Kids (2 of 2): Things they do.

The 14 month old daughter of my one friend who runs an integrated homelessness / domestic violence shelter was at my parents’ house with her mom; they had come to pick me up and take me downstate, and arrived just before a severe weather warning was put out, and so they stayed 45 minutes at the house till the storms and gusty winds and possible tornados had passed.

At one point, the little girl was sitting on the steps to upstairs, and patted to her right side for her mom my friend to sit down, only there was like 4 inches of room.

“[The girl’s first name] darling,  I’d like to sit down, but there’s no room,” her mom my friend said.

At that, the little girl looked up at her mom, and began slowly scooting over on the staircase, and went all the width of the stair over, and she was so small, she even scooted out in front of the bottom bannister, and sat at the corner of it at the edge of the step.

“Thank you honey!”, her mom my friend was like, “But my ass isn’t *that* big!”

In any case, I was surprised that a 14-month old understood her request or gestures or whatever enough to do that!

Kids (1 of 2): Things they say (3 of 3).

The youngest of the 3 kids, a daughter, was wearing this absolutely unbelievable crown of flowers – goldenrods and Queen Anne’s lace woven together so points stuck out at both brows – and I couldn’t figure out where she got it till I remembered that her mom my friend’s a hairdresser and I realized that she must have braided it out of flowers that she had picked.

As we were walking up trail, me and the middle son and the youngest daughter and the granddad behind us all, this giant bug (size of a cigar butt!) buzzed around and landed on my shoulder, and I could feel its clawed feet through my t-shirt, and I jumped and yelled a bit and the bug flew off and onto the middle son, who began yelling “Get that bug off me, get that bug off me!”, and the next thing we know, the bug is going towards the youngest daughter and she starts booking fullspeed up trail ahead of us and is waving her arms and shouting, “The bug is chasing me, the bug is chasing me, I’m wearing flowers, I’m wearing flowers!”.

Kids (1 of 2): Things they say (2 of 3).

At the bridge we were hiking to, the kids were throwing birch bark in the stream, so I started a game where we’d throw in birch bark on the up-water side of the bridge, then watch it go under and see whose bark could get farthest downstream by avoiding obstacles like snagging branches that were trailing in the water and stuff.

After they got bored with that, they began throwing in sticks, and one of them (either the oldest or middle son) even started pulling around a pretty big branch, so I suggested that he jam it between two fallen tree trunks on each side of the stream and create a dam.

As soon as he did that, the kids began finding sticks to put around it, and then I joined in and we got a decent dam going that raised the water like a half inch or so behind it.

As we were leaving, the middle son kept talking a lot about how we should find bigger and bigger trees to add to the dam, and then he started talking about getting not just a chainsaw, but even a “motorized vehicle with a trailer” and bringing it down there so we could haul in even bigger trees.

“I don’t know,” I was like, “It’s so peaceful down here and we managed to get some pretty big trees in that dam just ourselves, why would we need a motorized vehicle here and make all that noise?”.

“We could drive it slowly,” the middle son was like.

Kids (1 of 2): Things they say (1 of 3).

Over Labor Day I hung out with this one family whose kids I went to high school with, and we all went on a long walk through the national forest near their house, both me and my friends’ parents and my friends and my friends’ kids, and their kids said some *funny* things.

As we were walking towards this one bridge, the oldest son (entering 5^th grade) told me that his parents gave him a book for his birthday, and when I asked him what it was about, he said that he hadn’t read it yet, and his dad began telling me that it was the hottest new series out, and it was from the point-of-view of the villain, this billionaire evil genius kid who’s always trying to take over the world.

The oldest son: “It sounds kind of silly.”

The middle son (entering 3^rd grade, who was walking behind us): “That sounds good!  I want to read it."

Incredible physical comedy.

The other week I was drinking at the (student) bar and the one (black) (male) bartender came up to me and this one other bartender's (Indian-American) girlfriend and this one other patron (I forget who was there) and did this whole improvised comedy routine on going to the gym.

He had been doing tons of serious squats, then he went home and had to crouch to pick something up and ended up sitting on the porch and there was a wasp on the door yet he couldn't manage to get up and move, so he just sat there and was like "Hi, wasp," and then eventually was able to go in the house and just sat in a chair and stared out the window for an hour...

He also said his legs were so sore, and just pointed at them and was like, "Repair repair repair!".

He also also said he was trying to swagger for some ladies but he couldn't pick up his feet right, and so he ended up stumbling and looking like a fool, and as he imitated his swagger he slowed down into a stumble that almost became a pratfall.

Really, the entire time, he had these exaggerated gestures and this huge, in-your-face performance style, to the point where it looked like a polished comedy routine, the thing looked so good and the jokes kept coming so fast.

After he left to go back to work in the back bar (there's several bars in the [student] bar), I said to the other bartender's (Indian-American) girlfriend, "Man, I didn't know [that bartender's name] was such a comedian!".

"But he's always funny," she was like.

"I know!", I was like, "But that was a whole different level, it was so polished!".

At that, she agreed.

It was very impressive, and even more so since it seemed so spontaneous.

Amtrak schedule change.

After I figured out that I'd stay with my high school friend who runs the integrated homeless / domestic violence shelter and her husband for a few days after visiting my family for Labor Day, I called Amtrak immediately to make a change in dates for my return tickets.

A (black?) woman ("Loretta") answered, and like I always do, I praised their customer-friendly ticket change policy and said how much I appreciated it.

"My friend has a baby, and now I can hang out with them more!", I was like.

"Oooooooh, I love babies!", Loretta was like.  "That is so nice."

I also told her how I would make dinner for my friend and her family to earn my keep.

"You are such a good friend," Loretta said.

Good news!:

My landlord not only renewed my lease, but he did it without raising the rent at all!

I had written him a quick note since my lease is up on Sept. 15th and I had said I'd love to renew, and I'd appreciate it if he could keep the raise in rent down, if at all possible, since I know the city was probably jacking up his taxes.

I also mentioned how I always got my check in by the last day of every month for the first of the next and how I'd been picking up glass and trash from the backyard and front area, as well as how I'd made material improvements to the apartment that would benefit future tenants (weatherlining all doors, drywalling a small hole in the closet, raising the clothing rod since it was sagging in the middle, installing a curtain rod and putting a nice curtain over the door-less closet).

He said it was no problem, he'd keep it the same, since he prefers to hold on to good tenants.

Score!