Random observations

Well, you know, it sucks... :-? (There has to be a porn star with the surname "Hoover" somewhere, don't you think?)

Anyway, my random observation -- while there are many things out of whack with current kids' parties, what's currently confusing me is goodie bags. We buy a gift for a kid that's around $20. Sozlet gets a goodie bag on the way out -- with about $20 worth of stuff.

That's not how birthday redistribution of wealth is supposed to work -- it's supposed to be I give you a present, then later when it's my birthday you give me a present.

Confusing. (And annoying, as I try to figure out if I ignore local birthday mores or go ahead with my plan of about $5 worth of goodie bag stuff -- total, for everyone.)

My niece had various tribulations on growing up, but one seeming useful bit was that she never was a present accumulator. Loved a cake and candles, liked the attention she got when visiting us with her father whenever they did, but not possessive about things. [Staring guiltily at my past, I see I apparently always liked things, however few, and I appear to have been a sentimental baby.]

As a teen this has played out that she throws clothes on the floor, loses her cellphone, and so on. Efforts are being put into play by uncle and dad to have her earn money to pay portions of cellphone and computer payment, to instill possessiveness..

She has reasons for throwing clothes on the floor, she was always going back and forth from dad to mom's in various custody arrangements, and mom, who has died this year, was not your ordinary California Closets person. Mom was unusual, long story, but so is dad, who is sort of monklike re possessions. So, she has been a teen within a world of contrasts but with little personal control.

Talked with her today, always good. We are a kind of air for each other, however extended the time between our talking, and however unnatural, since we don't deal with each other day to day.

The house phone at dad's has no answer machine. Man is a serious luddite, but also he spent years avoiding long ranting mom. Communication between us, niece and I, is catch as catch can.

$20 for each kid that comes visit?!! Thats bizarre. Just imagine the total cost of a single kids' birthday party. That a fancy people thing?

That's part of what I'm trying to figure out. It's been pretty much every single party, though, and there have been a lot. Some fancy, some not.

Example: A recent one was at a pottery painting place. Like, you glaze it, they fire it, hey presto, real pottery. So the kids all got a plate to paint at the party. Things cost $12 each. Then it was $4 each for the time there ($4/ hour). Then it was an actual goodie bag on top of that, had to be at LEAST $4 worth of stuff. Oh and the food! Pizza for everyone, cake, icecream, drinks, etc.

Not cheap!!

I'm planning on spending I think $10 bucks on sozlet's party, total. Will be at home, with stuff we already have, plus I'm going to make garland/ tiara things for the girls out of silk flowers I found for 90% off (at Garden Ridge, for ehBeth).

Then the other question is that the parties tend to have a bunch of kids -- if we just invite everyone who invited sozlet to a party, that's like a dozen kids, while I want to invite 5-6 at the most.

Why is this so complicated?

K went to a birthday party a few years back. At the end of the party the mom admitted to having forgotten about their goodie bags so she handed each child a roll of quarters

The kids, of course, thought is was the best thing ever. I'd wished she'd left it at the "I forgot" point.

Oh my!

There's a pink, open-top touringcar bus for sightseeing driving around here. It's called the Barbie bus.

Tonight, in the last of the day's sunlight, there was only the one, single man on it. A young or middle-aged man.

All alone on the Barbie bus.

That's kind of the saddest thing in the world, isn't it.

my random obervation is that when it rains in Odessa, Texas it dose not rain it pours.

Hey how come they call Ovaltine Oval when it should really be called Roundtine cause it's jar is round >

JS

Monumental buildings somehow always seem further away in winter ... as if its pale light adds to the distance between you and its spires, towers.

There is an article, on OneWorld, about how the PolioPlus association in Macedonia launched a campaign for promoting the rights of mobility and access for persons with special needs, aimed in particular at providing more parking spaces. "At this moment, with the exception of several parking lots in Skopje, there are no parking spaces reserved for the vehicles driven by persons with disabilities. In those place where such parking spaces [..] exist, the citizens abuse those parking spaces."

The campaign is called ... "A Parking Lot Named Desire"

Heh...

Made a mental note for this, never wrote it down.

Sozlet is taking ballet classes at a local ballet academy which also houses advanced students and the actual ballet corps, who do rehearsals there. Cool old building downtown. The class is short so I wait there, have gotten some sneak previews of "The Nutcracker" and such. It's fun.

I've gotten to know some of the advanced students by sight, as they have classes at the same time. One is going to be a star, I think -- she's supermodel beautiful and has very fine technique. She's about high-school aged, not sure exactly how old.

The one of this group that I made note of though is really interesting. She often arrives early, and when she's schlubbing around before and after class she's downright klutzy. Her posture is terrible, she's forever starting in one direction, remembering something, and going the other direction, she trips over things, she has a goofy laugh, she's pasty-skinned, and her hands are always doing things seemingly of their own accord.

But I've seen her dancing, too -- complete transformation. Beautiful line (she's unusually tall), lyrical, sophisticated.

Makes me wonder about her choices outside of class -- she knows that stuff, she could carry it over and be a knockout, but she seems to choose not to. Or maybe it's just that she has to really concentrate to do it, and she wants to relax when she's not dancing. Or maybe it's just not the kind of person she wants to be. I remember trying to "correct" my posture as a teenager -- I took ballet until I was 12 or so, and my dance posture stuck (people asked me if I was a dancer a good 5 years after I stopped), and I had the impression (I don't remember anyone actually saying this to me) that it made me look... pretentious, or something. So I purposely tried to emulate a more typical teenager's posture.

Anyway, lovely people-watching there, the time goes fast.

A dead cat is a smelly cat.
Regardless of the translation.

Three, four...

Smelly Cat, Smelly Cat,
What are they feeding you?
Smelly Cat, Smelly Cat
It's not your fault

They won't take you to the vet
You're obviously not their favorite pet
Smelly Cat, Smelly Cat,
It's not your fault

You may not be a bed of roses
You're not friend to those with noses
I'll miss you before we're done
Or the world will smell as one

Smelly Cat, Smelly Cat,
What are they feeding you?
Smelly Cat, Smelly Cat
It's not your fault

(Phoebe) Oh are we done?

One, two, what's that smell?

Smelly Cat, Smelly Cat,
What are they feeding you?
Smelly Cat, Smelly Cat
You're getting fat

I think that I'm gonna be sick
It's your ears, and nose and pick
Part of it, tempt me

One, two, what's that smell?

All the dogs in the neighborhood
Are saying this for your own good
What, you're fat, so you can't run
No fun, I bet, No fun

http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/friendsagain/smellycatmedley.htm


<I've been giggling again, and that can't be good for somebody>

It's amazing how much comes to you, if you just lean back ...

Observation of an observation:

I turn around the corner, rainy Saturday night, I dont have nowhere to go so I'm on my way to CCC, where I can be online and do some work or something. I'm halfway there. To my right, the operette theatre, photos from The Beauty and The Beast. People outside smoking, dressed up, I ignore 'em then catch a glimp of a radiant girl in sensual black dress. As I turn my head back, I see on the other side of the street a guy climbing out from the window of one of the apartments. The room behind him is unlit, he's clambering out, hanging on to the windowsill, ready to jump down. I have to do a doubletake to confirm that he's really there, that I'm not imagining things when I'm struck by sudden singing. In the next doorway a small group of women, five or six of em of upstanding middle age, stand in a circle and sing a song of congratulation to someone, but they're trained singers, a honeyed smooth classic ensemble. The young man still hanging out of the window turns to look at them too.

Now here's something that struck me...

I opened this news item about the republican primary for the Ill governors race. Woman named Judy Baar Topinka won it. She's introduced in one of those character-setting sentences as a bit of a maverick. The sentence reads:


Wow - what an odd little sign of a cultural seachange, in this choice of illustration. She's so weird and politically incorrect, not just does she call her opponents "morons" - she smokes cigarettes!!

For good measure the charge is brought again further down:


She smokes Marlboros! In public! Call the press...

Well, clearly is wasn't going to be a Gaulois...

I thought - I was sure - I already posted this somewhere, but I cant find it back anywhere - it's small. I thought it was in my "Bourdieu" post. Unbelievably, it was only the other week - two weeks ago, I was taking one of my Sunday afternoon walks up to coffeehouse Ruszwurm, up on the Castle Hill. I climbed the long steps directly up to the Fishers Bastion, covered in snow. A man was busily sweeping them. I thought of thanking him for his work, then just smiled as I hurried by. But something registered. By the time I came down again, an hour and a half later, I realised what was the case. So when I passed the same spot, I looked around, and there he was, in one of the alcoves in the big city wall. It was his home. He'd lived there for five years now, he told me, and he'd been sweeping the stairs for five years too. The alcove sported, apart from torn up cardboard boxes as a bed and some of those bags with unidentified belongings, no less than three brooms. The police knew about it, and they were OK with it. Sometimes someone gave him something for the effort. So did I.

That is nice, nimh. I'm actually reading Janos Kadar's biography right now and it says that a lot - thousands of people - lived in those wall openings and caves during WWI and afterwards, certainly through Depression. Kadar himself spent a few years in those dwellings with his mother.


How did the young hanging gentleman end up? did you see him jump? did he climb back in?

He jumped ... but it was only a meter and a half or so ... ;-)