Smokey the Magnificent

So, say the universe offered you a choice of two boons. Which would you prefer?

1. That no cockroach, spider, stick insect, praying mantis, or other creepy-crawly of doom might ever come anigh you, nest in your hair, lurk at the top of your shower nor indeed enter your residence, without your specific permission (allowing for the slim possibility that you might want to go into tarantulology at some later stage of life);

or

2. That you would never develop diabetes.

Discuss.

Tomorrow is the belated birthday party of Helpdesk Man, and I am in the middle of making not only cupcakes and fudge, but the chocolatiest ice cream cake ever. Its base is of Oreos, crushed with butter; its lower half is of homemade chocolate ice cream, streaked through with white chocolate straciatella; its upper storey is of homemade white chocolate ice cream, streaked through with dark; separating the two, like unto the waters below and the waters above, is a ribbon of homemade dark chocolate sauce. When the fullness of time has come it will be iced with chocolate ganache, and the sides of it sprinkled with chocolate curls; and on the top in chocolate sauce shall be piped divers figures; possibly satyrs sporting with maidens, and cornucopiae, and a bell and a pomegranate, a bell and a pomegranate, all around the edge of the cake; or possibly “Happy Birthday Helpdesk Man”, depending on my nerves. And it shall be AWESOME.

And the reason for this cake is threefold. Firstly, because it is a party, and what is a party without a cake? A mere shindig. Secondly, because I made practically my only sister an ice-cream cake recently with white chocolate raspberry ice cream, and it was good. Thirdly, because Helpdesk Man and Flatmate Man are both going on the Atkins diet come Monday, and I feel they should get a hearty sendoff.

Yes, indeed. Atkins. It will be interesting. It was Flatmate Man’s idea at first, and Helpdesk Man joined in only after I reminded him that in ten weeks or possibly even less, he will be required to join me in a birthing pool and the midwife will see his squish. A solemn impetus, but it has been amusing to watch his resolve gradually crumble to gibbering abjectness as Flatmate Man periodically emerges from his room, thumbing through a copy of the Atkins book saying “You know you’re not allowed alcohol”, and “Of course you won’t be able to eat chocolate”, and “It’s a pity we’ll still be on the induction phase over Easter, we’ll miss out on all the hot cross buns and Easter eggs and things”. Happily, I have been told by several people that going low-carb while pregnant isn’t a good idea; so I can eat theirs for them. Life does have its compensatory joys, don’t you find?

This is the pig, being three.

This is the birthday cake I made her.

This is what the pig would call a baby tortle.

The pig was about that size when she was born, although of course she looked more like this:

I, on the other hand, looked something like this.

Edward, not Bella. I may have had an even ghastlier pallor, but I cannot guarantee it. Anyway, that’s pretty much how I looked. I’d go into details, but my Hypnobabies protocol instructs me to let all such reminisces ping harmlessly off my Bubble of Peace and slink back into the void. Hypnobabies has no sense of fun sometimes.

Today was my, ahem, third driving test. To spare you any suspense, I passed; and just as well, because the whole experience is very demoralising to my inner calm, and I think another few goes would have given me a gastric ulcer. Crikey. I was initially pleased to see that my instructor was not the same lady with whom I’d bumped the car in the parking lot; it was, instead, a kindly-looking older man with a Scottish accent, and I warmed to him instantly, thinking he would be fatherly and approving.

He was not. At the beginning of the test I did a few silly things out of abject terror, and each time he barked at me “Wanna tell me why you did THAT? That’s not correct driving, SMOKEY, and if you don’t drive correctly I’m not gonna pass you!”. And I was all “Dude, you’re harshing my mellow”, but by the third outburst I was convinced I’d failed already, which oddly enough cheered me up a little; it seemed that the universe was humming along on its accustomed path and all was well. So I tootled contentedly through the rest of the test, even going so far as to answer back when he snapped that my overcautious gap selection could have made me a hazard to cars behind me, if there had been cars behind me. (Me: “True, but I knew there weren’t any cars behind me, and this is an 80k zone, so it seemed sensible to be cautious”. He: grim silence, probably taking pleasure in picturing the car crashing into a flaming fireball of death.) And at the end of the test, instead of relieving my nerves with a simple yea or nay, he worked through a laundry list of my driving defects - which oddly, were entirely different to the defects mentioned by the other instructor - I’m not sure if that’s good or bad - and ended by grudgingly admitting “Well, you did pass…”; clearly implying that left to his druthers, he’d have had me sterilised and shipped off to the Americas for the good of society, but his hands were tied. At any rate, he successfully managed to suck any sense of accomplishment out of the occasion, leaving me even more depressed than the time I failed.

Smegger.

And did he even ask after the baby? He did not. Wouldn’t have killed him.

Essentially, I should feel like this:

but as it is, I feel like this:

and that is all I have to say about that.

On the bleak marshes there lived a virtuous maiden with her father and his second wife. The farmer was fortunate, and the maiden drank plenty of good goats’ milk and ate her fill of good barley bread. But the girl’s stepmother had bitterness in her veins, and so she devoted her days to tormenting her daughter-in-law.

One cold day the stepmother had awoken in a foul mood, and she scolded and beat the maiden all the long day, and at nightfall finally drove her from the house. Weeping, the maiden stumbled through the marsh, pursued by the stones and taunts of her mother-in-law. The tears so blinded her that the maiden was forced to tear the kerchief from her head to dry her tears. But a wind sprang up and caught the kerchief from her, and the girl ran after it.

Now the marsh was flat and desolate, but here and there a stunted tree grew. And the maiden’s kerchief tumbled towards one such tree, and as quick as sight disappeared into a crack in the tree’s grey trunk. The girl reached in after it - and to her astonishment the crack was deeper than her arm was long, though the tree looked small, and she could not reach the kerchief. And as she groped the crack widened, and with a cry the maiden tumbled inside.

When she came to, the girl gasped to find herself dazzled by sunlight. The grey bleakness of the marshes had disappeared, and she was sitting in a field of wildflowers and singing birds. Astonished, the maiden arose and began to explore. To one side of the field she heard laughing voices, and rubbing her aching limbs she stumbled towards them.

At the end of the field was a clearing, filled with shining folk. Women in dresses of the palest hues swung and danced and combed their hair; tall men with beardless faces drank from crystal goblets and swam in a pool filled with shining fishes. The maiden gasped at such a sight and backed away, ashamed of her own dirty clothes; but the most beautiful lady of them all, with a dress of cobwebs and kind, ancient eyes, ran forward and clasped her hands.

“Greetings, O favoured one!” she said, and her voice was like light. “Your sorrows have not been unseen by the land of Faerie. Here there is peace, and bliss, and you shall live without fear.”

Then maidens came and took her, and they washed the battered maiden and dressed her wounds with salve. And once she was arrayed in a dress of palest green, they pressed her with grapes and sweetmeats that sent strength coursing through her veins. And the Queen of the Fairies came again to the maiden and said “See, I have chosen a husband for you among our people”. And she presented to the maiden a golden-haired man with sparkling eyes; and as the maiden looked into his eyes she felt all the songs of the songbirds welling up in her heart, and she loved him well. And so they were married by the field of ever-living flowers, and the fairies paid them homage.

It seemed like only a few hours later - though in the real world a year and a day had passed - before the sun slipped away and twilight stole over the clearing. And the Queen of the Fairies called the maiden, and spoke to her kindly.

“Forever shall you dwell among us, and your children will be blessed and have great gifts”, she said. “But beware the wrath of Faerie! If ever you squeeze the pimples on the back of your fairy lover, you will at once be cast back onto the marsh - and though we do not wish it, I foresee that your death would soon follow such an event. So beware!”

The maiden promised faithfully; and the Queen led her to a marble couch in the middle of the clearing, where her husband lay. The maiden lay down and tried to sleep, but the silken covers slipped away, and by the light of the moon she saw that her husband’s back was covered in juicy pimples. Alas! the maiden was a picker, and she did not last ten minutes. She felt a rumbling cry of rage from the trees and grass around her, and the next minute she found herself once more swooning by the tree in the bleak, cold marsh. Then the marsh weasels came.

When your snortlepig’s library book about Homes features a mole in a burrow and she has never heard of moles, being in the Antipodes, and says “Oooh, possum!”, do not do a Google image search for “mole” in order to give her a crash course on the species. You will see things you will wish you could unsee.

I’m currently freezing a shmallow. What happens when you freeze a shmallow? I don’t know, but I will tonight. I could probably google it, but Isaac Newton didn’t discover gravity by googling it… and that’s factually true - think about it. It’s a temporal thing, probably a bit beyond you. Certainly the coyote doesn’t think much of you.

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.

Sometimes, the sheer volume of the things I plan to make and sew overwhelms my brain like a load of laundry in a wardrobe, and makes my eyes twitch. This is a Bad Thing. Not a totally bad thing, as it allows me to think of myself as a crafty person brimming with ideas; but on the occasions I break through this happy bubble and realise I haven’t done anything more creative for a month than sweeping around a rectangle on the floor and pretending it was a rug, it makes me feel very small inside, and then I have to go eat carbs.

At the moment, my list of unfinished creative enterprises runs as follows (not in bullet-point form, as a) the length would be depressing and b) bullet points are too orderly to represent the reality of the situation): a small cushion made out of scraps from my wedding dress, a pink and green Irish chain quilt for the pig, another one in flannel for the pig in winter, both justifiably put on hold as she doesn’t have a bed of her own right now anyway; half a winter wardrobe of dove-grey, pink, beige and blue clothes for the pig, for which I bought fabrics, only it turns out she has plenty of clothes; the pig’s art station, a blackboard/whiteboard easel thing from the inlaws which I wish to make steampunky and awesome, because it doesn’t match the living room; a knee-length swooshy dress made with this awesomely manly tweed from the thrift store, whose very essence I wish to subvert by lining it with a dusky rose print and adding lace and doing cap sleeves and stuff; a grey more-than-a-circle skirt; a lace pettiskirt; lacy pantalettes, just below knee length; a pair of knitted stockings with little Xes all up the front, even though I suspect this will not look as good on me as on the Gibbous model; a pair of knitted stockings with horizontal blue and tannish stripes, sort of Alice in Wonderlandy, even though ditto; a pair of knitted lacy cream arm warmers that I’ve been knitting since the dawn of time; three unspecified baby gifts for recently ex-foetal pigs; typographical miniature cushions with ampersands and things on them for Helpdesk Man’s office, not that he’s holding his breath; a brown duster like Helpdesk Man’s current black one; a floor-length voluminous winter coat for me in smoky blue; a shorter one from the same pattern in some unexpected colour, so as to make me known in the boroughs as the Girl With the [undetermined but totally groovy] Colour Coat, which is on hold indefinitely as I can’t think of the right colour; a pair of natty lace wristlets, possibly done with very thin string in crochet, if I learn how; another pair of arm warmers with the leftovers from my pinstriped skirt, with dozens of little shroomy Victorian buttons down the side; a Mod Cloth-inspired grey dress with an asymmetrical cowly collar that makes me look like a scifi heroine; a demure grey pinny with tucks on the bodice, cunningly concealing invisible zips for breastfeeding access; a truly awesome autumn leaf quilt for the master bedroom, which is so ambitious I wisely refrained from buying the fabric and committing myself, but it still pesks my mind; a more doable but still not done bronze and blue bedspread cover, because Helpdesk Man doesn’t like the Laura Ashley one I got on sale three years ago, and it has ink on it; a cool Star Trek quilt I have vague and noble intentions to make for Helpdesk Man’s best friend’s couch, which is unseemly; somehow creatively ModPodgeing my old faux leather boots which are falling apart and showing their faux; a fairy-inspired dress with a ballet top and froofy skirt, for which I bought a lot of expensive fabrics and then panicked because they are sheers and I don’t do sheers, and they’re too expensive to mess up; a Grecian evening gown with a woven bodice which I want to make with some fabric someone gave me, only I don’t think my hips will stand the cut and I don’t have much occasion to wear evening gowns anyway, and Helpdesk Man wouldn’t like it because he objects to dresses that don’t have a defined waist; a pinstriped zipup dress based on a top I got from an op shop, but trying to copy the pattern gave me a headache; a top for the pig made out of this awesome dragonfly flannel I got last year, but she doesn’t need it and by the time she does it’ll be too small to make a whole top; a mini quilt I made ages ago to cover the changing table, which still needs to be bound but is a bit rubbish; a hand-sewn chevron quilt I started years ago, but I’ve gone off the colours; several underbust corsets, because I bought a bunch of spiral steel boning and things a while back, but am waiting on eyelets and inspiration and diligence, etc; new oven mitts; a new manly apron for Helpdesk Man, because his other one went missing; some summery, holidayish fifties-style bright dresses to wear to Disneyland next year to improve our festive moods, including a red polka-dot dress for the pig like Minnie Mouse wears; a smoky blue knitted hoodie with a frill around the bottom and a cabled tree on the back; a knitted grey dress with words from the end of The Return of the King chain-stitched all over it, in case I ever need to go to a book-signing; a harem pant/bellydance-inspired pair of pyjamas, although ovbiously not with dangly coins on them, but with breastfeeding access, but not until my current PJs wear out because of the environment, and they’re proving to be very long-lived; a fairy costume for my friend who’s a fairy at children’s parties, for no good reason except I looked at her costume she bought online and thought “Muahaha, I could totally make that”; a knitted top or two for Helpdesk Man; knitted knee-high socks for me and the pig that have demure wee bows at the top; a new Roman blind for the room of Flatmate Man, because the current one looks like a girly shower curtain; a stuffed pig for my nephew, which was supposed to be his Christmas present, but I got bored with the nose; a knitted top for the pig from a pattern I found online; a two-layer cutout top for the pig that I started making, but it wasn’t going well so I shelved it; and an assortment of hair accessories for myself to match the clothes I am planning to make.

You see the issue? I wouldn’t even swear that’s the lot, either. There’s a bolster cover lurking on my sewing shelf whose origins I can’t even remember… two, actually. Now, not all these ideas are unfinished in the sense that I actually started sewing them. Some of them are nearly done, some I have the fabric for but no notions, some just milled around in my head long enough for me to construct a precise plan. The point is, I spent a lot of mental energy on them. I spent weeks planning that autumn leaf quilt, and I knew at the time it was doomed, even as I said hopefully to myself “I could do a block a week, while I watched movies; it’d only take a few years”. I still have the sketches somewhere, probably.

In fact, the sobering thought occurs to me that if my next year’s New Year’s Resolution was “Finish up all unfinished or thought-out projects”, I couldn’t do it. Not a chance. Not in a year. Does that seem right to you?

Anyway, in the spirit of ignoring my own inadequacies, I thought I would show you pictures of the projects I have actually completed in recent history. Not the squab I finally finished for the bedroom window seat, because it’s a bit dubious and the light was all funny. Here’s a muskrat instead.

Pretty nifty, no?

Here’s a bowtie scarf I made.

This here’s m’ pig.

I made her dress.

She likes it.

I went all arty with the bodice, and Helpdesk Man laughed at me. He is basically a smegger.

He did, however, insist on me putting a bow at the back (see above re. defined waists, which is amoosing because if there’s one attribute the pig doesn’t have, it is a defined waist), and that helps.

Also, in true marvy craft blogger form, this dress was made out of an old bedsheet. Weep in awe.

Anyway. I also made her a hat from a Ruffles and Stuff tute, which is not that super but does in a pinch. She hates it, acourse. She’s always pulling off her hats. But I got her to cooperate while I was taking photos by getting her to say “communism”.

I also knitted her a wee scarf and handwarmers.

And I finished my pinstriped skirt.

That was a rubbish photo and it makes me faintly moop, so I will conclude with another muskrat.

Pretty nifty, no?