Release 1.9

[larsoner]

We're due to release 1.9 this week. I looked through open issues and PRs and marked what I see (and am willing to champion/fix) to get in within the next few days. Anything else that was marked for 1.9 I didn't consider a blocker so marked as 1.10, but others feel free to take a look and re-milestone stuff back for 1.9 if you see things that should block.

I think we had (EDIT: somewhat arbitrarily, I think) targeted Thurs 12/12 for release, which seems okay to me based on the current list.