Dr. Dume ~ The Doctor is In

Christmas is actually here - but not officially until the morning. Senga won't let me open my present even though it's seeping all over the flagstones. I'll just have to put a tray under it.

Senga's present from me is a new veil. The old one is rusting but I found this one, reasonably priced, which is even better. I'll bolt it to her head in the night and she'll have a wonderful surprise in the morning because she will now be able to comb her hair (she just has the one). It's not quite the family name but it's close enough. I was tempted to get another one for myself but it seemed rude to do that now. I'll drop hints nearer my birthday.

I forgot all about my Santa traps this year. Far too busy. Double effort next year, and I'll have Dumelet to help.

Speaking of Dumelet, he has a name at last. The Professor visited yesterday, all excited about some ghost he's photographed. I pretended to be excited too even though I'm sick of those ghosts popping up in my photographs with cheesy grins and 'Hello Mum' signs. Anyway, it occurred to me that I could name Dumelet after the Professor.

No, no, I'm not calling him 'Professor'. The Prof has a middle name he never uses and I had a great-uncle with that same name, so I could keep it in the family and not keep it in the family simultaneously, which is a sort of quantum thingy whatnot but anyway...

Dumelet is henceforth Caligula Dume. A fine name which speaks of stable mind and calm character (relatively, for a Dume). He seems to like it. He went to the trouble of writing a note to Santa which I thought was very cute and sweet and pointless because Santa never answers his mail. Anyway, he wrote it, and here it is: 

Okay, the spelling's not perfect but he's only three months old. He hasn't even started runecasting lessons yet.

Well, I think it's cute. It must be, it's written in kitten blood. It just doesn't get cuter than that.

Posted by Dr. Dume at 12:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

options

I had to get out of the house this evening. Dumelet nearly took my eye out with his bottle and Senga is overly protective of him. I told her, there's no need to protect him but every need to defend yourself from him but she refuses to listen.

So I spent the evening at the Throat and Razor. The locals were as quiet as usual, barely a word spoken above a whisper and most of the intelligible ones involved pitchforks and flaming torches. They must be planning another parade. It's been a while.

Several pints of Jock McSquirty's Bowel Purger later, I headed home to find that Dumelet had escaped his cot and eaten everything in the house apart from Senga who had a few bite-sized pieces missing. She was distraught which wasn't so bad, considering that if Dumelet had found her before he found the fridge she'd be joining Father in the dungeons. Somewhat inebriated, I still managed to corrall the miscreant with a sharp pike and a net. He is now back in his cot with added barbed wire and the wire-cutters he fashioned from discarded jawbones have been confiscated.

Senga will require a bit of filler in the holes and a long discussion on the dangers of over-indulging a Dumelet, plus some painkiller in the form of her favourite drink, Broken Glass.

It's not safe to leave these two alone. Senga does not appreciate the risk of being nice to a Dumelet and she might end up spoiling him. That would be terrible.

If the villagers have that parade, I might let her take him out to see it. It would be worth watching.

Posted by Dr. Dume at 04:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

options

I have checked Dumelet's gene-splicings and he does indeed glow a most delightfully leprous green under ultraviolet light. I have therefore installed these throughout the castle, with motion activators because there's no sense spending money on places he's not in.

Senga has been using them to top up her tan. As a result, she now resembles a skinned crab with blisters because these lights are not intended for the purpose she has put them to. It's not such a big deal for me because she looked pretty crab-like before apart from the total whiteness and the number of legs. She already had the propensity for picking slimy molluscs off the walls.

All the same, she insists it's painful and was not amused when I took out my clipboard and requested details. She has taken to sleeping in one of the spare rooms and won't tell me which one. Well, it's up to her but if Dumelet escapes his cot I won't be able to tell where the screams are coming from.

I'm keeping the barbed steel bed-net though. She can take her chances with Dumelet's night hungers.

Posted by Dr. Dume at 03:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

options

Alienskin moves with the times, and as it's time for a new issue, here it is.

There is more to writing than tapping out random words and jiggling them around until they sort-of fit together. That sort of activity never results in a novel although it seems to often result in government policy. We are not writing government policy here, we are writing lines that have to make sense, and that involves some actual thought and planning. Lady Blade's article looks at what our readers expect of us and how we can deliver. It's not just a matter of the number of words, you know. Getting them in the right order is just as important. Just ask Thomas Hardy.

My own humble offering deals with the scariness of plants. Wouldn't you know it, as soon as I'd submitted it, a newspaper comes up with a report on the carnivorous qualities of tomatoes. If only they'd published that a few days earlier.

The Sergeant has been worked very hard this issue. As well as his article on steampunk SF, he's been held in the dungeons until he read and reviewed a horror anthology, then beaten soundly with leprous axolotls (which, believe me, is very messy indeed) until he interviewed Joshua Sikora, producer of the Black Dawn TV series. Even that was not enough. The poor Sergeant then had his eyelids pinned back with Victorian brass upholstery tacks so he wouldn't miss a second of the Black Dawn programmes, which he was then required to review also, under pain of being dressed as a bluebottle and dipped into a vat of demented toads.

I don't know what he did to annoy the Alien Queen Mother, but I'll bet he won't do it again.

There are also 26 new stories this issue, plus 8 Fibonacci sequence poems tucked into the sidebars. All are short enough to read while fending off your offspring, and there's time between each one to reheat the poker while holding the child back with tongs.

Dumelets develop quickly, and mine is no different. He can crawl now and is already on his third set of teeth. Senga has decided not to breastfeed which, I think, is sensible. If you put raw meat in a Dumelet's mouth, you're not likely to get it back. It's not as if she's over-endowed in that department, either. She only has three.

I have to find a suitable name for him, and soon. Otherwise he'll kill me before he gets a name and suffer the embarrassment that dogged Great-Great-Grandfather Nameless Dume throughout his life. It was his own fault, really, because he was remarkably adept in the use of explosives from an early age. The West Tower is still unsafe.

Perhaps it's time to check Dumelet's particular skills. With luck, the social services health visitor will call soon.

Posted by Dr. Dume at 01:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

options

A tiring night so far. I found an idea for the Alienskin article, not seasonal but something new, something I haven't covered before. I think it worked out okay.

Dumelet also had a restless time because of the monster under his bed. It escaped and he wouldn't settle until I'd found it and put it back. It was in the closet, and it wasn't until I had Underbed Monster back in place that I realised Closet Monster had run off too. I finally found it in the kitchen, behind the fridge.

Monsters aren't what they used to be. When I was little, they were far more resilient. Dumelet can't get at them so they have nothing to be scared of. If he follows traditional Dume development, he won't even try to eat them for five or six years yet. He can't even get their scales off until his second row of teeth grow in.

I bought his Christmas presents today. A Junior Dissection Kit and a puppy. That should keep him occupied for most of the day.

Well, he's quiet now. The monsters are back in place, the malevolent-whisper tape is on and the room is in total darkness, just as he likes it. Senga's asleep too. She's taken to striking up conversations so I've taken to lacing her drink with laudanum. It works well - I'm happy, and she's very happy indeed. Quiet, too.

Silence is golden, and anything golden is worth money.

Posted by Dr. Dume at 03:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

options