muck manor

One of my favorite Britishisms is the pejorative Lady Muck and the somewhat less common male equivalent of Lord Muck. Many Australians use this, too, including my husband.

Lady Muck is a common, ordinary woman who acts as if she is someone of high birth. There is a couple on our road who are classic Lord and Lady Muck types, particularly the wife. My husband refers to their slightly grander house as Muck Manor.

A few years ago, The Observer ran an interesting if not flawed essay about Lady Muck. The author erroneously refers to the Schlegel sisters in Howards End as (sic) Lady Mucks.

First of all, the plural would be Ladies Muck, not Lady Mucks. The noun is "lady" not "muck." And second, the Schlegel were real aristocrats. They were upper class by birth and quite well off with inherited wealth. They may have been snobs but neither was a Muck. I suspect the author of the linked essay saw the movie but did not read the book because you could come to this conclusion without reading the latter.

Is then the author of the linked piece a Lady Muck in her own right, tossing off the book as an example when she's clearly not familiar with her own reference? It might sound smart to someone else who hasn't read the book, but anyone who has read it will see the error in her conclusion.

women without vaginas

I'm reading a novel offline where one character mentions that, on rare occasion, females are born without vaginas. I thought this had to be untrue, but I looked it up and was wrong.

The condition is called by various names but apparently most commonly vaginal agenesis or Müllerian agenesis. In its most extreme form, the female is born without a uterus, cervix, vagina, clitoris, and more. The condition is not actually rare but uncommon and affects about one in five thousand females.

Sex is impossible without reconstructive surgery but may not be pleasurable without a clitoris. Childbirth is possible because the ovaries are present but only with reconstructive surgery and a transplanted uterus. In vitro and a surrogacy are more commonly used.

So this made me wonder if there's a male equivalent. Can a male child be born without a penis? The answer is yes. That's called penile agenesis. It usually occurs concurrent to testicular agenesis, a lack of testicles. Sometimes males are born with a penis but without testicles but never testicles without a penis. These sorts of anomalies are indeed rare and only occur once in about five to six million births.

smote by meteorite

The Smithsonian is currently running a short piece about how archivists have located the first confirmed case, in 1888, of a man struck and killed by a meteorite.

This sentence whetted my imagination: "Claims of people being killed by meteorites date back to biblical times."

That must've been utterly terrifying for early man. Imagine walking along, minding your own business, and then suddenly a rock shoots from the sky and kills someone standing nearby.

It could've been an incident like this that caused early man to invent religion.

truly scary

My uncle in Pennsylvania, where only essential businesses are allowed to remain open, said in an email that masks are now required for all customers and employees of such establishments. He has noticed some scofflaws, however, and also a commonality, albeit anecdotal — they're all young males in the teen and millennial range.

His son, my cousin, who is a first responder, has noticed much the same thing. Apparently some young males don't fear contracting coronavirus because they believe they'll only end up with a mild case. They don't even consider how they might be infecting other people, including their peers.

They need to read articles like this one, which details how hospitals are reporting deadly strokes occurring in people with coronavirus who are only in their thirties and forties.

Yes, the fatality rate is lower the younger you are. But for no one is it zero. Children under ten in otherwise excellent health have died.

And yes, a mask is more about protecting other people than yourself. But if you and your friends are hanging out without masks, you could make one of them very sick. Or even kill him or her. Or he or she could make you sick. Or worse.

The inconvenience of a mask is considerably smaller than the inconvenience of death.

delightfully offbeat

A real-world friend sent me a link to this video. It was made as a Christmas greeting but it works any day of the year, particularly now.

All three of my boys thought this was wonderful, including the one-year-old. I wonder if he'll have a dream tonight about doing this.

eggbeater hair

The woman below appears in a recent advertisement for the fashion house Miu Miu. Her hair is a mess and looks like she fixed it with an eggbeater.

Do advertisers think having a sloppy, unkempt model will improve sales for their clothing and accessories? How hard would it have been to comb her hair?

Few women I know would go out of the house with their hair looking so disheveled. So what's the point? They wanted a model who looked like a computer nerd?

appropriate adult

I was in the library by sheer coincidence on the last day it closed for the coronavirus lockdown. The clerks were allowing patrons to check out as many books, recordings, and DVDs that they wanted.

So I grabbed a lot of DVDs, particularly of TV series because I knew it would take a longer time to work through those, episode by episode.

One of the programs I picked up was for a British miniseries called Appropriate Adult, released in 2011. Based on a true story, it focuses on the arrest and questioning of husband-and-wife serial killers Fred and Rosemary West as told through the eyes of a social worker who served as an "appropriate adult" present during questioning.

The mini stars Emily Watson as the social worker, Dominic West as Fred West, and Monica Dolan as Rosemary West. All three give superb performances and that's what really makes the series memorable.

Watson's social worker is clearly horrified and terrified by Fred's breezy manner and confession. West as West is thoroughly chilling, and Dolan as Rosemary provides the showiest role of a clearly batshit and furious woman.

Both the husband and I were totally mesmerized by the series and I highly recommend.

hundreds of plug outlets

Sometimes when you're searching online for a topic, you end up going down a rabbit hole into a completely different direction. Yesterday I was looking online and somehow I ended up on a news article from last November about a house for sale in Great Britain with more than 320 wall outlets (photo enlargement). One room alone had more than forty.

The estate agents had no idea why. The seller couldn't be reached for comment.

The hundred of outlets remain a mystery. Maybe the new buyer will figure it out. Maybe this is a new Amityville Horror in the making.

mel (and anne)

This is a terrific short documentary about Mel Brooks. It's also a wonderfully sweet and touching love story that's somewhat bittersweet, considering Anne Bancroft passed away fifteen years ago. Mel Brooks, for his part, is still going strong at 93.

stat

Sometime last year I discovered the website Stat, a science and medicine journal targeted to a lay reader. I think it was when I read about a trial drug being developed by a pharma in which I own some stock.

Needless to say, since the coronavirus explosion, they've devoted quite a lot of coverage to the topic and the reporting has been very good. For instance, yesterday they published a great article on immunity and antibodies that helped me better understand both topics.

So if science and/or medicine interest you but you're not a scientist or doctor, you too might find Stat of interest. Check it out and see!

hand to mouth

When it comes to financial matters, Australians are often very much like Americans. About half the population in both countries lives paycheck to paycheck. Equally, the low percentage of people who have a comfortable savings nest egg is about the same.

An article in the Wall Street Journal last week underscored how such people are particularly hard hit by the current coronavirus shutdowns because little to no money is coming in the door.

I fully expect that some or many of the dividends on our investments will be cut and some outright eliminated during the forthcoming and likely serious recession. That aside, my husband will still receive his monthly military pension. The Australian government would literally have to go bankrupt for that to stop.

Because I have always been ridiculously frugal, I've socked away enough for about four years worth of living expenses in savings, separate from our stocks, even without my husband's pension. So things may be tight with a lot of macaroni and cheese nights, but we should be all right no matter what.

For this I feel blessed. Add this to the list of things that make me thankful, the subject of a recent entry. The wolf almost certainly will never be visiting our door.

the camera bends the truth

A young Anne Windsor Laurence, aka Princess Anne, appears on the May 2020 cover of both the UK and US editions of Vanity Fair magazine (enlargement). This accompanies an interview with her that isn't particularly revealing.

Now I think only a kindly myopic could say that Anne was pretty when she was nineteen, her age when she sat for this photograph. But the photo actually makes her appear pretty.

The photographer was Antony Armstrong-Jones, who would have been her uncle at the time the picture was made. He was indeed talented that he could figure out how to make her appear more striking than she actually was. Part of the secret was that he shot her full on and not at an angle, thus hiding her rather prominent jaw.

So a camera cannot lie. But it can bend the truth a bit.

archive today

I've written here before about various paywall workaround websites I've used and recommended. I recently found a much better one and hence am writing about that now.

Archive Today is the best paywall workaround I've found to date. Unlike others, it usually works on tricky sites like the Wall Street Journal and the British newspaper The Times.

Simply put the URL you want a workaround in the first field, press "save," and in a few seconds, you're around the paywall.

my misshapen head

I sewed masks for the boys, including the baby. Husband has just been wearing a bandana tied around his mouth and nose.

I initially wore a paper surgical mask I had left over from delivering my last child. However, that eventually ripped.

But when I tried to tie a bandanna over my mouth and nose, I discovered it won't work for my skull shape. That's because the rounded part of my skull (which is made up of the occipital and parietal bones) is too high.

Here I am roughly a third of the way through my life (hopefully) and I never realized the back of my head is curved differently than most people — the rounded part curves in higher on my head, thus making wearing a bandanna mask difficult because it keeps slipping.

So I quickly sewed two masks for myself instead. Problem solved.

My boys have normal skulls like their father. So I pulled up some old family photos and had a look. I discovered that some members of my father's family have the same shape to the back of their head. It's obviously genetic.

At least I know now that none of my ancestors robbed stagecoaches. That's because they could never wear a bandanna mask, thanks to their misshapen heads.

a reading bucket list

I have decided that, for the next several months, I will only read books by (1) authors I already really like and (2) books I've always wanted to read but never got around to.

None of this reading a new author and then not liking the writing. Save that for when there isn't a pandemic that might snuff me out without any notice.

I'd hate to get through the Pearly Gates and learn they don't have libraries or book stores. Then I'd be cursing myself for all eternity for not having read the books I probably would have preferred.

And I certainly hope I'm not reading a book I really like and then croak a few pages before I finish. I may never know how it turns out.

I haven't told my husband this, of course. He hates when I talk about the possibility of dying, even vaguely.

dystopia sucks

Dystopian novels, TV shows, and movies have been very popular for a good while now. But right now, what the world collectively is living through, gives a dystopian feel to everyday life.

And it sucks.

A good part of the reason is arguably the fact that we have to keep distant from each other. Communities can't come together because of fear of contagion. Social distancing isn't an element in a fictional dystopian story.

I'm guessing there will be significantly less demand for dystopian entertainment fare once this crisis passes. "What if" will seem too close to "what is."

cult scandal

My uncle recently recommended the Wondery podcast "American Scandal" to me, thinking I might like it. The program devotes multi-episode arcs to major American scandals of recent decades.

So far, I've listened to four parts of their seven-part arc on the Hare Krishna murders during the 1980s. I picked that arc to start because I know a woman in New York who was born on the Hare Krishna commune in West Virginia and spent her early childhood there.

I did not know much about Hare Krishna before listening to the show. What really amazes me about the cult is how most members lived in grinding poverty right in the shadow of lavish temples and residences where the cult leaders lived. They were perfectly willing to be treated like serfs and gladly did their masters' bidding.

The show has driven home to me how I would be really, really bad cult material. I would not take orders from some self-anointed messiah nor would I live in poverty while others lived like kings. I'd just get the hell out of there.

I don't yet have an overall recommendation (or not) about the whole scandal series. I'll need to listen to some of their other multi-episode arcs before I could do that. Nonetheless, the Hare Krishna one is very well done and completely engaging.

hollow people

It's not hard to find news stories online now of people using the coronavirus crisis as a way to scam others. Consumers are being scammed out of millions. Other people are attempting to sell nonexistent critically needed medical supplies.

What goes so wrong in a person's life that he sees a worldwide pandemic as a great way to cheat other people? What caused them to lose their sense of decency or did they never have it in the first place? How can they sleep at night?

Fortunately, there are plenty of stories about good people who are doing all kinds of extraordinary things to help others in need. The number of those people is far larger than the bad people.

happy easter!

Happy Easter! Happy Passover! Happy Whatever Day You Celebrate!

We would normally visit my inlaws today with the kiddies in tow to join in a family Easter egg hunt. But the five of us are sheltering in place this year and will have an Easter egg hunt in the back yard for our three.

So that the oldest doesn't get the most eggs, each of the three boys will be assigned their own egg color. You can only collect the egg if it's your color.

That way, the oldest's eggs will be hidden with more care while the one-year-old's eggs will be in plain sight. The big challenge will be keeping the dog from picking them up and trying to hide them.

The cartoon below from the latest New Yorker magazine is not Easter-themed (enlargement), but I found it very funny and wanted to share. Unfortunately, the joke would pretty much fall flat here in Australia because there are almost no squirrels, given the continent's lack of native species.

listen up

I regularly listen to podcasts, but I haven't listened to too many episodes about the current pandemic. I like podcasts because I often learn things I didn't know. I don't listen to them to be bummed.

I made an exception for a recent episode of NPR's Fresh Air podcast because the guest was science writer Ed Yong. I've read his work in The Atlantic and elsewhere so I downloaded and listened for that reason more than the topic itself.

Needless to say, it was an excellent, informative interview and I'm glad I listened. It's not a bummer but he does bring up some topics and issues that gave me pause. This isn't a problem that will go away quickly.

The episode can be downloaded for free indefinitely from the NPR website or you can download it for free via platforms like iTunes, Stitcher, and more.

mister magoo

When I was three or four years old, my favorite VHS tape was a compilation of old Mister Magoo cartoons. For whatever reason, I loved that little guy. I suspect it was the voice.

I found some Mister Magoo cartoons on YouTube and played them for my two older sons, aged seven and four. They found them mildly amusing but were obviously not smitten.

One thing I realize watching these — they could appeal to children, but there's a lot of subtle stuff that only adults will realize. Not that it's "blue" but just above the level of a small child.

deep cleaning

I suspect "deep cleaning" will be high up on the list of most overused phrases for the year 2020. Much of what people are calling deep cleaning is in fact plain old disinfecting.

The handle on a refrigerator door in a supermarket cannot be deep cleaned. It sounds like you're going down to the molecular level. That handle can, however, be disinfected.

It's a great marketing term, but at the same time, it's inaccurate or misleading or both.

a blessing counted

I am not a particularly religious person, but I have always tried to recognize my blessings, particularly in more trying times. The world is in a bad place now so what better time than to remind myself that my life nonetheless is full of many blessings, most notably my husband and my children.

I've seen several articles online this week and last about how being pregnant during the coronavirus pandemic is particularly stressful for expectant mothers.

So I am thankful I was pregnant last year and not this year. I consider that a blessing. I feel for the moms who will be delivering in forthcoming weeks. What a horrible, scary time where you worry what might happen if you suddenly have to go to the hospital.

Doctors, nurses, and medical personnel are working extra hard and extraordinary hours. We must all be thankful for their diligence. At the same time, this is not a time anyone wants to be in need of medical care. That's scary and nothing like anything we've experienced before.

I know I am not alone in wishing this crisis is soon over. When that day comes, and it will, it will be a true blessing. May we never live to experience anything like this ever again.

mysterious ruth

Up until about a year ago, I had the idea that the late British writer Ruth Rendell wrote cozy mysteries of the Agatha Christie knockoff variety. Boy was I ever wrong.

Somehow I picked up one of her novels and gave it a read. I discovered she most certainly is not a cozy mystery novelist.

Often shelved and sold as a mystery writer, she really isn't and yet defies classification. I've read fourteen of her novels so far and have enjoyed them all.

There's always a crime or several at the core of each book. And often the characters in the novel are oblivious to that fact. Using an omnipotent narrator's voice, Rendell writes of complex social bonds and festering secrets. It's a thoroughly satisfying read.

To date, the best of her books I've read are Girl Next Door, Crocodile Bird, Portobello, and Thirteen Steps Down. But I suspect you could hardly go wrong with any of her nearly eighty published novels.

boulevard of broken dreams

The legendary singer Marianne Faithfull has contracted coronfirus and has been hospitalized. Her condition is described as "stable and responding to treatment."

That, of course, could go either way. She could improve, as many have done, or her condition could worsen, as has happened with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is now also hospitalized.

Faithfull has not been in the best of health in recent years and is, of course, a life-long heavy smoker. Coronavirus is known to take a greater toll among smokers and recent ex-smokers.

Still, hope for the best. She has a unique talent and the best news would be that she's fully recovered and has new recordings to release.

a new fantastic voyage

In its most recent issue, The New Yorker published a superb article by a Pulitzer Prize-winning author called "How Does the Coronavirus Behave Inside a Patient?"

The writer is Siddhartha Mukherjee, a medical doctor and author whom I've written about here before.

I highly recommend the piece. Mukherjee is a physician but he writes in a way that's accessible to everyone. I think you'll see why he's such a great writer after reading this piece.

erotic binding spells in the news

Researchers have discovered that an 1,800-year-old Egyptian papyrus is an erotic binding spell petitioning a ghost to make a particular man mad with desire for a woman lusting after him.

The "noble spirit of the man of the necropolis," aka the ghost, is asked to seek out a named man and agitate him with lustful desire toward a particular woman with "his male organs pursuing her female organs."

Given how so many people today fall for things like astrology and tarot cards and all sorts of new age hokum, I'm surprised people aren't trying to peddle customized charms like this as well as spells and hexes. Or maybe they are and it's not on my radar.

You could set up a webpage, call yourself an Egyptian priest or priestess, and then sell customized charms, spells, and hexes for $49.95 each or something. Doodle something with brown ink on a scrap of fancy paper, stitch it into a little piece of cloth, and ship it to the customer with some preposterous instructions.

If the economy wasn't in danger of heading into a serious recession, this is something that probably could work. If not as a primary source of income, it nonetheless would be a secondary source.

It could also be a great plot trigger in a horror novel. An inept swindler selling charms online inadvertently awakens a dormant evil spirit that's seemingly impossible to subdue. Complications ensue.

diaper wars

Because of the coronavirus, disposable diapers for babies and toddlers are in short supply throughout the world. Some of the reason is because parents are panic buying and hoarding and some of the reason is because production has been dialed down so resources can be diverted to manufacturing medical supplies.

I will confess that, ever since late in my pregnancy with our first child, I always kept a sizable reserve of diapers. I did this primarily because I always bought them on sale and usually with coupons. I couldn't always expect them to be on sale, so I bought more than needed when they were, then coasted through times they were discounted or couponed.

Needless to say, I continued this practice for the other two children. Our youngest just turned one this week, so he will be in diapers or pullups for at least the next eighteen months and closer to two years.

Before the coronavirus hit, I already had a big reserve. As soon as it became an issue outside China, I bought more. I now have quite a large reserve that can be counted in months, not just weeks.

So I face an ethical dilemma — do I keep buying out of fear the supply may soon be completely exhausted? Or do I stop?

I decided to err on the side that I must try to be the best parent possible. I must ensure my child will not run out if there's any way I can prevent it. So I am still buying — some.

I don't try to buy every package on the shelf when there isn't a limit. I don't go back to a store twice in an hour to evade product limits.

Do I feel guilty continuing to buy? To be honest, a little bit. But I'm certainly not the only parent doing this. My child's needs are paramount to me.

I may be a bad citizen for doing this. But at least I'm being a good mother. Or I hope so.

no, I am not bald

Yesterday was, of course, April 1, so my daily entry here was a joke. I have all of my hair, thank you.

I would never attempt to cut my own hair. I do get husband on occasion to trim the ends very slightly in a straight line but that's it. Every few years, I have it professionally cut a little bit but that's just a few inches off the bottom so it doesn't become too long and unwieldy.

IMHO, deliberately making yourself bald is a great way for a woman to seriously impair her looks. Of course, some women cannot help being bald because of medical conditions or treatments. But those women who consciously shave their heads for no reason other than to look radically different are making a huge mistake, in my opinion.

While going bald on purpose is not permanent like a woman getting a face tattoo, I believe both are disfiguring and unwise. Why deliberately impair your looks?

haircut disaster

Hair salons are not yet closed here in Australia because of the coronavirus. I got it in my head that I wanted a shorter haircut, but I didn't want to go to a stylist for fear of being infected.

So I decided to trim it myself in the bathroom using several different mirrors. Needless to say, it did not go well. I couldn't get it straight along the back and, as a result, kept cutting it shorter and shorter.

Because that was shorter, it made the sides seem like the stuck out, so I decided to trim there, too. Big mistake.

I finally got it even all over somewhat because I ended up with a very short pixie cut. But the hairs were still different lengths so it had the rough look of some concentration camp survivor.

Needless to say, I realized the only thing I could do at that point was to shave my head totally bald so it would all grow back evenly. Needless to say, the husband was horrified at what I had done when he saw me and it looked like he was fighting back tears.

I guess I'll have to wear a wig until my hair grows back some.