Ippolita -- "freer of horses" in Greek -- came from Italy; she was cute and blond and had the cutest Italian accent to match. She came from Reggio-Emilia, famous for its parmesan cheese, and appropriately gave everyone huge hunks of this cheese as Christmas presents. She was my roommate and got along splendidly with my wildly energetic other roommate Felix, and the two of them threw massive dinner parties, with her cooking delicious Italian food and him roping his friends in to supply main dishes, desserts, wines -- and the dinner always starting three hours late, which is "on-time" if you're willing to adjust yourself to Felix time. After a little while, Ippolita gained the appropriate nickname "Squeezy-Pumpkin", to the point that when I later sent her a postcard as I was traveling in Brazil, I wrote her in Portuguese since she claimed to understand it, and addressed her as Sinhora Esprema-Aboborazinha. ["Ms. Squeeze-Pumpkinette"]