It is a braless, serene Sunday, with all the men in my life dozing in different corners of the house. Tenzing has found a comfortable, shady spot in the reading room; Jeff is belly-down, snores-up in the master bedroom; and Edmund, having despaired of actually being helpful to me, has bathed himself to sleep on top of the guest bed, cheerfully dousing the dark green comforter with loose bits of off-white belly fur.

Edmund may not have been the brightest kitty in his litter, but he knows, with the intrinsic absolutism of feline knowledge, that my setting up the ironing board and scattering sewing implements on the bed means that I will, without a doubt, return.All he has to do is lie on top of the fabric and wait.

As soon as the dryer finishes drying the rest of the fabric I bought, I'll begin.

What, you don't believe the entry title? Silly you. I can't imagine why, what with my propensity for choosing arcane and random titles for my entries over the past three years. Nevertheless, let me reassure you; indeed, I speak truth, for tonight I created the technicolor feline pajamas of doom.

Well, okay, actually they're just technicolor feline flannel pajamas. Adam added the "(of doom)."

It really wasn't planned. Honest. Except that I'd been dozing on the couch, and then I snapped awake with the horrid realization that I was planning on three weeks' worth of out-of-state trips in the not-too-distant future, and that one pair of sneakers, one pair of jeans, and two pair of shorts just weren't going to cut it.

Clothing. Needed. Now.

It was a dumb, dumb mistake, and thoroughly my own fault. I hate dealing with laundry, and a couple of weeks ago I had managed to finish running all the dirty clothes through the washer and dryer and even managed to fold them up, but my enthusiasm flagged before the clothes were actually put away.

Thus they landed on the floor, by my side of the bed.

I stay up later than Jeff does, and I do not turn on a light when I go to bed, as I dislike waking him unnecessarily. So I walk, in the dark, to the far side of the bed, often preparing to shed clothing as I go.

But this time it didn't work quite the way I'd planned it. I tried to walk over the pile of clothes, and missed. The leg of my pajamas caught under my heel, and when I straightened my leg, I heard the telltale sign of fabric ripping.