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Happy birthday, nadyezhda!

Happy birthday, cute_fuzzy_evil!

Elena told us both last night that when she grows up, she wants to be a doctor. No word yet on whether she will be the kind of doctor who gives shots. (She was up till nearly midnight, just NOT SLEEPING. Thank the gods she's in school today, because if she were home with me, I have a feeling it would be whininess galore.)

Also, a cool link for you. The accompanying link is pretty cool too. (scroll down for COOL MAPS)

Aaaaaaand, I should be working. Back in the breach, dear friends!

This gives me chills.

I recently discovered the community of whatwasthatbook - which aims to help people remember books they've forgotten the title of..... It's mostly YA/children's books, which is kind of fun, actually. Many of you would totally groove on this community. I posted last week, but haven't had any luck. I'll put my description ( under the cut )

Also, Geek Alert!

Also, I am now on Ravelry.com (first name, last initial). I befriended the people I knew to look for, but if you're over there, poke me.

We've had a sanj visitation! She even got to tour the new house (the first person to do so, really), and gave my wardrobe a quick scan (well, just what was hanging in the closet). And..... we get her back on Monday too.

We went out for dinner tonight (we are moving in less than 2 days. There is NO food in the house. It's dire. But I categorically refuse to bring anything into this house that I will have to carry out again. That includes packaging.), and Elena ate tons of salsa, while barely blinking an eye. It wasn't hugely spicy - this is Massachusetts, after all - but I was still impressed.

So yes, with the moving. I am having trouble measuring our progress, but I guess we're doing okay. It will all get done. And I rather like the unpacking part - finding new spots for things to live, and all that. So I'm looking forward to that.

I should be packing now, but I'm So. Tired. I think I'll go to bed instead, and see if being a functional upright person tomorrow helps with productivity levels. I sorta suspect it might.

A propos of nothing - are you (that is, the collective you) familiar with Neil Gaiman's story "The Problem of Susan"? About Susan Pevensie from the Chronicles of Narnia. I found it online here, and it's quite fascinating. I should add that as a non-Christian child, the allegory of Narnia went straight over my head by a million miles, and so I didn't get that Susan's love for lipstick and nylons meant that she was going to hell, or that there was no room for a sexualized (or pubertal?) woman in heaven, or whatever it is I'm supposed to have gotten from that. Like, I still always forget that it's supposed to be an allegory - usually to me, it's just a cool children's book series in which occasionally characters spout off things that don't make sense in context. So I read these things now, and the lightbulb goes on. 25 years later. Yup.

I'm feeling rather too parenthetical and tangential to make any sense tonight. So it's off to bed. If I don't post tomorrow, I'll, um, see you on the other side (i.e. once we have internets in the New! House! Whee!).

Bed. Yes. Thud.

My hands are so cold I'm having trouble typing, but I feel like posting, so you're stuck with me, bad spelling and all.

Here's a link I couldn't resist, for the lawyers and also for anyone who lives in a small town: Jury selection in Montana's least populous county. I should note that my hometown would not be in this situation, lest you all get the wrong idea about Montana. Just *parts* of Montana are like this.

I did read another book, very very fast: Growing Up Fast by Joanna Lipper. About teen pregnancy, in beautiful Pittsfield MA (my current workplace 75% of the week). I've been meaning to read this book *forever*, based on the subject material and proximity to places I know. Now that I live here, it seemed like time to do it. Um. Highly depressing. She basically tells the stories of 6 teen moms, mostly in their own words. Abuse, drugs, lack of opportunities, missed opportunities, dysfunction, dysfunction, dysfunction..... A good depiction of what it's like to be stuck in a town that's going nowhere, and going nowhere yourself.

Elena is.... crazy. Talking more than ever, even if it doesn't always make sense:

Tonight at bedtime, getting a story to read before bed
Me: Okay, let's sit here and read the story.
E: (lying down) Ta[ke] nap.
Me: Okay, you can take a nap, but aren't we going to read the story?
E: (fake snoring noises)

"Ta[ke] nap" is one of her new favorite phrases, but often seems to have nothing to do with napping or sleeping. It's often hard to tell.

Her favorite books right now are The Bunny Book (Richard Scarry), If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, and Green Eggs and Ham. Multiple consecutive readings. OTOH, she has some of the books memorized enough that she can recite some lines herself.

Her favorite food, bar none, is crackers. Specifically Wheat Thins, though she'll eat virtually any cracker we give her. At nearly every single meal, she ends up asking for "tat-ers? tat-ers?" and if I refuse ("But honey, you just had a metric ton of crackers at lunch!") she instantly gets hysterical and screams and her face turns bright red, while howling "tat-ers! tat-ers!" most pathetically. Her sodium levels are gonna go through the roof. Perhaps I should start buying low-sodium crackers. Sheesh.

I've been... turtling (to use sanj's phrase) a little bit, but I think I'm starting to come out of it. Maybe. Of course, it's hard to tell by my exciting not-so-varied routine - I take care of E, I go to work, I try to do a few rows of my exciting bathroom rug project (exciting only to me), and then read a little bit. Repeat daily.

A link and a quote:

First off, a video from the BBC who interviewed the wrong guy for a piece on downloading music. This guy was there for a job interview and there was a mix-up and he ended up on-air, and well, he just charged ahead and gave his opinion. The look on his face is priceless though.

And this quote made me laugh like crazy: "My sister and I used to joke that the best way to get a guy to stop bothering you at a bar was tell him you were doing your Masters thesis on post-colonial feminist theory. It totally works." Found here, from an interview of one of the writers of Feministing.com.

Geoffrey Chaucer has a blog! I've just skimmed, but my favorite line so far is "Take two pintes of hagen dasz dulce de leche, a ful seson of buffie the vampyre slayre, and calle me in the morninge."

In other news, Elena got galagan's cold, so she is a walking snot factory.

When I was little, I loved dollhouses, and all things miniature. (That's what rivka and I played with the most, to the best of my memory.) It's been a long time since I dabbled in that field - but you gotta look at this: it's simply amazing.

And it's got hobbits!! Just wow.

Penguin link for xen_opus and nadyezhda