flemmings | Festive occasions

Entry tags:

meme,
rl

Festive occasions

I don't know which is happier-making, money in the mail or a sudden loss of a kilo plus when you step on the scale in the morning. As it's Sunday, you can figure for yourselves which constitutes today's happiness. As an object lesson, I lugged a 10-kilo bag of road salt home yesterday (22 pounds for the imperialists) and even factoring in the unwieldiness of road salt, like the worst kind of squashy parcel baby, the idea that I'm carrying two of those about my person now is a great impetus to virtue. The realization that I've lost half a bag of road salt since the summer is extremely satisfying. My knees certainly have ceased to grumble as much as they did.

Meanwhile, if the book is correct, it's

shiny_monkey's birthday. Happy birthday,

shiny_monkey!

Ganked from

kickinpants:

Leave a comment here and I will:

1. Tell you why I friended you.
2. Associate you with something - fandom, a song, a colour, a photo, etc.
3. Tell you something I like about you.
4. Tell you a memory I have of you.
5. Ask something I've always wanted to know about you.
6. Tell you my favorite user pic of yours.
7. In return, you must post this in your LJ.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sign me up!

1. Err- because we're friends? Naturally I'd follow you from emails to pitas to lj. I'd probably follow you even if you moved to Insane journal or Greatest Journal or whatever the alternative for Russian defectors is these days, and that's saying a lot.

2. In spite of those stacks of FF7 illos you sent me, you'll always be One Piece to me. All of OP, kind of rolled up into a dream concatenation. More concretely, you're Squishy Service, the hit of the first Shoujocon. (SS' hair has stopped smelling like lanolin, which makes me sad, but then it *has* been seven years.)

3. Your maturity was what struck me first, even back when you were an ickle undergrad in '99. You sounded like the settled and analytical thirty you aren't even yet, if I'm counting right. (Saw the first SW in utero, ergo...)

4. Me waking you up at M's apartment in... 2001 was it? by banging on the door to let me back in after I'd gone out to buy tp. You have a fine taste in sleepwear.

5. My Anglo-Saxon reticences don't allow me to ask the things I'd like to know. Though I've wondered if your uterine problems ever sorted themselves out.

6. Brotherly Lurv, though I haven't a clue who the guys are.

7. Not insisting...

I don't know which is happier-making, money in the mail or a sudden loss of a kilo plus when you step on the scale in the morning.
I can't decide which is happier-making either! *wants both to happen to her*
Congratulations!

Memetastic! I shall post in my lj too.

Thanks. And was this a me too! answer or not? (is slow today)

Yes please!

1. Took a while but eventually it dawned on me that the tammylee in

nojojojo's FL was in fact you. 'Oh, *that's* where she went to!'

2. Partly the red dragon/ Goushou-in-a-snit picture you drew for me, but equally chicken salad made with low-fat yoghurt and curry powder, because you ran the recipe once and now I eat it at least once a week, on top of greens, and wipe the bowl clean with caraway rye bread.

3. The fact that people will call you 'sir' even when you're wearing a dress. It's reassuring because I get sir'd a lot too and you're a lot more feminine than I am.

4. That yaoi panel at shoujocon where you turned out to be baxter.

5. Oh, those Anglo-Saxon reticences.

6. Tamzilla.

7. And you already did.

imperialists

~ dies laughing ~

and congratulations on the recent loss of your roadsalt!

I know. Always comes as a shock that pounds, inches and gallons are indeed imperial measure. Then one wonders *why*. (Colonialist Britain imposes its weights and mesures on the world?)

Thank you. Here's hoping more melts away in the sun.

(deleted comment)

1. And while I just was moaning to myself how the events of eight years ago are as yesterday at my age, I find I've misplaced the events of three years ago. The exact friending kikkake uhh 'precise occurrence that occasioned an event' has slipped my mind, and possibly there wasn't one. We shared a fandom and you were on

incandescens' FL and that seems reason enough.

2. You are *so* Prince of Tennis.

3. You're cheerful. You smile in your icons. Even when you're bashing your head over RL hoohas I see you sitting back afterwards with a resigned smile and getting on with it.

4. We've never met so it's not a RL memory, but your trip to the US last year, whose details impressed me as straight from Une Saison dans L'enfer (packed buses, hours-late trains, endless plane rides) was crowned by your mind-boggling entry: "I'm home! 24-hour journey, more or less. Everything went without a hitch, so hooray." One does not end a 24-hour journey, however seamless, with the word Hooray! Oh thank God or Never again, but not Hooray. See #3 above.

5. How did you learn to *write* English?

6. The Aaargh one or the buddy Jesus one.

7. Not insisting.

(deleted comment)

I burn with envy at the Norwegian educational system.

Comment! :D

1. Followed you here from... whichever blog it was, way back when, because lj offered commenting features. Funny, I was convinced a bunch of people would offer to beta for you and I hurried to get my dibs in first.

2. Kubotoki, which is Yours® in my mind, and that happy rabbit with the candle ^_^ and erm actually- Pipang, because I borrowed a lot of you to write him.

3. Your honesty. Maybe it's a cultural thing but most RL people (up here, at least) are either overly-reluctant to speak their minds or overly-ready, blunt weapon fashion. Your ability to simply say what you think, without agendas, second-guessing, or malice, stunned me. Like a glimpse of another way of being: 'you mean, you can *do* that?'

4. We only met that once, and I thought it was an insane woman talking behind us. I remember your eyes when you were walking by, cruising the Aesthe table, but I've mentioned that before. (Borrowed for Tenpou in a later fic. Yes, writers are cannibals.) But what sticks in my mind was when you *finally* moved out of the crazy house, you said you were sad to leave the room your parents had tried to make nice for you. I promptly sent a telegram to the Pope about this American person he might want to declare Blessed or possibly Venerable, even if canonization could wait till after your decease, as is customary.

5. The things I'd want to ask aren't the kind one writes down in a public blog.

6. I think the one you have up there, whatever it is- what is it?- though the Hasui is nice too.

7. You already did.

Me? Weeeell, #1 aside. XD

2. You are various kinds of music I've never heard of. Truly, three-quarters of your posts might as well be talking about chemical engineering for all the overlap they have with my own knowledge.

3. You like your little sister. Which is Chinese norm, by and large, but still a rarity over here.

4. You insisted on taking my picture at Shoujocon. Which is also Chinese norm but still painful because cameras steal a bit of your soul and no Asian recognizes that fact.

5. How good *is* your French anyway?

6. The lizard with the ice pack

7. Optional.

I was so obnoxious with the camera at Shoujocon! Got a number of deer-in-headlights looks but was too revved up to pay attention except in retrospect, which sometimes happens. ^^;

I'm sometimes made fun of by native speakers for grammar lapses (of the wrong gender type), and fairly often asked to repeat what I just said to the store clerk or barista. If taken off guard I can go blank in French, which never happens in English nowadays - worse, I open my mouth and it comes out in Japanese. XD; Other than that... pretty much fluent, I guess? I can write in French, which I don't really feel like I can in Chinese or Japanese. I find it more difficult to judge whether I'm writing well. But all this is applying the same standards to myself as I hold for English writing, which are high.

I have often wanted to send you a mix CD! Almost like a personal challenge, I'd like to produce something you'd enjoy. XD

worse, I open my mouth and it comes out in Japanese.

That *always* happens with me, but in my case it's my vying-for-second-language-status languages, not my third and fourth ones. OTOH I can't write in French but can- painfully- in Japanese, which is the difference schooling makes, I assume.

Good luck on the music, since I'm one of those modern anomalies, someone who can take music or leave it alone, and usually prefers the latter. Lovely lovely silence, the sweetest music there is.

Any language after English is liable to come out in Japanese - probably because it gets more practice. Was queuing up in Venice when a museum guard asked me a question out of the blue and I said "Hai! o_o" and all the old ladies tittered at la giapponesa.

I know, but I've been remembering all the songs you've occasionally said you liked all the same, because that's how my mind works. XD If you leave me your addy here (http://petronia.livejournal.com/544552.html) it'll be done by your b-day, I reckon? Think of it as a curio, not a gift, if you like.

It's a kind offer but then, you know, I'd have to make time to listen to it because I can't do other things while listening to music; and given how I procrastinate evn with stuff I buy and presumably want, it wouldn't happen till... well, there's these tapes I bought back in '96 that I still haven't found time to listen to.

hee, hee, mee too! Please...buy umm since I'm lazy ~~have no time~~ to do this in my journal for other peeps I'll do this here if you don't mind! ^_~

1. Umm I guess I stalked you from later answers (#2 & 3) and wondered if you would, you did and hee I is a happy chappy! ^__^
2. Gaiden. I followed you from Yomogi *hearts*
3. OOh this is a toughie. How can I just pick one? ^_~ I love your expanse of knowledge, form books to languages, beautiful fluid writing skill to ummm...well anything really, and that you are never condescending, or patronising even when you have cause to be. *loves*
4. "Tea with the/a White Dragon"
5. Hmmm another toughie, as there are quite a few that I do want to ask... so hey so say I leave it for another time.
5. Goujun with his eyebrow raised complete with death glare.
6. I hope here is ok instead. ^__^

Edited 2007-12-10 01:34 (UTC)

1. Age is a terrible thing. I keep forgetting when I met people and default to 'but they've been around forever.' You've been around forever, haven't you?

2. Oddly, when I think about it, I associate you most with Shahrazad's blue dragon picture. Possibly because I associate you with Shahrazad? Possibly because she smiles at us out of the occasional icon? Oh dear, yes, the classic maternal lament: 'but am I no more than Shahrazad's Mother'?

3. You're warm and funny and generous and an all-round Good Friend. Also (closer to my age + more involved with kids) than most fen I know, = basic connection.

4. I seem to recall you baking until two in the morning, was it? Reading until 2 I understand, but baking seems so... Zan. (Also the Owlish Man and the Cock-a-Roach and the Gold Card, in a different sense.)

5. Home birth or hospital?

6. Demon Hakkai.

7. And you already did.

Survive til New Year's!

I would have settled for anything at full term but as it was...

... Hmm will it be okay to answer here..it may be scary for a few people...ah what the heck...

Girl was an emergency c-section at 32 weeks (thankfully not dangerously early). she was so tiny, twenty cm in length and 1.5 kg. But she was strong. Apparently one of very few preemies they let go home after the normal checks.

Boy at full term started of naturally BUT decided he didn't want to come out and in the end they had to wheel me into the OR. >.< but he was a healthy 3 kgs and 50 cm in length. Very average. I love average. ^__^

Heh! I hope so too! Have sent the i-l off to the airport and packed what things we had accumulated over four weeks and taken leave of my dad's. the children are abed already and though I did the bare minimum, I still have to go back and give it a pretty thorough clean. AS well as sorting out stuff on the home front. *sigh!*

it may be scary for a few people

Meh- better learn the possibilities before you start the process, say I.

TINY!!! but cool about being able to go home. Most preemies I know were a couple of weeks in incubators or whatever those things are called. Over here, if you've had one caesarean they automatically schedule them for any subsequents. You have to fight to get a normal delivery- and yeah, the possibility of complications being as it is, people often wind up with an operation anyway.

Bye-bye in-laws, hello Dad. So it goes. Hang in.

'but am I no more than Shahrazad's Mother'? - No worries...I am proud to be associated as so. Wouldn't have it any other way!

I, uh, okay!

1. I found you following links on people's ljs, but damned if I can remember who it was had you friended when I did. For once I remember approximately when it was, because I bookmarked an entry of yours about your brother and his Rabbit and using orange juice for fuel.

2. You're associated with The Occult Rites of Editing, which still look strange and scary even after your explanations. 'Ooohhhhh weird things lurk in Word and you don't know anything about them but I do, dammit, I do. Do *not* tab to indent." (Then how does one indent? she cries.)

3. You snark well.

4. You sent me a computer when you didn't even know me. (snerf)

5. Where do you come in the family? You have an older bro and a younger bro but where does the sister fit in? Or is it sisters?

6. The sleeping cat one.

7. Not insisting, what with yuletide and all.

I'm almost awake again now. ^^;

Oh, the lamented suds bunny. But he's moved along to other Bun-berg Variations now.

2. The answer, it is seeemple! See, you strip everything in ms. file down to flush right and code it (just like in html). The design specifications tell the typesetter which paragraphs are indented.

5. I'm number three: brother, sister, me, brother. Year apart for all (the evidence of parental insanity right there).

7. Must. watch. TV. T_T

2. But here am I, dorky Professor J, writing an incomprehensible paper. I indent to tell me where a paragraph starts a) because I have to *see* it indented to know it is and b) because I've never heard of codes. Therefore I tab. Editor U doesn't want tabs. What is Prof.J supposed to do?

7. Yappari. At least it's not a book?

hullo there!

1. Lessee- your pedigree is via

mikeneko so I probably found you on her FL first and added you because you're cool. No, really. Anyone who can write remixes is cool. I don't even know what they are.

2. Those obscure (to me) manga fandoms you and Mike share- Wild Half, Uta-kata, MLR- that seemingly exist only as scanlated DLs. God knows, no one ever mentions a mangaka or publisher when talking about them grump grump.

3. You spent /hours/ uploading the live action 100 Demons. For that alone you qualify as a card-carrying gilt-edged certified Nice Person. Also you made me this icon.

4. qwerty family weirdnesses: the crayfish. Dear god. Crayfish wandering about one's apartment. Worse than Apollinaire and his lobster. What if one climbed into your bed???

5. What kind of Chinese do *you* speak?

6. It shouldn't be We Come in Peas but hell- I'm a suck for a pun. Am also fond of the well-rounded personality and the emo dormice.

7. If you like...

1. Nobody knows What A Remix Really Is, as far as I can tell! Everyone does their own thing. ;)

2. Hee. Uta-kata is

mikeneko's pet anime fandom... no idea if she sent you disks. The other two are indeed obscure manga fandoms I read in the local Chinese licence and

mikeneko in the original Japanese, so... *goes to look them up* Wild Half, is from Shueisha, by Yuko Asami, and MLR is Kinoshita Sakura with Mag Garden. They are both very silly.

3. I like to share things! But it was mostly a matter of starting the uploads, then wandering off to surf the net and checking in every now and then. I was loafing about online a lot during that period. ^^;

4. What if one climbed into your bed???
O_O No way! They are safely restricted to their nice aquariums and will stay there forever so help me unless they evolve wings or something like that. Which they will do without my help or not at all!

5. I speak weirdly accented Mandarin (no one can agree what accent it is supposed to be, ditto my English, alas), and barely manage appropriate response noises and comments in Teochew.

I like to share things!

Nice person. QED.

I dunno. Your crayfish come without a pedigree, and I strongly suspect may be a mutant form of life.

After dithering a bit -- bandwagon, here I come! :D

1. It can't be that you just turned up out of the blue in the middle of '06 with a picture of Goukou in civvies (http://pics.livejournal.com/flemmings/pic/000216qt), but that in fact is how it happened. And then I friended you. Or thought I did. And then I friended you again, for real this time.

2. You are full colour Hisui (http://pics.livejournal.com/flemmings/pic/000244cs)- traditional, graceful and elegant. And sometimes you're OP- modern, rambunctious and energetic.

3. As if you have to ask: you clothe my vaguely apprehended dragons, and give them faces.

4. Well, never met, but I recall with fondness the stages of putting Bleach shinigami on the Going Merry.

5. ('satiable curiosity) What kind of Chinese do *you* speak at home? Err- presuming you do.

6. Piggggeeeeee.

7. And you already did.

Mandarin. Parents used to switch to Cantonese and/or Hakka when they didn't want the kids to know what they were talking about, so little pitchers big ears, picked some up as a matter of course, but with better listening comprehension in both than speaking ability. My Cantonese is better simply because it's more commonly heard around here both in real life and in TV shows (which I don't watch) and movies (which I do). Have only enough Hakka to wish Grandpa Happy New Year and please have dinner and thank you for the presents and bye bye. Hokkien, eh, only swearwords picked up from here and there.

I'm late :(

lj is not mailing me comments, it seems.

1. Met you on Mike's FL which I read religiously until she changed her layout. One cannot have too many sarky lj friends. Hence the friending.

2. That fearsome beast Science as practised by the grad school elite. Given the way you write generally (allusive and elliptical) the beast looks most occult and mysterious and Revealed Only to the Chosen. 'Oh, mauvecloud? She's... one of *those*. (hisses) **Scientists!!!**'

3. You friended cat macros and metaquotes so I don't have to.

4. The head-spinning explanation of why Hokkien doesn't exist.

5. For once I already know what kind(s) of Chinese you speak at home. Why Australia?

6. He The Man. But only because it looks like the heroine of 12 Kingdoms.

7. Yeah, well...

2 - You know, this is exactly how I feel when Liberal Arts people talk shop.

Allusive and elliptical: not through lack of desire to enlighten or share, but because the research/academia world could be a small world indeed... ask Mike.

5 - Pratchett's Last Continent ^^ Seriously, probably the same answer to 'Why LRD?' Despite having no life aside from work, I don't do much thinking in the career development department. I just go where the money is. If I did enough thinking, I should be in Boston, the mecca of my field.

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Festive occasions

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Comment! ^__^

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