Random

Obi may be ill.  She has weird wart-like blisters on her face that cropped up about two weeks ago and they just keep coming, busting open and bleeding all over.  We don't have money for a vet.  :(  We are worried.

Did you know fortune cookies actually started in America, presumably based on a Japanese cracker recipe?  Apparently they not only DIDN'T originate in China, but when companies try to sell them in China they don't succeed because people see them as "too American."  People just popularized them for Chinese-American restaurants here around the turn of the century, and especially during WWII they became associated with Chinese-American stuff...probably because of the Japanese internment camps.  Huh.

Did you also know that even though we don't have any children and at this rate may never bear our own biologically, we have our first three daughters named?  My middle name means nothing and has no particular significance, so I wanted my daughters to have meaningful names.  We're going down the maternal line.  First daughter, named after my mother's mother's mother, will be Lillie Pearl.  Lillie was the only other schoolteacher in the family (that I know of) and she loved flowers.  I think we would've gotten along together nicely.  Second daughter, with the middle name after that of my maternal grandmother's, will be Esperanza (we think) Lorraine.  Esperanza after the book Esperanza Rising AND a family friend of Paul's.  We may change our minds about that one, because her initials would be ELF...so we'll see.  :)  And our third daughter, after my mom's nickname, Aerie, and her middle name, Lee, will be Aeryn Lee.  If I didn't want Lillie so badly, Aeryn would be the first, because I think mom will LOVE having another granddaughter named after her (my niece, Caida Lee, got there first. :)  And what if I only have two girls and a bunch of boys?  What will I do?  Lillie Pearl, Espy, and Aerie Berry...I know it's kinda weird, but I feel like I already know and love them and call out their nicknames in my daydreams and I--WE--just can't wait to have them in our life.  One way or another...

Boys, however, are much harder to name.  At least I think so. 

We want to end up in Seattle someday.

I don't like mushrooms.