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.