Strawberry Shortcake Tea

For those of you who aren't aware, I am by trade a babysitter. As anyone who has even encountered a child knows, the mind of a child is quite lively, and sometimes difficult to keep up with. I experience this regularly every other Thursday afternoon, when I have the great fortune to hang out with Indigo (3) and Raina (1). Now, my girls do not watch television, so they are especially expert at entertaining themselves, and while they're at it, me. Since child anecdotes are always a kick, here are some recent favorites.
One of Indigo's favorite activities is a large, barn-shaped puzzle with various animals pictured on it. Now Indigo is incredibly eloquent, and as we were constructing the puzzle, we were discussing each piece in order to help her figure out its proper position. When we got to the cow (or 'tow', since Indigo can't say her hard c's), she took one piece that had the rear end (including hooves and udders) and attempted to fit it in. "What part of the cow is that?" I prompted. "That goes in the back," she replied. "Those are his feetsies (pointing to the hooves), and those are his milk-thingies (being the udders)." Oh, really? I'm not sure which was more amusing: her particular choice of words, or that she said HIS milk-thingies.
The girls' mother spent a lot of time in Ireland, and absorbed (to my excitement) the custom of taking tea frequently. Needless to say, she's brought up her babies to be teatotalers, and so we often 'have tea' in they're little play kitchen/dining area. Indigo is already a superb hostess; she is constantly presenting me with a fresh cup. Raina and I drink tea together while our hostess bustles about. On my last visit, as I was thanking Indigo for her gracious service in giving me tea, she said, "Yes. It's Strawberry Cake Tea. It's Strawberry Shortcake Tea." Fancy-schmanzy!
Part of our more recent fun and games includes dancing. It's not uncommon for music, mainly of the nursery rhyme nonsense genre, to be playing, and since everyone except myself is under four years of age, ballet is the dance of choice. So we dance ballet around the house to the Wiggles and Mickey Mouse music. I never would have thought, but when in Rome...a three year old's Rome, at least...
Their father came home one time while I was there in order to fix his car up for a trip. Since dad is the most interesting business around, our activities upon his arrival consisted of watching him through the glass door (and poking our heads out to ask questions, mainly 'what are you doing?'). We took brief breaks to decorate the doorknobs with pony-tail holders, prettifying the house for Indigo's birthday the next day, but other than that, dad was the main attraction. When he disappeared shortly into the garage for supplies (after telling us he was going to do so), Indigo turned to me and asked, "Where did papa go?" Me:"To the garage, remember?" I:"Oh, yes, because that's where the grown-ups go." I guess they do.

Potpourri

Eugene lies decimated down here today. The weather continues dismal, although we had the sun peek out a bit. As a native of this state, I have a definite affinity with rain. But even I, who loves the storm, could not wish for sunshine to come sooner. It has a dampening effect on the mood, if you will.
All is truly well, though. I have little homework this evening, so I thought I'd update. There's not much in the way of news, so I thought, as kind of a review of the year, I would publicize some of my favorite works from this prolific year of reading. Here they are, folks!
~Measure for Measure (Shakespeare): admittedly one of the Bard's naughtier plays, I loved it for it's humanity. It was remarkably deep, and dealt with heavy issues while still being trademark zany.
~Locke, Federalist Papers, de Toqueville, Rousseau, Marx, Lenin: How does one do government? Let me count the ways! All these dudes had their own take on government, and it was fascinating to trace the differences and how they affected history (is it 'affect' or 'effect'?).
~A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens): I read this when I was sixteen, and disliked it considerably. A second reading helped me discover it's brilliance. I had also the advantage of maturity, and was able to decipher Dickens' verbosity.
~Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky): hands down, the most intense read I've ever experienced. I was pulled right into the thing! Human nature is indeed wicked, and this book unabashedly displays this. Also: I never knew that an author could have so much talent, to write a book one way and make his reader think a certain thing for six hundred pages, then take the last page and a half to twist the thing in the other direction. Whew!
~Nietzsche: please, nobody have a heart attack. I don't prescribe to him; he is freaky. But he has a certain appeal that is undeniable, and his place in history and his writings are so profound, that reading him is definitely worth it. If you wonder, I only refer to him as 'him', for I don't want to have to type 'Nietzsche' left and right. You should try it.
~other recent favorites that don't really need explanation: Man and Superman (George Bernard Shaw), A Doll House (Ibsen), and All Quiet on the Western Front (Remarque).
Ta-ta for now! May your reading endeavors be worthwhile.
~I am etc.

Spring Cleaning

No, the whole blog endeavor is not all washed up, in case you were wondering. It is generally typical for a person to finish what they've started, and be faithful along the way, but such is not my relationship with the internet. Just ask anyone who is on emailing terms with me.
Today's title is 'Spring Cleaning', for various reasons: 1) It is spring, or it is trying to be at least 2) It is supposedly what people do in spring 3) We've got a lot of catching up to do!!!
Thinking about cleaning, we just had our smoke detectors cleaned Thursday. The reason for this being that we have very erractic smoke detectors. They have cried wolf three times in the last two weeks, and as with all 'good' smoke detectors, they aren't something that you want to go off without justification. They're lmost as loud as the singer who's singing from the UO stadium right now. I'm sure the sound could wake the dead. Actually, we discovered this at seven-thirty this morning, when we were nearly electrocuted out of slumber by our faithful detectors. Here we were, a little gaggle of sleepy students in front of the house, in our pajamas, IN THE SNOW (I among others being without shoes), while get this, the fire department was running a test on our smoke detectors! Yes! They thought it would be brilliant at seven-thirty in the morning to test our newly-cleaned smoke detectors in order to figure out which single one was causing the problems. So we're outside for twenty minutes while our house manager is running around the house in her pajamas looking for the rogue little detector. I applaud the Eugene Fire Dept. for their cute idea.
That's the only anecdote for today. I thought it was a nice, light transition back into blogging, instead of some 'o, my life!' commentary. So fair-thee-well, and may your smoke detectors fain to treat you justly.

January update

I know it's really not a witty title. Considering the variety of matter I'm going to cover, I think it matters little.
To start with the immediate, I'm sick! These things are always timely. Illnesses spread like wildfire around here, and everyone's usually on tinterhooks as to whether they'll catch it. Sickly days! I think I'll be able to push through, as long as I get enough sleep tonight. I don't think I have a choice, as my major homework assignment for tomorrow is an 8.5" by 11" headshot of William Shakespeare. All of which needs to be accomplished tonight. Upside down. That is, I will draw it by turning the sample picture upside down and copying it thus.
My drawing practicum is one of the reasons why I'm so excited about this quarter. After putting my brain on the rack for eleven weeks, trying to give an answer as to WHAT art is (btw, my art teacher really liked my paper! He said he thought I was right. O, Achievement!), now I actually get to DO it. Lovely.
We're also studying the French Revolution, which is a fascinating event. I'm simply agog. Not to mention that we get to read A Tale of Two Cities, Crime and Punishment, and Frankenstein! I'm so happy about novels. These aren't all about France, of course, and neither is the whole quarter; but it's mainly nineteenth century stuff, which is my cup of tea.
As rosy as this may sound, I must confess that this term is going to be much more difficult when it comes to homesickness. I'm definitely missing my family much more this time. Christmas was a really good opportunity to reflect on my priorities, and I realized how much I need to continue investing in my family, even if from afar. It's so easy to get caught up in 'young people world', where everyone is your age, and have lots of young people issues. Especially when the issues come flying in your face left and right. I am certainly being challenged to honor people for who they are, and not hate them for their problems. What a challenge, though.
I would continue, but I'm really running out of thoughts. It happens frequently. And the Bard's head has been sitting next to me and gazing affixedly at me.
Thanks for reading faithfully! I will be back soon. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your prayers. God is working, but sometimes it's so hard to accept His method. Don't stop!