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?

Do you know, I learned something interesting on Monday. Helpdesk Man and I were chillin’ at a hardware store - he wanted sandpaper, no idea why, probably for his face - and I took the opportunity to get a spare car key cut, for reasons that should be obvious. The chap doing it was a strange mixture of offensive and helpful - he was the chap I saw at 38 weeks pregnant with the snortlepig, who stared at my squish and said “When are you due?” and I said “Two weeks” and he said “You’ll probably put on all your weight in the last two weeks”, so I’ve never much liked him - and in between hurling vague insults in my direction, he proffered an int’resting factoid.

Apparently with older cars, the keys have a code engraved on them. So if you write the code down and keep it in a safe place, like a deep crevice on your head, then when you lose your key you can simply ring up and say “I’d like an A3036 for a 2004 Nissan”, and they’ll be “Righty” (or in the case of this chap, prolly more like “Righty, tard”), and cut you one from code, without having to have the original.

Which is in itself quite cunning. But what it really means is that if you fancy your friend’s oldish car, all you have to do is briefly borrow her car keys on a pretext such as a magic trick or lottery scratchy; note down the code, and Bob’s your uncle. This makes the world seem a scarier and more exciting place. Don’t you think?

It also brings to mind an entrepreneurial venture I never got off the ground, but to which I would very much like to devote my passions in my declining years: mystery thieving. Don’t you think it could work? Companies worried about their security could call me up, and we would arrange the terms of the deal: I get to make one trip during the peak business hour of the day, and must attempt to steal one item of clothing from the changing rooms, a small electronic device and a Toblerone. In addition to my large, smallish fee, I get to keep whatever I can successfully squirrel out of the store - thus investing both me and the store with motive, upping the stakes and generally adding piquancy to everybody’s day. Different shops could have different rules, of course; for jewellery stores I might be permitted the floor plans and the assistance of a small, nervous Irish genius to handle the security alarms, whereas for a mega-chain department store I might be required to exhibit a lowish level of cunning and leave the store tags hanging out from under my sweater. As they wished; the customer is always right. Anyway it would be vastly amoosing, and unlike mystery shopping, which is mostly a sham and a chiz, might do some actual good in the world; plus, this being New Zealand, I probably wouldn’t even get shot at. What do you think?

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.

1. OK, so there’s one thing I don’t get in The King’s Speech. It was established early on that Bertie didn’t stutter if he couldn’t hear himself speak - when he was listening to loud music, for instance. So why didn’t they just clap a set of headphones on him while he was making the speech at the end? Obviously it wouldn’t have been a workable solution for real-life occasions, but for the on-air wartime stuff, wouldn’t it have been simpler than making him suffer through it? Marvellous movie, but I think this was an oversight. Also, I don’t know why that radio broadcast had to be live in the first place. People wouldn’t have known.

2. I made a chicken dish tonight that tasted like it had bacon in it, but it didn’t. Isn’t that fascinating? Our cast iron frying pan does tend to retain flavours, but the previous meal cooked in it was fish. I don’t know.

3. I have started doing Hypnobabies. It is… interesting. Particularly when the Joyful Pregnancy Affirmations CD includes such Affirmations as “My iron levels are high”. What is it supposed to accomplish, I wonder? I know people can psychosomatically alter their blood pressure - there’s some surgeon bod who talks to patients during surgery, and tells them they need to get to 120/60 or whatever, and apparently they comply surprisingly often - but their iron levels? It seems to me that Affirming they were high might just prevent a woman from buying much-needed Floradix; so I’m not sure I approve. Also, the childbirth education guide that comes with the CDs includes a pregnancy diet based heavily on Brewer, and specifying four cups of dairy a day; and that just boggles my tiny mind. Still, the CDs are relaxing (although really, I could listen to death metal these days and still fall blissfully asleep).

4. If I ever have twin boys, I want to name them Basil and Thrip.*

5. As of yesterday, I am an aunt once more. Sister-in-law gave birth to a large, smallish child, whom the snortlepig has now visited twice in the birthing centre. All seems to be going well, except that the first time we visited we couldn’t see his face, on account of he was having the milks; so I asked sister-in-law who he favoured and she said “Oh, he looks a little bit like [Nephew Pig], but he has funny nostrils like y - I mean, um, heh”. And I was all “Is it”, but seeing as she had just given birth I forgave her. Upon inspecting his nostrils on the second visit, they are perfectly snortly; I don’t know what she was talking about. Anyway, we’re not genetically related.The pig also pointed out solemnly that he had no arms, but his parents insist they were just wrapped up in the swaddle; I suppose time will tell.

The snortlepig likes the new pig pretty well and gives it kisses on the head, but seemed disappointed there was only one of him, and more interested in his crib (”a tiny, TINY bed!”) than his personage.

That isn’t him. It’s a thrip.

6. Can parents override the Sorting Hat? If I sent my small, niceish child to Hogwarts and he got put in Slytherin, you can bet I’d be sending a strongly-worded owl to the management. Surely they would understand.

7. Helpdesk Man and I have been watching 30 Rock, which is greatly amoosing. Best line: someone mentioned the Solomonic “cutting the baby in half” thing to Tracy Jordan, who responded without missing a beat, “And I would choose the top half, for that is the half with the face!“, and I was like “Right on”. Incidentally, the word “solomonic” sounds ironically like a euphemism for dull-wittedness. Innit? A somnolent moron. And yet, “somnolent” sounds kind of wise. It’s a funny old world in which we live.

8. Would you rather die of an embarrassing boil, or be pesked to death by a bat? This question is not a new one; I formulated it some weeks ago and have been arguing with Helpdesk Man ever since. He insists that he could vanquish any bat; I have pointed out that a) that isn’t a possibility under the terms of premise, b) there could be plenty of extenuating circumstances in which one was unable to defend oneself against a bat, such as being tied to a tree, and c) for all we know, the Columbian Mega-Bat has yet to be discovered. The argument eventually grew tangential, with Helpdesk Man and myself deciding to produce a major motion picture about a mad scientist who created a giant mechanical bat, which then got loose and terrorised Tokyo. The title? I, Robat. And it will be awesome.

Anyway, even the shame of being defeated by a regular, smallish fruitbat would surely be less than being known to all posterity as the girl who died from a boil on her *sotto voce* bottom? My sister once had a teacher who was out of school for months with blood poisoning after she picked a pimple on her nose - or was it her chin? - and that must have been bad enough. Discuss.

*It’s funny if you garden. Basil repels thrip.

I mean, a boy.

Did you know there are different kinds of chopsticks? Chinese ones are square at the end you hold them, and round at the pointy end; Japanese ones are shorter and pointier; and Korean ones are flattish and rectangular. One can also obtain training chopsticks, which are held together at the end like tongs. This is a thing I did not know before.

Tomorrow I am having my 20-week ultrasound to check on the sex, wellbeing and possibly numbers of the Auxiliary Pig. The snortlepig is enthusiastic about the prospect, although I’m not sure she’s quite grasped it - she thinks the Auxiliary Pig will be wearing clothes, and that we’ll be able to see it smiling. She remains adamantly convinced that it is a boy; as do two Filipino couples from church, who feel it is my moral duty to produce one; and my brother-in-law, for reasons he is keeping enigmatic. Myself, I do not like to venture a guess, as my maternal instincts have proven in the past to be completely off the wall. It makes me feel a bit left out on Mothering.com, on which everyone knows their child’s sex and middle name from the night she was conceived, preferably in a Vision or Dream; but there it is. Anyway, if the snortlepig had fulfilled the dreams I had while gestating her, she would have been a) quadruplets and b) stolen from the hospital immediately after the birth. Which might have been a blessing, really, at least if the thief had been kind enough to leave one of her.

My health, thank you for asking, is creeping slowly back from the abyss. Today we ate sprouted French lentils for lunch, made by me; and I then went for a walk to buy groceries, made vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce, kneaded bread dough and baked a banana cake. To be sure, I then had to go lie down and eat a great quantity of olives; but it is Progress. Hopefully soon I will summon up the oomph to begin knitting.

Ooh, yes, I was going to ask. What is the protocol for revealing the sex of one’s unborn child? We didn’t find out ahead of time with the snortlepig, so it was easy; I just got Helpdesk Man to do all the ringing around after I was born, and trusted to the natural garrulousness of a small church to fill in the (no doubt vasty) gaps caused by his antisocial nature. But what does one do when one finds out beforehand? Should it be announced with pomp and ceremony? Should the family be reverently gathered to hear the news in hushed and thrilling tones? Should one barter the information for sweetmeats? I do not know.

Aww, man. Auxiliary Pig is a fiend from heck. I keyed in my credit card number at the supermarket checkout today, and woke up shortly afterwards on the floor with about five Pak’N'Save staff members fluttering with embarrassing solicitude about me, and the checkout operator saying without conviction “I tried to catch you”. (I think it was lies, but I cannot blame her; minimum wage and all.) The good news is that I scored a free bottle of Pump, the congratulations of the floor manager and a free pass from loading my groceries into the boot. The bad news is that my head hurts quite a bit, and I probably cracked my skull and will have a bleed in my brain and will radically change personalities, which one might argue would be a Good Thing, but I might also lose the ability to count or something. People do that. My hair cushioned the blow to some degree, but not enough to make me cheery.

So there’s that. Oh, and I went an exciting colour. One would not think a person as pale as me could actually look whiter, but I caught a glimpse of myself in the rear-view mirror on the way home and squeaked in fright. If I am ever tempted to take up vampirism, remind me that it is not flattering.

Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be one of those angsty blog posts where I wail about my directionless life and volumeless hair. As it happens, today I finished an article about child-led weaning, made dinner (to a certain extent) and did an hour of housework, making this one of my more productive days since Operation Auxiliary Pig commenced.

No, I’m actually falling to pieces. I was eating dinner and bit down on either a bit of rock salt or possibly a piece of burned potato (see above caveat re dinner), and a chunk - or cusp, as we say in the biz - of my back molar just up and left me. And I was like “Whoa”, and had to pause Wonderfalls - which is cool, but not as awesome as Pushing Daisies - and go and shove a hand mirror in my mouth.

I saved the tooth bit in an empty pill box full of milk, but I don’t imagine we shall be reunited. Oddly enough, it doesn’t hurt… kinda put me off my dinner, though. A brief Google search informs that it will probably be capped or filled. They’d better do something - I have a razor-sharp edge that could cut my tongue to ribbons if I held it at a really peculiar angle and waggled it about, and let’s face it, I most certainly will.

So… life, innit. Tralala. Flatmate Man thinks the auxiliary pig is leaching calcium from my teeth and causing the disaster, but that seems impressively speedy for a pig who has, like, a teaspoon’s worth of bones right now. Google said it could be caused by tooth-grinding, for which I blame the snortlepig, who has recently been behaving badly… and my mother, because once when I was a child - and lying on a motel bed, I recall, though I do not know where - I ground my teeth softly for the first time ever and Mother said “Don’t grind your teeth” and I was like “Whoa, that’s grinding your teeth?” and then did it for years. True story.

On the bright side, this has given me a good baby name: Cuspid.

Well, it’s been such a hideously long time since I blogged here that there’s no way I can segue back in gracefully, so I’m just gonna do it via a Facebook-esque pretend fill-in-the-blanks quiz. K? Also, I’m only here because I’m supposed to be writing an article on child-led weaning.

I have not blogged for a hideously long time because… if I can put it real subtle-like, Operation Auxiliary Pig is go. I am eleven weeks pregnant. The previous nine weeks - gestation calculation being a weird and tricksy beast - have largely been spent horizontal, dizzy and abject. On the upside, the snortlepig has come up with a brand-new euphemism for upchucking - “spitting one’s dogs”. As in, “You gonna spit your dogs, Mummy?”. Current aversions include the smell of the butchery and fish aisles, large wodges of protein that require much chewing, and John Travolta - although the latter aversion significantly predates the pregnancy.

Also, practically my only sister got married last Saturday, which joyous occasion required me to make a dress for myself, ideally one which hinted at pregnancy rather than lax diet; a sort-of-flowergirl dress for the pig (she being cute in the face, but not responsible enough to do anything as vital as walking down the aisle); and a clockpunk wedding cake the size of THE WORLD. In between attacks of low blood pressure, of course. The smell of dried fruit soaking in sherry is strangely calming to the tum - why do you think this is? And as it turned out, the wedding cake was far more enormous than it had to be, and the father of the groom accidentally left the remains in the trunk of his car for several days after the wedding, but apparently it was still good. A really groggy fruit cake has the survival capabilities of a Twinkie made of roaches, and that is a comforting thing.

Today I reached the pinnacle of happiness when… I discovered a whole new method for cooking chicken. In the past, I’ve either made chicken stock by using the carcass from a roast, or by buying some frozen chicken carcasses from the butcher. Either way is fine - stock, yummy, frugalish. But the other day I sent Helpdesk Man out to buy the carcasses - a manly kind of task - and in his innocence he came back with a $13.99 bag of frozen chicken portions. So I was like “!” and then “.” and decided to roast the lot. So I did that, and poured off the juices into a jug, and then shredded the meat off the bones and used the bones for stock. And aha! I now had delicious stock, and enough shredded chicken meat to make toasted sammies, fried rice and a chicken pot pie, plus snacks for the pig, and a jug of delicious, nommy chicken fat with a kind of demi-glace beneath. And when you consider that a single pair of moderately-cup-sized Boneless Skinless go for $10 on a good day, this struck me as No Bad Thing. I will do this again.

My Christmas preparations are… happening. Smug? Why, yes I am. Today I bought the snortlepig’s first two presents - a packet of those twirly drinking straws to celebrate her recent mastery of drinking from them, and a pair of scissors with bees on. She also wants a baby Christmas tree. Where does one buy a baby Christmas tree? Also, this year I SWEAR I WILL MAKE STOLLEN. For the past decade and a half I have spent every year saying “Ooh, I should make stollen” and not doing it, and it has become like unto a splinter in my mind, driving me mad. Similar situation with hot cross buns, actually, but I conquered that this year.

Tomorrow night I am going to… watch Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part One, and eat a chicken Caesar salad at a nice-looking Italian restaurant. It is exciting. It’s a shindig for a friend’s birthday, but unfortunately she is inviting several friends I do not know, and they will probably be competent and scary and have coordinated handbags and haircuts that are actually styled, and maybe know secret things about bronzer that I do not. So I am naturally angsting about what to wear, and the pregnancy issue isn’t really helping; but in a fit of feminine competitiveness, I have decided to wash my hair. Only I was supposed to do it tonight and I forgot. I will, though. Probably. Or I could just pretend I had taken a vow.

The snortlepig is currently singing… “You Raise Me Up”. Only it’s “I am scared when I am on your shoulders”, which makes a deal o’ sense.

Two years ago today Helpdesk Man and I were staring glassily at the wall of a hospital waiting room while the doctors in their infinite wisdom decided my fulminating pre-eclampsia warranted immediate induction, but was not severe enough to warrant telling me about for eight hours, because really, since when is TOTAL ORGAN FAILURE AND MESSY DEATH worth a memo?

That wasn’t what I came here to say.

Right, yes, the snortlepig. She turns two tomorrow. With that in mind, I have decided to compile a list - non-exhaustive - of things she can do. Because frankly, her entrance into the world was a bit inauspicious. Helpdesk Man caught her head but dropped the rest of her, and when we tried to make her do the breast crawl she flailed around ineptly for twenty minutes until we gave up and latched her on. That was probably the point at which she correctly took us for suckers and decided she wanted to be held constantly for the next fourteen months.

Also not what I came here to say. Skills. Yus. At the age of two-tomorrow, the snortlepig can now:

• Knead bread very efficiently, sprinkling it with flour and squooshing it into submission. Typically she then becomes so proud of her work that she has to give the dough a little kiss. She is a sweetcheeks.
• Talk about rhinos, zebras, giraffes, monkeys, piggies, buses, flies, crocuses, trees, biscuits, chocolate mousse and a host of other notable things.
• Differentiate between motorbikes and scooters.
• Count. To eight, if you’re not too hung up on the number five.
• Lead an enjoyable and fulfilling life, despite suffering from a chronic case of helium bottom. This condition generally manifests when she is having the milks - slowly, her back legs straighten and creep until her hinder end is high up in the air, where it waves tranquilly in the breeze. Sometimes this is accompanied by an idle humming sound coming from the other end of the pig. The only temporary cure is to say sharply “Pig, helium bottom!” and squash the offending rear with an elbow.
• Wear two of the tiniest plaits you ever did see.
• Charm old ladies in the street by putting one finger in her mouth and beaming with sickening coyness. She did not get this from me. It confounds me mightily.
• Make up delightfully stream-of-consciousness songs. They usually go something like this: “An’ the treeees an’ the miiiiilks an’ the skyyyy, an’ Bobby Mouse, an’ pussies, an’ trees, an’ doggies, an’ buses, an’ the milks…”. Sometimes they last for entire car trips.
• Name her body parts, including her squish and her underchins.
• Demand “More singing onna screen, PEASE!”, which currently means YouTube clips of The Pirates of Penzance, and/or Copacabana.
• Gaze in rapt, un-Protestant adoration at a sleeping baby approximately forever, or until it wakes up.
• Play dead to avert punishment.

She can also do baby yoga, craft freeform upcycled fibre art and speak a little Swahili, but I didn’t want to make you feel bad. Happy birthday tomorrow, snortlepig!

Also, question: for how long after a snortlepig turns two is it appropriate and non-scarring to refer to her in public as Piggie or La Pigge? People are starting to give me Looks when I call her in the library.