Robin McKinley's Blog, page 84
August 28, 2012
Spiders etc.
IT’S GIGANTIC FRELLING SPIDER SEASON AGAIN. ARRRRRRRGH. IT’S NOT EVEN SEPTEMBER YET! ARRRRRRRRGH! But I’ve just dumped my second-in-two-days asteroid-sized spider outdoors muttering to myself I know you’re a house spider I don’t care it’s either outdoors or SQUISH.* It’s not even cold yet you have plenty of time to find some OTHER household to infiltrate before winter. Although I don’t think something that size can infiltrate. Like trying to introduce rhinoceroses by osmosis. No. Not going to work. I saw this vast creature out of the corner of my eye as I was bent over SHADOWS. It threw a strange, spiky SHADOW. . . . AAAAAAAAUGH.
Those made-for-purpose spider catchers are always TOO SMALL. Are they trying to make you think that the only spiders you will ever need to catch are SMALL? Is this some kind of reverse psychology? Oh, it’s a spider, well I’ll just get my proprietary spider catcher and scoop the sucker up, it’s just an OPTICAL ILLUSION that the spider is BIGGER THAN MY HEAD . . . AAAAAAAAAAUGH.
When I see a spider that is clearly bigger than my head I do not assume that I am suffering some strange optical delusion, I assume that it is BIGGER THAN MY HEAD and behave accordingly. Behaving in an appropriate manner involves a spare door and a medium-sized yurt, and you clap the yurt over the spider and then slide the door carefully so you don’t hurt the spider UNDER the yurt, thus trapping it between the two, and then you stagger desperately toward the door to outdoors, being OBSESSIVELY MINDFUL of the need to keep the yurt pressed in a vise-grip to the (as it were, unhinged) door . . . now entire theses have been written on the best way to get a yurt seamlessly crushed to a door through a door, and I wish to point out that it is a great deal easier if you have had the forethought to lay in a stable door for these occasions, so that you can use one half of it instead of the full rectangular array of a standard door . . . anyway. You contrive to get outside with your prize and are ignoring the burning in your hellhound-honed shoulder muscles and the faint quiver in your wrists, totter a step or two down the courtyard . . . to release the thing in front of the neighbour you don’t like. Psst! you hiss at it as it perches confused in the gravel. That way!
* * *
* And the truth is that some of my selfless generosity to spider kind is that I don’t want to squish anything that large.^
^ In my defense I don’t kill little spiders either. I don’t like killing things. I am a wuss, but I’m also kind of consciously and actively a wuss. I’m a meat eater but I try not to kill things+ unless I have a reason.++ Even if they have too many legs.+++
There’s been a conversation going on on the forum about Jared Diamond’s GUNS, GERMS AND STEEL. This book by a very weird piece of serendipity was literally next in the audible queue for listening to on Pooka while hurtling after I finished THINKING FAST AND SLOW, my doubts about that book’s reliability being what started the conversation about GUNS. And . . . I’m not all that far into GUNS yet. But what I am taking to be the assumption that the way human civilisation—make that ‘civilisation’—works is that you figure out a way to produce enough food surplus to start adding specialists like warriors and kings to your society and then you go look for some other less ‘advanced’ or organised or just smaller society, and kill them basically because you can . . . SO DEPRESSING I’m not sure whether I’m going to get much farther. Human being? No, I don’t want to be one. I’d like to come back as a carrot or a liver fluke or something like that please. Part of what makes it so depressing is that Diamond doesn’t seem to feel the need to say anything about it—maybe he does later? Maybe I was fending off the matched set of Rottweilers++++ while he addressed this point? Is this just human nature and the inevitable loop—or vicious circle—of history? Whimper. Diamond also mentions (blandly) that horses are the single most important military advantage of any army through the ages till World War I, which is still (barely) less than a century ago and I’m like . . . horses? Yes, all right, I’ve read this or something like this before, but it doesn’t make me hate it any less. Horses are prey animals and basically too biddable for their own good, which is why we’ve been able to make such inexcusable use of them. To use a prey animal that eats grass for a living and has been bred and trained to want to please you to kill people is just totally horribly WRONG.
Sorry. I must not be in a very good mood. I think the situation with the hellhounds is getting to me, and playing with adorable puppies who are going to have to grow up and go out into this Morons with Dogs world isn’t helping.
+ Things do of course include broccoli and carrots and soy beans, but even vegans have to eat something.
++ ‘Existence’ is sufficient reason for death if you’re a house fly or a mosquito however.
+++ Hee hee hee. You haven’t read SHADOWS yet.# Too many legs. Spiky shadows. Hee hee hee hee.
# Nearly. NEARLY. Yes, I know, I’ve been saying this for weeks. Still. Nearly.
++++ SPEAKING OF FENDING OFF ROTTWEILERS. Today @radmilibrarian tweeted THIS ENTIRELY FABULOUS LINK, Space Etiquette for Dogs: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lilita/6577001349/ arrgle arrgle arrgle arrgle. As I tweeted back to her, you, which is to say I, get to feeling so embattled that the very fact of this poster, which means that someone out there GETS IT, is a relief in itself—someone other than me and my friends and various people on the forum who have posted about their similar experiences of Morons# with Dogs. Not that this is the least bit of help the next time you meet a moron with a dog—and it does not address the aggressive off lead dog problem, but it’s still good for morale, and mine is pretty much bumping along the bottom about my dog plight at present.
I think I may have only realised yesterday, talking to southdowner after the Visitation of Puppies, but I have pretty well officially gone into Bunker Mode with the hellhounds after they unexpectedly added a third dog to their Most Loathed list: this is, of course, also a dog that has offered them major discourtesy in the past . . . but I don’t like the declaration of war business, and three dogs that my sweet lovely hellhounds will go ferocious for is three too ******* many, and that doesn’t cover that if I don’t have them on short lead at the outbreak of hostilities they’ll pull me over. Eighty-plus pounds of hellhound in full burst could uproot a small continent. THAT’S. JUST. GREAT. So . . . at present we’re hurtling almost totally in town on pavement, where it’s least likely we’re going to meet aggressive dogs, either on or off lead—although, because Morons with Dogs are amazingly moronic sometimes, it’s still not a sure thing. This is not my idea of true hurtling—true hurtling involves fields and trees and stumbling through tussocks and getting lashed in the face by brambles and so on—but unfortunately I think it’s our best option at the moment, till the hellhound reactivity level drops somewhat. A lot. Which is also to say that I hope it will. We’ve had bad seasons for aggressive dogs previously, but this is the first time that Chaos has joined Darkness in saying NO MORE MR NICE GUY. I used to hate it that Chaos would just stand there and squeak a little when some bloody asshat of a dog would roar up and bite him, but this is worse.
At least I can listen to books on Pooka as we stomp grimly around town. But I think maybe I need more cheerful books.##
# More reasons to come back as a carrot or a liver fluke. Just sayin’.
## Okay, you need a laugh too? @cambridgeminor tweeted this today: http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B004FTGJUW Bic for Her pens. Because of course us girls need special writing implements. Do not read while ingesting anything you don’t want to spit all over your keyboard.
August 27, 2012
Oh the adorable
So I was badgering poor southdowner because she’s my contact and I don’t want to annoy Olivia because she’s the one with the puppies.* I wasn’t sure today’s meeting was going to come off because it is of course a little ridiculous . . . and then I got a phone call from Olivia who said, Southdowner says you’re in New Arcadia. I used to know somebody who lived there. It’s not that far out of my way**. If you’ve got somewhere away from your own dogs*** I can bring them, I’ll swing past you on the way home.
Gibble gibble gibble, I said. Yaaaaaay. Third House. I’ll give you directions.
I got a text from her that she was running late†, so after our hurtle hellhounds and I went down to the mews as usual and engaged in our usual afternoon activities.†† I was just beginning to feel a trifle anxious that I hadn’t heard any more from her when I flipped open Pooka . . . AND DISCOVERED TWO TEXTS DECLARING HER ARRIVAL TWENTY MINUTES AGO. AAAAAAAAAUGH.†††
So I went boiling up there and . . .
Her eyes are open and she's looking at YOU.
But not all that open.
Southdowner says bull terrier noses are all pink at birth and then the little black spots accumulate.
I dare you NOT to look like a fatuous twit with a double handful of fluffy puppy.
I chose this one because in some of the other ones I look worse.
Lapful of puppies. Oh the adorable.
Clearly they find long rides in cars and/or hellgoddess laps pleasingly soporiphic.
Olivia says that Southdowner says this is also an unusually mellow litter for bull terriers. She tried not to look smug as she said this.
I reported this conversation to Southdowner who laughed sardonically and said, they’ll get worse later.
DIES. OF. CUTE.
Lapful of puppies redux.
I want to live forever surrounded by smiling puppies.
Whether or not they have future-Crufts-winning profiles.
Upside down. Yaaay.
b_twin_1
So is Olivia sizing you up for the next litter in a couple of years’ time?
Erm. She’s actually talking (clearly and distinctly) about breeding Lavvy again next year because she’s such a brilliant mum and these puppies are (I’m told‡) exceptionally gorgeous and Lavvy is old-ish (five, I think) for a first-time mum so if she’s good at it better get on with it.‡‡
And Lavvy herself is, of course, so charming it hurts.‡‡‡ Which wouldn’t have anything to do with it.§
* * *
* That would be puppeeeeeeeeeeez.
** This is a relative measurement, but probably everything in the entire south of England looks close to everything else to someone from Tiptoe on Cludge, which is the far side of Birmingham.
*** Unweaned puppies aren’t vaccinated yet, so you’re trying to keep them away from other dogs. One of my most hideously vivid memories of hellhound puppies—almost as hideously vivid as the digestive mayhem—is the MONTH I had to keep them effectively indoors, before their last lot of vacs. Baby things are cute so you won’t kill them? Yes.
† Which is a good thing, between my chronic lateness about everything, the Wee Hours Hurtle and the fact last-thing-before-bed supper is, and has now been for several months, the hellhounds’ worst meal^ . . . if we don’t get some aspect of this sorted soon, by January I won’t have seen daylight since October.
^ Don’t even ask about breakfast. I gave up on breakfast YEARS ago.
†† This would include the Lunch Ritual which today required two location moves for Darkness and three for Chaos, as well as Finger Plumping and the addition of Encouraging Morsels. Gaaaaaaah. The real reason I find bullies charming? THEY EAT.
††† Technology. It hates me.^
^ And the worst of it? I didn’t even offer her a cup of tea. I went straight from AAAAAAAAAAAUGH to AWWWWWWWWWWW and didn’t have another intelligent thought till after poor Olivia left. Probably gasping curses in my general direction.
‡ Southdowner, who has seen them several times, says they’re going to grow up to be stunning. Oh. Um. Southdowner—whose ear I bent extremely after this afternoon’s adventure—was trying to tell me even I could see the line of the nose and the breadth and angle of the jaw blah blah blah blah. Sure. I noticed that immediately.^
^ Awwwwwwww. Puppeeeeeeeez. +
+ Nothing like guinea pigs. And the noises they make are nothing like guinea pigs either. Nothing.
‡‡ Also while I agree that pounds and shelters are heaving with animals that already need homes and that breeders need to think twice, three times, and probably ninety-two times before they decide to breed^ . . . I also believe strongly that good bloodlines for good dogs need to be kept going. ^^
^ And the sooner puppy farms are closed down forever the better
^^ Which might mean, for example, if I found myself buying into this particular Crufts-winning-family bull terrier madness, that I might be asked to keep whoever s/he is unfixed in case someone wanted to breed her/him back into the gene pool.
† She has the successful snake-oil merchant’s ability to make you feel YOU ARE THE ONLY PERSON IN THE UNIVERSE AND HER BEST FRIEND. It’s not even necessary to produce cheese, raw liver or a dog biscuit. How amazing is that.^
^ Especially in a bull terrier.
‡‡‡ It? It what?
August 26, 2012
KES, 38
THIRTY EIGHT
Aladdin’s cave.
One end of the room had two crunched-up, comfortable-looking sofas and two big saggy chairs crammed around a low table invisible under its load of papers, magazines, remote controls and a surprising number of sets of headphones, an impressively huge flat-screen TV, a fireplace with a woodstove with a glass front, so you could watch the fire if there wasn’t anything on TV, and an enormous basket of firewood. The other side. . . .
There were paintings and pencil sketches taped or pinned to the walls and curtains, and canvases, notebooks and portfolios leaning against baseboards and chair and table legs. There was a lot of color. There was what looked like an orange and rust and gold and green knitted boa constrictor hanging from the ceiling in loops. It was surrounded by a shining pegasus (whose wings I would swear moved), several species of dragons and ditto of bats made of wood and wire and paper and fabric (that I recognised. There might be other, genie-sourced materials I didn’t know) and I thought one or two of the bats might be furry sprites. On the nearest wall, as I stood dumbstruck just inside the door, there was a cluster of flower drawings, pinned up haphazardly and overlapping, only some of which I could put names to: roses of all colors; daffodils both standard and nonstandard; big shaggy yellow and white daisies mixed up with tall black-eyed susans; blue pansies; maroon and mauve petunias; a huge lavender clematis with purple bars down its petals . . . and a pen-and-ink drawing of a girl sitting beside a stream, with her long hair trailing in the water. It was all black and white except for a wash of pale streaky blue that made the stream really run.
There was a big bay window with a window seat (decorated with pencils, pens, a tray containing bottles of ink, an open sketchbook, a mug of pipe cleaners and what I took to be one of the flying critters in an early stage of existence) at right angles to a long wall with French doors. I remembered Serena telling me that the reason she bought this house was for the way the sun came in the living room. It would be a different magic in daylight, but magic it certainly was. As I walked a couple of steps farther in, things twinkled: eyes flashed, there was a glittery heap of something half hidden behind the farther windowseat curtain that looked like it was made of netting and sequins—and the pegasus’ wings did move. I was relieved that the boa constrictor did not.
The long table in front of the French doors looked like it probably could be cleared off enough to put plates on, but it also looked like this hadn’t happened in a while. There were six chairs, and three of them had stuff on them: more books, more notebooks; strips of fabric, what looked like bunches of Chinese take-out chopsticks held together with rubber bands, a spool of green wire, what might be silver chenille yarn, a jar of buttons, another of pebbles, a vase of paper flowers, an iPod and another pair of headphones. There were three dented candelabra sitting on paint-spotted newspaper on one end of the table. One of them had already begun turning into something else.
My mouth was dangling open. I shut it.
Gus had collapsed on one of the sofas. He said, “This is her small, neat, well-organised space. You should see the barn.”
“It’s not a barn,” said Serena. “It’s a shed. And it gets cold in the winter. I haven’t moved out there yet this year, is all.”
“It’s a barn,” said Gus. “You can still see where the old stalls were. And you can’t watch TV from the shed.”
Serena grinned. “True. I am less motivated to move since Gus’ sixteenth birthday present was installed. The headphones, by the way, are so that Gus and friends can watch Ultimate Zombie Gross Out Body Part Bingo and I don’t have to know about it if I don’t turn around. The headphones were part of the deal.”
“Body Part Bingo is awesome. And I had to help pay. I had to help pay for my own sixteenth birthday present.”
“You are tragically exploited. It is very sad.”
I had wandered over to the table and was peering at various intriguing enigmas. “Feel free to fondle,” said Serena. “If I were a museum I’d have ‘please touch’ signs up. If you break anything it won’t matter. I’ll find something else to do with it.”
The metamorphosing candelabrum looked like it was going to become something tree-ish, with tiny dangling yellow fruits and delicate clusters of leaves. I touched one gently.
“FIMO,” said Serena. “I couldn’t do without FIMO any more than I could do without my sketchbooks. And yarn. And glue. And string. And toothpicks. And junk store junk. And the complete works of Steeleye Span.”
“And pieces of old cars,” said Gus from the sofa. “And logs that were supposed to go in the woodstove. And boulders.”
August 25, 2012
More puppeeeeeeeeeeeeez
blondviolinist
More puppy pics, please!!!! *
This is the little boy. Wooshs woosha woosha awwwwwwwww.
The global version. Good of my pink knapsack. And Lavvy. I'm taking a photo of one of the tricolour girls on Lavvy's other side.
Horsehair Braider
They almost remind me of guinea pigs at this age but I’m sure that will change rapidly as they grow. The mother is adorable, she looks like such a sweet dog.
I think they TOTALLY look like guinea pigs at this stage, and I meant to say so in the last blog and it got left out somehow. Puppies do have little blunt faces, and they’re all blobs to begin with** but in these guys’ case they’re going to grow up to be bull terriers so they get going early on a unique head shape.*** And Lavvy is a sweetheart, I’d be delighted to have a dog just like . . . er.
Lavvy and hellgoddess
Lavvy, hellgoddess, and little Prince Charming
blondviolinist
THEY’RE ALL TAKEN! I’M GLAD THEY’RE ALL TAKEN!
You keep using that phrase. I do not think it means what you think it means.
You are alarming me very much. There are three women, all of whom have had bullies before, and all of whom are (you should forgive the term) panting for a puppy from southdowner’s line, and the dad’s owners. THAT’S FOUR, ISN’T IT? FOUR PUPPIES. FOUR PEOPLE WHO WANT PUPPIES. IT’S OKAY IF I JUST WANT TO PLAY WITH THEM A LITTLE. And if Olivia giggles when she catches my eye . . . well, so what?
Little Prince Charming. Who doesn't have his eyes open. The girls were all getting theirs open. Ah, boys.
Yup. This is him again. This photo makes me laugh and laugh.
I could never cook to a recipe either.
Following exact directions is for wussies.
I have a friend who works in a yarn store, and she says I would be amazed at the number of knitters, both new and experienced, who creep into the shop trembling in fear because they have TAKEN A BREATH THAT WAS NOT IN THE PATTERN and have come to the nearest temple to the goddess† to be sacrificed.†† These must be young people, I said, beyond the rebellious teenage phase, who have settled down to be Contributing Members of Society, and still have a touching faith in the efficacy of rules.
No, she said. Mostly they’re your age.
What? How can you get this old and still believe in RULES?
. . . Anyway. I have finished my first KNITTED OBJECT TO GIVE AWAY!!!!! The NEW Secret Project #1 is COMPLETE!!!!! And . . . um . . . it doesn’t look much like the picture in the book, aside from my entirely necessary and called-for adaptations. Siiiiiiiiigh. I’m trying to decide if it’s the cute end of the ‘oh . . . dear’ scale or the . . .
I hope she doesn’t break anything when she falls down laughing. †††
Yin/yang. Although they're both girls.
Diane in MN
I don’t need a third dog! I couldn’t cope with a third dog!
We’ve had three dogs. Three dogs is exponentially more than two dogs. Two dogs is GOOD.
Um. I liked having three dogs. But all three of our whippets together would make about a third of a Great Dane (aside from the superabundance of legs, tails etc), and Peter was going on walks with me then which meant two more available lead-holding hands.
When we bred a litter years ago, we pretty much did nothing but puppies for two months . . . The operative phrase was “what life?”
I have the feeling that Olivia is finding it increasingly difficult to speak in complete sentences. And I’m not sure an expressed willingness to drive across half the country to take your puppies to tea with their dad is the sign of a balanced, rational mind.
And good for you, adapting your knitting patterns to what you want. I love this about knitting.
Well . . . so do I. But I’m not entirely convinced that it’s not a character flaw, before you know what you’re doing. Although you do tend to own the stuff you learn by doing it the hard way in a rich and comprehensive manner that you would just skate over if you were merely following directions. Then you’d be able to blame the directions.
Little open-eyed girl. She looks a little dazed, but she's trying.
Love love love. This is the little white girl.
AWWWWWWWWWW. This is the other one that makes me laugh and laugh. I guess I like upside down puppies.
* * *
* There is also a rumour . . . at present merely a rumour . . . that Olivia might be bringing The Four Cutest Puppies in the Universe (and their milk bar) to a location not hopelessly far away from here^, on Bank Holiday Monday, I think to show them off to the dad’s owner, who I think gets pick of the litter, which is to say the day after tomorrow.
If this proves to be the case I may have a little field trip on Monday.
^ I mean by my standards
** I’m sure I’ve told you many times how startling it is to meet your first whippet/sighthound/dramatic undercarriage litter and observe that they too are undifferentiated puppy blobs . . . with little blunt faces and tiny soft triangular ears.
*** http://robinmckinleysblog.com/2012/07/03/visitor/
† Of course there are many lovely male knitters. The god of knitting is nonetheless a goddess.^
^ She appears to me rather frequently, clutching her forehead and biting the ends of her beautifully decorated ritual needles.+
+ She has many, many sets of these, suitable for all occasions and high holy days. Many of them have teethmarks in them.
†† And their blood drained off and made into Blood Yarn. If they can make yarn out of milk they can certainly make it out of blood.^
^ It’s all about the protein solids. Ewwww.
††† Meanwhile I’ve got started on the second one. Got halfway through and . . . had to rip the freller back to a heap of rickrack. ARRRRRRGH. Some of you may remember my doing exactly the same thing to Secret Knitting Project Number One about a fortnight ago. I HOPE THIS IS NOT A NECESSARY PART OF THE SYSTEM. Arrrrrrgh.
Also, even I’m not insane enough to unwind the rest of the skein so I can’t tell by where the rewind ends how much remedial knitting I’m doing . . . but meanwhile being aware that I’m still FRELLING REKNITTING what I’ve already done once is SOMEWHAT FRUSTRATING.
August 24, 2012
Intellectual Rigour. But I never claimed to have it.
Okay, enough with the happy Peter Dickinson book news and the adorable puppy photos and all that chirpy stuff. I am still kind of reeling from a couple of days ago* which may help explain why this evening . . . I am having a CRANKY ATTACK.**
I’ve been reading a very interesting book, THINKING, FAST AND SLOW by Daniel Kahneman. It’s had a huge amount of positive press (as in this link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/dec/13/thinking-fast-slow-daniel-kahneman ) and is a mega best seller and as someone who is even more depressed by the FIFTY SHADES OF GREY phenomenon than she was at the TWILIGHT phenomenon, which was as low as I was expecting the common denominator to get***, I say splendid, and may it sell trillions. But . . .
I found the first half a lot more compelling than the second, although I’d been making occasional spluttering noises of disbelief or disagreement from the beginning†. But he lost me completely near the end.†† He decides to use LA TRAVIATA as a coat hanger to drape some stuff about the irrationality of human emotions over. And he gets details of the plot wrong. He says that Violetta’s lover, Alfredo, is an aristocrat. He is not. He is bourgeois. When Papa Germont comes to do the heavy-dad thing at Violetta and convince her to give Alfredo up for the sake of Alfredo’s family and especially his sister, innocent flower that she is, and about to be sold, I mean married, to a man who won’t have her if her brother is shacked up with a whore. There is no way this scene would work the way it works if Germont were an aristocrat. It might work some other way, but that’s not the opera Verdi wrote.
Kahneman goes on to describe the end: Violetta is dying surrounded by a few friends. She is NOT. She is ALONE, except for her maid, and occasional visits from her doctor, and the fact that the doctor who professionally declares the death sentence††† is treated like a friendly visitor underscores just how terribly alone she is.‡ This makes her last-minute reunion with her bourgeois lover and his thug of a father—who can afford to be generous because she’s going to be dead in a minute—infinitely more poignant. Someone might have written what Kahneman says Verdi wrote. But that’s not what Verdi wrote, and what Verdi wrote breaks your heart. Stuff irrationality.
But if Kahneman is this careless over such easily checked details, what else has he been careless about?
* * *
* The state of this society, in which I was born, grew up and am now growing old in, on the subject of sex, power and women’s rights, APPALS me. You all know about Todd Akin’s recent, fabulously grotesque remark that a woman’s body will reject rapist sperm so she won’t get pregnant? Uh-huh. That alone does my head in, but now read this, any of you who haven’t already, it was a popular retweet on Twitter a couple of days ago: http://www.xojane.com/it-happened-to-me/dear-representative-todd-akin-i-got-pregnant-from-rape Here’s the paragraph I wish to draw your particular attention to, emphasis mine:
Today, I am an attorney and the busy single mother of an amazing second grader. My rape is responsible for both of these roles. You see, I enrolled at GeorgetownLawSchoolafter learning, firsthand, that pregnancy from rape creates unimaginable obstacles for women who decide to raise the children they conceive through rape. In the vast majority of states, a rapist has the same custody and visitation rights to a child born through his crime as other fathers enjoy. In 2010, a paper I wrote on this topic was published by the Georgetown Law Journal, and I continue to travel throughout the country speaking on this issue.
I despair. Sometimes . . . I despair.
** If you want to put your iPad down and go hunt up your hellgoddess SPF 157 dark glasses at this point, that would be a good idea.
*** I AM BORED TO DEATH BY PORN, BOTH SOFT AND HARD^. And pretty much always have been. I went through a phase of watching quite a lot of, ahem, hard commercial porn, because it was all about sexual liberation . . . and is some of where I woke up to the reality of the fact that it isn’t. And the apparent fact that some form of tie-me-up-tie-me-down^^ is the fantasy du jour of gazillions of women today frelling desolates me. It makes me wish I was born on the second planet of Tau Ceti, where it’s all about tentacles and there are thirteen genders which are reassigned by blind ballot every other year.
^ I’m a Scorpio. We like sex. We think sex is great.
^^ No, I haven’t seen the Almodovar film, and I won’t. Sue me. I haven’t read FIFTY SHADES either. Yes, I read TWILIGHT. Well, most of it. I tried.
† I’m willing to entertain the possibility that to run experiments at all the lab coats have to simplify. But simplifying human beings’ reactions is risky. I’ve loaned my hard copy of the book to Gemma and have been listening on Audible while hurtling, so I can’t look up chapter and verse. But one example that sticks in my mind is about an experiment in—let’s call it compassion. A group of strangers are in a series of little booths, and each in turn has a chance to speak. A plant by the admin, when it’s his turn, says that he is inclined to fits when he gets stressed, this is stressing him . . . and then apparently goes off in a fit. The point is that almost none of the genuine guinea pigs attempts to go to his rescue, and this is supposed to prove that we’re less nice than we think we are.
Wait a minute. You mean nobody was screaming for the admin, phoning for an ambulance—okay, I don’t know if this was since mobile phones became ubiquitous—or demanding to know what the hell was the problem that whoever screened experimental candidates didn’t find out that one of their prospects might have a fatal fit from the stress of being in this study? Nobody either objected to the set up or smelled a gigantic rotting rat here? No, I don’t want to deal with a stranger having a fit, so, fine, I’m not a nice person. But I haven’t got a clue about fits^, and there ought to be safety precautions in place.
And something else I kept thinking over and over as yet another bunch of credulous humans fell in yet another trap laid for them by the devious lab coats, isn’t anyone ever suspicious when they’ve turned up for some kind of unspecified psychological testing and are shown into a booth or handed a page of curiously bland instructions?^^
^ Or perhaps I should say that on the blessedly few occasions that I’ve been the conscious human on the spot, the first thing I did was go for expert help.
^^ One of my terrible secrets is that I do sometimes read amazon reviews for nonfiction.+ THINKING gets mostly good customer buzz too, but the few objectors are instructive. This one pretty much reflects my feelings. http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/1846140552/ref=cm_cr_pr_hist_3?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addThreeStar&showViewpoints=0 And since I’m not sure how amazon customer review links work, the one I mean is by M D Holley.
+ If you’re looking for a basic Japanese grammar or a knitting reference book, your means of making even a semi-informed choice are limited.
†† Which I just listened to this evening and had to explain to the hellhounds since there was no one else around. Possibly because I was trying to explain it to the hellhounds.
††† The ridiculousness of the doctor declaring ‘she has only a few hours to live’ almost wrecks it. But not quite. Especially if you don’t speak Italian.
‡ Maybe Kahneman is confusing it with the end of La Boheme. Another heroine dying of tuberculosis in Italian, la la la la, who cares? I care.
August 23, 2012
Peter Dickinson stories
Peter’s TROLL BLOOD is the above-the-title headline story in the Sept/Oct issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/ *
You definitely want to read it. Here’s the beginning:
TROLL BLOOD
Mari was a seventh child, by some distance — an afterthoughtlessness, her father was fond of remarking. Moreover she had the changeling look, as if she had come from utterly different stock from her parents and siblings, with their traditonally Nordic features, coarsely handsome, with strong bones, blonde hair and winter-blue eyes. Mari was dark-haired, slight, with a fine, almost pearly skin that burnt in the mildest sun. Her face seemed never quite to have lost the crumpled, simian, look of the new born baby. Her mouth was wide, and her eyes, which might more suitably have been brown to go with her colouring, were of an unusual slaty grey.
This look, though only occasionally manifesting itself, ran in the family as persistently as the more normal one. There were likely to be one or two examples in any group photograph in the old albums — a grandmother, a great uncle killed in the resistance in the Second World War, somebody unidentified in a skiing party way back in the ‘twenties.
There was a story to go with the look. Thirty-odd generations ago a young woman was bathing in a lake when a troll saw her and took her to his underwater cave. Her handmaiden, hiding among the trees, saw what happened and carried the news to the young woman’s father. Her mother was dead, and she was his only child. He at once ran to the place and dived into the lake carrying an inflated goatskin weighted down with his armour and weapons. Breathing from the bag through a straw he found the cave, armed himself and fought the monster until it fled howling. Then he brought his daughter safely home. Nine months later, while her father was away, the young woman bore a son. . . .
TROLL BLOOD will also appear in
http://smallbeerpress.com/forthcoming/2012/05/15/earth-and-air/ which is available for preorder now
. . . with several other excellent stories. For example:
TALARIA
Varro escaped into the desert, as many, many slaves had done before him, whose bones now bleached among the dunes. Not his, though, or possibly not. It depended on the star maps.
Six weeks earlier, as part of the seven-yearly ritual cleansing of the household, he had been switched from his normal job in the stables and told to go and fetch and carry in the library, and there he had found the book. It was in Latin, a language few of these barbarians had bothered to learn – even Prince Fo’s librarian had little more than a smattering. He hid it aside, and in snatched moments – the librarian evidently detested the cleansing and kept no discipline – he read it.
It purported to be a geography of Timbuktu and the region around it, compiled from travellers’ accounts. Of course it was full of nonsense about Sphinxes and Sciopods and such, but here and there were patches of realism, details of trade routes and currency, descriptions of customs that Varro knew well from his five years in the city, and so on. The trade routes were no use to him. They were efficiently watched. The only hope was the desert. If you got a good enough start the bounty-hunters wouldn’t come up with you before they needed, for their own safety, to turn back. You could plod on, until the desert killed you.
To his astonishment and terror he found what he wanted, details of a forgotten route across the desert, far shorter than the still-used route around it, to one of Timbuktu’s distant trading partners, Dassun. Most of the account was sensible, apart from the odd absurdity about a demon-guarded spring. There were neat little star maps. Varro studied the pages, his throat dry, his heart pumping, his palms chilly with sweat. He was a saddler by profession. Five years ago he had come to Timbuktu to explore the possibilities of trading his wares in the city, to the displeasure of the local guild, who had had him arrested on a false accusation of debt. Not only all his stock but his own person had been sold to pay the imaginary sum, the judge openly pocketing a third of it. As he had stood in the slave market he had vowed to Mercury, god of travellers, that if the opportunity to escape came he would take it. This was his first true chance.
SCOPS
. . . “Look.”
He brought his hand out, moved to the lamp and cradled the fluffy scrap of life between his palms. It gaped up at them, blinking, apparently unalarmed. Euphanie craned over and studied it.
“A little scops owl, I think,” she said. “Where did you find it?”
“In the House of the Wise One.”
“You went there! And on a new-moon night, almost! Are you crazy?”
“I don’t know how I got there. I was drunk, remember. I’d no idea where I was. It was blind dark and I just finished throwing up and there was a flash of lightning and I saw this bird. It was only afterwards that I realised I was in the House, and I’d been leaning on the Bloodstone to throw up. Look, it’s hungry, what do owls eat?”
“Mice and voles and beetles and things,” she muttered, not thinking about it. “They swallow them when they’re hunting and cough them up for the babies when they get back to the nest.”
And then, after a pause, and more slowly, but still in a hushed voice, “Yanni, the owl, the scops owl, is the Wise One’s own bird. I think she brought you to her House. I think you were meant to find it. And look.”
She showed him the thing she had been about to throw into the dark when he had come home. It was a dead mouse, one the cat must have brought in, as it often did. . . .
He waited till Euphanie had lined a small bowl with bits of rag and then settled the owl into it . . . he sharpened a knife and with still trembling fingers skinned and gutted the mouse, filleted out the larger bones and chopped up what was left what was left. Not good enough, he decided. He didn’t think he could actually swallow and regurgitate the food, but he spooned some of it into his mouth, chewed it up bones and all, spat the mess into his palm, took a morsel between finger and thumb and eased it into the gaping beak. The owl simply looked at him, waiting, so with the tip of his little finger he poked the mess as far as he could down the gullet. Now the owl closed its eyes and its beak and with a look of extraordinary blissful smugness gulped the mess down and gaped again. When it had eaten all his first chewings he repeated the process. Euphanie, normally fastidious about everything they ate, watched without protest.
“Do you think it will live?” he asked her.
“If the Wise One sent it,” she said, broodingly. “Yanni, Nana Procephalos kept an owl.”
“Lots of people do.”
“Not any longer. Not since . . .Yanni, don’t tell anyone you’ve got it. If they find out, don’t tell them where you found it. Say the cat brought it in.”
Yanni was scared. . . .
He was thinking about Nana Procephalos, and what had been done to her.
I will post a few more seductive snippets when the book is available.**
* * *
* As I link this, the July/Aug issue is showing. Be sure to order the right one. Or buy both, of course.
** Ditto as the backlist starts being reissued. Yaaaaaaay.
August 22, 2012
KES, 37
THIRTY SEVEN
Serena took the tin foil off the top of a dish sitting on the counter and slid it into the oven.
“Hummus is good on most things,” I said. “Including spoons and fingers.” There was a bowl of apples on the table. “Certainly including apples.” I picked one up, groped in my pocket for my jackknife, and cut it up. I put the four quarters on a plate from the dish drainer, found the trash and dumped the core. I picked up the spoon, dolloped hummus on the apple pieces, and pushed the plate into the center of the table. “Hummus is one of my comfort foods,” I said. I picked up the quarter nearest me and bit into it. Gus hastily grabbed another one and jammed the whole thing in his mouth. I could see his face relax as he discovered it was pretty good. “I once ate hummus on a brownie for a dare,” I said. “This was not wholly successful but it wasn’t terrible either.”
Serena picked up a quarter and bit into it thoughtfully. “Hmm,” she said. She looked at the remaining quarter on the plate. “Nice texture.”
“Mom,” said Gus. He looked at me. “Texture is one of her art words.”
“I never waste food,” said Serena. “But. Yeah. I like the rough pale grain of the hummus against the white of the inside of the apple. And I like the smooth-smooth and the rough-smooth in your mouth, like smooth is the blind touch equivalent of color. . . .”
“Uh oh,” said Gus. “Multi-media.”
Serena smiled and shook her head. And ate the rest of her piece of apple. And picked my sticky jackknife up off the table, cut the last quarter into thirds, and passed them around.
“Multi-media?” I said tentatively.
Gus said, “She does everything. She draws and paints and does stuff with clay and wire and fabric and wood and stone. If she’d let me make her a web site she’d sell more of it.”
Serena said, “It’s not that simple.”
“What’s not simple?” said Gus. “You make something. We take a photo of it. You tell me a price. I put the photo and the price on your web site and then someone buys it.”
“My agent,” said Serena, “back in the callow and credulous days when I had an agent, used to say that you needed to build a recognisable brand. I’m very bad at this. I’ve always been very bad at this. I’m always going off in some new, wrong, uncommercial direction with some new, wrong, uncommercial material. Which is why my agent fired me.”
“He fired you because he is an asshole,” said Gus.
“Language,” said Serena, but without heat.
Gus turned to me. “My uncle Broderick says that my mom’s agent stopped representing her because she refused to sleep with him and that he’s the kind of arrogant prick that can’t stand to be turned down.”
Serena’s head snapped up. “What?” she said. “Brod said that? He knows so much about the east coast art scene from the sheriff’s office of a town that makes New Iceland look metropolitan? When did he tell you this massive load of bu—hogwash?”
“Last time I was there. He said I was old enough to know the truth and he was tired of you pretending it was because you weren’t good enough.”
“What makes Brod think he knows Caravaggio from Elvis on velvet? His idea of great art begins with The Oatmeal and ends with xkcd. Oh gods,” said Serena. She turned to me. “I’m so sorry. You must be longing for a nice quiet hamburger at McDonald’s.”
“Are you kidding? This is the best time I’ve had in months. Who is Broderick?”
“One of my brothers,” said Serena grimly. “One of the adopted ones. Different gene pool.”
“He thinks it’s bad for me to grow up thinking that my mom sacrificed her career to bury herself in the country and raise me.”
“I hope this doesn’t mean he thinks I should have slept with Russ, who is an asshole, and who, I admit, did seem to find more placements for his bedmates than for those of us whom he only knew by portfolio. Did you ever think I buried myself in the country to raise you?”
“No,” said Gus. “I thought you buried us in the country because you didn’t have any money.”
“Good boy,” said Serena.
“But you’d have more money now if you let me build you a web site.”
“No,” said Serena.
“Why do you have to have a brand if you’re selling one-offs on your very own web site?” I said.
“Hey, Mom, listen to her,” said Gus. “If she lets me start a web site, I’ll give you a free mow.”
“Better wait and check how big the lawn is first,” I said.
“It would be totally worth it,” Gus said. “Want to see some of my mom’s stuff?”
“I’m dying to see some of your mom’s stuff,” I said. “But I thought asking might be counterproductive. I need a ride back to the motel. If I have to walk when your mom throws me out I’ll get lost and then the giant wilderness crickets will eat me.”
Serena snorted. “Come on.” She stood up, went back into the hallway, and opened a door.
August 21, 2012
August puppies
Mockorange
Happy Birthday Hellhounds! They really are incredibly beautiful.
Thank you! As I tell other people regularly—and myself even oftener*—eye candy is one of the things they’re for.
And have so much leg! I’ve been trying to trace how they have folded it all up in order to lie down successfully in the dog beds and on the sofa. I think an extra hellhound leg dimension must be in play.
That would explain it. I have often wondered. The previous generation, while whippets, and smaller, used to curl up into incredibly tiny little parcels. Hazel, the smallest of the three and who weighed about nineteen pounds but was slightly above (my) knee height at the shoulder, used to sleep on my chest, and Chaos, the smaller hellhound, fits on my lap, more or less, except I can’t stand the weight for long.
August seems to be a popular time to have puppies. Not only hellhounds and bullies, but Holly, of the previous generation, was also an August baby. I mean puppy.
Diane in MN
Belated happy birthday to the beautiful boys. Their expressions–especially Chaos, looking a little worried–remind me of Teddy’s. Not Tasha’s–she’s either looking at something with intent or has her eyes closed. Teddy will just LOOK. Must be a boy thing.
It certainly seems to be more of a boy thing. Both the hellhounds have it, although in the previous generation, Hazel could worry for England.
semi-nostalgic** puppy pictures
I absolutely agree with the “semi.” I’m a sucker for a puppy, but would much rather live with a dog!
Fortunately ALL FOUR of those adorable bullies are taken. I don’t need a third dog! I couldn’t cope with a third dog!** And furthermore the puppy thing is only six years ago in this household! The memory has not faded sufficiently!***
skatinglibrarian
And did you notice that the pink puppy paws go with the pink All Stars?
Actually I hadn’t. But you’re right. Of course. And I admit I was wearing pink All Stars in their honour. And the pink coral rose round my neck. The violently pink knapsack was mere serendipity.
. . . I was given on book on knitting cats which I think will hold me for a while. I understand there is a companion volume for dogs … maybe it can keep you safe from the temptation of darling puppies.
THEY’RE ALL TAKEN! I’M GLAD THEY’RE ALL TAKEN! And . . . yes.
Diane in MN is (shockingly) correct, there is no Great Dane. Perhaps we should organise a letter-writing campaign toward the second edition? But it does have quite a good whippet. Which, some day, when I’ve overcome my automatic abject terror of the mere idea of 2.25 mm needles and rows that go: cast on 2, knit 3 rows, increase to 20 . . . WHAT? HOW DO YOU INCREASE SEVENTEEN STITCHES FROM THREE? No, no, don’t tell me, I’m not ready.
Also . . . the whippet’s neck is too short. It may just be the photo, and the fact that there’s a little knitted collar over the little knitted neck. But when I get around to attempting this I will be poised to try adding a row to the neck.†
blondviolinist
More puppy pics, please!!!!
There will certainly be more puppy pics. Both southdowner and Olivia have promised to send me some of the ones they took, so it may be a day or two (since they have lives, although, at the moment, Olivia, not so much). ††
I retreated to one of those old fat square objects with actual paper pages that you turn by grasping them individually with your fingers.
It’s a good thing you had one along! (I suppose the Heaviest Knapsack in England is heavy for a reason.)
ONE? I had TWO. And that was even when I thought all half-gazillion ebooks on Astarte would be readily available. I was also carrying almost 300 pages of SHADOWS print out. . . .
* * *
* THEY DIDN’T EAT THEIR FRIGBLATTING LUNCH YESTERDAY. They’ve been better, recently, and it’s not a bad idea if someone else feeds them occasionally just so this tight little hellgoddess/hellhound vortex doesn’t disappear up its own fundament. I assumed it would be okay—I told the dogminder to leave it down if they didn’t eat it at once. I didn’t discover the Awful Truth till we got back to the cottage very very late last night/morning. Peter had told me they had eaten dinner (at the mews), but did not add (till I tackled him this morning) that they’d been dubious about it. ARRRRRRRRGH. Meanwhile I was up till an even sillier hour than usual last night because they were NOT going to miss supper, if I had to stay awake till noon.^
And then today they needed what, by our somewhat unusual standards, was only a mild level of fuss: One Scene Change, from Bed to Kitchen Floor, and One Plumping Up of Food by Hellgoddess Fingers with Perhaps a Few Extra Crumbs of Chicken for Interest.^^ I was expecting something much more exotic and drawn out. You still can’t really tell your dogminder to wait five minutes, move the bowls, and then stir up the food with her fingers and sprinkle a little more chicken on top. THIS IS WHY I NEVER GO ANYWHERE.
IT’S JUST A VERY GOOD THING HELLHOUNDS ARE CUTE.
I did look on rather wistfully yesterday when Olivia put Lavvy’s supper down and it disappeared at almost supernatural speed. Siiiiigh. I know she’s a nursing mum and everything but . . . ^^^
^ I would have failed to stay awake till noon. But I might have been curled up in crate with hellhounds by about eight-thirty.
^^ Since there are upper limits about the NUMBER OF ROASTING CHICKENS I’M WILLING TO BUY, and because I’m not entirely stupid, I now hold back a few crumbs of chicken for these purposes. I wouldn’t put it past hellhounds to count, but I only started doing this after they began their latest incursion of nonsense so they have only themselves to blame.
Like we’re playing by the same rules.
Sigh.
^^^ ALL RIGHT. I’LL SAY IT. IT WOULD BE VERY NICE TO HAVE A DOG THAT EATS. SIIIIIIIIIIGH.
I was thinking, last night, at mmph o’clock, as we had our Late Hurtle, that this would be the answer to having . . . a dog, rrrrmph, like a bull terrier, like any of the fighting breeds. I love bullies and Staffies, but I wouldn’t dare have one because I’d be too worried about its bred-in-the-bone fighting instincts: I imagine I could get my point across about who gets to tell whom to sit and pick its feet up to have its harness put on, but what about all the morons out there with their aggressive off lead dogs? It’s like I had to drive slower in my little red MGB+ because if you’re driving a red sportscar you’re an automatic malfeasant and the copper will be writing the ticket before he even looks at the radar read out. If the hellhounds do some snapping and snarling (at a dog that attacked them first) they’re just being testy. If a bull terrier snaps and snarls it’s a dangerous brute because everyone knows bull terriers are vicious killers.
So the obvious answer is hurtles after midnight when there’s no one else around.++
What a good thing all four of the puppies are ALREADY SOLD.
+ This was in Maine in the days of 55 mph.
++ Although even this is not a perfect system, especially Friday and Saturday nights. We were ambling gently homewards this past Saturday, and a group of three young people who clearly Had the Drink Taken were ambling, also gently, toward us. I wouldn’t want to risk my life on it, but generally speaking I feel I can tell when a group of drunks is menacing, and these were not. I was, however, amused, when the one nearest me swerved away from his mates to walk toward me (and hellhounds) with his arms outstretched, saying, “I’m ready!” “No, you’re not,” I said, not breaking stride, and neglected to add that the paucity of illumination from the streetlights was preserving his dignity from the revelation that he was making overtures to a woman old enough to be his grandmother.
** I retweeted this earlier^, and it made me laugh and laugh: @DwightGarner: Hard to walk three dogs without looking as if you’re training for the Doofus Iditarod.
And speaking of the joys of Twitter, this: http://exp.lore.com/post/29915445613/dog-topography-from-the-1973-childrens from @brainpicker
^ This is a Twitter verb, for those of you sensible people who stay far, far away from the silliness.
*** Of course this particular puppy thing included extensive doubled-ended geysering from both hellhounds, which is more traumatic—as well as more expensive—than the standard.
† Begin as You Mean to Go On. I have finished two pairs of leg-warmers and am—astonishingly—about to finish my first Secret Project. I produced the first pair of leg warmers more or less per the recipe, I mean the pattern. The second pair is adapted to the fact that it’s the wrong gauge wool (and they came out fine). The first Secret Project is adapted (I hope) to its eventual possessor. First Cardi is adapted to me, because I want it short not long—except for the sleeves, which I want longer, and (on advice from some wise friend or other) I’m knitting the first few cuff rows on smaller needles so they don’t frelling bell the way they do in the photo.
I could never cook to a recipe either.
†† And I suppose it’s JUST CONCEIVABLE I might go up again . . . when more of their eyes are open and walking involves getting the belly off the ground . . . with a spare battery for Pooka so I can listen on the train while I knit.
August 20, 2012
AWWWWWWWWWW. PUPPEEEEEEEEEEEEZ.
And I am a sober old woman.* And sane.** And rational.*** And . . .
PUPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEZ.
So . . . anyone who knows southdowner knows that she has bred some amazing, top-flight, frelling Crufts-winning best-of-breed mini bull terriers.† But she has Given Up Breeding Dogs. Oh come on, I say. Just one litter. One small litter. Puppies are so cuuuute.††
No, says southdowner.
YOU’RE NO FUN, I say.
I’m very, very sorry, says southdowner.
But a while ago one of the women who owns a bitch southdowner bred rang her up and said she wanted to try to breed her bitch, but she’d never done this before, and could southdowner give her some advice. Southdowner failed to talk her out of this mad plan, although she tried, and one thing has led to another, and about a fortnight ago four puppies were born. Southdowner has sent me some of the photos Olivia has sent her, and she’s been making vague noises about going up to visit her grandpuppies and . . . about a week ago she said she was going to take the day off this Monday and go, and did I want to come along?
Is chocolate a food group?†††
. . . I have spent nearly all day on the frelling TRAIN. Southdowner lives outside Birmingham somewhere, and Olivia lives up beyond that. What I know is that I decanted at the downtown New Street Birmingham station‡ and promptly found my way (following the signs! I was following the SIGNS!) to an exit so small and obscure that not only southdowner had never heard of it, but the members of staff she asked couldn’t tell her how to get there.‡‡ And we then drove . . . and drove . . . and drove‡‡‡ and eventually . . .
Southdowner went through a curious phase of naming the dogs she bred after food. There are Noodles and Onion and Celery and Beefy and . . . I forget who all.
Meet Baklava. (When I’m not snarling about sleeve length, it’s very useful having long arms.)
AKA Lavvy
Lavvy thinks having puppies is wonderful. Especially if it gets HER more attention.
PUPPEEEEEEEEEZ.
AWWWWWWWWWWW.
Every litter has a dominant thug, right? This is Big Girl. If a puppy stack remains static long enough, she will end up on top.
Yup. That's her again. Southdowner pointed this out. I was fully occupied going 'Awwwwwwww.'
Oooooooh the little FOOT.
A pup in the hand is worth three in the dog bed.
Smiling!!!!!
How can you resist a puppy who crashes out on YOUR lap???
IT’S A VERY GOOD THING ALL FOUR OF THEM ARE ALREADY SPOKEN FOR.§
* * *
* With two hellhounds.
** Ha ha ha.
*** Ha ha ha ha ha.
† ‘Mini’ being a relative term. When a bull terrier is standing on your foot—and if there are bull terriers around, one of them will be standing on your foot—it weighs as much as a medium-sized pony. A medium-sized pony wearing steel shoes. I have a theory that the idea for mini bulls began with a lot of standard bull terrier owners with sore feet.
†† And move to Hampshire first. So that I can come round and play with them.
††† Yes.
‡ After an interesting journey that included things like the rail staff admitting they didn’t understand the new seat-reservation system either^ and a staff member coming round with a small blind man on his arm, whom he installed in the seat next to mine. He wasn’t quite blind: he spent the time reading the Bible one word at a time through a gigantic hand-held lens. Lunchtime came for normal people and he pulled out a sandwich in a plastic container, like what they sell at the shop on the platform before you get on the train.
Rustle rustle rustle. Rustle. Rustle rustle. I wasn’t paying a lot of attention. Eventually he said: Excuse me, I cannot open this.
I did eventually get the sucker open but ](*&^%$£”!!!! do they want you to starve to death?? I nearly pulled my jackknife out and stabbed the frelling package, but in this day and age I was afraid it might freak people out. (Not my seat companion, who wouldn’t have been able to see what I was doing.) And in the process I got cheese and pickle on my hands arrrrrgh.
^ There was someone sitting in what I was reasonably sure was my seat. But the train was heaving , and I didn’t want to throw her out because she’s a little old lady and I’ve sat on the floor before and I have my knitting. It somewhat belatedly occurred to me that I could be classed as a little old lady . . . but she didn’t look like someone who would be very happy sitting on the floor.
So to speak
I had an entire separate bag entirely devoted to knitting.# I wanted to be sure I didn’t get bored if we were delayed. And then I found out that Pooka’s battery wasn’t going to last anything like long enough to knit and listen to Audible ## the whole way, and neither was Astarte’s battery going to last if I read an ebook### . . . so I retreated to one of those old fat square objects with actual paper pages that you turn by grasping them individually with your fingers. They last forever, and you don’t have to recharge them or anything.
# This aside from the Heaviest Knapsack in England
## http://www.audible.co.uk/t1/BRD399?source_code=GRLDisc1Bk90ETSH121911
### So I can buy a Kindle or a back up battery. TECHNOLOGY. GAAAAAAAAH.
‡‡ Mobile phones absolutely have their uses however. If it weren’t for our mobile phones we might both still be wandering the farther reaches of the Bull Pen. So it’s a good thing I hadn’t killed Pooka’s battery listening to Audible.
‡‡‡ Okay, there was a stop on the way to buy freshly made organic cakes.
§ There may have to be More Puppy Pictures.
August 19, 2012
KES, 36
THIRTY SIX
“Can I help you cut things down? I love cutting stuff down and so it shows, you know? The jobs I get are mostly just mowing and trimming stuff that’s looked like that forever and except they pay you you might as well have stayed home. Oh. You’re the one who’s just moving in to an old house, right? Maybe Mike’ll loan me some tools.”
“Mike’s selling Kes Merry,” said Serena.
“Mike’s selling you Merry?” said Gus. He brushed some of the hair out of his eyes so he could stare at me better. “Wow.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m feeling a little wowed, but more from a ‘I wonder if they make snow tires for Vespas’ direction.”
Gus laughed, rather to my surprise. Either he was working on his successful entrepreneur routine or he had a surprising tolerance for feeble grown-up humor.
“You can hang your coat there,” said Serena, nodding at a tall round coatrack, mostly invisible under various semi-identifiable garments. I was pretty sure I recognised black velvet as well as tattered jersey hoodie and standard waterproof parka. I flung my jacket over a hummock and turned to follow. “We’ll eat in the kitchen,” said Serena, starting down the hall.
“That’s because Mom has her stuff all over the living room,” said Gus. “When I do that I get in trouble.”
“We can eat the hummus,” said Serena. “I bought crackers. I thought the quiche might be slightly delayed.” She looked at her son. “That’s because you have the attic. That was the deal. You got the attic in exchange for staying in the attic. And the only other big working surface in the house besides what you’ve got your computers all over is the dining table. Which we do manage to eat off of occasionally. But I don’t need to clear it for just the three of us.”
“Yah,” I said. “What was that?”
“What was what?”
I took a step backward and waved my arms around. “That. The Arctic blast. Or Antarctic. If I’m going to freeze to death I want penguins.”
“Did you think I didn’t mean it, about the cold spot in the front hall?”
“Um,” I said. “Yes.” Except I couldn’t find it again. Yes, it was a little chilly in the hall but. . . . There it was—no it wasn’t—I was not imagining things—was I?
I didn’t say it aloud, but Serena answered, “It likes its little joke. Now that it’s got your attention it’ll’ve run away and hid. First grade sense of humor, our cold spot. Mostly it’s there—and it’s actually pretty good about being there in August, Gus and I have been known to bring a couple of chairs and the floor lamp in here. I therefore choose to assume it’s benign. But it can’t resist doing a number on a new person. And if you’re thinking I might have warned you, come up with something I could say that doesn’t sound like a failed artist who has to earn a living checking people in and out of a motel trying to make herself sound interesting, and I’ll consider it.”
“You’re not a failed artist,” Gus said at the same time as I said, “But you have a cold spot in the front hall.”
“Whatever,” said Serena. She went into the kitchen and we followed her. I liked her kitchen. It was messy and had piles of books everywhere, and postcards and pictures torn out of magazines taped on walls and cupboard fronts. What you could see of the walls was burnt orange and turquoise. She pulled the hummus out of the refrigerator and put it on the kitchen table. Which was plenty big enough for four—possibly with the caveat that no more than two of them were teenage boys, and that the piles of books and magazines did not creep any farther out from the wall. There was a basket of yarn on top of the tallest pile. Serena put a spoon on the table next to the hummus and opened a cupboard door. “I bought those crackers you like, Gus,” she said. “The ones that are different kinds in the same box. What on earth did I do with them?”
Gus had, I thought, gone strangely still for a teenage boy. Awareness of this transferred itself to his mother and she turned around and looked at him. “Um,” he said. “Um. I. Um. Ate them.”
Serena slowly closed the cupboard door and sat down at the table. Slowly. Stared at the hummus. It was in a small round green pottery pot. She’d taken the lid off when she put it on the table.
“You didn’t say they were for dinner,” said Gus.
“No,” Serena said. “You’re right. I didn’t.” There was a little silence. She sighed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s been a long day. I should be remembering the fabulous imported Italian breadsticks I picked up the other day when I was visiting a friend in Tenerife, but I must have left them on the plane.”
The timer went ping.
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