Caped Gooseberry – Page 19 – Deborah Makarios

February 16, 2015

the Question of Exercise

Being a full-time stay-at-home writer is a wonderful thing, but after nearly a year, I have discovered one area in which it is severely lacking – namely that of exercise.

Back in the days of the Dreaded Day Job, I used to walk to work. Not for the sake of the walk itself, but because the buses were so utterly unreliable. Which was probably just as well, all things considered, because the DDJ was an office job, and the biggest bit of exercise in the day was walking up the stairs in the morning.

Once I left the DDJ, that was four brisk 3km walks (1.86 miles, imperialists) which disappeared from my week. And did I replace them with several other brisk walks?
I did not. I like to do things efficiently, and it seems rather inefficient to leave the house just to wander around and then come back again. I do go for walks with the Caped Gooseberry, but chronic fatigue and brisk multi-kilometre walks do not go well together.

So here’s the question: what do you do to stay fit? What are your recommendations?

My criteria: simple, local, inexpensive, and preferably enjoyable.
I’m not looking to lose weight (nicely, nicely, thank you) or to develop a six-pack and bulging biceps – I just want to be fitter, and to have abdominal muscles capable of keeping my insides, well, inside. Ideas?

February 6, 2015

Eccentric Æsthetics: In Which I Attempt the Historical Sew Monthly

You know how it is. You lurk for a while, then you comment for a while, and then you decide you just can’t resist and you get involved. So it was with me and the Historical Sew Fortnightly. In 2013 I lurked, in 2014 I commented, and now in 2015, I plan to take part. Ths year it’s been revamped as the Historical Sew Monthly, but I still don’t think I’ll manage all twelve challenges. Small but sustainable, that’s my beginner’s ambition.

I didn’t want to make anything that I couldn’t wear in daily life, but being æsthetically eccentric, that’s a wide range. Not as wide as a crinoline, though. I do have some sense of practicality.

So I decided to start with a simple chemise or shift, the foundation of Western clothing for centuries, and something which would fill the gap in my wardrobe marked “light summer nightgown”.

I give you, therefore, my first HSM project: The Igor Thift!
(Apologies for the exoskeletal dress-form – she’s in shape, but I haven’t got around to covering her yet.)

Challenge: Foundations (Jan)
Fabric: an old sheet, feels like mostly cotton
Pattern: I used marquise.de’s 18th century chemise instructions
Year: eighteenth century
Notions: thread, bias binding

How historically accurate is it? Somewhat? The pattern is all good; the fabric is possibly part man-made fibre, but “old sheet” is a historically accurate fabric, in my opinion 🙂 The binding is of uncertain age, but it is bias binding, which is historically inaccurate, as far as I know.

The construction is a bit mixed: I used historically accurate flat-felled seams, but they were sewn partly by hand and partly by ye notte quite olde enoughe hand-crank sewing machine (post WWII Japanese Singer knock-off).

The finished shift includes lock-stitch (machine), back-stitch, running stitch, whip stitch and even, embarrasingly, blanket stitch. This, combined with the fact that the Caped Gooseberry was reading me Terry Pratchett’s The Fifth Elephant as I worked, caused me to dub this the Igor Thift. Alas, my ~~thtitcheth~~ stitches are not quite Igor-worthy in their tininess, although the hand-crank does up to 30 stitches per inch, should anyone be mad enough to want it to.

Hours to complete: embarrasingly many. Perhaps as many as 20? The whole process was slowed down by not deciding it was too wide until I had already sewn the side gores on. So I tore part of it off, cut two new side gores and started again on that side. (The pattern suggests adding 20cm ease – I should have done this before halving my maximum circumference, not after.) I did two side gores on each side, attached to the body along the hypotenuse for that isosceles-triangle effect.

First worn: as a nightdress for a trip to the Coromandel in the last week of January. Light and comfortable.

Total cost: time and energy. The sheet was discovered in an archaeological dig of the rag cupboard, and the binding was inherited from my grandmother’s stash. So it could also be considered as an entry for March (Stash-Busting) were it not against the rules to enter one item for multiple challenges.

What I Have Learned From This Project:
1) Even with simple things, it pays to plan ahead. Especially where one is going to have three seams merging into one.
2) It’s all right for things to not be perfect.

I had originally planned to do about six items, each of which would work for two consecutive challenges. But that was when I thought Stash-busting was February and Colour Challenge Blue was March, rather than the other way around. I may still try to do six items which between them cover all twelve challenges, as I have an idea for something which will work excellently for both Blue (Feb) and War & Peace (Apr). Opinions? Advice?

January 3, 2015

My Husband Is Not Lazy

Suppose you know a man who doesn’t have a paying job (and isn’t looking for one), who gets up late, goes to bed early, and often spends a good deal of his waking hours lying on the couch; a man who doesn’t always get his share of the household work done on time; a man who frequently isn’t available if you need a volunteer.

What would you think of him?

Here’s the thing: that man is my husband (aka The Caped Gooseberry). And I think very highly of him. Because he isn’t lazy; he has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS).

And unfortunately, a lot of people seem to think that unless you’re visibly ill, you must be a hypochondriac, a malingerer, or just plain lazy. “It’s all in your head.” Well, so is a brain tumour, and who would tell someone with cancer that they just need to pull themselves together?

There are two particularly frustrating reactions to my husband’s illness. One is the suggestion that he just needs to try [insert pet vitamin/mineral/other here] or getting more exercise, or self-hypnosis, or… As though being cripplingly unwell for years at a time only happened to people who didn’t think to try a herbal remedy, or eat lots of oranges.

The second is the suggestion that he’s only ill – or pretending to be – because he prefers it to work. Which isn’t true. My husband does a larger share of the housework than a great many able-bodied men (although, to be scrupulously fair, they’re more likely to spend hours each day at a paying job). He’s worked when his health has allowed it, to the extent that he could, and he gets very frustrated when his energy levels force him to stop work.

He could just go on a benefit and lie in bed all day watching TV, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t even spend all day in his jammies (which, I must admit, I would be very tempted to do in his place). He dresses well, even if that’s the only thing he has the energy to do that day. And when he can, he works – on programming, audio-book narration, or other projects – even though the work is unpaid.

The thing is, the Caped Gooseberry doesn’t look sick, apart from an occasional tendency to resemble a tomb effigy when at rest.

So it’s easy for people to assume that he isn’t really that unwell. Easy to assume that if they see him out doing the grocery shopping or going to church, he must be all right. They don’t see the rest of the day spent lying down to make up for it. They don’t see him when he’s too tired to leave the house, or too tired to even sit at the table and chew.
In some ways, it’s an invisible disorder, because not only are the symptoms frequently not visible, the sufferers often ‘disappear’ as well.

But Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (also known as myalgic encephalomyelits/ME and chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome/CFIDS) is a very real illness.
According to Wikipedia, symptoms may include “malaise after exertion; unrefreshing sleep, widespread muscle and joint pain, sore throat, headaches of a type not previously experienced, cognitive difficulties, chronic and severe mental and physical exhaustion…. muscle weakness, increased sensitivity to light, sounds and smells, orthostatic intolerance, digestive disturbances, depression, painful and often slightly swollen lymph nodes, cardiac and respiratory problems.”

And then, with classic understatement, the article adds “Quality of life of persons with CFS can be extremely compromised.”

And there are few things worse than having your life maimed by illness, only for people to treat you as though you’re a slacker, a bludger, or just hopelessly inept. As though you aren’t really suffering, and if you are, it’s your fault.

Of course, most people are too polite to suggest to the Caped Gooseberry that he just needs to pull himself together and get on with it. So they suggest it to me, instead. Because there’s nothing offensive in telling a woman that you think her husband’s a lazy slacker who pretends to be sick to avoid having to get a job like a real man.

Seventeen million people are said to have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. That’s a lot of people being looked down on by people who don’t know their circumstances, and, sadly, by many of those who do.

So please, before we judge the person doing the grocery shopping in their pyjamas, or the person whose house or yard isn’t up to neighbourhood standards, please, let’s remember that we don’t know what else they’re going through, and they don’t need the weight of our condemnation added to the burdens they’re already bearing.