Grandma's Pronunciation

This post has been long in the making. While having dinner at a friend's house last Sunday, he told some funny stories about his family. This seems like a good place to write some of my own down before they get lost in the ether.

Language seems to be a constant topic with this set of grandparents. Mom and Dad always taught my brother and I to say the scientifically appropriate words for parts of our bodies, so you can imagine the look on my grandma's face one evening in 1990 as she knelt in front of the bathtub when my little brother spurted out "Don't forget to wash my penis, grandma!"

My grandma and grandpa Jackson have interesting ways of pronouncing some words which have puzzled my cousins, aunts, uncles, and parents for years.

Pizza is pronounced PEE-za, because "otherwise it would be spelled P-I-T-Z-A and a Z sounds like a Z!"

A subset of PEE-za, the oh-so-delicious frozen brand DiGiorno comes out as dee-EYE-gee-OR-ni-os.

Jacuzzi is just plain hard to say, and comes out Kah-JEW-zi.

The latest and best specimen is one that my mother had to tell grandma was just not something she should be saying. It refers to my cousin's broken down, rusty car. My cousin's African-American boyfriend calls it a hoopdee (slang for such a car), which translates into grandma Mary pronunciation as "Hoochie."

Some recent gifts

I have been horribly neglecting my poor blog. The biggest reason for this is that I have been working of Jared Flood's Girasole. Also, Keith's digital camera is stuck in Chicago, so I am forced to work with the pictures I can take on my cell phone.

It seems as if my (very generous) friends have been giving me lots of knitting-related things. At a knitting party, Sam and Ellen brought me their Ashford Traditional spinning wheel and an entire box of llama fiber. James gave me a swift and ball winder. And Keith sent me two kinds of Fiber Artist Merino sliver.

Thanks to everyone!

I hope to have some pictures of my soon-to-be-completed Girasole up soon.

Calculate your cat's age in human years...

cat years calculator

theodorejackson.net

Although I will keep posting my knitting adventures here, I bit the bullet and bought my own domain last week. There isn't much there yet save a page of fun links and a couple blog entries, but if you're interested just click the title above.

Brioche Experiments

Out of an urge to try something new, and in an effort to reproduce a pattern that my LYS didn't seem too eager to share with me, I taught myself how to do a couple versions of a brioche stitch. I think once I get started on an actual project, things will move quickly. The key is learning how to do the slip-yos on every other stitch, and then either knitting or purling the next stitch plus its yo. A site that was very helpful is http://www.briochestitch.com/.

Piano Favourites

I'm quite happy with myself as today I finished digitizing my favorite piano recording(s) of all time. These probably aren't that special in the music world, but I have owned this tape ever since I got it in my stocking in about third grade. I've been listening to it ever since, and over the years I learned to play many of the pieces through my piano lessons. I haven't been able to find this compilation in CD form anywhere, so I finally got up the nerve to make a digital copy.

You know it's official when...

the Dewey Decimal System acknowledges it!

973.932.

Barring the unforeseen, the next period in U.S. history will begin on January 20, 2009, with the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States. The updates to Dewey are underlined below:


973.93 2001–


973.931 Administration of George W. Bush, 2001–2009


973.932 Administration of Barack Obama, 2009–