Chaperon

(I should have typed this up half a week ago, since I mentioned it several times in advance of the event, but when I haven't been busy I've either been tired or just plain lazy).

I suppose a chaperoned date doesn't feel like too much of a date at all. I wouldn't know since I was the chaperon, in this case, and I've never had a chaperon. They spent most of them time not talking to eachother; mostly because Chug is naturally aloof to... Well, just about everyone. The journey out of town he spent most of his time staring out of the window and I, wanting to give them the illusion of privacy, stuck my nose in my book.

(I must say that the first part of the Earthsea series has not been nearly as interesting as I hoped it would. I think LaGuin managed to recreate Tolkien's problem in precisely the opposite way; he writes pages and pages of detail that cover just a few hours, she writes pages and pages of detail covering several years and neither of them seem to have enough story within those pages and I get bored. Towards the end I was really forcing myself to continue, mostly because I have a Neil Gaiman book waiting for me when I'm done but I've reached the second book in the volume and I haven't found the will to read any of it since I finished the first one on the train, that day).

We then hopped on the next bus from the bus station after going to some trouble to find out which one it was. (Apparently it was from 'Stand E'. Again. It's always there, but since it's only once every year or so that I take the buses in Shrewsbury, which are the only times I ever ride on buses at all, I live in constant fear that they will have changed the routes and if I get on 'E' it will take me to completely the wrong place) I learned the value of getting a return ticket the hard way, which I will explain later. (I don't know why I never bother with them for trains, they're completely sensible).

They had already decided on 'The Pink Panther 2' (Steve Martin) the night before. I had been promising myself that I would attend a different film to them but there was nothing that started at the same time that had a similar run time; meaning there was nothing I could watch separately without leaving the 2 12-year-olds unaccompanied. (There was nothing I wanted to see, anyway. There was only one film that looked remotely interesting that turned out to be by Woody Allen. A quick check of the weather indicated that hell was, indeed, still in the middle of a heatwave so Woody Allen was still out of the question). So I got a ticket for the same movie.

The show time was at 4pm which gave us over 2 hours to kill, so I got them each some Ben + Jerry's Ice cream and gave them a £5 note to go on the arcade (I say 'arcade' but a 3m x 5m corner with 1 game, 1 lucky dip and a "who wants to be a millionaire" machine does not an arcade make by any standards), though I would have given them £10 but the cash machines had been shut down and the £5 was all I had to give them. After that we still had time to kill so I took them to dinner at Nandos, which made quite an impression on both of them. Chug displayed an uncharacteristic amount of machismo by ordering his chicken "extra hot" and putting their special "extra extra hot sauce" on everything and daring me to do the same after mocking me for my feeble (he didn't actually use that word but I doubt he actually knows what it means) choice of Lime and Mango chicken which, according to the menu he had studied (though not much further than the 4 grades of spice on the chicken) was the least spicy of the chicken they did.

I had to explain to him that, once you're particularly used to hot foods, you find that various chili peppers and chili powders don't actually change your food's flavour, much, it only makes it hotter and that my choice of lime and mango was made purely on the grounds that it seemed like it was one of the most flavourful. (Alternatively there was 'Lemon and Herb', however seem to have a lot of chicken marinaded in herbs while lime with mango was something I hadn't tried, though I have had them as marinades separately on other occasions, usually with various mixed herbs).

The kids sat themselves down before I could suggest that they sit opposite each other, as etiquette dictates, though I didn't feel the need to correct them since sitting adjacently on a round table can be more intimate and, since it was only a table for 4 and it was a round table I would have been between then, which would have detracted from that intimacy.

They were both suitably impressed by the place, Chug even complained that nobody had ever taken him there before (we explained this was because he had always refused to go before, favouring the allure of Pizza Hut, on the other side of the town). The place was more 'up-scale' than anything either of them were used to (hell, it was nicer that some of the places I've eaten and I've attended some pretty swanky venues, and it certainly had the most posh rest room I'd ever seen; it even contended with those that had attendants). I wasn't expecting a franchised restaurant of that type to look classy; I was expecting something with the atmosphere of a more generic fast food place. The only problem was that the music was so loud we practically had to shout to hear oneanother. (We even considered writing something to this affect on the feedback form that came with the menus, but when you have a lot of family in various areas of the catering business you learn what happens when you give the people who serve your food any form of criticism. I decided to comment online, nice and anonymously).

The film had some funny moments. The plot wasn't great but, then, it was a sequel which is something generally to be avoided with this type of film. It was funny enough to make me consider seeing the original (and by 'Original' I mean the first of the 2 Steve Martin PP films, not the original Peter Sellers version which I have seen many times and never laughed at once), as there's the likelihood that this was just another case of a movie company trying to make a quick profit following up on an unexpected cash cow.

When the bus back to the station arrived I realised that it I had no money to pay for the tickets and asked the driver (knowing that the odds were slim to none) if he accepted cards. This is why I should have got return tickets, as it would have been easier than paying for a return journey. I don't know why I don't bother getting them on buses when I always get them for trains. I will make a point of doing so in the future. He said they didn't so I said I'd just go to a cash point and wait for the next bus, but he said he'd lets us pass this time. There was only one other passenger on the bus and when she got off he asked me 'if that trick works often' and I explained that I hadn't intended for it to happen at all, that I merely hadn't been thinking ahead (but most of what I do is spontaneous or with reluctance and therefore I seldom plan ahead).

When we got to the station there was over an hour to wait until our train arrived (trains between my town and Shrewsbury arrive every 2 hours, so it was just a case of bad timing that we arrived half way between 2 trains) and so we waited on a bench on the cold platform.

While Chug had been very aloof with Laura on the way out there seemed to be something sweet between them, in a shy sort of way, and he did actually make eye contact and there were lots of embarrassed smiles between them. (I actually did catch a glance at them doing something which they swore me to secrecy about. Nothing bad, it was actually pretty innocent, but being 12 years old they're shy and easily embarrassed (especially since I'm always the first person to tease them on their 'puppy love'). I said nothing about it on the way home and I've been bursting to tell somebody IRL ("In Real Life"), such as Dimebar or Mum or Elise (or even somebody online). But if there's one thing I'm good at it's keeping secrets (or at least I am when I know it's a secret, if somebody fails to ask me to keep something on the down-low then I don't see how I can be held responsible for what I share with others. Or maybe that's just the aspergers in me...) I would write it in my journal, as that's always a suitable place to keep secrets (and I do write plenty of stuff that could be construed as confidential to others who didn't tell me it might be) however, having said I wouldn't tell I don't think it would be right for me to do so knowing that I'm going to publish my journal online, essentially telling the world (or at least the world who wants to know. So far I think that's one person).

She came to visit on both the following days and is here now as I type this (when last I passed chug's room she was on his WoW account while he was playing some xBox game she got him).

Yesterday I awoke with a nasty tummy ache and found myself doing squats to relieve it, assuming it was a blockage. Sure enough I felt whatever it was moving through my system quite rapidly over the next few hours. I made sure I had plenty more fiber yesterday, to try to make sure it didn't happen again, though it did.

I had Bink last night and he woke up crying to I took him down for some milk. I fixed him a bottle, put the fire on and we curled up watching the baby channels under a blanket and both fell asleep. (Which was a bugger, because 30 minutes before I next woke up we had a delivery, but as there was nobody there to receive it (the delivery guy didn't knock very loud and didn't even bother ringing the bell) he left a note telling me where to get it). I went to pick it up at 10am only to be told to come back at 1pm (it's 12.43 right now). I don't really know what I did before typing this, I did spend a while looking for torrent files (the latest episode of Kyle XY would have been broadcast in the U.S, however the only rips I could find were all over 1GB, so I'll wait for a smaller file. I know it might actually be quicker to download it at 1GB but disk space has really become an issue, lately).

When Bink woke up again (thus waking me also) I had another stomach ache, though not nearly as bad, so I did some squats and encouraged Bink to do the same for the sheer hell of it. (He seemed to think I'd gone mad).

And now the big question; do I, a guy who must have every moment of his time filled with something, even if it isn't very exciting, to occupy his mind, kill the next 10 minutes or so by dossing about? Or do I load a computer game, waiting for which and getting stuck in with eat those 10 minutes and demand more?

I guess the game it is, then...

Laurence and Charlotte

Yesterday (Friday) was a good day. Well, it was better than most. I managed to sleep through until after 1pm without anybody waking me to look after somebody's baby. (It's not the babysitting I object to, it's the fact I do this almost every day; apparently without choice and certainly without pay).

Elise did come around after 3 with both children, I had one and Tony had the other. I did make it clear before she even arrived that I was going to club with Chug.

TBH I'm not really going to club for my own benefit, anymore, as I don't play WoW (though nobody there really plays it anymore either) as the average age of its attendees, these days, has to be at least 10 years under me. (When I started going they were about 2 years younger, on average). The main reason I've been going, lately, is because Chug has started seeing one of the other attendees, Laura, outside of club on a regular basis. They spend ours on the phone with each other on weekday evenings, she comes to visit him here on snow days and he goes to her place on saturdays and sundays. I take every possible opportunity to tease them, and those opportunities never seem to end. I'm a cruel bastard.

For example, it's been a running joke for a couple of months that Laura is a boy. (Ofc she's not). I think I might have even started that. It was certainly me who gave her the name 'Lawrence'. When she and Chug became and item he became 'Charlotte'.

I went on a bit of a spending spree while I was there; before I even went on a computer I had purchased 4 DVDs (on offer, 4 for £10. I Am Legend, Drop Dead Fred, A Scanner Darkly and Night Watch. Night Watch is the only one among them I haven't seen, I probably picked it as I needed 1 more to get 4 for £10. Thinking about it now I would have spent less than £9 if I just got 3 of them, but I can console myself that Andy warned me that Night Watch was pretty fucked up, so I will look forward to it). I also tried out SimCity Societies while I was there (everybody else at club tends to play FPS games, which I love but can't play because they make me nauseous on consoles and give me migraines on PCs). It's been at least 10 years (though probably more) since I last played a SimCity game. (I don't remember what console that was for, though it certainly wasn't for the PC. I had rented it and it came without a manual and, as I recall, there was no tutorial level. I had no idea what I was doing and my city sucked ass).

I spent a lot of time there trying to discern what's on at the nearest multiplex on the 14th, as I'm going to see about taking Chug and Laura to see a movie. (Part of me wants to sit a few rows behind the young love birds to spy on them, but somehow I think I'll be watching another screen room).

I ended up buying the game; it was "pre-owned" but the last guy had took it home, unwrapped it then brought it back claiming there was a scratch. So I got it brand new for half price :D

I don't really remember much of last night other than that.

I know mum had Piglet, last night, which meant I had her all day today. (Tony calls Saterday his 'Day Off', but almost every week he gets bored and comes up anyway. He didn't, today. Which was a mixed blessing).

Piglet was especially awkward today. As she's getting older she's getting much more lively and inclined to exploration... And she already a handful before she could crawl, diving in every direction. Now she's clinging to objects so she can walk with them side on. It's important to let her have a degree of freedom on the floor now (though there are certain people, such as Dave and Jeff, who disagree. Neither of them have nearly the amount of child care experience as I have, so I don't see how their opinions matter, though Dave will bitch a little if he sees her on the floor).

Laura was here for most of the day, today, down in Chug's room. Naturally I took the piss whenever the opportunity arose.

Obviously I don't want them having sex or anything but I have noticed that most of my teasing tends to be about whether or not they've kissed yet. At the very worst I'll say something about how they have to "use protection" if a situation arises where protection is needed. (Chuggle is, as yet, far too shy to even try to kiss here. And, from some of the responses to my teasing, I really think that Laura might be a little bothered by this. Of course I can't be certain about it, due to my condition, but I like to remind myself that my aspergers might negate any ability to read body language or vocal inflections but does improve my deductive reasoning and lateral thinking generally make up for it).

Actually, thinking about it, the worst I've ever teased them was probably telling "Lawrence" that if "my sister got pregnant" I'd know it was her.

I felt obligated to ask if she was staying for dinner, unsure as to whether we could accommodate her. I made diced chicken, baked in a creamy mushroom, mustard and port/cognac sauce. (My own recipe. Sadly it's something I tend to cook when we have nothing else, can think of nothing else or can't be bothered to make anything else). Apparently she said 'it was the best curry she ever had. I found this amusing :)

She went home around 9ish (several hours later than she as supposed to, as I had to make several outings while I was cooking; first to pick up some frozen chips (not washing, peeling and chopping my own in a meal of convenience, then to get some egg fried rice from the Chinese take-away at the end of the street (tried making my own in the past but I always seem to get it wrong) and then taking the Piglet home).

(Stavross was supposed to take her home, but when he arrived half an our previously his daughter was asleep, so he said he didn't want to wake her and that we should call him when he is awake. 20 minutes later, when she did wake up, his phone had been conveniently switched off).

I dozed off on my bed, fully dressed, until Dave started yelling at me that he'd won one of the best axes in the game. I wasn't too impressed on being woke up like that, but the joke was on him when he took a portal back to Dalaran and had to spend an hour or so trying to get back on to that character. Well, that joke was really on both of us, as I spent most of that time sitting in the arm chair waiting for him to get on, get his stuff enchanted and finish.

Having recently discovered that we can plug my portable hard drive into the PS3 to watch videos, listen to music or look at pictures downloaded to it I spent a lot of the time through the miscellaneous content of that hard drive. I also spent some time looking at film and game trailers while trying to find some final fantasy trailer, which I wasn't even sure was a new film or a new game. Eventually I found myself gravitating towards pictures of my ex wife and re opening some old wounds in the process. (Definitely not a good idea this close to valentines day).

However I can compartmentalise pretty well. Though I don't know how true that is... Sometimes it might seem that the emotions I feel are a shadow of the real thing, that my palette might be missing a few essential colours, lately I've come to suspect that my brain or my body doesn't know how to interpret them. For example, I can't really gauge how stressed I am at all until I start breaking out in mouth and throat ulcers in the least convenient places. Sometimes I'll blush in a situation when I should be embarrassed, however while my body is telling me how embarrassed I am my I can't feel the embarrassment that's supposed to come internally, if that makes sense.

(I used the same word far too often in that last sentence. The tell tale sign of a poor imagination)

It's another mixed blessing.

When Dave finally got off the PC he went for a smoke and had me decide what we were going to watch. I eventually decided on something we'd already seen before; Starship Troopers, as I'd be able to play on the PC while still following the story. It's actually better than I remember. Those bits I remember as cheesy don't quite so bad, now.

I didn't play any games, obviously, choosing to write this instead.

And that's about it, I guess.

Stinking Cold

I guess I could feel this cold coming on a day or 2 before it did but I just thought it was going to be a case of the sniffles.

I remember having a conversation with mum a few weeks ago about how I had managed to escape from the cold, this year, which is something rare and this reminder her about an article she had read which said that, this year, the cold had some how been covered by the flu shot. (I'm entitled to one because I have asthma).

Then, the night before last, it just went from the sniffles into full blown nausea, sinus pain, runny noses and streaming eyes, on top of the usual sneezing fits. Normally when I get a cold it's just runny noses, sneezing and maybe one night of coughing and then back to business as usual. I'm not normally one of those people who treat a cold like they're dying (ladies; just so you know I'm also willing to stop and ask for directions when I'm lost and will except the blame for my actions ;-) ); I'm willing to get on with house work and things but I still don't like exposing my bugs to other people when I can avoid it.

So anyway, when it got late, yesterday, and I realised that we not only had both of my sister's children but that nobody had come to pick them up I had to ask the question I already knew the answer to. "Do we have the kids tonight?"

Not only had my sister dropped off the other child while I was occupied but she had told mum and Tony that she had already cleared it with me.

I really wish people would check these details with me before assuming that Elise is telling the truth, for a change. Maybe it's the fact that we don't spend so much time with her, these days... She isn't here to lie to us so much but all people seem to have registered is that she isn't spouting as much bull shit as usual. Maybe, subconsciously, people are just assuming she's being more honest lately; at least as honest as a normal person.

I'm not sure if I'd have babysat, last night, given the choice. I mean, I suspect it's one of the babies' who cave me the cold in the first place but all either of them seems to have is the sniffles. I'm not particularly sure it's the same thing; it could be that they're just much better at fighting infections than I am. But if they're not and their sniffles aren't the same strain of virus as my cold then I have probably given them what I had.

Anyway, what I was getting about way above, concerning what mum read about flu vaccines immunising people against the cold, it kind of tells me that the cold and flu could be the same thing but when your body fights it more easily we call it a cold and when we feel like death we call it flu. (This could also explain why men complain about colds more than women do, as females generally have better immune systems than men do. With the exception of my mother). Since I get flu shots it could be that I'm fighting a slightly mutated strain of the flu, making it seem like a severe cold.

At about 6.30 or so this morning I couldn't stay awake any longer. I climbed in next to Bink, who had done a good job of keeping the bed warm for me.

He woke up at about 10, maybe 10:30 with an extremely weighty nappy and we had none his size for me to change him into. As soon as mum was sure I was up she gave me Georgia to look after until Tony arrived. We actually had ones her size, though. When Tony got here I was to hand him a tenner and send him back out for nappies. When he came back he bathed Dylan and I went on up.

Around 30 minutes later still, after I had checked my emails and web comics, etc, I had just got in bed, so naturally this was the moment mum chose to shout for me. She wanted me to watch Georgia for an hour. This meant that Tony wanted to go out, somewhere. (I don't mean to treat him like a servant but the guy grates on my nerves then rubs salt on them). I called back that I had just taken a bunch of melatonin, which was true, and she let me stay in bed. Normally I'd have gone to do whatever was asked for me, I'm generally the kind of guy who let's people walk all over me (or so various people tell me) but if there was an occasion when I needed to have some rest it was this morning.

I slept until nearly 6pm and did what I normally do; stayed in my bed room and went out of my way to let nobody know I was awake. Dave came home and told me he was going to a raid in 9 minutes (he don't remember him asking if he could use the PC to do so, this time, so there was a bit of a cheek in that, though I didn't really mind). I logged on for him and informed them that he had only just got home and had gone for a quick smoke. His whole timing was off, as I had finally decided to download season 2 of Sam & max and was going through the payment details, which meant updating my card on pay pal.

I sent chug down to get my card from my coat pocket but he couldn't seem to find it, so I went down.

(Both babies had been picked up which was highly surprising. Tony, however, was still there. He had asked to stay for dinner which is fine; he does deserve something for his efforts... Putting up with his constant whining and complaining doesn't really constitute as payment).

I finished the details and payed for the remainder of the season (I had downloaded episode one a year ago) and started downloading the first file (episode 2) as Dave started gathering consumables for his raid. He was on in Orgrimmar for a long time so I saw nothing wrong with watching over his shoulder and downloading the other episodes as they finished, seeing as they all came down so quickly. Then I went to help with dinner.

The potatoes had burned. Well, some of them had burned. Others were just slightly coloured because they were in the same water as the burned ones, so we were able to fish them out and put them in another pan for mashing. The tasted fine, though were a little tough to mash. The lamb was the best I've had in.... Actually I don't remember when I last had lamb that nice, though I don't doubt that it would have been minted lamb shanks from Langfords in Welshpool.

Then I went to lie down because I was still feeling a little nauseous. I think I may have dozed off, but no more than for 5 or 10 minutes according to the PC and mum called me down to help tidy the living room. Oddly enough I think that few minutes of sleep might have done a lot of good for my cold, who knows how much better I would be feeling now if I had been left to sleep. I got up and felt extremely groggy, which is how I tend to feel after 5-10 minutes of sleep, and went to see what I could do for them. I just was not with it, though, barely registering anything anybody said. At least Tony was gone, though.

Jeff was extremely stressed. Being completely out-of-it I thought this was due to the mess he was attempting to clean. Apparently it turned out that, after I had gone to bed, Tony went off on one of his rants at them again.

It was especially hard to concentrate on anything that was going on because Die Had 4.0 was on. Although this is the cheesiest of the Die Hard films it's still hard not to become engrossed by it. When I had finished everything I had been asked to do and the instructions seemed to end I sat down to watch the end. Then I came up, kicked Chug off the PS3 and Dave, who had finished his raid at this point, logged off and went to bed. He didn't feel like watching anything, but I knew it was a long shot just to ask, as it was already 11pm and he has work tomorrow.

It turned out the girl who had requested to be my friend on facebook was Lauren Thorley... It also turns out that Eden Ivy Lee IS her real name. I wander how she acquired the name Lauren, if that isn't her real... I replied to the last message she sent to me through Facebook and I started updating my blog and we ended up sending messaged back and forth through face book as I did so. One of the last messages I sent was asking if she had MSN or Yahoo IM but I don't think she got it, as she replied to the one I had sent previously and that appeared to be the end of it.

I also took the time to check out my friend Kirvil's blog; http://noeullent.typepad.com/. I don't speak any Norwegian, however when I run through it through a translator it's still pretty damn hard to read and I grasp pretty much none of it. Hopefully there's a better translator out there...

That would apparently bring us to the here and now.

I'm long over due for a shower but I'm probably going to play some games first. Even though I really want to get into Sam and Max I think I'll play the sims a little, as I want to make the latter last as long as possible, as there are a few games that come out in February that I'm really looking forward to. Plus there are several games that came out last year I'm interested in yet I don't seem to have got my hands on, yet.