My sister used to be able to predict whether a baby would be a boy or a girl. This was back when we were little kids, when ultrasounds weren't usually done unless there was some problem with the pregnancy, so most people still didn't know until the baby was born, but whenever a friend's mother was pregnant, my sister (who was in preschool or maybe the first few grades of elementary school) would say whether it would be a boy or a girl, and she was always right. I don't know if she can still do it. When we were teenagers, a neighbor was pregnant, and my sister said that she felt "a definite girl vibe," but that it was confusing and she wasn't sure, and then it turned out to be boy and girl twins.

"I wonder who's in there..."

Night, smonster!

The theater at my college, which long long ago had started out as a barn/stable with various associated starcrossed student/stablehand and cruel riding accident tragic stories, apparently has a ghost in the costume shop/former tack room. Lights mysteriously going off, everything from measuring tape to entire bolts of fabric abruptly disappearing and then turning up in comically improbable places, the usual.

The summer theater costume mistress, who was otherwise a thoroughly stolid, unfussy and woo-free individual, told about being up late one night until she was finally, blissfully, one garment away from done. She decided that just this once she could quit early, as long as she had the fabric cut and laid out for basting before she crashed.

She got out her best fabric scissors, the NYC garment-district-graduation-present-to-herself ones, laid them on the table, turned to pick up the fabric and muslin, turned back, and the scissors were gone.

She looked around the table. She looked under the table. She looked in her pockets and her sewing kit in case she'd been so tired she'd only dreamed that she had taken them out and laid them on the table. No dice -- gone, just gone.

She turned her back to the table, threw up her hands, and said to the ceiling, "Okay, you had your fun, but now I'm so tired I'm about to cry. Pretty please?" And she turned back around, and there they were back on the table just where she'd left them.

There's also a rather creepier story involving my aunt and the furnished apartment she and a friend rented after the elderly occupant died, but I think I may have told that one before.

There's also a rather creepier story involving my aunt and the furnished apartment she and a friend rented after the elderly occupant died, but I think I may have told that one before.

Not to me!

sits on floor, waits patiently

The more ghost stories I get from other people who I know are sane and stable people (stop laughing), the more confident I feel that what's happened to me is real and not just some brain-grape I had.

I was listening to NPR this morning and a Dr being interviewed pronounces a word basically the way it's spelled, instead of correctly. I'm embarrassed for the guy and think how humiliating that would be to mispronounce a word in front of however-many listeners on the radio. So when I get to work I look it up on Dictionary.com, trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, thinking maybe it's an alternate pronunciation. And it turns out he pronounced it correctly...AND I'VE BEEN SAYING IT WRONG! Who knows how many times (probably not that many, it's not that common a word) over how many years! THE SHAME! Do not forsake me, fellow Word Lovers!

The thing is, here's the thing: it is: SAY-shuh-tee. And we don't care about your opinions.

This leads me to my greater point. A couple of times a month, Christopher mispronounces a word. We call this THE READER'S CURSE.

His last mistake was subterfuge. He said it like it was: "Sutter-fudge."

"Sutter-fudge" is still our go-to laugh.

Oooh, and I just a few seconds ago used the word "subterfuge" against a friend on FB (addressing his abject failure to exercise same). Goosebumps!

Zen, I will attempt the story about my aunt but Matilda requires fizzy water first. Back in a moment.

I still remember when my sister wanted a ca-NOPEY bed. ...of course, she also thought her middle name was Ceiling, for a long time (it's Celia).

I used "obstreperous" in an email the other day and my boss told me she had to look it up.

May have been posted elsewhere, but I love this

Star Lord and Captain America Just Made the Most Boy Scout Super Bowl Bet Ever

Yeah, my Facebook page kind of devolved into beefcake pictures of Chris Evans for a while after that.

I bet the end result of that bet will be that both groups of kids get a superhero visit, regardless of which team wins the sportsball event.