House naming

Many of my friends lived in shared houses after graduating from university, because they enjoyed the company, didn't have families yet, and didn't afford a whole house in an urban area to themselves. And as a practical matter, it was a mouthful to say "shall we go to Alice and Bob and Carol's house?", so many of these houses acquired a name, often a whimsical abstract concept such as "Relativity" or "Oblivion".

I picked up the habit because I enjoyed the process of finding a name which I thought suited the important features of a house, even though it didn't really have any practical benefit.

The ground-floor flat I lived in for a long time I started calling "Cartesian Heights" after my username, although I also want to use that name for all my houses. Before that I called it "Ambiguity" as a nod to its lack of an official name, although it didn't really stick. The temporary house on Peverel Road with the slightly pretentious interior was called "Cair Peverel" after the palace in Narnia. The temporary first-floor flat was called "Das Eyrie" because I liked it and it was the first time I'd had to live in a flat.

I don't want to be premature in naming this house, we've promised not to be attached to it if things can still fall, but it's a useful symbol of an emotional attachment which I'd like to form (soon) but often doesn't happen unless I consciously think about it.

For this house, I'd like a name that reflects its general niceness, and also that it's hopefully a true home for Liv and I together. We tossed around several names, but none that we both really liked. Are there any suggestions?

We thought of drawing from fiction that suited both of us, but couldn't think of anything very appropriate. We thought of Sandman, but most of the places were scary and sad. Fiddler's Green is beautiful, but it would be strange to live inside Gilbert. Destruction and Barnabas' house is a lovely refuge, but isn't named.

We thought of the Vorkosigan series, but nothing seemed house-like, or happy. Most of the planets are famous for wars and disasters and mind-police. Escobar seems modern and the last invasion was quite a time ago, but doesn't seem house-like. Vorkosigan House would be too ostentatious and too non-home-like. Vorkosigan Surleau is the most home-like, but doesn't work as a name. We thought of Dendarrii house, but that seems too militaristic. One of the space stations would be reasonably positive, but a bit too clinical.

Rachel suggested Convergence as continuing the "abstract noun" theme, which I like as a name, but I don't like an abstract noun name, because I think people would get it muddled up with other abstract noun names.

We don't object to Tolkien, but feel most of the obvious names have already been taken. We called the first house I went to view last year "the first homely house".

Are there any suggestions for names we might like?

Tube Station party costumes!

Next weekend I'm going to a tube-station-themed party! Any good ideas for costumes?

Either for me, or for me and liv together.

I can think of a few ideas, but none really stand out.

AIUI, the theme is primarily on tube stations, but including DLR and overground, and something related is probably ok, but not what the main focus is.

What's the best idea you can think of? What's the worst idea you can think of? :)

CGM in Cambridge

My friend is visiting from America this week, and her, and I, and sometimes Liv, have done several Cambridge things.

We went to a Ceilidh. It was really fun.

We went to the Orchard tearooms at Grantchester for the first time this year.

Anna showed us how to bake butterscotch brownies, which were really lovely.

We went to Poohsoc at the botanic gardens.

We discussed the Hugo Nominees, lots of politics, some ecology, and a little bit of religion.

We had a friday night meal, with candles and used my wedding-present Challah-cover for the first time. I was unreasonably excited to use it, because usually if I'm not with liv on Friday night, I don't do any of the jewish things (because I'm not jewish). And if I am with liv, we're usually at her house or her parents house. But eventually I was able to have a meal with a different Jewish friend :) The challah cover is really pretty: made from yellow-brown mushroom fabric from my teacosy, and owls fabric from liv's rea cosy, and colourful mushroom fabric, and umbrellas and cupcakes and icecreams and winds and other owls and even more owls.

We went to Rosy and Dave's science centre on Jesus Lane. It's really cool, it's like being a child again where you play with the cool science toys :) It's open to school trips in the morning and the public in the afternoon. I definitely learnt some things from the exhibits, even if I'm embarrassed I didn't already know them[1][2][3]. It's useful but not necessary to bring a scientist with you to squee about things in more detail :)

[1] You know those coloured disks you spin and get different colours because the colours blur together? You can spin a pure black-and-white pattern, and it looks like different colours in different radii because (it is conjectured) different cones respond to changes in light at different speeds.
[2] I learned what shape things in the ear actually are!
[3] If you take a carefully spaced row of parallel wires, touch your hands on either side of them, and pull your hands back together, it feels like your hands are made of velvet with a little bit of electricity. OK, I didn't really learn anything because I've still no idea why, but it was very surprising. We experienced the effect to different amounts fwiw.