An Excuse to Have a Friends Page

Apropos of nothing
Does it bother anybody else that popular science articles about biology, and even some real refereed science journal articles, have to defensively state now that Evolution is Real at the beginning or end (unless the article's main thrust is to attack the ludicrous cavils of the ID folks, in which case the disclaimer would be redundant)? Wasn't this simply understood when I was growing up?

Next I'll be ranting about rampant superstition and the pandering to the lowest common denominator committed by all those cable channels that fill the niche PBS used to service (History, Discovery etc.) I'm turning into my dad.

Quick text-only Peter update
Peter is a week shy of 17 months. That's almost a year and a half, for those not thinking in months (toddler-parents do, but I seem to recall the "X months" format glazing over my eyes before I had my own).

For about a month now Peter has been saying two-word phrases on his own. I think the first one he came up with spontaneously was at my parents' on the 8th or 9th of September, when he slid down off the bed from me and announced where he was going: "Dada go-go!" (You have to imagine the latter with full toddler enunciation: "Go-GOUUU!")

Lately he has been repeating three-word phrases. Yesterday he repeated "go get cart" after me at the grocery store. Today at the playground, he came out with one that just blew me away, but I promptly forgot it! Also, he is using possessives: "Mama book" "Dada shoe(s)" and, surprisingly, "My shoe(s)"!

He seems to think the language we are speaking is verb-final, adjective-final, and possessor-possessee (in the latter case he is correct). Verb-final and adjective-final is an odd mixture; English itself is very odd in having the object come after the verb but the adjective come before the noun, and his version is equally odd, but in the other direction! I love having a front-row seat to language acquisition.

He is counting twos. "Vhan duuu" (two vans). "Bebee duuu" (two children). I first noticed it yesterday. We can hardly believe our ears.

Living next to a busy road, he has learned the words for: car, truck, van, bus, pickup truck ("Gidikidikaa"), dump truck ("dah dahm"), mail truck ("meymey dah", which is used for UPS, Fedex, and other delivery vans as well as the US Postal mail), bicycle (now standardized to "bickle" instead of the charming "bwichikle"), cement truck ("men dah"), helicopter ("wuh-wuh" - ok, this one is his imitation of my imitation of the rotor sounds), and airplane ("bebee" - requires context to disambiguate; the same sounds are used for "baby" and "playground" as well as "plane"). His favorites (of the ground-based vehicles) are pickup trucks and buses, and bicycles (Daddy rides a bicycle!)

I gave him shoes a month ago. I wish I'd recorded it. Who knew a competent walker, put in shoes for the first time, would wobble on his ankles and trip over his feet! He figured it out within two days, though.

He is down to one mid-day nap. Sometimes three hours, sometimes two. Right now he has just woken up so I guess this is it for now.

Cutest ever
Cutest-ever thing for today:

After dinner, Peter was walking with his box (he can walk, now, but he can walk faster if he's pushing a box, and walking with his various boxes is his new totally favorite thing ever in the world), and I was standing at the sink cleaning up. From the other room I hear incredulous, delighted chuckling. I look over, and he is crouched down in front of the stopped box. I surmised that he had bumped into and then found the Snack-Trap full of puffed corn cereal, with which I had kept him occupied in the grocery store earlier today, and was now gloating over his find like some chimpanzee unable to suppress its food call when it finds the planted cache of bananas in the animal-psychology experiment.

Eventually, box-pushing resumed and he came thumping back into the kitchen toward me. As he pulled up to me, I glanced down into the box. There with his other motley assortment of treasures (stick, teething ring, discarded cardboard Amazon.com packaging, thin battered Heinlein paperback he pulled off the shelves) was the Snack-Trap! It was so cute! Now I know he really is putting things into the box because he likes them, and not just at random.

His first birthday is coming up next week. Happily he will not notice the lack of cake, as cake contains 3/4 of his allergens. I don't think he'll mind either if the presents trickle in one at a time instead of in one big unwrapping-fest.

One month and two days ago, I saw him take his first connected three steps and sketched out in my head a complicated LJ post comparing and contrasting improvements he'd made over the previous month with those he was making just in that week, addressing six areas evenly distributed between physical, mental and social milestones. I got three paragraphs written (LJ saved it as a draft) and then forgot I'd ever started it. I think the improvements were as follows:

Walking: he was taking single steps throughout his 11th month, and took three steps at almost 11 months.
Stairs: he had been crawling up for some time, and was just beginning to teach himself how to crawl down them by swinging his left leg over the edge.
Drinking water: I had just introduced him to water in a cup (actually, another Snack-Trap without the lid) and he took to it like a duck. Which is to say, he ends up covered in water.
"No": this one was particularly interesting. Over the previous few weeks, he'd started responding to "No", but closer to the time I was composing my list, he'd also shown an awareness of rules, avoiding situations which had led to a "No" before.
Waving: he was waving rather indiscriminately at the time, just to see people wave back. Now he has connected waving with saying goodbye.

Well, that was only five, and three of them were physical. Maybe the three sets of two were divided up differently than I thought. I wonder which improvement I forgot? He has said a word once or twice; maybe that was it.

I looked it up
So I got around today to looking up Peter's percentiles.

At 6 months:

your child is 15 pounds, and that is
at the 22th percentile for weight.

your child is 26.5 inches, and that is
at the 67th percentile for height.

What a string bean. Interestingly, 20th percentile was just what I feared he was. Where did I come up with that?

Last weekend Eric and I got flu shots. They were drive-through flu shots, no kidding. Probably part of a county epidemic readiness exercise. Drive in one end of the park/tech school campus, receive clipboard, pull over and fill out forms, hand back clipboard (but not forms), drive ahead, present forms to someone who signs them while teenage volunteers write the number of people in the car getting shots on the window, drive up into garage and hand signed forms to folks who inoculate you through the rolled-down window. Actually a very good plan for dealing with people during a pandemic panic - folks will be a lot more comfortable if they don't have to leave their ~~comfort zone~~ cars.

Big yellow thing
A poem on babies and big yellow machines.

It was a warm and rain-wet Autumn day
When Peter went to see the digging machine.
It scooped and turned, piling mud out of the way,
but Peter preferred to look at cars.

The neighbor's empty lot, which was sold, is being made into a too-big house.

In other updates, Saturday we woke up to find Peter's second tooth: a matched set, center bottom. Sharp!

Tooth and Meme
As of yesterday, Peter has a tooth!

(Pause for Peter appreciation...)

Now for the meme (thanks,

cousinsue)!

1. YOUR SPY NAME: (middle name and current street name)
Lynn Taylor (My maiden spy name - my old last name is my new middle name.)
2. YOUR MOVIE STAR NAME: (grandfather/grandmother on your dad's side, your favorite candy)
Ethel Dove (because Ethel Twix just sounded wrong).
3. YOUR RAP NAME: (first initial of first name, first three or four letters of your last name)
A-Bab. Again going with the maiden rap name, for reasons those who know me will understand.
4. YOUR GAMER TAG: (a favorite color, a favorite animal)
Blue Wolf
5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born)
Lynn Pittsburgh (aughh! this is a terrible name :)
6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (first 3 letters of your last name, last 3 letters of mother's maiden name, first 3 letters of your pet's name)
Furders Bia
7. JEDI NAME: (middle name spelled backwards, your mom's maiden name spelled backwards)
Nnyl Nadroj - I took the liberty of using a different mom's-maiden-name as that's a security question for a lot of things.
8. PORN STAR NAME: (first pet's name, the street you grew up on)
Essie Maple
9. SUPERHERO NAME: ("The", your favorite color, the automobile your mom drives)
The Blue Voyager! That rocks!
10. YOUR ACTION HERO NAME: (first name of a main character in the last movie you watched, last food you ate)
Mata Penne. Kewl. I could also have chosen Mata Marengo (nice) or Mata Broccoli (uh...). Mata is from Mata Bond in Casino Royale.

Ten sentences about my baby
For today's project, I'm going to try to write something about Peter in each of ten languages that I either know, or know enough about to piece a simple statement together. Four are made-up languages, and two of those are my creation. Now, in order from the languages I know the least about to those I know best:

1. Cree (nēhiyawē)
nitawāsis awa
This is my child (I hope - this is very much pieced together).

2. Navajo (Diné bizaad)
bí éí Peter wolyé
His name is Peter.

3. Mohawk (kanien'keha)
rinoronhkwa'
I love him.

4. lojban
le cifnu na kakne tavla.
The baby cannot speak.

5. Esperanto
Sed li povas sidi sen helpo.
But he can sit without help.

6. Toma Heylm
Nes leye semi ey hoyelid.
His eyes are blue. (I almost implied that he had more than two of them - got to watch those plural markers!)

7. mërèchi
rüdipàrip'ë ke lönalàliv'a éli.
He desires excessively that I should play with him.

8. Japanese （日本語）
赤ちゃんを抱くのはとっても嬉しいです！
aka-chan wo daku no ha tottemo ureshii desu!
Holding Baby is soooo nice!

(Almost there... must... keep... going...)

9. Russian (Русский язык)
Мы с ребёнком сегодня погуляли по улице.
My s rebyonkom sevodnya pogulyali po ulitse.
The baby and I went for a walk down the street today.

10. English... finally!
Although he can take several steps in a row while I hold his hands, I carried him on our walk.

And a bonus round, added by our Mystery Participant:

11. Baby
Ah-goo. Eeeeeeeee! Owaaaaa.
Satisfied. Happy! Owaaaaa.

Whew! That took all day. Please, anyone who reads this, correct my sentences if you know one of these languages better than me! (If you are correcting the two I invented, please provide supporting evidence :)

Interestingly, the two that required the most work were Cree (least well-known) and Russian (supposedly, my most fluent foreign language, or was at one time). Both were revised three or more times before I posted them.

Argh...
So this is an excerpt from my stream of consciousness this morning in the shower, with my current editorial comments in parentheses:

You know, I really do have to get around to learning Old English. And Middle English, and Old Norse, and all the sound changes, and how they came to use 'cg' for a j sound... I'm gonna be an expert... (My mind starts running away from me.)
I need to accomplish something. I have to make a mark on the world! (Starting to feel a sense of urgency, now.)
I should develope that guipure lace sketch I made on the back of the envelope, and work it, and submit the pattern to the IOLI Bulletin! Then my name'd be in print! (Yeah, I can actually accomplish this, but as I discovered when I tried to sketch it on the envelope, it's much harder work than it looks.)
Hey, I bet I could make it fatter in the middle, sort of lozenge-shaped, and bigger, and it could be a doily! Yeah! No, wait, they're more likely to publish a bookmark. Scratch that. (Right. Plus, whether I could actually bring this one to fruition - without having ever designed as much as a bookmark in bobbin lace to date - is questionable.)
Y'know, what everybody really wants to see is Milanese lace. And I've got a Milanese book coming from the IOLI library! That's it! I can make something all neat and swirly, La Tene style! (A good idea for some other time. Like some time when I don't have a small baby?)
And I gotta clean the kitchenandthebathroomsandandand... (Hyper much?)
Shoot. Dammit. Might as well stick world peace in there while I'm at it. I blame going to bed on time!

I never get any of this stuff done. I can accomplish these things. I could easily design small lace pieces, and it would be good exercise - I'd learn a lot. I could certainly learn all there is to know about Old English, if I could study just Old English for a few years; it's right up my alley. But I don't; I didn't when I was baby-free, and I'm not spending any time on it now, either.

I accomplish some things. I taught myself Japanese. That was fun. I understand how knitted lace works, and I probably know as much about how bobbin lace works as 50% of the bobbin lacers out there (it's a big subject). Hmm. None of these things are accomplishments I can point to, unless I started designing in the threadcrafts that I understand so well. But designing is less *shiny* than learning new things - it means working on something that I already understand, which means it doesn't pull at my attention like the things I don't understand.

But I digress.

See, this is what I mean about the sleep, is the point. Saturday night I came to bed on time, at 10. Sunday night at 11 (Eric and I stayed up to watch Casino Royale). Last night I made it to bed at 12, still what I consider early (others in the household would disagree), and still getting 7 hours of sleep. These were the earliest three times I came to bed in the past week, I think. And now? My brain is running too fast to be of any use.

Bobbin lace
I never did get much bobbin lace done, except when I lived with my parents and didn't have to cook. But now with the baby, I get even less.

However, I did manage to finish off and turn in the piece that I had mostly completed before the birth: a Torchon square to be used in the making of a table runner that my group, the Liberty Lacers, will be allowing an as-yet-undetermined charity to auction off. Here it is:

Torchon square

And here are the bobbins I cut off of it when it was done:

Lotsa bobbins

And here is what I am going to make with them next:

Brigitte Bellon ornament

No more tiny Old Brussels Duchesse or many-bobbined Bucks Point. Between this book of ornaments and a few tatted Christmas ornaments I made last year, I hope to be able to attach a lace Christmas tree ornament to a present for each close family member, where "close" means close enough to understand that handmade lace is priceless!

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas
I was reading this grisly news report when it occurred to me that The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas was not the far-fetched thought experiment that I had thought it was.

See, I've been reading about Asian societies lately, most of which run the gamut from socially repressive on one end to politically totalitarian on the other. But what they've got going for them, on the whole, is order. Bizarre stories like the above are far less common (though not, I hasten to admit, unknown) in states where society frowns on the individual for stepping even slightly out of line.

So, in a sense, by choosing to have a relatively free and open (if not as much as it used to be!) society, we have chosen an Omelas where we get to choose our occupation, choose our living arrangements, and pursue our dreams, but at the cost of someone somewhere falling afoul of a serial killer or deranged fetus-snatcher.

On the other hand, societies which choose to regulate behavior tightly buy order at the cost of a different sort of Omelas. I don't think there's any solution where nobody gets hurt.

Sitting
Peter sat - balanced himself for a couple of seconds in a slouched sitting position - without being propped up today. Also, he now regularly rests on his elbows instead of arching his whole back to hold his head up.

Yay!

Oh, and went to bed without crying.

Gentle rain, unquiet brain
For the past two days there's been steady, gentle, cool, refreshing rain. It feels so quiet and calm. I miss rain like this, that lasts for days instead of hours. I seem to remember Pittsburgh getting this kind of rain more often than the Eastern seaboard places I've lived ever since.

In this case, of course, it is because of the tattered remnants of a tropical storm passing overhead.

I've been bursting lately with the need to conlang, to invent languages. For a few weeks or a month, the pressure has been built up in me. However, I've been holding off because I don't have a brain! Conlanging is a creative effort that I can only satisfactorily engage in with the part of my brain that doesn't thrive on lack of sleep. Currently I can only do straightforward, a-then-b type thinking, and not even enough of that. Memory is shot; things I wanted to do surface in my mind like debris under a waterfall, and I try to catch them while they're on the surface, before they swirl back under again. I am interrupt-driven. I must do what I remember, when I remember it.

All my life I've used lack of sleep to slow my brain down to the point where I can get simple daily things done, but certainly not this much lack of sleep. Since two weeks ago I have my connected sleep back - most nights - but I have traded sheer hours of sleep for that privilege, I think. I am not sure. I do not have records of how much sleep I lost waiting 1/2 an hour each time the baby fell back asleep before moving him back to the crib, under the old regime. (Under the new regime, if he does convince us to get him up and feed him, he goes back in right afterwards, asleep or awake - and likes it.)

I don't think I've ever run my brain in full getting-enough-sleep mode for more than three days in a row, since high school at least. Certainly not five days. It was college when I first realized that lack of sleep functioned like reins on my brain. Once it gets fully powered up, my brain goes out of control; I get obsessed with something, and start focussing in on narrower and narrower aspects of the problem until I'm only running through an obsessive series of simulations - and invariably (even fortunately), in this state I stay up way too late, which causes a crash back to dull, a-then-b thinking. The cycle may have been influenced by hormones; it sometimes seemed synched to my monthly cycle, a problem I don't have at the moment.

I'm not really in danger of getting that much sleep these days. Maybe I should try, though. Maybe without a monthly hormonal cycle, the out-of-control part wouldn't happen.

And anyway, for the first time in my life I think life is becoming challenging enough that I could really use my brain.

Sleeping through the night
Peter is sleeping through the night. Ironically, this has decreased the amount of sleep I get.

See, under the old system, as soon as we finally got him nursed to sleep I would dive gratefully into the bed and turn off the light. Then in the morning, I'd go back to sleep with him for two more hours or so while Eric headed off to work.

Now, he goes to bed earlier so we have our evenings back - no diving into bed at 9; I usually miss the target bedtime of 10 by up to 1/2 an hour. Also, he is on to us and we can't nurse or rock him to sleep; we are left with putting him in the crib, where he screams for a while. So I couldn't dive into bed at 7 when he goes to bed even if I wanted to, even if we weren't sitting down to dinner then.

Also, since the sleep I do get is in decent, long stretches (if I wake up in the middle of the night it's not Peter's fault), when I'm up in the morning, I'm up. No more going back to bed.

I'm so tired.

I need a nap!

But Peter is still a bit shaky on the nap concept. Two days in a row he'll have a 4 or even 5 hour nap, then the next day he can't nap to save his life. And I've never been good at napping. There's too much to do.

In other news, after finishing Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, I noticed a book on the shelf I'd never read (I save some books for a rainy day): Vonda N. McIntyre's The Moon and the Sun. The Baroque Cycle had introduced me to the grittier points of Louis XIV's court at Versailles. Ironically, the glittering, infamously decadent court was really a way of grinding the French nobility beneath his heel, trivializing and humiliating them by making them into a species of lapdog (yappy, bitey, intensely competitive and ultimately powerless). In a further irony, this probably contributed to the fall of the French monarchy down the line...

Anyway, recollecting that The Moon and the Sun was set at Versailles as well, I picked it up. It is wonderful! At the end the author cites some of her sources, and mentions a female Baroque composer, Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre, whom I'd never heard of. Apparently it wasn't so much a lack of women artists back then, as a lack of interest in them which continues to this day.

I have updated the last friends-only entry with some photos of Peter.

A period of seclusion
I was thinking the other day about the fact that we are in a period of seclusion.

Our pediatrician advised us not to have Peter out in public - even in grocery stores - for the first eight weeks (which, happily, will be up just in time for July 4th!) After that point, of course, we want him exposed to as many germs as possible, and he should get sick at least once in his first year; but for now, I get out amazingly little, and the times I do get out break down into: a) to doctors, with Peter; or b) the rare errand that I run myself, leaving Peter with Eric.

It is really a hermit-like lifestyle, even for me.

On another note, I've developed a new sub-flavor of House Dreams.

Up until recently, there were four flavors of House Dreams that I'd had at various times in my life.

Flavor 1: the Independence Dream. When I've had it: during teen and college years until I got my first apartment. How it goes: I discover a hidden, blocked-off room in the house, which strangely is furnished and clean, and is all mine. (Yes, I did have my own room, but this was a new, secret room.)

Flavor 2: the Intricate Chambers Dream. When I've had it: my whole life, more or less. How it goes: In a familiar house (these days, always my or my best friend's childhood home), I discover secret passageways leading to an expansive, multi-level basement complex, stairways in the walls, extra attic rooms, etc. etc.

Flavor 3: the Anxiety Dream. When I've had it: either my whole life or since I moved out of my parents, not sure which. How it goes: I'm in a house or apartment, often unfamiliar, alone or with roommates, and it has way too many doors. I'm trying to get them all locked at once, but they suffer from the following shortcomings: 1) doors which people keep leaving unlocked; 2) doors which do not lock; 3) doors which do not latch or close properly; 4) big open spaces which are completely indefensible and can't even be called doors.

Flavor 4: the Freedom Dream. When I've had it: in recent years. How it goes: I am going back to college, and have been assigned a dorm room or have rented an off-campus apartment. Various mundane roommate and furnishing details follow, with the occasional weird skullduggery plot offshoot. I am never married and have no responsibilities.

Well, I was rather amused the other day to discover House Dream Flavor 4a:

Flavor 4a: the Shared Freedom Dream. When I've had it: about a week ago. How it goes: Eric and I are going back to college, yadda yadda dorm room yadda yadda apartment. We do not have a baby, and have no responsibilities.

The world goes on
When we brought Peter home, the rhododendrons were in full, magnificent, hot pink bloom. I looked out the window today and realized they are full of dead flowers.

The beautiful irises Mom gave me bloomed after we brought Peter home, and faded away before I'd had more than one chance to take pictures. (But the lilies have started now...)

The first time after we brought Peter home that I had a chance to read the newspaper, three days in, I discovered that we'd missed a primary election the day before.

The weeds are flourishing. I've wanted to weed since before the hospital, but it's been three weeks and they're growing tall.

The rest of the world keeps moving, and I can't quite catch up.

Goodbye Grandpa
Right now, a small memorial service is being held for the only grandfather I've ever known, at the old folks' home where he lived the past few years with my grandmother. Sadly, I am far too pregnant to drive three hours to attend; I will have to make my contribution here.

Grandpa at Christmas

Grandpa always knew exactly what he knew and what he didn't know, an awareness that was increasingly painful for him over the past few years as his memory deteriorated, but allowed him to keep his dignity. He stayed the same man he always had been, serious but smart-alecky, somewhat cocky, and an enthusiastic raconteur. It was sad to see him looking helpless when he realized he'd forgotten a branch of the family, or couldn't remember what he was saying; but he never filled in the gaps with fantasy, although we did get to hear some stories over the last year which he had refrained from telling in the past.

Grandpa built a great many things in his life, with skill and obsessive attention to detail. He loved his family and adored his grandchildren. I am very sad that he will not meet his latest great-grandchild, which would have been his fifth.

Grandpa was 94 and very weary of his decline. Rest in peace, Grandpa.

O Fortuna
My grandfather is dying, and I'm having a baby.

Grandpa doesn't eat anymore. He is 94. The baby is officially full-term at 37 weeks - ok to come any time now, no longer premature.

Grandpa can't eat. He has an esophageal diverticulum. He doesn't want a feeding tube.

This morning I put on my socks without feeling like the wind was knocked out of me. The baby is moving lower in my belly - probably not fully engaged just yet. I wasn't expecting this for another week or two.

Mom doesn't know if Grandpa will last a week, or two, or more. Mean time between engagement of a firstborn child and birth is a week, but it could be two, or more.

I don't want this to be a race to the finish line.

Dear Mr. Classical Music Station
Dear Mr. Classical Music Station,

First of all, thank you for the baroque music. There is always at least one baroque piece in the morning wake-up timeslot, for which I am thankful, and I've learned about three new composers so far. The 7:15 "Sousa-larm" is kind of cool too, in a no-more-than-once-a-day sort of way. And a thousand million thanks for not going all talk format like some radio stations I could mention.

However, please indicate what is up with the worldwide classical music station conspiracy to play drifty sleepy Ralph-Vaughan-Williams-Lark-Ascending crap during the afternoon Circadian dip? True, it's actually quite beautiful music, but where's the beat? It's hard enough staying awake from 2-3 pm without wandering through some afternoon of a faun or majestic tone painting.

Baroque is great! Mozart is great. I am not totally biased against the modern; Copland rocks. Barber's Adagio for Strings is always a winner. Just, you know, try to play things with some structure.

Oh, and earlier music than baroque wouldn't hurt either.

Current Music: Harmonia

Meme gacked from cousin_sue
Four Jobs You've Had In Your Life:

I only have three resume-able jobs. After the last three we get into school-job territory:

1. sysadmin/customer support for an application that runs on SUN workstations
2. internet install engineer
3. internet install engineer, at a smaller company that ended up bought (after I'd left) by job #2.
4. College: computer lab help tech; on-campus convenience store clerk. High school: page at the local library.

Four Movies you Could Watch Over and Over Again:

Hmmm. I'm not big on the over-and-over again. And listing all the LoTR's would be cheating.

1. LoTR, extended editions
2. American Beauty? Not more than three times before I'd be sick of it.
3. Once I would have said Star Wars, but hoo boy, not anymore.
4. I'd like to see Lawrence of Arabia again. Once.

I must be missing something obvious here.

Four Places You've Lived:

My first reaction: surely I haven't lived four places! Second reaction: that's four states you haven't lived in, dumbbell.

This one is in forward chronological order instead of reverse:

1. Pittsburgh!
2. Columbia, MD
3. various dorms and apartments in MD and VA
4. Philly!

Four TV Shows You Love(d) to Watch:

Ok, in their time, I loved to watch:

1. Buffy tVS
2. Max Headroom!
3. Twin Peaks
4. Um... Xena.

I don't watch TV now. Anything worth seeing comes out on DVD.

Four Places You've Been On Vacation:

1. Tennessee World's Fair
2. Alaska!
3. Yosemite park
4. I think we went to Niagara Falls too.

Four Blogs You Visit Daily:

1. which_chick
2. athenais
3. ozarque
4. cousin_sue (you didn't think I'd forget the meme-source? :)

Four of Your Favorite Foods:

1. a good Indian buffet
2. a good Thai restaurant
3. my honey-mustard-curry chicken
4. my husband's yummy pot pie

Four Places You'd Rather Be:

Nowhere. We bought a beautiful house, which is even beautiful inside due to husband's insistence on actual, you know, unpacking, and I love it here.

There are places I'd like to go, but noplace I'd rather be.

Four Vehicles You've Owned:

I have not owned four cars. So:

1. 1999 silver Saturn SL2
2. 1975 pea-green Buick Century!
3. bicycle I bought in 2000
4. Er... bicycle I owned as a child :)

I have had four pets, though, counting the familial pets I grew up with.

Meme!
Meme from just about everybody on my friendslist:

Name a CD you own that you think no-one else on your friendslist does:

Hmm, which genre to pick? :)

Ok, this isn't a shoo-in but I'm going for A Circle is Cast by Libana.

Name a book you own that you think no-one else on your friendslist does:

Well... how about "Language Typology and Syntactic Description Vol. III: Grammatical Categories and the Lexicon"? Although technically there is somebody on my friendslist from the Conlang group who might well have this, which would probably also go for any random obscure foreign language dictionaries I could claim.

I could also bet on "The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft" by Ronald Hutton. Granted, I would only get points for this due to my not having friended some friends I have in Virginia. Same goes for the Libana CD, I think.

Name a movie you own on DVD/VHS/whatever that you think no-one else on your friendslist does:

"Orlando". If I'm wrong, let me know. It would be fun to discuss :)

Name a place that you have visited that you think no-one else on your friendslist has:

CCCP, 1989, about nine months before the Wall fell in Berlin. Saw Leningrad, Moscow, and Riga (Latvia - it was part of the Soyuz Sovyetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik at the time. We went to Riga instead of Kiev out of concern Kiev might still have been glowing faintly).

If that doesn't win, maybe the honeymoon in Alaska counts.

Name a piece of technology or any sort of tool you own that you think no-one else on your friendslist has:

Technology, tools... I wonder if crafting supplies count. If it's not crafting supplies it would probably have to be software.

Ok, how about a linoleum cutter, the kind used for carving designs into linoleum blocks for printing?