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A curious meerkat is curious....
Mar. 6th, 2009 12:57 pmWas not quite so successful on Thursday in killing the to-do list.. one item keeps returning, despite efforts to nail it down and part of the day was taken up with back-and-forth e-mails with a client. But I did get 1500 new words down, and a difficult scene is through, so that was good. Friday, so far, has been given over to crisis. Multiple, yes. Mainly of the "can't you people see I'm trying to work here!" sort, rather than the "call the cops and ambulances" sort, so it's not worth more than a grumble.
Discussion on Facebook (yes, it is possible to have a discussion on Facebook, although it takes some doing) has led to a conversation about cultural habits and how -- at least in the New World -- it's tough to pinpoint where something came from. Do I say that X tradition came down from my Latvian relatives? My Russian ancestors? The side of the family that came from a part of Europe that's changed hands a dozen times in the past 200 years? How about the branch of the family that falls under "Midde Eastern/Asian/Somethingorother?"
[this is why I laugh, hard, whenever a survey asks if I'm Caucasian. Because, yeah dude, my family has some roots in the Caucasus region. Please don't slap me in with the WASP who came over on the Mayflower, who are NOT Caucasian... but I digress]
Anyway, that discussion led me to bring the expanded question over here. Do y'all have family traditions that you can clearly identify as being from such-and-such culture? Or are they more mangled and recreated? And, as a corollary to that, do you see yourself as being the scion of one particular culture, or is your family tree actually more a thicket of transplanted shrubbery?
[non-New Worlders can play too -- am curious to see if this is a geopolitical thing, an American Thing, or not a Thing at all...]
Discussion on Facebook (yes, it is possible to have a discussion on Facebook, although it takes some doing) has led to a conversation about cultural habits and how -- at least in the New World -- it's tough to pinpoint where something came from. Do I say that X tradition came down from my Latvian relatives? My Russian ancestors? The side of the family that came from a part of Europe that's changed hands a dozen times in the past 200 years? How about the branch of the family that falls under "Midde Eastern/Asian/Somethingorother?"
[this is why I laugh, hard, whenever a survey asks if I'm Caucasian. Because, yeah dude, my family has some roots in the Caucasus region. Please don't slap me in with the WASP who came over on the Mayflower, who are NOT Caucasian... but I digress]
Anyway, that discussion led me to bring the expanded question over here. Do y'all have family traditions that you can clearly identify as being from such-and-such culture? Or are they more mangled and recreated? And, as a corollary to that, do you see yourself as being the scion of one particular culture, or is your family tree actually more a thicket of transplanted shrubbery?
[non-New Worlders can play too -- am curious to see if this is a geopolitical thing, an American Thing, or not a Thing at all...]
