Smokey the Magnificent

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.

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.

Yesterday:

You know what? I will probably never learn to speak French. A semi-sobering thought. I’d like to speak French - more accurately I’d like to be the sort of person who learns French for kicks, which the evidence suggests I’m not - but meh. It has tenses. I’m  agin ‘em. I have a friend, though, who taught herself German simply by visiting a LOTR message board. But she’s Aspie - proper Aspie, not just vanity Aspie - and therefore cooler than me, as so many of my friends are. (Case in point: most of them can drive.)

You know what else? I remembered the other thing I had to do this week. It was volunteering at the toy library. Two weeks ago I didn’t turn up when I shoulda, and one week ago I did when I shouldn’ta. If I flake again this week they might start asking me nasty questions about the missing piece on the activity table the snortlepig borrowed a month ago. Must get up tomorrow morning.

I also have to get up in order to make a Shin of Beast, a task which now seems faintly glamorous as I just watched Julie & Julia with my mother. Meryl Strep is marvellous. You think “Oh yes, Meryl Streep, she’s marvellous”, and then you see her in another film and realise yup, she really is. I have that experience with Hamlet, also. And, upon occasion, soft-boiled eggs.

Today:

Got to the toy library on time, thank goodness, and spent a pleasant hour and a half chatting about childbirth and counting 150-piece toys into buckets. It’s a heady power trip, saying to cowering mothers “You do realise there’s a goblet and two trapdoors missing, don’t you…. maggot?”. Collected some used coffee grounds for compost, visited Helpdesk Man at work, then trundled home. Right. I now have the unenviable task of persuading a Tupperware lady to demonstrate this Saturday at a baby shower. And then I need to attack that Shin of Beast and do some long-overdue gardening. Pip pip.

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.

1. What was your favourite moment in Star Wars? A New Hope, I mean, not the entire trilogy (or two trilogies, I could say, but if anyone’s favourite moment actually occurred in the new trilogy I’d have to ban you from the blog, and I’m not sure WordPress supports that function.)
2. Last night I started reading a library book, selected according to my new whatever-the-snortlepig-pulls-off-the-shelf method: Chocky, by John Wyndham. The synopsis on the back cover and Chapter 1 conspired to impart an ominous sense of dread - it’s about a boy communicating with an alien - and I spent a semi-sleepless night cosseting my heeby-jeebies. This afternoon under the light of the kindly sun I read the rest, only to discover it was positively benign. The alien ended up saying a poignant farewell to the boy and promising to give flashes of inspiration to future scientists in order to spur mankind on to achieving renewable energy sources. I mean, really.
3. I saw The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus the other night. Somewhat to my surprise, I liked it very much. Terry Gilliam is the accursed director of Tidelands, an arty and horrific film centred largely around human taxidermy which, with the possible exception of Salad Fingers*, is the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen. So I spent most of the film with my neuroses cocked, as it were, for the first signs of the grotesque. Fortunately it turned out to be more or less seemly. Still Gilliam, of course; bizarre; but by no means grotesque. And the visuals were stunning. Horrible phrase really, “stunning visuals”. To my mind it conjures up images of boringly greyish CGI armies, which wasn’t what Dr Parnassus was like at all. The wagon/caravan/theatre thing the crew travelled and performed in reminded me a little of Pan’s Labyrinth - the same texture and messiness - but more bohemian, theatrical and I can fondly imagine, just a tad steampunk.
4. The odd part, of course, was seeing Heath Ledger, especially as he made his first appearance being hanged. This affected me for a moment until I remembered that a) we watch dead actors onscreen all the time and b) I’m not really a fan of Heath Ledger. I mean, he’s good, certainly, but I don’t have a Thing about him. Not a faux-personal connection like I feel for my favourite actors - Cate Blanchett, for instance. So the film carried on. And just as I was thinking that Ledger’s performance had distinct shades of Jack Sparrow, Johnny Depp came on to take his place. (For those not in the know, Heath Ledger died during filming and Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law came in to finish his scenes.) Props to the writers - if Heath Ledger hadn’t died, the film still would have worked with the substitutions. Fortunately he’d finished filming all his real-world scenes, so Gilliam picked a different actor for each time the character entered the fantasy world, and the changes were quite plausibly if vaguely explained away as having something to do with someone’s psyche.
5. Mention should also be made of Lily Cole, who played a convincingly not-quite-adult fifteen-year-old and had disturbing manga eyes. I liked her.
6. Mother has returned from London, with swole and beblistered feet from walking up on England’s golden shore. She brought back many gifties, including a teatowel for myself which advertises a particular brand of tea as a Cure for the Droops. I like it. And you know the wondrous thing? While in Oxford, quite by accident, she and my sister happened upon a steampunk exhibition!
7. The pig has taken to adding “y” to the ends of words. Like “eggy” or “moosey” or “horsey”. Until now, I had thought this was a tactic only adopted by older children.

* “Salad Fingers?”, I can hear you saying. “I haven’t heard of that. I wonder what it can be. I will naively Google it.” Gentle Reader: don’t. They will find you later skrivelling in a corner, attempting to pour Drano through a hole in your skull.

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?

You recall my case of the moops? Of course you do. And I’d just like to offer a heartfelt thanks to those of my readers who rallied around with chocolates, flowers, homemade cards and generous monetary contributions. It does my heart good to know that my modest literary efforts touch so many lives. Thank you, shiny people.

Hmph.

Anyway.

If you can bear to look up from your bally frosted flakes and cast a glance of cynicism at the screen, allow me to inform your turgid eyeballs that I am No Longer Moop. The secret for curing the moops, apparently, is as follows:

Make Mexican almond cookies and fling a bit of lemon in for luck; make chocolate chip cookies also; send them off with Helpdesk Man for his marvy young vocal collective’s marvy Labour Weekend singing workshop (ooo!); have the tin return empty with enthused compliments; bake a second batch of chocolate chip cookies for the next day while at the same time baking cheese profiteroles, mocha pecan pie, plum chicken with rice and caramelised carrots for guests; finish the straps on the snortlepig’s top; watch two Disney movies, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Little Voice; plant a zucchini seedling; spring-clean the bedroom, and dry a successful load of washing before the rain can sneak in.

Interesting, no?

In other news… NaNoWriMo. Until yesterday I was planning to cheat, spending the month updating my pretentious fable about an autistic penguin from last year’s 22,000 words to a chunkier 50,000. For various reasons - not least of which, I’m not sure I can squeeze another 28,000 words out of a pretentious autistic-penguin-featuring fable - I have decided to go for the more mainstream cheat of completing 50,000 non-fiction words within the month. That’s articles, queries… blogging, I guess, so be prepared for several more What I Dreamed Last Night posts, folks… shopping lists will be excluded, but only because in these economic climes they tend towards fantasy in any case. *sigh* Which brings me to another compelling argument re the change of plans: viz, it is more lucrative. (And so the soul of Smokey the Magnificent dies a little, dreams crushed by the Muse-strangling spectre of a mortgage. Except I don’t even have a mortgage. I can’t afford one.)

Anyway, that gives me six days in which to prepare. Planning being allowed under NaNo rules, I was thinking of writing as many article titles as I could on a bit of paper and simply attempting to plow through as many as I can in a day. My Suite articles tend to be 600 words or so, so three a day would do it; but I was hoping to do some print stuff too, as well as the article on historical maternity wear that’s due December 1.

So, anyone have any article ideas for me to write? Dad suggested some time ago I do a piece on the benefits of raw milk, so I just might query a newish eco magazine on the topic. Hey, do you think I could expand “Which is more absorbent, a poodle or a horse?” into a full-blown op-ed?

Yes yes, we’ve moved house, boxes everywhere, can’t find the screws, no Internet for several days, psychically distressing. I don’t want to talk about that. What I do want to share is a rule of thumb you can live your life by: movie taglines are almost always improved by adding “LOL” to the end.

IN SPACE, NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM LOL.

You see?

And to further illustrate the point:

A JEDI SHALL NOT KNOW ANGER. NOR HATE. NOR LOVE LOL

A MONSTER SCIENCE CREATED - BUT COULD NOT DESTROY LOL

ON EVERY STREET ON EVERY CITY, THERE’S A NOBODY WHO DREAMS OF BEING A SOMEBODY LOL

YOU’LL BELIEVE A MAN CAN FLY LOL

SEVEN DEADLY SINS. SEVEN WAYS TO DIE LOL

RESISTANCE IS FUTILE LOL

WHEN THERE’S NO MORE ROOM IN HELL, THE DEAD WILL WALK THE EARTH LOL

OH YES, THERE WILL BE BLOOD LOL

HIS LOVE IS REAL. BUT HE IS NOT LOL

I rest my case.

Is this sort of awesome, or awful? I really don’t know. Bear with it for a verse or two - her voice is, ah, Raw and Untutored - but let me know what you think. Is it fanfiction - which I hate, loathe, despise and abominate - or somehow cooler than that? You tell me. I know it’s filk, but I’m so new to that concept I actually don’t have an opinion about it yet. Which pretty much puts the universe in a state of flux.

Patchy, I’d say. Some of the lyrics are touching, and some of them just sound obnoxiously faux-Jossian - too many damns, for one. I hate it when fans try to emulate a writer’s writing style - it’s like all those commenters on Pioneer Woman who talk about their punks with self-conscious beeziness and say “dadgum”. Weedy, is what it is… which is largely why I hate fanfiction. The other reason is that I’m a LOTR fan, and to see people who think they can emulate Tolkien’s bleak, spare, deceptively arid writing style by keyword-stuffing “glimmering” and “fey” into descriptions of violet-eyed half-Elven princesses, well, it makes me want to cause messy death. Which is not the case with this song, I hasten to add. At its worst it just makes me wince a bit and go “Puh-leese”.

And that’s what I look for in a song.