Curiouser and Curiouser!

This is an entry containing two things:

Thing 1: Angst.

Thing 2: Pitifulness.

Thing 3: Charm.

No, that's three things. Hold on -- I'll come in again.

( i cut for angst and pitifulness. )

In the middle of heated game of Old Maid (which, I'm only just now realizing, is rather brutally apropos to the subject at hand), five-year-old Chloe turns to me and says, "You know, when you're a grandma, you won't be a babysitter anymore."

I consider this for a moment, admittedly somewhat bewildered. We'd been discussing grandparents not long before, so the comment wasn't totally out of the blue, but I couldn't quite follow her logic. After all, I know for a fact that her family's backup sitter is an elderly neighbor. Eventually, I decide on a noncommittal,  "Probably not." We continue the game.

Not long after I find myself stuck with the Old Maid card yet again, I say, "It's possible, Chloe, that I might not ever be a grandma."

She smiles at me - the sort of smile I get from kids when I try to convince them that elephants sleep in trees or that the moon is made from recycled styrofoam cups. The "Oh, you silly grown up" smile. "Nuh uh," she says, the very picture of authority. "You'll be a mom, and your kid will be a mom, and then you'll be a grandmom."

"Well, that's how these things usually work," I agree. "But what if I don't become a mom?"

She thinks about this for a long moment. "You're right," she says finally. "You might die first."

 

We've been enjoying a week of almost sinfully beautiful weather in the City of Roses. Sunny and crisp and blue, blue skies, and like true Oregonians, we greet every strikingly clear morning the same way: "Oh. Well, it's definitely going to rain tomorrow."

Radio deejays, weathermen, the teller at my bank and the guy who spends the night at my bus stop each give this dire prediction every day, and next morning they are always proven wrong. It makes you wonder - just what does a city have to do to get a little gray, miserable weather around here?

A note on my continued adventures in Nannydom: I spent a good part of the day corralling a house-full of small children (and suffering defeat after crippling defeat at Candyland, but we won't go into that) and aside from sniffles and skinned knees and the occasional misdirected mudpie, everything went remarkably well. But just before dinner time, the situation got a little...wild. It reminded me of something my very favorite teacher used to say when our middle school science lab would get out of hand. "Tread carefully, Rose," he would say, voice just above a whisper. "The natives are getting restless."

(Actually, he called me Rosie, but that nickname and its associated angst deserves an entry of its own, I feel.)

In retrospect, I'm not entirely confident that this is the most politically correct way to express this particular sentiment, but now that I spend most my time surrounded by runny-nosed pygmies who cheat at Candyland and occasionally try to eat my hair, I find myself caring less and less about such things.

In the end, dinner was served and order restored. The parents arrived to collect their spawn and I returned to my apartment and my dog and other things that remind me just how very long ago it was that I sat on a rickety stool in Mr. Burroughs' science lab as I spent my free period dissecting owl pellets and chatting with my very favorite teacher (and the closest thing, I told him once, that I'd ever had to a father) about the skulls of rodents and maps of the stars.

Then I got online and checked my friends list, scrolling past entry after entry about fandom and Rose Tyler and the series that is to come, and I said to myself: "Tread carefully. The natives are getting restless."

This week, I :

Unbelievably, I have some unscheduled time on my hands this evening. I was supposed to be working, but the family canceled due to some unexpected vomiting on the child's part.

Poor little guy. Good timing for me, though. Yay vomit!

For this means I get to stay home and watch Bones tonight, which is beyond exciting. I love Halloween episodes. (I was, however, grieved that the Slutty Pumpkin made no appearance in last night's How I Met Your Mother. I now fear that I won't be getting a Halloween Office either. Come on, sitcoms. Get with the program.)

As expected, Bones was beyond brilliant. I love the writing on that show so much, I can't even begin to tell you.

Also, a Doctor Who vid rec! Simply brilliant Rose-centric vid set to Talking Heads' "And She Was". Awesome song, awesome vid. By fan_eunice.

I spent about an hour today discussing the work and lives of the Beatles with two four-year-olds.

I love my job.



In unrelated news, this sign recently appeared on campus. I know not why; I know only that my Freudian English lit lovin' brain thinks it the funniest thing ever. (Also, I love pink.)