My very educated mother just served us nine pizzas

[cosmolinguist]

"Do you think I should be sports editor?" Jenn asked me at lunch as we looked at this week's edition of the school paper.

"You don't even know anything about sports!" I pointed out.

"Yeah," she said, "but I'd just have to lay out pages, and I know how to do that. I wouldn't have to write anything."

"Yes you would!" My roommate is the A&E editor; I know better than to think editors don't write articles.

"Yeah, but no one else wants to do it," she said, "and I may have accidentally volunteered myself."

"You asked me how many innings are in a baseball game a couple weeks ago," I said (why she was watching a baseball game at all is still beyond me, but I didn't complain, as I got to watch baseball and eat pizza), "and you want to be sports editor?" She laughed.

I'm tired enough today to immediately forget what's going on around me, so I was confused when, after a short pause, Jenn said, "Seven or nine."

"What?"

"Is it seven or nine? Innings in a baseball game."

"Oh. Nine."

"That's what I thought," she said. "I remember it was the same as the number of planets..."

That made me laugh. "And then you couldn't remember if there were seven or nine planets, right?"

Jenn was laughing too. "Well, yeah," she said. "And then I thought there were ten. And then I thought, no, that's just a rock...but Pluto's just a rock, too." (She's friends with me, can you tell?) "Because I think when I was a little kid there were only eight planets."

"No, Pluto was discovered before that," I assured her.

"I'd swear to god there were only eight planets then!" she said. "But I think I always left out Mercury, that was it." I continued to simply giggle at her, it was all I could do. "Or Neptune. One of those random obscure planets, you know."

Before I could defind the planetude of Neptune, I thought better of it and instead asked, "Can you even name all the planets?"

She started counting them off on her fingers. "Venus, Mercury, Earth, Mars, Uranus, Saturn, Neptune... See, that's seven! Oh, Pluto! And..." She looked at her eight fingers for a while. "What am I missing?" I grinned at her. She started going over them again: "Okay. Venus..." She trailed off, but soon came up with, "Oh! Jupiter! I got all nine!" I was proud of her.

Comments

FWIW

[ottercat.livejournal.com]

Pluto was discovered on 18 February, 1930. I have especial reason to remember the 18 February bit ;-)

Thanks :-)

[cosmolinguist]

Besides telling her that Pluto has been around longer than we have, I added "It's from the thirties or forties or something!" but didn't feel like writing that here, perhaps because I know there are people who read this who know more about astronomy than me and I didn't want to seem too stupid. :-) But it seems I was right! Though just barely. Still, not bad for someone who's not slept enough recently.

Re: Thanks :-)

[ottercat.livejournal.com]

No problem!!!!

Wasn't trying to be pedantic, just the day has some signifigance ;-)

[cosmolinguist]

Not unduly pedantic. :-) I like to know things.

Besides, I'm excited about things that happen on my birthday, too. For instance, according to the Mayan calender, the world is going to end on my 31st birthday--December 22, 2012. Exciting, eh?

Yep yep!

[ottercat.livejournal.com]

I wonder what it will be, too... vivienlorelied is of the opinion that a fire will sweep the land, but it's not a physical fire, but the fire of an idea -- one which will rock the world to its foundations, and those who cannot accept it will be consumed....

The discovery of Pluto...

[kalieris.livejournal.com]

Planet X, © 1997 Christine Lavin (http://www.christinelavin.com/022200planetx.html)

Re: The discovery of Pluto...

[cosmolinguist]

You keep finding the coolest stuff to show me. :-)

Wasn't Clyde Tombaugh just an amateur astronomer, too? I seem to remember liking the story for that reason. And I do like it, even though I'm still in the "Pluto ain't a planet" camp; the "if it was discovered today it wouldn't be called a planet" argument is a good one. And, you know, I really don't care if people have an emotional connection to it (which I don't get anyway, and I'm quite an illogical person so I'd think I would be more sympathetic to this sort of thing). This is science, not art or philosophy or religion, this is supposed to be the place where right and wrong matter! :-) But you don't deserve a rant just for telilng me about something cool.

[orgash.livejournal.com]

The Bonus question is (since it was last to spoken): Can Jenn name all the moons of Saturn or the order of the colors in the rings?

[cosmolinguist]

I don't even think I can do that. :-) Saturn has a lot of moons. And I don't think some of them even have names, as such. But then, I'm terrible about mixing up the names of the outer planets' satellites... except for Uranus's, which are distinct (and Pluto's, I guess, if that counts, because that's easy).

[orgash.livejournal.com]

Then clearly you're both qualified to be sports editor--jocks have no clue about Jupiter, Saturn, Pluto, or any other parts of the solar system, except for maybe Uranus--which they think is some sort of Baseball Annie sex act...

[cosmolinguist]

I think I'd make a better sports editor than Jenn. :-) I actually watch sports sometimes. Mostly baseball, but I'm at least mildly conversant in football and basketball.