Letting Your Freak Flag Fly and Tooting Your Own Dork Horn

It is the most wonderful time of the year! It is time for the annual DorkFest at The Life and Times of Micheal 5000 blog. This is my third year competing though last year my effort was pitiful. This year I just want to make few points before I begin my official entry.

1. As my bribe to Supreme Dork and Judge arrived one business day too late to be included in last years DorkFest I would appreciate if you wouldn't mind carrying over said bribe to this years DorkFest.
2. Jenners, you have every reason to seethe you should ascend to Dork just because you were Vice Dork but as you can't I would appreciate your influence in the conclave to choose the next Dork. Why you ask? I quote "And whoever was worried about having missed Dorkfest deserves to be the Dork for 2010. That's my (seething) two cents." Yup that frantic e-mail was mine.
3. I not only asked for the Dork badge but proudly posted it on my blog, am posting my entry on my blog, and have link to DorkFest on Facebook. In short I am not afraid to fly my Freak Flag in public not just to the other readership of L&TM5K who share my dorkiness.

So without further adieu and in the style of Mastermind my chosen specialist subject being pregnancy, birth and what comes next, let the games begin.

I embody dorkiness by __________

General Knowledge:

• Tony Blair had a Deputy PM John Prescott, not really sure what he did other than look after the job when Tony went on holiday each year. When Tony Blair stepped down he did not become PM he just I don't know went back to being a MP for his constituency. Gordon Brown never had a Deputy PM so I am guessing that he didn't feel he needed one. He just had a few different people look after the country while he was on holiday. Then when David Cameron won the popular vote but didn't get the majority in the Houses of Parliament he needed so he formed a coalition with the Liberal Democrats and Nick Clegg. One of the condition from Nicky Boy was that he got to be Deputy PM. When I started asking around as how, when, why and such a deputy PM is appointed no one could tell me. Sometimes there is one sometimes not, no rhyme no reason, this bothers me
• When the General Election mud slinging started and I could not bear anymore election crap I entertained myself with the choice of tie colours by the candidates, I even wrote a post about it after the elections.
• When the election led to a new party in power and a new cabinet my friend and I cut out the cheat sheet of who got what job from the newspaper so we would be able to identify them on Sky News and would quiz each other at work when it was slow. We all know there is nothing worse than confusing the Education Minister and the Foreign Minister.
• I really don't like mayo, like really find the whole idea gross, but I like tuna sandwiches so we have an uneasy truce but I need to buy it in a squeeze bottle because I can't bear the thought it might touch my skin if I dip the spoon into a jar. The squeeze bottle irritates me though because you can never get the last bit out. Plus there is the cost factor the convenience of squeeze means it cost more. Sometimes I can't choose between cost and possible skin contact.
• I don't believe nuts belong in fudge. It is a mouth feel issue, fudge is smooth and the smoothness gets interrupted by the nuts. Cookies, brownies and cakes are already chunky in their own way and so the nuts add something and enhance the product.
• I empathize with others style of dorkiness and even bring to their attention when I have seen something that falls under their specialist dork subject just ask M5K how many blog posts I have e-mailed him about geography, maps, quilting, and even High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Specialist Subject

• I am bilingual, I speak both the Queen's English and American English, having a baby brought a whole new set of vocabulary that I was not use to using but feel I have gotten a good grasp on prams, pushchairs, baby grows, nappies, dummies and grow bags.
• On the first night at our birth class I was the only person in the group who could place all the labels on the diagram of a nine month pregnant woman. Do you know where your cervix is?
• After we had all had our babies 3 of the other 7 women in the group admitted that they didn't even bother to read any books on birth because they knew they could just txt, call or e-mail me any question and I always had an answer.
• When the anaesthesiologist came in to give me my epidural he started out by saying he had to go through all the information and risks and have me sign that I understood. I told him to shut up give me the paper to sign as I had read all the possible risk factors and how the procedure worked months ago and give me the &%$£ing drugs.
• After reading every book I could get my hands on about pregnancy and birth both while we were where trying to get pregnant and after I fell pregnant when they put a very squishy Madame on my tummy the moment she was born I realized I had over looked reading books on babies. Oops. I had read books on parenting, on sleep issues in babies, on breastfeeding, and on Baby Led Weaning but actual babies yup I missed those.
• I researched extensively on cloth diapers looked at all the different styles prefolds, fitted, All in Twos, All in Ones, different brands what worked best for different situations. I can tell you all about how to wash what types of detergent and why, how to strip them. The difference between washing them in an agitating machine or a HE machine. What problems hard water brings to the washing scenario and how to fix it.

I hope that this year I move a small step closer grabbing the title of Right Honourable Dork but until that moment I will just continue tooting my own Dork horn.