![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Anyone want to take this on?
28 May 2011 09:23 pmSo on the ride home from my grandparents' house tonight, my dad's girlfriend made this statement: We develop our sexualities before we are five years old.
This was not an assertion that I had heard made before, so I asked her where this was coming from.
Her argument mainly consisted of these points (none of which I disagree with):
- There is an incredible amount of information, both blatant and subtle, coded in the way society (specifically, our society), thinks about and reacts to ideas of sex, sexuality, gender, taboos, etc.
- Young children are incredibly good at picking up both verbal and nonverbal information.
-Young children are also very impressionable, and the signals they pick up in their early years have a huge effect on the people they grow into, often in ways that they don't remember and may not be able to articulate.
And we spent 45 minutes hashing over this, and examples thereof. She didn't say anything that I disagree with. She also didn't put together any of the information that I already believe into any form that I hadn't encountered before.
I'm not unwilling to believe this statement. But I'm not convinced, either.
So -- do any of you want to defend it/try to convince me? Do any of you disagree, and care to explain why?
This was not an assertion that I had heard made before, so I asked her where this was coming from.
Her argument mainly consisted of these points (none of which I disagree with):
- There is an incredible amount of information, both blatant and subtle, coded in the way society (specifically, our society), thinks about and reacts to ideas of sex, sexuality, gender, taboos, etc.
- Young children are incredibly good at picking up both verbal and nonverbal information.
-Young children are also very impressionable, and the signals they pick up in their early years have a huge effect on the people they grow into, often in ways that they don't remember and may not be able to articulate.
And we spent 45 minutes hashing over this, and examples thereof. She didn't say anything that I disagree with. She also didn't put together any of the information that I already believe into any form that I hadn't encountered before.
I'm not unwilling to believe this statement. But I'm not convinced, either.
So -- do any of you want to defend it/try to convince me? Do any of you disagree, and care to explain why?
Thoughts on Christmas, I guess
4 January 2011 04:00 pmWe were at the house of my maternal grandparents for Christmas this year. ( This gets very long, and may be somewhat disorganized, due to being written over the course of almost a week. )
Happy new year, everyone.
Happy new year, everyone.
Miriam to Earth
6 November 2010 07:28 pmI've been quiet for a while, I'll admit. I suppose I've mostly been feeling that nothing terribly interesting is going on, so I don't really have much of anything to say. It is properly Autumn, even moving to Winter, and while I love the colors, this season I've been feeling sort of lethargic and haven't gotten outside to enjoy them as much as I usually do. I think it has to do with not having either a person to go walking with or an established pattern of going walking. And while the nearby woods are lovely, they can be a wee bit sketchy to walk in alone. Tegan and I have arranged to go wander around one of the nearby parks on Monday, though, which should be nice.
( I seem to be rambling a lot . . . )
In other news, I have 17,704 words worth of NaNo right now. Not all good words, mind you, but this is, after all, nano, and I think they're a great deal better than the stuff I was producing (at a much slower rate) two years ago.
It is November 6th!
When did I become the kind of person who is 1/3 done with her nano on day six? (Admittedly, it's the easiest third, since the plot was mostly already figured out, but hey, I now have an idea for what happens in the second two thirds, which I did not have 36 hours ago, and maybe when I'm feeling ambitious I'll write myself an outline or something, and figure out exactly what sorts of dangerous and semi-dangerous items the Agency keeps in its Peculiarity Vault.)
. . . this business of being unemployed is peculiar.
Although I do have a job interview for this coming week, which is an exciting thing.
( I seem to be rambling a lot . . . )
In other news, I have 17,704 words worth of NaNo right now. Not all good words, mind you, but this is, after all, nano, and I think they're a great deal better than the stuff I was producing (at a much slower rate) two years ago.
It is November 6th!
When did I become the kind of person who is 1/3 done with her nano on day six? (Admittedly, it's the easiest third, since the plot was mostly already figured out, but hey, I now have an idea for what happens in the second two thirds, which I did not have 36 hours ago, and maybe when I'm feeling ambitious I'll write myself an outline or something, and figure out exactly what sorts of dangerous and semi-dangerous items the Agency keeps in its Peculiarity Vault.)
. . . this business of being unemployed is peculiar.
Although I do have a job interview for this coming week, which is an exciting thing.
Tags:
This is a triumph!
11 July 2010 09:13 pmI'm very fond of the spinach dish served in Indian restaurants as saag, or sometimes sag. I like it with meat, I like it with chickpeas, I like it with paneer (a soft white cheese). I've been trying to reproduce it for over a year, generally with limited success. A couple of weeks ago, while babysitting my cousins, I came across the cookbook From Mom with Love: The Complete Guide to Indian Cooking and Entertaining. And since I'm always looking for new saag recipes, I investigated, and found that it did indeed contain a recipe for saag paneer.
So, last week, armed with the recipe and bunch of our Henry Got Crops kale, I tried the new recipe. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the local food coop sells the spice mix garam masala, so I did not need to make it myself in dad's coffee grinder from bay leaves and cinnamon sticks and other hard spices. I made paneer with the guidance of this blog and a brief discussion with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rumorofrain (my one comment on that page is that the first time I tried it I didn't realize that the milk needs to really get to a full, roiling boil, not just a halfhearted sort-of boil. Also, having actual cheesecloth really helps). My first attempt was quite satisfactory; the flavor was pretty close, and it both looked and smelled like the dish I was trying to reproduce, which is closer than I had gotten with anything else. It did, however, still taste rather strongly of kale, so on Friday I tried again with the second half of my homemade paneer and this week's CSA rainbow chard. And it was very good. My mother agreed. My one regret is that the chard was so pretty, it was rather a shame to blend it all. Today I tried feeding a lamb version made with beet greens to my famously vegetable-averse brother. And he liked it. He told me so. Furthermore, he ate three servings.
I think that this recipe has Arrived. So I will share it with all of you( under the cut. )
So, last week, armed with the recipe and bunch of our Henry Got Crops kale, I tried the new recipe. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the local food coop sells the spice mix garam masala, so I did not need to make it myself in dad's coffee grinder from bay leaves and cinnamon sticks and other hard spices. I made paneer with the guidance of this blog and a brief discussion with
rumorofrain (my one comment on that page is that the first time I tried it I didn't realize that the milk needs to really get to a full, roiling boil, not just a halfhearted sort-of boil. Also, having actual cheesecloth really helps). My first attempt was quite satisfactory; the flavor was pretty close, and it both looked and smelled like the dish I was trying to reproduce, which is closer than I had gotten with anything else. It did, however, still taste rather strongly of kale, so on Friday I tried again with the second half of my homemade paneer and this week's CSA rainbow chard. And it was very good. My mother agreed. My one regret is that the chard was so pretty, it was rather a shame to blend it all. Today I tried feeding a lamb version made with beet greens to my famously vegetable-averse brother. And he liked it. He told me so. Furthermore, he ate three servings. I think that this recipe has Arrived. So I will share it with all of you( under the cut. )
When I was a kid, it wasn't something that I thought about much. Just another term of endearment, like sweetie or darling, something my mom said when she was happy or wanted to make me feel special and loved. I was aware that some of my friends couldn't be best girl (or boy; my brother was best boy), unless one was doing fuzzy things with the exclusiveness of the term, because there were too many siblings for all of them to be best. But isn't it something everyone's mom calls them?
She hasn't used it as much these past years. Partly, I'm just not there as much. Partly I think she's trying to transition to me being a grownup, not a little kid, and isn't sure where 'girl' comes into that. These days it's mostly my cousin who's best girl, and I'm okay with that. It's hard to compete with incredibly cute three-year-olds, especially when they're around and you're not.
So I probably didn't consider it properly until sometime probably in the past four years, when it was already rare. But one of the Three As happened to be around sometime my mom used it, and she went all burbley about how sweet it was, etc, etc, and it did occur to me that perhaps this wasn't normal in everyone's lives.
My house does its own care package system, and one morning last week I woke up way too early to find a little green paper bag outside my door. There was a card in my mom's handwriting, Dear Best Girl. And I feel special and loved.
She hasn't used it as much these past years. Partly, I'm just not there as much. Partly I think she's trying to transition to me being a grownup, not a little kid, and isn't sure where 'girl' comes into that. These days it's mostly my cousin who's best girl, and I'm okay with that. It's hard to compete with incredibly cute three-year-olds, especially when they're around and you're not.
So I probably didn't consider it properly until sometime probably in the past four years, when it was already rare. But one of the Three As happened to be around sometime my mom used it, and she went all burbley about how sweet it was, etc, etc, and it did occur to me that perhaps this wasn't normal in everyone's lives.
My house does its own care package system, and one morning last week I woke up way too early to find a little green paper bag outside my door. There was a card in my mom's handwriting, Dear Best Girl. And I feel special and loved.
ALL of my dad's family is now on Facebook. (They apparently play Farm Town. Except for the Boston uncle, who has moved on and now plays something else.)
And my grandfather on the other side has a blog.
. . . If I ever needed a reminder that the internet is no longer a geek sandbox, this would do.
And my grandfather on the other side has a blog.
. . . If I ever needed a reminder that the internet is no longer a geek sandbox, this would do.
Pondering social dynamics
8 November 2009 08:03 amSpecifically, the screaming fight I had with one particular member of my math group.
( Cut because I doubt that it's actually that interesting. )
( Cut because I doubt that it's actually that interesting. )
Life and science fiction dreams
20 June 2009 09:59 pmWell, this evening of babysitting has so far gone much better than I expected when I arrived to discover the seven-year-old crying on the living room couch because he couldn't decide between a cookie or a popsicle for dessert. The three-year-old was extra clingy, and I was suspicious that it was going to be Just One Of Those Days, but so far it's been the usual gig, right down to the quiet-footed visitor half an hour after bedtime, and everything has been quiet upstairs for the past while, so I might escape a second iteration of the "Go to bed. They'll be back late. Don't wait up for them. Yes, they'll be here when you wake up in the morning." etc conversation.
We went to REI this afternoon. For those who don't know, REI is to camping supplies and outdoorswear as Ikea is to home furnishings, although not quite so overwhelming. And dad was very patient while I tried on what seemed like every boot in the store (I have wide feet, and they didn't seem to have women's boots in wide, but the men's boots didn't seem to come in wide until size eight, and one of the two kinds that came in wide were cut narrowly, and the other kind was cut large - so I wound up in a 7 1/2 men's . . . I got the blueish ones that were cut large and hope that they will stretch enough that I do not regret this purchase). I also got useful things like wool socks and a bike light and a new bike lock and a father's day present.
And the dreams. I blame the science-fiction-y-ness on the fact that I was reading The Risen Empire this week (and it was excellent!) and watching Babylon 5. ( Judge for yourself . . . )
Speaking of science fiction, there's nothing quite like explaining Moodle to a room full of adults, many of whom would rather just keep using Blackboard, using examples like Swanick's "The Dead" andkadharonon's post on "Geeks in Space."
And speaking of books, I've also been reading The Dresden Files, Robin McKinley's Chalice, 1984, some stuff that's not coming to mind right now, and The Screwtape Letters, which is interesting, if, on occasion a bit preachy (if something narrated by a devil can be preachy in a Christian way).
We went to REI this afternoon. For those who don't know, REI is to camping supplies and outdoorswear as Ikea is to home furnishings, although not quite so overwhelming. And dad was very patient while I tried on what seemed like every boot in the store (I have wide feet, and they didn't seem to have women's boots in wide, but the men's boots didn't seem to come in wide until size eight, and one of the two kinds that came in wide were cut narrowly, and the other kind was cut large - so I wound up in a 7 1/2 men's . . . I got the blueish ones that were cut large and hope that they will stretch enough that I do not regret this purchase). I also got useful things like wool socks and a bike light and a new bike lock and a father's day present.
And the dreams. I blame the science-fiction-y-ness on the fact that I was reading The Risen Empire this week (and it was excellent!) and watching Babylon 5. ( Judge for yourself . . . )
Speaking of science fiction, there's nothing quite like explaining Moodle to a room full of adults, many of whom would rather just keep using Blackboard, using examples like Swanick's "The Dead" and
kadharonon's post on "Geeks in Space."And speaking of books, I've also been reading The Dresden Files, Robin McKinley's Chalice, 1984, some stuff that's not coming to mind right now, and The Screwtape Letters, which is interesting, if, on occasion a bit preachy (if something narrated by a devil can be preachy in a Christian way).
I'm home, I arrived safely, traveling was traveling (the train was only 16 minutes late! That's practically on time). I'm enjoying being home with my mother and getting to see my dad.
Today's sermon involved the phrase, "Senator Nameforgotten could hang the ten commandments in every courthouse and school in the nation - well, he couldn't, but let's just say for the sake of argument that he could - but there would still be drug dealers and murderers and ponzi schemers and capitalists."
Our new preacher amuses me. He also has a tendency to start a story and then trail off and conclude, "When I started this story I thought it was going to be more relevant and less self-indulgent, but never mind," but he still gives good sermons and is quite charismatic. There's something very personal about them. Also, there's something intensely gawky about him that reminds me of a teenage boy.
We went to Joy Tsun Lao for lunch today to celebrate my cousin Naomi's birthday, and both Naomi and her brother behaved quite well - although they were not pleased by the St. Patty's Day parade which made the drive take an hour instead of twenty minutes because we had to make this giant circle to get around it.
And then I helped in the latest installment of The Turkey Saga. I have now stuck gooey green stuff underneath a turkey's skin preparatory to stuffing and baking it. (The gooey green stuff was actually pretty nice; it was slightly warm and smelled of sage.)
The oven is still way too hot, but I think mom set it to about half what it should be and it's hopefully about right. She says that the new stove is coming on Wednesday.
Today's sermon involved the phrase, "Senator Nameforgotten could hang the ten commandments in every courthouse and school in the nation - well, he couldn't, but let's just say for the sake of argument that he could - but there would still be drug dealers and murderers and ponzi schemers and capitalists."
Our new preacher amuses me. He also has a tendency to start a story and then trail off and conclude, "When I started this story I thought it was going to be more relevant and less self-indulgent, but never mind," but he still gives good sermons and is quite charismatic. There's something very personal about them. Also, there's something intensely gawky about him that reminds me of a teenage boy.
We went to Joy Tsun Lao for lunch today to celebrate my cousin Naomi's birthday, and both Naomi and her brother behaved quite well - although they were not pleased by the St. Patty's Day parade which made the drive take an hour instead of twenty minutes because we had to make this giant circle to get around it.
And then I helped in the latest installment of The Turkey Saga. I have now stuck gooey green stuff underneath a turkey's skin preparatory to stuffing and baking it. (The gooey green stuff was actually pretty nice; it was slightly warm and smelled of sage.)
The oven is still way too hot, but I think mom set it to about half what it should be and it's hopefully about right. She says that the new stove is coming on Wednesday.
I just got off the phone (off the skype?) with my mom/her extended family, who are celebrating Thanksgiving today. It sounds like my almost-three-year-old cousin has developed a fondness for my aunt's phone (or rather, the cousin's phone which my aunt has in her keeping). Mom says that the first words out of my cousin's mouth when she saw my aunt today were "WhereNaomifone?" My aunt keeps the phone off so that my cousin can't call anyone while playing with it, and my cousin has learned that if she manages to turn the phone on, she needs to take it to my aunt to be turned off . . .
Of course, there are also advantages to being an ocean away, namely that I can end the conversation when the shrieking in the background becomes annoying.
Of course, there are also advantages to being an ocean away, namely that I can end the conversation when the shrieking in the background becomes annoying.
Life, stuff, playing catch-up
29 August 2008 01:43 pmThere were many things that I intended to write about on here, and I don't want to write about all of them because it would take all afternoon, so I'm going to just mix and match and give you anecdotes as takes my fancy.
( Cut for rambling )
( Cut for rambling )
Good Morning!
19 June 2008 09:29 amI got up at 6:15 this morning, and Em and I went swimming. It was very nice. I like being up early, provided that I've gotten enough sleep (which I had). I haven't gone swimming in ages, and it was lovely to be in the water again. I must say, however, that this lack of practice showed. The person I am now, this person who starts getting tired after a few laps, is a far cry from the girl I used to be, that girl who spent all summer in the water. But I intend to go again, and perhaps that will improve. And hey, I already knew that I wasn't that girl anymore, and I think that a lot of personal growth is worth a little less facility in the water.
However, it does leave me with the feeling that I washed my face and hair in chlorine, despite the chlorine shampoo (does chlorine shampoo expire? If it can, mine probably has). And if I make a habit of this, I need to invest in a pair of goggles. I'm not sure if it's growing up or the difference between an indoor pool and an outdoor one, but the chlorine was bad enough that I didn't want to open my eyes underwater, and I dislike not being able to see. And my eyelids feel funny. Itchy. I think they would be happier with goggles, too.
And now, a book! ( Thoughts on Gail Carson Levine's _Ever_ (few to no spoilers) )
However, it does leave me with the feeling that I washed my face and hair in chlorine, despite the chlorine shampoo (does chlorine shampoo expire? If it can, mine probably has). And if I make a habit of this, I need to invest in a pair of goggles. I'm not sure if it's growing up or the difference between an indoor pool and an outdoor one, but the chlorine was bad enough that I didn't want to open my eyes underwater, and I dislike not being able to see. And my eyelids feel funny. Itchy. I think they would be happier with goggles, too.
And now, a book! ( Thoughts on Gail Carson Levine's _Ever_ (few to no spoilers) )
Reduction of Ambiguity
2 April 2008 02:55 pmIt is DECIDED. If I do not have a job in Philadelphia within the next two weeks, I will work in the computer labs here. I will not spent another summer in Philadelphia wasting perfectly good vacation time trying to get a summer job.
It's amazing how much better this decision makes me feel. Which is odd, given that my course of action over the next two weeks isn't going to differ any because of it (unless it results in me looking harder because I have a definite deadline), and I'm not going to enjoy the job hunting any more, but the not-having-a-job-ness is suddenly much less looming.
It would be nice to find something in Philadelphia. I like Philadelphia, and I like people in Philadelphia. My mother has also expressed a desire for me to be home this summer, which is reasonable, given that I'll be in Spain next semester and I didn't go home over Spring Break (and she's paying for me to be here). She's quite modest in her desires and decrees (especially in comparison to many other peoples' mothers), and I would like to be able to honor this one, but even for her I am not going to do another indefinite summer job search (which I have been poking at since January, and which would only get worse the closer it got to summer.) She does understand how much I dislike looking for jobs. Or at least she comes close to understanding how much I hate it. As mothers go, I do have a pretty good one.
So. I have a plan of action. Things are much better this way.
For other news:
In moderation, unrelieved silliness is very good for one's mental health.
And to those whom it concerns, Forbes does not have A Special Trade, but I put in a request for it.
It's amazing how much better this decision makes me feel. Which is odd, given that my course of action over the next two weeks isn't going to differ any because of it (unless it results in me looking harder because I have a definite deadline), and I'm not going to enjoy the job hunting any more, but the not-having-a-job-ness is suddenly much less looming.
It would be nice to find something in Philadelphia. I like Philadelphia, and I like people in Philadelphia. My mother has also expressed a desire for me to be home this summer, which is reasonable, given that I'll be in Spain next semester and I didn't go home over Spring Break (and she's paying for me to be here). She's quite modest in her desires and decrees (especially in comparison to many other peoples' mothers), and I would like to be able to honor this one, but even for her I am not going to do another indefinite summer job search (which I have been poking at since January, and which would only get worse the closer it got to summer.) She does understand how much I dislike looking for jobs. Or at least she comes close to understanding how much I hate it. As mothers go, I do have a pretty good one.
So. I have a plan of action. Things are much better this way.
For other news:
In moderation, unrelieved silliness is very good for one's mental health.
And to those whom it concerns, Forbes does not have A Special Trade, but I put in a request for it.
My mother, books, and hanging out
17 March 2008 09:10 amMom is heading out today. Things have been considerably easier now that she's no longer sharing my room with me and we aren't together almost all the time. We went to the ( Eric Carle Museum. )
Yesterday we also went to church, hung out in Northampton, went to India House (yum!), and then hung out in my room. Lillie came by, and we both read The Speed of Dark while mom worked on the Pi Sudoku some more. That was fun. I'm quite enjoying The Speed of Dark. It's a good book, and it has fencing in it. SCA-type fencing rather than sport fencing, but the manner in which it is described makes it feel very similar to what I do (if I ignore the fact that they're using two weapons, anyway).
Yesterday we also went to church, hung out in Northampton, went to India House (yum!), and then hung out in my room. Lillie came by, and we both read The Speed of Dark while mom worked on the Pi Sudoku some more. That was fun. I'm quite enjoying The Speed of Dark. It's a good book, and it has fencing in it. SCA-type fencing rather than sport fencing, but the manner in which it is described makes it feel very similar to what I do (if I ignore the fact that they're using two weapons, anyway).
I just got my dad and brother to watch Mirrormask. I did warn them that it's seriously trippy, but I'm not sure that they took that to heart. At least, I don't think that Isaac fully comprehended my meaning. I believe that dad liked it - he certainly enjoyed the ending ("I've always wanted to join the circus." "That's good, because you'd make a terrible waiter." ". . . wait, what?") - but he tends to be more inscrutable in his reactions, and I'll probably learn what he thought over breakfast tomorrow morning.
It being Saturday, and dad not working today and Isaac not having to go to school, they've hogged the computer pretty much all day (well, I did have it for two hours this morning). So I decided that I'd get online when I went to feed Ghengis second dinner. Or a nightcap. Or bedtime snack. Something. And wow, dial-up is slow. On the plus side, my fingers aren't cold. And on lj I can read one window while things load in another.
It was my cousin's birthday yesterday. He is now 6. We stopped by for desert (ice cream cake) and I have decided that I need to get some of those balloons that look like elongated vermicious knids for a study break sometime next semester. What do you mean, you've never heard of vermicious knids? Anyway, you've never really enjoyed a party until you've stuck imitation vermicious knids to the ceiling with static electricity. My aunt took pictures. Perhaps I'll post them when she gets around to sending me copies. Mind you, that probably won't be until March.
We went out to dinner last night, which was enjoyable but uneventful - well, except for the couple two tables over breaking one of the wine glasses all over their meal.
It being Saturday, and dad not working today and Isaac not having to go to school, they've hogged the computer pretty much all day (well, I did have it for two hours this morning). So I decided that I'd get online when I went to feed Ghengis second dinner. Or a nightcap. Or bedtime snack. Something. And wow, dial-up is slow. On the plus side, my fingers aren't cold. And on lj I can read one window while things load in another.
It was my cousin's birthday yesterday. He is now 6. We stopped by for desert (ice cream cake) and I have decided that I need to get some of those balloons that look like elongated vermicious knids for a study break sometime next semester. What do you mean, you've never heard of vermicious knids? Anyway, you've never really enjoyed a party until you've stuck imitation vermicious knids to the ceiling with static electricity. My aunt took pictures. Perhaps I'll post them when she gets around to sending me copies. Mind you, that probably won't be until March.
We went out to dinner last night, which was enjoyable but uneventful - well, except for the couple two tables over breaking one of the wine glasses all over their meal.
Haven't posted for a while
4 January 2008 02:42 pmI know I've been quiet of late (at least on my own journal), but I feel like I don't have all that much to say. I've been ( reading )
In other news:
In proof of the fact that my room at dad's house is really freaking cold - I could see my breath yesterday morning. In my room. Not all the time, but if I breathed in warm air from under the covers and breathed out outside the covers, the misty little cloud was quite evident. (I decided not to check this morning - I didn't want to know.) Needless to say, this does not encourage me to get up in the mornings. Luckily there's not really anything to get up for, and if I manage to not encounter my brother in the morning before school, so much the better.
I've been house-sitting, so I have been spending a great many hours sitting around with Ghengis's paw or chin on my hand. It's very relaxing. Madison may know how to purr, but she hasn't managed the trick of making the air around her vibrate when she does. Ghengis isn't the best purrer I know, but he's certainly the best among the cats I see with any frequency. And I think Ghengis's old-cat attitude of just sit still and relax - unless, of course, he wants Food or Out, in which case everything should be done immediately - is very calming for the soul (except on the occasions when he's yelling at you and you're not sure what he wants. It was much easier to talk to that cat before he went completely deaf). Everyone should have more cat hand-holding in their lives.
My dad made pork and sauerkraut, our traditional New Year's dish - albeit a few days late. I'm very glad. While my mother did make some for when we had her family over on New Year's Day, she doesn't do it as whole-heartedly and I feel that the result is an inferior product - not that I would EVER tell her so, mind you.
New Year's (Christmas) with mom's family was good. Festivities with dad's family were ( fine )
In other news:
In proof of the fact that my room at dad's house is really freaking cold - I could see my breath yesterday morning. In my room. Not all the time, but if I breathed in warm air from under the covers and breathed out outside the covers, the misty little cloud was quite evident. (I decided not to check this morning - I didn't want to know.) Needless to say, this does not encourage me to get up in the mornings. Luckily there's not really anything to get up for, and if I manage to not encounter my brother in the morning before school, so much the better.
I've been house-sitting, so I have been spending a great many hours sitting around with Ghengis's paw or chin on my hand. It's very relaxing. Madison may know how to purr, but she hasn't managed the trick of making the air around her vibrate when she does. Ghengis isn't the best purrer I know, but he's certainly the best among the cats I see with any frequency. And I think Ghengis's old-cat attitude of just sit still and relax - unless, of course, he wants Food or Out, in which case everything should be done immediately - is very calming for the soul (except on the occasions when he's yelling at you and you're not sure what he wants. It was much easier to talk to that cat before he went completely deaf). Everyone should have more cat hand-holding in their lives.
My dad made pork and sauerkraut, our traditional New Year's dish - albeit a few days late. I'm very glad. While my mother did make some for when we had her family over on New Year's Day, she doesn't do it as whole-heartedly and I feel that the result is an inferior product - not that I would EVER tell her so, mind you.
New Year's (Christmas) with mom's family was good. Festivities with dad's family were ( fine )
Anachronistic Austen-esque
28 December 2007 10:20 pmI had a dream last night. This isn't too surprising; I had two dreams the night before, and at least one the night before that - I believe that this is a function of getting nine or ten hours of sleep a night and lazing when I wake up, rather than becoming awake at seven and getting up more-or-less immediately (more immediately if it's a day when I think I'm in danger of falling right back asleep again). I tend to do a lot of dreaming when I regularly sleep in a bit-but-not-lots.
So. ( The Dream )
Wow, I'm tired. And I'm willing to bet that a third of those sentences are odd in terms of grammar (if not outright wrong) or completely unintelligible in terms of content, but it's getting late. I'll probably edit it in the morning. And I'll tell you about the puppet theater, too.
Edit: So. Dream. While I've had weirder dreams, I don't recall ever having invented anything quite like the Three Post-It Note System before. Unless you want to count the mountain-climbing Rescue Nuns. Which were just as weird, but not nearly as complex, so I'm not going to count them.
And the theater. Last night Mom, Isaac and I went to see A Christmas Carol at the Mum Puppet Theater. I wasn't sure how much I was going to enjoy it, but was playing the part of the thrilled, cultured daughter because Isaac was doing The Teenager Thing where he wasn't interested in anything and had to be bribed by the offer of dinner at a restaurant of his choice (he picked Mama's - home of the unhealthiest cheese steaks in the Greater Philadelphia Area. The sandwiches are huge, and greasy (by which I mean considerably more greasy than most cheese steaks), and absolutely delicious. It was lovely having a cheese steak with the meat done properly and actual cheese and the real kind of bread - even if the Mama's cheese steaks are smaller than the ones I remember when I was a child. Isaac's memories concur, but I'm still not sure if this is a function of the changing size of the cheese steaks or a function of growing up). Have I mentioned that Isaac is really, truly a teenager now? He acquired the Teenager Attitude years ago - actually, it's a family joke that I turned 13 and he became a teenager - so he would have been eight or nine, but now he looks the part, too. His sweatshirts have been getting baggier and baggier over the past several years, and I was surprised to notice that he now has the Hooded Teenager Slouch as well. Ever since he claimed the mp3 player mom got me for Christmas (I'm not going to go into the story of my mother being lied to by salespeople, but suffice it to say that I wanted an mp3 recorder, and despite blithe assurances that all mp3 players record, this one doesn't.) he's even had earbuds glued to his ears. And his voice changed over this past fall.
Anyway. The puppet theater. The show was performed with two actors, one of whom played scrooge and the other of whom acted some characters and manipulated puppets or props for the others. It was really well done. The theater was necessarily small, so it was very intimate, and when they were making it scary prior to the ghost's arrival, it was quite scary. Isaac said that it wasn't scary, and mom said that she didn't feel the arrival of the ghost made it any less scary, but I find the idea of being alone in an old house with noises that you can't identify and that aren't there when you go and look to be much scarier than a well-done papier-mache mask (particularly if the mask's hair is made with a scraggly ostrich feather). The candle blowing out was a nice touch, but I anticipated it (it occurred to me that it would be good for the candle to go out right about now, and I was just wondering how that could be arranged when it did). The Ghost of Christmas Past was excellent - it was essentially a lighted head on a stick with long flowing gauze, which was manipulated by the second actor. He could stick his free hand through the layers of gauze of the spirit needed to be more material, or waft the head around the room if it needed to be more ethereal, and the lighting was just right so that it was mostly impossible to see the actor doing it. The lighting was really good for the whole show, actually.
I quite recommend it if any of you happen to be in Philadelphia over Christmas.
So. ( The Dream )
Wow, I'm tired. And I'm willing to bet that a third of those sentences are odd in terms of grammar (if not outright wrong) or completely unintelligible in terms of content, but it's getting late. I'll probably edit it in the morning. And I'll tell you about the puppet theater, too.
Edit: So. Dream. While I've had weirder dreams, I don't recall ever having invented anything quite like the Three Post-It Note System before. Unless you want to count the mountain-climbing Rescue Nuns. Which were just as weird, but not nearly as complex, so I'm not going to count them.
And the theater. Last night Mom, Isaac and I went to see A Christmas Carol at the Mum Puppet Theater. I wasn't sure how much I was going to enjoy it, but was playing the part of the thrilled, cultured daughter because Isaac was doing The Teenager Thing where he wasn't interested in anything and had to be bribed by the offer of dinner at a restaurant of his choice (he picked Mama's - home of the unhealthiest cheese steaks in the Greater Philadelphia Area. The sandwiches are huge, and greasy (by which I mean considerably more greasy than most cheese steaks), and absolutely delicious. It was lovely having a cheese steak with the meat done properly and actual cheese and the real kind of bread - even if the Mama's cheese steaks are smaller than the ones I remember when I was a child. Isaac's memories concur, but I'm still not sure if this is a function of the changing size of the cheese steaks or a function of growing up). Have I mentioned that Isaac is really, truly a teenager now? He acquired the Teenager Attitude years ago - actually, it's a family joke that I turned 13 and he became a teenager - so he would have been eight or nine, but now he looks the part, too. His sweatshirts have been getting baggier and baggier over the past several years, and I was surprised to notice that he now has the Hooded Teenager Slouch as well. Ever since he claimed the mp3 player mom got me for Christmas (I'm not going to go into the story of my mother being lied to by salespeople, but suffice it to say that I wanted an mp3 recorder, and despite blithe assurances that all mp3 players record, this one doesn't.) he's even had earbuds glued to his ears. And his voice changed over this past fall.
Anyway. The puppet theater. The show was performed with two actors, one of whom played scrooge and the other of whom acted some characters and manipulated puppets or props for the others. It was really well done. The theater was necessarily small, so it was very intimate, and when they were making it scary prior to the ghost's arrival, it was quite scary. Isaac said that it wasn't scary, and mom said that she didn't feel the arrival of the ghost made it any less scary, but I find the idea of being alone in an old house with noises that you can't identify and that aren't there when you go and look to be much scarier than a well-done papier-mache mask (particularly if the mask's hair is made with a scraggly ostrich feather). The candle blowing out was a nice touch, but I anticipated it (it occurred to me that it would be good for the candle to go out right about now, and I was just wondering how that could be arranged when it did). The Ghost of Christmas Past was excellent - it was essentially a lighted head on a stick with long flowing gauze, which was manipulated by the second actor. He could stick his free hand through the layers of gauze of the spirit needed to be more material, or waft the head around the room if it needed to be more ethereal, and the lighting was just right so that it was mostly impossible to see the actor doing it. The lighting was really good for the whole show, actually.
I quite recommend it if any of you happen to be in Philadelphia over Christmas.
. . . this is an example of my family's own particular brand of absent-mindedness. The worst (or best) bit of this is that when my mother uttered this unusual proclamation, I knew precisely what she meant - that we really truly are out of bread. I had discovered the out-ness of bread earlier, while she was cooking breakfast and asked me to make toast, so I substituted toasted thinly sliced bagels instead. The dictionary came in because my brother was looking up something in the dictionary at the time*. What she actually meant was refrigerator. Or possibly freezer.
This is what my family does. We really truly do know what we're trying to say, but if another thought pops into our heads before we finish with the first one, goodness knows what will pop out. It's especially bad with certain items or places. My mother, for example, is prone to switching "yellow" and "orange" and the whole family does this really spectacular one with Weavers Way (our food co-op), Kilians (the hardware store where my dad works), Project Learn (the school I went to 7th and 8th grade at), Preschool Plus (the preschool we went to way long ago), GFS (my highschool) and GMC (our church). Whenever we want to talk about any of these places, there is at least a 50% chance that we will actually say the name of one of the others. This can be confusing when my dad announces that he's going to go to the hardware store to get bread before dropping Isaac off at the preschool, although contextual clues are often helpful.
Even I do this. I do it much less at school, but even there I have some tendency to say blue when I mean green and left when I mean right and vice versa**.
But the point of this post is not to maunder on about the peculiarities of my family.
Merry Christmas to all and any of you who celebrate it. And happy break and possible present-time to those who don't.
Speaking of dictionaries, I got one. And not just any dictionary. Webster's Third New International Dictionary Unabridged. This is the dictionary that, when I decided I needed a real dictionary*** and went to the bookstore to look at dictionaries, decided that that was the dictionary I wanted. It has thumb tabs that actually correspond to the beginning of the letters they mark - I had rather assumed that this was the norm with dictionaries, rather than the exception, since the dictionary of my childhood does so, but after looking at dictionaries in the bookstore, it's not, and I don't really see the point of evenly-spaced thumb tabs that just happen to be in the general vicinity of the letters they direct one to. Plus a number of other things that I look for in dictionaries that I'm not going to enumerate at this time.
Perhaps you can tell - I'm very pleased about this dictionary.
I spent most of the morning - that is, the portions of the morning that were not occupied with opening my stocking, eating breakfast, opening presents, and writing the beginning of this entry - helping my mother cook Christmas dinner. It's going to be excellent. Which is a good thing, since it's also going to be about two hours late, since the furnace didn't come on this morning****, and mom had to spend some time mucking about with that, and of course the spinach took longer than we expected (and to think, the recipe called for two pounds of spinach, and we only used 20 ounces (16 ounces in a pound, for those who don't know)). But I love lamb with feta and spinach and potatoes, despite all the work that goes into the spinach.
*The word in question was shank. We all had a general idea of what shank meant^, but when the recipe tells you to start by rolling the shank of the piece of meat and then roll the leg, you need more than a general understanding. The dictionary wasn't very helpful in this regard, so we just decided that they meant, "Start with the skinny part, and then do the thick part."
^With the possible exception of Isaac; I didn't ask him.
**This is terrible. You have no idea. I do manage to keep it mostly under control, because it's something I do when I'm not thinking about it, and I'm aware enough that I do it that I pay attention whenever I have to say left or right and generally get it correct. So, for example, I'm actually quite reliable when giving directions, because I pay attention to the fact that the direction-words are involved in this process.
But I had an enormous amount of difficulty learning left and right in Spanish. And I could not get my teacher to understand that this was not because I didn't know that derecho means right and izquierda means left; that it was specifically because I associated them with the English words - which I have trouble with - so I couldn't get them right in Spanish, either. Nowadays I seem to have them associated with right-ness and left-ness, rather than the English words, so I'm just fine in Spanish.
***I'm not sure how many of you will appreciate the need to a real, paper dictionary. This is okay, because I showed it to Dee and Bob last night^, and they both were properly appreciative, and Bob, in addition, performed several dictionary litmus tests^^ on it and declared it good.
^Yes, I got it last night - we exchanged presents with Dad on Christmas Eve because we're with Mom on Christmas.
****Apparently, when the fellow came to service it yesterday, he forgot to turn it back on. Ooops.
^^For example:
living adj 3: remaining uncut or unquarried <"in places the track was cut out of the living rock" . . .>
This is what my family does. We really truly do know what we're trying to say, but if another thought pops into our heads before we finish with the first one, goodness knows what will pop out. It's especially bad with certain items or places. My mother, for example, is prone to switching "yellow" and "orange" and the whole family does this really spectacular one with Weavers Way (our food co-op), Kilians (the hardware store where my dad works), Project Learn (the school I went to 7th and 8th grade at), Preschool Plus (the preschool we went to way long ago), GFS (my highschool) and GMC (our church). Whenever we want to talk about any of these places, there is at least a 50% chance that we will actually say the name of one of the others. This can be confusing when my dad announces that he's going to go to the hardware store to get bread before dropping Isaac off at the preschool, although contextual clues are often helpful.
Even I do this. I do it much less at school, but even there I have some tendency to say blue when I mean green and left when I mean right and vice versa**.
But the point of this post is not to maunder on about the peculiarities of my family.
Merry Christmas to all and any of you who celebrate it. And happy break and possible present-time to those who don't.
Speaking of dictionaries, I got one. And not just any dictionary. Webster's Third New International Dictionary Unabridged. This is the dictionary that, when I decided I needed a real dictionary*** and went to the bookstore to look at dictionaries, decided that that was the dictionary I wanted. It has thumb tabs that actually correspond to the beginning of the letters they mark - I had rather assumed that this was the norm with dictionaries, rather than the exception, since the dictionary of my childhood does so, but after looking at dictionaries in the bookstore, it's not, and I don't really see the point of evenly-spaced thumb tabs that just happen to be in the general vicinity of the letters they direct one to. Plus a number of other things that I look for in dictionaries that I'm not going to enumerate at this time.
Perhaps you can tell - I'm very pleased about this dictionary.
I spent most of the morning - that is, the portions of the morning that were not occupied with opening my stocking, eating breakfast, opening presents, and writing the beginning of this entry - helping my mother cook Christmas dinner. It's going to be excellent. Which is a good thing, since it's also going to be about two hours late, since the furnace didn't come on this morning****, and mom had to spend some time mucking about with that, and of course the spinach took longer than we expected (and to think, the recipe called for two pounds of spinach, and we only used 20 ounces (16 ounces in a pound, for those who don't know)). But I love lamb with feta and spinach and potatoes, despite all the work that goes into the spinach.
*The word in question was shank. We all had a general idea of what shank meant^, but when the recipe tells you to start by rolling the shank of the piece of meat and then roll the leg, you need more than a general understanding. The dictionary wasn't very helpful in this regard, so we just decided that they meant, "Start with the skinny part, and then do the thick part."
^With the possible exception of Isaac; I didn't ask him.
**This is terrible. You have no idea. I do manage to keep it mostly under control, because it's something I do when I'm not thinking about it, and I'm aware enough that I do it that I pay attention whenever I have to say left or right and generally get it correct. So, for example, I'm actually quite reliable when giving directions, because I pay attention to the fact that the direction-words are involved in this process.
But I had an enormous amount of difficulty learning left and right in Spanish. And I could not get my teacher to understand that this was not because I didn't know that derecho means right and izquierda means left; that it was specifically because I associated them with the English words - which I have trouble with - so I couldn't get them right in Spanish, either. Nowadays I seem to have them associated with right-ness and left-ness, rather than the English words, so I'm just fine in Spanish.
***I'm not sure how many of you will appreciate the need to a real, paper dictionary. This is okay, because I showed it to Dee and Bob last night^, and they both were properly appreciative, and Bob, in addition, performed several dictionary litmus tests^^ on it and declared it good.
^Yes, I got it last night - we exchanged presents with Dad on Christmas Eve because we're with Mom on Christmas.
****Apparently, when the fellow came to service it yesterday, he forgot to turn it back on. Ooops.
^^For example:
living adj 3: remaining uncut or unquarried <"in places the track was cut out of the living rock" . . .>
So I arrived. The trip home was . . . uneventful. Also long, but that was expected. And, truth to tell, the time spend on the train was less than expected (although total travel time was more than expected) due to the fact that the train arrived 50 minutes late, caught up during the ridiculous amount of time spent waiting in Connecticut (I left school at 12, and the train was supposed to leave at 1:19. At 4:00 I was still sitting in New Haven, CT, and that was on time.) and managed to be half an hour late again by the time we got to Philly. Not that I'm complaining. Well, except about the fact that my fingers got cold while waiting for the train. My fingerless gloves are in my other coat, and I can't read in polartec mittens. But if that's the greatest hardship I have all break, I think that I'll be able to manage. Somehow. Also, many thanks to Talia for Trickster's Choice. Grab and Go was suprisingly good (yay for mozerella and tomato salad, even if the cheese and veggie sandwich turned out to be cheese, one leaf of lettuce, a few lone carrot slivers, and perhaps three slices of pepper . . . someone needs to teach that school how to make a proper sandwich . . . or perhaps I should just kidnap an icepack so that I can have actual meat on these trips). I got into Philly before 10:00 last night.
Being home is very nice. Particularly the wood-stove part. Even if my room is frigid. Oh, right. I like it that way . . . although a little less frigid would be okay. Maybe I just need to convince Aclysm to come be a handwarmer. She seems to have figured out the petting business, even if her purr could use some work. More on being home again later.
So far today, ( I have )
It's going to be a marvelous break. Even if I miss all of you college-people.
Oh, and for the record, I have once again rediscovered my hate of AOL's browser. But I don't want to go through the bother of installing Firefox on dad's computer.
Being home is very nice. Particularly the wood-stove part. Even if my room is frigid. Oh, right. I like it that way . . . although a little less frigid would be okay. Maybe I just need to convince Aclysm to come be a handwarmer. She seems to have figured out the petting business, even if her purr could use some work. More on being home again later.
So far today, ( I have )
It's going to be a marvelous break. Even if I miss all of you college-people.
Oh, and for the record, I have once again rediscovered my hate of AOL's browser. But I don't want to go through the bother of installing Firefox on dad's computer.
