Smokey the Magnificent

1. I am frequently amazed by the kind of men who manage to get wives.
2. Yesterday I finally bit the bullet and attempted to cure myself of fatigue, anaemia and the moops by consuming raw, frozen liver cut into little pills and swished down with water. It was horrid, but considerably less horrid than downing liver in its customary cooked, chewable form. I only managed to ingest about a teaspoon’s worth, and it had no appreciable effect on my desire to train for a half-marathon, but they say it’s cumulative. I will Let You Know.
3. I found out at the supermarket today that the salmon I have been smugly purchasing to ward off the brainworms is farmed, not wild. There’s always something, innit. Farmed salmon is evil; they keep them in cramped conditions and feed them soy and grains and things, which mucks up their omega 3-omega 6 ratio and no doubt makes them discontented in their squish. And then they have to feed them dye to get their flesh the correct pink. I got cod instead, which is cheaper and hopefully less evil, but not very appetising.
4. Did you know more women have blonde or red hair than men? Wikipedia said so. I wonder if it’s due to the Barbie/Ken beauty model.
5. Speaking of Barbie and Ken, Toy Story 3 is excellent.
6. I need a way to make a lot of money fairly fast. Nobody’s going to lose an eye or anything if I don’t, but it would be handy. Ideas?
7. I made white chocolate ice cream with homemade ginger cookies crumbled through, and it is mighty tasty, but Helpdesk Man does not like it. I am torn between wounded scorn at his dismissal of any ice cream that is not double chocolate, and smug because it means more ice cream for me.
8. The snortlepig is probably going to grow up to be a taxidermist or a serial killer. She has a penchant for Death. The highlight of supermarket trips is visiting the “dead fishies”, to the point where she refers to grocery shopping as “seeing dead fishies!”; and today when we went to the butcher and they had large portions of cow hanging up out the back, visible through a window no doubt designed to prove that everything is sanitary and pukkah, the pig was delighted and insisted I lift her up so she could beam at them for five minutes while a butcher whacked off bits with an evil-looking knife and gave us uncomfortable glances. Also, though? According to the sign, the Maori word for beef is “kau”. This gives me more happiness than words can convey.
9. Would you rather lose all your worldly possessions in a fire, or be stranded for a month on a desert island after your plane crashed into the briny?
10. I have megalophobia.

Today I was seized with a wild, creative urge occasioned by being behind on the laundry. I made the snortlepig some trousies.

They have side seam pockets, the insertion of which taxed my tiny brain to the uttermost.

Also big knee-pockets, into which I am thinking of putting small pillows to cushion the knees of the snortlepig when she falls on them during walks. I’m not sure, though. It seems anti- the survival of the fittest. One would not wish to do the species a disservice by artificially advantaging a snortlepig who cannot retain control of her own two feet.

Just for larks, I also topstitched some pretend pockets on her rump. It’s doing little things like this that keep me topside of the Seine.

And because I am Thrifty and Virtuous, I made the legs very long and fully lined so they can be turned up and the pig can wear them till she’s, like, thirty. And don’t think she won’t.

The pig was also struck with the creative yen today. Know what gets ballpoint pen off an LCD monitor? Handsoap, hairspray and/or rubbing alcohol. Thank you, Google.

I had an interesting experience in town today. I was heading at a rate of knots for the bus stop, pushing the snortlepig in a pram, when I came to a crossing and saw a teenageish-looking girl. I gave her my customary tight-lipped, terrified smile which is meant to indicate aimiability and usually looks like I’m about to shiv the recipient. To my surprise, she gave a slight smile back. The little man turned green. We began to cross the road, when she said to me “What do you think, is it worth it if a guy mumble mumble cheats on his girlfriend and then leaves her for another chick, is it worth it?”

I considered this briefly. “Hang on”, I said, “the guy cheated on his girlfriend and then found another girl?” “Yeah”, she said. I was tempted to ask whether this made two girls or three, which of the girls this particular girl was, what I’d missed in the mumbles and why she was asking, but we were running out of road. So with the fate of precious individuals in my hands I took a stab in the dark and said “He sounds like a bit of a scumbag, to be honest”.

“Yeah”, said the girl vaguely and drifted away. I hope it helped.

Would you rather be totally bald or have hair that looked like Snape’s?

ETA: No? Really? OK, I have another one. If you had to suffer from one of these conditions for the rest of your tiny life, which would you pick?

1. Every time you put on a pair of shoes (including flippers, sandals, slippers and similarly quirky footwear) you had an hour of moderate, unrelievable nausea

or

2. Every time you looked in the mirror you would experience a jolt of fear.

Go.

10:32 - Under-layer of fondant successfully applied to all three cakes. Helpdesk Man, who was also stricken with the deathpox, is lying in bed next to a bucket. The snortlepig thought it would be amusing to watch as I dusted the table with icing sugar, and then plant her foot in the middle of it. Oddly enough I still like her; it must be the fever. Am keeping body and soul on nodding terms with scraps of cake and fondant.

11:39 - Realised any skill I once possessed at making icing roses has disappeared, either due to the passage of years or rapidly-progressing nerve damage. Am Googling “how to make icing roses”.

12:02 - In a martyr-like display of maternal solicitude, made bacon and eggs for me and the snortlepig. Snortlepig choked on a piece of bacon rind. Proudly: “I throw up!” Peering, delighted: “I throw up BACON!”

1:36 - Seven roses of somewhat dubious botanical verisimilitude completed. The pig keeps eating the flower paste. Helpdesk Man has staggered out of bed and had a bowl of ice cream, despite my warnings that Dairy is Mucous-Forming.

2:56 - Have piped a large number of royal icing butterflies on greaseproof paper. It calmed me temporarily into a trance-like state, until I sneezed three times and my amygdala got lodged in my sinuses.

6:13 - All cakes fully masked. Had a break for a while giving the pig the milks and watching a bit of Volver, which Helpdesk Man and I started watching last night upon discovering it in several Top Feelgood Movies of All Time lists. Last night the main character’s no-good husband tried to rape her teenage daughter, who killed him with a knife. About the time she started dragging the body to a nearby chest freezer we decided we didn’t Feelgood, and went to bed. Today, while the snortlepig slept and had the milks, the main character engaged a local prostitute to help her dump the body. I also learned the main character’s father had had an affair with another woman, who may or may not have burned him and his wife to death before leaving town, and whose daughter is now dying of cancer. It’s a gay romp, I tell you. It’s also subtitled, so after half an hour of this my eyes started to frizzle and I decided icing the wedding cake would be more Feelgood. Incidentally: never trust things you read on the internet.

8:11 - You know what I’d do if I ever wanted to torture someone real bad? I’d find one of those tiny freezer compartments you get in fridges, all iced up thick around the edges. And I’d hold his hand in it for five minutes until it was good and chilly. And then I’d bang it back and forth, not particularly hard, against the sides. And then I’d do it again. It would be extremely unpleasant. I’ve affixed the roses to the top tier and placed a few butterflies on wires amongst them, but they had a high mortality rate when I peeled them off the waxed paper so I’m making another batch. I asked Helpdesk Man and Flatmate Man to saw my dowelling, but Flatmate Man is as drunk as a large, smallish fish and Helpdesk Man has oosed off to get some Burger Fuel for dinner, me being both too busy and too infested to make the boeuf bourguignon for dinner, which yes, actually was on the meal plan, although admittedly not spelled quite that well.

10:39 - Yay! Apart from putting in the ribbon, the cake is DONE. Including some spare butterflies to give the transport girl in case anything shatters in the car, which is sadly likely - those butterflies are ridiculously fragile. As are the real ones, though - realism, innit. Anyway. I am going to bed.

I write you all from a haze of cheem. A few weeks ago I rashly agreed to make a last-minute wedding cake for my sister’s friend, and what do I do but contract septicaebola three days before the big event. The batch of cake batter I mixed up this morning contains 1 kg butter, 6 cups of caster sugar, four blocks of chocolate and not less than four parts per million of my own personal pus, mucus and other bodily fluids. Something old, something new, something fetid, a bit of goo, as the old saying goes. I’m supposed to be making icing roses right now, but whenever I try to alight from the couch I see this

and my brain goes

and I have to pass out for a bit.

Today I told the snortlepig she could not lick the beaters yet, because I still had to beat in the vanilla essence. She called me a pesky wench. (A “peshky wench”, technically.) At times like these, I begin to doubt my parenting. Discuss.

1. It’s MOD PODGE, people! Not Modge Podge! I will slay your ancestors!
2. That last episode of Doctor Who was freaking awesome. I cried. Up until that point I was wavering on the season as a whole, but blimey. Epic, yet without sacrificing intimacy. And a corking line. And a fez.
3. I do not like the term “the menopause”. I know it’s technically accurate - well, I don’t, actually, but I assume it is, otherwise why would vast hordes of otherwise unpretentious people emit such a poncy phrase? - but anyway, it gives me the screaming heebies. Enough with ominous articles. I also dislike “an herb garden”, for similar though not identical reasons.
4. I decided on Sunday that my challenge for this week will be to complete one project per day. So today I made a grey skirt - actually I started it in a frenzy late last night, and it even hung overnight to allow the hem to droop correctly. Aren’t I coming along? Anyway, I finished it today and felt v smug, but then realised that all my other projects will take more than a day to complete. I started painting cardboard letters copper in order to stick them on the pig’s steampunked-up whiteboard, my (possibly) next project, but then realised there was no way I could actually paint it and make the fabric baskets all in one day, and then I thought about how many press-studs and little pearls needed to be hand-sewn onto my arm warmers, and how long it would take to learn how to do double-welted pockets in order to make my utility skirt, and then I started wondering if I could count cleaning out the pantry as a project, and then gave up the idea when I realised it just wasn’t gonna happen, and now I’m not sure what my challenge for the week is, but it bothers me unduly that I don’t have one.
5. My sister-in-law is expecting another baby. I will have to knit it something, maybe.
6. Gibbous-inspired clothes just never look as good as the real Gibbous ones. I can’t put my finger on exactly why, but they look junkier. It might just be the lack of incredibly arty photography, but I don’t think so. The skirts have too much fabric and not enough deliberateness of structure, mebbe. Anyway, I’m tempted to try it. But the only event on the horizon which justifies such an outlay of time and vintage lace is practically my only sister’s wedding in November, and I’m not sure if she’d appreciate me turning up looking like a post-Magimix Helena Bonham Carter. Also, I’d have to look at the photos in twenty years’ time, and even now I suspect I would snicker. And that is never a good sign.
7. Flowers for Algernon is not a good book to read if you are even mildly moop. It will make you lunge for a knife.
8. Is not this practically the awesomest thing ever? I want to make one, maybe for Disneyland. Then when we wanted to ride the Grizzly River Run I could just pop it on, and we could oose into DCA and ride it and then go back and romp at the HoJo’s water park. Except I don’t know where I’d be able to buy a towel that wasn’t made in a sweatshop, and one would not like to make it with a used towel. So it might not be doable. Still, I spent a good half-hour today pondering it. This is why I never get anything done.
9. I was playing poker on Sunday with a large, smallish group of semi-manly men, and asked them all “Would you rather have your own unicorn or a hundred sheep?” And they all instantly said “UNICORN!”, and it was awesome.
10. Would you accept a million dollars from a genie on the condition that if you ever said the word “migratory”, you would die instantly?

A Sad Thought: I don’t know how to tie a noose knot. It distracted me in that awful scene in Once Were Warriors, where I should have been bawling and clutching my hanky, and I was a bit, but I was also secretly a little impressed at the girl for knowing how to do it as a mere stripling of a lass. If I ever wanted to off myself, I’d have to Google it.

A Happy Thought: I just discovered Sock Dreams, an awesome site, and because I very badly need some socks, all of mine being either holey or Helpdesk Man’s, I bought five pairs as a birthday present to myself from the piggie. Upon being told of her generosity the piggie stared at her own feet in great perplexity for some minutes and then dismissed the matter. Four of the pairs are stripy. And as I very rarely make impulse purchases online, I feel giddy and daring. They’re even anti-sweatshop.

A Sad Thought: “How to Make a Noose” brings up 276,000 Google results.

A Happy Thought: My worthy mother has given practically my only small sister permish to come along for our trip to Disneyland next year. And my other practically only sister who lives in London is meeting us there for a week as well. If I do not have them both married off before we exit the Haunted Mansion, it will not be my fault.

A Sad Thought: I am worried that I might come over all phobic at Disneyland. I do not like animatronics, and while I hope this is because I’ve only ever met creepy cheesy fake ones like at Rainbow’s End, it might not be. And Pirates of the Caribbean is in the dark and on the water, like the log flume at Rainbow’s End which totally gives me the screaming feebles, because there are OBVIOUSLY killer whales slinking beneath the surface, and it has animatronic pirates and skeletons, one of which I happen to know is real. It’s an E-ticket ride. I can’t not go on it. It’s supposed to be awesome. And it’s 15 minutes long. And I do not want to spend that quarter-hour with the stench of abject terror oozing from my armpits, head burrowed into Helpdesk Man’s pancreas, frantically singing “You Are My Sunshine” and batting wildly at the air above my tender exposed neck. Also, Indiana Jones has an animatronic python that looms at you. And we won’t even talk about the Storybookland Canal Boats.

A Happy Thought: “How to Save a Life” by The Fray is an awesomer song than I initially thought. It has a poignant backstory and surprisingly good lyrics, and by “surprisingly” I mean that I am out of touch with Modern Music and generally assume anything I hear on the radio to be shallow and soulless, a thoroughly obnoxious tendency which I ought to combat, although I did hear Jason Mraz’ “I’m Yours” on two separate occasions in the fabric store and liked it and considered asking the lady what it was, but the second time I realised it was on the radio, not a CD, so the nice radio man told me (not personally, acourse) what it was and it turned out it had been playing in every store every four minutes for the last several months, but I don’t get out much, but at least it proved I liked the song on its own merits and not because it was drilled into my head by insane repetition; and also, incidentally, for weeks this was the only song that would put the snortlepig to sleep.

A Sad Thought: This couch is covered in smeg.

A Happy Thought: I bought two rolls of brown paper today. I ran out of the last lot and its replacement must have fallen out of the pram when I was bringing it home, so I have been without a roll of consoling brown paper for months now and it has been preying on my calm. But now I have two, so I can make the twofeenth and final version of my underbust corset pattern on it, and it will go with my new skirt, and also the arm warmers I plan to start making tomorrow.

A Sad Thought: I was conned into giving a cake decorating demonstration on Thursday to a bunch of Young Mothers, and I have no idea what to show them and will be revealed as a sham and ceremonially stripped of my fondant layer.

A Happy Thought: Singing group now. Bye.

Even though the snortlepig pesks me all to hell, I like her. Here are some reasons why.

1. When she’s chillin’ with me on the couch and wants to go somewhere else, she’ll say “Back inna second!” as she scuttles away.

2. Sometimes, when she is having the milks and I ask her to come off, she will bury her face in the milks and cover her eyes with her fat wee hand. And I’m like “Dude, you’re latched on, you can’t pretend you’re not there”, and she looks at me with beady eyes between her fingers, and then I hold her nose until she unlatches and she laughs and laughs and says “‘gain!”, and it is amoosing.

3. The other day, she was stirring a pat of butter and some onions around a saucepan and chattering away. And suddenly she looked down at the pot and squeaked “Oh, where’s a butter a go?” and started hunting round the onions trying to find it.

4. She reads Helpdesk Man’s comics over his shoulder and points out all the cloaks.

5. She is immensely fond of The Pirates of Penzance, and sings “Come, friends, a plow a sea, Dooce a luss a Jason, take a duck a Jason” many times a day.

6. She understands the concept of not having things in the cupboard. If she wants crackers and I say “We don’t have any” she says “All gone. Later” and is perfectly philosophical about the matter.

7. She feeds us things she is eating, even things she loves very much.

8. She knocks on Flatmate Man’s door and says “Come a dinner! Dinner time!”

9. She demands I look up photos of “Diseymand” on the computer, and shows a healthy appreciation for Mickey Mouse and the “dresses”.

10. She says “fingums” instead of fingers, and “pengums” instead of penguins.

11. She strides up to random cats and picks them up without fear or a by-your-leave. They do not bite her.

12. She puts away the knives and forks from the dishwasher, and is fairly efficient, even pointing out the forks with smeg baked on ‘em; but sometimes she will get distracted flirting with her reflection in the back of a spoon.

13. When we remove her clothes she will run to the nearest person available, leap into a starfish position and say “NAKED!” with a look of immense glee. This disconcerted Flatmate Man a bit the first time.

14. Whenever I ask her “Are you my friend?”, which I do a lot, probably ’cause I was a middle child and Forcibly Weaned, she says firmly “Yes. Friends a Daddy too”.

15. Sometimes she wakes up from a sound sleep and says things like “Rhinos!” or “Cats are great!” and then goes back to sleep.

16. Whenever Helpdesk Man goes out, she makes sure he does not forget to give me a kiss and also one for her. If he does, she shouts at him out the door in garbled distress until he comes back.

17. The other day she went through Helpdesk Man’s bag after he came home from the supermarket and exclaimed in tones of rapture “Oh my goo’ness, MUSHROOMS!”

18. At singing group practice last week, she joined in on Panis Angelicus, resulting in several false starts as we couldn’t figure out who was off-key. Her Latin was good, though.

19. She is still convinced she patted the “winos” at the zoo.

20. I dunno, really. 19 seemed a silly number to leave off at. Her cheeks are nice. And she dances. She started waggling her bottom in her sleep the other day when a rap song came on during a movie.

Anyway. I will keep her for the nonce.