inappropriate pets

The events of earlier today:

From upstairs: *CRASH BANG*

"Is everything all right up there?"

"Everything is fine and really good don't worry!"

I mentally translated this as: "Armageddon is taking place in Sherlock's room at this very instant."

it all comes down to zombies

First off, Lestrade is a low down dirty deceiver who let me think he'd got that chemistry joke on his own while I banged my brain on it for two hours.

Second, Jessica has provided us with a non-baking math joke, which is also perhaps the most groan-worthy joke I've ever heard in all my life. Answer in the comments of the previous post (assuming I got it right):

RO
OT


Third, here is an actual conversation we had at breakfast this morning. 

more jokes

I enjoy how all the math ones are also related to baking.

From Book Geek:

Q: What do you get when you cut a jack o'lantern by its diameter?

A: Pumpkin Pi!

From Jessica B.: 

If z is the radius and a is the thickness of the crust, what do you get?

pi*z*z*a

or pi*z^2*a 

Either way, it's tasty!

Also from Jessica B, in the chemistry department:

NaCl/KOH

Lestrade read me this one and wouldn't show me her explanation. It took me about two hours to get it (I was sick, all right?) and then I groaned a lot. Because I am much nicer than he is, her explanation is below the cut. 

i'm still on about the skating

Most of that post about Mycroft's first lesson was actually about Sherlock, so: Mycroft let someone tell him what to do for an entire hour, which was enough to qualify the whole thing as a success for me. He's used to respecting (a very very few) people for their minds, but this is the first time I've seen him accept the idea that there's more to life than intellectual pursuits, let alone defer to someone else's non-academic experience (all right, except mine, but I think sometimes he views me as a necessary evil inflicted on him by his mum). [John, that's not true!] (All right, perhaps more of a necessary morally neutral obstacle to independence.) [...Yes. But. I like you too. I wouldn't want you to go anywhere.]

lessons

Remnants of the plague. Found roghly two dozen of these cleaning Sherlock's room today. That's what I get for teaching to fold paper airplanes and then leaving the cough drop bag with him all that time.

mysteries of the universe

How are maths jokes winning the poll when no one's even posted any? All right, if you want to be technical, all of us being mad for thinking these are funny is winning the poll, but I expected that.

Anyhow, under threat of googling for unattractive images, Lestrade sent me the following email this morning. (He did give me permission to post it here...eventually.)

hubba hubba

Back again. I was not half as ill as Lestrade would have you believe and at no point was there whining of any sort, especially not for ice cream. I was stoic.

I completely agree with Lestrade's self assessment in the comments of the last post ("Damn right I'm hot") and offer the following completely accurate photo as proof:

the plague, day 7

Lestrade here again. John is an unsurprisingly terrible patient, but I can't blame him. I'm always the same way. It's hell not being able to do anything when you're used to being up and about every second of the day.

Another science joke from the comments (Mycroft is still slaying his maths tutor with these, and even I found this one hilarious):

the plague, day 6

Hi, this is Lestrade. I'm sorry, John can't come to the internet right now because he's a silly bugger who doesn't take proper care of himself or sleep, ever as far as I can tell, and now he's in bed with a fever. I won't say he deserves it because he looks like death and I feel sorry for him but I might say it later when he's feeling better.

I don't know how he writes in this thing every day. I don't know what else to say.

the plague, day 5

We're almost in the clear. Sherlock's tearing around the flat telling terrible jokes to make his brother laugh (One atom says to another atom, "I think I lost an electron." "Are you sure?" "Yeah, I'm positive.") and trying to ride Deimos, who's refusing, quite sensibly, to do anything but lie in front of the fire.

Mycroft is demanding real food for dinner tonight instead of more chicken soup. Mrs Hudson, thank god, shows no sign of getting ill. I have a bit of a scratchy throat, but the air's dry in here, especially with the fire going.

the plague, day 4

Sherlock's feeling better, and Mycroft's feeling worse. You can tell by the way his eyes glaze over when I'm reading. I think he's more at a Dr Seuss level than Camus at the moment. Or perhaps that's not the thing to read a child with a fever and an already-vivid imagination. All his books seemed to me as if they might well have been written under the influence of some sort of hallucinogen.

the plague, day 3

Mycroft's got it. They spent the day on either end of the sofa, two unhappy, snot-filled bookends. Poor kids. To the anon who suggested grated fresh ginger in the hot lemon, Sherlock loathes it, and Mycroft thinks it's the best thing on Earth. I like it myself, so, two out of three. Not bad.

I'm reading them Camus. The Plague. Mycroft's idea. I've never read it before (should I be ashamed to admit that? Probably), and it's a surprisingly good plot. I'm surprised Hollywood hasn't made some blockbuster action/thriller/romance out of it. Nice it remembers where the real blame lay too. Everyone talks about the rats, but it of course it was the fleas.

the plague, day 2

Sherlock's a bit better, but still home from school. Slept most of the night last night. Only woke me up around 3am, quite warm with fever, and unsurprisingly thirsty. Water, something for the fever, and I had one clingy, sleepy little boy. I let him sleep in my bed, which led to a bit of drama when his mum let herself in around 4am and went to his room to find his bed empty.

truly sick of school

I got a call from Sherlock's school today. (I wonder how many entries are going to start like this.) It was not about tennis or kiwis, and I was momentarily relieved, until his teacher transfered me to the school nurse's office and a tiny, sad voice came on the line to say: "John I don't feel good wanna come home now."

relatively

As phase one of Operation Sleep in the Night Time Like a Normal Person, we went to the park today after Sherlock got out of school. (I'm still getting rumblings about the kiwi tennis incident, but no further action has been taken.) We got a snack at Louis Patisserie* (yes, by "snack" I mean cakes, but they're really good cakes, all right?) and then walked to Hampstead Heath to let both the dogs and the boys run around for a bit.

tennis does not cure insomnia

See subject line for summary of last night.

However, I do think it must induce some sort of alternate state of consciousness. I do feel more rested than if I'd stayed up reading or even watching old movies (4am is not the hour of the wolf; it's the hour of Bogart, Bacall, and Audrey Hepburn). Watching the ball fly back and forth and listening to nonsensical scores announced in rather lovely French accents (all the umpires sound French to me, even the ones specifically pointed out as being Swedish or Spanish) probably leads one into some sort of deep meditative state normally only achieved through years of study and isolation in a Buddhist monastery.

boring and dangerous

When I started this thing, I couldn't imagine how people posted every day, or even every week. Granted, I didn't have a lot going on in my life then, but I think it would've been just as hard when I was in Afghanistan. Not that it was dull there, but how many times can one write got shelled, spent ten hours in the operating room, scrubbed up so many times my skin is cracking, please send lotion? It would've got a bit repetitive is what I'm saying, I suppose.

Edward Gorey said: "Life is intrinsically, well, boring and dangerous at the same time. At any given moment the floor may open up. Of course, it almost never does; that's what makes it so boring." The same can be said of war with a slightly higher danger to boredom ratio.

Life with Sherlock and Mycroft, on the other hand, is keeping me so busy (and with almost no repetition) that I find myself somewhat behind in my blogging.

two recipes

The first, from Beth, we made today. Filo triangles with spinach and feta. Once we got the hang of folding them and made sure to absolutely drench them in olive oil so the filo didn't rip into tiny pieces, it didn't go too badly! The last two looked like actual triangles instead of strange, misshapen lumps of a dubiously food-like nature. They also puffed up a bit and the filling bubbled out the edges. Photo and recipe:

filo triangles

First attempt. Started to go a bit better after this and they're in the oven now. Did you know you can make spitballs out of filo dough? Sherlock's big discovery of the day. Typing this on my mobile is not fun so thats all for now.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

the pizza pit, part 2

Where were we? Yes, right, eating the best pizza in existence. Well, not quite. We had to order it first.

The young woman in charge (short black hair, multiple piercings, flour-covered...everything) tore herself away from feeding wood into the brick oven, slapped her hands down on the counter, and glared at Sherlock. "Whaddya want?" she said.

I suspect it might've sent more delicate children off crying, but this was Sherlock. "Large with olives and anchovies and pineapple and sausage and I wanna Coke too."

the pizza pit, part 1

One of the kind people giving my spinach suggestions (it's almost gone! It's like an internet miracle) said spinach and feta pizza. Good timing, as the boys are starting to get rebellious at the thought of spinach for one more meal. Pizza, however, clearly elevates spinach to a higher, more appetizing state of being.

"With pineapple," Sherlock said.

"With sausage and anchovies," Mycroft said.

spiders: more of them

Cara asked in the comments of the last post about Australian spiders. Having done some research, my verdict is: No thank you. Someone else left a link to a camel spider devouring a lizard, and while I'm not sure "awesome" is the word I would choose,  it was certainly impressive. I hardly know what to say about it, except that I'm glad that's not my face. 


This post is mainly an excuse to share this video:

caution: contains spiders

I haven't been sleeping all that well; partly pain and partly nightmares, Sand Clowns, etc. Have you ever seen a camel spider? Don't google them. I mean it.

You're doing it anyway, aren't you? Don't say I didn't warn you. Here's a bet, if you care to take it: at least 12% of all nightmares related to the desert, or fighting in it, involve camel spiders.

advice on spinach

I got two helpful spinach suggestions yesterday, one of which I've looked up a recipe for: palak paneer, an Indian spinach dish with cheese. Sounds good and also as if it will use a lot of spinach, which is key. Tonight, though, we had Lestrade to dinner and he's not keen on Indian food.

(I think he's one of those poor unfortunate souls who can't tolerate anything too spicy without searing his poor little taste buds right off. He refuses to try the new Thai place down the road, and he won't touch wasabi. The spinach recipe isn't spicy at all in that sense, but better not to risk it.) Anyhow I'll need to buy spices and cheese, and today was a bit busy for that.

popeye the sailor man*

When I made that New Year's resolution to learn to cook one thing so I could give Mrs Hudson a break once in a while, I did not mean spinach. Apparently I should've made my intentions clearer because the universe, in the form of a rogue shopping delivery (Mrs H disclaims all responsibility, and I know I didn't do it) has presented me with a truly enormous bag of the stuff.

oh dear

I made what I feel may be a potentially life changing error in judgement last night. It went like this:

Time: 3am or thereabouts
Location: Living room sofa

I couldn't sleep, due to various boring aches and pains. There might have been a nightmare about Sand Clowns. (If you've seen Star Wars, they're a bit like sand people. Just don't ask.) Harry (mad tennis fiend) had emailed me a link about some charity exhibition match for the floods in Australia. It turned out to be a live video stream of the event. I thought I'd watch for about five minutes and then maybe try to get back to sleep, but apparently by "exhibition match" they actually meant "a bunch of top players goofing around on the court." As it wasn't proper tennis, it was quite entertaining.

misleading tags and also pizza

Harry informs me that I tagged the last post 'lestrade' and yet it contained nothing about our date. Apparently, this is unacceptable. I'm not sure how much I should say, considering his sergeant reads this blog (so he tells me), but here we go.

I read to the boys before I left. Sherlock was so tired, he fell asleep in the middle of a chapter (admittedly it was a chapter about different sorts of rocks, so perhaps not the most gripping material he's ever been exposed to). [to which...] (Mycroft you know people don't talk like that. Not ever.) [But it is correct.]

We'll let him have that one.

Lestrade picked me up a bit after eight.

put 'em on ice

The ice skating went shockingly well. I just wanted to get them out of the house and stop the whinging for a bit, or at least change the tune of the whinging and perhaps prevent anymore breakages. Now I really do wish I had a camera, or at least that I'd remembered to use the one on my mobile. I think we may have found a sport Mycroft enjoys.

Neither of them had been before, and I hadn't been for about twenty years, so I expected a lot of falling over,  bruises, and tears (hopefully not from me). I did get what I expected in every respect. The bruises were mainly mine, and the tears were all Sherlock's, as he does get weepy when he's overtired, and Mycroft did fall over a few times.

home again

We made it home about ten last night after train delays and engine trouble. Apparently their mum's ability to control the world does not extend to British Rail. I suppose that would be too much to hope for. As a result they're both overtired and crabby. This means Mycroft's hiding in his room reading Chaucer in his pyjamas, and Sherlock is... Well. Two minor explosions so far today, one broken lamp, and one glob of spinach directed at my face.

full stop

The train's stopped on the tracks. Nothing but fields and rain and sheep for miles, although Mycroft says he can see what he thinks is Hadrian's Wall with his telescope. There's a problem with the engine. We've been sitting here an hour.

We got a brief glimpse of the stars last night before it clouded over again. Mycroft keeps talking about Utah. I keep wincing at the thought of seven hours on a plane with Sherlock. It makes me consider mad things like demanding his mum hire us a private jet, or buying about fifty of those eight-sided Rubik's Cubes.

covered in bees

It's our last day here, and it's doing what it's been doing since the night I committed gross acts of bagpipery.  I feel it's some sort of judgement on me. Deb insists it's her grandfather weeping for joy at seeing (hearing) his son come home.

Mycroft is sulking in his room with Ovid, Homer, and Aeschylus (all in Greek, of course). Sherlock stuck it out with him for a while (he's learning the Greek alphabet; not sure whether to be pleased or concerned at the prospect of them sharing a common language I haven't a hope of understanding), but as ever there's only so long he can sit still.

We've been to see the bees.