little Phoebe

A little list of Five Phoebe things.

1. Phoebe is a name meaning “bright and shining,” originating from ancient Greek. The first Phoebe was a goddess in Greek mythology, one of the Titans (also spelled Phoibe)
2. Many Phoebes have since made their appearance in fiction and life, such as Phoebe Snow, used in advertisements for the Lackawanna Railroad in the early 1900s:

   

3. Phoebes are birds: “The genus Sayornis is a small group of medium-sized insect-eating birds in the Tyrant flycatcher family Tyrranidaenative to North and South America.” (wiki). They are named for their song, which is said to sound like “fee-bee” (Click here to hear some Phoebe chirping.)
   
   

   An Eastern Phoebe

4. Phoebe is Saturn’s smallest moon, a satellite which was once a comet.
   
   

   Phoebe, moon of Saturn.

5. Phoebe, or Little Phoebe, is a term meaning “five”
   

   little phoebe

   noun
   the cardinal number that is the sum of four and one

   In case this meaning seems completely obscure to you, as it did to me, it appears to have originated in the dice game, craps. Among the “Principal craps terms” listed under the heading for craps in Dictionary of the American West: over 5,000 terms and expressions from Aarigaa! to Zopilote, by Winfred Blevins are these terms for a roll of 5: “fever dice, little Phoebe, feebee, or just Phoebe“

This is all by way of saying that my own little Phoebe is five today.

Phoebe, five-year old girl.

Happy birthday, sweet Phoebe.

Image links: a roll of Phoebe with dice, Phoebe (moon), Phoebe (bird), and Phoebe Snow. (All 4 of these are public domain images. The image of Phoebe (child) is not.)

paddling on the river

I haven’t participated in PhotoHunt for ages, but this week’s prompt of “silhouette” was too good for me to resist. Because one of my all-time favorite photos is a silhouette, taken on the riverfront in Sevilla, Spain:

cut out from the same paper

Phoebe is growing more and more independent. She has her own sense of style, and is very creative. She picks out her outfits, she makes up projects and even games. She likes to do things her way, and is happiest when she able to do things herself. Not by herself, as in alone–she loves to have company. But she likes to be the one doing the tasks, and making the decisions. I enjoy seeing her figuring things out, and becoming more competent at a wide range of things.

For Valentine’s Day, the kids in Phoebe’s pre-K class were invited to bring in valentines for each of the other 17 kids in the class. Phoebe decided that she wanted to make all her own valentines, for the kids in her class. (And for the teachers. And for a few other friends.) Since I definitely have a preference for the hand-made and the home-made over the mass-produced and the store-bought, I did not discourage her from this plan. We even had an extra day, I reassured myself, since Phoebe wouldn’t be going to preschool till Tuesday. Of course, I had in mind that I could do a lot of the tasks with or for her–cutting card stock with the big paper cutter, and snipping other paper things as needed with the scissors for her to use as decorations. (I am a whiz with the scissors.)

But Phoebe had her own plans. For a start, she wanted to cut all the cards herself with her own little scissors. And she wanted to do all the decorating herself. And the writing.

Due to the chaos that is our life, which was compounded by a flat tire on one of the cars, Phoebe didn’t really get going on her project till Sunday. She worked hard at the project, cutting and drawing and writing. (I kept her company, and made my own valentine.) By Sunday night, however, she had only finished 8 cards.

Monday was a work day for me and a daycare day for Phoebe, then Phoebe had karate class in the evening. She’d finished a couple more designs before dinner, but still had many more to make. By the time we finished dinner, it was heading on towards 7:00, when we would ordinarily be getting going with the bedtime process.

I found myself saying to John: “I really love to see her wanting to do things her way, but sometimes she needs to understand that there just isn’t time to do everything she wants, just how she wants to.”

John looked at me.

“What?” I said. John smirked in reply.

“Oh, you mean she sounds like me. With my research.”

“Like you with everything that you ever do.”

Um. Guilty.

But I had worked out a revised plan, to at least get the 17 cards done for the kids in her class. I told Phoebe I would cut out some hearts for her with different papers–I even enticed her with sparkly papers! Then she could write on the cards and glue hearts on, rather than drawing pictures on each card. Phoebe agreed that we could wait for another day to make cards for the other people on her list.

John got Theo off to bed, and Phoebe and I settled down to work. We got a method down by which she would pick several hearts for a card, then I would put glue on the hearts, and she’d stick them on like stickers. When things went pretty fast, I even agreed that she could draw on embellishments. (She wanted each card to have a face.) We finished the cards by 8:30 or so, and Phoebe still felt that she’d had control of the artistic direction for each of the cards.

(Remind me to tell you what’s going on with my research…)

Some of the plan A cards:

Plan B:

a big, squishy heart for you

Happy Valentine’s Day, friends. I cut out some hearts just for you.

For more Valentine’s treats, please revisit eat your hearts out (all about little candy hearts), heart in my hands (an anatomical heart-themed list), and getting over V.D. If you are seek more heart-warming valentines, please see giving a rat’s ass for Valentine’s Day. Don’t say I never gave you anything for Valentine’s Day.

comment spam: now with more flattery!

This blog has been around a few years now, and my spam filter has caught quite a few spam comments. 107,662 spam comments, in fact. Which is way, way more spam comments than actual bonafide comments from actual bonafide people.

A few years back I made a post in response to some spam comments that amused me, but mostly I don’t give spam much thought.

I recently checked to see what was in my spam box, though, and was amused to see another recent trend in spamming: flattery. Many of the comments were very complimentary about the blog, the post, etc.. The sort of comment that can be nice to get. Take this one:

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This one I could almost let pass though. Yes! Me! I’m so cool! I’m original! But what exactly is “this subject?” Oh, right. My about page. And what kind of a first name is buy, anyway?

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I’m glad Sudie likes my blog. It’s so nice to feel appreciated. On the other hand, it would be nicer if Sudie had bothered to note that I am female. Especially given the fact that Sudie was visiting my about page, where I have a picture of myself. (Of course, in that photo, I have a fish on my head. Maybe Sudie thinks the fish is the blog author…though how the fish could “walk the walk” is unclear to me.)

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down the rabbit hole

Happy New Year! It’s Chinese New Year today, marking the start of the year of the rabbit. In keeping with my tradition of welcoming the lunar new year with a themed list,¹ I present to you a bunch of rabbits:

• “rabbit, rabbit” A tradition of saying “rabbit, rabbit” first thing when you wake up on the first of the month to bring you good luck. I used to do this as a kid. I hadn’t remembered it in years. (Maybe my luck would have been better…)
• Bugs Bunny: a famous cartoon from the Looney Tunes/Warner Brothers. (What’s up, doc?)
• Binky and Bongo: somewhat less famous rabbit characters from Matt Groening’s comic Life in Hell. (Bongo is the one with one ear.)





• Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) A movie combining live action and cartoon characters, one of whom is a rabbit.
• Harvey (1950) A movie starring Jimmy Stewart and a 6-foot-tall invisible rabbit.
• Little Rabbit Foo-foo/Little Bunny Foo-foo. A folk song. …hopping through the forest. Scooping up the field mice and bopping them on the head…
• The Bunny Hop: a conga-line type dance involving hopping
• Rabbits are popular anthropomorphic characters in children’s literature, such as The Tale of Peter Rabbit and others by Beatrix Potter, or Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown.
• Watership Down: a novel by Richard Adams about a very complex rabbit society. Complete with their own language. I’m quite fond of the Lapine words tharn (which is the feeling one gets of being a deer caught in the headlights) and hrair (which is a number larger than 4–rabbits can only count up to 4.)



• Other well-known stories feature a rabbit among other characters and species of creatures, such as Rabbit from A. A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh books or the White Rabbit in Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland. There was also Thumper from Disney’s 1942 animated film Bambi. Br’er Rabbit: is a character from the traditional African American Uncle Remus folktales



• Other stories feature bunny-shaped toys, such as The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams, or the more recent Knuffle Bunny, by Mo Willems.
• The Easter Bunny: a rabbit said to bring colorful eggs and candy for children on Easter.
• Here comes Peter Cottontail: a song about the Easter Bunny. (…hopping down the bunny trail…hippity hoppity...)
• Cheddar Bunnies: rabbit-shaped snack crackers.
• Welsh Rabbit: a kind of food that is not actually made from rabbit. It is a thick sauce, traditionally made with cheddar cheese and ale, and served over toast. (Here’s a sample recipe.)
• VW Rabbit: a kind of car, not traditionally made with cheddar cheese or ale.
• rabbit food: what some call salads and other raw vegetables
• rabbit’s foot: a good luck charm made from the foot of a rabbit (less lucky for the rabbit)
• rabbit ears: antennae for a TV, not generally made from the ears of a rabbit (lucky rabbits)



• Rabbits have appeared as mascots for products, especially in TV commercials, such as the Energizer Bunny (it keeps going), the Trix rabbit (Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids.) and the Nesquik bunny (I have nothing to say about this rabbit.) For that matter, the logo of Playboy magazine is a stylized rabbit in a tuxedo. (I don’t have anything to say about that rabbit, either.)
• Finally, we must not forget that rabbits, while typically portrayed as docile, may have big pointy teeth.

—
¹ …with pigs in 2007, rats in 2008, and cows in 2009. Last year, I didn’t put up a list for the New Year, in part because I had put up my tiger list before, and in part probalby because I was busy with something else.²

² In fact I shouldn’t be doing this list now, as I have loads of other things I am supposed to be doing, but I can’t resist. So I will be quick like a bunny. And I will pull this rabbit list out of my…hat. I’ve tried to keep it short, but the bunnies seem to keep multiplying. (You know how rabbits are. Though I can’t help but notice that just about all of the rabbit characters on the list are male. You’d think that would make the breeding tricky…)

Image sources: Book cover for Watership Down, movie poster for Harvey, Peter Rabbit, Bugs Bunny, TV with antenna, Binky, Bongo, and John Tenniel’s illustration of the White Rabbit.