My hometown is Canberra, which does indeed make me happy. The latest happy-making was showing the Wallybee around and her getting it. (In June, which is a real achievement.)

Canberra is the place that feels most comfortable to me. The first sight of the Black Mountain Tower. Cresting a rise on Hindmarsh Drive to look over Woden Valley. When Captain Cook Fountain is sending spray over the COmmonwealth Bridge. And, of course, visiting the Canberra Aviary and the Australian Reptile Centre. These are a few of my favourite things. So yeah, I'm comfortable there, and I get the place, and I also love it and will defend it fiercely.

None of this detracts from Melbourne, of course. Melbourne rocks, it's one of the easiest places in the world to pursue a real quality of life. So it's all good.

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Dublin is so very much my hometown, and my home, and the place I'll always go back to. I travelled a lot when I was a kid, and lived abroad, but even that hasn't made Dublin any less 'it' for me. I wouldn't even know where to start describing what it is about it that I love so much.

The fact that you're never more than twenty minutes from the sea, or from the countryside, I suppose; the way everyone has a story and doesn't mind telling it; the way it's small enough that you can know every venue, but big enough that there's always something you want to see; the way it's been steeped in culture so that it sometimes seems as though every building has a plaque; the way someone's always going for a pint if you're bored; that even though it's a capital city people take their time; that we all take the piss at the surveys that say we have the highest quality of life in the world; the Georgian architecture and the Viking archaeology; the throngs of tourists fascinated by things I take for granted. It has its problems - God, does it have its problems, but I love it all the more for it, because God knows Dubliners like to complain, and we'd just get pissed off if there was nothing to complain about.

Anyway, yes, Dublin.

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lovely Dublin tribute, Jars.

I have just made arrangements to attend a wedding in August for a family friend. This means, of course, that my family will be there. My folks plus my sister and her fam. As with everything having to do with my family, I am both apprehensive (about my folks) and looking forward to it. (about seeing the kids). But it will be good to see the non-family peeps, for sure.

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I don't know that I have a home town, either. I was born in Alpena, MI and lived there until I was 15. So the lake-centered nature of the place seems natural to me. Towns and cities without a shoreline seem unfocused to me, which probably means they're just organized around a principle that I don't instinctively grasp. But I wouldn't move back to Alpena. Hundreds of people, including just about everyone I knew, moved out in the mid-80s due to economic forces. I visited once a few years ago. It was like putting on someone else's coat. Sure, it's less shabby than I remember, but it doesn't fit and I'm not comfortable rooting around in the pockets. I can't think of a reason to go back. So while I'm looking for bits of Alpena in the places I live, I don't see myself ever going back again.

I've lived in various parts of NC since '83. I really like some of them, but I wouldn't consider any of them home towns.

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My home town was very much my home. I'm still more at home there, than in this town (where we've lived for 9 years, now), even though I grew up near this town. When I got to the other town (to get my haircut, or take the kids to the doctor, etc.) I'm always so surprised at how I feel when my feet hit the pavement. Driving is no different, but when I'm on foot, on the streets of my home town, there's a strong feeling that I'm home.

Now, my mother sold the house I lived in from birth, until I was 27 (minus the college years), and that street really feels like home (even in the car). I don't know that I've been on foot on that street since the house sold. I don't know that I could not walk into my house, even though other people labor under the delusion (supported by the mortage they're paying) that it's now their house. It's not. It is mine.

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YES! The box arrived, Amy.

And how funny is this? The stripey Osh Kosh sweater? We have now had one that fits her from 6 months on!!

BWAH!

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Now, my mother sold the house I lived in from birth, until I was 27 (minus the college years), and that street really feels like home (even in the car). I don't know that I've been on foot on that street since the house sold. I don't know that I could not walk into my house, even though other people labor under the delusion (supported by the mortage they're paying) that it's now their house. It's not. It is mine.

Yeah, the people that bought my parents' old house (the one I got married in) seem to labour under a similar delusion. I have to admit, them painting it did diminish my feelings of ownership. Who knows what other sacrileges have been visited upon its walls?!?

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The people who bought my parents house keep the shades drawn, all the time, even in the middle of the day. It's distressing. What are they doing to my poor house that requires so much secrecy?

My parents painted the house the summer before my father died. In my head, the house is still blue, even though it's been a soft peach color now, for a few years, and before the sale. I don't know if the new "owners" painting the house would diminish my feelings of ownership, since I never quite got used to the new color (which I do like, I just never expect it), anyhow.

I didn't get married in my parents house, but I got married from it. I was in all likelihood conceived there. I think it was harder for me to let go of the house because of Dad.

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Oakland is where I was born, and I don't know it that well but what I do know, even the less savory parts, feels familiar and good. San Francisco is my home, and my hometown.

ION, grr. I hate getting baby stuff. Everyone has an opinion, and everyone's opinion is different, and everyone outvotes everyone else.

• Hec and I both want a dresser with a curved changing pad on top so after diaper-changing is done with it can just be a plain ol' dresser and it's one piece of kid furniture we won't have to worry about.

• My mom thinks this is awful because dressers don't have guard rails all around the top (but all the changer/dressers I can find with guard rails are either cheapish things from Target and WalMart with user comments warning about how pieces fall off if you look at them cross-eyed, or craxy expensive $1200 custom jobbies that offend my penny-pinching soul (she would pay for it, or split the cost with my dad, but the cost just fundamentally offends me)).

• My dad is happy to help with anything we want, but always looks faintly puzzled as though everything I say is being filtered through a sickly babelfish and our conversations always end with me feeling somewhat comforted but also mildly worried that I am in fact insane or possibly accidentally speaking Romanian.

• One of my best friends thinks changing tables are of the devil and all babies should be changed on the floor always because everyone knows that babies are incessantly rolling off of tables and cracking open like pumpkins, and she will be loudly offended no matter what we get -- because, with a 38-year-old mom and 45-year-old dad, we're bloody well getting

something. Ain't no way we're spending half our lives between October and toilet-training crouched on the floor shredding our knees and lower backs.

Conclusion: EVERYONE BACK OFF BEFORE I BITE YOU. Also, how do the already-parental Bitches filter out all the noise from all directions about "I know what you must do and everyone else is WRONG and probably trying to KILL YOUR BABY OMG" before you go feral on someone?

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Oh, good, Aimee! Hope you can use the stuff inside.

Also, how do the already-parental Bitches filter out all the noise from all directions about "I know what you must do and everyone else is WRONG and probably trying to KILL YOUR BABY OMG" before you go feral on someone?

It gets easier with practice. First time around, it's always a little overwhelming. If there's a happy place you can go to, and pretend to listen, while nodding zombie-like, when someone is giving you that kind of "I know what you MUST do!" speech, it helps.

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