Friday 5: Yuputka!

1. Iktsuarpok is Inuit for that feeling of anticipation when you’re waiting for someone to show up at your house and you keep going outside to see if they’re there yet. Who last invoked iktsuarpok in you? My mom. She came over Friday night to babysit while my husband and I went to a friend’s Halloween party.
2. Georgians call it shemomedjamo when you’re really full, but your meal is just so delicious, you can’t stop eating it. When did you memorably shemomedjamo? I’m not sure, but probably in a restaurant–and I haven’t been to many of those lately.
3. Zhaghzhagh is Persian for the chattering of teeth from the cold or from rage. When were you last so cold (or so enraged) you experienced zhaghzhagh? Probably last winter, whenever I got into a cold car to go somewhere.
4. A bilita mpash in Bantu is the opposite of a nightmare: an amazing dream. Whenever a dream question shows up in memes, half the respondents say they don’t remember their dreams, but here we go anyway. What is one bilita mpash you remember? I used to have dreams as a teenager about things like meeting my favorite band.
5. In Thailand, the feeling you get when you don’t want someone to do something for you because it would be a pain for them is greng-jai. When did you recently resist greng-jai and ask someone anyway? A little bit when I asked my mom to watch our son Friday and again this coming Friday. She had a busy week this week and I wasn’t sure she’d be up for it, plus I kind of feel bad asking people to watch him in general–even though this is something like the second time we’ve ever gone anywhere and needed a sitter in his 16 months of life. I sometimes also feel like people have the attitude that being a parent means missing out on these things entirely, rather than asking other people to watch him so we can go out, but it’s not like that’s ever been expressed to me or that anyone’s ever said anything to imply that’s their opinion. Personally, when we watch my niece, I see it less as babysitting and more as getting to spend time with my niece, and I know my mom’s feelings are similar. But it’s still hard to shake the feeling that you shouldn’t be asking, even if you know the answer is an enthusiastic yes.

From Friday 5.