Sunday 29 December 2013

Christmas Wishes - Or Whinges

I am quite bereft today, since the universe has a sadistic sense of timing. My popularity - which waxes and wanes worse than the moon does - always seems to be at a high when I can't take advantage of it. Yesterday I had to turn down four invitations for company and socialising. FOUR. My brother and SIL wanted me to come down to Worthing along with mom, to see them, my SIL's mother and my utterly beloved nephews, one of whom made a surprise Christmas return from Australia, where he's been for the last year, following a year in Asia. All in all I haven't seen Jay for two and a half years and I'm gutted to be missing him right now. And Craig, who I am every bit as fond of as Jay, is probably missing my cakes - family occasions are the only times he breaks from a strict diet (he's studying sports sciences and is a bit of a health nut) and I'd promised applesauce cake and Swedish chokladbollar and maybe Moravian Sugar Cake.

Ugh.

My friend Sasha, who I haven't seen in a year and a half because she's been in Russia amongst other places, wanted to get together and talk about men - which, y'all will know, is something I'm always willing to do. Adam wanted to do movie night - we've been trying to set a date to watch the first and second Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies for months now, and our schedules never seem to match, and on the few occasions they do we've ended up doing something else entirely. And Siji, my ex from Manchester, is in London visiting his family for Christmas and wanted to hang out. I haven't seen him for over a year either.

And I am stuck in bed with flu. I came down with it Christmas morning, and thought it was a cold, but now I've progressed to the aches and fever. I feel vile. Mom is down at my brother's - praise the Lord, two days where I don't have to look after anyone's needs but my own! - and I'm too sick to make the most of it. I had so many plans to beat the post-Christmas gloom. Nazia and I were going to go shopping at Stratford Westfield - I need to go to Victoria's Secret, and I wanted her opinion on the Phase Eight dress, since I finally have enough money to buy it but still feel awful spending £79 (the sale price!) on a dress so I need coaxing and telling that it looks perfect. And I had tickets for ice skating at Canary Wharf that I got from wowcher or groupon or one of those places - normally I can't afford the Christmas skating rinks - and was hoping to drag Siji along.

To put into perspective how awful it felt for me to turn down four invitations, the last social thing I did (ie not class - although we did bring food and drinks on the last lesson - or shopping) was Thanksgiving dinner with mom and Curt, my BFF. I think that was the 30th of November. The time before that was the first week of Nov, when Adam and I went to the fireworks display. The time before THAT was Chrissie's birthday party in July or August, before the surgeries.

I'm not the social butterfly type, particularly when I'm sick or recovering from illness, as I was all autumn. I occasionally joke that I'm more like a social moth - while you're all out there being gregarious and sipping nectar and looking pretty and making the world bright, I'll be off in a back room banging my head against the light and eating your clothes.

But I do occasionally feel the need to see people - even I get tired of work and school and reading - and it bums me out no end if on the few occasions people want to see me, I have to turn it down.

No point to this post, I'm just whinging.

That all said, being stuck in bed does make a girl appreciate the slinky-but-comfy nightdress from mom and the awesome books from various people and the totally banging slipper-boots from Chrissie (pics to follow) all the more. :)

Friday 27 December 2013

Shards of Thought

Sometimes the things I have to research for this job depress the hell out of me.

And other times...other times, the logical scientist part of me, the part that's cut off from any emotional feelings I have about the stories I hear at work, the part that makes Dr Chris use terms like "depersonalization" and "derealization"...that part is nearly as intrigued by the effects of tragedy on human psyches as it is heartbroken that such things happen at all.

And I feel like there's something deeply wrong with me, that I'm almost as fascinated as I am appalled.

...yeah.

Thursday 14 November 2013

Doing What Needs To Be Done

WARNING: Contains graphic medical details which may disturb.

I'm publishing this from the Blogger iPhone app, since I'm just too damn tired to turn on the computer - which is why it's not formatted with the normal fonts and colours, unless I figure out a way to do that from here. Probably I'll have to do it next time I turn the computer on. Which will hopefully be soon - I have some Goodreads books that I've read recently that need to have the data input, and I'm still trying to keep that up to date with books I've recently read, even though the boxes full of books that I was working on inputting pre-reading are on hiatus temporarily.

You may not know what I'm referring to. It's ok, *I* know what I mean.

I'm tired. With fibromyalgia I'm usually tired, but it's unusually strong and pervasive tiredness right now. I had surgery in September - nothing serious, or at least it shouldn't have been. Just women's problems. But I didn't recover well. After the surgery I bled and cramped up every time I got out of bed for nearly two months. Not little cramps and spotting, either - worse pain than during my worst periods (and I have endometriosis and PCOS; my worst periods can be very bad indeed) that made me scream and weep, even with my reasonably high pain threshold. Rivers of blood - during the worst bit, I lost half a pint of blood every day for ten days, maybe two weeks. (No, that's not a guesstimate, either. Make of that what you will.) The doctors were talking about blood transfusions and D&Cs, which I mercifully managed to avoid.

Blood tends to restore most of itself within a few days, and a person my size can probably lose two pints comfortably and twice that without any major danger. (Now, that IS an estimate, I don't know exactly how much blood my body holds.) Half a pint a day certainly wouldn't kill me, but it made me feel like I'd been hit by a truck.

Iron, though - that takes time to build up again. In the UK, women are only allowed to donate blood once every sixteen weeks (other countries vary) because the iron levels take so long to come back to normal - and at a blood drive they only take a pint, usually. So I've been horribly anemic for the last few months. I've been eating spinach and broccoli near enough every day - dear God, am I sick of broccoli! - and red meat when I can, which probably isn't often enough, but my stomach won't tolerate beef more than occasionally, and I can't eat lamb or offal meats at all. And I have iron supplements. But I still feel like shit. Since the surgery I've gone from being someone who gets by most nights on five hours of sleep (sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less) to being someone who needs at least ten hours, preferably twelve or thirteen, just to function for the basics.

I'm having a hard time just getting to school one night a week. The time change particularly hit me this year - it feels like the clocks went back three or four hours, not one. I look at the clock on any given evening, thinking it's tennish, and it's usually 6pm, and I find myself falling asleep an hour into class. Paul coerced me into teaching this year, much to my disgust, but now I'm grateful for it since there's no way I can go back to the helpline and pull 4 12-hour shifts in a week. I had to do one shift last week when Cindy was sick, and just staying awake and manning the phone for twelve hours felt like running a marathon.

So I'm teaching a 90-minute or 2-hour class Mondays and Fridays, and setting (and marking) essays, as well as various paperwork. I barely work twenty hours a week, which isn't good for my bank account, but is better than nothing. I'm not teaching English as much as critical thinking, although we read quite a few stories and parts of books. This last week I've been lazy, though, and set essays from films instead.

School is okay, aside from the falling asleep, but it doesn't quite have the spark that it's had for the last few years. In an effort to make more money, the uni threw two classes together, so we started out with far too many people (although several have dropped out) and yet another new teacher. She's a fine teacher, but I do miss Takana, who I thought of as a friend as well as a sensei. I wouldn't be quite so annoyed about the blended class if they hadn't already put the tuition fees up - or more accurately, split the year into three semesters instead of two. The courses for the last four years have run for 14-15 weeks; now they run 10 weeks each - but they charge the same fees as they did for the 15-week course. Meaning that for a 30-week school year, we're paying an extra 50% on tuition. That's a MASSIVE leap in fees, and I feel that the uni should have been satisfied with that rather than sticking 30 of us, at all different learning levels, together in 1 class. 30 is far too many for a practical language class, even with the dropouts. We previously had 15-16 at our highest (and that was a few too many, when you all have to take turns to have conversations) and 8-10 at our lowest (which was a good number).

In addition, I haven't managed to really bond with anyone in the class, although I know Andrew and Nuala from last year, and a guy named Chris from my first class with Magdalena, and there's a nice girl (I think named Suzanne?) who I ride the bus with and chat to. I don't know if it's me being withdrawn because I don't feel well, or the fact that most of the class knew each other before, or if it's just the people in it, but I don't feel close to anyone. I've never had that - in my previous classes, we either had a really friendly group (as with the groups Takana ran) or I formed a deep, abiding friendship (as with K, who was in Magdalena's class. I don't remember the rest of the people from Magdalena's class very well, because K and I seemed to stick together most of the time, and that was just fine).

It's a little disorienting, because I can only remember one time in my life before that I found it difficult to make friends. That was in Sue's biology class, in 2002 - I was retaking the class after I had to drop out of Jon's bio class the previous year when I got sick and didn't finish my coursework, and on the first lesson she made it quite clear that she had tremendous contempt for me for having to retake. She told me flat-out that she didn't want me in the class, that I didn't deserve to be there - yes, a teacher actually said that to a disabled 18-year-old girl - and every time I made a mistake (which I didn't do often, I was a straight-A student in biology) she'd mock me to the class. ("Look, Miss Frost isn't perfect after all! Careful, or you might end up failing and having to repeat a year like she did!") They followed her lead, and I didn't make any friends there, although I still had friends in my other classes, including Curt and Sanjit in second-year chem, so I didn't feel the loss that much. Although I didn't stay in the class more than a few months, and made a formal complaint about her to the college when I left. Frankly I wish I'd given some sort of walking-out speech to her in front of the rest of the students rather than just not showing up one day; maybe they'd have learned something about being sheeple. Although I can't really blame them - a teacher should be someone you CAN follow the lead on.

That situation is far removed from this one - my new teacher is nice, and the students aren't hostile - they're just quiet. The lack of friendship so far may well be my doing, anyway - I haven't been at my most charming, since I'm barely awake by the time I get there. But it IS disorienting, nonetheless, to not walk into a room of strangers and make friends within a half hour. I've always made friends so easily. I have trouble *keeping* them, mind you, but I make them easily.

Throw on top of all that the fact that I no longer have my carer's free bus pass - Mom still hasn't gotten onto the council, and I can't be the one to do it, it has to be her who applies - and I'm now spending a tenner a day on getting to school and back, and you can see why the whole thing is feeling more like a chore than the pleasure it's been for the last four years.

I'm okay in myself, it's just things getting on top of me a little. I'm not depressed (although my moods have been up and down with the female problems - hormones are crazy things) but I'm just so tired. The tiredness increases the muscle pains - although that could also be related to the iron levels - and makes it hard to remember to eat and breathe, putting me at risk for chest infections. I realise the ridiculousness of that sentence - you're probably thinking, "FFS, who forgets to breathe?" but I do, when I'm this tired. I'm also on a 1200-calorie diet, created by Teeny Crazy Lady Dietician, which probably doesn't help with the tiredness, but that's another post altogether.

Mom had spinal surgery yesterday. She seems to have cone through it well - she's in good spirits, and feeling less pain, so touch wood that the relief she's getting continues. I'm glad she's doing okay, but it means that there's a whole lot more work to do and I have to do it all alone, because Tony's family are in the process of moving down to their new house in Brighton. I make a competent nursemaid, and I'll do whatever needs to be done, because she's my mother and she would do - and has done - it for me. But despite being competent, nursing is not something I enjoy, and I feel bad that whatever needs to be done for her I do with a generous but not quite cheerful heart.

Probably some of this guilt is due to my ex's girlfriend being a nurse, but that too is best left for another post. Or not. I don't especially want to rehash all those feelings.

But hey ho, it could always be worse. I could be doing all these things while (almost) dying of Scarlet Fever, the way I was during her last spinal operation a few autumns ago. It's easy to forget to be grateful for how much easier things are this time around.

And really, things aren't so bad. I have books. I have a Pokémon game (sadly not X or Y, since I don't yet have a 3DS). I have Christmas coming up, and am trying to decide whether to get into the shopping spirit, or chuck it in and spend what I would have spent on presents on a trip to Barbados. I have friends who do nice things like take me to fireworks displays and watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with me and offer me sheets when the washing machine eats mine. :) People are nice.

And it's been about 10 weeks since the surgery, so as long as I remember to take my supplements (gah) and eat lots of broccoli and spinach (double gah!), in the next six weeks I should start feeling a lot better.

Although if I don't develop super Popeye-strength, I want my money back.

Monday 7 October 2013

A Month of Blogs - What Keeps You Up At Night?

What Keeps You Up At Night?

Submitted by Anonymous.


As a writer who seems to have hit a low point in creativity and / or just getting off my ass and writing, I signed myself up to write 31 blog posts during October - one a day - on any subjects that are suggested to me. The only rules for suggestions are that they can't be anything that involve me having to take on a particular viewpoint (so no "Why I Hate Twilight" or "Why Rock Music is the Best Music") - this isn't debating class, and right now I'm not interested in trying to argue something that I may or may not agree with. Anything else goes - it can be a specific subject or a broad one, one that I've written about in the past or something new that will need research. If you're interested in playing along, you can leave a comment here, or email me at thenordicalien@gmail.com. (I'll try and remember to check there, honest!)


I could have written this post in a number of ways. I might do a part 2. And 3. But for now, I decided to play it straight.

Truth is, I don't know everything that keeps me up. Probably it's partially my diet - I've noticed that when I only eat fresh foods with no preservatives, I sleep better. It's partially pain - if I exercise I sleep better. It's partially guilt at my parasitic lifestyle - if I put in a good day's manual labour, I sleep better.

Mostly it's stupid shit. Like worrying.

I saved a kid today. At least I think I did. I was walking through town on my way to the bank, and this kid on a tricycle sped out in front of me. I guess he was 2 or 3. Maybe 4. Hell, he could have been 5 - I'm not good at guessing kids' ages. It was a little plastic trike, not a proper one, so probably not as old as 5. He sure could pedal though. I saw him out of the corner of my eye, but was hurrying to get to the bank, so I wasn't really concentrating on him until I heard someone screech, "Jaden!" which caught my attention - Jaden is my nephew's name, and most people are particularly attuned to the names of their friends and family. Speedy Gonzales - apparently Jaden - rode right in front of me and onto the road, into the path of an oncoming car. The main road in town is busy most of the time, and this was after-school traffic.

I was there. The shout had caught my attention well enough. He was fine. I was fine.

I have been worrying all afternoon about how he wouldn't have been fine if things had turned out differently.

Dr chris and I have been over this odd habit of mine many times, and never quite managed to solve it. I don't remember if it has a particular name - he refers to it as a form of transference, similar to the way that when crises happen in my life I handle them gracefully...and then later fall apart or throw a tantrum because a date gets cancelled or someone gives me the wrong soda at the movies. (For the record, I'm fairly easy-going most of the time, and not at all the type of person to throw tantrums, let alone about such anodyne things.) The lay explanation Doc gave me for this is that the energy and stress from crisis after crisis builds up, but because I've spent a lifetime handling some pretty awful situations and acting like the grown-up who holds everything together, I sort of transfer the emotion from the things I can't control (death, illness, bankruptcy, prison) into things that aren't really that important and are therefore safe to fall apart about. TL;DR - I underreact to important shit and then overreact to unimportant shit as a way of compensating.

Supposedly this odd worrying habit of mine is related to this in some way, but we've never been able to rid me of it, only to control it most of the time.

I don't worry about the future. Not much, anyway. The future will happen whether I'm ready for it or not. Instead, I worry about the past. I worry about the things that didn't happen. I worry about Q and E - my SEALs - getting shot and killed while on one of those missions that they can't tell me about. I worry about B, my ex-Marine friend, getting blown up by a landmine during his tour in the Middle East. I worry about my Kurdish friend S being victimized as a child because she's a woman, or my Chinese friend L being aborted or left on the street because her parents wanted a boy. I worry about D, my high-school love, overdosing on drugs when he felt so alienated from the rest of the world, or K committing suicide because of his many traumas. I worry about the stroke that didn't kill my Dad and the ovarian cyst that my Mom had that didn't turn out to be cancer.

None of this happened. Q and E and B are all alive, not currently serving in the military, and in possession of all body parts. I have no idea if S was ever victimized as a kid, but she's grown into an amazingly strong, confident, intelligent woman who takes crap from nobody and still maintains a compassionate heart, and I'm honoured and humbled to call her a friend. L's parents love her more than life itself and would not give her up for anything in the world. D channeled his teenage pain into an extraordinary musical skill, and has now made a name for himself in the trance world, and seems content with life. K did go through a rough period, and still does, but he's alive and kicking and surrounded by those who love him. My Dad is recovering and my Mom is cancer-free and always has been.

I worry about them nonetheless.

And today I worry about what would have happened if I took an earlier bus, or if I had finally signed up for the internet banking that my ex has been telling me to do, or if I'd been wearing high heels and been unable to move quickly, or if the kid hadn't shared a name with my nephew and I'd ignored his mother yelling for him.

Those things didn't happen. You can tell me, but you were there. It doesn't help. I don't know why. Dr Chris doesn't know why either.

And that's what keeps me up, at least for tonight.


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Sunday 6 October 2013

A Month of Blogs - How Not To Fall In Downward Dog

How Not to Fall in Downward Dog

Suggested by Dee Dee M.


As a writer who seems to have hit a low point in creativity and / or just getting off my ass and writing, I signed myself up to write 31 blog posts during October - one a day - on any subjects that are suggested to me. The only rules for suggestions are that they can't be anything that involve me having to take on a particular viewpoint (so no "Why I Hate Twilight" or "Why Rock Music is the Best Music") - this isn't debating class, and right now I'm not interested in trying to argue something that I may or may not agree with. Anything else goes - it can be a specific subject or a broad one, one that I've written about in the past or something new that will need research. If you're interested in playing along, you can leave a comment here, or email me at thenordicalien@gmail.com. (I'll try and remember to check there, honest!)
I was both intrigued and worried when I got this post request, which is why I'm writing it out of the order that it came in. The worrying part was whether I'd actually be able to write it, since a) I haven't taken a yoga class since 2005; and b) when I did, I was too busy giggling with my friend over the term "downward dog" to have committed much to memory. The intriguing part is also the above, since it's a post that I knew would take research, and the possibility of learning something new is always an intriguing one.

My first port of call was YouTube videos. The comments on these indicated that I was going to be cringing by the end, but when I started to play the clips, things didn't look so bad. Oh, THAT one! I exclaimed. I remember that position! I wonder if I can still do it? I got off my bed onto the floor, adopted a very undignified position on my hands and knees, stomach and breasts swinging unrestrainedly, curled my toes under, and pushed up into an approximation of downward dog. Ten seconds later I had a puffy red eye from taking a boob to the face, but I also had a feeling of accomplishment.

Note to self: wear a sports bra while attempting yoga.

So admittedly, I didn't see too many problems with this position. I think this may have something to do with an unconventional childhood full of unconventional pastimes, one of which was pony-vaulting. For the uninitiated, pony-vaulting is basically a form of horse-based gymnastics. Yoga poses, ballet poses, eventual handstands and headstands and somersaults...all of it on (or off of) the back of a cantering horse. It was the one and only dangerous thing my mother ever let me do, and I'm grateful for it, although I never got up to the handstand stage. I spent my early years in Menorca, and in the eighties it was a little dead in the winter, and we were only doing half days in school at this point, so Robbie (my childhood friend) and I found ourselves enrolled in this thoroughly bizarre circus gym class twice a week in the afternoons. Robbie was much better at it than I was, as a result of having twice my energy levels, a daredevil streak wider than the Mississippi, and a mother who didn't freak out over every little thing he did. We learned to ride bareback; to ride backwards; to spin around on our butts ("la molina" - the windmill); to balance on one hand and one knee while we raised an arm and the opposite leg high in the air ("la bandera" - the flag); to lie on our stomach and bend a leg behind us at both the hip and knee so the sole of our foot touched the top of our head (I think that one had a name, but I don't remember what it was).

Long story short: if you can pull off a yoga pose while balancing on a large sorrel gelding named Chianti, you can probably do it anywhere.

However, that doesn't mean that you can do it well. Or that you can communicate how to do it to anyone else. So with that in mind, I decided to ask a professional.

Haley Blackman is the owner and yoga teacher at The Beauty of Yoga, based in London and Herts. She teaches Hatha, Hatha Flow and Yin Yoga, and she was nice enough to write me some easy-to-follow (I hope!) instructions to quote for this post.

Keep fingers spread and push the top of the mat away from the body, really pressing down with the triangle between the forefingers and thumb, says Haley. Keep eyes of the elbows facing one another, triceps rolled outwards, shoulders away from ears. Cinch in the waist, extend up through the torso like a telescope and extend the chest towards the thighs. Sitting bones are lifted towards the sky. Lift the knees to engage the quads, lift through the shins. Heels are gently reaching towards the floor. Keep breathing slowly and deeply. Once these body parts are activated the pose can be held.

So there you have it. I may have to take another class to be able to picture these instructions fully - and if I do, I'll write a Part 2 to this post - but hopefully anyone who knows the basics of yoga will be able to understand.

Me, I have plenty more bicep curls and oblique-strengthening exercises to do until I can hold my downward dog comfortably for more than five seconds. :)


Check out The Beauty of Yoga's Facebook page here - https://www.facebook.com/TheBeautyofYogaUK .

Or follow on Twitter @thebeautyofyoga.

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Saturday 5 October 2013

A Month of Blogs - The Thigh Gap

The Thigh Gap

Suggested by Anonymous.


As a writer who seems to have hit a low point in creativity and / or just getting off my ass and writing, I signed myself up to write 31 blog posts during October - one a day - on any subjects that are suggested to me. The only rules for suggestions are that they can't be anything that involve me having to take on a particular viewpoint (so no "Why I Hate Twilight" or "Why Rock Music is the Best Music") - this isn't debating class, and right now I'm not interested in trying to argue something that I may or may not agree with. Anything else goes - it can be a specific subject or a broad one, one that I've written about in the past or something new that will need research. If you're interested in playing along, you can leave a comment here, or email me at thenordicalien@gmail.com. (I'll try and remember to check there, honest!)


Someone - I don't know who - suggested that I write about the space between a girl's thighs. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that they're not asking me to talk about vaginas.

Truth is, I'm sick to death of this topic. That isn't a dig at you, Anonymous - it's probably an interesting topic for those who don't hear about it from every young girl they talk to. (That's a lot, btw.) I'm sick of the topic because everywhere I turn I see girls - and women - cursing their perfectly nice bodies and feeling inadequate because they don't have the new (well, several years' old) fashion accessory that's taken the world by storm.

I first heard of "The Gap" when a male friend of mine liked a Facebook page, and it came up on my wall. I thought they were talking about the clothing store until I checked out the page, to find that it was a collection of photos paying homage to women whose thighs didn't touch. All sorts of women - tall, short, skinny, muscular, Black, White, Asian...the only thing they had in common was a space at the top of their legs.

I shrugged, thought to myself, I've seen weirder things, and closed the page. What I didn't expect was to see people talking about this EVERYWHERE.

Being someone who likes her research, I decided to find out how a girl goes about acquiring this gold-standard accessory. And do you know what I found? You can't. Not healthily, anyway. Of course anyone who gets super-thin will lose thigh fat and eventually muscle, but that doesn't happen for a long time, not until you're severely underweight. (And frankly, losing muscle mass isn't something you want to do. Trust me on that one - I've lost muscle through serious illness, and it makes you horribly weak, and takes forever to build back up. Not to mention the fact that generally less muscle = lower metabolic rate.)

So except in the case of unhealthy weight loss, you can't get a thigh gap. You either have one or you don't. It all depends on the angle of your pelvis and how your femurs - that's your thigh bones - sit in their sockets.

Of course, if you're overweight, when you lose weight you might find that you have one. I have no idea if I have or not; my legs have been heavy most of my life, even during those few slimmish college years.

So essentially, all these girls are making themselves feel inadequate, are killing themselves in the gym, to get something that cannot physically happen unless you already have the physiology. Imagine having a bunch of girls trying to diet and exercise their way into getting longer arms, or smaller feet. Sound silly to you? Yeah, me too. You can't change your skeleton.

(Actually, I remember back in 2000 or 2001, one of the - thankfully short-lived - fads amongst high-society women was to have surgery on their feet. Know what they did? They had their last tarsal and metatarsal removed so their feet looked more slimline and fit into designer shoes. Yes, they had their baby toes cut off. There were actually surgeons out there willing to cut off body parts so women could pander to fashion trends. Turns out you actually CAN change your skeleton sometimes...if you have enough money...and lack enough sense.)

I happen to like the look of thigh gaps, if they're on a woman who has one naturally. If you have one along with good health and good muscle tone, I think they look nice. I wouldn't mind having one. I might get one when I get closer to my goal weight, since I have quite wide hips. We'll see. But if I don't I certainly am not going to feel inferior to women who do. That's just ridiculous, and sad. The body you're meant to have is the one you've been given. Eat well, exercise well, look after it, and accept it the way it is.


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Friday 4 October 2013

A Month of Blogs - Are Dogs Really Man's Best Friend?

Are Dogs Really Man's Best Friend?

Suggested by Joanna J.


As a writer who seems to have hit a low point in creativity and / or just getting off my ass and writing, I signed myself up to write 31 blog posts during October - one a day - on any subjects that are suggested to me. The only rules for suggestions are that they can't be anything that involve me having to take on a particular viewpoint (so no "Why I Hate Twilight" or "Why Rock Music is the Best Music") - this isn't debating class, and right now I'm not interested in trying to argue something that I may or may not agree with. Anything else goes - it can be a specific subject or a broad one, one that I've written about in the past or something new that will need research. If you're interested in playing along, you can leave a comment here, or email me at thenordicalien@gmail.com. (I'll try and remember to check there, honest!)


I was talking to my ex on whatsapp while I was writing this post, and when he asked me what I was writing, I told him.

"They're not," he said.

"Personally, I think books are man's best friend," I said.

I was expecting him to say something about cats. He's very much a cat person.

"Boobs are man's best friend," said he.

That story has nothing to do with this post, but it made me smile.



Are dogs man's best friend? Many people would say yes.

I am not really a dog person, so my answer is a more restrained, sometimes.

I had a dog once. Actually I had two dogs, sort of, except that the first one - a black Lab puppy called Knight, when I was 9 - was bought by my mother's lodger as a joint present for "the kids" (me and her son, who was a couple years younger than me), and was never really my dog at all. I think Sarah only said he was for the two of us as a way of getting him into the house, since I was never allowed to walk him, rarely allowed to play with him, and he met a sad end after a confrontation with a car when he was only a few months old. (Sarah was a not a big believer in rules, thinking that they stifled kids' and animals' natural growth, and her disdain for such things extended to the idea of keeping a very young puppy on a leash when out in public. Eyeroll.)

But I digress.

I had a dog. Bonni was a Jack Russell - her papers said purebred, although mom and I agreed that this was a load of bollocks. Mama said I could have a puppy for my tenth birthday, providing I was responsible for her, and being folks who didn't really know about the need to get dogs from shelters or friends' litters, or at least from registered breeders, we trundled off to a pet shop in Bushey a few days after I turned ten. This was 1994, before shops stopped selling kittens and puppies. The man in the shop had a bunch of Yorkshire Terrier puppies who looked like hairy rats, and one white ball of fluff with brown patches on. He told us that we wouldn't be able to take any of them home today, as they weren't quite ready to be sold, and I remember almost having a meltdown in the store. While my episodes of behaving badly as a kid can be counted probably on one hand (and certainly on two), I had really wanted a puppy to take home. At that age, patience wasn't my strong suit.

Come to think of it, it still isn't. I get crabby waiting for books to come in the mail. I nearly threw a wobbly on Friday because my couriered package of candy corn and mellowcreme pumpkins didn't arrive.

Anyway.

Mom managed to calm me down, and we decided that even if we had to wait, we'd get one of these puppies. Not one of the Yorkshires - neither mom nor I have ever been fond of that breed - but the white and brown fluffball. We went and told the man, and he seemed shocked that I wanted her. That one? He said. Oh, you can take that one home with you now. I didn't realise you wanted that one.

By this time I had built up quite an amount of loathing for the man, but I was so thrilled to be getting my very own dog that we paid and took her home. This was the beginning of a very strange, tempestuous, often frustrating relationship.

Bonni was neurotic. There really isn't any other way to say it. You know those girls you see on TV and if you're unlucky, in real life - the ones who are quivering masses of tension, who cry every time they get picked last for gym, who cling to their boyfriends as though they have no way of breathing or moving on their own, who treat every disappointment, from relationship breakups to bad grades to broken fingernails as though it were a life-altering crisis? Those girls? Bonni was the canine equivalent. I've never worked out if this was due to abuse that she suffered before we got her, or something that I did wrong, or if she just picked up on my mother's anxiety disorders and tendency to cling. Probably all of the above. My mom can be a limpet at times - although she's better now than she was when I was a kid - and animals definitely pick up on human behaviour. I certainly knew nothing about training a puppy, and I failed her grossly in that regard. And she was almost certainly abused and / or neglected by the pet shop owner, or the breeder before him. When we first took her to the vet, the vet was so furious at her state that she had to leave the room for several minutes before she could talk to us. She had more fleas and worms than the vet had ever seen, there were patches of red, inflamed skin infection on her forelegs, she had mastitis, her tail had been docked, and she was at least four weeks younger than her papers said - meaning that we got her when she was less than a month old.

(I am happy to say that the vet managed to get the pet shop closed down shortly after that, and the shop owner prosecuted.)

I'd like to inject a serious piece of advice / warning here - don't ever buy a dog for a child, or even for yourself, without doing your research first. Find out how to raise a dog right, if you've never raised one before. Research different breed characteristics to find out what sort of breed / mix would suit you, rather than just buying the first one you find that looks cute. Read as many books as you can and be prepared to shell out the money for a comprehensive obedience / house-training course if you're buying a puppy. Don't even consider getting a dog if you have a hair-trigger temper, or an aversion to rules, or control issues.

We did it wrong. We loved our puppy, but we should never have had her. We didn't have the money to get her professionally trained, and she was untrainable at home. We didn't have the time and energy to walk her for the several hours a day that a dog with so much energy required. Mom has always had issues with control, and having had children who were almost unfailingly obedient and respectful, she took Bonni's disobedience and challenges to authority as a personal insult. We screwed up in every possible way. This is what I mean when I say that I am not a dog person. I don't have the patience or personal skills to raise a dog to be happy and well-adjusted. I can just barely handle cats.

But oh, how I loved her, even when she drove me round the bend. During the first year, we took her to school quite often to show her off to the other kids. As a young dog, she enjoyed the company of people she didn't know, although she got crabby around strangers when she got older. We used to walk in the woods after school most days, for an hour or so. Other days we'd go to the park and throw sticks. She had an incredible grip - something Jack Russells are known for - and she loved to play tug-of-war with sticks or her leash. Imagine the horror that mom and I experienced when we were playing one day and a couple of her teeth flew out. We rushed her straight to the vet, who laughed and explained that puppies lose their milk teeth, same as human kids. Neither of us had had any idea.

When she got a little older, we got her one of the microchip passports, and took her to Spain with us, where we used to run along the beach and bark and the waves. Yes, we. I've done my share of running and barking.

As she got older, she got more and more clingy. She'd cry if you left her outside for more than five minutes, even in the summer. She'd cry when you locked her in the kitchen. She was a compulsive licker and jumper. My allergies worsened as I got older, to the point that I had red weals over my body most of the time from her dander, and if she licked me my skin would start to peel off, so I didn't spend as much cuddling time as she wanted. (Although I think anything less than 100% of the time would have been less than she wanted.) I wish there'd been a dog whisperer around to help me train her and make her feel better, but at that time I'd never heard of such a thing.

She reminds me of my mother in so many ways.

Bonni survived until she was 16, when she started getting sick. We're not sure what was wrong with her, because she didn't make it to the vet's appointment. She had a big lump on her head one day. The next day it was bigger and she was having trouble walking and standing up. Next day she was gone.

Sometimes I think I would like to get a dog again. I like dogs much in the way that I like children - that is, I like to borrow a friend's and then be able to give them back at the end of the day. I like to read about dogs. Dean Koontz writes his canine companions particularly well - some are super-smart, genetically engineered dogs (he's a thriller / sci-fi writer) and others are ordinary, friendly, loyal, wonderful pups that anyone would be thrilled to call part of the family.

I read Koontz, and I think I want this. Then I realise, I don't really know how to cope with family.

Dogs probably are man's best friend. That said, not all people do well having best friends. Some of us find too much closeness to be stifling. Some of us don't like having anyone around who relies on us too much. And that's OK.

After all, there's always cats.

Or Pokemon.


Some of Dean Koontz's books with awesome dogs:

Watchers - featuring a genetically enhanced golden retriever with a wicked sense of humor - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32423.Watchers .

One Door Away From Heaven - featuring a boy who can form human-dog friendship bonds - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15746.One_Door_Away_from_Heaven .

The Darkest Evening of the Year - featuring a dog who came back as an angel - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/379316.The_Darkest_Evening_of_the_Year .

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Thursday 3 October 2013

A Month of Blogs - If I Could Snap My Fingers And Be Anywhere, Where Would It Be?

If I Could Snap My Fingers And Be Anywhere, Where Would It Be?

Suggested by Chris P.


As a writer who seems to have hit a low point in creativity and / or just getting off my ass and writing, I signed myself up to write 31 blog posts during October - one a day - on any subjects that are suggested to me. The only rules for suggestions are that they can't be anything that involve me having to take on a particular viewpoint (so no "Why I Hate Twilight" or "Why Rock Music is the Best Music") - this isn't debating class, and right now I'm not interested in trying to argue something that I may or may not agree with. Anything else goes - it can be a specific subject or a broad one, one that I've written about in the past or something new that will need research. If you're interested in playing along, you can leave a comment here, or email me at thenordicalien@gmail.com. (I'll try and remember to check there, honest!)

Where would I be? The Star Light Zone in the Mega Drive / Genesis version of Sonic the Hedgehog.

I fell in love with the Star Light Zone when I first played Sonic, back in 1991. For those of you who've never played the game - have you been living under a rock? - the Star Light Zone is a large pale green and gray construction site under a black sky filled with thousands of bright stars. As the second-to-last zone in the game (aside from the Final Zone), it is one of the harder zones, filled with unkillable beasties, bottomless pits and spiked balls that you have to use as counterweights on catapults. Yet it is the strangest mix of difficult and peaceful, and I decided the first time I saw it that I wanted to live there.

Nobody had pointed out to this seven-year-old that this would not be possible.

Over the last twenty-some years I've tried to work out why I have such deep affection for a game level, and I've never come up with a satisfactory answer. The closest I can get is that it feels like home. It might be the strange, space-age streetlights that remind me so much of the ones we had in Spain when I was a kid. It might be the astonishing amount of stars that you can see in the sky; stars that, like the streetlights, remind me of a childhood spent where the air was dry and unpolluted and the night sky filled with wonder. It might be the fact that I spent many an hour playing on construction sites as a kid, and find the atmosphere comfortable.

Maybe it's just that it's a city. I've always felt most at home in space-age cities. It's why I originally started studying Japanese, and why I hope to take up Cantonese - Tokyo and Hong Kong are two places that I want to live.

In my early years of playing Sonic, I found it hard to get up as far as Star Light, often turning off the Mega Drive before I got there, and considered it to be a prize that was dangled in front of my face only to be cruelly snatched away. There was a cheat code you could use to access a screen that would allow you to choose your level - on the title screen, you sort of smush your thumb on the D-Pad in all directions at once, while pressing Start, and if you're super-lucky you'll get a brown screen that brings up the level selection - but it was an incredibly hard cheat to manage and usually left me throwing my controller to the ground in frustration even more than the early levels of Sonic did. As an adult, I prefer to think of Star Light as a reward for getting through the sheer awfulness that is Labyrinth Zone. (I HATE the underwater levels on Sonic games. Every. Single. One.)

There are multiple places across the globe - and indeed, in books and movies (Rivendell, anyone?) - that I'd like to visit or live in, as well as places that I'd like to be able to teleport myself to any time I'm in need of a dose of happy. Sports stadiums at night are one of the places where I feel the happiest, and I don't think it's a coincidence that the floodlights remind me of the Star Light Zone.

Thanks to the miracle of YouTube, I can watch other people zipping the little blue critter through my homeland without having to do it myself - handy, since I no longer own a Mega Drive (it disappeared when Ryan did, after being stored in his wardrobe for several months, and I can only assume he accidentally took the bag with him and then was too embarrassed to bring it back when he realised what it was) and I don't often have my GameCube hooked up to the TV. I probably should see if there's a Sonic Collection or a Mega Drive Collection available for GBA or Nintendo DS - I know there's one for PSP that I played when I was staying with Siji. Regardless, YouTube has made it possible to view the Star Light Zone whenever I want.

But there will always be that little part of me that grieves for the fact that I will never be able to live there.


Go see Star Light played (WARNING: He curses a lot, and says "cunt" a lot. I know some people are sensitive about that word.) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWreQW1-MX4

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Wednesday 2 October 2013

A Month of Blogs - Drugs

Drugs

Suggested by Jonny F.


As a writer who seems to have hit a low point in creativity and / or just getting off my ass and writing, I signed myself up to write 31 blog posts during October - one a day - on any subjects that are suggested to me. The only rules for suggestions are that they can't be anything that involve me having to take on a particular viewpoint (so no "Why I Hate Twilight" or "Why Rock Music is the Best Music") - this isn't debating class, and right now I'm not interested in trying to argue something that I may or may not agree with. Anything else goes - it can be a specific subject or a broad one, one that I've written about in the past or something new that will need research. If you're interested in playing along, you can leave a comment here, or email me at thenordicalien@gmail.com. (I'll try and remember to check there, honest!)


Drugs are bad, mmmkay?

- Mr Mackey


I have a friend who's an addict.

Truthfully, I have several friends who are probably (drug) addicts, many more if you add in things like cigarettes and junk food. But right now I'm thinking about one friend in particular. My friend got into drugs lightly as a teen, with pot, and then more heavily as a 20-something. I won't specify what kind of drugs, since that could be seen as identifying evidence, which for obvious reasons would be a bad thing for the purposes of this post. All I'll say is that my friend's choice of drugs doesn't involve needles, and that they started out with a legal - i.e. prescription - drug habit, and slid down that slippery slope into semi-legal and then illegal drugs.

We talk on a fairly regular basis about my friend's habit, as they consider me to be someone they can talk to who won't judge them. (I find this amusing, since I'm one of the most judgemental people I know. I can only assume what they mean is that when I judge them, for the most part I'll keep my opinions to myself unless asked for them, and I'll continue to love them anyway even when I think they've royally fucked up.) One of the things that we've discussed at some length is why my friend's an addict.

On their less honest days, my friend gives me the spiel about needing drugs. They're prescribed by a doctor, they have a medical condition that requires them, etc. I inevitably call bullshit on this, as a) not all the drugs are prescribed by a doctor, at least not for my friend by THEIR doctor; b) my friend buys and sells a whole lot more on the side; c) my friend doesn't use the prescribed drugs in the way that they're meant to be used (think twice as many, and up the nose instead of in the mouth); and d) my friend hasn't had any extensive testing for their medical condition in the years since they were injured and has no real idea whether they still suffer from it. (I could also object due to my feeling that there are other ways to handle an injury than with hard drugs - graduated exercise, CBT, pain management courses - and if you're not willing to explore those ways you shouldn't be prescribed unlimited medication, but that's a personal opinion rather than a fact so I tend to leave that out of my arguments.)

On their more honest days, my friend will talk to me about how good it feels to be buzzed, which really gets down to the bones of it. Highs feel nice. They feel nice enough that people chase them, through all manner of ways. I'm no exception here - I spend much of my free time in search of that elusive bliss, although I tend to chase my highs with exercise, books, nature, hobbies and occasionally food. Everyone does, in one way or another. It seems to be human nature to seek out pleasure and to escape from boredom or pain.

My friend has been through more pain than a lot of people, although more cushiness as well. That dichotomy has set them up for what is perhaps a more persistent need to chase extremes of pleasure than you'll find in many people. A childhood raised by a permissive single parent - and I would like to add the caveat here that none of these things will ensure addiction in the future; simply that the convergence of factors in my friend's case has set them up with the tendency to think that a rollercoaster of extreme highs and lows is normal and necessary - who coddled them and protected them and always allowed them to have their own way, followed by teenage years in which they were blessed with an excess of charm, above average looks, brains and natural athletic ability, followed by the death of several loved ones and a sense of having lost their place in the world, have caused my friend to think of their life as split into two parts: the early part (good) and the later part (bad). Childhood and teenagehood were good and fun and exciting. Adulthood is bad and boring and painful. Drugs are the crutch which both livens up their adult years and dulls a lot of the pain.

This isn't an unusual story. Using drugs as a killer of emotional pain and a thing that makes your life brighter and shinier are two very common things. My friend's case is complicated by the fact that the losses they suffered came right at the beginning of their twenties, as their brain was coming down off the natural high that the teenage years bring. Recent progress in neuroscience has found that teenagers don't think and feel the same way that adult humans do. Impulse control and the ability to plan ahead and stick to that plan are some of the last parts of the brain that develop fully. Perhaps more importantly, the parts of the brain that deal with memory and emotional responses are overloaded by adult standards - although many of my teenagers argue that the teenage brain is the one we're supposed to have, and adults' brains are merely atrophied - causing everything to feel more wonderful, more exciting, more awful. Just more. Nothing is ever quite as emotionally powerful as it is when you're in your teens. No music sticks with you as strongly as the music that you loved when you were young; no memories of wild nights hit you with quite the same degree of nostalgia; few romances are as hard to forget as the ones you had when your volume of gray matter was at its highest and your body was flooded with hormones. Those memories, and the feelings that go with them, are indelibly imprinted on the brain, and even those of us whose teen years were often unbearable tend to look back at the good parts through rose-coloured lenses.

In my friend's case, the combination of the natural highs of the teen years and the fact that the brutal losses they suffered came right at the end of that period have resulted in an uncontrolled yearning for the past, for security, for excitement. The drugs don't bring back the dead, or send my friend back into the past, but they provide an echo of the feelings that are so sorely missed. They will, of course, never provide more than an echo.

I think this is the real reason why I agree with Mr Mackey. Drugs are bad. Not because they wreck your body (plenty of things do), not even because they're dangerous and possibly deadly - although both those things alone are reasons for me personally to stay away. Drugs are bad because they catfish you with pretty promises of feeling good, promises which they can never deliver after the first few times, unless you take more and more of them.

Of course, I lost a brother to a drug overdose when I was a kid. I'm biased.

Probably not everyone who becomes addicted to drugs is trying to revive their teenage years, although I'd hazard a guess that a large portion of them are. But I feel reasonably safe in saying that everyone who becomes addicted, and stays addicted, is either escaping from pain, escaping from boredom through the chasing of larger and larger highs, or some combination of the two.

Is chasing a high necessarily a bad thing? Can you be a social drug user without turning into an addict? Those are two questions I've been asking myself while writing this post (and, indeed, for many years before now) and I've never come up with a completely satisfying answer. I do think that some people, if they have a great deal of self-control, can be recreational drug users. (I also think that a heck of a lot of people who describe themselves as recreational drug users, aren't.) Marijuana is one of the drugs that's most talked-about at the moment, what with all the legal revisions going on in the US. When people ask me - which they often do - what my position on the legalisation of pot is, I admit that I'm not really sure. I suppose I support legalisation sort of by default, since I don't believe that it should be illegal when tobacco and alcohol are legally available just about everywhere, and I know full well that banning those things would be both impossible and unnecessary. The problem I have with legalisation is that I worry that it won't be done in the right way. If a formerly illegal substance is to become legal, I feel that it needs to be regulated, taxed (I know this will be an unpopular opinion; since how many of us actually want to pay taxes?) and studied extensively. So far, this hasn't happened with marijuana, or at least what regulation and studying has been done hasn't been widely publicised. The fact that a thing is legal does not necessarily mean it's safe. It doesn't mean it doesn't have ill-effects, both short and long-term. It doesn't mean we should automatically stick it in our mouths. When it comes to weed, most people fall into one of two camps: the "Weed is dangerous / a gateway drug / supports drug barons / etc" camp, or the "It's natural and good and as harmless as sparkly unicorns" camp. As far as the harmful side-effects go, I'm witholding judgement until more research is done, but assuming that there can't possibly be any seems dangerously naive to me. In addition to my practical concerns, there is my personal, irrational bug-a-boo: why can't life be enough? Why can't the planet, with all its wonders, be enough for people without the need for mind-altering substances?

I don't generally bring up that last point with people unless they ask me directly, since most folks would tell me to mind my own business, and they'd be right. The fact that I find it sad that people feel dissatisfaction with what, to me, seems like an extraordinary world full of wonder, is my own problem, not anyone else's. And you'd also be right if you said I was a bit of a hypocrite to feel that way, as I mentioned earlier that I find myself chasing my own highs quite often. When I push myself in the swimming pool or on the ice rink, when I take a walk on an autumn day, when I immerse myself in the crowd at a hockey game or an MMA match, I'm chasing those peaks of emotion. And when I reread a book that I've loved, when I eat a favourite food, when I listen to a song that fills me with joy or rerun a memory in my mind that makes my heart pound, I'm using repetition to try to recreate the feelings I had last time those things made me happy. Human nature - the need to seek out pleasure - meets human habit - the tendency to repeat behaviours in the hopes that they have the same positive result. Physical pleasure - pleasure in exercise, in food, in sex - and emotion come together in this wonderful synergy. And with the best of these things, the things that you love above all others, whether we're talking about songs or books or foods or lovers or anything else - they're always good. Perhaps a fraction less good than the first time, or perhaps not, but always good. And the periods inbetween, while not giving a person the wash of bliss that they get from the peaks, don't throw you into those deep depressing troughs either.

That's why I think you can consider me only a bit of a hypocrite. Because, personal likes and dislikes aside (or as far aside as they can ever truly be), I do honestly feel that there's a difference between chasing a high through drugs, and chasing it in the ways I've mentioned just above. The drug high can be hell for your body, while the things above (junk food and MMA excluded) are generally safe, and it's expensive - but more importantly, the drug high never fully satisfies after the first time, and people end up spending their whole lives chasing something that is physically impossible to attain.

And what kind of a life is that?


I haven't cited any sources for this blog post, as I wrote it off the top of my head, based on what I've learned over the years. However, if you want to learn more about the science behind teenage brains, you can try the following pages:

National Institute of Mental Health - http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/the-teen-brain-still-under-construction/index.shtml

A PBS programme - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/teenbrain/

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Tuesday 1 October 2013

A Month of Blogs - How to Make Strawberry Shortcake

How to Make Strawberry Shortcake

Suggested by Susan V.


As a writer who seems to have hit a low point in creativity and / or just getting off my ass and writing, I signed myself up to write 31 blog posts during October - one a day - on any subjects that are suggested to me. The only rules for suggestions are that they can't be anything that involve me having to take on a particular viewpoint (so no "Why I Hate Twilight" or "Why Rock Music is the Best Music") - this isn't debating class, and right now I'm not interested in trying to argue something that I may or may not agree with. Anything else goes - it can be a specific subject or a broad one, one that I've written about in the past or something new that will need research. If you're interested in playing along, you can leave a comment here, or email me at thenordicalien@gmail.com. (I'll try and remember to check there, honest!)

I promised this recipe to Susan three or four months back, and is standard for someone with short-term memory loss, promptly forgot about it. She very gently reminded me when I was looking for suggestions of topics for the October 31-day blogging challenge, so I promised I would make it my first post.

Sorry there are no pictures - strawberries aren't in season right now, although if I make the cake itself soon I'll put a photo up.

Also, a note - I tend to measure in cups. Buying a set of measuring cups is probably your best bet if you want to make any of my recipes - you can get a set from any cheap kitchen store or supermarket for a couple pounds / dollars - but if you're really too cheap and or lazy to do that, an American cup is about 2/3 of a standard British mug, or 1 1/2 times a British teacup. This recipe, as with most of the ones I use, works pretty well even if your measurements aren't exact.

The basic structure of the cake - eggs, flour, butter, sugar - comes from the 1963 edition of McCalls Cookbook, published by Random House. The flavourings are my blend.


Ingredients:

For the cake:

~ 3 cups sifted flour. In the US I use cake flour; in the UK I use half plain and half self-raising.

~ 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder. Not soda. Powder. Don't accidentally use tablespoons the way my mom did once.

~ 1 teaspoon salt.

~ 3/4 cup butter. You can use vegetable spread if you insist, although I'm a fan of butter for cakes. It's not as crucial as it would be in a finer cake though.

~ 1 1/2 cups sugar. I used to use half white and half demarara, which is nice. Now I use all unrefined since that's the only kind we buy. It's still nice. A bit less sweet.

~ 3 eggs. BUY FREE RANGE! Nothing to do with how well the recipe works, just that you should do that.

~ 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or 1/4 teaspoon vanilla essence or 1/4 teaspoon crushed vanilla pod. Do not buy anything that says "vanilla flavouring". Vanilla flavouring has no vanilla in at all. And it tastes rank.

~ 1 teaspoon almond essence. I leave this out sometimes, since my brother's allergic, but it adds a nice taste.

~ 1/2 tablespoon crushed edible lavender or 2 tablespoons lavender sugar. You can add a bit more of this if you want, but if you do, scale back a bit on the normal sugar.

~ 1 cup milk. We use semi-skimmed. I've never tried to make it with other kinds of milk, although I suppose it would work well enough. If you try, let me know how it works out.


For the topping:

~ Strawberries.

~ Vanilla ice cream (optional).

~ Whippy (aerosol) cream or pouring cream (double or single, doesn't matter).


Equipment:

~ 2 mixing bowls. At least one needs to be large-ish (14-inch diameter or larger).

~ Measuring cups and spoons.

~ Sieve.

~ Rubber spatula. Plastic works, but rubber is best. If you're not sure, get your partner to spank you with it. If it stings, it's rubbery enough. Also, when I say "spatula" I don't mean one of those lifter things with holes that some people call spatulas - I mean one of these. (They're not usually that expensive.)

~ Wooden spoon (not mandatory, but it helps).

~ Cooling rack.

~ Sharp knife.

~ Electric mixer. You CAN do it with a french whisk and wooden spoon and a heck of a lot of bicep strength (and if you do, please send me a photo), but I'd recommend the mixer.

~ Cake tin. I use a round one, although a loaf tin would probably work (although I'm not sure how you'd adjust the cooking time). If you're going for a round tin, I recommend a 7-inch diameter. (Women will most likely know what this means. Men: if you don't know, look at your round tins - or the ones in the shop - and select the one that you think is seven inches. Then choose the next size up. This is actually seven inches.) The most important thing is that it needs to be deep - at least three inches deep, four would be better.

This recipe does not work well as a layer cake.


Method:

1) Preheat your oven to 350 - 375 F / 180 - 190 C / Gas Mark 4 1/2 - 5.

2) Grease your baking tin liberally. I know a lot of people grease with oil and flour, but I find that a fairly gross method - I use butter or vegetable spread on a piece of kitchen towel and rub it all over the bottom and sides of the tin. Make sure you use quite a bit - a tablespoon, maybe a little more.

3) In your smaller bowl (if they're two different sizes), sift your flour along with your baking powder and salt. Set this to one side.

4) In your larger bowl (if you have one), use your electric mixer / superior bicep strength to beat your eggs until fluffy, then add butter, sugar, vanilla, almond and lavender. Beginners' tip: if you're having trouble measuring out your butter, fill a measuring cup 1/4 full of water, then add butter until the water's just about to overflow. I find this easier than trying to measure out a full 3/4 cup of butter, since the butter inevitably doesn't want to fill the cup without leaving empty spaces. Just make sure you don't have butter sticking over the top of the cup if you use this method.

5) At a low speed on the mixer, beat your flour mixture (in fourths) and milk (in thirds) into your butter-egg-sugar medley, beginning and ending with the flour mix. I know some people just chuck it all in together, and I suppose this might work, but I like to do it in bits because I KNOW that way works. And I'm a creature of habit, gosh darn it. You may want to use your wooden spoon to fold the batter together a few times when you add the flour mixture, so the flour doesn't all fly into the air and up your nose.

6) Pour your batter into your cake tin, using the spatula to get the last of the batter off the sides. I advise against licking the bowl - I know parents have been letting their kids eat the scrapings of raw cake batter since time immemorial, but I'm not someone who thinks salmonella is something to screw around with. That said, I have to be super-careful due to my lack of immune system, so YMMV. I know my mom eats cake batter and hasn't contracted any awful diseases yet. That we know of. Smooth the cake as much as you can on the top. It won't be totally smooth, since it's fairly viscous, but do your best.

7) Bake. The book says 30 to 35 minutes, which is a load of crap. It'll probably take an hour and a quarter. You can check it after 45 if you really must, but bear in mind that the more you check the more likely it is to sink. When it's brown on the top, check that it's cooked by poking a sharp knife in the center. If it comes out clean, it's ready. If your knife has any gooiness on it, try again in 15 minutes.

NOTE: People cooking with a fan-assisted oven, or at a high altitude, will need to adjust cooking times. I don't have a fan-assisted oven or live in the mountains, so I don't know exactly what the adjustments are, and you'll have to play around. Generally fan-assisted ovens cook things more quickly, so I'd advise checking the first time after 30 minutes if you're using one. If you're at a high altitude, it may take longer to cook. There's a formula for it (or at least for water, which boils at 1 degree F lower for every 500 feet above sea level) but I think trial and error is your best option.

8) When your knife comes out clean, let the cake rest in its pan on a cooling rack for 12 or 15 minutes.

9) After 12 or 15 minutes, run your knife around the cake where it meets the tin. Tip cake upside-down onto your hand or a plate and bang the top hard. Squeeze the sides a little if it doesn't come out. If it's really stuck, tip right way up again and run knife around the edge once more, this time wiggling the knife a little so the edges pull away from the tin. Tip upside-down and commence banging and squeezing. If you're lucky, it'll come out with very little damage. If a lot breaks off and stays stuck in the tin, you have three possibilities: a) you didn't wait long enough and the cake was too hot; b) you waited too long and the cake was too cold; or c) you didn't use enough butter when you greased the tin. Nothing you can do about it now, but you'll know next time.

10) Eat whatever's left in the tin.

11) Wash strawberries. Remove stalks, cut in half.

12) Either let your cake cool or serve it hot. Stick strawberries on top of cake, add vanilla ice cream or whippy aerosol cream or pouring cream or some variation thereof. You could even beat your cream (if it's double cream - this does not work with single cream or whippy cream) if you want. I like mine with ice cream and a squirt of whippy cream.

13) Hide from your nephews before they eat the entire thing.


For more information on high-altitude cooking, go here - http://culinaryarts.about.com/od/culinaryfundamentals/a/highaltcooking.htm  .

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