plus, who can really say what the correct one is?more standardized, sure, but wrong? I think it just depends on your perception.

But...it's not even *spelled* chipoLte.

(Unsurprisingly, I was a pedantic little 7-year-old who could not abide my classmates saying puh-sketti. Come on, even a 5-year-old can see the S comes first! [that would have a winky emoticon if I used them])

Steph, I know you don't use Facebook much, but you should log on and check out Erinaceous’ status.

That is *excellent.*

And because it needed a separate post --

askye, that's so tough, but I'm glad it was as good as it could be. She was lucky to have you as her human.

We have no water because of a water - either the water main down the road has broken (again)

It looked like a mess on Tuesday. They'd closed the road to traffic.

I'm more okay with this than I thought I would be. I just realized I was doing the right thing. I know that I'm probably a bit in denial and a bit numb and tomorrow I may miss her like crazy but she was a good kitty and I loved her very much and she lived the best kitty life she could.

Plus I'll be finding her cat hair everywhere for a while now. And I found a spot where she threw up, I guess I should get as much trace of her cleaned up before I get a new cat.

In good news -- my Wii shipped!!!! YAY! It should be at Mom's house Tuesday. I had it sent there rather than my house because there are many things I trust UPS to leave on my porch but a Wii is not one of them.

For those of us without Facebook, what's up with Erinaceous?

{{{askye}}} It sounds like you gave her a comforting and easeful passing with her loving human close by; it's awful, that the last good gift you can give your pets is the hardest on you.

Ugh. Off to pick up Matilda now, and then I don't even know what. We got a call earlier that the father of one of Emmett's teammates, a robust and glowing and radiantly happy man, died suddenly last night of a massive heart attack. He was the kind of team dad that all the kids on his son's team and on all the teams his team played, and any older or younger siblings of any of these, all knew and loved him; everyone at Emmett's middle school is in shock, and Hec is on his way over now to check in with Emmett, see how he's handling it all, and see if there's anything to be done for the family.

Which means Matilda and I are futless until probably her bedtime, and it's too wet out to go do much of anything, and if I let myself get sad she'll be sad too, and worried, and keep patting me and saying, "Don't be sad, Mommy." Which is exactly the kind of tender toddler thing that just makes you ten times sadder.

I think I'll either take Matilda out for a noodle dinner or call megan and foist ourselves on her for the evening, or possibly both.

Oh, JZ, that's awful. That poor kid.

In pronunciation news, I'm going to have to take a completely contrary position. I love accents and dialects, so odd pronunciations even ones I think are "wrong" don't bother me usually. I love the ways words change on different parts ofthe country and world; plus, who can really say what the correct one is?more standardized, sure, but wrong? I think it just depends on your perception. I'm a liberal commie when it comes to these things, I guess.

Now that I've said this, of course, I'm going to think of a bunch of exceptions.

I have no problem with most. I might even slip in the odd vee-hick-l now and then myself.

Most of the time it's just a overemphasis of different components of the words according to the region.

I used to be more tolerant of NUKE-u-lr before GWB, I must admit.

When someone else mispronounces it I can roll my eyes, when the POTUS says it in an official capacity, I cringe.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Friday quietly ended the Bush administration's ban on giving federal money to international groups that perform abortions or provide information on the option.

Thanks to Shrift, I immediately went to Monster.com and changed my password.

Scary.