No, they are not related.  At least…not that we know of.

I just have a quick question for all you domestic goddesses out there–and just so you know, I’m using the word “goddess” lightly in order to flatter you.  You only have to be more domestically inclined than I am to qualify for goddess status, as far as I’m concerned.  That doesn’t render the title less meaningful to you, does it?  Should I have been less transparent?  I just wanted to make sure I was reaching my intended audience, which is Anyone Who Sews With A Sewing Machine At All.

You see, Princess Zurg is very interested in fashion and stuff, and she’d like to learn to do machine-sewing.  She already knows how to do basic hand-sewing.  I taught her how to do that much because I came of age during a time when Mormon girls were forced to learn a certain amount of needlework if they wanted to go to heaven.  I have very limited experience with sewing machines.  I used a sewing machine in home ec in the eighth grade, and in 1996 I attempted to sew my own temple dress under my mother’s supervision, and I got half the bodice done before I had to go to an appointment or something, and when I got back, my mother had mercifully finished the whole dress for me.  That was the last time I touched a sewing machine.  I don’t think I’ve ever had to thread a bobbin, or whatever that procedure is called.  I’ve heard horror stories about bobbins.  They make me a little nervous.

So I don’t own a sewing machine.  What sort of woman am I?  I’m not fit to wear the uniform.  But the point is moot because even if I were fit to wear the uniform, I don’t have a machine to sew one with.  Actually, that’s not a moot point.  It’s a very relevant point.  I’m right back where I started, in fact.  Let’s move on, shall we?

I’d like to get PZ a sewing machine for Christmas, but I have no idea where to start.  She’s twelve.  She’s easily frustrated.  I’m not very bright.  We need a machine that will be (relatively) easy to use and not cost too much money (and by “too much money” I mean “more money than you would spend on a twelve-year-old’s very first sewing machine that her 39-year-old mother will only use to the extent that she needs to help her twelve-year-old daughter learn to use it”).  It doesn’t need to do anything particularly fancy.  (I don’t even know what I mean by “fancy.”  I have no idea what kind of fancy things sewing machines can do.  But I’m pretty sure we won’t need to do any of them.)

Any suggestions?  Advice?  Commentary?  Criticism?  I eagerly await the receipt of your wisdom.

And now I will abruptly shift gears.  How about those terrorists, eh?  This is just what’s on my mind this morning–sewing machines and all these enhanced security measures at the airports.  I don’t fly very often.  I fly maybe once a year.  Maybe.  And generally I don’t get outraged.  I only get outraged maybe…three times a year.  Miffed and eye-rolly, sure–way more often.  But genuinely outraged, that is more rare.  But I find this business with the TSA and the pat-downs deeply disturbing.

So these super-fancy full-body scanners–I’m kind of “whatever” on that, personally, because I tend not to worry about things that maybe can give you cancer because the list of things that maybe can give you cancer is so long that worrying about all of them would just paralyze me.  As for the modesty issue, I don’t know–my sense of modesty took a serious beating with the birth of my first child, and it’s never fully recovered.  But I understand how it would seem invasive to some people–many people, in fact.  I can understand people being wary of anything involving radiation and crap.  And when the alternative is getting molested by a TSA agent, that just strikes me as basically creepy.  Not very American, if you don’t mind my saying so.

As freedom- and privacy-loving as I like to think I am, it’s possible that I could be persuaded to think these were necessary precautions to protect all of us from the terrorists–I don’t like planes blowing up any more than the next person–if it weren’t so blatantly obvious that this crap is just for show.  Yeah, a terrorist could be anyone, so I’m not going to argue for patting down a Middle Eastern dude and waving Grandma through.  Whoever a terrorist might be, it’s going to be pretty easy for him or her to evade these enhanced security measures.  Do we think terrorists are stupid or something?  How hard is it to figure out that if you don’t want your bomb detected by a full-body scanner, you either go to an airport that doesn’t have a full-body scanner, or you opt out of the full-body scanner and hide the bomb inside your body, where the TSA is not (yet) allowed to go?  Or is the TSA eventually going to start doing random cavity searches?  I mean, why not?  Better safe than sorry.

And if these enhanced measures are so necessary, why aren’t they being implemented everywhere?  You can’t put the new-fangled machines in every airport all at once, but absent the ability to see through people’s clothing, why shouldn’t the TSA conduct random pat-downs at airports that don’t have the scanners?  Unless the pat-down is more a punishment for not submitting to a full-body scan than it is an actually-necessary security measure.

Also, with the randomness–it seems to me that if I were a suicide bomber, I wouldn’t be too nervous about being subject to a random security check.  If I’m planning to blow myself up anyway, I might be inclined to just take my chances.  If they tap me on the shoulder for a full-body scan, so be it.  But there’s a pretty good chance they won’t.  So why not just go for it?  It’s not like I’m sane or anything.

Anyway, that’s what’s on my mind today.  Let me know about the sewing machine.  Christmas is coming, and so are the terrorists.  (I don’t know, I just felt like I needed to tie it all in.)