The Prequel's Progress: none since last update. Didn't feel well on Tuesday, and then woke up on Wednesday to discover that a pounding toothache had conspired with my sinuses to create a hostage situation in my left ear, making me horribly dizzy. Still fighting tendency to wobble around in leftward circles but at least today I can see straight... Most annoying since it meant having to skip knitting MeetUp even though it was only a block from my house again this month, but I just couldn't focus well enough to do anything that fiddly with my hands.
Being sidelined yesterday meant suffering though the annual "Pandering to the Irish Day" TV programming. 24 hours of potatoes and politics, oh my. I've got enough genuine stake in a "Kiss Me, I'm Irish" button to be vaguely annoyed by it all.
My background breaks down roughly as follows:
So Original European Settlers on the one side and second-generation immigrant on the other, which is about as American as it gets. :)
My paternal grandfather rates some extra explanation here; he was actually a contemporary of my maternal great-grandfather, which is where the confusion about his origin comes in, since I'm not clear on what part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire he alleged to hail from -- I've never been able to find the town on maps, so I'd guess it disappeared in WWII. He could even have been Jewish, for all I know; he fought for the Germans in WWI, emigrated to the States between the wars, and then turned around and enlisted to fight with the Allies at a fairly advanced age, so one does have to wonder what was going on with any of that. I gather he never really talked about it much. (He dropped dead when my father was a teenager, which might have a little to do with why my father was so messed-up.) I suppose there's one question I could ask my grandmother to settle that, but she's, like, ninety, I wouldn't really feel comfortable with that sort of an inquiry even if I didn't think she'd drop dead of shock... :)
Today's "Radio Earworm" selection is Queen's 'Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy', for reasons known only to the station personnel: I see the CD here on my desk, but I can't recall having played it recently enough to have gotten that particular track wedged in my cerebellum... {sigh}
Being sidelined yesterday meant suffering though the annual "Pandering to the Irish Day" TV programming. 24 hours of potatoes and politics, oh my. I've got enough genuine stake in a "Kiss Me, I'm Irish" button to be vaguely annoyed by it all.
My background breaks down roughly as follows:
- mother's mother:
- French-Canadian and English with a touch of unspecified Scandanavian (great-grandfather), and Irish (great-grandmother)
- mother's father:
- Welsh, Scottish, and Irish; Great-Grandpa's family name came to the New World way back
- father's mother:
- Milwaukee German of primarily Prussian identification (that's the Grandma's nose I've gotten saddled with, alas); "Prussia" being a fluid category in the timeperiod under consideration, could also be some Polish in there as well
- father's father:
- "Austro-Hungarian Empire" somewhere; probably both Austrian and Hungarian in the family, judging by his looks
So Original European Settlers on the one side and second-generation immigrant on the other, which is about as American as it gets. :)
My paternal grandfather rates some extra explanation here; he was actually a contemporary of my maternal great-grandfather, which is where the confusion about his origin comes in, since I'm not clear on what part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire he alleged to hail from -- I've never been able to find the town on maps, so I'd guess it disappeared in WWII. He could even have been Jewish, for all I know; he fought for the Germans in WWI, emigrated to the States between the wars, and then turned around and enlisted to fight with the Allies at a fairly advanced age, so one does have to wonder what was going on with any of that. I gather he never really talked about it much. (He dropped dead when my father was a teenager, which might have a little to do with why my father was so messed-up.) I suppose there's one question I could ask my grandmother to settle that, but she's, like, ninety, I wouldn't really feel comfortable with that sort of an inquiry even if I didn't think she'd drop dead of shock... :)
Today's "Radio Earworm" selection is Queen's 'Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy', for reasons known only to the station personnel: I see the CD here on my desk, but I can't recall having played it recently enough to have gotten that particular track wedged in my cerebellum... {sigh}