Too many Lucy's

Necessary background for the story that follows: I have a friend with a darling four-month old baby named Lucy. And my friend Kristin has a cat named Lucy.

Last night I came home from Kristin's house, where both baby and cat were present, and told Josh that "I burped Lucy."

His response: "You burped a cat?!"

And that, my friends, strikes me as so funny this morning that I'm laughing out loud right now.

Things you should know about Greenland

1. It's not very green, but it is very cold. Actually, there should be a harsher word for average winter temps between 21°F (-6°C) and -31°F (-35°C).
2. After WWII, the U.S. established an air base on Greenland's west coast, and in 1968 a U.S. B-52 bomber, loaded with four nuclear weapons, crashed near the base. Though the U.S. government claimed to have cleaned them all up, it turns out one weapon was never found and has resulted in high level radioactivity in the area--not to mention the fact that the construction of the base in the first place meant an Inuit population was kicked off of its traditional hunting grounds. The U.S. can be a jerk.
3. The weather in Greenland directly affects and therefore can predict weather in Western Europe.
4. The viking who first settled on Greenland, Eric the Red, did so because he was kicked out of first Norway then Iceland for murder. Bad temper. Oh, and then his granddaughter, Freydis, convinced another ship to accompany hers to the timbered area of Canada her father, Leif, had discovered only to have her crew kill the entire other ship's crew once they got there so that she could take all the profit. Nice people, those Vikings.
5. Much of the land in Greenland's interior is actually pushed under sea level by the weight of the ice that covers most of the country.
6. When Norwegian missionary Pastor Egede translated the Lord's Prayer into Greenlandic, he had to change "Give us this day our daily bread" to "Give us this day our daily meat."
7. The huge number of fjords along the edges of Greenland extend the island's coastline to more than twice that of the continental United States.
8. June 21--that's right, the Ligairi wedding anniversary--is a national holiday in Greenland, since it's the longest day of the year and the sun never goes down.

I'm already obsessed with Iceland, but I'm thinking that I'm going to have to do a whole Arctic tour now. I love my job.

Swinging

The porch swing my parents got for my and Josh's birthdays (it was a really nice, expensive one) came and my dad and I put it up this weekend. I was very impressed with our--well, mostly his--porch-swing-installation skills. I was good at changing my mind multiple times about how high it should be and how far it should recline. Anyway, it's lovely. I have already eaten several meals on the porch and finished one book. All are welcome to come for a swing.

Do you feel (like) fiction?

So, the other day my friend (and coworker) Kip passed this transcript on to me. It embodies three of my favorites--NPR, Ian McEwen (though I didn't like his last book much), and fiction.

But first a little background. I have been noticing of late that the men in my office, with maybe one exception, hardly ever read fiction! This is also true of Josh. It's all non-fiction all the time. Now don't get me wrong, I too love non-fiction (good ones I'm reading or have recently read include The Omnivore's Dilemma and Traveling Mercies), but it's just not the same. And I couldn't figure out why the men in my life don't give fiction a chance.

Well, according to the transcript above, it apparently could be because they lack empathy and a broad emotional range. But really? Is that old gender stereotype that women are interested in relationships and men in facts so true? Say it ain't so!

So, here's an informal poll to all two men out there who read this blog. What's the last book you read and what made you choose it?

(To see what I've been reading, go here).

Labor Day weekend

This weekend was nice.

It was full of blue skies...

...and even a rainbow (the vibrant colors of which I can never seem to capture with a photo.)

Sunday began with Josh looking like a character from the Beastie Boys' video "Sabatoge."

And ended with a family picnic in the canyon topped off with homemade peach pie, on which my mom had written my name (a birthday tribute).

Jesse is huge now--have I mentioned that? He's also a huge butthead. On Monday we were about to head up to visit my grandpa when Jesse calls saying he's been shot with a BB gun by one of his friends and the BB is lodged in his side. He tried getting it out with a pocket knife before calling my dad. Luckily, his family doctor was able to remove it and felt like a doc from a Western cleaning up a "gunshot wound" while he was at it. (This accident follows a sleep-deprivation-induced seizure a few months ago.) Teenage boys.


Josh drove home from my grandpa's in the Impala, which was a slightly nerve-racking experience considering it's a boat with very loose steering and no power brakes. But it was fun nonetheless.