Trek, and he is awesome. Thirdly, Liam was the most popular boys’ name in New Zealand last year, so that was out. Fourthly, Helpdesk Man vetoed evey other suggestion I came up with - a sprawling and venerable list including such gems as Lachlan, Llewellyn, Brock, Leander, Mason, Morris, Hunter, Firth, Finn, Fionn, Linden, Lincoln, Lewis and Hugh. (Yes well, I wasn’t unquestioningly keen on all of them.) Fifthly, and this is actually true, Helpdesk Man has an ancestor known in his day as Miles the Slasher, whose coat of arms features a severed hand dripping blood.

Sixthly, the name Miles reminded me of a pleasing poem we once studied at university: “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening”, by the venerable Robert Frost. It is a sweet poem, made all the more awesome by being quoted in a few seminal episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer; and goes like this.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Charming, no? Anyway, my sister was asking about it; so this evening I emailed it to her, and on reflection sent the link also to Helpdesk Man, who being an undereducated philistine had not read it (I rightly assumed).

Some minutes later Helpdesk Man leaked out from the bowels of his office, and we had the following conversation:

ME: Did you read the poem I sent you?

HELPDESK MAN: Yurs.

ME: Did you like it? Isn’t it nice?

HELPDESK MAN: I thought it was a bit suggestive. It had sinister undertones.

ME: What? It’s a nice poem.

HELPDESK MAN: What do you think it’s about?

ME: Stopping by woods on a snowy evening?

HELPDESK MAN: I think you’re being naive.

ME: What do you think it’s about?

HELPDESK MAN: Well, “I have promises to keep” strongly implies that he was burying a body.

I don’t think he was joking.

So, yeah. I had a baby.

Not that one. That one’s a bat.

It probably would have been easier, though. Maybe next time I’ll have a bat.

Anyhoo. Baby. Yus. Miles David. Nine pounds six, if you don’t mind. Cute in the face, poops a lot, not a tooth in his head, and doesn’t know squat about the South Beach diet; in which respects he reminds me strikingly of his dear papa. I would show you a photo of his newborn self, but my midwife took them and managed to include the more salacious parts of a Smokey in every single shot; not to mention the waters of the birth pool, which are enough to convert one to dry-cleaning for life.

Miles is coping well with life. Between the civilising atmosphere of the birth centre and our natural desire to impress him with our excellence as parents, we have been unusually polite in the face of his sometimes unreasonable demands; and he has responded by being as amenable as his digestion allows. It is an artificial and probably short-lived truce, but it works.

MILES [2AM]: Parents, I have a complaint.

US: What is it, my sweet sugar lumpkin? Do your insides pesk you? Let us walk you around and pat you lovingly on the back.

MILES: Boip. Boip. BOIP. Boip.

US: Oh dear, you have the boips. You are brave and soulful in the face of adversity. Have you perhaps completed the boips?

MILES: No. Yes. …Boip.

US: What a clever and precocious child you are! A spot of milks?

MILES: Thanks. I will.

[All slumber.]

MILES [2:25AM]: I’m sorry to bother you again, but I think I may have pooped.

US: What an admirable boy! We shall turn on the lights and leap to your sanitary aid.

HELPDESK MAN: Let me, wife of my bosom, for you are weary with the exertion of birthing our marvellous boy.

ME: K.

MILES: AAAAH! MURDER! TREACHERY! MAYHEM!

US: Ach, tish and piffle, little sweetness; coochy coochy, hey nonny nonny etc.

MILES: Sorry! Sorry! I don’t like having my nappy changed.

US: Think nothing of it, son and heirling; it is a distressing event indeed. Come, let us sleep. Have some more milks.

[All slumber.]

MILES [2:40AM]: I have more boips. Also, I was sick on your face.

[Etc.]

As you see, this pleasant interchange is unlikely to continue for more than a few days - I’m ballparking Helpdesk Man’s breaking point as Wednesday - but it is merry while it lasts.