Smokey the Magnificent

So this morning a happily fat and squashy package was sitting on the washing machine when I woke up at the crack of ten.  It was the fabric I’d purchased online at significant expense to the management, to kick-start my stash for my patchwork skirt project (like this one, but in browns).  Happy to see it had arrived (my inner Luddite still being a tad wary of such things as online purchases) I burst open the packets and spent a happy ten minutes sorting the fabrics into the browns suitable for my skirt, and the rest - mostly a pleasing collection of old-fashioned dusky pinks and blues.

Unfortunately, the presence of these spare fabrics combined with last night’s perusal of a bunch of quilting and sewing blogs meant that my never-very-single-minded mind began to leap to contemplating yet more wild and ambitious projects.  I’m used to this happening in the middle of a project, but to have it occur while I’m still gathering fabrics for the previous one - before even a stitch has been stutch - is impressively flaky even for me.  For the record, my UFOs currently include:

• ruffly cushion
• hand-sewn chevron quilt started about eighty years ago, only I’ve sort of gone off the colours and definitely gone off hand-sewing
• small square baby quilt; the top is done, but it needs to be backed and quilted and edged and so forth
• gardening apron made out of old jeans
• the snortlepig’s polar fleecey pyjamas
• winter shirt for the snortlepig (not even begun, but planned with fabric purchased and thus taking up mental energy)
• winter hat for the snortlepig (ditto)
• patchwork skirt for me (ditto)
• wall hanging thingy for the baby’s room to contain wet wipes and so forth (essentially abandoned, but sewing room still contains incriminating piece of batting which looks at me reproachfully when I enter)
• bolster to cover for living room
• smaller bolster, ditto
• wraparound skirt for moi which I managed to completely bungle, now stuffed away at the back of fabric stash pretending it isn’t there

You see the situation?  And yet the moment I’m faced with some attractive bits of fabric I start thinking things like “Ooh, I could make a Dear Jane-inspired quilt, but with a different-coloured background and my own block designs!  By hand!  In a week!  With one hand tied behind my back!  While trialling polyphasic sleep!  And teaching myself koine Greek by listening to podcasts!!!1111″

And then I go and surf the net in my pyjamas, while feeding my baby bits of toast.

On the bright side, I did get said snortlepig’s costume done for the party today.  Well, mostly; it lacks a pocket, but I’ll have to sew that on by hand because when I was winding the bobbin with white thread I got too absorbed in watching it wind on and accidentally wound on the whole lot, which was the last of my white thread, so my reel thread is now a paleish brown which necessitates sewing everything on the wrong side, which works OK for sleeves but not so much for pockets.  Anyway. I’m moderately pleased with the result, given that I didn’t have a pattern and made up myself.  The costume is a French painter, inspired mostly by my little sister pointing out how well the snortlepig would look in a moustache.  I made a smock out of muslin, which taught me two important facts:

1. Sleeves need to be wider than you think; and also
2. The snortlepig is also wider than you think.

It was going to fit over her head like a dress, but when I realised there was no way its waist and hers would ever chill out together in harmony, I slit the whole thing up the back and made ties to close it shut, which when I came to think of it was more smock-like anyway.  And just as well, because there’s a gap of a good five inches at the back.  Next time I’ll make the bodice wider.  Anyway it looks kinda cute in a rough musliny way, and in theory she could even use it for an actual painting smock.  I’ll try to take some photos of her in costume, but as you can see, on this blog that is something of an empty threat.  I suck at photos.

While I was out buying a birthday present I also picked up a cheap green beret from the op-shop, and with a miniature artist’s palette my little sister is making for her, a fake moustache drawn on by eyebrow pencil and either her puffy trousers or tights, I think she will look quite the business.  Drawing the moustache might be tricky - we tried last night and she kept wriggling so the result looked a bit Impressionistic, but I suppose that’s semi-appropriate anyway, no?

Well, thanks to my challenge-lite week I now have a few free hours before I have to get us ready for the party.  I think I’ll go cut some of my browns up into five-inch squares.

So then, a new week is upon us.  This week’s challenge is events-based, or to put it another way, reactionary and defensive.  The events in question are having eight guests for dinner tomorrow night, which will necessitate a vasty list of things to do in order to ensure the food does not make them hurl, or that if it does they at least have a sparkling throom to hurl in; and a fancy-dress birthday party of an eight-year-old girl, which will involve cobbling together some manner of costume for the snortlepig. The party being Wednesday, I suppose I could slob around for the rest of the week, but I had better get on with my article for Mindfood before the editor finds my blog and issues a restraining order.

Anyhoo.  List.  Tomorrow I gotta:

• Vacuum
• Make butterscotch smeg
• Buy eggs
• Make punkin bread
• Make punkin-tomato-and-carrot soup
• Make chicken casserole
• Make wee chocolate swirls to go on the butterscotch smeg
• Clear off the kitchen table and move it sideways
• Clean the throom
• Run dishwasher before people arrive in order to ensure maximum number of clean dishes
• Make tiny tarts of some variety
• Dress snortlepig in psychedelic purple jackin

Say what you will about the state of this sorry world, but YouTube is pretty smegging awesome.  So for your edification and delight, I present to you a small but noble sample of clips that make me happy.  I’d call it my top five, but sadly my two favouritest of favourite YouTube clips have been taken down for copyright violation.  (Or so I assume; it’s possible they succumbed to typhus and genteelly withered away, but let’s not be naive, here, people.  It’s a dog-eat-YouTube-clip world out there.)  For the record, the ill-fated clips were a Spuffy video set to “Accidentally in Love” and a Tenth/Rose one set to “Follow Me”.  You see that beneath this callous exterior lies a heart of moosh?  It’s always useful to bear little facts like that in mind, in case you need to kill me one day.  A keen observer would also note that I have a tendency to monologue, which should make your job just that much easier.

Anyhoo.  Clip the first.  Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenowith singing “For Good” during Kristin’s final performance of Wicked on Broadway.  Hence all the weeping.  Great song, great show, great performance, it’ll melt your face.  Of course, when I say “great show” I mean “great show as far as I can tell from the soundtrack and a bunch of cobbled-together YouTube clips”, never having actually seen it.  Lack of Broadway musicals in New Zealand is a significant issue in my life, but they say suffering is good for the soul.

Did you weep?  You should have.  I hear it’s rapidly becoming the funeral song of choice, sort of a “Wind Beneath My Wings” for death, or the thinking corpse’s “My Heart Will Go On”.  Tell your friends… the sick ones.

Clip the second, you’ll be pleased to hear, is much more cheery.  This is just pure talent with a dollop of genius.  It also calms the snortlepig right down when she’s bellowing at the indignity of being put to bed.  Helpdesk Man’s method is to take the snortlepig under one arm, his laptop under the other, deposit both on the bed, place a firm hand on the middle of the snortlepig to prevent her getting up again and play this song (or alternatively Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours”, which she also likes) over and over again until she falls asleep.  It is a sight to behold, I tell ye.

Oose, no?  Moving right along to clip the third - Lea Salonga’s audition for Miss Saigon.  I love the young Lea - she’s like a Filipino Audrey Hepburn.  For those who don’t know her, she sang Mulan and Jasmine for Disney (there’s another pretty cool video of her singing Jasmine here - first run-through!) and has done a bunch of other stuff, but is arguably most famous for creating the role of Kim in Miss Saigon.  She was seventeen, although she looks about twelve in the clip.  Anyway, if you’re interested in Miss Saigon or singing or the audition process or simply watching people who are superb at their jobs, you’ll like this clip.  The way she picks up the song instantly and not only sings it with technical perfection, but captures the essence of Kim without apparent effort, is stunning.  Unfortunately I watched too much Lea-as-Kim before I went to see the show in Sydney, and as a result it was kind of a letdown.  You have been warned.

Right.  This next one contains naughty words.  Sorry.  I’m not sure why it tickles me, as I’m not really a fan of Eddie Izzard (or come to that, Lego; I’ve trodden on too many minifigs in my time).  But it does, and when I showed it to Helpdesk Man he laughed so hard humours spurted out of his ears.  Did I mention it has naughty words?

And finally… Trogdor the Burninator.

Yup.

I made an inedible soup last night. Not out of malice, you understand. Helpdesk Man was off at his marvy postmodern Young Vocal Collective practice - although they probably don’t call it “practice”, they probably call it “process” or “experience” or “melding”, ooo - and I decided to make a French onion soup to have with homemade pumpkin bread for dinner. Unfortunately the only stock we had left in the freezer was turkey stock left over from Christmas, and I didn’t get around to tasting the soup before serving thanks to a certain snortlepig. It was only after I’d gagged on the first spoonful that I realised the stock had been made with the brined Christmas turkey and contained enough salt to slay a camel. It was mildly tragic - the delicious jamminess of the caramelised onions could still be tasted, tantalising me, but there was simply no getting the soup down. Helpdesk Man was nice about it and munched a piece of leftover pizza instead, which was good of him considering I’d just mocked him about his marvy postmodern young vocal collective, and had in fact only the previous day ordered the aforementioned pizza under the name of Sven and made him pick it up.

Anyway, it’s a blow to a woman’s pride, innit. I may only be a brainless hussy who can’t remember which is masochism and which is sado-masochism and who’s never been sure what part Japan played in World War Two, but gol ding it, I can make a good French onion soup! Fortunately, today I had the chance to redeem myself by making a French silk pie for Bnonn and Smokey Night.

Bnonn and Smokey Night, incidentally, is what you get when you say plaintively to Helpdesk Man “We never do anything spontaneous any more”. Being both a jewel of a husband and as Aspie a coot as ever broke into a cold sweat over mismatched socks, Helpdesk Man replied smoothly “OK, how about we have a date night every Friday?”. So we do.

Back in our wild and profligate youth (ie. two years ago), Bnonn and Smokey Night could encompass activities as daring as a movie and dinner in town. Since the birth of the snortlepig it’s pretty much invariably having a nice homecooked meal and watching Deep Space Nine or a movie at home, which to the naked eye isn’t markedly different to what we do every other night of the week; but still. We enjoy it. And tonight we are having roast chicken and smeg made to our personally-invented recipe, followed by French silk pie, made by me.

The French silk pie is Pioneer Woman’s recipe, not that she calls it French silk pie, but it is. Making it is an interesting experience. One has to add four eggs to the mixture over a course of twenty minutes, beating all the while. One can only assume that French silk pie came about after the invention of the electric mixer; that, or our foremothers were brawnier than one thought. At any rate, like kneading bread, the beating is vaguely hypnotic and one finds one’s mind wandering… pondering, for example, the difference between masochism and sado-masochism, and wondering what part Japan played in World War Two. Also coming back to reality with a start and noticing one’s baby has been pitifully wailing at one’s trouser leg for the past ten minutes (or two eggs).  I may be an English graduate with an impeccable SAT score and, upon reflection, fairly certain convictions that a) sado-masochism is pleasure derived from causing pain to oneself, not others and b) it was something to do with Pearl Harbour, but at times I am a failure as a mother.

But not, let us hope, as a pie-maker. Pioneer Woman’s advice not to read too much into the texture-in-progress of the filling turned out to be sound; I had a nasty moment around Minute 17 when I thought the sugar would never dissolve and the filling would be gritty and Helpdesk Man would stab his fork into my eye and leave me for Martha Stewart, but all was well.

Fervent readers may have noticed that I don’t have a Challenge this week. This is OK. It’s the holidays. Other than debating errant mohels, I have spent a pleasing half-week performing small domestic duties.  Steaming pumpkin to freeze in pie-sized mashed portions, embroidering the snortlepig’s pyjamas, transforming festering bananas into muffins and cakes, kneading bread, sweeping the floor… that sort of thing.  It’s fun, and it makes me feel productive.  So all is well.

I’m also vaguely working on an article for Mindfood magazine about Western conceptions of sleep and the unusualness thereof.  One of the concepts I mention is polyphasic sleep (not as an example of what Western people normally do, obviously); and having read a few blogs documenting the experience, I have to say the idea is only half-tempting.   The basic gist of polyphasic sleep is sleeping in small chunks throughout the 24-hour period rather than one long stretch at night - usually the experimenters go for a “core sleep” of 3-6 hours plus several 20-minute naps.  Interestingly, all the blogs I’ve read so far have ended with the experimenters modifying or abandoning polyphasic sleep altogether, but not for reasons of health or tiredness.  In fact, some of them said they felt more energised on the polyphasic method.  What they couldn’t deal with what the psychological impact.  Quite a few mentioned feeling isolated by being up when the rest of the world was down; others said their wives didn’t appreciate sleeping alone; and one guy wrote quite eloquently about the depressingness of relegating sleep to a chore rather than a time of luxurious relaxation and rejuvenation.  Plus, of course, there’s the possibility that avoiding certain sleep cycles on a regular basis might cause you to become insane, and you know, kill you. The jury’s still out on that one, apparently.

Anyway,the idea is semi-tempting  I tend to revel in any free hours I get just for myself, with no snortlepig to care for.  I could work the schedule due to being a stay-at-home mother. I could use my extra several hours a day to learn a new language, write the Great American Novel or, horror of horrors, even get some of the housework done. And being both somewhat Aspie and in a funny timezone, I don’t think the isolation would bug me a bit.

But then, realistically, what would I do up at four AM? I’d surf the Internet, is what. And I wouldn’t get to put my cold feet on Helpdesk Man in the middle of the night or use the snortlepig for a convenient hottie-bottle.  (She may not have many handy talents, that pig, but by gum, she’s a useful size.)

With that in mind, it’s 10:45 and I am still in my pyjamas. I gotta go get dressed, chase the chickens out of the neighbor’s yard (long story), put on Doogie Howser and embroider another line of blanket stitch on the dude’s pyjama top.

Cantor Sherman replied:

Sarah,

Cantor Philip L. Sherman

My response:

Hi Mr Sherman

Thanks for responding.

The “circumcision reduces the risk of HIV argument” is problematic on many levels.

1.  The studies which claim to demonstrate this are flawed at best.  The studies usually cited are the Kenya and Uganda studies, the problems with which include non-random selections of volunteers; the fact that the circumcised group of men were taught to abstain from sex for 4-6 weeks after the procedure and to wear condoms during sex, which the intact group were not; and the probable inclusion (based on statistical data) of HIV-immune individuals.

2.  The studies discuss risk reduction of HIV transmission due to heterosexual intercourse among adults.  Circumcision obviously does not protect against HIV transmission through infected blood transfusions or other non-sexual contact.  Given that babies do not have sex, the preventive effect is completely useless until they reach the age of sexual contact.  At this time, boys are able to give informed consent for the procedure, and be given adequate anaesthetic (general) and post-operative care for the procedure.  This avoids many of the ethical problems with circumcision.  Post-puberty circumcision is also likely to have better functional and cosmetic effects, as the chances of taking too much skin for comfortable erections is lessened.

3.  It is, of course, likely that a great many boys will decline the procedure.  Having (probably) experienced the sexual benefits of a foreskin they are unlikely to wish to give it up, especially if they are aware that certain types of sexual contact are far more risky than certain other types, and that wearing a condom provides them with far more protection against STDs than circumcision.  (Indeed, one of the problems with mass circumcision campaigns in Africa is the misconception that circumcision is a “vaccine” against AIDS, leading many circed men to not bother wearing a condom.)  As the likelihood of informed consent being withheld is fairly high, it calls into question performing a procedure “for the baby’s own good” when he is very likely to refuse the procedure later in life.

4.  Removing the breast tissue of baby girls at birth would certainly lessen the incidence of breast cancer in adults; however, this does not excuse the procedure.  Parents and doctors realise that cutting into healthy tissue in order to minimise future risk (not future certainty) of disease is a bizarre way to practice medicine.  Given that the prevalence of HIV in the USA is much lower than in Africa, and that awareness and education of risk and preventive factors are far better, it seems very strange to assume the average child will be a) sexually risky enough and b) sexually irresponsible enough to contract HIV through unprotected sex, and to amputate a significant part of his genitals accordingly!

So in short: no, I do not think sexually mutilating thousands of boys is “worth it” in order to save one life - particularly bearing in mind that if circumcision saves that life, it very likely means that the man saved was engaging in risky sexual practices without a condom.  Infant boys should not have to suffer because of the potential future sexual choices of another.  Surely if it were discovered that, say, amputating the thumbs of a thousand adult men could prevent one instance of HIV transmission, you would not be lining up to have your thumbs cut off (or indeed, recommending the procedure to your patients)?  Still less would you find it acceptable to perform the procedure on adult men who could not consent (while they were unconscious, say).  Why, then, is it acceptable to cut off the most sensitive parts of a baby’s penis due to similar reasoning?

Sarah.

Warning to Gentle Readers:  This is kinda graphic.  If you’re liable to blenching and fainting, read on at your own risk.

Dear Mr Sherman

I am writing to express my horror at your offer of “Holistic Circumcision” to non-Jewish families.  I am a freelance writer who recently studied the topic of circumcision in some depth for an article on bioethics, and I find the information presented on holisticircumcision.com dishonest and disturbing.

You use words like “discomfort” to describe the pain a child endures during the process.  My studies have shown this to be a gross understatement.  The Brady-Fryer study “Pain relief for neonatal circumcision” has demonstrated that no method of pain relief during circumcision is effective, and that sugar water is particularly ineffective. Your site presents the shortened time of “holistic” circumcision as a positive; however, the duration of hospital circumcisions is usually due to administering pain relief such as a nerve block - more effective than sugar water. While some babies do not cry during the procedure, this is not due to a lack of pain but due to the infant lapsing into shock or a near-coma from the treatment (see the Gunner et al paper “Coping with Aversive Stimulation in the Neonatal Period: Quiet Sleep and Plasma Cortisol Levels during Recovery from Circumcision”); and that the neurological effects are long-lasting is demonstrated by the fact that circumcised infants show a greater pain response during vaccinations.  I notice your site also glosses over exactly how the procedure is performed; but given the nature of penile anatomy the salient techniques of circumcision - severing the adhesions between the foreskin and the penis and clamping/cutting the foreskin - are presumably employed, and (as testified by men circumcised later in life) incredibly painful.  Studies now show that newborns feel pain more intensely than adults, not less.  “Discomfort” is hardly the word to use here.

Your site correctly states that much Internet information on circumcision is “virulent” and “anti-circumcision”, with which I agree; but that it is calculated to “frighten and misinform” is an unsubstantiated slander.  It is rather designed to illuminate and educate; to counteract the myths of circumcision perpetrated by a deeply sick culture which believes it is permissible to cut into the healthy, functional genital tissue of non-consenting minors.  Surely you must be aware that the bioethical and medical objections to circumcision do not rest solely or even largely in the fact that circumcision is routinely performed in a “non-holistic” hospital environment!  Your paragraph smoothly implies that because your procedure is “holistic”, the objections of anti-circ advocates are answered; but this is not the case.  To refresh your memory, some of the principal objections are:

• the violation of the bioethical principles of autonomy, beneficence and non-maleficence by performing a damaging, medically unnecessary procedure on a non-consenting individual
• the sexual dysfunction caused both intrinsically by the act of circumcision (loss of sensitivity through keratinisation, loss of the gliding action during sex facilitated by the foreskin, loss of the specialised nerves in the foreskin and frenulum) and in some cases circumstantially due to circumcision complications (penoscrotal webbing, hairy shaft, painful erections, buried or trapped penis, phimosis, meatal stenosis).  See the Sorrels and Snyder paper “Fine-touch pressure threshholds in the adult penis”
• the further risks of more serious injury resulting from the operation, such as amputation, gangrene and death
• the sexual dysfunction between partners which often arises due to the mechanics of sex with a circumcised man (see the Gillian Bensley/Gregory Boyle study which links circumcision to female arousal disorder and vaginal dryness)
• the psychological problems which arise in some men as a result of their circumcisions (see the article by DaiSik, Kim and Myung-Geol, Pang, as well as the testimonies of many circumcised men)
• the misperception RIC promotes that the foreskin is a “disposable”, unnecessary organ, which leads some practitioners to overprescribe circumcision as a remedy for minor problems rather than treating them (for instance, UTIs)
• psychological problems which occasionally arise in intact men due to a culture which views surgically altered genitals as the norm and normal genitals as “dirty” or “weird”
• the adverse effects cicumcision has on bonding and breastfeeding establishment (see La Leche League International’s statement on circumcision)
• the tendency of the medical profession to overstate the medical benefits of circumcision and minimise the harm, either for financial reasons or reasons of tradition

As you can see, the manner in which the circumcision is performed is irrelevant to these objections, and your site does not engage with them.  As such, parents who choose your services will not be making an informed choice based on the information provided. While your “Post-Circumcision Advice” page briefly mentions “bleeding, infection, changes in appearance and sensitivity and/or damage”, this is neither a comprehensive nor adequate explanation of the effects of circumcision.  For example, it is common among men circumcised during adulthood to label sexual satisfaction before circumcision at a rating of 10, and after circumcision at 3.  Parents simply reading “changes in sensitivity” will not be informed of the magnitude of the sexual dysfunction caused.  You also cite studies demonstrating a link between circumcision and the reduction of AIDS transmission, even though it is commonly accepted in medical circles that these studies are flawed and problematic.

Perhaps most disturbing, however, is your use of terms such as “holistic” to describe the procedure.  Infant circumcision is “holistic” only in that it damages the child physically, psychologically and emotionally.  While the testimonials on the site certainly seem to indicate the parents involved found the ceremony moving and spiritual, the fact remains that you were causing irreversible sexual damage to their helpless babies.  There is no way to make this fact palatable.  If the ceremony in question involved a moving, spiritual, “gentle” ceremony in which the baby’s fingers were amputated you would rightly be prosecuted; and it is only a severe intellectual dissonance on the part of American society which allows this particular surgery to be condoned.

All that being said, while I am still no fan of Jewish circumcision for Jewish babies for the above reasons, I do recognise the strength of the Jewish belief that circumcision is divinely commanded.  I can even see how that fact would outweigh all other ethical considerations.  However, to my knowledge there is nothing in Jewish teachings or law which considers circumcision necessary for non-Jewish babies.  I know Jewish women who have circumcised their own children for religious reasons while remaining adamantly opposed to circumcision for any other reason (barring extreme medical circumstances, obviously).  They argue that without the divine command, circumcision is nothing more than a mutilation that should not be practiced - just as, while it was moral for Abraham to be willing to sacrifice Isaac due to divine command, it would have been immoral for him to recommend son-slaying to all his friends!

In short, I ask you to reconsider offering circumcision to non-Jewish babies.  I ask you to consider the information I have provided above; to question it, to look at the studies I have cited and engage with the arguments presented, rather than simply writing them off as “anti-circumcision”.  They are anti-circumcision; but people are anti-circumcision for very good reasons.

Sincerely

Sarah Tennant.

Heh.  I was cleaning up the house and became perspiratious with the energy of vacuuming, and the snortlepig saw me taking my shirt off and starting chortling her smug I’m-gonna-have-the-milks chortle.  So here I am.  I got things to do, but who am I to disappoint the chortle?  Or the chortlepig, as it were.

In order to glide through this post with wasp-waisted efficiency I will list yesterday’s and today’s Challenge accomplishments at the same time.  K? No pressure; try to keep up the best you can, and if your nose begins to bleed, suck a lozenge.

• Do something I’ve been putting off

Yesterday: Went through the wardrobe of the snortlepig and put away all her too-small and too-summery clothes, for the benefit of any future snortlepigses.

Today: Vacuumed.

• Do something potentially money-making (ie. queries, Suite articles)

Yesterday: Erum.

Today: Erum.

This is why we don’t summer in the South of France.

• Do something domestically goddessy/Oosewifesome

Yesterday: Made an arty apricot and almond horseshoe (recipe pending, when I figure out how to upload photos); also made chocolate mousse for Bnonn and Smokey Night.

Today: Brilliantly improvised morning tea for guests by excavating ye olde puff pastry from the freezer and making it into cheese straws (and sesame straws, Vegemite straws and paprika straws, I might add). Also remembered to marinate steak, which is a small accomplishment for some, but a mighty deed for Smokey the Magnificent.

• And do something outside

Yesterday: Walked to drop Helpdesk Man back at work after lunch; walked to pick him up again from work.

Today: Played outside with guests and chickens, and need to go pick Helpdesk Man up again, assuming I can wake up the piggie.  (She has fallen asleep and appears to be permanently latched on.)

Yawn.  Yesterday was a long day… and did the snortlepig respect my personal space and my need to recharge in order to give her my full maternal attention later in the day?  No, she did not.  “Let us jump on our mother’s throat” was her decree upon waking, shortly followed by “Let us sit upon her sleeping face with a wet nappy”, “Let us gnaw at the milks for fun” and “Let us also stand upon the roots of her hair and grind our toes into them, in order to drag them from her head but slowly”. It is almost as if I didn’t buy her three pairs of socks and eight tiny hairthings yesterday.  Bally child.

So yes, yesterday was Airport Day.  I still managed to do some of my Challenge in a half-baked way, though - viz:

• Do something I’ve been putting off

I started to clean the fridge, wiped out the cutlery drawer - which I’d been putting off because doing it always fills me with a virtuous Stepford Wifely glow, which I needed after tackling the fridge - hoo boy - and bought the snortlepig, as previously mentioned, some hairties and socks.

• Do something potentially money-making (ie. queries, Suite articles)

Well.  I memorised the email address of the editor of Foodtown magazine while standing in line at the checkout, and will query him today.  Or her.  Smeg it, I forgot to memorise the name.

• Do something domestically goddessy/Oosewifesome

I sewed the dude’s pyjama pants together, sans waist (she was sleeping), and started to blanket-stitch around the cuffs.  Blanket stitch is pretty much the Comic Sans MS of the embroidery world - aggressively cheerful and massively overused - but I’d never done it before and besides, if it can’t be forgiven on a baby’s pyjamas, the world is indeed a cynical and sordid place.  I’m thinking of embroidering snippets from Tolkien’s poems on the PJs as well - perhaps “Through shadows to the edge of night” on one leg and “Until the stars are all alight” on the other, or “Where night is quiet and sleep is rest” or “And then to bed! And then to bed!” or something.  We shall see.

• And do something outside

Well, I was in a car all day.  Which was outside.  But then, so is my house.  Does walking down the street looking in shops count?

Speaking of shops, something moderately oose happened yesterday.  A week or so ago Helpdesk Man and I were at the Kathmandu massive so-cheap-your-eyes-will-bleed Easter sale, and while he managed to snitch not one but two winter shirts, the only one I liked came in every size but mine.  And for the record, my size is not freakishly unusual.  Which is a curse rather than a blessing in situations like these, I suppose!  Anyhoo, I asked the nice man at the desk and he said that they had had several of that top in my size, but had sent them up to Manakau to be with their fellows, presumably out of some perverse Aspie need to have all the burgundy size 10s in the country in the same shop, and would I be in Manakau in the next week or so?  “Molest me not with empty gibes”, quoth I, and sank my dagger into his belly.  But yesterday, while whiling away the time until the snortlepig’s great-grandmother should be disgorged from a pressurised metal tube, where did we end up?  Exactly.  And not only was my size 10 burgundy top hanging smugly from a rack with its twelve sistren, but there was also one in blue.  And at thirty per cent of their original cost, although Kathmandu being what it is that isn’t saying much for cheapness.  But still.  It’s the little things like this that make me cancel the order for a strychnine and soda.  That, and the fact that the snortlepig has gone tranquilly to sleep in my arms and isn’t punching anything.

Gaaah.  I stumbled onto the Moberly-Jourdain incident Wiki page via Triablogue this afternoon…. twenty pages of paranormal incidents, mutilated bovines, Bent Spoon Awards and Harry Houdini later and I am feeling thoroughly creeped out.  Let me talk of mundaner things.

Right, so, as for today’s challenge.

• Do something I’ve been putting off

I cleaned out the chickens’ cage.  Fun stuff.  The snortlepig availed herself of this opportunity to a) chase the chickens, b) corner Bridget in the cage with a handful of proffered grain, which Bridget failed to take in the (albeit somewhat aggressively) friendly spirit in which it was offered - after hurtling back and forth in the corner for a good five minutes she made a dash for it - c) stand in the chickens’ water bowl and swish her foot around and d) sit down plump in the middle of the cage, skungying her perfectly nice trousies.

• Do something potentially money-making (ie. queries, Suite articles)

Um.  I wrote part of a Suite article.  Well.  28 words.  Is cord blood banking linked to anaemia in neonates?  Stay tuned.

• Do something domestically goddessy/Oosewifesome

Ooh, yus.  I made triple-chocolate muffins for Helpdesk Man (which, come to think of it, are still sitting out on the bench - he’ll have to come with me to wrap them up though, or the ghost of the Bermuda Triangle will nip down Hanging Rock and suck me into a timeslip).  And we had arty rice-stuffed pumpkin for dinner again, although Helpdesk Man helped to make them, so I’m not sure that counts.  And I cut out two legs for the dude’s pyjamas before panicking and wondering if double-layered polar fleece is overkill even for winter, and… there’s a psychic manifestation behind my head.  I don’t like it.  Stop it, psychic manifestation.  No, it’s the chicken calendar on the wall.  Good heavens above, but that’s a creepy chicken calendar now I come to look at it.

• And do something outside.

Also yus!  If the chicken-cleaning incident didn’t count (and it doesn’t; no double-ups), I also did some mowing, and went for a walk to the public gardens with my eminent ancestors, and picked Helpdesk Man up from work and walked him to the supermarket and back home.  A woman accosted me in the supermarket to ask about limes; I have a feeling she thought I worked there, which is somewhat depressing as I was wearing my nicest outfit.  I need new clothes.

Speaking of which.  Tomorrow the snortlepig’s great-grandmother (!) is entering the country, and I am going up with Mamma to see her in.  How I’ll manage to do oosewifey, outdoorsy, money-making long-procrastinated things while sitting in the van playing with the snortlepig’s toes I do not know, but we shall see.

Also?  Speaking of strange and unusual phenomena… watch this.  And just imagine the frustrated lives the perpetrators would have led in pre-video camera days.