Smokey the Magnificent

Well, as far as debit and credit goes in the universe, things are playing thusly:

• I seem to have escaped the Great Swine Flu Epidemic of ‘09 unscathed. (Credit.)
• Practically my only mother is interred in the depths of our dingy public hospital with her throat slit. (Debit, particularly from her perspective, one imagines.)
• The doctors are relatively sure they removed the entire thyroidal cyst from said throat. (Dubious credit, as they said that twice before. Silly doctors. Wouldn’t know a thyroidal cyst if it jumped up and bit them in the face.)
• My quilt is three sleeps away from its deadline and still not entirely pieced, let alone backed and quilted and bound. (Debit, certainly.)
• Practically my only mother, languishing as she is in the depths of said hospital - and according to a reliable source, out of her mind on morphine - is unable to come over and walk me through the processes of backing, quilting and binding, none of which I have ever done before. (Guiltily self-involved debit which recognises there are Higher Things at stake, but still.)
• Have sore feet from pacing the library for an hour and a half last night trying to lull the snortlepig to sleep, so I could  listen to Helpdesk Man’s marvy young vocal collective singing at the book launch of the conductress’ mother, only to find that the singing was minimal and the speeches very long, although actually pretty interesting. (Debit? Credit? I do not know. Blisters are no walk in the park - heh - but on the other hand, should I run into a former schoolmate who was sporting a Paris hair cut and an arty bohemian top with leggings, I could always work “Last night at a book launch” into the conversation and thus distract her from my otherwise uncompelling suburban banality.)

In order to be expedient, I’ve divided today into 10-minute segments of Sewing and Not Sewing. It works better than the longer time slots, I think. So far I’ve managed to fool the snortlepig into thinking I’m giving her my full attention, long enough to make several fabric gateposts and begin appliqueing a pig on the ninth and final quilt block. And high time too. I’m going to visit Mother this afternoon, and have a whole bunch of hand sewing to take so as to improve each shining moment. It’s hard work creating Whimsy - every pleasing thought, such as “ooh, I could applique a little snail oosing up the stalk of the sunflower” ushers in what seems like hours of sewing.

Unsurprisingly, this week’s challenge is to finish the smegging baby quilt. And also to eat three lots of yoghurt, because it is good for the squish and better than my current practice of accidentally skipping breakfast six days out of seven. And to return a certain overdue library book before the bailiffs come a-knocking. And to get my Bible study homework done in good time for once. And not to die of swine flu.

I have spent the last few days doing somewhat less sewing than I should: mostly because it seemed wise to stave off the swine flu by watching episodes of Friends bit by bit on YouTube. Still, I have made some pretty good strides. I constructed a small pillow stuffed with mung beans and decorated with an appliqued tractor; embroidered fences; attached ribbons; made a stuffed birdie that squeaks; sewed together three blocks in preparation for adding a stalk to the sunflower… stuff like that. It makes more sense if one has seen the quilt… I am having pangs of self-doubt about the design of the ninth block, though. I think I’ll go Google farm imagery for a bit in the hopes of finding inspiration.

Ooh, how about a fence with a pig behind it? I could kinda basketweave the fence out of leftover strips.

When baking muffins, it is imperative not to let the quietness of your snortlepig fool you into thinking she is being good. She is not. She is doing this.

I woke up today feeling surprisingly un-dead. That’s un-dead with a hyphen, meaning “didn’t die of swine flu during the night”, not undead all-one-word, meaning “heightened senses, intoxicated by the scent of blood and at one with an all-consuming darkness”, just for the record. Although that too, of course; who isn’t? Anyway I was able to do some sewing, and am pleased to report that I successfully constructed a 2-D fabric birdhouse all on my ownsome. With the little hole for the door, and everything. This quilt is proving to be a very useful training tool; I can applique like a fish now. How did the universe stagger along before the invention of double-sided interfacing?

Also, I was wondering: at a guess, how many songs do you know? Well enough to sing with, say, 80% accuracy: not just being able to hum along to the chorus. It occurs to me that counting musicals, hymns, folk songs, Christmas carols and the like I could well know upwards of a thousand. The oeuvres of the Everly Brothers and the Seekers alone make up a good few dozen, and I don’t even know all their songs. I wonder how much brain power the average joe today must use up on accidentally memorising songs: and how many of said songs he actually likes? I wonder, also, how many of said thousand songs I would be able to remember if a gangster tied me to a bridge, put a gun to the rope and told me to sing constantly for 24 hours, with no pauses and no repeats, on pain of sleeping with the fishes. Would my brain give out before my voice? Well, not currently, ’cause my voice is on the fritz due to the aforementioned swine flu. Would make an interesting film though, no? Like that one about the cellphone.. “If the signal dies, so does she”. Or not, possibly: I didn’t see it. Meryl Streep should star in it, she’s smashing. Streep. Streep streep streep. Is that her real name? “Streep Throat”, it could be called. Gosh, I’m feeling a bit ooey.

I think I’ll sit down quite calmly and blanket-stitch some wings on a fabric birdie while watching Lois and Clark.

To facilitate making significant advancements on sister-in-law’s baby quilt I decided to divide yesterday up into half-hour segments of Sewing and Not Sewing.  In theory it keeps me on-task and prevents the snortlepig from Thus far, it hasn’t been a staggering success.

Half-Hour One: Dressed me, dressed the snortlepig, did my hair. Unloaded dishwasher, made breakfast (kibbled wheat with cream and brown sugar). Made hot drink of apple cider vinegar and honey for health purpose now lost in the mists of time… either it’s good for my skin, fights cancer or assists in weight loss. I forget, but all good things, no? Went over half-hour by ten minutes due to eating breakfast.

Half-Hour Two: Arranged my box of fabric scraps in order of width; selected a bunch of 1 1/2-inch strips to use in making tiny nine-patches. Began sewing them together.

Half-Hour Three: Fed chickens. Cleaned microwave. Picked up vast quantities of mandarins from the grounds and squoze them to make jelly. Went vastly overtime because a) I just finished squeezing them when the timer went off and wanted to actually make the jelly, and b) the pig, having trotted around the garden contentedly for the entire half-hour, now decided she missed me and had to have the milks.

Half-Hour Four: Continued making nine-patches; arranged them in a 4 by 4 pattern with bigger blocks in between. Decided to carry on until the pig began to pesk, which gained me another 19 minutes (and then only because she hit her head by standing up under the table. She is a good pig. I will keep her.)

Half-Hour Five: Several hours of being distracted on the internet.

Next day: Woke up with probable swine flu.

So there you have it. I did manage to do some applique and embroidery last night, so I made some advancement; but I’m not sure I’d call it significant. Anyway it’ll all be much of a muchness when I’m lying dead in a pool of my own phlegm.

This week’s challenge is simple: make significant advancement on my sister-in-law’s baby quilt every day. Because I need to.

I also gotta:

• henna my hair
• do my Bible study homework
• have Mum and the wee ones over for dinner one day
• meet online with editors of a new Internet venture at 9AM on Tuesday
• organise playdate with snortlepig and her Small Friend who shall be known evocatively as E

We all know that “Are you pregnant?” is one of the worst questions one can ever ask. At least, I sincerely hope we do. If not, let me explain. If you ask a woman if she is pregnant, chances are high that one or more of the following circumstances will obtain:

• She is not pregnant, but carries fat in her tummy.
• She has already had the baby.
• She is having difficulty conceiving.
• She is permanently infertile.
• Her husband is permanently infertile.
• She recently had a miscarriage.
• She recently had an abortion.
• She is pregnant, but wanted to wait before telling you.
• She is pregnant, but wanted to wait to tell you until the person standing next to her in the supermarket line was out of earshot.
• She was about to start trying to conceive another baby, having finally - as she thought - lost the baby weight from the previous baby.
• She had just decided to embrace her womanly curves and buy a trendy babydoll shirt.
• She has a large tumour in her abdomen.
• She is pregnant, but is having difficulty coming to terms with the pregnancy/her new body shape/other life circumstances and does not wish to have attention drawn to the fact.

Savvy? So to recap, never ever ever ask if a woman is pregnant. Well, not never ever ever; if you’re a radiologist about to zap her midsection with psi-gamma-epsilon waves, you can. Should, even. Or if you’re a doctor about to put her on a course of mutagenic dandruff cream. Or whatever. If not, don’t. If she wants you to know, she’ll tell you.

That much we all know. But what amuses me is the way a number of women phrase the issue: “Unless you see the baby crowning, don’t ask”. Catchy and succint, oui… but dangerous advice. Because it leaves the question open: what if you do see the baby crowning? Is it then socially permissible to step forward with a smile and a wink and say “I think someone’s in the family way!”? Surely the reaction of any labouring woman to such a remark would be justifiable homicide.

So what is the correct etiquette, then, when coming across a heavily-labouring woman? As avid a fan as I am of Miss Manners, I believe she was remiss in never addressing this issue. And the issue of complicated by the fact that women in labour tend to have very distinct, divergent and strongly-held views on the matter. Where one woman might like to have kindly, sonsy women tie knots in towels and rub her feet, another might prefer to be left strictly alone, and another might simply want to be whisked away to hospital post-haste. When a woman gave birth on the subway in England ignored by passersby, the world clucked and tutted; but if it were me in such an indelicate situation, that is precisely the sort of reaction I’d wish for. (It’s also a delightfully British anecdote, isn’t it? Stiff upper lip and all that. Maybe she was conscious of a silent, understated, forward-facing wave of English solidarity and rapport which carried her through the difficult moments? Possibly as the new citizen of a once-great Empire emerged the commuters quietly removed their hats as one, and acknowledged - here by a slight twitching of the moustache, there by a clearing of the throat -  the Miracle of Life?)

So on this note, my question for you today is twofold:

1. If you saw a woman in heavy labour - say, in the canned goods aisle at a moderately empty supermarket - how would you react?

2. If you were that woman, how would you want others to react?

Bonus points if you have ever actually been in either situation. Extra bonus points if you remember Worf’s reaction to hearing Keiko was pregnant again, after having been forced to deliver her first child during an emergency on the Enterprise.

Last night I finished the skirt for the small child’s birthday party. Twice, actually; the first time it was far too big at the waist, which worries me a little as I measured the elastic exactly. I recalibrated it to fit the snortlepig, who is younger but proportionately fatter than the birthday child; and the rest is in the hands of Fate.

So anyway, I was feeling pretty good about all this - a handmade birthday present, after all, that’s gotta be worth a few Mom Points - we’ll say six - when it occurred to me to fish out the invitation from my handbag (minus one) and figure out how to get to the address from the bus stop. That’s when I noticed that the invitation did not, as I had thought, say 2:30PM but rather 10-11:30AM. It was twelve. Minus ten points.

In a frenzy of remorse I rang the child’s mother to apologise (two points for moral virtue), whereupon she kindly informed me that yes, the time was 10AM, but the date was August 22. Minus several thousand points for ineptitude and lack of cool.

On the bright side, it appears I have now finished the handmade present several weeks early… which surely earns me back a couple of points, nein? And I don’t have to walk to the bus stop in the rain. But still though. As Helpdesk Man exclaimed delightedly when I told him, “Man, you’re amazingly incompetent!” Thanks, sweetness.