And now some generally happy news from my family. My sister called Monday to ask if I had any plans for around Christmas. I don't tend to have plans that far out; I think it's pretty impressive I've got plans for the end of May already. She asked how I felt about becoming an uncle again.
So that's all rather a surprise to us. I gather it was also a surprise to my sister and her husband; she said they hadn't particularly been planning to have a child. 
bunny_hugger and I had thought they weren't interested in having kids at all. Anyway, the due date is for mid-December and they're hoping it will be a nice, catchy date. I didn't know a good Pythagorean triplet offhand, but December 9th would do.
They had known at least a week, as the first people they wanted to tell were their parents. They sent my parents a Mother's Day card with a sonogram and a note saying hi from them, their dogs, and ``Squishie''. But the card didn't arrive Friday or Saturday, and they pressed my parents over and over to check whether the mail might have arrived after all. My father brought the card in Monday, but since it was addressed to my mother, he didn't open it, and my mother had some social engagements keeping her away until pretty late in the day. I gather my sister and her husband were bursting with awful anticipation.
And, yeah, ``Squishie'', which continues my siblings' tradition of assigning temporary names to kids not yet arrived. The name confused my mother, who apparently took a moment to understand the sonogram before she started giggling --- my mother giggling? by the way --- and had never heard of this Finding Nemo thing because all her kids were grownups by 2003. Also it seems to me that ``Squishie'' is a thematically challenging reference to use. At least it suggests some ambiguous feelings about the development.
Trivia: Ford's River Rouge steel-making plant began operating on 17 May 1920, with a ceremonial horn-blowing by three-year-old Henry II. Source: Henry and Edsel: The Creation of the Ford Empire, Richard Bak.
Currently Reading: Rain: A Natural and Cultural History, Cynthia Barnett. Finally Morrissey makes an appearance! No joke.