This image is in honor of my conversation with Kate about traveling NYC via subway. We quickly came to the conclusion that navigating Manhattan underground is basically a big game of old school Mario Brothers. Enough said.
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I have a new neighbor! A young couple used to live right next to me and I kid you not, at least thrice a week (haha, "thrice"), there would be extreme yelling and throwing of things. I'm pretty sure the girl was just high maintenance and her boyfriend wasn't all that bad. For example, one of the fights was her accusing him of "destroying" her winter coat. He was kind enough to bring it to the dry cleaners for her but upon taking it out of the plastic bag, she claimed it was "ruined forever" (you hear a lot through these walls). She went on and on with outrageous comments like "you should have told them....bla bla bla...and why did you specify bla bla bla?!?!?!" Then the best part: "This was my favorite coat you a$$hole! It was like...a hundred bucks!!!!". Ok, not to say that $100 isn't a lot, but she was treating the whole scenario as if he had spilled a bucket of paint on her new mink coat. Anyway, many fights like this one. Annoyingly unnecessary.
They are out and the new guy seems pretty cool. He's living alone in the one bedroom, has an alluring accent and got all of his stuff up in 4 trips. That's my kind of moving. I'm looking fwd to August when I move...I shall be shedding a great load of my belongings.
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Full day in the park on this beautiful Sunday! First w/ a dear friend, then with my brother and my favorite little 'un. Chloe, my niece, is just amazing. I don't know how else to put it. AND she's such a daredevil on the playground, it's awesome. She totally shows up the 8 year old boys.
We were blowing bubbles later on. A conversation:
C: Julia, now you blow them!
[I take the bubble wand and blow a nice little bouquet of bubbles into the air]
C: [3 minutes later] where did the big one go?
J: It flew way up high and is traveling through the air now
C: Is it going to Florida?!!?!? [huge, excited smile]
J: Yes, yes it is
Another conversation at The Shake Shack:
Tanner: Alright Chloe, what are we going to get?
C: hmmm...
T: I think we should go with a hot dog and a strawberry milkshake
C: [zero hesitation] and diarrhea.
HAHA, oh man. It was incredible...where does the girl come up with this stuff?
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I'll be hitting the sandy beaches in 3 weeks. Yesssssss...a little reprieve will be nice and my skin wants the ocean water
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I have been ridiculously domestic this weekend. It's wonderful. On Friday I picked up some stemless wine glasses, a few vintage glass jars for flour/sugar/whatever, two new serrated knives, a vintage ceramic milk jug, and a butter dish (which is actually a European cheese dish w/ a top, but hey, it works). Anyway, these new goodies inspired me and I made ravioli and marinara sauce from scratch, then a risotto dish the next night and this morning, some scones from scratch to eat warm along with my french-pressed coffee. Ah, delight!
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It's finally going away. Finally. Thank you.
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Sooo, I guess I should be doing something w/ my taxes, eh? Ugh, being an adult is hard. Maybe "hard" isn't the right word. I just don't want to deal with taxes. I've also been holding off setting up my new 401K just because I know it's going to be an annoying process...I suppose I should get on that
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How Doth the Little Busy Bee
by Isaac Watts
How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower!
How skilfully she builds her cell!
How neat she spreads the wax!
And labors hard to store it well
With the sweet food she makes.
In works of labor or of skill,
I would be busy too;
For Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do.
In books, or work, or healthful play,
Let my first years be passed,
That I may give for every day
Some good account at last.
by Isaac Watts
How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower!
How skilfully she builds her cell!
How neat she spreads the wax!
And labors hard to store it well
With the sweet food she makes.
In works of labor or of skill,
I would be busy too;
For Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do.
In books, or work, or healthful play,
Let my first years be passed,
That I may give for every day
Some good account at last.
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That poem reminds me of the first essay I ever wrote. I was 6 years old (1st grade) and I wrote about worker bees. One day I'll put the essay in a blog post (it's hardly a page long and would be easy to re-type...and so worth it).
Actually, right after I graduated from college in May, I participated in a 2-week writing workshop. The 1st week focused on autobiography written in the 3rd person. For the first three days we were instructed to write 60 pages that were free-flowing, unedited, little blurbs/episodes of our lives. One of my snippets was this 1st grade essay writing experience. I still remember it perfectly. Not so much for the essay itself but...well, here's the piece I wrote about it for the workshop (keep in mind, these were free-writes):
“Julia, do you need to go to the bathroom?” Mrs. Clark interrupted the first grader’s thoughts, “If you do, it’s OK, I can wait for you.”
Julia refused. How did she know? All teachers are psychics, she thought. Of course, Julia was oblivious to the fact that her face looked like she had just eaten an entire lemon and her "subtle" rocking back and forth resembled a ship in the midst of a monsoon.
“No, I don’t have to. So when the worker bees are born they already know their job.”
No matter how much she fidgeted and attempted to deny the urge, the release came and a smooth warmth blanketed Julia’s pants down to her knees. Simultaneously, a grand feeling of relief and an even stronger sense of remorse hit. Past her knees, trickling down her calves and shins and finally, saturating her new socks. Urine was dripping off the chair, but she was convinced that she had pulled it off. Mrs. Clark would never know. Julia just had to keep her cool.
“And when the hive gets crowded, some of the bees have to go.”
She would just shimmy out backwards. Yes, after her session with the teacher she would casually stand up and slowly walk backwards toward the door. When no one was looking she would dash into the hallway and slip into the bathroom.
“I wouldn’t want to leave my family,” Julia continued dictating, “but the bees do it because they know they have to.”
“Great, anything else you want to add Julia?”
“Ya, the stinger hurts.” A pause. "Oh! And I really like the honey."
The first-grader prepared for her grand exit. Nobody would have to know what had happened. Inhaling deeply, Julia cautiously stood up. Her denim overalls were heavy and the stiff fabric stuck to her thin legs. Glancing downward, there was a miniature sea of urine resting in the dip of her seat. There it was, the shameful evidence of a six year-old still not fully potty trained. Julia’s heart was crushed, she wanted to slump down and cry. That would cause a scene though. And the last thing you want to be was a first grader who peed their pants and then cried about it. So holding onto her last thread of dignity, Julia slowly walked backwards toward the classroom door. For the first time ever, she was utterly disgusted by her actions. “I’m such an idiot,” she recited in her head. It became a mantra: an idiot, an idiot, an idiot. She would spend the next hour in the bathroom waiting for her pants to dry, incessantly dabbing at them with wads of pristine white toilet paper.
Sad. I can literally still feel that moment. Such shame [sigh]. Just for the record, I did eventually reach a full level of potty trained-ness. Thank you very much.
Mrs. Clark was great though. I remember she had a glass jar on her desk and anytime a student cried she would undo the lid on the jar and catch the student's tears in it. I don't remember her explanation, but she was pretty consistent with the whole 'tears in the jar' deal. As alluded to in the little episode above, I was a painfully shy child and crying during class was just NOT EVER an option for me. The last thing I wanted was to have the focus on me...ever. I didn't want to be the kid who lost their tooth during school, I refused to see the nurse if I felt sick, I didn't want people to make a huge deal out of the birthday, etc. I'd say I was probably this way until I was 14. Finally "came out of my shell", as they say...but that's another topic for another day.
Anyway, one day in 1st grade I did cry. Oh, I wish I could remember why. It must have been something pretty big though. Mrs. Clark took me into her arms brought me over to her desk and then it happened. Slow-motion, her hand reached for the tear jar. Oh man, I remember being so freaked out. I wanted to let my tears roll down my cheeks, to feel their salty warmth, taste them when they trickled to the corners of my mouth. Mrs. Clark took the lid off the jar and held it by my cheek.
"I don't want that," I said, "I don't want the tear jar"
"But Julia, if your tears drop in here, then everybody's tears will be bottled up together and we can keep them safe on my desk," the teacher coaxed (again, why was this such a good idea eludes me)
"But...but," I tried to think of how to articulate what I was feeling. I didn't want my tears joining the sea of others that had been imprisoned in that jar for months, "I like my tears. They are the best thing about crying. I don't want them to stay in a jar. If I keep them on my cheeks, they'll evaporate and become air" (we had done a "water theme" earlier in the year and I was very excited to learn about evaporation).
Now that I look back on it, it was kind of a profound statement. And I still think that tears are the best thing about crying.
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Here comes the sun, little darlin'
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What's going on with all of these green and powder blue puddles?
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What the hand, dare sieze the fire?
Those conversations with Chloe just had me laughing out loud!! I'm so glad you guys got to play.
ReplyDeleteWhere are you moving in August?