Category: holidays

bunny and carrot (and also a cat)

I had grand ideas to have Phoebe and Theo’s Halloween costumes coordinate in some way. As Phoebe wanted to be a bunny, I thought Theo (who had no input in the matter) could be a carrot.

I early gave up on the idea of making Phoebe’s bunny costume, thinking that it would be easy to find one ready-made. I had plans to make Theo’s costume as well as my own, and thought making 3 costumes would be insane. We had some trouble finding a bunny in her size, as it turned out, and ended up ordering online. But seeing as I am a pathological procrastinator, we did so only a week before our party.

A few days before the party, we got a bit antsy, and when we saw a much-discounted white kitty costume, we decided to get it, thinking that I could transform it into a bunny in a pinch. As it turned out, the bunny costume arrived the same day. But, it also turned out to have enclosed plush-covered feet. Such that one could not wear the costume with shoes. As one might want to do when walking outside. Such as one tends to do for trick-or-treating.

So, we decided she could wear the bunny costume for our party, and then the kitty cat for trick-or-treating. (And as such may have set the expectation for future years of having two costumes for Halloween…)

I did manage to make Theo’s carrot, using orange fleece (so as to need minimal hemming) and some green felt for the greens. I made up a pattern for carrot bunting-type thing as well as a hat. We don’t have a sewing machine, so I stitched it up by hand. Much of it while I was on the phone for a work conference call a few hours before the party.

And, because I had to go and run off at the mouth (or whatever the typed equivalent is) about having each of my posts this month feature some word that I like, I felt compelled to follow through in some way. And while I do think the word bunny is a fine word¹, it seemed a bit…um…fluffy…as a followup to yesterday’s omphaloskepsis.

So, I dug up a couple of new words to go along with this post. Both of these are from a site called Luciferous Logolepsy.

    apiaceous
    adj. – parsley-like; belonging to plant family including carrot, parsley, etc.

    macrotous
    adj. – having large ears


My temorarily macrotous daughter and briefly apiaceous son.


Here is Phoebe as a kitty. No bonus word for this image, unless someone else wants to add one.

¹ I did discover though, that in British English, bunny can refer to a squirrel. Which funnily enough was Phoebe’s costume of last year.

The Curse of the Mummy Blogger

We had our Halloween party last Friday. It was a “costumes optional” affair. As hostess, of course I had to dress up. (Okay, fine. I love to dress up.) I decided to be a mummy. It seemed appropriate. You know, seeing as I’ve been pretty wrapped up in myself. And feel a bit holed up and isolated. And starting to feel old. Now that the air is getting dry with the crisp outdoor air and heated indoor air, my skin is a getting a bit shrivelled. (I don’t have time to shower most days, let alone moisturize…)

Oh, right. And then there’s the whole pun business. How could I resist?

My costume was a bit better in planning than in execution, but I guess it worked well enough. (It might not surprise you to learn that I ran out of time.) I used an old white sheet that had been in our rag pile, and tore it into strips. I then soaked the sheet in tea. (I used Lapsang Souchong, because I have a lot, and don’t drink it much. I also figured the musty smell would work.) I wore an off-white shirt and some off-white pajama pants, and wrapped myself. I stitched here and there and safety pinned to hold things in place. There wasn’t too much time, as I started the wrapping about an hour before the start of the party, so I didn’t manage to wrap as much of myself as I’d hoped. Ah well.

John didn’t get any pictures till the end of the night, by which time I was largely unravelled. But you can still get the effect. (Go see the picture…if you dare…)

I also made Theo’s costume, though not Phoebe’s. Phoebe was a bunny, which was her idea. And a harder costume to track down than you might imagine. Theo was a carrot. I’ll try to get some pictures.

algumas flores do Brasil (para o Dia das Mães)

Happy Mother’s Day!

I’m here in São Paulo, and am about to head out the door for the last few hours of my visit. I don’t have time to post anything much, as I should probably use my time to see stuff instead of staying inside, tethered to my laptop.

But it’s Mother’s Day, so I’ll mark the day by sharing a few photos with you. These are some flowers that were around in the hotel resort where the conference was held in Campinas. I know that one is a bird of paradise, but I don’t have names for the other two. There’s “the orange one” and “the pink ones.” Can you name those flowers?

Studies Elucidate Health Risks Associated with Common Blogging Practices

From the AP article:The Johns Hopskins University Center for Human Health and Technology Studies issued a report last Friday indicating that individuals participating in activities relating to the internet format of weblogs were at increased risk for a variety of health problems, including rickets, schistosomiasis, kuru, high blood pressure, Omphaloskepsis, and vitamin D deficiency. Many subjects further exhibited lethargy and reduced reaction times to external stimuli.Blogging practices most strongly correlated with risks to mental and physical health include the publication, reading and exposure to weblog entries on topics including, but not limited to, politics, humor, family, music, news and the personal lives of the weblog authors. The study identified the following practices as being most strongly correlated with mental health risks and cognitive deficits:

  • Spending upwards of 5 hours weekly reading, writing or contemplating writing weblog entries
  • Reading of multiple weblogs daily
  • Compulsive checking of weblog entries for comments or the checking of website visitor statistics
  • Posting images of one’s local domestic fauna and/or offspring
  • Posting lists of any kind

When asked for details on the concurrent study for risks associated with so-called “lolcats,” images of animals which have been augmented with captions using poor grammar, Dr. Percival Jones-Quinderpants replied: “The final results of that study are not yet available, but preliminary results show that subjects may be at higher risk for certain types adult-onset language disorder, such as Lolcat’s Aphasia and hyperacronymia.”Related studies also found that subjects who spent late-night hours engaging in various online activities (such as social networking sites) were more 5 times more likely than the control group to have decreased attention spans and reduced ability to focus, leading to an inability to complete a coherent

all my eggs in one basket

whole_egg_simple.pngWith Easter around the corner, and with nesting on my brain, it seems like a good time to break out the eggs. While there are loads full of eggs out there, to help moderate our cholesterol intake, I’ll restrict this ThThTh list to a dozen egg things.

A Dozen Eggs

  1. Easter eggs. Eggs that have been dyed and/or decorated as part of Easter traditions. Linked by some to the concept of rebirth. Linked by others to an anthropomorphic bunny.
  2. Easter egg: a hidden message or bonus in video game, DVD, or other (ususally digital) media. (Can you find my Easter egg?) They can also be found in print or other media, scuh as maps, as a means to protect from copyright infringement.
  3. Fabergé eggs. Elaborate jewelled eggs made by Russian jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé, many of which were commissioned by the Russian imperial family. They often had surprises hidden inside.
  4. Chocolate eggs. Not actually eggs flavored with chocolate, which probably comes as a relief to many, but egg-shaped chocolates. I’m partial to Kinder eggs. A type of chocolate egg containing a plastic yolk with a surprise inside. When I was little, the toys were much cooler than the prizes you could find in, for example, Cracker Jacks. Cadbury Creme Eggs are pretty tasty, too, but the yolk contained within is messier to play with.

    5. egg_blue2.jpgegg_yellow.jpgegg_purple.jpgegg_green.jpgegg_pink.jpgegg_orange.jpg

  5. “the egg scene” from Angel Heart (1987) (clip on YouTube) “You know, some religions think that the egg is the symbol of the soul,” says Robert Deniro during the scene where he malevolently peels and eats a hard-boiled egg.
  6. Humpty Dumpty. A nursery rhyme about an egg.

    Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
    Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
    All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
    Couldn’t put Humpty together again.

    It has quite a bit of lore associated with it. (Did you know it was a riddle in earlier forms, with the eggness of Humpty being the answer?)

  7. Palestinian egg story: A Palistinian folktale about an egg trying to discover its identity. I was exposed to it during a field methods class, where we worked with a speaker of Palestinian Arabic. I particularly remember the line [ʔɪnti mɪʃ Хudra], or “You are not a vegetable.”
  8. Eggbert, the Slightly Cracked Egg, a picturebook by Tom Ross, illustrated by Rex Barron. A story of an egg who is an individual. And a slightly cracked one.

    9. egg_pink.jpgegg_blue2.jpgegg_orange.jpgegg_purple.jpgegg_green.jpgegg_yellow.jpg

  9. Horton Hatches the Egg, by Dr. Seuss. A story of an elephant who is talked into sitting on a nest.
  10. Look – (Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One) But There Were These Two Fellers (1968). An Avengers episode with an archive of clown faces painted on eggshells. (This was actually a Tara King episode, but one of the better ones.)
  11. “She was a bad egg.” An expression meaning “she was a bad person,” and a quote from the movie Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) by Gene Wilder when Veruca Salt was dumped down the chute after being identified as faulty by the egg-dicator.
  12. “Egg Baby” Parenting an exercise or assignment sometimes used to teach teenagers about parenting and responsibility. Kids are given an egg to “care for” for a set amount of time. Featured in “First the Egg” (1985), an After School Special starring Justine Bateman. Also in the Buffy episode “Bad Eggs.” Of course, in this case, the eggs turn out to be evil demon spawn.

eggs_carton.jpg

images (edited 2/7/2010, since people were wondering): The white egg is a public domain image from wpclipart.com, and the single colored egg images are ones that I made based using that image. The photo at bottom is mine.

Happy Pi Day!

pi.jpgIt’s Pi Day, people! Woohoo! It’s 3-14. And I didn’t even see it coming. (And here I just mentioned a book called Life of Pi yesterday. Of course, that was a pi-free Pi reference.)

Here are some tasty pi goodies for you to help you celebrate your day:

  • Be sure to check out the official Pi Day website. (Thanks to Tina of Omphaloskepsis (one of the grandest blog names out there) for pointing me there.)
  • I highly recommend the musical pi stuff, like pi rap videos, and the pi(ano) song, where someone has converted the digits of pi to a melody.
  • You can also see a hundred thousand digits of pi. Here’s a preview:

    3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716
    9399375105820974944592307816406286208998628
    0348253421170679821480865132823066470938446
    0955058223172535940812848111745028410270193
    8521105559644622948954930381964428810975665
    9334461284756482337867831652712019091456485
    6692346034861045432664821339360726024914127
    3724587006606315588174881520920962829254091
    7153643678925903600113305305488204665213841

  • Not enough digits for ya? How’s about a million?
  • Kate Bush has a song called “π”. Or “Pi,” if you must stick to ASCII. In it, part of the refrain is seeing 150 digits of pi. Shockingly, it seems that she has, according to Confusablility, gravely erred in her digits:

    I got hold of the lyrics and checked them against an online version of Pi. All was well for the first 53 decimal places but then Kate sang “threeeeee oneeeee” when she should have sang “zeeeeeeerooo” instead. She recovered for the next 24 digits but then it went to hell in a handbasket when she missed out the next 22 digits completely before finishing with a precise rendition of her final 37 digits.

  • Inga of Arbitrary Ruminations is celebrating the day with a list of Pie quotes, which may be safer.
  • Or you might want to watch a movie. Like Pi (1998). A movie sadly lacking in pie.
  • I think that later today, I will have to bake a pi. I mean, a pie. Seriously. I’ve keep meaning to bake a pie, but haven’t found the time. But now the pi forces are conspiring to make pi a piority. I mean, priority.
  • Finally, let me leave you with this classic pi joke:

    A young man goes off to college from his rural home. When he comes back for a visit, his less educated father wants him to show off his fancy learning. “Say something smart, son,” he commands.
    The young man thinks back to his classes, and figures a formula from math should sound impressive enough. He offers up the formula to calculate the area of a circle. “Pi r squared,” he says.
    His father looks embarrassed, and shocked. Shaking his head gravely, he says, “What are they teaching you, son? Pie are round, son. Cornbread are square.”

π π π π π π π π π π π π π π π π π π π π

Would you could you?

green_eggs.jpgHappy Seuss Day!

Today was Dr. Seuss’s birthday. Last year, I celebrated the day with a list of a few things Seussy. This year I’ll offer up a small serving of green eggs and ham for your enjoyment.

  • Jesse Jackson’s inspired reading of Green Eggs and Ham. (Sorry about the poor video quality. It’s what I could find.)

  • Weird Al’s video of Green Eggs and Ham. (To fully appreciate it, you might want to check out U2’s “Numb” video.)
  • Also, be sure to check out this brilliant post from Books Are Pretty, which discusses this “grim tale of stalking and harassment…”