You are about to embark on a wonderful journey!

Clean bill of health from Health Services, found a ride to Springfield tomorrow, chocolate chip cookies and a trip to New York. This is going to be good.

Four plums, safe and sound

Nina and I saw a shop downtown with this sign in the window:

It reads, "Si li ping'an," which, as far as we could tell, meant "Four plums, safe and sound."

We were puzzled so today in class I drew the characters on my paper and asked what they meant. Zhao laoshi laughed and laughed. "They are missing one stroke," she explained. "This is what it should say:

plums

"Si ji ping'an": "Four seasons, safe and peaceful." Which, you know, makes a lot more sense. Silly laowai.

My weekend

I had a really nice weekend. On Saturday, Leah and I had our radio show, which was really fun- we had a sort of spur-of-the-moment New Wave theme, so we played Blondie and the Eurythmics and Television and some other stuff like that. Saturday night we went to a party at Hopkins (my Dream House), where we ate tortilla chips and played Scrabble with Stina and Clio. Stina's friend is really into human rights activism and although she's from New York, she's actually friends with several people I knew in my anti-sweatshop days in high school. It's a small world, and I love being reminded of that.

On Sunday, I got up early and did lots of work and then spent most of the afternoon working on my quilt. I used my $15 windfall of money from subbing at the daycare to buy six quarter yards of gorgeous fabric from the fabric store on King Street. They are so beautiful I could just stare at them all day, no kidding. While I sewed I thought about how someday my grandchildren will snuggle up under the quilt and think about how much nicer it is than the quilts they have at Wal*Mart, which will be the only store there is then. A quilt is an investment in the future, which makes it okay that I'll be working on this particular quilt for about another 17 years.

A mysterious list

Going through a box of mementos from last year, I came upon the following list:

Mix tape
finders keepers
you can't always get what you want
what if I'm an empath?
Back to my machine
a women's voice on the radio
lost in paradox
the positive square root of 4 is dancing
sometimes it's fun to dress like a boy
draw the invisible
not like a centaur
all alone

Do these sound like the rantings of a madman, or what? I'm quite flummoxed.

The Pineapple Solution

Leah stopped by last night after the pineapple incident. "Thank you for the pineapple," I said, smiling.
"What pineapple?"
"The pineapple you put on my door!"
"I didn't give you any pineapple!"
"Yes you did!"
"No I didn't!"
"Quit messing with me! If it wasn't you, who could it be?"
Leah's eyes widened. She led me outside, to Sara and Alex's room two doors down and across the hall.

"Pineapple for you over on that wall," said a note on their message board.
Oh no!
Quickly, Leah erased the note.
"Just don't say anything about it," she advised me. "It's okay- how were you to know?"

Stupid me! "Oooohhh, wall pineapple! Food of mysterious origins! Down it goes! Chi chi chi!"
*groan*

Who do I know who's a pineapple nailer?

I just found a small wax paper bag of pineapple stuck to a nail on the doorframe right below my name tag. I ate it- still cool, whatever that means. I hope I was supposed to- I hope it wasn't somebody else's pineapple they'd stuck to my door for safekeeping. Who could have left it there? It doesn't seem like Leah's style to leave it without telling me, or at least leaving a note on my board, but that's who seems the most likely.

Very mysterious. Look for updates as they become available.

My baby's name is Batman

Yesterday at the daycare center, Iris had a very fancy doll dressed up in a long red velvet gown and bonnet.
"I'm naming her Batman." said Iris.

When submitting a job application, is it okay to add "pretty, pretty please?" to the end?

Catty observation time!

Near the top of my list of Annoying Verbal Activities are baby talk and referring to oneself in the third person. These two egregious sins are often committed by the same people, who feel they must make the method of delivery interesting in lieu of having anything to say. They also tend to speak extremely loudly, as though projecting from a stage, because they think that's exactly what they're doing.

Also, it's fine to sing to yourself while wandering the halls, but do it quietly, like a crazy person- don't sing out in your misguided belief that everyone would love to hear you. That's how I spent all last night with "This Provincial Life" from Beauty and the Beast stuck in my head.

Don't you hate it...

...When you discover you've been working from an abridged version of the Tractatus and you go to the bookstore to buy a new one and even though it's paperback it's still seventeen dollars and you use the money your great aunt sent you to buy it and then you have no money left for laundry and you're wearing your last clean pair of underwear?

I sure do.