three items, in increasing order of importance.
1. Yuletide reveal: I wrote Proverbs 31:29, which is 3900 words in Anne of Green Gables on the prompt "Marilla Cuthbert; F/F". I didn't quite get there, per se, but then, neither did Marilla, so it all works out. This story supposes that what Marilla and John Blythe quarreled about all those years ago (remember?) was her friendship with Rachel Lynde. My recipient seems really to have liked it very much, and some other folks did, too, so I am pleased.
2. Happy new year, everyone! Here's to 2011 (oh my GOD) being better than 2010.
Tangentially, my friends and all their friends and family - maybe it's a Florida thing, I don't know - prefer their champagne disastrously sweet, and make the kinds of faces when they taste the dry stuff I asked for that I can feel on my own face when I taste the stuff they're drinking. The practical upshot of this is, I've got about a bottle and a half of champagne to finish between now and Sunday afternoon, and I've got to finish it on my own. Note to self: the Barefoot with the silver foil isn't bad, but it's just sort of medium-plain. Tomorrow, the gold foil, which calls itself extra-dry. We'll see.
3. We stayed last night at my friend's parents' place, having gone to the hockey game and so that she could drive them to the airport first thing this morning (as mere days ago their NYE plans were impacted by a minor family emergency). This morning, after she'd taken them and come back and gone back to bed, so while most of the house slept, I went and got the middle child when she woke up, and we sat and kept each other company in the living room for a while until everyone else was ready to get up. My friend's mother has an extensive collection of nutcrackers on display all across the tops of the shelves and the entertainment center and etc. in the living room. Kid says she hopes next time she comes over she'll be able to play with one. (me: "Does Grandma let you play with the nutcrackers?" her: "No.") And then she looks for several minutes at her grandmother's many, many nutcrackers, and then tilts her head and asks me, "Where are all the girls?"
Three and a half years old.
We were able to identify one nutcracker that was clearly a princess - my friend later advised me it was Guinevere, as her folks have a fairly complete set of Camelot nutcrackers - and another that might have been, but the angle was wrong to tell whether it had a beard or not. (My friend says there's definitely a Maid Marian up there somewhere.) "Maybe," I said, "next Christmas you can give Grandma a girl nutcracker for a Christmas present." There's no chance the kid will remember this tomorrow, much less next December, so I told my friend the story, and she concurred that this needs remembering and acting upon. (For the record, the mother would absolutely agree that women are underrepresented in her nutcracker pantheon, and probably that her grandbaby should be encouraged to speak up when she sees underrepresentation, as she did today. Go, grandbaby!)
There was also no chance she'd have been able to hold onto the word "nussknacker", alas. (In Yiddish it's "knacknissel". Even better! I'll teach it to all three of them some other time.)
This entry was originally posted at http://fox.dreamwidth.org/1200127.html. Comments are closed here; it's not that I don't trust you, you understand, but just now I'm a little suspicious of LJ. So until there is a way for me to categorically bar even accidental crossposting of any comments here to any Facebook or Twitter anywhere, please comment at Dreamwidth using OpenID.
2. Happy new year, everyone! Here's to 2011 (oh my GOD) being better than 2010.
Tangentially, my friends and all their friends and family - maybe it's a Florida thing, I don't know - prefer their champagne disastrously sweet, and make the kinds of faces when they taste the dry stuff I asked for that I can feel on my own face when I taste the stuff they're drinking. The practical upshot of this is, I've got about a bottle and a half of champagne to finish between now and Sunday afternoon, and I've got to finish it on my own. Note to self: the Barefoot with the silver foil isn't bad, but it's just sort of medium-plain. Tomorrow, the gold foil, which calls itself extra-dry. We'll see.
3. We stayed last night at my friend's parents' place, having gone to the hockey game and so that she could drive them to the airport first thing this morning (as mere days ago their NYE plans were impacted by a minor family emergency). This morning, after she'd taken them and come back and gone back to bed, so while most of the house slept, I went and got the middle child when she woke up, and we sat and kept each other company in the living room for a while until everyone else was ready to get up. My friend's mother has an extensive collection of nutcrackers on display all across the tops of the shelves and the entertainment center and etc. in the living room. Kid says she hopes next time she comes over she'll be able to play with one. (me: "Does Grandma let you play with the nutcrackers?" her: "No.") And then she looks for several minutes at her grandmother's many, many nutcrackers, and then tilts her head and asks me, "Where are all the girls?"
Three and a half years old.
We were able to identify one nutcracker that was clearly a princess - my friend later advised me it was Guinevere, as her folks have a fairly complete set of Camelot nutcrackers - and another that might have been, but the angle was wrong to tell whether it had a beard or not. (My friend says there's definitely a Maid Marian up there somewhere.) "Maybe," I said, "next Christmas you can give Grandma a girl nutcracker for a Christmas present." There's no chance the kid will remember this tomorrow, much less next December, so I told my friend the story, and she concurred that this needs remembering and acting upon. (For the record, the mother would absolutely agree that women are underrepresented in her nutcracker pantheon, and probably that her grandbaby should be encouraged to speak up when she sees underrepresentation, as she did today. Go, grandbaby!)
There was also no chance she'd have been able to hold onto the word "nussknacker", alas. (In Yiddish it's "knacknissel". Even better! I'll teach it to all three of them some other time.)
This entry was originally posted at http://fox.dreamwidth.org/1200127.html. Comments are closed here; it's not that I don't trust you, you understand, but just now I'm a little suspicious of LJ. So until there is a way for me to categorically bar even accidental crossposting of any comments here to any Facebook or Twitter anywhere, please comment at Dreamwidth using OpenID.