Monica Dux and the Mummy Wars

I just wrote a very intemperate (furious, really) response to Monica Dux's piece on why women should be more prepared for labour and birth.

But it upset me that I was so upset, so I deleted it.

Pregnant women already attract unjustified scrutiny and criticism. No woman should ever be judged for the decisions she makes while in labour, given how indescribable and unexpected that experience really is. But how a woman handles her preparation is another matter entirely, and maybe a lack of preparation deserves scrutiny. To just "wait and see" when the stakes are so high is simply negligent — both for the mother's health and for her baby.

The final paragraph up there kind of sums up why I was so very, very irritated. Pregnant women already attract unjustified scrutiny and criticism, but it's OK for Monica Dux to add to it because, dammit, she's RIGHT AND ALL YOU OTHER WOMEN OUT THERE ARE IGNORANT, LAZY, NAIVE AND ILL-INFORMED. Oh, it turns out I'm still quite angry. Sorry about that.

I'm off for some nice, soothing, lemon tea. Or perhaps a little stomping round the house ranting. One or the other.

Stormy weather

Late this afternoon the sky darkened, the rain plunged down and the fine and noble people of the Best Department Evah celebrated by watching the window cleaners across the road get completely and utterly soaked. Even altruistic and selfless servants of the public have moments of weakness.

When I got to the bus stop this afternoon there was a pool of grubby water slopping over the gutter and on to the footpath. The bus drivers varied in their approach from slowly and carefully pulling in so as to avoid dampening the shoes of soon-to-be passengers, to tidal wave speed and nasty chuckling at the damp trouser cuffs of the patiently waiting workers.

Despite my window-cleaner schadenfreude I managed to stay dry, which frankly does not seem fair. I should have had to sit on the bus for forty minutes with my wet trouser cuffs slapping nastily against my chafed shins. And my shoes should have been sloshing unpleasantly as well.

Also when I got home the husband (praise him, praise him) was preparing delicious home-made oven baked chips (tasty potatoes from Fyshwick Markets), with even more delicious grilled fish with lemon zest, capers and chives.

I think I might take up thinking nasty thoughts about window cleaners as my second job. Clearly the universe rewards it.

Characters inside my head

Characters who have quite strong ideas and personalities, but generally speaking don't seem to do very much, which is possibly why I don't feel compelled to write stories about them. No narrative.

But I'd miss them if they left all together. They don't seem to need to be written about, and in fact sometimes it seems like quite the imposition.

I like writing well enough. I feel like doing that all the time. Just not stories about people doing things.

Career path

I am making a very good beginning on my new career choice; nearly (but not quite) meeting famous, influential and important people.

I think I am a natural.

Handy hint

Put the moisturiser on your hands only after you have brushed your teeth. Otherwise there's less traction than a politician talking about climate change in a coal mine.

Art, cheesecake, books

A most satisfactory morning. We briskly took ourselves to Fyshwick Markets to purchase fruit, veg and sundry deli items (including Cheese of the Week - this week we have Norwegian Ridder Cheese). I popped into Officeworks on the way home to buy some note pads and pens because whoever is supposed to be ordering stationery at work doesn't seem to know that it's their job. Perhaps it's me. And I don't want to be a bad Secretariat girl, and turn up to a meeting with no bits of paper for More Important People. As the Queen does not carry money, so do More Important People not carry biros and bits of paper. Apparently.

After slinging the produce in the fridge we dashed out again (with a strangely compliant Noodle - I think his three days stuck at home feeling crook finally made him want to leave the house). We went to the Beaver Galleries in Deakin, because they had a show reviewed last week in the Canberra Times, and it looked nice. Full of nice art, in fact. Many prints that we would quite liked to have bought, except what with the global downturn and the Government deciding it wants some of its money back from us this year it didn't seem such a financially prudent move.

So we went to Curtin and spent too much on second-hand books instead. The prices at the bookshop there have gone up astonishing, and also the coffee is no longer free but is surrounded by chairs and tables and a cabinet full of cakes, even though the coffee is made by the same domestic espresso machine as before. I don't think people should be charged for domestic-level espresso. There should be some kind of international charter against it.

Also Beaver Galleries has a cafe, where the coffee is produced professionally, but still isn't great. But the cheesecake more than made up for it. Canberra may have some lacks (including consistently good coffee) but there's a real commitment to quality lemon cheesecake, it seems.

Noodle is now happily reading his new (expensive), secondhand Asterix comics. I shall return to Grand Days and see how I go.

The Growing Summer (or ideology and children's fiction)

The Noodle and I have been enjoying The Growing Summer by Noel Streatfeild a good deal. He had a moment of absolute terror when Robin fell out of the boat, and the story immediately switched to Penny and Naomi waiting at home for the boys and Aunt Dymphna to return...and it's getting later, and later, and later.

Took us three days to get past those chapters, with much clinging and many looks of anxiety and insistences that nothing terrible happens to anybody in The Growing Summer (unless you think having to eat Penny's cooking is cruel and unusual punishment). Aunt Dymphna is very anti-whining. She may be mad and addicted to poetry, but she's a handy identifier of edible mushrooms and she is not interested in keeping things clean. Not perhaps an A grade aunt, but certainly not the worst either - worst aunts are probably Spiker and Sponge in James and the Giant Peach I reckon.

I have been reading Apple Bough also by Streatfeild on the bus. I bought it at the Fiesta last week (harrumph cookies). Or at least the lads bought it for me after I had to rush off to look after the tipping over cans of formula stall for a while. I wonder how much money we made?

Anyway. Apple Bough is, if anything, an even weirder book than The Growing Summer. Streatfeild is so insistent that Myra is ordinary and untalented, so much so that we never even find out what Myra enjoys doing (except for hanging about with her dog and pining for her old house). It doesn't sound interesting. She never gets any embarrassing m'audition moments because she does not dance. She never outshines anyone at skating, because she does not skate. She is always patient and kind and also tidies up after everyone. She is not boisterous or opinionated in any way shape or form. I don't think she belongs in a Noel Streatfeild novel at all. I believe she escaped from a more than usually dull Sunday School prize book and migrated into Sebastian, Wolfgang and Ettie's family in search of excitement only to be enslaved bythose theatrical over-achievers. Thursday Next should turn up and send her home (with the dog of course).