The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by JennR:

Dr Paisley @69 : Nah, Erik doesn't do unflappable as well as Jamie. Then again, very few people do. I've met very few people who could be described as Jamie (having never met Jim MacDonald in the flesh), and Erik is far more on the Adam side of the spectrum. (Most of GT is, come to think of it, perhaps with a bit higher awareness of safety preparedness, as we are on our own.)

grrr. sorry for the double post. (Have no idea how that happened. Did have an ISP burp, but still....)

Xopher @ 231 -- I grew up in SE Michigan, and I'd say it's about half-and-half. It's not actually a MI accent, but one from KY/NC/SC/TN, etc; and one that's found far more often in rural areas than in metropolitan. A lot of people in the mid-mitten area moved north from Appalachia, and kept the accent.

In western Wayne County we had a fairly distinct split between families whose ancestors had settled in MI and those which had moved up from Kentucky/Carolina/Tennessee. Most of the southerners didn't differentiate between /pin/ and /pen/, but the rest of us did (Mum was a "city girl", and my dad's parents were born overseas).

FWIW, I got the 'crackling' pun.

Xopher @ 231 -- I grew up in SE Michigan, and I'd say it's about half-and-half. It's not actually a MI accent, but one from KY/NC/SC/TN, etc; and one that's found far more often in rural areas than in metropolitan. A lot of people in the mid-mitten area moved north from Appalachia, and kept the accent.

I grew up in western Wayne County, and we had a fairly distinct split between families whose ancestors had settled in MI and those which had moved up from Kentucky/Carolina/Tennessee. Most of the southerners didn't differentiate between /pin/ and /pen/, but the rest of us did (Mum was a "city girl", and my dad's parents were born overseas).

FWIW, I got the 'crackling' pun.

My sister's birthday is April 19. When we were in school, she wanted to move to Massachusetts so that she wouldn't have to go to school on her birthday.

My maternal grandparents got married on April 23. My grandfather was born on April 21. One of my grandmother's brothers was born on April 15. (yes, we used to have a big family gathering. Usually didn't have an Easter gathering, as the households had other obligations on Easter weekend.)

@28, @32:

Kim, Kerry, Dean, Alex. (I went to high school with boys named Kim and Lyn; and a girl who went by Andy.)

Mildred had a spike in popularity in the late 1800s-early 1900s. My grandmother (one of the aforementioned Meta's daughters) was Mildred Muriel, born in 1891. [The other daughters were Rachel, Dorothea, Bernice, and Margaret (called Peggy). There were three Mildreds in the extended (to second cousins) family when she was a teen. Then again, as Meta had six siblings (full and half) who survived to adulthood and seven sets of first cousins, the extended family was pretty large.

Oddly enough, the only name that was duplicated by marriage was Bernice -- brother Fred married a girl named Bernice, so they pronounced them differently (Fred & BURR-niss; ber-NEESE never married (one of the WWI lost generation)).

Names: one of my maternal great-grandmothers was named Marcia Almeda Rich. They called her Meta (with a long E). Then she married my great-grandfather, and became Meta Rich Mann. :)

I went to HS with twins named Tim and Tom; and a pair named Renee and Randy. My husband's brother named his oldest daughter Amber Lynn (yes, after the 'movie' star).

Boy names: Roger. Phillip (one or two ls, although that will probably require spelling help). Frederick. Benjamin.

Debbie @73 Baker's Breakfast Cocoa is not the same stuff as baking cocoa. At least according to my gramma's Boston Cooking School cookbook, dated 1935. Which I cannot find at the moment, of course, but I remember that part (and there's a note in my mother's writing on one of Gramma's handwritten recipes that says to use a lesser amount of baking cocoa).

Per Chr. J @ 5; based on the (sometimes stifled) smiles I saw on the faces of the clergy at the end of the line (as they made the turn in such a fashion that they could see the trailing figure), I think many of them did.

Ack. No fair. Get well soon!

A student arm of GT (PFRC, at Michigan Tech) used to celebrate Christmas in late December. As in December 45th or so. Trying to fit a Christmas party into the three weeks between Thanksgiving and Winter breaks was difficult at best, and often impossible, so we'd extend December. (I've used 'celebrating Orthodox Christmas' to explain belated Christmas events for years.)

TGIM gets a flu shot every year, when the office offers them. He gets the flu every other year. This year, he got the flu in October, three weeks before the shot. Nobody else in the house gets a shot, and I think the three of us have had the flu once (total) in the last five years.

I haven't gotten the flu for 15 years; and despite TGIM getting the flu and the teenager getting a cold and the 11yo getting a cold->bronchitis (all in October!), I'd only been sick for a week since Easter. And then I started feeling wonky, and went to see the doc. "That's not bronchitis or the flu. That's early stage bacterial pneumonia. We don't usually see it this early. You must breathe a lot." "Just a bit -- sing in a choir, play in a community band." "Ah. so you notice when function is compromised." Two rounds of antibiotics later ('call me *right away* if you have trouble breathing and I'll get you an inhaler'), the bug is gone. Still dealing with the damage though, and may wind up with a round of steroids if it doesn't go away like they think it should.

I remember buying poppies up until a couple of years ago. I still don't have a poppy for my new car (obtained last fall), but then, I haven't been through town during business hours this month -- usually there's somebody selling in/near the Post Office. I know that some of the vets at church were wearing them on Sunday, but I don't know if they were new this year.

I have no idea how many kids wandered by on the street. Our lights were off, and I wasn't home at all. Eldest Urchin was playing in the marching band at a playoff football game, and I was an official Band Mom. (Many of the Usual Staff of Band Moms were off running T-or-T at their homes, where they often get 150 or more.)

The guy I married set up the stuff at the church (rural church + busyish rural highway where people drive 55+, even on Halloween night = church running a Halloween party in the parking lot), and then took Youngest Urchin into town, and eventually to the football game so he could get more video of the marching band with his new camera.

What's a mummy's favorite music?
Rap

@24, @99 My precinct? No cell phones, etc, for workers unless you're on call. Leave them in your car. The twp secretary will be in the office to pass along messages until we all go home, that phone number is: 123.4567. We can bring knitting, etc, but she's made it very clear that we are there to serve the voters (not that she expects to have much down time, but we shall see...).

I'll be here when I can. There's no possible way I'll be home before 2100 EST, though (and that's optimistic). We can't start closing the ballot counter until 2000, and that's only if the clerk has gotten us all the absentee ballots (the polls close at 2000, but if she's out marking the end of the voting line, she may be late...), we don't have to duplicate any ballots, and we counted as many valid ballots as we got.

Then I have to chase the kids out the door at 700 Wednesday morning for the bus.

Paula @41: You missed the sentence in which I set the context. I'm going to be sequestered (ie, locked in) from noon until at least 8pm (it's a small precinct, only expecting 600 absentee voters) with the absentee voters' ballots, a scanner, a poll book, two very nice but old-school Republican ladies, and a older Democrat lady "from the city" (mind, she moved out to this township 20 years before I did, but she's still the "city lady"). In the interest of keeping the peace, as I am 20 years younger than anyone else on the board, I actually *like* these ladies (until they start talking politics), and I know the folly of offending older residents in a community that I have no intention of leaving, I will keep my mouth shut if they start talking politics. That's one reason the township clerk put me on the AVCB -- I can keep my mouth shut. Everyone on the board has already voted. It's hard to 'hide' the polling place, as there's one in the township, and it's the township hall.

Many of the people who live around here are old-school Republicans. They don't like what Bush&Co have done, but still have a visceral objection to voting Democrat in a national race. (They vote Dem in township races, but that's not a 'true' Democrat, that's Julie who lives on the farm on that corner across from L's orchard.) Not voting at all is anathema (and no, I don't think I'm exaggerating). It's probable that many of them will leave the Presidential race blank, but I won't know until after the election.

Carol @ 32:I got a flyer in the mail from a local candidate this week, urging me to vote for him on line A or E. I realized that not only was he not saying which party he was running under but not a one of the lawn signs I'd seen all over the county gave a party affiliation on it.

Out here in the wilds, I think the only reason local candidates declare a party affiliation is to get on the primary ballot, or to get the straight party voters. I don't think I've seen any signs with affiliation on them -- I didn't even realise that one long-time township trustee declared Republican, or that another declared Democrat until I voted (absentee, as I'm working).

It will be an interesting election to work. I hope I don't whack anybody while we're sequestered (the absentee counting board is sequestered until the counting is complete to prevent leaks). I expect I'll just keep my mouth shut and rant when I get home. Very much old-school Republicans out here, not at all fond of what Bush&Co are doing; but just cannot bring themselves to vote Dem, and are searching hard for reasons not to.

Things I am possessed by:

Esme, my bari sax. She's far more sax than I deserve, and they don't build them like her anymore. There is a reason for this (mostly the less than optimal key configuration), but she's got such a sweet voice.

An otherwise unremarkable cylindrical ceramic vase, in early 1960s harvest gold speckle glaze. It was always on the kitchen table or counter in the summer, full of flowers from the garden.

The tooled leather dresser case that my father bought for his mother when he was in basic training in Arizona -- inside it are two items (a horsehair brush and a lacquer bowl) that she brought with her from her childhood home in the Ukraine (through forced resettlement in Siberia, emigration to the US through China, and a 7 year stay in Windsor).

The oversized oak desk my mother's father bought from a public school in 1930. He used it for 45 years, my mom used it for another 30, and now it's mine.

A corduroy giraffe wearing a messenger bag. His name is Gaston. When my mother's sister moved to Florida, she didn't want to take him, but wouldn't give him away. Every time I talk to her, she wants to know how he's doing. I have no idea why he's so important to her, and she wouldn't ever say, but....

John Mark @371 (I'm shortening your name-- do let us know if it's acceptable) To a seventh grader in a small midwestern farm town, Chesterton was obscure. (iirc, the first time she said that to me, I was grumping about my knitting not doing what I wanted it to.) I'm sure she remembered at the time; 30 years down the road it's probably buried under information of varying levels of usefulness.

I do remember her saying that it was much more positive out of context than in.

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