We’re having spaghetti for lunch today. To be specific, everyone in the HOUSE (4 people in total) is having spaghetti for lunch today. This is because I am a cooking gimp.

I’m not a fabulous cook. I’m not bad at it; I’ve got a repertoire of about 15 dishes that I can prepare competently and without instruction. (One of our current favourites is a feta cheese, onion and spinach omelette that I stole from Papapotamus who is a VERY good cook. We’re having it tonight.) I CAN follow recipes without too much trouble, although it takes me a few tries to actually get it tasting the way I think it’s supposed to. What I feel distinctly is that I lack is culinary common sense.

Last night, Baloo the Builder came over to have a jam with The Rock Star to prepare for his depping gig with The Mis-spelled Band this evening. Naturally, wanting to feed him, I made spag-bog because it’s easy to cook in large amounts. But for some reason, I believed that instead of just feeding the three of us, I was also cooking for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

When I was little, one of my favourite books was Strega Nona by Tomi dePaola. Strega Nona is a kitchen witch who leaves her bumbling assistant Anthony in charge of her house. Trying to be helpful, Anthony recites a spell over Strega Nona’s pasta pot and ends up with a town full of pasta. I thought of that book last night for the first time in years as it became readily apparent that I had cooked enough spaghetti to cause severe indigestion in the whole of the Black Watch.

This is a persistent culinary problem in our house that I think could probably be sorted out with a decent set of kitchen scales and a few measurement suggestions from the saintly Delia, the cheeky Jamie or the perpetually foul-mouthed Gordon. However, my biggest gastronomic disaster has been an attempt to bring a typically American recipe into our British household.

The Mennonite Cookbook was a treasure trove of goodness in my parent’s home while I was growing up and one of the things that got yummed up the fastest was always Shoo Fly Pie. Here’s the recipe. I would like to state for the record that I managed this successfully 3 TIMES while I was at college and once or twice in my mother’s kitchen. However, my attempts to recreate this delicious treat over here have been far less successful.

Attempt 1: Here’s something I found out: Treacle is not ANYTHING like King’s Syrup. Do not attempt this pie with treacle unless you want an unholy mess that will stick to the pie dish like hardened cement. Plus, your mother-in-law will laugh discreetly behind her hands at you.

Attempt 2: Here’s something else I found out: If you want to bring King’s Syrup back from America with you…it should REALLY go in your hand luggage. That’s all I have to say on that one except to report another gooey mess and more laughing.

Attempt 3: This was the puzzling one. I had managed to import all of the right ingredients without undue fuss or spillage, but I still ended up with a pie that was better served in pint glass than on a plate. And still with the laughing.

But I shall persevere. I shall have my shoo-fly, in this life or the next.

And if anyone’s free for lunch, there’s some spaghetti with your name written all over it.

A little meme that I skanked from Tony and Alkelda.

1) At this moment, what is your theme song? (Quote a lyric, please.)

Chariot by Gavin DeGraw

Oh chariot/ your golden waves/
are walking down upon this face/
Oh chariot/ I’m singing out loud/
To guide me/ Give me your strength

2) What edgy, hip thing do you wish would come to mind when people think of you?

Being neither edgy nor hip, I suppose I can settle for being a rock chick.

3) What is your favorite bad movie? Why is it so bad?

It was listed in the Top 100 Worst Movies of the 20th Century by the “Stinkers” site, so I suppose it must be bad, but I have to admit a fondness for Hudson Hawk.

I’m not entirely sure why it’s supposed to be so bad; it’s definitely surrreal. Although anything that boasts Sandra Bernhard AND Andy McDowell among it’s cast can’t have a WHOLE lot going for it.

4) Guilty pleasures:

a) Drinking Pimms by the pint rather than in tall, girly glasses
b) Kevin Smith films
c) tattoos

5) Take back these words:

Virginia: Yeah, you know you’re gonna go to England, meet a hot English guy, get married and move there.

Me: Whatever.

6) What should you have said?

Well, without the power of foresight, I’m not sure what else I COULD have said I wasn’t in the mood for romance at the time, having been uncermoniously dumped by Silent Bob, the musical stoner.

7) A recurring motif in a dream:

A house on a salmon colored beach, covered in broken paua shell.

If you were a character in a film, which one would you want to be?

I think I’d have to agree with Alkela, Eowyn is where it’s at. Totally hot, great with a sword and gets to wail on the Witch King. Losing your entire family along the way is a bit of a bummer, but a small price to pay for being a total bad-ass.

9) Which character do you think you actually would be?

One probably played by Joan Cusack.

10) Give your band a new name:

Wet Amish Hootie

The first book I remember having a frenzied desire to know the ending to was My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George; the story of a boy who runs away from a stressful existence in the city and goes to live by himself in the wilderness. It was being read to us by one of my teachers in grade school. Strangely, I can’t remember who it was or even how old I was, although I’m sure it was before I was 9. Two chapters a day faithfully, she read us, always trying to find an ending point that would inflict the maximum amount of excruciating suspenseful agony, rewarded by a plaintive whine from her rapt audience. I am sorry to report that I no longer remember many details about the story other than that the boy lived in a hollowed out tree and might possibly have been involved with a large bird, but at the time, having to wait until the next day when the story would continue was unendurable. (Why it never occurred to me to ask my mother if we could check it out for the library, I have no idea)

Why is it that we as human beings become so incredibly involved in a good narrative? I spent some time asking myself that this weekend in the rather scarce free moments that I didn’t have my face shoved into Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. I was working as the children’s section leader at a large Borders bookstore in Minneapolis when the first two books were published. There was none of the hype then, only a mild buzz; people coming and telling me, “Someone told me I had to get these books for my kids. Have you got them?” By the time I finally picked them up and month or so later, they were at #1 on the bestseller list and flying off the shelves. I don’t think it was really until the third instalment of the series that it became “the Potter Phenomenon” rather than just a nice little series of kids books that appealed to adults too because secretly, we all want to be wizards.

Wizard envy aside, what makes the narrative of this story so special that people are willing to line up at midnight outside bookstores all over the world to buy a copy and answer the thrilling question, “What happens next?”

The basic story elements are nothing new. A dis-inherited prince, the Christ figure, a great treasure, a cruel upbringing that somehow produces a kind and well-adjusted person, forgiveness, good, evil, monster-slaying, a wise sage, a bully, a great foe, valiant and loyal friends…children’s fairy tales have been woven from these threads since time immemorial. But somehow JK Rowling has managed to take them and make an entirely new tapestry to tell us the tale of “the Boy Who Lived.”

It’s obvious to see that Rowling has been writing this book in our current world climate and that echoes of counter-terrorism measures, government ineptitude and useless information can be found throughout. I particularly enjoyed her early reference to a vague and useless pamphlet sent out by the UK government to “inform and educate” the public about what they should do in the event of a 9/11 style terrorist attack. It’s little touches like that that I think illustrate why the tales are so popular; we don’t love the world that Rowling created for it’s differences to our own, but rather for it’s similarities. We love that wizards, for all of their extraordinary power, still have bumbling, inept governments. That their 17 year olds have to pass Apparation tests before being allowed to appear and disappear at will. And that they face dangerous times with uncertainty and fear. Just like us.

So, did I like the book? Of course I did. And I await, with equal parts of anticipation and dread, the book that will complete the story and answer the burning question, “What happens next?”

I am literally buzzing with excitement.

It has been a hot, sweaty, oppressive week. But today, a fresh breeze has blown in and with it, a veritable glut of shiny. I can scarcely believe my good fortune in the shiny department.

To assist in my new role as PA within PPD’s company, I’ve been furnished with a new shiny PDA that will hopefully tell me things that my standard paper diary doesn’t. If my standard paper diary would AWOOGA at me every time I had an appointment, I would be much happier with it, but since it does not, the PDA, while not quite as fun and colourful, will actually make sure I don’t get annoyed calls from the dentist asking why I’m three hours late and if I might be so kind as to join him so that he can scrape my teeth with a metal hook. Plus, I can tell PPD whether or not he’s supposed to be walking the dog or at the Royal Institute of Navigation. Sometimes he forgets. So, that’s some practical shiny.

In the NON practical shiny area, I’m now the owner of a new snowboard. This was a result of some consultation with experienced slope jockeys who told me there were 3 reasons my feet hurt every time I board:

1) My gear sucks.

2) I might be using the wrong “stance”.

3) My gear sucks.

None of the slope jockeys in question were actually trying to SELL me anything, so I used their expertise as a rather shallow excuse to buy a new, shiny board. It’s got a bird on it. Whether or not that makes my ride any better is yet to be seen.

The third bit of shiny I have not aquired yet, but come midnight the shiny new Harry Potter will also be mine. I feel righteous as I am going to purchase it at an independent, children’s bookshop in Richmond for no doubt, an undiscounted price. But that’s okay. Long live shiny, children’s bookshops.

I rejoice and give thanks for the abundant shiny.

The natural world is completely fascinating to me. Investigation of natural sciences is kind of like looking at a Seurat painting from up close and then pulling back; a mass of multi-colored dots suddenly becomes Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Things that look quite straightforward on the outside become startlingly complex and worthy of further study. This is the reason why this article completely slayed me.

Anyone who wasn’t completely convinced by Darwin has GOT to sit up and take notice. It’s official; monkeys like porn and People Magazine just as much as we do and are willing to pay for it.

In studies conducted in primate behaviour, researchers were astonished to learn that the monkeys in question would “pay” to see pictures of female monkey backsides by giving up little rewards that they had earned. Seriously. Just like monkey Penthouse. What was MORE astonishing was that they would also pay to look at pictures of higher ranking primates. They had never had any interaction with the primates in the photos, but could tell just from observation that they were of a higher social order than themselves. In the reverse, the researchers actually had to PAY the monkeys to look at pictures of lower-ranking primates. I suppose this is why Cosmo sells slightly better than Average Joe Monthly.

This begs the question: Do monkeys aspire to greatness?

This study is so cool, I just about wet my office chair.

This is what comes from waving kilt-clad bare arses at the continent for the last 1000 years or so and daring them to come and have a go if they think they’re hard enough.