Dublin City Map (Travel Reference Map)Travel map of the city in color shows roads from through routes to minor roads; pedestrian streets and footpaths; railways; airports; places of interest; information; hospitals; churches; post offices; shopping; accommodations; more. With street index; transit system map; Greater Dublin map. Main map scale 1:10,000. Distances in meters and feet. Printed on one side.
dublcitymap
Every Friday afternoon, whilst up and down the country workers recieve early parole from their stuffy offices to go to bars and pubs, I sit in our kitchen and grumble at Helen. Rather than looking forward to the weekend as a time of relaxation, I moan about how little I appear to have done over the preceding five days. As a result of my perception, the concept of time-off over the coming 48 hours does not seem so appealingly different from time-at-table, with books in front of me.
When you think about the numbers, doing a PhD in an arts subject should really be little effort. I have to write about 80,000 words, in three years, which works out at around 500 words a week, or 100 a day. No wonder, then, that I feel like I do little on a week by week basis. Of course, behind every word I write are several more books and papers read, not to mention emails written, lectures and seminars attended, discussion groups done and games of Yetisports played. In spite of the fact that in theory I need to write so little, I seem to manage to fill my weekdays from 9 to 5 just as any other office worker does. Indeed, unlike many office workers, my days are not spent in distracting coffee room banter or chatting about marketing strategies, but head down, pen up, solitarily in front of a book and a desk. So, Helen suggests, I should keep a diary of what I have actually done during a typical week of PhD research. Over the next five days, that’s what you’ll get, then, on this blog…
Update: Once again, Patrick Tomlin of the Guardian beats me to it: he writes on Monday about a typical day in the life of a politics PhD research student.
Research by Alliance & Leicester shows that just 2.3 million UK adults have found their dream property, while the rest are simply making do.Mortgage holders were asked, on a scale of one to ten, how emotionally attached they were to their homes, with the average rating being just 5.83.This means that most Brits see their current home as a halfway house and most would rather live somewhere else.Alliance & Leicester suggests that this may be down to the fact that many people are so desperate to get onto the property ladder that they will accept anything.The firm also points to an increasing number of new-build flats that lack character and are primarily seen as an investment by young buyers.”It seems people are happy to move into a property that isn’t their ideal, in order to move up the property ladder and reap the benefit of rising house prices,” said Stephen Leonard, director of mortgages at Alliance & Leicester.”More and more people seem to be looking for property on the basis of an investment, rather than buying their dream home.”The research also found that location is the most important factor when choosing a home, followed by price.
(Note: Although Postcards from the Mothership is now live at http://danigirl.ca/blog, I’m continuing to cross-post for a couple of weeks until I get all the kinks out. See the original post at Smuggs-getaway-part-1)
***
We’re freshly back from our weekend getaway to Smugglers’ Notch Resort in Vermont.**
First of all, I’m thinking of ditching my career as a public servant and joining the professional Segway tour. What, they don’t have one? Seriously, this has been one of the best summers of my life, and the best 90 minutes of an amazing weekend during a fabulous summer may just have been those spent zipping around Smugglers’ Notch Resort on this Segway. Who knew - turns out I’m a natural! But more on that later…
We got off to a slow start. We were about an hour late leaving Ottawa, and had to turn back after 15 minutes when our first portable DVD player crapped out on us. (I think there was a short in the adapter.) So we turned around and went back to get our backup DVD player, which crapped out on us outside of Montreal, about 1/3 of the way into the trip. Then we chose Autoroute 20 instead of Autoroute 40 to get through Montreal, which I’m sure added another 45 minutes to our trip.
Despite the fact that I had ground my molars into a fine powder by the time we reached the Canada-US border, the rest of the trip was so gorgeous - through pastoral countryside, alongside winding streams through charming small towns and up into the Green Mountains - that I had once again achieved inner peace (or at least unclenched my jaws) by the time we arrived at Smuggs about five hours after we left.
I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the condo we stayed it superceded just about anything I could have possibly imagined. First of all, it was HUGE! We took one look around and almost called Granny and Papa Lou back in Ottawa to tell them to pack a bag and get down to Vermont to join us - there was more than enough room to share, and it was immaculately clean. The living room, bigger than ours at home, had a gas fireplace, a sectional sofa that pulled out into a double bed, and a dining room table that would comfortably seat eight people.
Lookit all the windows!
The second bedroom had two single beds AND a double bed. (I’m sprawled on the double as I take this photo.)
The master bedroom had a king size bed and its own ensuite with a whirlpool bath.
There were four(!) TVs placed strategically through the condo, including one perched on a shelf high above the whirlpool tub… perfect for a leisurely soak while watching COPS - or, erm, whatever else you might want to watch on a Saturday evening.
It was late in the afternoon by the time we finished wandering openmouthed around the condo, waiting for someone to leap out with a camera and say, “Surprise, we were just kidding you. You really think we’d give you all this for FREE**? Hah! Not friggin’ likely!” Nobody did, and so we set off to do a little bit of exploring of the resort itself.
Smuggs is sprawled over the base of three mountains: Madonna, Morse and Sterling. There are several ‘communities’ of condos, some owned outright, others owned and rented out through the resort. The condo we stayed in was in the Sycamore group in the West Hill community, and had its own pool and playground adjacent to the condos.
It didn’t take us long to find the Funmeister’s Clubhouse, a small arcade with video games, ping pong tables and the boys’ new favourite summer pastime, air hockey.
Smuggs has no less than eight pools and four waterslides! On that first afternoon, we tried the Mountainside Pool with its Little Smugglers’ Lagoon, a shallow pool (not quite waist-deep on the boys) with caves for exploring and spraying fountains.
Since the condo’s kitchen was better stocked with cookware and tools than my kitchen at home (including a glass-topped range, dishwasher, blender, toaster and - wait for it - en suite washer and dryer!) we could have easily just made dinner back at the condo. But, of course, we didn’t. Instead, we dined on pizza and pasta dinner at Riga Bello’s, one of several restaurants at Smuggs. Given that it was cafeteria-style counter service at resort prices, it was a surprisingly good meal that the boys actually ate. Nothing like fresh air to stimulate the appetite!
So how do you end a day like this? With Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, of course.
Can you believe I was a Ben and Jerry’s virgin before this trip? After sampling Simon’s chunky monkey (it’s as if they named it after him!), Beloved’s chocolate chip cookie dough, and his own chocolate, Tristan voted my berry sorbet to be the best flavour of the lot.
And all that was just the first six hours!!
Coming next: Segway tours, day camps, and the world’s longest canoe trip…
**Disclosure: I was offered a complimentary visit to Smugglers’ Notch Resort after Smugg’s PR folks read my Ottawa to Bar Harbor posts earlier this summer. Our condo and all activities were complimentary but in no way conditional on a favourable review.
Printed from St. Petersburg Times, March, 2006
People’s Pharmacy Column
My pet potbellied pig, Bradford, was down for six weeks with a disc problem in his back. We tried everything to help him, including prednisone. What finally saved him, just before the vet was set to euthanize him, was turmeric. A friend recommended giving him curcumin pills. Once Brad ate them, his recovery was almost a miracle. I also have another pig, Snippet, with arthritic front feet who is getting turmeric daily and shows improvement. Have you ever heard of using turmeric or curcumin for animal pain relief? I’m not aware of any side effects.
Reply from People’s Pharmacy: Thanks for sharing the success you’ve had for Brad and Snippet. We don’t know anything about pig medicine, be we hear from many humans that turmeric, or its active ingredient curcumin, can relieve inflammation. Turmeric is the yellow spice in curry powder and mustard. Scientists have shown that curcumin has antioxidant potential. They are investigating whether it might help to prevent arthritis, cancer, and possibly even Alzheimer’s disease.
Eddie looks up an angel’s drawersI am happy to report I got to see my hero, Eddie Izzard, do a show in Seattle last weekend. I was surprised that the ever-helpful Seattle Stranger curiously promoted the (sold-out) show as being titled “Work in Progress”, as it actually was a work in progress. No merch, no tour, no makeup or Uma Thurman breasts (which Wikipedia claims his Sexie rack was modeled from). This set had ramblings about history, language, war, 300, sharks, Wikipedia, Alien, and a fly that hit him in the face onstage. If it sounds like established Eddie, it is, but with new directions, ideas and punchlines, and further honing of his own Eddie-ness. He got a little upset at the PNW tendency of the crowd to scream “WHOO!” at random times, stemming his flow, but I hope that he understood on some level that we are just so filled with love for him that it occasionally escapes our bodies with a high-pitched “woo” noise. I was so excited that I didn’t have to fly to El Lay to see one of these, I didn’t mind driving from Portland and back in 24 hours. I had to get back to town to do a comedy workshop with the guy who books for Letterman, veteran comedy scenester Eddie Brill. It was super-great and educational, and he told me about visiting a comedy club that Eddie Izzard ran in London, which I didn’t know ever existed. After spending the day working on my act with him, I now feel free to drop his name at every opportunity. Example: “Well, as my good personal friend Eddie Brill, Letterman’s comedy booker, says: I’d love a Grande Soy Latte.”
Thanks to Tara for the fantastic pictures.
Sexie MotherfuckerThanks for checking Badinia.com!
Puta que el terremoto dejó la cagada. Uno de los peores que le ha caído a Perú y eso que el Perú está ahí mismo en plena cojudez de la placa de Nazca. Para colmo fue ahí en medio donde la huevada se deslizó y juácate se jodió todo y el 15 Pisco y Chincha estaban en sunicuijo.
La catástrofe puso a pensar a todo el mundo en el Perú y si hay algo bueno que ha salido de esto es que ahora ya todos saben que en Perú hay una ciudad llamada Pisco, de donde sale, o salía, aquella famosa bebida espirituosa con el mismo nombre (denominación de origen). El pisco, señores de Chile, es peruano y punto. Ustedes quédense con su vino, que es muy muy bueno también.
En fin, el terremoto ocurrió en la vigilia del aniversario número 30 de la muerte de Elvis Presley. Un periodista de la cadena de TV peruana Panamericana TV (alias PapaúpaTV) entrevistaba a un conocido amigo mío, fanático de Elvis hasta la melena, don Jorge Cox.
Lamentablemente la entrevista no se pudo concluir pero al menos pudimos ver la pared de la derecha del departamento de don Jorge, llena de posters de Elvis. La colección de él, la cual he visto personalmente, es impresionante. No hay un solo disco de Elvis que él no tenga, una sola película, un solo libro. El tipo es verdaderamente un Elvisfanático 100%
Podemos ver a don Jorge al fondo más calmado que una vaca pastando y hasta acomodando sus adornitos sobre el refrigerador.
Elvis Presley es el ídolo máximo del rock and roll. Puede uno decir no, señor, son los Beatles, pero ellos adoraban a Elvis y lo consideraban el rey. John Lennon se trazó una meta: llegar a ser más grandes que Elvis y claro que lo logró con su grupo, pero si Elvis no estaba en hibernación hollywoodense en los sesentas haciendo tres películas por año y se hubiera dedicado a grabar y hacer giras y a tener un contacto más cercano con el público joven, les hubiera dado mucha pelea a los cuatro de Liverpool.
Pero recordemos que los Beatles llenaron un vacío y crearon una cultura musical completamente distinta con la que Elvis se había iniciado en 1956: Eran otros tiempos, el rock and roll era salvaje y no había caído en la brusca censura de la sociedad Norteamericana. Tuvo Elvis que irse al servicio militar, Chuck Berry ir a la cárcel, Jerry Lee Lewis casarse con su prima de trece años y Little Richard jurar a Dios renunciar al rock (si es que se salvaba de un posible accidente de avión) para que el rock and roll como moda quede sepultado por artistas más inocentes, más adaptados al modo de vida capitalista.
Elvis regresó a los escenarios en 1968 pero creo que llegó tarde: las cosas habían cambiado radicalmente: en su ausencia, Kennedy fue asesinado, los Ingleses re-invadieron America con guitarras en vez de armas, Se armó la de samputas en Vietnam, los Hippies tomaron San Francisco, y la mente del mundo se expandió como nunca antes en la historia gracias a la vía satélite. Elvis no pudo reinventarse pero siguió congregando fans con sus melodías de antaño y sus nuevos temas, generalmente escritos por otros y sin muchos riesgos por tomar -con la gran excepción de “In The Ghetto,” la cual creo fue un tema revolucionario.
El Elvis del cine se convirtió el de los escenarios de Las Vegas, en donde cantó para recuperar el tiempo perdido. Su propio entorno fue el que lo llevó a la tumba: malas amistades, amigos que nunca le pudieron decir que no, pastillas y químicos y sobre todo vivir en una mansión que se convirtió en una cárcel de oro llamada Graceland.
El Rey no se merecía morir en el baño, hace treinta años.
Ni tampoco nos merecíamos los peruanos un terremoto como el de ayer.
Grande Elvis, y sobre todo, grande Jorge!
Report from CacaoRock’s Blog (http://cacaorock.blogspot.com)
Best Quote I Heard All Day
I think a poet is anybody who wouldn’t call himself a poet. –Bob Dylan
It’s National Poetry Month. So in keeping with the spirit of things, I’ll be printing some of my favorites.
My first writing efforts as a child were poems. I wish I still had them. However, these years, I find poetry in music lyrics that speak to me. Here’s one of my favorites, And She Was, by David Byrne of Talking Heads.
My Talking Heads
Well, that was quite the onslaught of comments. I have no comment, other than to say that some of you are almost, if not more, vitriolic than I am.
One thing I don’t do these days is badmouth other bloggers in public. (Well, there’s one I have jabbed in the past but that blogger is so boring, it’s gotten to the point where I don’t bother, since she’s now a parody of herself.) That’s not to say that I don’t have my opinions but you may presume that if I don’t mention them, I don’t read them.
There is one thing for which I will be forever grateful. The comments that I get are not from asskissing idiots who have nothing better to say than
“I luuuurvvve your blog!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You rock!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Spare me. What may interest you is that a few of the “popular” bloggers have less of the milk of human kindness running through their veins than they’d like you to believe. But since they write their blogs for the great unwashed, that’s what they get in return. I’m pleased that my Comments are a forum rather than a mass paean to my wonderfulness.
I started off opinionated from the get-go. You know what you’re getting with me. If you don’t, you’d better leave in a hot New York minute.
That said, I will entertain Patsi Purl’s suggestion about bloggers you don’t like. But I’d like other suggestions from the rest of you. It can be controversial. Or not.
Personally, I’d like to see opinions about the excrutiating difficulty endured by lefthanded knitters, whether knitting needles would have been considered weapons of mass destruction on a JetBlue plane resting on a runway for eight hours, or whether combined knitting is a bigger pain in the ass than it’s worth.
Sogs
That’s how I’m feeling about them lately. It would seem that this week, all the knitting I’ve been able to manage has been on these ubiquitous sogs.
My endless fascination with socks has to do with several potential personality flaws.
I love symmetry. It must be the German in me.
I can be anal-retentive when it comes to matching the dye repeats perfectlySometimes I have a short attention span when it comes to knitting and I need to get something finishedSock-making happens in the spring and the summer, in order to replenish my sock drawer and to make something knitted for my loved ones. Socks are almost always welcome gifts.
Today brightened considerably when a package from Black Bunny Fibers arrived, posthaste.
Yeah, more sock yarn. Nobody dyes like Carol does. Rainbow Bright on the left, Lively on the right. There’s nothing I like better than bright colors for socks that I wear.
I was once described by a certain doctor as an effervescent breath of fresh air. Well, maybe sometimes. I think you can tell by the socks I’m wearing if that’s the case on the particular day. With my 57th birthday looming, I’m rather seeing through a glass, darkly. However, it will pass and I’ll be back to my teenage mentality shortly.
Bright socks help. A lot. So does sex.
Weavin’
Not this week. Too much work and the eyes are too tired after 5. I’m going to try to get my towel warp on the loom tomorrow. Sunday is Easter, so die ganze Familie is coming over for ham, raisin sauce, red potatoes, fresh asparagus and green beans. I enjoy having an excuse to cook.
I’m sure Mammy and I will sit and knit. I have to re-educate her as to Lavold’s particular increase methods. She can’t figure it out. Jenn and Rin will run their mouths, Norm and brother Rich will chat about movies, Liz will make a 5-minute cameo for dinner and then go back to her room to talk to her friends. The self-named Scrap Curmudgeon will show up with my nephews, I hope, if her in-laws leave at a reasonable hour.
In other words, a typical family get-together. Rare? No. Handy? Absolutely. Because they’re the best and I love them to pieces.
In case you all have not noticed, I have been doing some spring cleaning to the blogroll to the right. However, despite that cleaning, a few of the links seem to have been getting jiggy with each other, and I now have more links than I started with. Explanations follow.
Alphecca - As if being picked out by the UK Guardian was not enough, this guy has no problems calling it as he sees it. Works for me.
The Armed School Teacher - Ok, the hat just wins. Period. (The weblog rocks too.)
Arms and the Law - This guy knows legalese as well as he knows firearms. We need more like him, if we hope to have a snowball’s chance in hell of turning around America’s continuing plunge towards a disarmed nannystate.
Blue Star Chronicles - I added this link as a thanks for Beth’s help with my trackbacks, but something tells me I should have done it a while back.
Cowboy Blob - A little kookie, a little graphic, and a little random, but definitely worth a read from either the firearms perspective, or the humor one.
Days of Our Trailers - No idea where this weblog’s name comes from, but Thirdpower’s writings more than make up for whatever qualms the name may cause.
Gun Talk - Launched by Mr. Tom King in response to the idiocy flowing freely from Robyn Ringler’s now-pointless-”column” (The cowardly little hoplophobe turned off comments - remind you of any of the hundreds of other gun-thieving weblogs?), this weblog shows definitive potential.
MArooned - Based on the weblog’s title alone, I feel a certain kinship to this man.
Moral-Flexibility.net - Guns and zombies. ‘Nuff said.
Nation of Riflemen - Not updated very frequently, but the concept is great, and the support of the soldiers is even better.
The Other Side of Kim - Definitely falls under the, “Duh, I should have added this one a long time ago,” category. No need to explain here.
Ride Fast and Shoot Straight - A gun-loving motorcycle-rider who has absolutely no problems delivering textual suckerpunches. Shiny.
Rosemary’s Thoughts - Another thank-you link to another weblog that also does a good job keeping track of our soldiers, which works out well for all.
Say Uncle - Lots of gun news, lots of gun pr0n, and lots of to-the-point writing.
Snowflakes in Hell - Kind of short posts, but it does not stop them from being any more relevant. Are you seeing a pattern yet?
Also added: View from the Porch and From the Salty City upon suggestion, as well as Call Me Ahab. I will try not to hold him being a Coastie against him.
…I think that is about everything. If I missed you, I apologize, and feel free to let me know. Otherwise, you have been on this weblog’s blogroll long enough that you do not quite qualify as “new”. Sorry. You win by having lots and lots and lots of days of links from this weblog.
If you would like to be added to this blogroll, feel free to let me know. I reserve the right to be a selective little bastard, though.
It’s my weekend all alone with the kids. Wish me luck.
Friday
I drive home in the rain and retrieve the children from their grandmother. Three-year-old Popsicle is very excited about having a weekend with her Papa to herself, and informs me of her iterniary which includes playing outside with Papa, playing with her toys with Papa, watching movies with Papa, and making homemade playdough with Papa. “Making playdough?” I interrupt.
“Yes. Mama said you said we goine a’make playdough for me.”
“Did she now?”
“Yes, and then I’m goine a’play with it, the playdough, and you can play with me with it also.”
She draws a picture with crayons while I put on dinner (reheated rice and chicken) as I do laps around the livingroom with three-month-old Baby Yam strapped to my chest. We bop to Blood, Sweat & Tears, amplified beyond my PowerBook’s tinny speakers with a sound system purloined from my wife’s studio.
“I want ice cream,” says Popsicle.
“You can’t have ice cream for dinner.”
“Mama said you would give me lots of ice cream for dinner.”
“I don’t think Mama really said that.”
“Well,” she admits sheepishly, “maybe she said it a little.”
Once the baby has fallen asleep and been transfered to the cradle I walk Popsicle upstairs to brush her teeth and have a bedtime story. We’re currently reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, and Popsicle is particularly taken with my rendition of Hagrid’s gruff voice and thick accent. She begs for a few extra paragraphs and I oblige her. I snap off her light, which is shaped like an aquarium and has little paper fish turning in it.
“Now you say the words, Papa,” she instructs me.
These are the words: “Godbless, snuggle-bunny, pleasant dreams, I love you, nighty-night, seeeeeeeee youuuuuu in the moooooorning.”
I come downstairs again, eager to be enjoy being off-duty for a few hours, but when I arrive Baby Yam is gurgling and humming and kicking in his cradle, very far from being asleep. I top him up with formula and then walk him around for another half an hour. When he consents to nod off I carry him upstairs and put him in the creche next to our bed. Then, while in the process of trying to turn on the baby monitor, cause it emit a horrifying squelch of static that instantly wakes Baby Yam back up.
Another few dozen laps later I replace him in the creche and very carefully set up the baby monitor as if I am diffusing a bomb.
When I get downstairs again Popsicle is sitting on the livingroom couch. “Hi,” she says conversationally. “I’m not even tired. Let’s make playdough!”
I shake my head. “It’s time for bed and nothing but. Get moving.”
Once back upstairs we hammer out the details of an accord which will see Popsicle reading books quietly in her room for a little while, and then she’s to turn off her fish-light and go to sleep. Half an hour later she’s downstairs again. “I’m scared of the dark.”
“But your light is on.”
“Yes, but I’m still scared of things.”
“What kind of things?”
“Just things that scare me but aren’t real like goblins.”
“If they’re not real, why are you scared?”
“Maybe I’m thirsty.”
“You have a cup of water beside your bed.”
“Papa, I think I’m feeling very hungry and starving right now. I think that I should have some ice cream or I can’t sleep.”
I give her a carrot and sent her off. The wraith of her waking spirit revisits me twice more before she finally sticks down, somewhere around eleven o’clock. I pour myself a shot of gin and throw it back. I am about to release a sigh of relief when the baby monitor starts to crackle.
Baby Yam is hungry.
I trudge upstairs and watch cartoons while he snortles back formula. Normally he would fall asleep at my wife’s breast and be replaced, limp, in the creche. Instead, when he finishes the bottle he looks up at me with a puzzled expression as if to say, “Now what happens?”
“I’m not sure,” I tell him.
He burps. We hang around on the bed and watch cartoons for a while. Yam is impressed by the bright colours on the screen. We cuddle and squish. He does not close his eyes. When I am in danger of losing control over my own closing eyes I hoist him, awake, into the creche and hope for the best, then click off the television.
“Ya?” he calls.
“Go to sleep,” I advise.
“Whorl,” he says.
“Don’t argue with Papa.”
At half past four in the morning he starts fussing for more. His eyes remain closed but he’s doing his food moan. I groggily insert the rubber nipple into his mouth and he groggily assesses it with his tongue. He furrows his brow. He openes his eyes in consternation: he was expecting an organic nipple. He spits the nipple out and whines.
“Come on, Little Man,” I say, doing my best to imitate the inflection and tone of my wife’s voice. I stuff the nipple into his mouth again. He twists his head away but I gently but firmly rotate it back. I make significant eye contact with him, which often seems to aid the latch.
Reluctantly, he feeds.
The bottle empties as the first rays of premorning light pale the horizon. A ribbon of cloud illuminates with a bronze glow that reflects into the bedroom, catching Yam’s eye. He cooes. He looks around. He clasps his hands together and giggles. In his way he is saying, “Goodmorning!”
His day, and therefore mine, has begun. It’s twenty to five.
We play. I pump his little legs up and down and click at him, and he drools and laughs. I sing him a little song. In the distance a rooster crows. Finally, at six ‘clock, he falls back to sleep with a big goofy grin on his face. I lie back and rub my burning eyes.
I am afforded half an hour of sleep before Popsicle splits the air with her cries of, “Papa! Papa! It’s mornine time and I waked up! Papa! I hafta go potty!”
Saturday
We go downstairs together. I put a pot of water on to heat up a frozen bottle of expressed breast-milk, and then put on the kettle for tea. The I start hunting for tea, but find none. I finally opt to use a questionable product which claims to be especially made for brewing iced-tea, so my cup of morning cha is somewhat sweeter and more fake-lemony than I would ideally prefer. The baby starts to fuss so I turn back to the breast-milk, which has boiled and is therefore ruined.
“Shit.”
I make toast for Popsicle and the dig a fresh bottle out of the freezer. I set the oven timer to squawk after just a few minutes so I won’t lose track of its progress this time. When the timer beeps I unscrew the cap and stick my finger into the bottle — it’s warming nicely.
I forget to reset the timer. And I fail to screw the top back on tightly enough. When I return to the stove moments later the pot is lost beneath a billowing blanket of milky foam.
“Fuck it,” I say, and mix up another batch of formula.
“Let’s go out and play!” cheers Popsicle.
This is a good idea. Parking the children in the cheap showiness of nature is almost as useful a distraction as parking them in front of a television but without any of the associated guilt. I feed the dog and out we go: Popsicle to the sandbox and Yam to lie on the grass in the shade. I gulp my tea and work hard not to fall asleep.
Popsicle makes lunch for her imaginary friend Nada, who is six inches tall and has a pretty green dress and long hair that is red and blue and green, but no shoes because Popsicle hasn’t bought her any yet. Nada is enjoying a lunch of mud-pies with sand-sprinkles and washing it down with a cup of grass-clippings and smooshed up dandelions. Popsicle chastizes her invisible friend for wiping her hands on her green dress instead of using a napkin.
“Nada won’t listen!” says Popsicle.
“Tell her to go stand in the corner,” I suggest.
“Yes, yes I will,” she says seriously, nodding. “That’s a good answer, Papa.”
We go inside for non-imaginary lunch. I make a frankfurter for Popsicle but she refuses it once she spots a bowl of leftover macaroni in the refrigerator. I explain that it’s Kraft Dinner, not the sort of macaroni she likes, but Popsicle wants “Papa macamaroni” now. So she eats macaroni and the dog gets a frankfurter.
I finally manage to get some breast-milk into Baby Yam when Popsicle goes down for her afternoon nap. He has tummy cramps afterward so we do some laps.
When Popsicle wakes up again we attempt to make homemade playdough. There are a variety of recipes on the Web, but only a handful of them will work without mineral oil (which we lack), so we choose a simple one which promises “disposable” playdough good for one session of playing before it dries out. Despite the recipe’s simplicity it is not long before I become aware that we have somehow borked the job, and we end up with a giant bowl of extremely sticky glue.
We use the glue to fashion a “cake” for Mama and I promise that tomorrow we’ll find the ingredients we need to make proper playdough. I put the cake on a high shelf to avoid further mess.
Come dinnertime Popsicle insists that the only thing she will eat is more “Papa macamaroni” so I make another box of Kraft Diner which she eats while watching Labyrinth. Popsicle is interested by the way the heroine, Sarah, has mixed feelings for her baby brother, Toby. We discuss the concept of not appreciating what we have until it’s gone, and how it is possible for love and jealousy to co-exist. Popsicle admits to having mixed feelings about Baby Yam sometimes, and also that she has mixed feelings about ketchup. “Sometimes I want macamaroni with some ketchup but sometimes I don’t even like that.”
“Would you rescue Yam if he were captured by goblins?”
“Yes, I would. But goblins they aren’t real.”
“That’s true.”
“But we have them in stories like Harry Potter, and in Labyrinth there are goblins, too, and they say ’shut up!’”
“Saying ’shut up’ is rude, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is. Sometimes you said to Baby Yam ’shut up’ when he was crying.”
“I did, didn’t I? That wasn’t very nice, was it?”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“I shouldn’t say ’shut up’ to Yam.”
“No.”
Popsicle has a bath while I jiggle Yam on my lap, and then we wind down to read some Harry Potter and snuggle into bed. The temperature outside is rising at an alarming rate so we spend some time repositioning her fans for maximum comfort — we cannot yet leave her ancient and badly screened window open for the night as the mosquito netting on her bed has yet to be installed for the season. “I want my princess bed,” she says.
“I can’t put up your princess bed tonight honey, but we’ll put it up tomorrow night.”
“But will mosquitos come in?”
“No, I’m keeping the window closed tonight.”
“Okay. Make sure it’s closed tight.”
“It is.”
“Are you goine a’say the words now?”
“Godbless, snuggle-bunny, pleasant dreams, I love you, nighty-night, seeee youuuu in the mooooorning.”
“I love you, Papa.”
“Goodnight, cute-sauce.”
By the time I climb down the ladder from her loft Baby Yam has fallen asleep in my arms, so I carefully transfer him into the creche and manage to activate the baby monitor without squelching. So far, so good. Once downstairs I pour a stiff drink and down it in one refreshing, tingling gulp. “Now that’s the stuff!”
I sit down in front of my laptop to continue working on the short story I’ve been at pains to finish, but my brain is numbed by exhaustion and my efforts bear no fruit. Instead I pick through BitTorrent searches until I find a decent copy of the latest episode of Doctor Who.
At half past eleven Baby Yam starts to muff for feed so I prepare a bottle and go upstairs to bed. He wakes me again at half past four and, like yesterday, our day begins at sunrise.
“Whorl,” says Baby Yam.
“I think I’m going to die,” I tell him, which he finds hilarious.
Sunday
I make another cup of hot iced-tea and open all the doors and windows in an attempt to cool off the schoolhouse before the sun gets mean again. The dog and the baby spend some significant time together, the former licking the latter while the latter sucks on the former’s ear. We listen to Emmylou Harris’ Wrecking Ball.
Popsicle wanders down an hour later and asks to watch cartoons, so we watch Arthur and then Peppa Pig while she eats a banana and lolls half-naked on the couch. “Let’s get dressed,” I suggest.
“No thank you.”
Baby Yam, meanwhile, has decided to grow today. He rouses only briefly to feed and then resumes napping in the downstairs cradle, once every two or three hours. Popsicle and I go out and play in the sandbox, and when we return Yam is awake and grouchy. Fortunately, I am able to turn his mood by going on a “baby walk”, which runs like this (to the tune of Goin’ on a Lion Hunt):
Papa: “We’re going on a baby walk…”
Papa (in a high voice): “We’re going on a baby walk!”
Papa: “Gonna have a good time…”
Papa (in a high voice): “Gonna have a good time!”
Papa: “Oh no! Look! A lion!”
Papa (in a high voice): “RUN!”
…At which point I pump his legs up and down frantically and “jump” him over various obstacles which inspires him to squeal and giggle, his wide, toothless smiles beginning as soon as I grab his ankles and draw breath to start the song.
He goes down for a nap. Popsicle eats more “Papa macamaroni” for lunch and then goes down for a brief spell of quiet time before we make our second attempt to make playdough. Ultimately we are forced to pop out to the pharmacy to pick up mineral oil so my wife’s mother watches Yam for an hour. Popsicle and I cruise in the Mini with the windows down, blaring Pizzicato Five’s Happy End of the World (an album so fluffy and gay it makes Swedish pop sound like a funeral dirge).
Mineral oil is secured and we manage a playdough triumph: a giant mixing bowl of bright pink vanilla scented stuff that has the exact feel of commercial playdoughs. Popsicle proceeds to make worms, spirals and big blobs with imprints of her fingers squashed through them. “Look at my fingers!” she crows. “I’m making imprints!”
We find other things to imprint: seashells and combs, the textured back of a plastic crocodile and then the funny patterns of lines on our elbows. We discuss fingerprints, and examine our own.
At dinner we have an argument about whether she should eat something other than Kraft Dinner, but I lose. She is happily enjoying her bowl of “Papa macamaroni” when we both hear footfalls coming up the front steps. “Know what?” I whisper; “I think Mama is home.”
“Mama!” Popsicle screams, exploding out of her chair and running to the door. “I missed you!”
Baby Yam wakes up in time to gratefully partake of the organic nipple and grins as he eats, watching his mother’s face. Popsicle hangs at her side so I move in and squish her against Mama. “Popsicle sandwich!” cheers Popsicle. “Fambly sandwich with everybody!” she adds, pointing to Baby Yam.
“Family sandwich!” I echo happily.
We bring Mama her sticky experimental playdough cake, and then Popsicle shows off the second generation pink playdough. Mama takes her up to bed while Yam and I go for another baby walk. The sun sets and the schoolhouse begins to cool.
When my wife returns we lounge on the side deck and chat with her parents. They ask me what I’ve learned. I say, “I learned that as long as my wife is waking up at four thirty in the morning, she can have anything she wants.”
I am wearing Tabasco eyeliner — it hurts to blink. My knees begin to fail and I have to sit down. My broadcast day is just about at an end. I hurt everywhere. I am sunburned. “So,” says my wife, “how was it, overall?”
“It was great,” I tell her. “It was wonderful.”
And it was. It really, really was. I smile and then pass out.
(Godbless, snuggle-bunny, pleasant dreams, I love you, nighty-night, seeeee yooouuuu in the mooooorning.)