A little wonder
I haven't been posting in a while... a circumstance necessitated, in quite equal measure, by my lack of progress in my work, a rather potent attack of faulus handus (Faux Latin: lazy hands), and a dose of 'oh-the-world-is-so-gray-and-no-one-loves-me'-itis. It's taken me some time to shrug it off, but now that it has been shrugged off, I intend to push ahead. Full steam!
This post is dedicated to little F-., whom I had the pleasure of meeting last week. F-., and her mother D-., had come down to visit me. D-. is an ex-colleague of mine, from the previous town I'd stayed in. As we hadn't seen each other in years, and as she had an evening free and didn't know what to do, we decided to inflict our respective company on each other... with one exception: F-. came along.
The moment I saw F-. across the car park, I knew we would have no problems hitting off - and, indeed, we did. We got along like a house on fire... make that several housing complexes, and a mall thrown in for good measure, on flames. The whole evening she had this incredibly cheeky, toothy smile on her face -- despite having a cold that D-. tried to staunch - rather unsuccessfully - with napkins, tissues, old t-shirts and so on. Here I must mention that F-. is 1 year old, learning to walk and a bundle of fun and curiosity.
It was a surprise to me to see how relaxed D-. was, as regards her daughter. When we entered my office, I offered F-. a cookie, which she accepted and stuffed into her mouth - whole! My brain froze in a tableau involving a choking little form on my office floor. The little thing in my upper-left chest cavity started doing squat-jumps and my mouth fell open. D-. took this moment to tell me to look after F-. while she went in search of the ladies' room. The following conversation ensued:
Me: Ah, oh, D-. could you wait till F-. has, uh, finished.
D-. : Ah, M. it's not a problem. Nothing will happen.
Me: But, but, what if she chokes?
D-. : Then she'll cough and spit it out. Now, where is the ladies' ?
Eventually, I ended up morosely pacing the corridor until F-. gulped down the last morsel. But more about F-. now:
At our institute she took an instant liking to Linux. She tottered over to the monitor that displayed a raw, rather pixellated approximation of a penguin and kissed it, (to be more accurate, she slobbered all over it -- but the intention was there!) before banging away on the keyboard in a rather professional manner. We had to restart the machine. I see a great future for her.
At my place, later, she inspected the kitchen in a way worthy of a mother-in-law. The cupboards were opened, the pots drawn out and approved and then, this done, she decided to check out if the other side of the room had anything interesting to offer. It did. It offered one the exciting possibility of examining my potato-and-onion basket. The basket in question was duly inspected. The contents trundled out, the potatoes bitten into, the onions slavered over and... *crash*: that would be the slightly broken porcelain bowl, the one I wanted to repair for quite some time, now a very broken porcelain ex-bowl. Oh, well, that shortened my to-do list by one.
Much later, in order to avoid giving the fire brigade and the police an evening of excitement, we decided to go out, and ended up having dinner in an Indian restaurant after which, it being late in the evening, I had to part with the two of them. It was a delightful end to a delightful day, and whenever I think of F-., I get a little mushy! I love kids - when they are kids. When they grow up, they somehow, inexplicably, turn from lovable tykes to stubborn bast**ds. I should know! I was a kid once!
This post is dedicated to little F-., whom I had the pleasure of meeting last week. F-., and her mother D-., had come down to visit me. D-. is an ex-colleague of mine, from the previous town I'd stayed in. As we hadn't seen each other in years, and as she had an evening free and didn't know what to do, we decided to inflict our respective company on each other... with one exception: F-. came along.
The moment I saw F-. across the car park, I knew we would have no problems hitting off - and, indeed, we did. We got along like a house on fire... make that several housing complexes, and a mall thrown in for good measure, on flames. The whole evening she had this incredibly cheeky, toothy smile on her face -- despite having a cold that D-. tried to staunch - rather unsuccessfully - with napkins, tissues, old t-shirts and so on. Here I must mention that F-. is 1 year old, learning to walk and a bundle of fun and curiosity.
It was a surprise to me to see how relaxed D-. was, as regards her daughter. When we entered my office, I offered F-. a cookie, which she accepted and stuffed into her mouth - whole! My brain froze in a tableau involving a choking little form on my office floor. The little thing in my upper-left chest cavity started doing squat-jumps and my mouth fell open. D-. took this moment to tell me to look after F-. while she went in search of the ladies' room. The following conversation ensued:
Me: Ah, oh, D-. could you wait till F-. has, uh, finished.
D-. : Ah, M. it's not a problem. Nothing will happen.
Me: But, but, what if she chokes?
D-. : Then she'll cough and spit it out. Now, where is the ladies' ?
Eventually, I ended up morosely pacing the corridor until F-. gulped down the last morsel. But more about F-. now:
At our institute she took an instant liking to Linux. She tottered over to the monitor that displayed a raw, rather pixellated approximation of a penguin and kissed it, (to be more accurate, she slobbered all over it -- but the intention was there!) before banging away on the keyboard in a rather professional manner. We had to restart the machine. I see a great future for her.
At my place, later, she inspected the kitchen in a way worthy of a mother-in-law. The cupboards were opened, the pots drawn out and approved and then, this done, she decided to check out if the other side of the room had anything interesting to offer. It did. It offered one the exciting possibility of examining my potato-and-onion basket. The basket in question was duly inspected. The contents trundled out, the potatoes bitten into, the onions slavered over and... *crash*: that would be the slightly broken porcelain bowl, the one I wanted to repair for quite some time, now a very broken porcelain ex-bowl. Oh, well, that shortened my to-do list by one.
Much later, in order to avoid giving the fire brigade and the police an evening of excitement, we decided to go out, and ended up having dinner in an Indian restaurant after which, it being late in the evening, I had to part with the two of them. It was a delightful end to a delightful day, and whenever I think of F-., I get a little mushy! I love kids - when they are kids. When they grow up, they somehow, inexplicably, turn from lovable tykes to stubborn bast**ds. I should know! I was a kid once!
posted by DarkSonRising at 1:50 PM
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