Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Dogs and Babies



How quickly time flies.

Why, it seemed like only yesterday when I was telling you about the set of twins, and the pair of dogs, and wondering what life would be like once they were here. And now they are here, and I have realised that life is pretty much like it’s always been, only now there’s a set of twins and a pair of dogs in it.

My sister’s twins are tiny. They are so, so small. And they don’t DO anything. Like, myself and my brother were trying to race them the other day, and we had it all set up, had the stopwatch out, even had the prize agreed upon, but the saddles kept sliding off and we just couldn’t stay upright. My sister came in to find us sitting on the babies and she said some things she probably regrets now- hurtful things about our unsuitability as uncles- and took the twins away from us.

Stupid babies. Getting me shouted at.

My parents’ home has become some kind of weird museum to infants. My mother’s tasteful colour scheme has been thoroughly ruined by an influx of pink. The dining room table is covered with nappies and baby... stuff. Things. I don’t know what most of them do, or what most of them are for, but they look weird and unsettling, and I try to stay away as much as possible.

And all anyone talks about are the twins. If another subject is broached you are guaranteed it will flick back to baby talk within thirty seconds. Even this blog is now about the twins. MY blog. That should be talking about ME.

Friends and neighbours come over to visit, to drop by, and do they ask about me? Do they ask about the famous author, the genius writer, the teller of tall tales? No they do not, so I have to, and that just makes me look self-obsessed. So THANK YOU, Rebecca and Emily, for making me look bad in front of the people who should be worshipping me.

I suppose, if I had to say something nice about them, I would probably say they are mildly cute with squashy heads. I was holding one of them earlier today and she smiled at me, and my heart glowed, and I felt a connection, and so I told everyone, Look, she’s smiling at me! And my mother said no, it’s probably just trapped wind. And then the baby burped, and a moment later a strange smell arose from somewhere underneath, and the baby looked at me with her evil eyes and I knew we were enemies.

I don’t know which one it was, unfortunately. Everyone is having difficulty telling them apart. I suggested we get a magic marker and draw a large X on one of their foreheads, just so we’d be able to differentiate. The baby without the X would be the good baby. The baby with the X would be the evil one. My suggestion was voted down, as my suggestions usually are. I tried to implement my plan anyway, and I almost succeeded, but my family dragged me away from the evil baby before I managed to mark her.

We’ll meet again, Evil Baby. We’ll meet again.

Probably tomorrow, when I go home to my mammy for tea.

The dogs have settled in to life at my house with ease. Mable and Sherlock sleep in the kitchen, and they also pee in the kitchen, which apparently is great fun. I take them to the garden out back and let them run around and sniff the shrubs and try to track the cats, who are far too smart, quick, young and agile to ever feel threatened by these new arrivals.

When the dogs reach the far end of the garden I like to call them back, clapping my hands, encouraging them to run. Sherlock is younger, but he’s fat, and so he can’t really run without waddling from side to side. He has to take a few rests in between, so it generally takes him quite a while to reach me. Mable is older but faster, and yet she takes even longer because she is so bow-legged that she is incapable of running in a straight line. Many course-corrections later, she finds me, lies down, and pretends to be dead. We all laugh about it. Except for Mable.

I still find time to write, however. I have a deadline looming, and a tour on the horizon, so when I’m not laughing at dogs or battling Evil Babies, I write my books and update my Blog. Which is what I’m doing now. 

36 comments:

  1. Dear Mr Landy,

    I find your blogs -- what a horrible non-word -- very amusing. Although you speak Divine Truth about babies. I am glad I am not the only one who noticed. My daughter and I read your books, of our own free wills, and are looking forwad to the next installment. I re-read all three of them this weekend and am a bit pessimistic about Mr. Bliss's well-being... .

    Good luck with writing, babies and dogs!

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  2. I know what evil babies are like.... I had to look after my friends baby sisters, they look the same and try and run away. I ended up runnning back and forth between the kitchen and the front room telling 'baby 1' or 'baby 2' to come back and stop running away!

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  3. Hello!

    Here is one more minion for you to hate from the dark, cold and mystic North!

    Referring to your last post, Valkyrie is a damn good name. I gave that name to my ass-kicking Commander Shepard in Mass Effect 1.

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  4. Derek, Derek, Derek... Shouldn't you, as a genius, know that in a set of twins there are ALWAYS an evil one?! You should have known that from the start and immediately identified the evil one and tried to influence her to be your evil minion! Why didn't you think of this? Bad genius, bad!
    And being fooled by a baby's smile like that.
    Shameful...

    PS: You should have named Mable Marple instead! ^^

    (God, I am really negative today...)

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  5. ^ I was going to say that earlier, but I stupidly decided to leave it untill now as I had other things to do. Silly Lynith, believing that you are a clever person and would be the only one to think of evil and good twins.

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  6. THIS has got nothing to do with the twins. NOTHING! And really why should it? The reason why you posted this twin stuff is surely because "THEY" made you...
    So I do not dare commenting these new baby arrivals in any way. Don't we all know how totally NOT exciting new babys always are? All they do the whole day is eat, sleep, fart and sometimes look cute. If I would do only that all the time, I am sure nobody will bend down while I am sleeping and fuss over me telling everyone else in the room how cute I look...

    Now stop about this baby business. The reason I am writing this is just to admire your work as an author. I have a 12 year old son who does not read. Well it would be tooo much if I now tell you, he does not read, but YOUR marvellous books. It does not get quite as good :-) BUT he does listen to the audiobooks - and hey, thats a start, isnt it? Now he has to present a book in school, that he likes... and guess which one he picked? Well I would probably be posting in some other authors blog if it would not have to do anything with you... on the otherhand - seeing that YOU are a lunatic, and everyone else even reading this blog is concidered one - then what does that make the ones even spending their precious time POSTING comments here????
    well in THAT case, I might as well be so screwed, telling you that my boy picked some other authors book to present, in YOUR blog... well, I might be crazy, strange, luni and all the rest, but I am certainly NOT evil...)
    So anyhow - please keep writing about skulduggery and maybe, one day - my son will not want to wait for the audio version and pick the paperback instead... and MAYBE one day, he will be intrigued about the original and even pick the english version??? OH, so sorry I guess I forgot to mention - WE (my son and I) are german...

    Snowy greetings from Hamburg!

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  7. Haah. Poor babies, even though I don't like babies, or children, well...small children. Not as in, dwarves, but like...erm, yes..I'll just move on, shall I?

    Well, I hope you're happy. Your blog of evilness has prevented me from going to a party. Yes, I was going to brave the snow, and the wind, and the general coldness, and the popular people with fake, just to go to a party. I don't even like parties unless there's cake and places you can hide and jump out at people. But yeah, you should be glad I blew your mind with my awesome presence. (:

    A toouur? Please, do elaborate ;) That's my big word for today.

    Have a nice Wednesday night. Oh look, its snowing again. BIG SURPRISE.

    Toodles xxx

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  8. your 'heart glowed'? you sure you should be writting childrens adventure novels (which are flipping awesome, by the way) and not hallmark cards?

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  9. I agree you, Derek, have a nick for being funny even when you're not writing. =]
    Evil babies... *shutters* I was babysitting once and it didn't end so well. (Well at least I didn't sit on them lol)
    Poor dogs they dont have enough meat on thier bones and one just needs to stop eating lol. I love that story btw. =]

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  10. You, sir, are absoulutly right on the evilness of babies. It's something igrained into there heads the moment they notice all the people around them cooing and laugthing at everything they do. They think: 'Well, I do this, and this and THIS, and that will bring me world-domination.'
    Although I DO have a little sister who steers me around like a bicycle, but she tends to accidently wake me from her hypnotism by whacking me on the head with a coat hanger to wake me in the morinings...

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  12. babies are evil. yes, but if one of the twins is evil, so is the other one most probably, and so you should mark them both with X's except one in red pen, and the other in blue. solves everything.
    ur cruel to ur dogs, but i have to admit that doesnt half sound funny. lols

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  13. Mr. Landy, I myself am a twin and I can assure you, it is wonderful to an associate in all my plots and schemes. We are sure we can establish contact with Rebecca and Emily and give them more ideas about being evil. BTW there is no point trying to tell them apart. Once you notice a difference between them, they will switch it around as they please (thats what me and my twin did). Happy Chinese New Year from Hong Kong ;)

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  14. One more thing... twins never forget insults so they will be planning revenge for the racing thing...

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  15. My dearest Mr. Landy... I must say that not everyone who sneaks around your house for the next few months will be interested in babies or dogs. Because I think that THEY may be onto you! You must hurry! Hide! Don't be fooled by the girl who is running around your street looking for her favorite author! In reality, THEY sent her! so be careful... be very very careful....

    Because it's not like I'm running around outside trying to find out where you live so i can stalk you... hahahaaa... I'm not planning on following you wherever you go for the next few years...

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  16. Hi, I recently did an hour long episode of my podcast, The Power of Friendship, entirely dedicated to your book series Skulduggery Pleasant. In it, we analyze, gush, and speculate on your first three books and your upcoming one.

    I thought you might get a kick out of it? I apologize if this is way out of line. I love your books and wouldn't want to annoy you and affect your creative juices in a negative way.

    Thanks again and um, stay juicy?

    Direct link to episode: http://thepoweroffriendship.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=548724

    Website link: www.thepoweroffriendship.net

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  17. Hi, Mr Landy,
    I simply have two questions. As a writer myself (my novel is not yet published and is only 20 000 words long as of yet) I never tell people what my work is about before I finish writing it. I find that if I do, I stop writing as I hate to have other influences.
    And so my first question is; do you tell people your plot before it is finished? And;
    I assume that people make suggestions as to the future directions of your books, so how does this affect your writing?
    Regards,
    Maddi

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  18. Wellll I like babies :) apart from my cousin he pulled my hair but most babies I like, for example my other baby cousin who is cute and doesn't pull my hair and has a mini mohawk, his hair just randomly sticks up. I don't know much about twins but remember you don't have to spend for ever buying two different presents like I do with my cousins, instead with twins you buy them the same thing, different colours. Unlike me. and u only have to remember one set of birthdays, see? Remember Monty python and look on the bright side of life

    Anyway if there evil try to convert them now while u still can

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  19. ok, so i get how you feel. we just got a puppy, really cute, floopy ears, big eyes (but not scary big) and its one of those dogs you see and fall in love with, and i saw it and was like 'awwww...its soooo sweet. look at it. its nipping my fingers, cute...oh its cilmbing up me, isnt that sweet...its...its biting my face, ouch!...OY! thats my hair!!!!'
    i found out the hard way that looks can be deceiving, so i feel your pain, liturally!

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  20. haha, i've never read your blog before but i found it and i find it really, really funny. The evil babys always deserve an X.

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  21. Derek,as an amazing writer you should know all about evil twins.I'm shocked that you were so easily tricked.
    Good luck with the evil ones anyway.

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  22. I'm with Babs on the baby front. Hideously splodgy things that do nothing but cry, poop and sleep. Wonderful.

    I was catching up on some blog reading when I saw you mentioned Kick-Ass. I'll assume you know that the movie comes out on April 2nd. Usually, I'd add in a quote here, but there must be some form of child(ren) reading your blog and therefore naughty words would be frowned upon by their parents.

    Should probably update my own blog now for my non-existent followers. Yay :D

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  23. hey derekv im cummin to your tour and r wondering if i can eat you

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  24. yeah, random allrigjht anyway i am coming to your tou and r wonderingif you would like me to offer to buy you a free taco as it would be my pleasure

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  25. ive got a frog that does backflips all by itself

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  26. cant help being random its in my nature

    anyway ill finish it up now.

    So im coming to your tour in brisbane in riverbend books which i recon is the best bookstore ever and i bet youll like it better than all the outher book stores youll go to

    so im going there to see you and as i said before, do you want me to buy you a taco (seriously)

    more to the point you are awsome and you are awsome and i have forgotten what i was about to say beacause you r so awsome

    so yeah

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  27. Wow... your battling a baby... may I help? :^)

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  28. Greetings from 2012!

    Wow that blog entry was so funny! Seriously! I couldn't stop laughing!

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  29. Hello!
    (excuse me being 4 years late)
    Yeah, I get what you mean about babies. Behind the cuteness, and adorableness, and the happy little smiles, lurks a plan of WORLD DOMINATION!!!!!!
    (and farting, burping, and just generally unpleasant things)

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  30. This blog post has been documented, recorded, and filed into the Blogland Archive on December 8, 2014.

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