Author Archives: Andrea Middleton

Currently at Reddit, I spent 10 years as a community organizer on the WordPress open source project. I'm also an avid reader, wine enthusiast, and parent of two.

Egg and pepper chicks admire the quiche

  

“She baked it this morning?”

“Yeah, I don’t know how she does it.”

“The crust too?”

“Nah, that came from Grand Cenrtal.”

“What’s in it?”

“Salami and broccoli and a metric ton of heavy cream.”

“Hope the kids eat it.”

“Me too; it’s anybody’s guess with kids and quiche these days. Tastes change daily.”

“Smells great, anyway.”

New laptop: so fancy!

 

I have a gorgeous new WordPress branded laptop! Sunshine on the cover, and cool blue on the inside — just like me, right? 😉

   
Here’s the thing though: I am going to miss my stickers so much! I’m a little leery of personalizing my already-personalized laptop, so I’m not sure I’m going to put stickers on this computer, and I just adore the landscape of stickers I created on my old machine. It’s like a triptych of the last 2+ years of my work. Sniff! 

 

My little brony

Took Baxter to the doctor the other day to get his cough checked out (lungs clear; probably allergies), and he was THRILLED to find a My Little Pony book in the examination room. I confess I may have hidden our one MLP storybook (multiple stories) recently, sick to death of reading then to him over and over. I know there’s a strong MLP fan base, and maybe it’s just a generational thing, but quite frankly I do not understand the appeal. 

this is his My Little Pony face

Wishes Do Come True, the book we found at the doctor’s office, is actually the story I like the least. Synopsis: Twinkle Twirl is visited by a mysterious Pegasus pony (Star Catcher) and is told that she has to keep the meeting a secret. Abuser behavior much?
Then Skywishes sees the pegasus pony and every time she tries to tell others, Star Catcher disappears and Skywishes is repeatedly teased by her friends for saying she has seen this elusive jerkface pony. Her supposed best friend Twinkle Twirl says nothing, and leaves her friend twisting in the wind of pony ridicule. (Also, stop being a-holes to each other, ok ponies?)

There’s no resolution, either: at the end of the Book, Skywishes finds the land of the Pegasus ponies and that’s it. She doesn’t get to recover her reputation with her friends. No one says, “I believe you.” No one comes clean; just a lot of ponies keeping secrets and hanging each other out to dry, evidently forever. What rotten behavior to model for kids, even leaving out the characters’ constant obsession with their appearance.

Why do people love this series/universe so much? Bah.

8 Postcards of Generally Positive Gratitude

The smart, sassy Mary Laura Philpott has some great words to express your appreciation for things that, even if they didn’t make your Ten Best Life Experiences list, also didn’t ruin your life. My favorite is: “I just spend 2 hours with something you spent 2 years on.”