After years of saying “we should have a website”, we finally do — thanks to my brilliant nephew, Ebi, who designed it and wrestled with the terrifying technical bits that make my brain want to hide under the bed.

Welcome to Sima and Arnold website. Quick tour:

First, the names — Sima and Arnold. Not exactly groundbreaking, but they’re ours. Arnold is my life’s love. I’m Sima. And yes, those are our real names. We’re too old for pseudonyms — besides, remembering fake ones is too much work.

The logo? The phonetic symbol for the first letter of my name hugging the stylized first letter of Arnold’s — like a linguist giving a romantic bear hug to an architect.

And the wiggly word? That’s the phonetic spelling of Inspiration. Why phonetics? I’m a linguist — BA and MA from Simon Fraser University — and a proud nerd for the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet), the world’s cheat sheet for pronouncing anything without mangling it.