My sister used to have this really entertaining riff she'd do about the subtle differences between the flavors of guilt from dad's Jewish side of the family vs mom's Catholic guilt. You're right, though, about the two being oddly compatible.

I've gotten paranoid like that about friends who couldn't commit to a time to hang out, but it's almost definitely not about you. It might be that that person is too wrapped up in their own stuff right now, though, which makes them not a great bet for a new relationship.

My mom is a devout Catholic and my dad is a major holidays only Jew, so those sorts relationships never seemed like that big a deal to me. It's obviously case by case, but when it comes down to it, so are most other differences that have to get figured out by two people when they're figuring out compatibility. The…

It'd be funnier with the barking - could be an excellent icebreaker at parties.

Oddly enough, it sort of makes it the only school election with any stakes, since eventually it will have actual responsibilities attached to it. I don't know how often the kids are aware of that when they're running for office, though.

I'm not on Facebook, so there's a little curiosity, but of course if I really cared I could create an account. I toyed with going to my 10 year (the only one there's been so far), but it was $70 a person, and idle curiosity isn't enough to get me to pay that sort of money for a reunion ticket. My sister went to her…

When you talk about likeability, do you mean in casual social situations, ie, small talk, or do you mean making longer term friendships, or do you mean dating (or none/all of the above)? My male relatives tend to turn nonverbal from puberty to adulthood, so I've got finely honed small talk skills, but I also think…

Or, they just decide that's too much work, and no one gets reunions - that's how my class seems to be doing things.

So, you're hoping for a Childhood's End sort of thing?

There's a really nice retro arcade that opened nearby, so I'm getting some tetris chops back, but boy am I out of practice.

Or Anna Karenina

Thanks! She's a really well behaved kid most of the time, but when it comes down to it she's still a toddler, and now's when we're establishing the rules about how much she can get away with.

We almost bought that the other day - I had to leave it because my daughter was having one of her very first big toddler tantrums about having to leave the toy section of barnes & noble, and I'd told her we wouldn't be able to buy her anything if she didn't calm down…I'll have to pick it up next time.

It's probably one where if you read his stuff first without knowing all the bad stuff about him in real life then you can ignore the subtext, but if you go in knowing about it then it'll be the elephant in the room the whole time. Like how Ender's Game is a lot easier to read and appreciate before you know about any…

Yeah, you'd have to use fairy tales instead - there's a natural tie-in between Snow White and the undead, for example.

I keep on thinking of books I forgot to mention. Like David Weisner's works: Tuesday, Flotsam, The Three Pigs, and Mr Wuffles.
A lot of his books (like Tuesday and Flotsam) are lovely storytelling without any words, just pictures.

It's a lot harder for me to pick favorite middle grade books, but a couple favorites I didn't see mentioned yet:
The True Meaning of Smekday (soo much better than the movie they based on it)
The Spiderwick Chronicles
The Westing Game
Tales From Outer Suburbia (not strictly a kids book, but a graphic novel of short…

Maybe check out Lee and Low's website to see what in their catalog appeals to you? They're a publisher that specializes in multicultural children's books:

For board book favorites:
The Paper Bag Princess
Baby Loves Quarks (their science is pretty sound)
The Belly Button Book (and, really, a lot of the Boynton catalog)
Chu's Day at the Beach
Click Clack One Two Three - a counting book with a plot

At its best, Discworld is much more than silly - it can be excellent satire. But, those are far from its best. I highly recommend skipping those and trying Small Gods or Guards! Guards! instead.