159th Friday Blog Roundup
I love to annoy the kids, but sometimes my voice goes if I’m keeping up something for a long time. But this week, I discovered the voice recording feature on the blackberry and used it to record myself annoying them at the park so I could keep replaying it for an additional 45 minutes and save my voice. Brilliant use of technology.
[audio:https://www.stirrup-queens.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Annoying-Other-People.mp3]
(warning, children’s voices heard)
This soon became our favourite question of the week:
[audio:https://www.stirrup-queens.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Annoying-the-Twins-edited.mp3]
Well, which one are you?
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I really hope I didn’t embarrass myself with that. Please tell me that I’m not the only person who does that voice.
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The Weekly What If: What if you could have an accent from anywhere in the world, but you could still live exactly where you live (and this fact–that you have a South African accent, let’s say, but live in Kansas–wouldn’t be weird). Which accent would you choose–your own or another one?
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I am doing a bunch of readings for the book in October and November and I’d love to meet as many people as possible. This month, I’m reading at the DCJCC (Washington, DC) on October 18th (and they’re offering half-price tickets to blog readers who use this link to get tickets) and in Marlton, PA (er…that would be Marlton, NJ…thank you, Tash) on October 23rd and in Detroit, MI on November 15th.
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And now, the blogs…
IF Crossroads has a post about an emotional reaction to watching a television show. A long time ago, IFCrossroads was a military spouse, living on base without children, a decision she didn’t regret both due to her love of independence and her age. Her husband has since left the military, but she thinks about that time in her life when she watches the show Army Wives, which currently has a pregnancy storyline. She asks: “Do you ever have those days when you’ve completely lost all hope? Do you ever just look in the mirror and say ‘this is never going to happen’ and completely believe that 100%?” It’s a moving post.
Dead Baby Jokes has a post about remembering her twins. There is a line that is so perfect, it made my heart stop for a moment: “the past is another country, but the future is too.” It is simply gorgeous writing; emotional words.
Who Shot My Stork? has a post apologizing for not writing. It’s a post that travels all over the place from what she has done since the last time she wrote to a play she bought at the Drama Book Shop in New York. I loved reading her reaction to the two characters in the play, how the show was like reading “a blog in play form.” I don’t know why, but I kept thinking about this post after I had clicked away.
Lastly, Exile in Kidville has a post listing out the multitude of sides internally fighting for her emotional attention. She writes: “stupid/hopeful me can’t help but notice that i have also been very burpy and refluxy. again — not common. though i was all the time when i was…well, you know. cynical/logical me points again at coincidence and that bit about 8/9 DPO.” Your stupid/hopeful/cynical/logical self will recognize the well-worn loop.
The roundup to the Roundup: Fun with audio files. Answering the Weekly What If. Readings in DC, PA, and MI. And lots of great blogs to read.
30 comments
I’d LOVE to have an Australian accent! I think they are totally awesome, and I could hear them talk all day!
(And, on a different note, while I don’t use that particular silly voice, I DO use silly voices all the time! You’re not alone!)
Ha! I was totally first! That never happens! That’s what I get for working nights!
I love love love the audio files. love them.
Well, are you a biiiird or a giiiiirl? Laughed so hard I cried!
I think I better not choose a different accent, mine is hard enough to pull off without trying to add anything to the mix of swedish-hawaiian-pigeon-american-english. Phew!
I love it! I will totally be hearing you for the rest of the day, asking me if I’m a bihrd or a gihrl.
I can’t wait to ask my hatchlings this question.
French.
I’m a bird! I’m a bird!!!
(your accent there sounds surprisingly like Alex Borstein’s character- well, one of her characters-, Ms. Celine, on the Gilmore Girls. Although I am obsessed with the Gilmore Girls, I promise that I was really only able to make that easy comparison because there was an episode on rerun yesterday that featured that character…)
If I had to choose an accent, I think I would have a pure Texas twang. For a long time, I was really happy that I managed to escape that fate while both of my parents have incredibly strong, thick Texas accents, but now, I associate it with home, and I love it, and I wish I had more of it. I could listen to my dad for hours. But being here in NC, surrounded by this sort-of similar Southern-ish accent, I miss the Texas accent even more, because the twang starts to become muddied in my head by the accents I hear around here. And so I’ve grown to hate the accents I hear here, which is unfair to my fellow NCers, but there it is. I feel like David Sedaris when I say that the second my children start to sound like three-toothed cross-eyed inbred mountain yokels, we’re going to take a very long trip to Texas, so they can be made to sound like three-toothed cross-eyed inbred TEXAS yokels instead.
Though I suppose if it had to be a foreign accent, I’d choose German, only because I started learning it too late in life, and there are so many sounds in that language that I cannot make, and it would be so nice to be able to say “Köln” and be understood by the German speakers in my life. As for now, I give it one good try and then give up and cheat and call it Cologne instead…
I’m not a huge fan of accents. I prefer the accent-less.
I’ve been trying to place that voice and I finally figured it out…Hyacinth Bucket (that’s Bouquet) from Keeping Up Appearances. You sound very much like her.
(Mel, Psssst, Marlton is in NJ, not PA. Those with discerning Philly or NJ accents will understand.)
I think I’d keep my voice, thanks, but I’m really really fond of NZ, British, and there’s a high southern (like, southern VA and therebouts) that is very sweet and slow that I oddly grew to like when I lived in VA.
Loved the audio files and I love the accent, though it was scary and it took a few seconds for it to click in that you were actually doing a voice and for a moment my brain was randomly flashing up images of a scary elderly lady. Nevertheless, in the spirit of things, I am also a bird (though there’s nobody else here to check).
That is so funny! It is amazing what kids’ imaginations come up with. I don’t want to reveal what is on the audio files but it cracked me up!
Too cute! I too annoy the C’s with weird questions asked in strange voices. But the ChickieNob plays along much better than the C’s. I’m a little jealous.
I already am a little bit of an accent chameleon. Especially with accents I hear frequently. But in my head, I sound like a Kiwi. Don’t ask me why, because I don’t know. But I love a NZ accent.
Mel, I am jumping out of my skin! I LIVE 10 minutes from Marlton, NJ. Weeeeeeee! I get to meet you!!
Love the audio! Very cute. I’m sure you are not the only one to be a wonderfully silly parent 🙂 (I think I’m a girl! hehe)
I would totally have an australian accent if I could. I love listening to that accent.
It’s not just that you have an awesome British accent, it’s that you completely channel Gemma Jones as Bridget Jones’ mom when you do it!
I guess I’d do British or French. The real kicker here though is that in order to keep the one accent, I’d probably have to give up my ability to mimic, and I just can’t do that. I am a girl bird!
That was definitely cute! I will probably be thinking about that all weekend!
If I could, I would love a good, thick Irish accent. I’ve always loved the way it sounds…although sometimes hard to understand!
Hahah, too freaking cute!
I’m going to be boring and say that I don’t think I’d want an accent. It would invite too many personal questions about where I’m from, why I”m here, how long I’m staying, if I married for love or citizenship (hahah).
I may get to meet you in NJ. 🙂
you are hiLArious. I think you are a bird-girl.
Love the silly voice! You totally sound like you should be the headmistress at St. Trinian’s.
Personally, I love having an English accent & living in the US. Though I do often get asked if I’m Australian – what’s that all about? It’s a bit of a generic university English accent these days though; lost my Yorkshire accent a long time ago when I realised that no one outside of my home town understood a word I was saying. Sometimes I’d like that one back.
I would go with a Yemenite speaking Hebrew with a ח and an ע – two letters that most of us Israelis don’t pronounce well and they say it so nicely!
OMG mel that cracked me up! What about the Penny Whistle and Josh?
Oh and I would choose Australian accent. Those Aussi do it for me. What would be better is if hubby had an Aussi accent. FOR SURE!
Since I am addicted from the Outlander series I would love to have a scottish accent. 🙂
I think you sound a bit like Eloise’s nanny on the old recording of the song! I love her voice!
I love your voice too and playing that kind of game is something I love to do.
thank you so much for kirtsying me yesterday. I have had a secret wish to be kirtsyed and it came true!
As for accents, having an English one and living in the States is probably as much as I would ever want to deal with. Which is the status quo for me. Going back home and being just the same as everyone else – now that might be hard. I have had my fair share of putting on accents ( and airs) in my life as a show -off and there have been times when it has backfired on me – like when I was serving in a guesthouse and one morning I was scottish and by the evening I had turned Norwegian and the guests were quite confused. Of course, I had forgotten that one needs to be consistent as well as flamboyant!
Love your blog and everything you do for the ALI community and the fact that you are a real live down to earth unpretentious julie andrews type ( aka polite and thoughtful) really inspires me that often the good gals do really win!
Um, I think the slow southern drawl would suite me just fiiiineee. You are so funny! And I must get me one of them recording devices!!
Hmm, maybe an English accent?
Uhhhh – thanks for that Mel. I made the good (bad?) decision to listen to your audio files while there were little ears in the room . . .
Now the strains of “are you a Birhd or a girrrl?” are echoing around my domicile . . .
We speak whale around here – ala Dorry from Nemo. We don’t do Humpback so much – too hard on the vocal chords.
I also have a mean voice – where I sound rather possessed and comes out when trying to motivate the masses towards a faster response time.
Any accent?? Oh, Scottish – definitely! Though – Australian is a very, very, very close second. I would love a brogue though . . .
Sadly, I’m stuck as a girl but I would LOVE to fly like a bird. I loved the audio files.
As for accents, I really love the Australian accent.
Tessa and I are listening to you and ChickieNob talk about behds and gehls. She says she’s a gehl, but that’ doesn’t explain the penchant for worms.
In 1999, would have said aussie, particularly a Melbourne type one.. but now that I’ve lived in NZ for 3 years I would say Kiwi, Irish or maybe scottish and definitely not Australian:)
But I no longer hear the Kiwi accent so I don’t know how much joy it would give me. I guess I should save up any accent help for the day that I become semi-fluent in a language and want to risk actually sounding like I can speak it 🙂
PS the funny thing is that I think Americans tend to really like Australian accents.. but now that I’ve spent so much time around British and Kiwi folks I can start to actually hear how that accent sounds a bit harsh. I used to think they were crazy for thinking such a thing. I also no longer have this strong association between intelligence and British accents — now I just think.. hmm they sound like they are from X.