Amalia is the soon-to-be-one-year-old daughter of my cousin Rob Paulsen and his wife Birgitte Iverson-Paulsen. While I was visiting family last night at Dundee, Amalia's grandparents/ my Aunt Pat and Uncle Bill Paulsen were there with photos, because Aunt Pat had visited the family over in Copenhagen. (Yes, as in Denmark, so no, Birgitte is no relation to Allen Iverson.) When Amalia was born several of us (including me) somehow started calling her "Uh-MALL-le-uh." And getting names correct is a sign of respect, so I make sure to find out correct pronunciations.
Anyway, Amalia's fun, and she's BIG; she compares to two-year-olds I've seen. She's going to be a solid kid, and probably tall (as both of her parents are tall). Plus she has the benefit of not having been born premature, like her six-year-old brother Markus was; he had to catch up, though you wouldn't know from looking at him how tiny he was at birth. He's another solid kid. (In other words, he's not fat.)
I also won't be surprised if Amalia turns out to be a fairly serious person: her facial expressions early in life often had this surprised, somewhat perturbed "Dude, WTF???" quality. She's really paying attention all the time; Aunt Pat and Uncle Bill, who live in the Columbia River Gorge, nicknamed her She Who Watches, after the Gorge's famous petroglyph. Based on the photos I saw yesterday, though, she might be a little more subdued now. She certainly looks happy. So does her family.
Anyway, I hung out with nine fellow family members last night, had very good spaghetti with nicely spicy sausage in the sauce (nicely done, Dad) and talked about all sorts of stuff. Oh, and credit to you,
copperwise: I paraphrased a line of yours from the "Die Screaming, Daddy Airwolf!" entry. We got talking about rich people like Warren Buffett and when they retire, and I said "He's probably not going to be eating cat food."