Braggalicious Meme

I'm approaching 60%. There might be a few more I've actually done, but my memory is a little fuzzy. I tried to err on the conservative side where I wasn't sure.

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you're not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied (in general)
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo's David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone's life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Read an entire book in one day

In All My Glory

Via my old, old (circa fall 1985) friendly acquaintance Bill Shunn: Take a picture of yourself right now. Don’t change your clothes. Don’t fix your hair. Just take a picture. Post that picture with no editing. (Except maybe to get the image size down to something reasonable. Don’t go posting an eight megapixel image.) Include these instructions.

This is killing two birds with one stone, because it shows my new t-shirt, purchased at Adriana's urging.


And here's a gratuitous kid pic, which I snapped the other day to send off for an alumni newsletter:

I'm boring!

Adriana tagged me for this meme.

Here are six unspectacular things about me:

1. I drive a Honda Odyssey.
2. I love chocolate.
3. I am a liberal Democrat (I suppose this isn't so unspectacular in the context of my family or church! It's definitely unspectacular in my neighborhood and in the mom crowd at Newton's school.).
4. I think my children are geniuses.
5. I hate sweating or being out of breath.
6. I love to read, and don't do as much of it as I should.

Meme terms & conditions:

Link the person who tagged you.
Mention the rules on your blog.
List 6 unspectacular things about you.
Tag 6 other bloggers by linking them.

I tag the Laundry Queen, Tams, Nat, Krista, Jen, and MWR.

Photo Mosaic Meme

Too lazy to get to the other posts I have percolating, I turn to memes. This one is from Jana.



Here's the meme:
If you want to play too, type your answer to each of the questions below into a Flickr search. Using only the first page, choose your favorite image, then copy and paste each of the URL’s into the mosaic maker (3 columns, 4 rows)(If you don't have a flickr account, try here--though I found I had to create an account there to make it work easily. Maybe I ought to just set up a flickr account.). Leave a comment if you play, so I can see your results.

The questions:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you attend?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What do you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you.
12. Your Flickr name (or something close--I don't have a flickr account, and usernames I use elsewhere turned up no results).

If you don't want to play, see if you can guess what all my search terms were.

Threes Meme

My sister recently started blogging (about time!) and tagged me for this Threes meme. List: 3 joys, 3 fears, 3 goals, 3 obsessions/collections and 3 random surprising facts about yourself. Tag 5 people at the end of the post by leaving their names and then let them know they've been tagged by commenting on their blog.

3 Joys (I won't list my husband and children here--that's way too obvious)
1. Living in Portland
2. Sleeping in
3. Dual-tuner DVR

3 Fears
1. Driving off the Fremont Bridge (I cross it at least twice a day most days, since it's on the most direct route between our house and Newton's school)

2. Supreme Court Justice Antonin "Nino" Scalia (seriously--I once had a nightmare about him when I was in law school)
3. Losing my mind

3 Goals
1. Play more with my kids
2. Do better at letting the unimportant things go
3. Stop bugging my eyes out all the time. I'm mostly unaware I'm doing it, but when I see candid shots taken while I'm talking, or myself on video, I can see as how small children could be frightened.

3 Obsessions/Collections
1. Table linens
2. Materials for never-finished or even never-begun projects. 80% of these are sewing/craft projects, the rest mostly home improvement.
3. Stone bead necklaces

3 Random Facts
1. I can touch the tip of my tongue to my nose



2. I hate having polish on my fingernails
3. I was a really really really picky eater as a child--like, I'm so glad none of my kids (knocking on wood) are as bad as I was. I would pick every single little bit of minced onion out of my spaghetti sauce or off my Big Mac. I'm amazed my mom put up with it at all.

I tag my childhood friends Krista and Nat, and grownup friends The Scary Feminists from Hell (if any of them are so inclined).

Six-Word Memoir

Adriana tagged me on the six-word memoir. The blog version of this idea originated with Bookbabie and was inspired by Not Quite What I Was Planning, a compilation of six-word memoirs edited by Rachel Fershleiser and Larry Smith.

Here's how this one works:

1. Write your own six-word memoir
2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like
3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere
4. Tag five more blogs with links (I did six--so sue me)
5. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play! (I'll only do this if I think they might not read my blog regularly)

Here's mine:

Back where I began, with baggage.

I'm tagging Swizzies, MWR, Birrd (congrats on your new little one!), Jana, Jana and Jana (my sister, who doesn't have a blog yet--though she should--can leave hers in the comments).

Grasping at Straws

I've been busy, sick, tired, injured, and otherwise disinclined to post much lately. So here's a meme courtesy of Jana:

What kind of soap do you have in your bathtub/shower right now?
Safeguard for Mavis; Cetaphil normal-to-oily for my face (everyone should use this, since it's a) cheap; b) gentle; and c) water-soluble, leaving no residue); Skin Milk for my body.

What color or design is on your shower curtain?
The shower in our bathroom has a frameless glass door, 3/8" thick. The kids' tub/shower has a glass brick-patterned curtain, currently tucked up out of the way since none of them take showers yet.

What would you change about your living room?
Nicer coffee table, if we decide to keep having one (we go back and forth--I grew up without one); piano bench to match the piano; smaller-proportioned couch to match the loveseat I love; UV-blocking film for the north window to prevent further fading.

How many plants are in your home?
None. I would kind of like a carnivorous plant for the kitchen windowsill, but I'm not very good with houseplants. We have very few window coverings on the first-floor windows, so we don't lack for green things in view.

Are the dishes in the dishwasher clean or dirty?
Clean. Mavis does the dishes every night after the kids are in bed (though I think he should start doing them right after dinner and enlisting help from the boys), and I unload some time during the next day, often during dinner prep (I should get more help from the boys with this part, too).

Do you drink out of glass or plastic most of the time at home?
Glass.

Do you have iced tea, made in a pitcher, right now?
Something tells me this meme was originally composed in the summer. But no, and not even in summer. I prefer filtered ice water.

Do you have any watermelon in your refrigerator?
Ah. Definitely summer. No, not currently, though sometimes in summer. But they are kind of heavy to schlep around at the farmers' market.

So, what is in your fridge?
Milk (organic nonfat and 2%), just over a pint of half-and-half, a pint of buttermilk, half a dozen eggs, chicken bones, carrots and celery (I'm out of chicken stock, so it's time to make it), parmesan rinds (hopefully I'll remember to toss them in the stock this time), film for the film camera we've stopped using and which I think is currently residing behind my dresser, an apple, an orange and a bag of locally-grown kiwis, half a butternut squash, two zucchini, half a bunch of scallions, peanut butter, whole wheat flour, rice flour, cornmeal, steel-cut oats, sweet cucumber chips, a dish of baking soda, tiny containers of chutney and raita from Indian takeout, Number One's leftover Subway sandwich, cooked chicken. I think (without looking) that's most of the stuff on the shelves. If you really want to know the vast array of seldom-used condiments in the door, let me know.

What’s on top of your refrigerator?
Surplus cereal, Hebrew alphabet magnets, fridge accessories we don't use (ice bin, two-liter-bottle holder).

White or wheat bread?
Whole wheat. Vita-Bee!

Comet or Soft Scrub?
I might have some ancient Comet (definitely Bon Ami, since it's non-abrasive) under a sink somewhere, but I rarely do any of my own cleaning. I think my cleaning lady and her crew use something like Soft Scrub, but a non-fuming version since they switched to greener cleaning products.

Is your bed made now?
The comforter is kind of pulled up, but not all the way. Our bed is never truly made by anyone other than the biweekly house cleaners, much to my mother's horror when she comes to visit.

Is your closet organized?
Sort of. It's not a huge walk-in closet, so it kind of has to be. It's overdue for a sorting and tossing, but there aren't random piles of stuff or anything.

Can you describe your flashlight?
We have a couple of the hand-crank/solar ones in a sunny spot, a mini maglite in the kitchen junk drawer, and a couple of small LED ones in various spots.

If you have a garage, is it cluttered?
Most of the clutter is in the basement, but the garage has a few things that could stand to be cleaned up, and a pile of sawdust left over from the construction of our eco-roof last spring.

Yay Me!

Adriana dubbed me a Rockin' Girl Blogger! I'm touched. She already tapped the other Scary Feminists, so my Girls Who Rock are Jana Riess, another jana, and, and, I don't know who else I could tag who could be trusted to read this. If you want me to tag you, speak up!

Would a Rose by Any Other Name Smell as Sweet?

So, Janet posted a meme, in which you're supposed to grab the nearest book, turn to page 123, find the fifth sentence, and post the next four sentences. So, the nearest book (sitting right here on the desk in front of my monitor) is A Dictionary of First Names (Oxford), and the four sentences on page 123 starting at about the fifth sentences are:

Francesco (m.) Italian: originally a vocabulary word meaning 'French' or 'Frenchman' (Late Latin Franciscus; cf. Frank). This was a nickname given to St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) because of his wealthy father's business connections in France. His baptismal name was Giovanni. He had a pleasant, ordinary life as a child and young man, but after two serious illnesses, a period of military service, and a year as a prisoner of war in Perugia, he turned from the world and devoted himself to caring for the poor and the sick. He was joined by groups of disciples, calling themselves 'minor friars' (friari minores). The main features of the Franciscan rule are humility, poverty, and love for all living creatures.

Okay, that's a little more than five sentences. Forgive me. The fact that this book was the handiest shows what I've been thinking about lately. Lately meaning the last five months or so: names. In that time, I've been thinking lots about the name we'll give to our third child and first daughter, but also about names for family and friends who have had or will have babies. Not surprisingly, probably, I have very firm ideas about what makes a good name:

1. It should be recognizable as a name. There are so many wonderful names out there, I fail to see the point in making up something new.

2. It should use a standard spelling. Some names have multiple variants already; don't make up something just to be different. Tayler with an e "because she's a girl" doesn't work for me.

3. The child's gender should be at least surmisable. No, I'm not a big fan of the genderless names, from old ones like Terry and Lynn through Shannon and Kelly up to Taylor and Ryan.

4. It should "go" with the last name, at least aurally if not ethnically.

5. It should not be popular or trendy. If people ask me for advice, I strongly urge them not to pick a name in the SSA top 100. I personally would avoid anything in the top 1000. This is not as hard as it sounds. I also try to avoid names already used by family and friends or other kids in the neighborhood. Not that I'm always successful--Number One was not the only kid with his name (which entered the top 1000 for the first time in 125 years last year; the wee feller's name hasn't been in the top 1000 for 20 years, and never ranked higher than the mid-600s) on his baseball team this spring (though the other kid's was pronounced with a short initial vowel).

6. For girls, names should not be overly cutesy, and feminized male names should generally be avoided (Paula, Roberta, Thomasina, etc.).

So with all these rules, I've dabbled some in name consulting, providing lists of names for friends and family who are interested. I've never yet charged, though after reading an article about name consultants in the WSJ a few weeks ago I'm sorely tempted. Not because they're making so much money, just because they're doing such a crappy job! Giving a couple a list of names that runs to over 1000 names or 15 pages isn't doing much to help narrow the field. And who are the people who hire name consultants? Okay, mostly they sound pretty pathetic. It's kind of sad when you pay a name consultant to come up with something "original" and then you end up with a name (from the consultant's list) that's been in the top 50 for the last three years. Yeah, really original.*

So, if you're interested in what names I'd recommend for you, drop me a line. I won't even charge you, and I promise the list will all fit easily on one page. The last two lists I made had 14 names (for a girl, a fairly winnowed-down list) and 33 names (for a boy, a very rough first-draft list). And hey--if you've got serious suggestions for Ingeborg's real name (that meet all my rules above), by all means pass them along!

*The names picked by the name-consultant clients in the article: Leah Marie, Anna Irene, Ava, Nicole Josephine, Max Phillip, Ross, Natalie, Evander Jet, Sheridan, Beckett, Gabriel Rush (these last three were chosen by name consultants for their own children), Jackson Dean, and Jackson Thomas. Of these, all the girl names but Sheridan, which is not in the top 1000, were in the top 100 last year. Gabriel and Jackson are both top 50, Max 160, Ross and Beckett in the mid-700s, and Evander not in the top 1000.

It is SO on.

So, e-invitations for my birthday bash have gone out. If you didn't get one but want to, let me know.

My First Meme: Books

From MWR:

Hardback or trade paperback or mass-market paperback? New-looking used hardcover (hooray for Powell's) or trade paper.
Amazon or brick and mortar? Both. Amazon for things I'm having shipped elsewhere, or for the latest Harry Potter (I'd much rather pick it up from my doorstep at 8 am on the day of release than wait in line at midnight--but then I'm lazy that way). Powell's, with gift receipt, for things I'm giving in person (I give lots of books as gifts), or for my latest book group book.
Barnes & Noble or Borders? Usually neither, unless I'm traveling.
Bookmark or dog-ear? Bookmark.
Alphabetize by author or alphabetize by title or random? This is assuming that my library is organized. It's pretty random right now, with a lot of the books in boxes in the closet until the attic bookshelves become liberated from toys. The shelves above my bed are my "to-be-read" space.
Keep, throw away, or sell? Keep, loan out, give away, sell to Powell's, donate to the library (hooray tax deduction--great for the books Powell's doesn't want), depending.
Keep dustjacket or toss it? Keep.
Read with dustjacket or remove it? Leave it and use it as a bookmark if another is not handy. Mavis leaves the dust jacket at home if he's carrying the book with him on his commute, so it doesn't get battered/torn.
Short story or novel? Novel, definitely. I very rarely read short stories, because they almost invariably leave me wanting more.
Collection (short stories by same author) or anthology (short stories by different authors)? I don't really like short stories all that much, but if I find someone I do like (like Katherine Anne Porter), I want to read them all.
Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket? I've read all Harry Potters multiple times. I keep thinking I need to read the Lemony Snickets (Number One's about the right age to start), but haven't gotten around to it yet. Maybe when I buy them for Number One. I also knew the illustrator of the series, Brett Helquist, when I lived in New York. I don't think there is such a thing as outgrowing a good book.
Stop reading when tired or at chapter breaks? Stop reading? People do this?
"It was a dark and stormy night" or "Once upon a time"? I generally don't judge the quality of a book by its first sentence.
Buy or Borrow? Yes.
New or used? Yes (Powell's is great for new-looking used copies at a fraction of the cost of new, especially right after Christmas when people have had to sell back gift books for which they did not have a receipt).
Buying choice: book reviews, recommendation or browse? Almost never browse. Reviews and awards, recommendations if they are from someone whose taste I trust.
Tidy ending or cliffhanger? Yes.
Morning reading, afternoon reading or nighttime reading? Yes. But usually at night after the kids are in bed.
Standalone or series? Yes.
Favorite book of which nobody else has heard? Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund. Not completely unknown, I must admit.
Favorite book(s) read last year: Daughter's Keeper by Ayelet Waldman.
Favorite books of all time? Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins, Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, Middlemarch by George Eliot, anything by Jane Austen, The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood. Lots more that don't come to mind at the moment.
Tag? The Scaries.