threw caution to the winds

P. had a party last night--originally a "meet my old friend Nicola" party, but after rescheduling once when Nicola's plans changed, the second time she decided to go ahead with it. It turned, happily, into an "I have a job!" party.

I dithered about whether to go--I'd done a lot on Friday, and was feeling under the weather Saturday morning and afternoon. We sat around and did little, I didn't even have breakfast, and lunch was at 1:00 (fine if you sleep in, but I hadn't). Finally, I decided I would grab my bag, and set out when cattitude did, and either go to the party, or turn around and go home.

Halfway through the park, I decided to throw caution to the winds, and go.

We went out to Queens, ate cheese fondue and other snacks, and played assorted games until after midnight. There's a game called "Apples to Apples," which I like, and which I said I wanted to play, even though I'm not very good at it. So we played, and I won (running neck-and-neck with Mark for the lead). Then we played a round of Fluxx, and another game of Apples to Apples. I won again. Cool, in a surprising way: once could be luck, but twice suggests I've finally found a knack for it.

threw caution to the winds

P. had a party last night--originally a "meet my old friend Nicola" party, but after rescheduling once when Nicola's plans changed, the second time she decided to go ahead with it. It turned, happily, into an "I have a job!" party.

I dithered about whether to go--I'd done a lot on Friday, and was feeling under the weather Saturday morning and afternoon. We sat around and did little, I didn't even have breakfast, and lunch was at 1:00 (fine if you sleep in, but I hadn't). Finally, I decided I would grab my bag, and set out when cattitude did, and either go to the party, or turn around and go home.

Halfway through the park, I decided to throw caution to the winds, and go.

We went out to Queens, ate cheese fondue and other snacks, and played assorted games until after midnight. There's a game called "Apples to Apples," which I like, and which I said I wanted to play, even though I'm not very good at it. So we played, and I won (running neck-and-neck with Mark for the lead). Then we played a round of Fluxx, and another game of Apples to Apples. I won again. Cool, in a surprising way: once could be luck, but twice suggests I've finally found a knack for it.

train talk

I went out to Moshe's this afternoon, where I did the usual mix of talking to people and pulling weeds, with Chinese food for 14 afterwards. (One of the people was Julian Warner, the current DUFF delegate.)

On the way there, I was on the #7 train, and a family got on. The parents and two small children sat across from me, and the parents tried to convince the middle-sized child to sit with them. He insisted that he wanted to sit on this side, so he could look out at the tracks. After a moment, having heard them speaking Spanish, I smiled and said "Puede sentar aqui" ["He can sit here"], they gave up, and he sat on the bench next to me, facing out the window and looking at the tracks. From time to time he said "Mira!" to his parents, who ignored him, while I looked down and saw nothing special. A little after that, he started talking, mostly to himself, in English: what he was excited about was the tracks. (It took me a moment to figure out that he was using "train" to mean both "track" and "train".) He particularly wanted to know about the express track, and why there were no trains there, and then what was on the far side of the express track. So I spent the trip to Flushing explaining that the third track is the train back into Manhattan, and there's no express train on Sunday, and why there are extra tracks near Shea Stadium, and (as we disembarked at Main Street) that our train was going to turn around and go back to Manhattan.

I mentioned this to Moshe later in the afternoon, and he said "That was good of you." I hadn't thought of it in those terms--I told Moshe about it because he's a rail buff and I thought he'd think it was neat. I suppose it counts as a mitzvah, but there are few things more fun than a child who's interested in something I'm interested in and know something about. (Of course, it helps that I'm a person who enjoys explaining things.) I suspect the boy's parents also thought I was doing a favor; they told him to say goodbye, so he did, so I did. I probably did make their afternoon a little easier, but I did it for me as much as for their son, and not at all for them.

train talk

I went out to Moshe's this afternoon, where I did the usual mix of talking to people and pulling weeds, with Chinese food for 14 afterwards. (One of the people was Julian Warner, the current DUFF delegate.)

On the way there, I was on the #7 train, and a family got on. The parents and two small children sat across from me, and the parents tried to convince the middle-sized child to sit with them. He insisted that he wanted to sit on this side, so he could look out at the tracks. After a moment, having heard them speaking Spanish, I smiled and said "Puede sentar aqui" ["He can sit here"], they gave up, and he sat on the bench next to me, facing out the window and looking at the tracks. From time to time he said "Mira!" to his parents, who ignored him, while I looked down and saw nothing special. A little after that, he started talking, mostly to himself, in English: what he was excited about was the tracks. (It took me a moment to figure out that he was using "train" to mean both "track" and "train".) He particularly wanted to know about the express track, and why there were no trains there, and then what was on the far side of the express track. So I spent the trip to Flushing explaining that the third track is the train back into Manhattan, and there's no express train on Sunday, and why there are extra tracks near Shea Stadium, and (as we disembarked at Main Street) that our train was going to turn around and go back to Manhattan.

I mentioned this to Moshe later in the afternoon, and he said "That was good of you." I hadn't thought of it in those terms--I told Moshe about it because he's a rail buff and I thought he'd think it was neat. I suppose it counts as a mitzvah, but there are few things more fun than a child who's interested in something I'm interested in and know something about. (Of course, it helps that I'm a person who enjoys explaining things.) I suspect the boy's parents also thought I was doing a favor; they told him to say goodbye, so he did, so I did. I probably did make their afternoon a little easier, but I did it for me as much as for their son, and not at all for them.