The cat purred gently at my feet as I peeled the potatoes for tonight’s dinner. I was humming “Do You Know The Way To San Jose?” and happy in my task. From the kitchen window, I could see my dear Problem Children tearing up the lawn to make mud-pies for their teddies. “Little tykes!” I thought, smiling and shaking my head at their wanton unruliness. Nothing could interfere with my happy mood. My thoughts turned to Blogland.

The Problem Older Husband entered the kitchen, striding purposefully, on his way to somewhere (maybe the garage or maybe San Jose). He stopped short when he saw me at my peeling.

“Are we having potatoes, again?” he asked

“Yes!” I answered lightly, trying to ignore the slight emphasis on “again”. Nothing could spoil my peeling reverie.

“We’ve had them a lot this week. Are you on a potato kick or something?”

Again I ignored the hint of accusation in his voice. Nobody accusing me of potatoes would bring me down. I tossed my head, nonchalantly.

“No, I just fancied potatoes, and besides, they’re one of the few vegetables Problem Daughter 1 will eat.”

“She’s certainly getting some practice”, said Problem Older Husband.”

This was as water off a mallard to me. I began humming again. Problem Older Husband had a momentary rummage in the fridge and then, munching on a pickle, watched me for a minute. I peeled a bit more. “I’m going back to find (boom) some peace of mind lalala.” I sang quietly.

“These are new potatoes” he said, “You know, you don’t really need to peel them. Just a scrub and they’re ready for the pot.”

I turned magisterially from my bucket of peelings and fixed the Problem Husband with a cool stare.

“Well, I’m just saying” he said, clearly perturbed by the iciness of my very, very cool stare. “It’s not what you do with new potatoes.”

Turning the stare temperature even further down, I fixed the Problem Husband with a brass monkeys look and quoth:

“Loyalty to petrified opinions never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world–and never will. Mark Twain.”, said I, wondering if I’d remembered the words correctly.

“Right” he said.

To a casual obserever I may have seemed, then, to return unperturbed to my work. But in my heart played a Mariachi band and I partied inwardly with a silly inward hat on my inward head. A smiled played secretly about my lips.

Another kitchen sink-triumph! Another night I have earnt my rest.

A wee spot post-post business. I’m “wirepeach” of the comment box, by the way. In case anybody thought I wasn’t responding to your comments. I may be from the Outer Hebrides but I was not brought up in a field. Manners maketh the blogger. Sorry, for the confusion. I’ll change it in a bit.

“Today we will be grumpy!” my children all but declared this morning, at breakfast.

Wearily, I picked up the flung raisin, and advised them that big girls don’t argue with their sisters; another lie from “Utter Lies We Tell Our Children” (22nd edition) Random Mouse Publishing. I’m working my way steadily, religiously, through that.

In the past two weeks they have gone from delightful, charming little girls to the wrong sort of Gremlins. I blame myself, of course. What have I done? Why are they being so monstrously naughty? Amn’t I spending enough time with them? Nope, it’s not that. Am I being tetchy? Are they getting it from me?

That is the answer, much as I would like it not to be. Every time I get back from Britain I feel homesick for a good two or three weeks, before settling back into my life here, (a life I usually like well). Enough to make me testy and preoccupied. The girls have picked up on this and are acting accordingly. They don’t know how else to act when their mother is out-of-sorts. They have all the emotional restraint of mere 4-year olds. As they are 4, this is age-appropriate and doesn’t worry me as much as I sometimes worry about their father.

I have learnt that every parental mistake takes roughly three times the amount of time to rectify as it did to make. By my lightening fast mental calculations that gives me about 6-7 weeks of weebairnitis (or “inflammation of the children”).

Regular readers of Problemchildbride will know that I am an enormously effective and excellent parent and that the sparkle on my faucets is second to none. I have therefore, naturally – and without the usual hand – wringing in which a lesser parent might engage – taken the most appropriate action for these circumstances.

The trick is to distract them from their original mood and behaviour in a way that allows them to channel their feelings in a positive way. So I have set them to play with power tools, and a log in the garden. They can express their rage through wood-carving and we get a piece of charming primitive art. Everybody wins!

There have been a few alarming moments as they stagger around under the weight of the chainsaws, but I think now they have an appreciation of how to do “Play Nicely, Or The Consequences Will Be Unspeakable.”

Another job well done, I think. I’m really smashing at this mummy thing, although I say it myself.

*
UPDATE: A mere half hour after this was tapped, and the Problem Children are now being almost nauseatingly nice to each other! Following an inspiring and instructive speech from me, calling to mind the best of Socratic thought, Hobbesian doom and threats of being arrested by the police, the girls are now cooing gently to each other, things like, “You can have my mud-pie because you are my sister and I like you” and “I’m sorry” and “no I’M sorry.”

I think I liked things better when they were fighting. I’m not sure I haven’t made a terrible mistake somewhere.

Colin writhed and turned. He was asleep but thrashed against Genevieve, slumbering gently beside him. Remarkably, she didn’t wake but continued her own delicious dream in which her normally dimpled, doughy-white thighs were now a golden brown and some loving, unseen hand was caressing her with honey-butter lotions and oils.

A mere two hours before, Colin, Genevieve and the other soldiers had been lined up neatly and patiently, awaiting their instructions. They’d been kept quite literally in the dark about their mission, but they had all been raised together and knew that they could count on each other. They’d been told from as far back as they could remember that they had been born for this mission and each was determined to do his or her duty to the nth degree. Little did any of them suspect how high that nth degree would be.

There were some understandable jitters then, amongst this small platoon of waiting soldiers. They were pale and exhausted from the journey. They’d travelled in cramped, poor conditions. The smell of the diesel engine sickened them and many were jammed up uncomfortably against an enormous box, the only discernable letters of which were “KEL”. Colin dreamed on…

He was falling and falling until, with a soft plop, he landed on a vast brown plain. The grass around him was sere and coarse but it had cushioned his fall well enough. He felt a movement under his feet and froze.

A deep, disembodied voice boomed “Crumbs! It fell on Chops, The Dawg!”.

This time the lurch was unmistakable and it’s force threw Colin back into a soft copse. A quick check over his body, as he’d been taught, told Colin he had sustained no injuries but he didn’t know who had spoken or who “The Dawg” was and he wasn’t in a hurry to find out.

But what now? Things were changing again, in the way dreams do. In an instant he found himself slung high into the air and slammed down hard, onto on a cold white surface with a glaring fluorescent light overhead shining in his eyes and dazzling him.

“‘Ave you prepared it yet?”, came a voice, this time female and nerve-gratingly nasal.

“Close” said the booming voice. “It won’t be long now. The master will be satisfied this time, I’m sure”.

“Good, that last lot we sent up was a bit pasty-coloured. Didn’t like the look of ‘em, meself. There’s no wonder it displeased ‘im. Look, I’ll give you a hand, there’s only one left”.

Again Colin felt himself swing high, higher and then with a sickening crunch he was slammed face-down on some sort of a metal rack. The rack felt like it was on fire. Colin tried to recoil from the blistering bars but, almost immediately, he felt the scorch on his back; a searing heat from somewhere above was beating down on him and he began to smell the unmistakeable odor of burning flesh. His own.

“Genevieve!”, he yelled, as the pain screamed through his back and shoulders.

“Colin! Colin!” he thought he heard her cry.

Then louder, more urgently, “COLIN! COLIN! AAAAAAGH!”

He awoke, sweating and shaken as he looked around. Genevieve had gone, but the others were lying a short way away, apparantly still fast asleep. He shook his shoulders and smiled at his foolishness. For a moment there he could have sworn he was a … no it was just too ridiculous. Where do these dreams come from? he wondered.

Colin didn’t notice the gigantic, hairy hand as it came from behind him, and he was still smiling at his ludicrous dream when he heard The Master say, “Now that’s what I call a proper toast soldier! Pass the paper, darling, there’s a dear.”

Nobody heard Colin scream. Back on the plate, the others were just beginning to awaken and stir. The last thought he had in this life, as he was thrust into the dark, putrid mouth of The Master was, “Genevieve. Of course: French toast.”

******

For non-British people – toast soldiers are a nursery-food breakfast staple in houses with either small children, old people or students in them. A piece of buttered toast is cut into 4 strips or “soldiers” and then they are often dipped into a soft-boiled egg. We British use them as devices with which to paste up our wallpaper. Of course we don’t. We eat them. The British Empire was won on such breakfasts of champions. And then lost again, when we began the practise of smearing axle-grease or “Marmite” on our morning toast.

There is a lesson in this for Americans: stick to cornflakes. The day you start getting comfortable and lazy with your so-called “Pop-Tarts” and your Krispy Kreme WhatHaveYous is the day when your empire will also begin to crumble.

Be great again, America! Rediscover your core breakfast beliefs set down by the great breakfast giants, Kellogg, Quaker and the peerless Post! Don’t go the sugary, mass-produced junk-food route – that way lies only Metabolic Syndrome, diabetes and an inability to compete globally because you’re hungry again by mid-morning.

Eat an egg and soldiers in the morning, floss well, and you’ll be ready for anything the Chinese can throw at you!

(PAID FOR BY THE EGG AND BREAD MARKETING BOARD OF AMERICA.)

Today – Science news from “The Ojai Peerer: Local news you need to know, but will have to wait to get on a bi-weekly basis”.

“Fruits and Vegetables: No Damn Good After All!” screams today’s headline.

In a discovery that is expected to cause shock and dismay in this small town of organically nourished, hemp-clad artists/soul-travellers (and their Mexican housecleaners), a new study has suggested that “5 A Day” has no health benefit other than that of the calories one expends in chopping the five up.

“It’s true”, said Richard Van Boffinbonce of the World Science Center (Ojai Lab). “Fruits and vegetables appear to have no nutritional value of any sort, it turns out. They may cause a bit of wind in some, but otherwise, you might as well eat twigs. Apparantly, we’d been reading the statistics backwards all this time. The head of Research has been on the sauce a bit. That day, back in the 70s, when we were doing the “Fruits and Vegetables: Are They Good For You” study, he’d just lost his parrot in a motorbike accident and was very emotional. It’s a completely understandable mistake. One of these things.” Boffinbonce added “Sorry everyone.”

What has been the reaction to this revelation? I took my tape-recorder and bogus journalist credentials to a local coffee-shop to find out.

Willow MacQuilty, 49, who describes her occupation simply as “Seeker of Truth” sipped thoughtfully on a Chai tea before offering her opinion.

“This is irrelevant news to me” she said. “I eat only a crude bread made from simple water – I prefer Evian – and the finely ground-up stones of our ancestors”.

“Your ancestors?” I attempted to clarify.

“Well, strictly speaking my literal flesh and blood ancestors came from Sweden and Ireland and settled in Wisconsin. I mean the universal spirits of this place.” she said gesturing in a wide sweep at the service counter. “The Sacred Ancient Ones of Ojai. He knows what I mean” she added, and indicated a wizened, leathery old man of Native-American appearance crouched in the corner with a lemonade.

“Que? Que? I’m a legal eemmeegrant. Legal! See, theez are my papers! I only wanna work. Oh pleeze leave me alone.” The panicked old man waved a piece of grass-stained paper under our noses and left arthritically, looking hunted and clearly upset, his lemonade untouched.

“Oh dear! I hope I didn’t upset or offend him in any way at all.” wailed MacQuilty. “We must attempt to reach out to our Mexican brothers and sisters in a spirit of … er… reaching out.”

“Well. he’d just come off a twelve hour day labouring and was stopping off for a coffee to keep him awake before he went to his second job on the night-crew at the Arbolada roadworks. But don’t worry, I expect, he didn’t need a rest anyway”, said an acerbic voice from the next table.

“And how do you feel about the vegetable news, Mr … ?” I asked the 40ish owner of the voice.

“Ben Harris, local contractor”, he said. “And I think “Thank Sweet Jesus for the news!” If my girlfriend had served me sprouted lentils, lightly steamed broccoli in a silken lemon tofu sauce, with a palate-cleansing wheatgrass shake for dessert AGAIN tonight, I was going to leave her.” He indicated the suitcases beside him.

“That’s what I was in here thinking about. Lovely girl but I can’t take the diet any more. I need to eat animals to be happy. This news might be just what we need. I’m off to the florists and then the butchers – our lives are just beginning again!”

“Oh how joyful!” McQuilty said and smiled. Only then did I see the results of eating stone bread on human dentition. Four remaining highly polished stumps remained in her gappy smile, gleaming like impossibly tiny icebergs in her dusty-haired head.

“I’m off to Contemplation Mount to dance about naked in celebration of his new chance at life!” she cried.

“Watch out for bears!” I advised, as she spun away, twirling her arms. “And that lady’s coffee-cup! Oh… Oh dear… Are you terribly scalded?”

“Well, I simply refuse to believe the news” ejaculated a lady I had chosen not to interview upon entering the coffee-shop, having seen her fix my leather bag in her disapproving glare. “I shall not change my eating habits in the least”.

“Despite the fact that that flies in the face of the current overwhelming new evidence that a MacDonald’s happy meal is better for you than a wheelbarrowful of blueberies?” I asked, trying to ascertain whether this Miss Carmen Rollers, 53, of Carne Road, had sustained horrible disfiguring burns lately, or whether she’d just been to the Spa for a peel.

“Why, because of it,” she responded tartly. “I smell a cover-up. Follow the money, I always say”.

I left her saying some of the other things she informs me she always says, and I believe her. Blinking out into the sunlight of Ojai Avenue, I pondered what I’d learnt.

Ojai, it turns out, couldn’t give a vegetable fritterole about the news. We are a town that can absorb blows to our very underlying philosophies. Apart from a few newly happy carnivorous spouses, previously bamboozled with sex into a diet free of flesh, the people remain stoic and untroubled. This reporter fully expects Ojai will still be practicing sustainable berry-farming right through the new meat revolution, because it’s who we are. And because of The Ancients and The Spirits etc. who we all know ate nothing but grass, mud and, oddly, rubber.

Today’s Guardian (http://arts.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1791155,00.html) reports that Australian authorities are piping the music of Barry Manilow into spots where teenagers or “hoons” cluster together and frighten older, much nicer people.

Apparantly, the town of Rockdale near Sydney has a carpark where the “hoons” gather to play their “doof-doof” music and glower. Not content with doing what teenagers in the free world have always done largely peacefully for decades, they also rev their cars loudly and “compare their fittings” which I can only assume is an automotive activity. However, even these behaviours are pretty much the same as those listed on the tin when you purchase a teenager, and the town appears to have aquired at least 100 of them with no chance of getting their money back now.

BUT, see that’s not all they do, these hoons. Oh no; they insist on seeking out the company of like-minded individuals, albeit about a 100 other like-minded individuals in the case of Rockdale, and they stand about together with their disconcertingly blank teenage faces and frighten older people who can afford to go places maybe even inside. To be fair to the much, much nicer older people though, the default position for some teenage faces is Black Sulk. But who didn’t know that? Isn’t it the job of teenagers to despise their parents for around 3 years, eat only toast and wear baffling fashions?

So, the town is fighting back against these ne’er-do-well clusterers. Not for Rockdale the Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) of Blair’s free and open and hardly becoming authoritarian at all Britain. No, the Australians are far more hardline on the young ‘uns that would “disturb the peace” as one councillor Saravinovski accused, adding that “These people don’t show any respect for the law”. Probably with all the impertinent standing about (But what can they be doing, Roger?), being insolently, enviably young and also , inconveniently, the loin-fruit of his own town.

Taking their cue from another town that successfully cleared loiterers from their mall with the tunes of Bing Crosby, the council selected Barry Manilow as the acme of uncool for the acne set, the “WHY?” for Gen. Y. The theory runs that “Copacabana” will kill the atmosphere and the mood of general malfeasance. For these hoons have obviously nothing but you-know-what and granny-bashing on their minds, I mean, Look how they cluster so, Roger! They stand there and cast stormy, entirely teenage looks – all the while still clustering, mind – at pleasant older folk perhaps on their way back from the garden centre or the “Concerned Citizens for Doing Things Tastefully” meeting. It’s simply intolerable to have to put up with these … these… other people, Roger. Oh wait, isn’t that our Margery over there with that boy with the nose-ring, ill-fitting pants and the haunted mien?

But in the end the hoons have really brought it on themselves and if they weren’t so preoccupied with “comparing their fittings” and, ahem, “revving their engines ” (it’s all those hormones, you know – such a delicate time, such a potentially damaging juncture to be forced to listen to “Mandy”) they might realise that a legitimate counter-argument could be raised against the council who, by playing their raucous, screechy music with its offensive lyrics too loudly, are destroying their peace. Oh Roger, I think the Manilow was a muzak too far – these are still-forming minds, you know. It can’t be right! And, besides, these tinny parking lot speakers can hardly cope with Manilow’s soaring high notes and swooping lows -they’ll have to buy more tweeters in about a fortnight. They’d have been better off with Rolf Harris.

Full disclosure: The author secretly doesn’t mind Barry Manilow all that much and will dance to him happily enough at weddings etc. but I would set my own eyebrows on fire if it were generally known. Ssssh now! That’s a secret.

Well, I was going to muddle together a post of some sort today, but thought I’d catch up on my favourite blogs first and maybe sprinkle some comments around to get back into the posting way. Now, after reading the fabulous “The Fishwhacker Swindle?” I realised there is nothing better I can do than direct any passers-by to go right there post-haste.

Mr Foot Eater has written a brilliant short story in 3 parts (scroll down for part 1). The Best way I can describe it is John Le Carre meets Stephen King at a conference on European medieval fairy tales somewhere in the Czech Republic and they have a chat about The Green Knight , with Messrs. Dire Warning and Nabokov glowering in the corner. It is illuminating and sinister but care must be taken: it should be read in a bright room with cheerful wallpaper and no gloomy corners or potted plants (see story) to prevent you from brooding too much on its darkness. Of the two mistics, I can’t decide whether the conclusion is opti or pessi. Anyway – it’s good.

Now, though, I have no time to think up a post of my own and I haven’t had a chance to check out my other favourite sites either. Damn you Foot Eater!

Shoosh! Wheecht! Away with you now to Footie’s. He’s some darn good readin’.

Later: Forgot to include a link to Mr. Eater’s. Here he is: http://fishwhackerswindle.blogspot.com/