Turnip Brain strikes again

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Is this the world’s stupidest dog?

I’m starting to think so. Guess where she is today?

At the vet’s. Being operated on. Again.

Remember the chicken skewer disaster last year? Baby Duck dropped his chicken skewer, she pounced and swallowed it whole. Expensive vet bills ensued.

Just one of those things, you think. You can’t really expect a dog not to try and gobble manna from heaven, can you? Shame Baby Duck wasn’t fast enough to grab the skewer before she did, but what can you do? A once-in-a-lifetime freak accident.

Or not, as it turns out.

No, Baby Duck hasn’t dropped any more skewers. Two Planks just seems to have even fewer brain cells than we’d thought.

On Monday she vomited a couple of times. Nothing unusual there – till the Carnivore noticed weird streamer-like things in it. White, about 5 mm wide, made of some kind of light plastic or fabric. We wracked out brains but couldn’t imagine what she’d eaten, or where she’d found it. Could some packaging have blown over the fence from the building work next door? It seemed unlikely, but what else were we to think? She will occasionally chew on things she finds in the backyard, but she doesn’t eat things out of the house – not since her puppy days.

Except now she does, apparently.

Yesterday morning there was more vomit and she wouldn’t eat breakfast, so we took her to the vet. Still mystified, we showed the streamer thing to the vet. It wasn’t until Drama Duck came home that we identified it. It was ribbon. She’d left a spool of it on her bedroom floor after a friend wrapped a present on the weekend. The next day she’d noticed the spool was broken and empty, but just assumed her friend must have used more ribbon than she’d thought.

I’m still shaking my head over this one. The chicken skewer I could understand. That was food. But ribbon? What on earth possessed the stupid animal? Who sees a spool of ribbon and thinks hmmm, that looks tasty?

So today the vet has the delightful job of hunting through her innards for it. Who knows how much is in there? 10 m? 20? It was originally a 50 m spool, but we don’t know how much was left on it when she decided to chow down on it. Several metres has already been up-chucked all over our backyard, but there’s obviously still enough in there to block up the works.

The vet tells me he’s known dogs to eat padlocks, mobile phones, even remote controls. Ribbon seems almost tame by comparison, but unfortunately, being long and linear, it’s a devil to get out again. Stupid bloody dog.

Has anybody else got any good stupid-things-my-pet-has-done stories? Please tell me I’m not the only one!

Depilated Demon Duck

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Well, she’s done it. Determination and feverish fundraising have brought her total raised to $150.50. At this rate she may even top $200.

Her school is one of the biggest fundraisers in the state, with their combined total currently standing at over $36,000. Twenty-one girls shaved their hair off in the school hall this week, with many more colouring their hair red, blue or pink.

Today it was her turn. She went from this:

to this:

I’m surprised you didn’t all hear the squeals of glee from wherever you are. To say she was excited to see her new look doesn’t begin to cover it. She bounded off to the nearest mirror like Tigger on speed, and the shrieks of delight echoed through the house. She is not a child who believes in hiding her feelings. Thank goodness she was happy with it, or things could have got ugly!

I have to admit, it does look good. Let’s hope it doesn’t wash out too quickly. The packaging refuses to be pinned down: “colour will last from three to thirty washes”. They couldn’t manage to be just a little more specific? There’s a bit of a difference between three and thirty! Might as well just say “we’ve got no idea how long this stuff lasts – probably not as long as you’d like it to, but we’re not giving you your money back if you’re not happy, so there!”

Fingers crossed she gets to enjoy the reward for all her hard work for at least a few weeks. Myself, I’m quite looking forward to my own reward – I get to stop making friendship bracelets. I’ll hardly know what to do with myself!

Might even have to do something radical like getting back to work on my Nano novel.

New Zealand through a quilter’s eyes (Part 1)

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Lines, patterns, colours. Sometimes a quilter’s holiday snaps focus on things that don’t interest the average tourist.

Take this wall down by the docks in Auckland, for instance. It looked like it had been made out of old weathered packing crates.

The Carnivore just shook his head. Why are you taking photos of this piece of junk? But I thought the soft aged colours were beautiful.

Then there was this building nearby. Patterns of lines and colours. Very cool.

At the aquarium the jellyfish looked like an abstract painting, softly glowing.

Or maybe some kind of alien life form? So pretty!

We took the ferry to Devonport quite unexpectedly, having to fill in a couple of hours before our harbour cruise one morning in Auckland. Imagine my delight in finding a whole row of poles along the street covered in crochet! Naturally I had to embarrass my family by taking scads of photos.

Aren’t those frogs just the cutest?? I just love that there are people out there who see a whole bunch of plain poles and think wouldn’t it be great to cover those suckers in crochet? So whimsically pointless, but why the hell not?

Further north I was taken by the light through foliage, particularly the marvellous umbrella-like spokes of the ferns.

Out on the beautiful Bay of Islands I loved this pop of bright orange against the blue water. This photo doesn’t do justice to the colour of the water there, though, which was a glorious deep blue, shading to a clear green in the shallows.

So much colour everywhere! And of course I’m all about the colour, so I loved it. I have lots more pretties to show you, but I’ll save them for another post lest you die of old age waiting for the page to load.

D is for Determined

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Everything’s relative, isn’t it? If I’m starving to death and you offer me boiled potatoes, I will wolf them down and think them the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten. But if I’m accustomed to eating at five star restaurants every night, your boiled potato offering might seem plain and uninteresting, even offensive. Same boiled potato, different circumstances.

Demon Duck has many fine qualities, but some of them are definitely boiled potatoes. Take her determination, for instance. It gives her drive, it makes her see projects through – it will probably take her far in life. A great quality to have, yes?

But the other face of determination is stubbornness, and the child will argue till her last breath when she’s set on something. When you are the parent of a determined child, that fine quality can seem like nothing more than a humungous pain in the butt. And when you add high intelligence to the determination, what do you get?

Rat cunning.

I tell you, this kid’s teenage years are going to give me more grey hairs than the other two combined.

She started asking me months ago about getting her hair dyed. I said no, and gave her all the reasons: bad for your hair, have to keep doing it once you start to cover the regrowth, too expensive. She accepted that and didn’t nag, but every now and then she’d mention how much she’d like to dye her hair that really bright fake red.

Meanwhile she pondered ways and means, never letting go of the idea.

Enter the World’s Greatest Shave, a fundraiser for the Leukaemia Foundation. Several girls at school were signing up to shave their heads, raising money for the foundation through sponsorships. But if you didn’t want to shave your head, you could still raise money by pledging to dye your hair a crazy colour, like … oh, I don’t know … bright red.

You can see where this is going, can’t you?

I had to laugh, really, but I wasn’t going to be a pushover. No hitting on her grandparents for ten bucks and calling the job done. I said she could do it if she raised at least $100 (though only with a temporary dye that would wash out after a few washes).

Not being terribly outgoing, she was quietly horrified at the prospect of asking people for donations, so we came up with the idea of making friendship bracelets for her to sell to the girls at school.


Here’s just a few of our creations. We’ve each made about 30, and Drama Duck made a handful too. I’ve spent so much time making friendship bracelets lately it would have been easier to just give her the money, and almost as cheap, considering how much I’ve spent on cotton and beads. But I think it’s a valuable experience for her, having to work to achieve her goal, and she’s certainly put in a lot of effort. So far she’s raised $66, and still going strong.

D is for Determined Demon Duck.

Happiness is …

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Happiness is being reminded what a great guy you married.

Being an old married couple, the Carnivore and I haven’t celebrated Valentines Day in years. It’s too commercial, we don’t need a special day to say “I love you” – the usual reasons. Occasionally we might give each other a card if we happen across one that’s insulting enough (I was tempted this year by one that said They say opposites attract. Happy Valentines Day from your intelligent, beautiful and amusing wife) but usually the day slips past with no acknowledgement.

But …

This year at the girls’ school they had a scheme whereby, for the princely sum of $2, you could buy a rose for a friend and have it delivered during roll call. There was much excitement and planning of who was buying roses for whom. All would have been well, except they underestimated the number of people wishing to buy roses.

Demon Duck came home devastated. She’d managed to order a rose for her new best friend, but they’d run out before the friend could get her one in return.

“I’m not going to get a rose on Valentines Day!” she wailed.

You might imagine this wouldn’t be too much of a problem, since she’s never received a rose on Valentines Day any other year either, and managed to live through the experience. But she was really quite disappointed. Briefly I toyed with the idea of buying her a rose myself, but a) roses are hideously expensive on Valentines Day and b) I’m a cheapskate, so that idea didn’t fly.

I decided to do something more in the original spirit of the day. I gave each family member four red paper hearts and told them to write a loving message for each other member of the family. We sealed each person’s messages in an envelope to be opened and read out at dinner on Valentines Day, so we could all hear the nice things we’d said to each other.

Satisified that Something Was Being Done about Valentines Day, I thought no more of it, and was taken completely by surprise when I came out for breakfast on the day and found this:

The Valentines Day fairy had been and left me a beautiful bunch of flowers, a single rose for each girl, and a beautifully wrapped present for Baby Duck (which of course turned out to be a box of lego).

Demon Duck was thrilled that she got her rose after all, and I was touched that her thoughtful daddy had taken in all the lamentations on the subject and decided to do something about it. It was such a sweet surprise. He’s so sneaky! And obviously not as much of a cheapskate as his wife. I think I shall keep him.

As for the messages we wrote each other, they were a lot of fun too. Some members of the family cough cough demon duck cough couldn’t quite get the hang of being unreservedly nice, and had to get their snark on. For example, her note to her dad began “I love how you think you’re so funny even when you’re not”. Others, like Drama Duck, crammed whole heartfelt essays on to their little paper hearts.

Baby Duck’s note to me said “You are the awesomest mum in the whole known galaxy”. Can’t do much better than that, can you!

Hope you enjoyed it too, if Valentines Day is your thing. And if saying it with flowers doesn’t appeal, maybe next year you could take a leaf out of the Carnivore’s book and try saying it with lego instead. Guaranteed to make an impression on the small boys in your life.

Baby Duck’s guide to Auckland

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Hi there! We’ve just returned from a couple of weeks touring the north island of New Zealand. Very pretty place, lots to see – we didn’t even cover the whole north island, much less get a chance to see any of the south island.

I tortured the kids, as I did on our Japan trip last year, by making them keep travel diaries. There was much complaining, but I hope one day they’ll be glad to have them to look back on and help them remember. Baby Duck’s is often unintentionally entertaining, so I thought I’d share a few extracts.

Baby Duck’s Guide to Auckland

15/1/13
Today we went to some café. Then we left, walked, and went to a park. [Ed: I hope you weren’t expecting actual useful details] But it started raining, so we went back to the hotel. But on the way there we were stopped by a bridge we had walked over that had gone up like this.

But the bridge lowered a little while later and we decided to take the SHARK-BUS to the Aquarium and set off yet again.

[Perhaps you can guess from the excited capital letters that the shark bus was pretty impressive to a certain nine-year-old tourist.]

When we got there the Aquarium looked really small but the person driving the SHARK-BUS told us the actual Aquarium was underground. [It was Kelly Tarlton’s Underwater World, and well worth a visit if you’re ever in Auckland.] There were rays, sharks, a giant squid that’s head was coming off so you could see its brians [very nasty, being able to see a creature’s brians, you know. Probably goes without saying that it was a dead giant squid], fish, jelly fish, shrimps, sea horses and a octopus and also some penguins.

Don’t eat the yellow snow, penguins!

There was also a little stall that had water in it with a sign above saying “Arctic water see if you can put your hand in for thirty seconds”. My sisters touched the water, said it was too cold, but I put my hand in for thirty seconds.

[I shall spare you the regular descriptions of what he had for breakfast, lunch and dinner. He hasn’t quite got the hang yet of only including the salient points. Or maybe food is very important when you’re nine.]

16/1/13
One Tree Hill – long drive up the hill, no tree. Should be called “no tree hill, instead of tree, big monument”. Boring.

Dad’s office: extremely boring!

After One Tree Hill we went to a museum. It was boring.

[Are you sensing a pattern here? Yes, sadly, dear readers, Baby Duck has little appreciation for cultural experiences. Or sightseeing. Or shopping. Or pretty much anything you do when visiting a foreign country other than checking out its amusement parks.]

Then for dinner we had Mongolian [one of those restaurants where you select your own ingredients and they cook it in front of you on a big drum]. I liked how you could serve yourself.

17/1/13
After breakfast we went on a ferry to Devonport. Then we went on a harbour tour. The captain was very funny “Please don’t fall overboard because it creates lots of paperwork wether I find you or not”.

When we stopped at an island the captain said “If you hear this sound (HOONK) you’ll know to start walking back to the boat. But if you hear this sound (honk honk honk) you should have been running because you just missed the last boat back.” Since there were no houses at all nobody would want to sleep there. Dad got off the boat but got back at the last minute. [His timing gave me a few anxious moments …]

But when we got to dry land nobody started kissing the ground. (Well at least I didn’t see anyone doing it.) Then we went to Lord Nelson’s for dinner. [He didn’t mention the shopping that came in between, but I can assure you he found it boring.] When we got out we saw two girls get on the bungy ride across the road. I think it looked really fun, but mum and dad said “NO”. So that was decided.

Happiness is …

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Happiness is a pretty rainbow of threads making a bright spot in your day.
I took this photo in the midst of the renovation horrors of last year. I was sitting on my bed in the middle of the kitchen, sewing little birds and resolutely ignoring the chaos all around.
It looks so pretty and serene, doesn’t it? – almost like something out of a magazine. But just out of shot the debris of our lives was piled up in huge, depressing, tottering stacks. I can still see it when I look at this photo.
Sometimes sewing is a real sanity-saver.

The cat crept into the crypt …

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… crapped, and crept out.

Possibly my dad’s favourite tongue-twister, judging by the number of times it got mentioned through my childhood – though for a long time I didn’t know what the cat did when it crept into the crypt, because my mum always shot Dad That Look, and he would just laugh instead of finishing the sentence.

It’s so annoying when you’re a kid and all the grown-ups are laughing at a joke they refuse to explain! Almost as annoying as opening your front door and finding the next door neighbour’s cat really has crapped on your doormat. Or thrown up on it, as our neighbour’s cat occasionally does.

Cats and their unsavoury habits came up over Christmas. I went to a social evening at the local church with a friend to make gingerbread houses. I was very pleased with my effort when I brought it home.

They provided a generous supply of lollies, so I went to town. Like my row of spearmint trees? And the cute little icicles?

I was quite proud of my candy-striped front door too, complete with door handle made with the top of a chocolate bullet. Only next morning I discovered my little brown door handle had fallen off and was lying forlorn on the doorstep. See it there? A suspicious brown lump, looking just like the next-door neighbour’s gingerbread cat had crept in during the night and crapped on the doormat.

Stupid gingerbread cat.

Happiness is …

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Happiness is a sister to cuddle up to when you’re having trouble falling asleep.

It’s nice to remember the little things that make us happy. I’ve been thinking for a while of doing a photo series to remind myself to appreciate the everyday. A good excuse to practise my photography skills too!

They look so peaceful in this photo, don’t they? Ironic really, when you consider the hundreds of thousands of dollars we’ve just spent and the months and months of angst, living through the renovation from hell. All so that these two didn’t have to share a bedroom any more, because they fought so much.

And now they have their own bedrooms, where do I find them? Squished into a single bed together, naturally. That’s kids for you.

On the subject of the renovation, it occurs to me that I never posted a photo of the completed project. Because it is – finally! – complete, landscaping and all.

We started with this:

progressed through this:

and this:



(oh, the horror!). Till at last we arrived at this:

Renovations are a bit like childbirth. Once you have the finished product, the pain of getting there recedes into memory. It’s certainly a wonderful house now, set up to suit us perfectly. But unlike childbirth, I don’t think I’d ever line up to go through it more than once. We learned a lot of valuable lessons about dealing with builders, but the main one was: don’t.

Next time, just move.

One day to go!

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Baby Duck, like nine-year-olds everywhere, has been counting down the days till Christmas. He built his own countdown calendar out of lego, and has been happily updating it all month. We progressed from “I can’t believe Christmas is so far away” through “it’s still two weeks to go” to “it’s Christmas in 12 more hours!!!!!!”.

The good thing about being a kid is you have nothing else to do but look forward to Christmas, unlike all the frazzled adults who have a million things on their plate and wish the whole thing would just go away. I’m sure that’s why kids love it so much – the sheer joy of presents with none of the seasonal responsibilities and pressures.

The bad thing about being a kid, of course, is also that you have nothing else to do but look forward to Christmas. When you’re not busy and distracted, the big day seems to approach at a snail’s pace. Why does December go so slooowly?

“I wish it was Christmas tomorrow!” has been heard a lot from a certain small boy. Not enough to make me rich if I had a dollar for every utterance, but certainly frequently enough to buy me a very nice Christmas present.

Now at last it is Christmas tomorrow, and soon enough it’ll be gone in a frenzy of unwrapping and excitement. Such a short thrill after such a long build-up.

Already he’s planning to update that lego calendar tomorrow: 365 days to go!