'round midnight

Bright lights, big city and a very happy All Hallow's Eve!

And especially for Emily, here's the link for virtual pumpkin carving (with bonus eerie candle glow action!)

straight and narrow

Apron Strings sent out a heartfelt plea to the universe at large and to me in particular for a map to guide her through the Slough of Despond (or, if you prefer to swipe your metaphors from children's board games rather than 17th century Christian allegories) the Molasses Swamp that is the who/whom distinction. Like, when are you supposed to use "who" and when are you supposed to use "whom?"

Now, I'm the first to admit that, while I have a perfectly adequate array of talents, grammar is, sadly, not among them. Nonetheless, I will share with you my time-tested, easy-to-apply, practically-never-fail who/whom rule. Ready? Cause here it is.

Unless you're absolutely, positively sure it's supposed to be "whom," you should always use "who."

Because if you use "who" when you really should be using "whom," you're incorrect.

But if you use "whom" when you really should be using "who," you're not only incorrect, but you also sound like a prissy grammar snob.* A prissy grammar snob who can't actually, y'know, use proper grammar.

hugs n kisses,
niobe

*Not that there's anything wrong with that.


Please feel free to add your own grammatical tips, tricks and pet peeves in the comments.

dead reckoning

Reading an interesting and thoughtful end-of-October post by the always interesting and thoughtful Sprogblogger and what I thought was this:

One of my kids is too old to dress up for Halloween and the other is too young. But the twins? They're going to be ghosts.



What are you or your children planning to be for Halloween?

asked and answered

My mother is not the kind of parent who hands out unwanted (or, for that matter, wanted) advice. She's never told how to put on lipstick or to raise children.

When I'd ask her what she thought I should do, she'd ask me right back, Niobe, what does your heart say?. And I tried to listen, really I did, but but the only thing I ever heard was the sound of my mind, clicking through the options like a ball on a roulette wheel.*

Follow your heart, she'd say. And it took me a very long time to understand that my heart wasn't going anywhere at all.



Do you like giving advice? Getting advice? Have you ever gotten a piece of really good advice, but found you just couldn't follow it?



*Though, in the fierce light of hindsight, even without having actually read Dan Savage, it's blindingly obvious that the correct answer to practically every single one of my questions was DTMFA.

and the winner . . . .

Chosen by random.org's totally random number generator (which I stupidly failed to take a screen shot of)
.
.
.


And who will no longer be able to say that she never wins anything
.

.

.
.
.
.

is... the lovely and talented.... Bluebird!





Bluebird, please send me an email at like.niobe.all.tears AT gmail DOT com and tell me where to send your prize.

Everyone else, thanks so much for giving us your reading suggestions and may the random number generator smile on you next time.

pumpkin patch

Some orange and fall-themed items I saw at the county fair.

And, remember, there's still time to enter the giveaway in the previous post. Winner will be chosen at the end of the day tomorrow.

free stuff absolutely free

So, here's the deal: while sorting through the expired coupons that seem to spontaneously generate in my car's cupholder, I found a very much non-expired $25 gift card to Barnes & Noble. I figured that, since up until that very minute I didn't know that I had it, I wouldn't really miss it if I gave it away. Hence, I'm doing exactly that. And, because the card can be used online, this particular giveaway is open to everyone, everywhere.

To enter this giveaway, just leave a comment to this post telling us what book or other item you plan to use the gift card for. Or, leave a suggestion (perhaps something you've read recently) about what the winner (in the unhappy event it's not you) should use the gift card for. Check out the Barnes & Noble website if you need ideas.

Now, I know some people don't like patronizing eville stores like B & N. But, here, since the card was already purchased, the money has already been spent, so consider making an exception in this case.

To recap: the rules:

1. Think about what book or other item you'd use the FREE! $25 gift card for if you're the lucky winner.



2. Think about what book or other item someone else should use the FREE! $25 gift card for if she's the lucky winner.



3. Leave a comment to this post that includes your answer to (1) or (2). Or even (1) and (2).
   
   Note: your answer doesn't have to be all that specific and need not include things like title and author. For example: I'd probably use the $ to buy a couple of those historical romance novels where the heroine is named something like Augustiana and always seems to be wearing a dress that evidently belongs to her younger and considerably less bountifully endowed sister is just fine.



4. Sit back, relax and wait for the winner to be randomly selected.



5. If he doesn't call, he's just not that into you.*

*Which, admittedly, has nothing to do with this giveaway, but is always good to keep in mind.

lonely without u

As the first entry in my (very) occasional abandoned-blog series, here's a forgotten blog that I absolutely love: lonely without u.

Not only is the layout quite cool and artistic, the words are kinda like accidental poetry. Or maybe like candy. The kind that's all chewy and sweet and caramelly and, even though you're not especially hungry and every bite makes you feel guilty, you just can't stop eating

U Tell Me, Is this the end?

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

i hate someone in my school. she is a girl name called l** l* k***. i hate her, i hate her. she is so action. i and jessie hate her like hell.

i dreamt about you and me at 4:32 am


Thursday, July 31, 2008

what to do, nothing to so sian

i dreamt about you and me at 9:50 pm

eta: It occurs to me, that while this doesn't exactly satisfy the requirements for Painted Maypole's latest Monday Mission (least of all because today is Tuesday), it does come somewhat close. And, yes, I know what they say about horseshoes and hand grenades. Anyway, click on the picture below for links to some bloggers who can actually follow directions.

baking (updated)

One of Magpie's recent posts inspired me to spend Sunday morning making (and eating!) the exceptionally tasty bread featured in the picture. (click on the link for the embarassingly easy recipe)

And, as K@lakly was nice enough to point out, the bread goes perfectly with the tasty, tasty soup over at her place.

And, on a tangentially related note, Trish has an appointment this afternoon. I'll update to let you know how it goes.


Update: Trish's appointment went very well. Everything looks fine. And one of these days I might even stop composing "well, unfortunately" blog posts in my head while waiting for the results.

the rest is silence

A while back, I found a fascinating blog called One Post Wonder, which is, as the name suggests, a collection of blogs that only contain one -- or, in some cases, two or three -- posts. Inspired, I conducted my own googling expedition and found lots and lots of abandoned blogs.

No matter how prosaic the entries are, the fact that the blogger started to say something and then just . . . stopped wraps the orphaned words in a poignant and glowy and mysterious aura, with a Mary Celeste-ine (Mary Celestial?) or look-on-my-works-ye-mighty-and-despair kind of appeal.

Once upon a time, someone decided to tell us the very beginning of a story. And then, suddenly, no more, all done. It's a story without an end -- or, I suppose, a story that's nothing but an end. And I can't help wondering what happened.

I think I'm going to post a series of the one-post blogs I found, but in the meantime, I'm very curious about how many of you are reading this, but don't blog or don't blog anymore.

So, if you're not a blogger, would you at least consider leaving a comment about why you don't blog and what would make you think about starting one. And if you once had a blog, but gave it up or post much less than you used to -- why did you walk away?


eta: The responses to this post are so interesting and, honestly, not at all what I expected. Thanks so much for your answers. You've given me a lot to think about.

99.7° fahrenheit*

Just because daycare has a 24-hour-fever-free policy, I spent yesterday stuck at home with a slightly-pink-cheeked-but-not-especially-sick baby. Feeling all cheerful and optimistic, I perused a book of baby names and wrote down a long list of possibilities only to find that L didn't like any of them.

Shades of last time round, when I came up with approximately eleventy six zillion names, all of which were nixed by L, who made two suggestions of his own, both of which were names that, for a whole variety of reasons, I never, ever would have considered. In the end, we went with the one that wasn't the name of my ex.

As it turned out, I'm perfectly happy with the name we chose, but, understandably, I'm a bit wary of going through this whole thing again. Oh, and we're both absolutely sure that it's going to be a boy. Because we can pretty much agree on a girl's name.

If this is something you've dealt with, I'm wondering, how did you (or do you plan to) choose the name(s) of your child(ren)? Not so much what the outcome was, but what was the process by which you reached a decision? Who did the looking? Who did the vetoing? What were the factors that came into play?



*Which would be 37.6° celsius. More or less.

the long weekend

We looked at (but didn't manage to actually buy) flat screens, went for a long walk down by the river and another one around the reservoir, stopped by the farmers' market and bought lots of swiss chard, wandered through an enormous street fair, made lentil soup and apple tart and had some people over for dinner who brought their 8-week-old boy-girl twins.

I took a deep breath when I first saw them, tiny and sleeping inside their matching carriers, but, on the whole, it wasn't nearly as stressful as I thought it might be.

How was your weekend? And, (since I know some of you have already tried it and shared the results in the previous post's comments) if you have a few minutes to waste, why not take this fun and educational test,* which (thanks, Kym!) measures your ability to recognize and remember faces.

Predictably, I did fairly atrociously, scoring something like 65%, where the average is around 80%. But I was still pretty pleased with myself since, honestly, for the vast majority of answers I was just blindly guessing. How did you do?



*And, while they ask for your name, age, gender and email, of course, there's no reason (unless you really want to) to give them your real name, age, gender or email. Just make sure your age is over 18 and your email ends with an @ dot something or other.

screening

slightly spooky photo by Gray

I can't remember exactly when we gave our tv away -- probably a month ago, maybe two. Now, we're certainly not trying to make any kind of political or aesthetic statement by going (very temporarily) tv-free, since we have every intention of replacing it with something reasonably large and shiny. We just, well, haven't gotten around to it yet.

Though I will say that, even when we do have a television instead of an empty space on the shelves opposite the couch in the tiny little tv room, it rarely gets turned on. Which is not because I have anything against tv, especially given that I spend plenty of time staring at computer monitors. It's more that noone in the household seems to have any particular interest in sports, coupled with the fact that I have something like a very mild case of prosopagnosia, making following story lines a bit of a challenge.

Anyway, please slake my curiosity and take the poll below. And if you have (a) any brand and model suggestions for a new television or (b) any suggestions of shows I might like or (c) any musings on television and What It Means, I'd love to hear them in the comments.



And I almost forgot to give credit where credit is due, namely to Which Box, who recently posted some thoughts about television that inspired me to post my own thoughts about television.

et cetera

First, many of you have been asking about my sister and I'm very happy to be able to tell you that she's doing better than anyone could have reasonably expected. However, she's still got a long, hard road in front of her. Since she's not up to having visitors, I'm thinking of sending a few little gifts to let her know I'm thinking of her. And I thought I'd reach out to all of you for suggestions.

What kinds of things would you want to have if you were looking at a lengthy homebound recovery period? Reading materials are out and she has people taking care of things like cooking and cleaning, but if you have suggestions for pretty much anything else, I'd very much welcome them.

Second (and this has only the most tangential relation to the previous point), once in a while, someone leaves a comment that I'd like to respond to directly. I click on the person's name, but find no link to a blog or an email. Now, I can understand that some (most?) of you are doing this intentionally, because you're not in the mood for random emails from perfect strangers on the internet or maybe you don't have a blog or whatever.

But on the off chance that you may be unaware of this, I just thought I'd let you know and encourage you to make sure you've enabled the links to your email and/or blog. If, you know, you want to. Because it may not be that I'm ignoring you, just that I have absolutely no idea how to reach you.


Many thanks for all the great gift ideas! Taking many of your suggestions, I've ordered and bought a bunch of things and will be sending them out over the next few weeks.

as barney says....

... sharing is caring.

Now, as a general matter, I realize that I'm not all that good at sharing. But instead of getting into exactly what rather unflattering conclusions one might draw from that, in the I Love You, You Love Me Spirit of A Certain Green and Purple Dinosaur, I'm going to, yes, share with you the comprehensive and definitive and practically-all-inclusive list of things that Niobe hates that everyone else loves. Please, don't all thank me at once.

• Facebook



• chocolate ice cream



• the Beatles (sorry, Mel )



• Woody Allen



• The Giving Tree



• The Velveteen Rabbit



• socks



• catsup (even typing the word creeps me out)



• mustard (ditto)



• the Narnia series



• the Winter Olympics (and, I'll admit it, the Summer Olympics too)



• and did I mention socks?

eta: and wait! There's more! I had almost forgotten a few other things that everyone except me (and, apparently, a few clear-sighted and helpful commenters) loooves and I cannot stand:

• beer


• meatloaf


• Uggs


• mayo (the condiment, not the county)


• Russian dressing


• Ranch dressing


• French dressing


• really pretty much any kind of dressing

One day, if you're very, very lucky, I'll even go so far as to share the inverse or the converse, by which I mean the list of things I love that everyone else hates.

But, in the meantime, why not tell us at least one thing you hate that everyone else loves? And it's more than okay if you want to, uh, share one of mine.

reminiscent

I make a point of ignoring anniversaries, aggressively losing track of dates and if you held a gun to my head, I wouldn’t be able to tell you exactly what day the twins died. But it’s October again and, even if I’m not really thinking of them, I can’t help knowing that it’s been something very close to three years.

It’s been a long three years and what I’ve learned is mostly what everyone already knows: the past is another country, but the future is too. One day, you’ll pack your bags, buy your ticket, climb on that westbound train. You’ll stare out the window at the scenery: forests, rivers, mountains, more rivers, and then the sea. You’ll disembark, sigh, unpack your suitcase, examine the folded clothes, the folded letters.

You’ll feel a sorrow like the thin shadow of a sorrow. You’ll miss, not what you once grieved for, but Grief herself, her cradling arms, her muffled breath and the way she once wrapped you in silence and tears.

the long way home

Yesterday, I had the entirely unoriginal thought that time changes -- if not quite everything -- then something awfully close to it. I asked Trish what, in theory, the due date would be and she told me that it's the middle of April, which would (counting on my fingers), make Cole and the new baby just about 15 months apart.

Now, I realize that a perfect ultrasound at 11.5 weeks isn't a guarantee of, well, anything. But for so long, I used to cringe whenever I saw a double stroller. And in the spring, if all goes well, I'll be pushing one.



(Oh, and the picture? Beruriah, in one of the comments to the previous post, noted that this blog was becoming positively cheerful. Which made me think that a little bit of countervailing darkness was probably in order. Because, consistency and all of that.)