This has been a year of firsts. I learned to ride a motorcycle. I caught a wild swarm of bees. And this morning, I helped wrestle a poor pot-bellied pig who was in sore need of a hoof trim and whose owner's back is not exactly up to the task single-handed. I'm not sure you could do this job by yourself, quite frankly.

It was a little unsettling to have 250+ pound pot-bellied pig Otis on his back, and I'm holding his short little front legs with his big bristly head in my lap, like a slat-gray brillo pad, squeezing his bristly shoulders with my thighs, while his owner is holding his hind legs and Jack Bauer is giving a pig pedicure.

The tighter I squeezed poor Otis, the more relaxed that big pig got. So I'm awfully glad I found this video after we brilliantly volunteered to help with something we know absolutely nothing about.

For some reason, despite the wet snout frantically searching in my direction, and a squealing gaping mouth full of irregular little teeth and two thankfully somewhat short tusks, I sat there in the dirt envisioning that cute blonde actress from the sitcom Three's Company and her Thigh Master commercials after she'd become more or less a has-been. (I remembered meeting her at a dinner party once in Santa Fe, something I had actually forgotten ...) Otis wriggled harder and I squeezed him back. But as he turned his head in my direction, making me wonder if pigs bit, and if they bit hard, this time it was more like the thigh squeeze of death that hot Russian spy gave 007 in one of those James Bond flicks.

I was a little afraid as we were counting to three to get ready to set poor screeching Otis free, that he'd spin around and charge me, black bristles, well, bristling like a porcupine, and let me have it, as I was, after all, the big meanie giving him the big squeeze. By the count of 2 and nervous looks all around, I had decided I was leaping to my feet and running like hell in the opposite direction. My cohorts would have to fend for themselves. I was awfully relieved when the pig merely scuttled off, tail wringing in agitation, because I'm not exactly that fast.

And, after a few apples slices from each of the perpetrators who so cruelly tricked him, all was forgiven.

Kudos to Jack Bauer for doing a great trim job.

We are now, apparently, pig wrestlers.