Crash! Boom! Zzzzzzz.

[mrissa]

When I was small, my family talked about how I could sleep through Armageddon. I assumed things had changed a bit as I got older -- if I wake up to the going-out-request whimper of one small poodle, surely I'm not that sound a sleeper, right?

It turns out that this is a specialized un-soundness, because last night, the storm cut a tall birch poplar (later inspection shows that the birch branches on the deck are from another tree) tree in half and sent the south half crashing down into our backyard, right outside my bedroom window, and I slept through it. Didn't notice a thing until I glanced out the kitchen windows while making my breakfast this morning and thought, "Huh. The trees we used to have here grew up, not sideways. Damn vertigo." But for once the vertigo was not to blame.

It could have fallen on the roof, and it didn't. It could have severely damaged the fence, and it didn't. As far as tree damage this size goes, we're extremely lucky.

I'm still wondering what else I could sleep through, though.

In unrelated news: the YA author's name is Scott Westerfeld, people. Westerfeld. Not Westerfield. I have several of his books right here, and unless his publisher has misspelled his name on all of them: Westerfeld. No i. I am not a close personal friend of Scott Westerfeld's -- in fact, I've never so much as exchanged e-mail with him -- but having been Marisa Lindgren about a hundred times too many in my childhood, I am sensitive to this sort of thing, and I saw it misspelled three times by different people on my friendslist in the last 24 hours. All of them praising him, which almost makes it worse to Marsha Liger here. Think of him as Oedipus if you must; there are no i's. Westerfeld. Okay? Okay.

Comments

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

How can people get a name as simple as "Melissa Ridgren" confused?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Manssa Unger has no idea.

[zalena.livejournal.com]

Duly noted and corrected.

[mojave-wolf.livejournal.com]

Hah hah! I loved the Uglies trilogy so much, and put it near the top of my top 10 favorite things read last year when I made such a list, and have praised his writing in various places around live journal, but until you said this, I had no idea it was Westerfeld and not Westerfield.

Oooops.

So sad about the tree, but good that it missed your house and fence.

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

Selective Sleep Soundness is fairly common in parents- mothers, anyway. I don't know about other folks, but I chatted with some friends from a parenting forum and most of them said they experienced it. Any sound of distress from a child (any child) wakes me. I can sleep through any number of things but if my subconscious knows that I'm the only adult home, a sound I would have slept through otherwise wakes me.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That's exactly it. One would hope that a bookselling site would be good at suggestions for such typos, but still.

[iraunink.livejournal.com]

My husband and I both have selective Sleep Soundess. He wakes up to the dogs pacing. I wake up to the sound of my children. My youngest was 17 the last time I woke up to her sounds of distress. The grandson waking up? I can sleep through if he's downstairs and I'm upstairs.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

My mother's maiden name is Foltz. (Good German stock, there.)

The best misspelling I can remember for that one was Flotz. Kinda sounded like a new kind of float equipment.

(I once slept through a lightning storm that had lightning hitting the house next door.)

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Think of him as Oedipus if you must; there are no i's.

Thank you thank you thank you, you have broken the five-day 'Rock Me Amadeus' earworm, and at this point I don't even care that it's with Oedipus Tex.

"Now what am I gonna do for eyye-eeyes ?"

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

but having been Marisa Lindgren about a hundred times too many in my childhood,

Pbeckett. At least you didn't have your school spelling it one way and the institutions you were applying for university courses in spelling it another such that they didn't match and thought your records did not exist.

Also, Heinlein, Tolkien and Delany. [..walk into a bar. No, damn it, I go to bed now. ]

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

You can tell I've been an SF geek awhile, because "Delany" looks correct to me, and "Delaney" looks weird.

[carbonel]

Ditto for me "Berkley" and "Berkeley."

[elisem.livejournal.com]

My mother the librarian once received some mail at work address to "Mr. & Mrs. Public Libry"(sic).

And I am "Elsie" all too often.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Boy, I knew more last names were getting used as first names these days, but I didn't realize John Q. Public had started this trend.