Smokey the Magnificent

To all those who are wont to ring me up for solace and chitchat: don’t bother. The snortlepig put the phone through the dishwasher, and we suspect it don’t sing no more. Clean, though.

Somewhat to my astonishment, Helpdesk Man and I passed the police check for having a homestay student. The next step is to be interviewed by a nice lady called Loretta and have the student’s room inspected to make sure we aren’t planning on chucking her in a rat-infested hole in the floor. Which is a doddle in theory - well, except for the interview, which will probably prove us to be antisocial semi-loons with supralapsarian leanings - only the homestay student’s room currently contains fourteen boxes of junk left over from moving house, a large plastic bag full of used coffee grounds, and no furniture.

So I am once again scouring TradeMe. According to the terms and condishes of homestay-student-having one has to provide it with a bed with a Good Quality Mattress, a desk, a chair, a lamp, a chest of drawers and a wardrobe. Privileged little blighter. I don’t even have a lamp. Anyway I was thinking of going for a vaguely shabby chic-cum-Anne of Green Gables dormer room kind of look, with a splash of French Country thrown in. Dusky pinks and greens and creams, kind of demure, an old-fashioned writing desk if I can get one, that sort of thing. We specified a girl homestay student, so hopefully the pink will not be a problem; and it’s a style I like well enough that when the room eventually becomes the snortlepig’s room, I won’t feel the need to rip it all out and start afresh. Hopefully.

Of course, the tricky bit is that one has to decorate the room before the interview, so if one fails one is not only out a supplementary source of income, but the price of a roomful of furniture. Still. We will prevail.

I had a cunning thought the other day. If I am to be making most of the snortlepig’s clothes from now on (and it seems I will, both because it amooses me and because I am Agin the clothing industry and hand-me-downs have slowed down to the merest trickle since she left the baby stage), it makes sense that they all match. Currently she has a pleasing conglomeration of handmade and bought items in varying clashing shades, and only about two tops go with two bottoms on a good day. So next time a new season hits or she grows out of things, I plan to go to Spotlight with a tiny colour palette in mind and buy five or so fabrics - a few solids, maybe some dottos or stripes and a floral - that all mix and match, and then make her clothing accordingly. It seems frugal. Plus, I can then look back fondly on her childhood photos and say “Oh yes, that was during your blue period”, and date contested family holidays by the hue of her trousies. And it’ll force me to make clothes she actually needs, as opposed to things I want to make (case in point: she is currently inundated with tops and rather lacking in bottoms).

Right. I now need to go and complete my hour of fiction writing for the week. I have successfully managed to do my hour of housework every day, even going so far as to do an extra hour the day before we went to the beach (more on that later). None of the editors I queried have gotten back to me about my print articles, though; nor have I utterly mastered the Road Code; and I totally forgot about the fiction writing thing until now. I should really use this time to work on My Novel, but I’m getting rather sick of it; perhaps I’ll start something new. We shall see.

Oh, yus. Question. If you were a nearly-two-year-old snortlepig, and it was going to be autumn/winter when you were twoish, what kind of colours would you want to wear for that season? I fancy dove-grey at the moment, but it might be a little drab for a toddler. D’you think? Dove-grey accented with blue or possibly maroon? Maybe I should save that particular combo for when she’s a sedate matron of four.

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.

I learned a new word recently: limned. It means something along the lines of “looking shiny when light hits it”. The reason I know this word is that I’ve been reading a collection of short stories from the library, pleasingly titled St Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised By Wolves. The stories are good - creepy and imaginative, which I like - but there in every single one, every twenty pages or so, is the word. Limned. Tombstones limned by moonlight, mirrors limned by moonlight, rocks limned by… moonlight again, I think. It’s most odd. Then again I’ve been using word “canard” in every possible context since coming across it a few days ago, so can’t complain.

Today I am joining my sister-in-law and her baby for a massive pre-Christmas grocery shopping mish. The pressure is intense. What am I likely to forget? We’re having a slightly non-traditional menu this year, so I can’t just check off turkey, potatoes and cream and figure I’m safe. Turkey being prohibitively expensive and also somewhat evil, we’re doing a roast chicken (I know, only marginally less evil) and also focaccia, chocolate mousse and almond torte, while the inlaws provide ham, wine, salad, trifle and milktart. Then on Christmas Day I’m bringing a cold roast pumpkin and feta salad with cashews in, and possibly lemon sorbet.

LATER:

We came. We shopped. We conquered. My feet hurt.

Also, would somebody kindly tell me the correct spelling and pronunciation of “focaccia”? Focaccia and foccacia both anger the spellchecker and I’m never sure whether to call it fokaysheea, fokarchia or fukarsha.

• 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!

I like packing books. With the exception of the theology books I keep mine uncategorised, so stacking them in boxes reveals a delightful cross-section of personality that would probably intrigue posterity if I became a sculptor or blew up a bus or something. The Silence of the Lambs nestling next to Winnie-the-Pooh, for instance; Reader, I Married Him cheek-by-jowl with a misshelved copy of a tome boldly entitled PREDESTINATION.

Kitchen items are less fun to pack. They are asymmetrical, breakable and require much thought. How many baking dishes can I live without for the next two weeks? Will I suddenly burn with the desire for a lemon yoghurt cake if I pack my bundt tin? (I chanced it.) What about my mini-muffin tins? No, too risky, I’ll want to use up a lot of lemons before we leave, so I might make lemon muffins. Should I get rid of my dodgy-bottomed springform cake tins, even though I used the bottoms several times this month to shape pizza and pavlovas on?

Worst of all are the contents of the bathroom cupboard, which I have started packing in self-defense as the snortlepig likes to unhaul them from the cupboard anyway. I was on a skincare kick for awhile, exacerbated by a free-samples kick, which left me with dozens of sample bottles and wax strips currently made obsolete by my anti-chemical/eco/natural kick. Part of me cynically wishes to keep them for when I backslide, but the other half views them as cancer in a tube… so you see the dilemma. Had fun seeing if I could make one half of my lips bigger than the other using Sally Hansen’s Lip Inflating Cream, though. I couldn’t. They just went tingly. With the tingles of cancer.

Last night’s dinner with Helpdesk Man’s family was a success, incidentally. I made a huge basket of flatbreads and grissini which we had for starters with dukkah, pesto and olives and such foibles. Then dinner was creamy sundried tomato chicken strips on a bed of corn risotto, with roasted carrot and kumara spears cooked in brown sugar. Sister-in-law made milktart for dessert and I added pecan tartlets and peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. During dessert the snortlepig disappeared and was discovered in the living room with the remains of the bread basket, diligently and enthusiastically dipping all the breads and licking them. She is a sweetcheeks.

Well, duh. To do a third of the things required to move house.

I’ve made a list, three pages long and counting, of tasks ranging from “scrape paint off the bathroom floor” to “check if Tia Maria has gone off and throw out bottle if so”. Actually Helpdesk Man has to do the Tia Maria thing, all alcohol tastes like the sputum of Satan to me, wouldn’t know if it was good or bad. Does Tia Maria even go bad? Anyway. I was going to give myself Points for each task, but alas - the spirit is willing, but the funds are gone. All my Suite101 money has been amassed into the common fund, like a pure riverlet being swallowed by the roaring ocean. Bear in mind that analogy says more about the size of the riverlet than the ocean. But still though. Frivolous spending is on hold for the time being. Just as well I got that fabric before we found the house, no? :p Then again, I suppose I could still amass the points and hope my Suite income will start skyrocketing enough for me to make good on the debt one day. It’d certainly make moving house seem cheerier.

I’ll probably have to spend a good chunk of tomorrow taking the snortlepig back to the doctor, too. The nail failed to make its appearance, so she’ll need another X-ray to see what it’s up to. (Probably been assimilated, which means it will take only the mildest of electric shocks to transform her into Iron Pig, snortliest superdude of them all. Good reason not to get a trampoline, at least until she’s past the terrible twos.)

Oh yeah, and… anyone want to help us move house? *beams* Not this week, obviously. When the time comes. Sure you do. You promised you would, at Lent.

It is dis one. (Drat. Classified just expired.)

Now we just have to…

• try to coerce some poor homestay student into staying with us
• break the news to our current landlords, who were hoping we wouldn’t need to move until nearly November
• switch over Internet
• redirect our mail
• pack up all our belongings, decluttering as needed
• buy (preferably through bartering loaves of bread or Helpdesk Man’s soul or summat, being a bit strapped for cash) a mattress, some bookshelves, a desk lamp, two desks, three chests of drawers and a drier in order to accomodate our new arrangements and the homestay student
• come up with the dosh for 3 week’s bond plus 1 week’s rent (see above and cash-strappedness)
• clean the house
• scrape paint off various windows and floors from dodgy paint jobs
• get someone in to clean the carpet to erase the presence of the snortlepig
• find someone to babysit the chickens, as Mother (who kindly agreed to adopt them if the landlord didn’t fancy the idea, which he doesn’t) is away for moving week
• empty the garage, oh my

and… am I missing anything? All before October 2.

But still. A house. Yay. Better than a dose of swine flu, I always say… with conviction and fervor these days, as it happens.

Yesterday I prepared for moving house by cleaning under the spare bed and donating a bunch of old nappies to the op shop, thus clearing out half my glory box. Today I’m planning to go through clothes and toys in an effort to donate a bunch more stuff; and, following the suggestion of a woman on MDC, start packing some non-seasonal clothes. Which is tricky given the weird weather we’ve been having lately, but I’m sure there’s something I can put in a box. My Eowyn costume, for instance.

Did you know there’s a whole hobby among movie costumers of identifying reused outfits between films? I came across some examples here; fascinating stuff. It seems the BBC is a major culprit, which is hardly surprising given how liberally they recycle their filming locations, extras and (according to horsey people I know) horses. Still, very eco of ‘em.

Yesterday I spent my first quantity of money from my points system challenge thing! Four wrought iron fleur-de-lis hooks for eleven dollars something each. I need to obtain a few more, which they didn’t have in the shop, and I’m gonna hang them in vertical rows of three in the bedroom to hang out hats, coats and bags on. Cunning, no?

In other news, meh. Life is looking a little bit moop here, folks. Helpdesk Man slid his motorbike last night coming home from swordfighting and managed to bruise his finger, rip up a brand-new pair of trou and scuff his gear up to the point of needing a new helmet and jacket. Not to mention new tyres, which he blames for the crash (thought: possibly in a several-hundred-dollar attempt to save face?). The snortlepig has developed the lurgy and is alternately lapping up her snotters with her tongue and vomiting them back up again. The latter at least I can understand, but it is trying; and the pig thinks so too. Plus, last night she was making pre-vomit gurgles while sitting with Helpdesk Man on the bed, and while holding her over the side to be sick - none too bright, as carpet is harder to divest of upchuck than a duvet - he managed to fall spectacularly on his head. And the house is a mess in a dingy bits-of-fabric-and-pattern-pieces-strewn-round-the-floor-amongst-half-chewed-bits-of-apple way. And we’re having guests tomorrow night. And I can’t figure out how to make the snortlepig’s top without having raw edges exposed to the world.

So, anyway. If you were offered - by a chap, say - a lifetime supply of turnips for only $50 - not all at once, but delivered to your house on a weekly basis, wherever you lived in the world - would you take it? Discuss. There’s no right answer, but there is a wrong one - and if you should choose it, remember that I’ll be right here, silently judging you.