What, not even a little dribbling?

I was rather disappointed to find not even a little dribbling in Bill Bryson's latest offering (though there is some drivelling). Call me old fashioned but when dribbling is promised I expect dribbling, if only a little. And Bill doesn't even bother to explain why no dribbling, not even a little, which seems the least he could have done.

That said, I generally liked Bill's latest book despite this glaring omission and despite the fact that he insists on celebrating countless obscure 'great' men of history on almost every page, whilst insulting women at almost every turn, including at one point imagining beating one to death with his walking stick and burying the body in the marshes. Her crime? Letting her dog poop on a path.

He's a funny writer and funny excuses much in my book. However on the subject of women, from Katie Price to Meryl Streep - the latter of which he goes to the trouble of including on his list of fifteen 'reflex loathings' that he thinks everyone should be allowed to have without having to explain themselves - he is typically and tediously unfunny, snide and puerile. Katie Price he loathes for her '30kg-a-piece' breasts, Streep for 'being adorable'.

In 2015 this is unhelpful at best, shameless propaganda for the patriarchy at worst. Bryson, like most men, clearly holds mankind in greater esteem than he holds womankind and makes no apology for this bias in this, as in all of his other books, with few likeable female characters appearing amongst a multitude of worthy males. But as a fellow humorist I keep hoping for a maturing of this knee-jerk sexism from a writer of his general wit and intelligence and so was genuinely disappointed to find it hasn't happened yet, not least because the wider world in 2015 is beginning to wake up to the depth and breadth of male misogyny and its widespread destructive consequences.

Instead, Bryson continues to thank his wife for being 'patient'. How does she stand it! Aristotle liked his women 'patient' (read obedient and self-sacrificing) and perhaps so will it ever be with most men, wanting to keep for themselves the business-end of living. If this is the case, however, to put it bluntly, we are all fucked. Women will never be patient enough for men, while impatient men will ever make arrogant, cruel and incompetent rulers - and writers, too, ultimately. And what a damn shame that is.

Still, the hardback first edition cover of little dribbling is a visual and tactile extravaganza and I will miss caressing it while the book rests weightily in my lap and I hope that elusive dribbling will appear around the next bend. All women are patient, Bill, but that's far from all we are. The world will ever be at war with itself as long as it fails to understand this.

And on that impatient note, Bill, I'll leave you to your dribbling, little or otherwise.          

Face in the water

One lost chicken wing

I did not expect to be confronted with

a giant chicken wing when I paid a recent nostalgic visit to the university campus where I was once upon a time introduced to literary luminaries such as Sylvia Plath and Primo Levi. But then, I did not expect to be confronted by a giant chicken wing ever, one wouldn't, if not given some kind of warning that the world had taken yet another turn for the bizarre just when you thought it couldn't get any stranger.This sign was another feature of the campus that wasn't there in my day but seems to explain itself rather well, all things considered. I don't know what they're teaching at the university these days but I found myself, whilst hovering somewhat awkwardly in the substantial shadow of the aforementioned wing, rather intrigued to find out.   

Vampire grimace

'Tick or teat?' 

'Hello there. Oooo..., can we start with a trick?' 

Vampire grin. 

Me: 'Don't you have a trick? You can't say trick or treat if you don't have a trick.'

Vampire grimace.

Me: 'I guess your outfit is your trick; you do look very scary.'

A brimming basket of wrapped sweets is magically produced from behind my back and the two young Asian brother and sister vampire team politely take one each before I say they can have a few each, a direction they don't seem to have any difficulty understanding.

Take Two --

'Trick or treat?'

'Ummmm... trick; if you have a trick, that is?'

Chorus of hees and shees: 'We have a trick. Go!'

He: 'What do you call a girl on a...'

She: 'Not a girl, a woman.'

He: 'What do you call a woman on a tennis court?'

This is more of a joke than a trick, technically, but it's also more than a grimace and I'm happy to be more than a sweet dispenser. I give the joke a good few moments consideration.

Me: 'I don't know. Not much of a one for tennis, I'm afraid' (my own little joke there). No one laughs.

Hees and shees together scream: 'Annette!'

Me: (a beat to get it) 'Ah! Very good. Yes. Nets are on tennis courts. Excellent.'

The treat basket is again hastily produced and six keen brown hands dive in. No need to prompt this young Polynesian family to take more than one.

How funny that the sister thought the joke didn't work as well with a girl as a woman. Perhaps she couldn't imagine a girl called Annette; it is rather a womanly name. Or perhaps she thought that because I was so clearly a woman and so faaaaaaaaaar from my own girlhood I'd better appreciate the joke if a woman was featured in it rather than a girl.

Vampire grimace.

Our very own vampires, etc., one Halloween past.

Pukeko Dawn

The warm light night. White jasmine in a heavy dark coat peeps in at the window with a 'hello' face, or set of faces.

'Hello!' I echo.

The moon plays its part in full.

I play Bach in full. I can't get enough. Bach fills the living room, evoking a better class of memory.

My glasses slide down my nose.

Bach concludes by sitting down upon a chair just prior to leaping up off it again to dance. I'm with Bach.

It is dangerous to drink after midnight. Risqué, the French might say. One does it anyway.

My hand shadows my page, insect like.

White wine hardly counts.

The dishwasher mashes time.

M's heron stands erect,  its stretched, sanded tanded skin, glowing golden on the white windowsill, watching the view.

The moon glows too, almost confusing the daisies, the toughest plant to confuse.

My glass is thirsty. I shouldn't drink. It's 1am.

The publishers like my head shot. It's almost current.

I like to eat marshmallow in the dark. The softness is more surprising. I pick crumbs off my bust and arm rest.

Faded pink daisies reach for the moon. They do not sleep. I know how they feel. The moon has me up too, it dusts the garden with a ghostly grey.

If I didn't have to write, I'd turn out all the lights.

The dishwasher 'bewoo's, 'bewoo's it's owl-like finish. Normally only the night hears, I wonder if it bewoos all the same.

You know it's really night when the machines pack it in.

The plants are quite dull in the heavy grey dawn. Only the street lamp, on its ludicrously long neck, glows bright yellow, its bulbous head, a hard bulging blossom.

I watch the dawn but the flowers don't watch me. They barely breathe.

Day begins: pinks and blues in soft baby hues.

Green begins to greeeeeeeen.

Still, it looks like cloud.

Dawn is the confirmation of colour.

Even through the thick cloud, the sun bestows colour.

Colour is more than life. Colour is hope.

But Day doesn't 'break' as some have it. 'Break' assumes pointiness. Day is smooth, feminine. Night, well, that is a different matter entirely. Night can be pointy.

Birds awaken, speaking their varied hellos.

Bach now on his third lap.

Yellow emerges.

Day is almost lighting my page now, the street lamp has been switched off.

Orange is here; the brick path looks meatier for it; follow the orange brick road...

I must release the cat from her garage cage.

One a week I chop nuts to 'beef' up my morning muesli. My breakfast then has all the five food groups: grain, dairy, fruit (tinned pears), nuts (protein), oil, the nuts are roasted.

But I will not chop nuts for the boys (they have separate cereal). They are too old for such mothering. I will, however, make them a fried egg and ham salad bun for lunch, as I was too sick to make one yesterday, the usual fried egg bun day.

Today is Thursday.

Day is grey.

A grey Thursday in spring, the hopeful season at least.

The cat licks my cereal bowl. She likes milk even though we feed her water, or perhaps because of that.

I am in no hurry for summer, except for it bringing the book closer.

The ceramic pukeko is last of all to cast off the heavy cloak of Night, shining yellow-eyed and friendly.

Empty the dishwasher. Leave fried eggs batties to cool. Add tomato, ham and crunchy lettuce - once egg has cooled. Gladwrap last of all, or the bun will sweat.

Feed the cat turkey and chicken.

Repeat Bach.

Set C2's breakfast table, blue bowl, pears in glass, and Weet-Bix. Pack rest of lunch: apple, muesli bar, cheese triangle, biscuit. Wrap fried egg buns. Remember mayonnaise. Place packed lunch-box on table next to breakfast bowl.

Should be teaching dance tonight. But I cancelled. Nearly three years, two of which were pretty good. Lovely email from Karen. No regrets about decision, couldn't dance tonight anyway with Tuesday night's liquid sins still lingering. Also periods. Phew! But not ideal for dance.

Make a plunger of coffee. No coffee yesterday. Too crook. Hardly ate either.

Call up chute to C2. Probably need to wake him in the flesh again later.

Didn't take the usual meds last night, wanting to watch the dawn.

C2 is late. Don't have the energy to go upstairs to wake him up.

Go anyway.

Cat1 (mother) charges past me up the stairs, wanting to be first to the top. Nearly trips me up, as usual.

C2 is still in bed at 8.43! He's supposed to be at school at 8.45. Admittedly we live only five minutes walk away from the school, but that's still bad maths - so much for breakfast.

Cat2 (daughter) joins us from C2's bedroom where she sleeps, sometimes trapped if C2 takes too long to wake up.

We end with two cats considerin' the yard.

DAY (29 October, 2015)!

The gnomes are drowning!

He's in it up to his beard. In fact it looks like an extension of his beard. She, meanwhile, is in it up to her boobs. They both look deliriously happy, which is why they are there in the first place. They came before the grass indeed. Long before.

If you find them you have found us, for it is our doorstep plant put there precisely to welcome guests - and family - back, usually, or for the first time. They replace a spikier plant. And the gnomes used to be more deeply within the garden. A great improvement in both cases.

Gnomes and 'gnome beard' plant, as I will call it, are meant to be together - hence the name.

I don't know whether or not to trim the gnome beard or leave it to grow where it wants, which will probably be all over the comely pair, burying their happy smiles. If not trimmed, they will loose their gnome shape entirely and then be reduced - or elevated - to pure plant, effectively.

I think I'd better trim the green gnome.

In Bed with Bach

Our old bed in the new spare bedroom - 'Bonnie's room' - her art and photos remain on the walls.

This long weekend when many of our countrymen and women were absorbed in the Rugby World Cup semi-finals and captain Richie McCaw's potentially career-ending elbow, I was in bed with Bach and his rather less edgy, more elegant elbows - as was my husband...

You see, this was a bed-delivery-moving weekend for us in preparation for the arrival of an important house guest who may one day become a permanent member of the family, and in the process of making room for her, we discovered Bach abandoned in a long unused portable CD player. Why we abandoned Bach in this rather shabby way neither of us could recall.

Never mind. We hastened to make amends and got back into bed with Bach in a big way, playing him loudly over and over on the kick-ass stereo downstairs to be heard upstairs as we carried, cleaned and carted two big beds and sundry bedly matter hither and thither.

At one point we were joined by a couple of burly tattooed removalists who delivered the queen - our first queen indeed, if my husband is to be believed on that subject, that is - and hauled it upstairs in the midst of all that not so burly Bach. They didn't seem to mind; their tattoos did not melt.

And I must say, it was all really rather conducive, so much so that I would recommend Bach for all bed-related business. Well perhaps not quite all; piano is possibly a touch too light for the heaviest of liftings.