today was fairly eventful as days go for me here in Spore City. Jayjay, the landlord's grandson, and his cousin Delfin both turned ONE today, possibly the biggest most important event in anyone's life no one ever remembers for themselves. they had a big old gathering at the HDB (housing-slash-apt-slash-condo-slash-house, depending on who you ask, the definition you choose) with lots of food and three different cakes, one of them sitting on a styrofoam tray filled with dry ice the kids were blowing on, causing magical little clouds to crawl over the table and spill over the edge, and lots of kids to do the blowing. i didn't meet a lot of people who came for the party; the folks here are friendly enough but they don't seem big on making introductions. but that's all right. comfortable, in fact, for a self-proclaimed mild autist wallflower type such as myself.
i'm still astonished by my ability to pacify Jayjay. whenever the ruckus and attention seemed to start to get a bit much for him and he seemed about to break out in a fit of crying, i'd just walk over and wave at him and he'd look up and his face would smooth over. at times he even smiled.
whenever i come home from work or anywhere i've been and he's out in the living room he'd watch me walk by to my room and follow me in his walker to my door and watch me with a big bare-toothed smile as i wave at him closing the door. i wonder how long *that* will last?
i also learned that i'd missed Chervelle's birthday, which happened last week. i was either away on my vacation or out on my usual hermetic routine, writing at some coffeeshop in town. i'm not entirely clear on when it happened; she can be really shy when we talk. she didn't seem to mind, though. for Christmas i gave her The Cat in the Hat Pops Up!, which she seemed to enjoy rather more than i expected she would. she made a big show of reading it aloud one time while i was talking to her mum.
kids are amazing. when they aren't being annoying, of course. and i haven't ever seen these ones being that at all. of course, that could only be because i'm a bit of a hermit when i'm around.
to top off, i went out for dinner and spent the rest of the evening at a coffee shop reading Varjak Paw, chuckling softly to myself at what i hope were all the right bits, even letting out a truncated 'aww' *spoilerish bit here, so i'll put it in invis-o-text, not sure if it'll work for those reading this on multiply* when Varjak finally meets Cludge.
Varjak Paw deservedly won SF Said the Smartie Prize, at the awards of which, shockingly, we learn here at the Guardian from the man himself, they don't actually give Smarties away to the winners.
read it before the movie comes out. the book i mean. nevermind the Guardian thing.
right. i'm off to read this interview with SF Said at the BBC, then it's probably on to The Wild Road and, later, to bed.
i leave you with this trailer, made for the stage version of the book:
(from youtube.)
No comments:
Post a Comment