Curry Night

So... It's Sunday now. Nothing interesting has really happened yet so I'll start at Thursday night/Friday. But I'll be brief about that day.

Thursday, 8pm; I fall asleep, fully dressed.
Friday, 00:00; I wake up, just as dressed and have pulled my bed sheets over me in my sleep, as I do. I was hot, sticky and uncomfortable. And, having slept for 4 hours I didn't fancy my chances of nodding off again. Failing to get off I go online and do... Fuck all for a while. María was actually online for a few minutes but the amount of chat between us wasn't even enough to be classed as 'small talk'.
02:30; Nothing else to do I go back to bed. I lay there for hours before I fell asleep.
08:00; Elise arrives to dump one or more children on me. I'm so tired I can't actually process how many I have.
12:00; Tony arrives. I go back to bed.
5 something; I'm woken up because we're going to some church thing. I'm annoyed that I wasn't really given enough time to shower but I do so anyway, since everybody else who was going to has apparently already done so. (That doesn't count Chug. He bathes for no man).
19:30; We set off at the time the social event was set to begin. This has essentially become a standard household practise. If it isn't Tony holding us up it's Chug, which was the case that night. And it's mental because he went dressed in whatever he was wearing when he woke up; all he had done was added shoes and socks.

I had already been told that it was a 'curry night' but I decided to go anyway; curry is something that the British are incapable of screwing up, it's as if it's ingrained in our genes. Obviously it isn't because it's not a British thing; we've only actually had it for 1 or 2 hundred years. And I don't think it was amazingly popular until sometime quite recently.

When I realised that it was Glynn Hughes who was cooking I was somewhat disheartened as this is a man who has gone to great lengths to avoid providing food for any church events, even when all he's been asked to do was sandwiches. I do recall him having words with some of the relief society when they'd asked him to do so and he'd said that he'd happily 'provide the drinks' (as he often did, as it required no more effort than buying a few bottles of the cheapest pop or squash that he could get his hands on) .

We arrived to find everybody was playing DVD Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. The hall was divided into 3 teams, as the game is apparently set up for a multi-player mode of play. (Apparently not as many players as we had in attendance, therefore my team answered questions for 'player 1', the next for 'player 2', and so forth). All teams lost at £1000. Chug refused to participate in the game completely.

I went and offered to help Glynn with the cooking but he refused point blank. I tasted some and suggested he should add some spices but he said that 'not everybody likes it spicy'. I tried to explain that I didn't mean peppers or anything that would make it hot but Glynn just kept saying 'some people don't like it spicy', refusing to understand the difference between spices (such as cinnamon or musala) and peppers (chili peppers, etc). Looking I might have come across as a little condescending but I had no way to tell and no way of finding out retrospectively. I'd call and ask but I'm afraid I might be stirring a hornet's nest of some kind as trying to understand humans is something best left to other people.

I seem to recall that we had some mexican themed lunch after church one time and mum made a enchiladas (ie; I made enchiladas) and a mild chili. Glynn refused to try either of these on the grounds that he didn't eat hot foods. However they were both extremely mild and I can't see how he could qualify them as hot without trying them for himself. Everybody assured him it was mild.

Chuggle refused to participe in this, too; not only would he not have any of the food (which I admit that I completely understand) but he wouldn't even sit at the table with everybody else; he sat on a lone chair facing away from everybody. After a while Steve went and sat next to him for a chat. He must have ammused the boy in some way or other but it didn't seem to improve his attitude on the whole because he was back to his gloomy self as soon as Steve went to attend to other things.

Ultimately the food was edible though rather bland.

I spent most of the night talking to Lauren Thorley. I had previously assumed that her real name was 'Eden Ivy Lee', and that she had adopted 'Lauren' as a pseudonym because doesn't stand out so much, however she clarified that she'd changed it to Eden by deed poll some years ago. She seemed to be in good spirits, hard as it is for me to tell with people, though I think something might have been on her mind. She never seemed too cheerful when I first joined the church so I don't have much to compare her mood of that night. She thought I seemed miserable.

At one point she asked me what I had planned for the weekend and I honestly did not know what to day. I consider myself an introvert (though my friends and family find this hilarious) because I don't go out or socialise in general. My answer was "I don't know. Get screwed over by my sister and probably watch some cartoons" or something very similar. She smiled and said "You mean get stuck babysitting?". I was tempted to make a joke about incest but I decided not to bother. (I'd told the one about the 2 Jewish assassins who were hired to take out Hitler, earlier, and it had gone down badly).

(In the event that I have any new readers I would just like to clarify that I have never engaged in incestual relations. I hope that nobody took any implication that I might, but I have this dry sense of humour that some people tend to take seriously).

Her daughter, Hally, has grown as an almost surprising rate, but then I do tend to forget how much time tends to pass between the instances I see her mother and it's rarer still to see her. She must be 6 or 7 now. I meant to ask and I have no idea why I didn't do so.

I got home about 9:30 or so and eventually went to sleep at around midnight which I wasn't expecting given the amount of sleep I had already had that day.

If anything particularly interesting happened the following day I can't remember it.

Agoraphobia

I'm a little agoraphobic. I've been sure of this for several years until recently when I decided to look up the condition properly when I found it was more of a fear of the unknown.

Today I realised that Chuggle hadn't left the house in more than 4 days; since I took him and his girlfriend to the movies. And I took it upon myself to do something about it. All I wanted to do was take him for a walk through town (or anywhere he wanted to go instead) and back again. Even Mum was on my side on this one, in spite of her horrendous tendency to molly-coddle him.

Chug, however, refused point blank.

First he wouldn't get our of bed (He'd been in bed all day watching Dragonball Z, which is pretty much what he's been doing with Laura almost every day this week) and even when he did it was only to storm off and complain to Mum, whom I imagined would come down on his side.

We clashed again and he took one of Mum's walking sticks and threatened to hit me with it, so I snatched off him and waved it over him menacingly, before throwing it somewhere else. (He told me to 'go ahead and hit him with it, as if I actually would, and that he'd call the police. I told him that it was fine if he called the police because any foster family that took him in would also insist he left the house once in a while for fresh air and exercise). I told him he had 5 minutes to get his socks and shoes on while I left the room, time which I used to make Mum and myself each a cup of rooibos tea and I had a slice of cheese and ham on toast.

When I got back he hadn't moved except to cover himself in a blanket (warm as the house was at the time) and I was getting pissed off.

I decided he was playing a waiting game to see how long until I got bored and went about my own business so I explained to him that I had absolutely nothing to do with my time and that I would wait there as long as it takes.

He'd complain that I wasn't being fair, but mum and I were agreed that it was perfectly reasonable to have him leave the house for a least a 10 minute walk every 4 days. He'd whine in some mock tone that was meant to suggest he was being treated beyond reason things like 'why are you doing this to me', to which we would reply that it was for his own good.

At some point Mum tried to explain that he'd been diagnosed as "slightly" agoraphobic and I said I'd looked into that and it didn't quite mean what she thought it meant. She looked it up on her lap top which technically proved me right, but it still seemed to apply to him; a list of symptoms is here. (Clinically it actually means a fear of having a panic attack, rather than a few of unfamiliarity/leaving safe places, as a thought, but from what it says on that sight I wasn't far off. I've never heard of Chug having a panic attack, though). Avoiding the issue as to whether or not he's ever had a panic attack I pointed out that I was slightly agoraphobic (which I've long held as true and relatives have often suggested I might be) and that Chug was a ridiculous case.

I asked him if he was afraid of crowds. After a short silence he said 'No'. I asked him if he was afraid of public transportation and, after another short silence, he said 'Yes'. I pointed out that he showed no hesitation using the train or bus last weekend do which he exclaimed "That was different!". It was almost amusing, but I was too annoyed to laugh. Mum assumed this difference was because he wanted to 'look brave' in front of Laura... "It wasn't just that!" "Ok," said Mum "You were there to keep him safe." "No!".

So I just continued to sit there. Eventually Mum said just go and find him some shoes, socks and a jumper, which I did thinking that I might even have to resort to putting them on him myself. I don't know what Mum said to her, if anything (Chug said that hadn't she said anything), but as I went to go back downstairs he came Chug came up to put his stuff on to go out. (I meant to question her about this, because anything she might have said I would probably need to remember but I never got around to it).

From the time I managed to get him out his room to the time I went to get his shoes and things it was more than 50 minutes. It was probably well over an hour if you include the time it took to get him to get out of his bed.

I don't know what I did, if anything, before it was time to cook.

I'd marinaded some chicken with some sauces mum had got from Nando's a while back (before I ever took chug there). Well, she didn't actually buy them 'from' nando's it was just their brand of marinade sauces. (I think they were actually purchased in Sainsbury's).

Worried that the chicken I had chopped, yesterday and sauces in the bottles wouldn't make enough to feed everybody, so I added a little port to one of them before putting the container in the fridge and added some lemon juice to the other. If I use them again I don't think I'll add any port to the 'sweet and sticky' one, I'll leave it as it comes.

Worried that the port, and whatever else I may have added, may have detracted from the sweetness I added some golden syrup before putting it into the oven.

I added some sour cream to the other batch, which I was frying, which was also a mistake but I was able to rectify it with some salt, sugar and lemon juice.

Both batches of chicken were generally well received but I'll serve them as it comes if I ever try them again.

The next time I marinade something I probably won't be using a store bought marinade.

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...