Being wrong

Two random childhood memories:

• Arguing with Dad that he can't know that We All Live in a Yellow Submarine, by the Beatles, came before We All Live in a Capital 'I', by Sesame Street.
  
  
• Second grade: Sitting at a small table with three or four other students, being asked math problems by the teacher. She asks me 7-11. I know the answer is "minus four," but we haven't covered negatives, so I answer instead, "that's impossible."
  

Dreaming of freshly regurgitated insects, no doubt

For today only: I'm just like everyone else.

Well, it's late and I haven't posted so I think I'll jump on the 123 bandwagon - that's a meme that's been making the rounds.

The rules state:

1. Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. No cheating!
2. Find page 123.
3. Find the first five sentences.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

Surprising no one, the nearest book of 123 pages or more is the one I invited everyone to read with me yesterday.

The first three lines after the first five lines on page 123 read:

I hung around asking the technician questions and showing T where the x-rays came out, though machines weren't really her line. She had one of her old wrestling holds on my shoulder.

When we were called back to Dr. Pelinowsky's office again he looked just ever so slightly shaken up.

I've redacted the child's name because her naming is part (albeit a small one) of the story, so telling it ahead of time feels like a spoiler to me. Granted, if you're reading the book and don't want to know the name until it's given, you'll have to avoid the blurb on the back cover. But in any case, you won't hear it from me.

As for the tagging? Nah.

Anybody want to read another book?

I had a lot of fun with the Owen Meany series, and enjoyed the book more this time around than other readings.

Wanna do it again? Sundays? Maybe at a slightly more relaxed pace?

Barbara Kingsolver is one of my favorite authors and I have almost all of her books. I invite you to join me in reading (or rereading) her first, The Bean Trees, followed by her sixth, Pigs in Heaven, which is its sequel.

Chapter one is just 23 pages :)

Nestling

I have now gone outside and freaked these poor birds out (well, scared them away) three separate times today.

The first time I got all the way out there and stood up on my chair before I realized my camera batteries were dead.

So I recharged the batteries and tried again, but when I got in and downloaded the pictures, it turned out I was too low and nothing was visible.

So I went back out again with a tall, tippy, perilous barstool, freaked the parents out for a third time in one day, and took a few more pictures - two of which didn't even register in the camera's memory (?).

But this one did, and although I've gotten a couple of better glimpses of the neighborhood's newest clay-colored robin since its appearance on the scene (I think) yesterday, I'm afraid the Internet (that's you) will have to settle for the merest glimpse of its hungry little beak.

(Click for the full-sized photo)

Change is in the air

Hmmm. Blogger's "Create Post" window seems to think I've used that title before. Well, it is again--change. In the air, that is--and if it means recycling the title, well, so be it. (...I just checked. The other time I used that title was when I switched to Gmail. That turned out to be a very positive change.)

The change documented below has also met with universal approval:








As for other changes...well, I do hope they will, ultimately, prove to be positive as well.

Having lived, together, with the fact of our separation for two months now, this week we began talking about how to actually effect it. Who will live where? (Him here, me elsewhere.) Who will keep the girls? (As close to half and half as we can manage.) When to talk to them? (Relatively soon; once we do some research into what, beyond what we instinctively know, we should be sure to do or not do with regard to them.)

Oh, and it's hard to tell for sure, but it seems like the baby birds are hatching today.

They say the more things change, the more they stay the same. Sometimes that's just not true.

I feel the need to point out that most of these quizzes take less than a minute to complete. Just for the record.

It is the considered opinion of meaningless online quizzes that I am:

• Cayenne pepper
• A crossword puzzle
• The number 2
• 4% shy
• 6% of a worrier
• 8% bitchy
• 12% girly
• 24% nerdy
• 47% quirky
• 47% flirtatious
• 48% brutally honest
• 54% feminine / 46% masculine
• 55% right brained / 45% left brained
• 56% intuitive
• 56% addicted to the Internet
• 70% open
• 88% Democrat / 12% Republican
• 94% thankful
• A woman
• An expert kisser
• Very mature
• Not prejudiced
• Not prissy
• Ready to date again

It has also been determined that:

• If I were slightly different, my name would be Jessica
• I should be a teacher when I grow up (also approved: Nurse and nonfiction writer)
• Guys think I'm easy to be with, but don't consider me Easy
• My guy could bring me home to meet his parents
• I have many Alpha tendencies
• Were I to be a redhead, I should be a fiery one
• My life is worth $664,000
• My IQ is 130

A bird in the tree is worth...well, anyway.

Here's our lovely little Turdus grayi, ensconced in her nest. Poor thing picked a pretty slender tree, and I've seen her get quite a ride when the wind starts whistling between the two houses. But she hangs in there.

Every once in a while I notice she's off the nest, but I can't really get a clear view into it because of the foliage. I could tell that there were more than one egg - maybe about three? - and that they are white or light-colored, not robin's egg blue.

I took this picture standing near the tree and holding the camera up (but not too close). The other one is from inside, so you can see the window that is our usual vantage point. I don't think you can actually see the nest in that picture - it's just for perspective, you see.

Six Random Things

The Cunning Runt tagged me for the Six Random Things meme and, while I have been courting a reputation as an egregious slacker when it comes to memes, I'll hold back (from the slacking) enough to participate in this one.

• I have no gaydar. In fact, can you have negative gaydar? That's me. If it's important to you that I know your preference(s), you'd best drop a pronoun or two into the conversation, is all I can say about that.


• When music is playing for a while, I often end up tuning it out, but when I am paying attention I tend to notice lyrics. And it is my considered opinion that someone needs to tell the guy who sings Undercover Angel that wet dreams are a pretty normal thing.


• I get on Robin's case about leaving the crust from her sandwiches. I tell her it's the exact same food, just a little more cooked because it was on the outside. But I totally know where she's coming from. To this day, I eat my sandwiches crust-first so I can enjoy the good part last.


• Big ol' pet peeve: If you call me on the phone? If you sit there and look up my home number and dial it and I pick up? Do. not. ask. me. who. I. am.


• I did try pot in college, but only just. It was graduation weekend and my friend didn't want to graduate without having tried it. He made brownies and I had one.


• When I was a kid, I wanted to be ambidextrous. To that end, I switched to my left hand for toothbrushing and certain other tasks, including chopstick use. Those measures did not, in fact, render me ambidextrous. (I know, right? How could they not?) But I did recently receive a compliment in which someone essentially described me as ambidextrous in the right brain/left brain sense.

A Prophylactic Post

I'm not a migraine sufferer, fortunately, but I have had some funny eye/vision things this morning, so I'm going to post real quick in case I don't feel like being online later in the day.

And, hey, if it ends up having the "take your umbrella so it won't rain" effect, so much the better :)


Updated to add:

Guess I got lucky. From what I read about migraines, the bit in the morning was a classic pre-migraine "aura," but was not, in fact, followed by a migraine.

Note to self: Start carrying an umbrella.