The Quotable Abigail, Part V: Addendum

On the problem with rolled down windows at traffic lights: “I want my hair to wind!”

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The Quotable Abigail, Part V

On international cats: “How do you say ‘meow’ in Spanish?”

On how to celebrate that post-poop feeling of triumph: “I just want to look at them.”

On the simplicity of putting on her dress: “That’s easy ice cream.”

On the simple truth: “Flip flops are San Diego shoes.”

On the time: “What time is it, Daddy? Is it park time?”

On what she knows about the farm: “I know about the pig.”

On when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie: “That’s the morning.”

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Reading Wake

Literally hundreds of people haven’t asked me if I’m going to read the last two Hugo nominees, especially as the Awards have already been announced. Well, calm down. I actually only have one Hugo nominee left to read. I finished Wake months ago.

And then time kind of got away from me.

Now this review has been hanging over my head for a long time and I’m had trouble putting it together. It actually took me only a few days to read Wake, the first party of the WWW trilogy by Robert J. Sawyer.  While I know that a few days might not seem like a tremendously quick read for some of your bibliophiles, but I have a pretty full schedule.  I have a full time job, the niches I’ve crafted out to do some writing and blogging, and a wife who can pointedly roll over if I leave my reading light on too long.

What I’m trying to say is that Wake is a fabulously easy book to read.

I’ve referred to Sawyer before as the master ethicist of science fiction and he doesn’t take a different approach in Wake. His stories always challenge the characters with moral questions related to science and the expansion of knowledge and technology. In this case, he’s forcing the question of what it means to be human, or at least sentient. It’s extremely compelling without being preachy and the central character’s story keeps you turning the pages.

However, the central character also presents problems for me. Sawyer has clearly tried to do his homework to capture the voice of a blind teenage girl, but something about her doesn’t quite ring true for me. While I am not any closer to being a teenage girl than Sawyer is, it frequently comes across as a person from the older generation who wants to seem like he gets what it’s like for the kids these days.

Character is often a problem for me with Sawyer’s work. The stories are always interesting. They make you think and they explore things from a new and challenging angle. But they also somehow lack nuance. His characters have personality, motivation and are frequently forced to make tough decisions, but they seem like characterizations at times.

But picking at the depth of his characters really misses the point of what Sawyer does. I really enjoyed Wake. And this may be all the review you need: when I finished Wake, I immediately bought the second in the trilogy.

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Odiferous Accusations

The following interaction between Abigail and her Mama transpired at approximately 6:55 this morning, Saturday, October 9th:

“You’re smelly.”

“Who’s smelly?”

“You’re smelly*, Mama!”

“Abigail, it’s not nice to tell people they’re smelly. You say sorry to Mama.”

“I’m sorry you’re smelly, Mama.”

*Investigations revealed that claims of Mama’s smelliness had no merit and were not based in actual fact.

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Woof People

“Maggie is a woof person.”

“Maggie is a woof person?”

“Maggie is with a person.”

“Okay. Who is Maggie with?”

“Maggie is with a blue person.”

“A blue person? Okay.”

“And a pink person.”

“A pink one, too.”

“A pink one and a blue one.”

And THIS is the point where Abigail decides that this conversation is hilarious and descends into laughter.

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Abigail Loves You, Baby

I’ve had this song in my head lately, which has led to humming, which, in turn, has led to Abigail singing it as well. That singing, has inevitably led to this video.

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Happy Birthday Hands

Today was Jessica’s birthday. Once Abigail finds out it’s anyone’s birthday, the first thing she wants is a piece of cake. She may ask you to go to a birthday party, but the reason she wants to go is because they have cake. Preferably in cup form.

To celebrate the birthday and satisfy everyone’s confectionery desires, Abigail and I conspired to make Mama some cupcakes today. I have photographic evidence that we worked together on it.

For the record, that’s jam on her face. You can see her PB & J on the plate in the background. You have to make cupcakes during lunch after all.

While Abigail and I make the cupcakes and popped them in the oven, Abigail worked with her Mama to make the frosting and “paint” the cupcakes.

The results were actually pretty good. At least, Abigail enjoyed them. Note: the one in the middle with all the M&Ms was the one Abigail did.

In closing, I’d like to wish my beautiful wife a happy birthday. As Abigail, said, when she saw what the cupcakes had done to her, “I’ve got happy birthday hands!”

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The Lottery: a good investment after all?

As it turns out, no.

I know. Shocking, isn’t it?

Still, this lottery simulator is an eye opener. It ought to kill any thoughts you had of dropping a dollar a day on the chance at millions.

PS – I love that the number one search that brought people to my blog this week was, “jackalope shoes.”

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Life Moves Along

It’s time to get back to blogging. In order to do that, we need to get the end of the pregnancy out of the way. I’m honestly not sure if I haven’t been blogging because I didn’t know what to say. It could just be I’ve been tired out by everything.

Basically, we won’t be having a baby in March like we’d planned. For whatever reason, the baby just wasn’t able to keep going. We waited until there was a less than 1% chance of anything going wrong before we told anyone, but that’s the way life works sometimes.

Very shortly, I’ll be discussing our trip to Disney World and other things of interest, but sometimes you need to go over the speed bump first.

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Shout Outs

I’ve got a few of what the kids call “shout outs” to offer up today, but before I do so, I’d like to mention a worthy companion that passed away recently. If you make it through this, there will be cute stuff. I promise.

We had our copycat mug for years, ever since I believe my sister-in-law Laura gave it to us. Here’s a picture of the little scamp:

It appears that the mug was left in the garage with … well, it’s unclear what, exactly, was left inside the mug. But suffice it to say that the copycat mug gave its life for science. It would be wrong of me not to at least publish the results of our faithful mug’s final experiment.

Right. Now onto the shout-outs.

Actually, maybe their “call outs.” Hmm. Either way, I’m sure I’d like to call out this bear for not paying attention while we took this picture at the zoo last week. This could have been a great picture if he hadn’t, I don’t know, smelled gravy or something.

The zoo need to seriously get some animals that have a passion for working with the public. This guy was really phoning it in.

Speaking of phoning it in, I’ve also got to call out the guy who writes signs for the dry cleaner that happens to be next to the donut shop we stopped at on the way back from the Galaxy game last week. I have a word of advice: if at any time, you find yourself adding a third S in a row to a word, step back. I think you’ll find a way to express yourself without offending everyone in the whole world. Sorry, expresss yourself.

Now it’s time to call out Abigail. I know, she’s only two, but she has to know how good she’s got it.

Just look at this selection of shoes she has:

Shiny blue ones. Sparkly pink ones. Understated gold ones. Okay, maybe gold can’t be understated. She also has some other pink ones. The point is she has a lot of shoes.

However, despite the fact that she hated them when she first tried them on, Abigail will now only wear these, except under extreme duress.

Now, sure, these shoes came from Grandma Pat, and that counts for something. And yes, they are flip flops, which we all know are awesome. However, these are also by far the cheapest and least flashy of her shoes. It’s time for her to step up the glam, that’s all I’m saying.

I’m not sure if I’m calling out the guy whose SUV was parked in the handicapped spot in front of the doctor’s office the other day, but I’m going to show you his license plate.

I walked about fifty feet before it hit me and I went back to take a picture.

And finally, I would like to give you another picture of Abigail, because I can.

In case you’re wondering, she’s trimming Maggie’s toenails. With a chip clip.

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