So over in Inara a lovely friend posted a link to the recent Parenting Magazine list of baby names for 2009, and it listed techniques to use to see if a name you like is a good idea or not. Stuff like being aware of nicknames or shortened versions of the name, spelling stuff with initials, that kind of thing. You wouldn't want your kid to sign a lease with his initials in the little spaces down the side spelling "BAD" or "DUMB" or something.
Anyway, it made me think of my naming conventions. Frankly, all I've had to name so far are cats, but it keeps me amused. While they all share common names such as "dumb-butt", "No!" , "not food" and "GET DOWN", they also have their own actual real names. However, it may be a good thing that only cats are involved, because I also have a horrible habit of creating nicknames.
Colin: There was something that I called him early on for nearly a year that I can't remember now. I went through a "Bubba" phase when we moved down south, but Lanse put a quick end to that. Now I call him "Bud" for no apparent reason... actually, my mouth got so used to "Bubba" I had to find something similar enough to switch to it half-way when I forgot. I also like to call him "Mister". Lanse's cousins, when they were young, called him "Collie-wallie". (They didn't visit often. ) But Colin's so... prim and proper, that I feel bad most of the time using nicknames on him.
Kira: Before we got her, she was named Princess. Since the family we got her from was my co-worker and her daughter was my student, we called her Princess Kira for a while, and I also call her Ladybug. This was because she was our only girl cat, and I wanted to call her "Lady", but I always called my college roommate "Lady" (inside joke, don't worry about it), PLUS, that college roomie picked 'little black kitten' (in French) as her livejournal handle, so it all made sense. I added the 'bug' to distinguish between them. Now I call Kira 'Sweetie' and 'Girlie' and 'Sweetie-Patweety' (though not often).
Spook: Being that he's the baby kitten of my heart, I stray the most with Spook. I am his person, so he lets me get away with more. Obviously, the easiest first thing was "Spooky", which quickly reduced to "Pooky" or "Pook". As it's not polite to reduce that to "Poo", it became "Boo". Now, sometimes he's "Boolie" or "Boodle". The other day, suddenly my mouth called him "Boodle-doodle", and it became fairly obvious that I may actually have some kind of Problem.
Maybe they shouldn't let me around real children with real names.
Though they do say admitting the problem is the first step....
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Monday, October 6, 2008
Malfoy vs. the Doctor
As we skidded the blue van into the parking lot we could hear the screams announcing we'd arrived at the right place. We finalized our plan, jumped out of the van, and took off running. The Doctor and someone else went around the corner of the building and into the main University offices lobby. I was trying to keep up, but had this enormous fake book slung over my shoulder and it kept banging into my knees. By the time I rounded the corner for the stairs, they had vanished into the building (which, incidentally, was nice rich brownstone and brick, three-stories, entrance on the second, with crenelations and towers in the facade, but unfortunately no neat tower rooms. There's a floor plan at the end).
Since the book is vaguely important later on, here's what it looked like:
The idea had been that we'd get there before the bad guys, and I was supposed to be posing as a student. (The book was supposed to look like a textbook; it was part of the Sneaky Disguise). Obviously, we'd timed things wrong... so I skipped the fake student thing and went on with my mission! I had a mission... though I don't think it was ever clear what it was. I snuck up the stairs towards the front door and peeked in to see two small explosions go off in various parts of the lobby, and a blond scary guy with a gun standing near the door facing in, so he didn't see me.
All the bad guys were scary blond men along the lines of the kind of Russian spy type you might see on original Die Hard or other 80s explosion movies. This particular group was run by Mr. Draco Malfoy, as seen here: (Image taken from a google images search from someone's blog, but I do know it's an official photo from the new movie coming July, 09!)
Getting back to the plot, after watching the scary blond gunmen for a minute or two and taking general notice of the construction and layout of the room, I edged back to the corner of the stair and scanned the courtyard for any sign of the Doctor. While I had my book thing slung backwards, and my eyes facing forward, a kinda sleazy student thief-for-pay snuck up behind the stairwell, reached into the cover of my book, and stole my microchip! There was a break in the action as he got away, and I sat in the stairwell "guarding" and waiting.
After a bit I heard Malfoy's voice saying, "Ahhhh... the Doctor!" and somehow I knew that he'd gotten the microchip, and knew it was alien, and suddenly realized his doom was at hand! All the scary blond bad guys ran for the end of the courtyard, just as the Doctor came up behind me. I started in with, "I'm sorry, he got the chip, I couldn't stop him..." and there was a HUGE explosion at the end of the courtyard. Draco stopped and looked back, laughed an evil laugh, said something like "You've not seen the last of me!!" and vanished around the corner.
Then there was a break and some snogging. And then I woke up.
For a bit of a visual aid, I created the following Dream Event Map. Enjoy!
Since the book is vaguely important later on, here's what it looked like:
The idea had been that we'd get there before the bad guys, and I was supposed to be posing as a student. (The book was supposed to look like a textbook; it was part of the Sneaky Disguise). Obviously, we'd timed things wrong... so I skipped the fake student thing and went on with my mission! I had a mission... though I don't think it was ever clear what it was. I snuck up the stairs towards the front door and peeked in to see two small explosions go off in various parts of the lobby, and a blond scary guy with a gun standing near the door facing in, so he didn't see me.
All the bad guys were scary blond men along the lines of the kind of Russian spy type you might see on original Die Hard or other 80s explosion movies. This particular group was run by Mr. Draco Malfoy, as seen here: (Image taken from a google images search from someone's blog, but I do know it's an official photo from the new movie coming July, 09!)
Getting back to the plot, after watching the scary blond gunmen for a minute or two and taking general notice of the construction and layout of the room, I edged back to the corner of the stair and scanned the courtyard for any sign of the Doctor. While I had my book thing slung backwards, and my eyes facing forward, a kinda sleazy student thief-for-pay snuck up behind the stairwell, reached into the cover of my book, and stole my microchip! There was a break in the action as he got away, and I sat in the stairwell "guarding" and waiting.
After a bit I heard Malfoy's voice saying, "Ahhhh... the Doctor!" and somehow I knew that he'd gotten the microchip, and knew it was alien, and suddenly realized his doom was at hand! All the scary blond bad guys ran for the end of the courtyard, just as the Doctor came up behind me. I started in with, "I'm sorry, he got the chip, I couldn't stop him..." and there was a HUGE explosion at the end of the courtyard. Draco stopped and looked back, laughed an evil laugh, said something like "You've not seen the last of me!!" and vanished around the corner.
Then there was a break and some snogging. And then I woke up.
For a bit of a visual aid, I created the following Dream Event Map. Enjoy!
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Fake Greek Turkey Loaf Sandwich Thing
I had some ingredients. Not many. Talked to Kit a little bit, got some ideas, ended up creating a Kinda-Greek meat loaf sandwich that was good but has given me heartburn. In case your digestion is better than mine, here's what I did:
1 lb ground turkey
Mix in finely chopped basil, marjoram, and rosemary. The basil is the strongest in flavor, so use less of it if you don't want it to all taste like basil. Add kosher salt and pepper.
Form it into a loaf, and bake it. This time it took 40 minutes for most of it at 350. I think my oven's uneven, (say that ten times fast!) since the ends of the loaf were getting tough and the middle had a tiiiiiiny tinge of pink to it. Argh.
Anyway, then slice the homemade bread you threw together the other day, wrap it in tin foil and pop it in the oven when you bring out the meat and let it warm in the residual heat (turn the oven off!) while you set the table and all that jazz.
Spread mayo/Miracle Whip or tzestieke, which I can't spell, or sour cream or greek yogurt or something on the bread, (we had the first option) then meat slice, then sliced cucumbers and tomatoes.
It was really good. I had a glass of ice tea with it. I had my sandwich open faced and ate with a fork and knife, Lanse ate his like a sandwich. I couldn't quite finish mine, he had one and what was left of mine, and was full. But we don't usually eat much anyway.
1 lb ground turkey
Mix in finely chopped basil, marjoram, and rosemary. The basil is the strongest in flavor, so use less of it if you don't want it to all taste like basil. Add kosher salt and pepper.
Form it into a loaf, and bake it. This time it took 40 minutes for most of it at 350. I think my oven's uneven, (say that ten times fast!) since the ends of the loaf were getting tough and the middle had a tiiiiiiny tinge of pink to it. Argh.
Anyway, then slice the homemade bread you threw together the other day, wrap it in tin foil and pop it in the oven when you bring out the meat and let it warm in the residual heat (turn the oven off!) while you set the table and all that jazz.
Spread mayo/Miracle Whip or tzestieke, which I can't spell, or sour cream or greek yogurt or something on the bread, (we had the first option) then meat slice, then sliced cucumbers and tomatoes.
It was really good. I had a glass of ice tea with it. I had my sandwich open faced and ate with a fork and knife, Lanse ate his like a sandwich. I couldn't quite finish mine, he had one and what was left of mine, and was full. But we don't usually eat much anyway.
Inspective To Do List
Things we're pretty sure we need to do for the inspection:
1. Clean the garage. This is scary, cuz it's still crowded from moving in. Even though we won't really do stuff in there, fire code needs an obvious and unimpeded path from the kitchen door to the exit.
2. Organize and bin up extra crap around the house, especially stuff being stored in our child's room.
3. Childproof the house. Now I'm sure the first thing you think about are locking cabinets and plugging outlets and putting up baby gates. But remember, I'm the height of a 5 year old, so almost EVERYTHING WE OWN is in my reach. Including scissors, knives, heavy and/or fragile objects, china dishes, cleaning supplies, medications, cat food... you name it, they can get it. This prospect frankly terrifies me. We haven't even got the proper kind of furniture to put a lot of this stuff out of reach and have me use a step stool, since we buy furniture that's me-accessible. If we had that I'd feel a bit better. I may just choose to bin everything until we can budget for more lockable or tall furniture. We also need to replace or add locks to the outside porch door and maybe the front door, since those are very easy to open as well.
4. Make a decision about the play structure in the back, and then do something about it. Some of the higher pieces of wood are splitting and the top level is really rickety and missing some side slats. We could A) fix up what we have, B) remove the scary top level which a kid the age we're looking for shouldn't use anyway and leave the short level with the slide and trap door and then do lots of TLC to it, or C) just take the whole thing down and use it to heat the house in the fireplace in January. Considering January cost us $200 more than any other month last year in heating, that actually is more appealing than I want to admit.
5. Clean up anything scary around the shed like broken glass or boards with nails in it. The shed itself is barred so I can't even get in, so I don't think we'll have to do stuff there. Some day soon we want to tear it down.
6. Do some weeding. Seems weird, but we have spiny vine weed things crawling along the front walk and coming up between slats in the porches and trying to eat the house. We try not to feed the weed plants. No one named Seymour lives here.
7. Maybe replace the carpet in the back rooms. If we don't have dad come and steam clean it again the day before inspection, we may not pass the health bit. Cats don't like that carpet; rather, they like it TOO much.
ARGH! At least we have about 6 weeks before we could be inspected.
1. Clean the garage. This is scary, cuz it's still crowded from moving in. Even though we won't really do stuff in there, fire code needs an obvious and unimpeded path from the kitchen door to the exit.
2. Organize and bin up extra crap around the house, especially stuff being stored in our child's room.
3. Childproof the house. Now I'm sure the first thing you think about are locking cabinets and plugging outlets and putting up baby gates. But remember, I'm the height of a 5 year old, so almost EVERYTHING WE OWN is in my reach. Including scissors, knives, heavy and/or fragile objects, china dishes, cleaning supplies, medications, cat food... you name it, they can get it. This prospect frankly terrifies me. We haven't even got the proper kind of furniture to put a lot of this stuff out of reach and have me use a step stool, since we buy furniture that's me-accessible. If we had that I'd feel a bit better. I may just choose to bin everything until we can budget for more lockable or tall furniture. We also need to replace or add locks to the outside porch door and maybe the front door, since those are very easy to open as well.
4. Make a decision about the play structure in the back, and then do something about it. Some of the higher pieces of wood are splitting and the top level is really rickety and missing some side slats. We could A) fix up what we have, B) remove the scary top level which a kid the age we're looking for shouldn't use anyway and leave the short level with the slide and trap door and then do lots of TLC to it, or C) just take the whole thing down and use it to heat the house in the fireplace in January. Considering January cost us $200 more than any other month last year in heating, that actually is more appealing than I want to admit.
5. Clean up anything scary around the shed like broken glass or boards with nails in it. The shed itself is barred so I can't even get in, so I don't think we'll have to do stuff there. Some day soon we want to tear it down.
6. Do some weeding. Seems weird, but we have spiny vine weed things crawling along the front walk and coming up between slats in the porches and trying to eat the house. We try not to feed the weed plants. No one named Seymour lives here.
7. Maybe replace the carpet in the back rooms. If we don't have dad come and steam clean it again the day before inspection, we may not pass the health bit. Cats don't like that carpet; rather, they like it TOO much.
ARGH! At least we have about 6 weeks before we could be inspected.
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