rosa_acicularis (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rosa_acicularis) wrote2008-01-09 09:49 pm
rosa_acicularis) wrote2008-01-09 09:49 pm
Entry tags:
walking is good for you. it contains vitamins.
This week, I :
1) Took on new clients for my one-woman Baby-sitter's Club. A pair of the brothers - one three-years-old, the other five. I have learned more about trains in the last three days than in any other period in my life. (Cannot stop thinking about the Fifth Doctor's claim that he wanted to drive a steam engine as a boy.) Am turning into a bit of a Thomas the Tank Engine fangirl. It's so...British. And reminds me of my days watching Shining Time Station on PBS. Ringo Starr was the best Conductor ever - Alec Baldwin can only dream of achieving that sort of greatness. (Tim Curry and George Carlin also played the part during the 90s. Come on. You know you wanna watch.) Next time someone impresses me, I'm going to describe them as a "really useful engine".
2) My Lazarus PC returned from the dead. I feel rather like I've been caught fooling around with a younger, shinier woman.
3) Met Sam, the hopeless swain desperately in love my young charge Chloe. When I picked the girls up from preschool yesterday, he was following her around like a lost duckling. Their conversation went something like this:
"Chloe!"
"Go away, Sam."
"But I love you!"
"I don't care, Sam."
"But I mean it!"
Chloe, turning to me: "Can we go now? He smells like glue."
Later, unable to bridle my curiosity, I raised the subject of young love during our weekly game of Candyland. (Which I always, always lose. I think the little bastards cheat.) Kate was deeply amused. Chloe, less so.
Kate: He tried to eat her hair today.
Chloe: Did not.
Kate: Did too. Stuck your pigtail in his mouth. For true.
Chloe: Nuh uh!
Me: I don't know. Sounds like he really wants to be friends with you, Chloe. Why don't you like him? Aside from the, you know, glue thing.
Chloe: (glumly) He's in love with me. Wants to marry me and stuff like that.
Me: That's bad?
Both: YES.
Me: Oh. Okay. Sorry, stupid old grown up. Not hip to your jive. Can't take me anywhere. So, why's that bad, again?
Chloe: He follows me around all the time, but he never listens to anything I say.
(a beat)
Me: I know exactly what you mean.
Lesson learned? Whether you're four or twenty-four, boys pretty much suck.
4) Drove out to the Beaverton Powell's tonight to see Laurie R. King promote her new book. Vibrated the entire time with barely concealed geekiness. The woman is an incredibly versatile writer, and I admire her immensely. Also, Mary Russell is my hero like whoa. I now am the proud owner of a personalized, signed copy of Monstrous Regiment (For Rose! How awesome is that?) and a gigantic Powell's event poster which she also signed for me. I am officially the biggest geek in geekdom. Long live me.
5) Finished not one, but two Bill Bryson books. (Only two thousand and three to go.) Also plowed through Christopher Moore's A Dirty Job in four straight, painfully funny hours. Much thanks tokalleah for the recommendation!
6) Wrote the same paragraph in the bananafic fifty-seven times. Then, for kicks, tried to translate it into Latin. Remembered that I suck at Latin and ate a bagel instead.
7) Rewatched six episodes of Torchwood. Remembered that Torchwood is truly awful. Until, suddenly, it isn't - and then it is again. Not the emotional roller coaster they were aiming for, I think.
8) Patiently explained to a five-year-old boy that, however strong the Force may be with him, the Jedi Mind Trick is not going to work on me. "You will give me that cookie. I do not have to wash my hands. These are not the forbidden permanent markers you are looking for." I think I just signed on to babysit for Calvin, sans Hobbes. (My god, of course! I'm Roslyn!)
9) There is no number nine.
10) Finally came to terms with the fact that, though they have been commonplace for the vast majority of my young life and will no doubt continue to be so, I will most likely never become accustomed to automatic flush toilets. Every time one goes off I jump about four feet into the air and squeal like...well. Let's just say that if I heard someone else make that sort of noise in a public restroom, I'd assume they'd been on the receiving end of a rather different sort of surprise.
2) My Lazarus PC returned from the dead. I feel rather like I've been caught fooling around with a younger, shinier woman.
3) Met Sam, the hopeless swain desperately in love my young charge Chloe. When I picked the girls up from preschool yesterday, he was following her around like a lost duckling. Their conversation went something like this:
"Chloe!"
"Go away, Sam."
"But I love you!"
"I don't care, Sam."
"But I mean it!"
Chloe, turning to me: "Can we go now? He smells like glue."
Later, unable to bridle my curiosity, I raised the subject of young love during our weekly game of Candyland. (Which I always, always lose. I think the little bastards cheat.) Kate was deeply amused. Chloe, less so.
Kate: He tried to eat her hair today.
Chloe: Did not.
Kate: Did too. Stuck your pigtail in his mouth. For true.
Chloe: Nuh uh!
Me: I don't know. Sounds like he really wants to be friends with you, Chloe. Why don't you like him? Aside from the, you know, glue thing.
Chloe: (glumly) He's in love with me. Wants to marry me and stuff like that.
Me: That's bad?
Both: YES.
Me: Oh. Okay. Sorry, stupid old grown up. Not hip to your jive. Can't take me anywhere. So, why's that bad, again?
Chloe: He follows me around all the time, but he never listens to anything I say.
(a beat)
Me: I know exactly what you mean.
Lesson learned? Whether you're four or twenty-four, boys pretty much suck.
4) Drove out to the Beaverton Powell's tonight to see Laurie R. King promote her new book. Vibrated the entire time with barely concealed geekiness. The woman is an incredibly versatile writer, and I admire her immensely. Also, Mary Russell is my hero like whoa. I now am the proud owner of a personalized, signed copy of Monstrous Regiment (For Rose! How awesome is that?) and a gigantic Powell's event poster which she also signed for me. I am officially the biggest geek in geekdom. Long live me.
5) Finished not one, but two Bill Bryson books. (Only two thousand and three to go.) Also plowed through Christopher Moore's A Dirty Job in four straight, painfully funny hours. Much thanks to
kalleah for the recommendation! 6) Wrote the same paragraph in the bananafic fifty-seven times. Then, for kicks, tried to translate it into Latin. Remembered that I suck at Latin and ate a bagel instead.
7) Rewatched six episodes of Torchwood. Remembered that Torchwood is truly awful. Until, suddenly, it isn't - and then it is again. Not the emotional roller coaster they were aiming for, I think.
8) Patiently explained to a five-year-old boy that, however strong the Force may be with him, the Jedi Mind Trick is not going to work on me. "You will give me that cookie. I do not have to wash my hands. These are not the forbidden permanent markers you are looking for." I think I just signed on to babysit for Calvin, sans Hobbes. (My god, of course! I'm Roslyn!)
9) There is no number nine.
10) Finally came to terms with the fact that, though they have been commonplace for the vast majority of my young life and will no doubt continue to be so, I will most likely never become accustomed to automatic flush toilets. Every time one goes off I jump about four feet into the air and squeal like...well. Let's just say that if I heard someone else make that sort of noise in a public restroom, I'd assume they'd been on the receiving end of a rather different sort of surprise.