I thought I knew you, what did I know?

I just realized that I can empathize with K fed who got a text from Britney saying that 'it's over'. But I digress. Here's my story of the week.


I got a text from our babysitter on Friday night (albeit I read and responded to it on Sat night) saying " Very important call me as soon as u get this text".

What can be so important that she sent me a text on Fri night? Why she couldn't just call? Did she get in trouble with the law and needed bailing out?! I was debating whether is was a good idea to call her at 9:45PM but then again, if someone needs bailing out, it's never too late.

I called her. With a wear voice she told me that her grandma is not doing so well and asked for the babysitter by name. So, she's flying back to her country ASAP. But, she's got number of 3 reliable and responsible young ladies to cover for her because she doesn't want me to be stranded.


In timesless words of Bertie Wooster " she could've knocked me down with an f".

I wished her luck and hung up. She even said she'd keep in touch and call back in a few days.

Hubby called her in the morning, asking for how long she's going, whether she needs help with her apartment, etc. She already said she planned on staying for a while, not sure when she's come back, the apt and the ticket are taken care of.

Her aunt, the original referral, called us later, apologizing. To make a very long story very short, our babysitter planned her emergency for at least a month. She disconnected her phone before noon on Sunday (I'm sure to ease the process of being in touch) and as far as we were concerned, vanished into thin air.

After working for us for a year, she didn't even care for a proper good bye, let alone at least a day's notice, closure, and all the other stuff our society seems to find important.

Who the heck watched my kids for a year, pretending so well to care?

Happy birthday SiM

I ment to post this on his birthday, but managed to be 24 minutes late. Well, a little late but a most sincere happy birthday to my big boy! I can't believe it's been a year...

Cruiser

I didn't really get a chance to post an 11 month old update and Sim is almost a year old.
So a quick recap ( though my recaps notoriously lack the necessary detail):
-definitely a confident cruiser by 11 months;
-refused eating the classic 'baby food' from the jars-it's table food or nothing;
-ABBA! is his most popular word. Amusingly, abba worked very hard @ teaching out daughter to say that word ( pretty much since she was 3 months old). With this one it came with no effort on his part but with much delight on mine. Every time the baby wakes up in the morning, he calls 'abba', so I just tell my hubby 'he's calling you":) and continue pretending that I'm still asleep.
-he knows what he wants and points at it quite nicely;
-if something that he wants is in his sister's possession, he tried to take it away and very very quickly scoot in the opposite direction;
-albeit his favorite word is abba, he is mama's boy and every time he sees me he demands to be picked up or as a last resort, given undevided attention;
-he finally has a (cute) tuft of hair that's curling up in the back

Why?

I was waiting for my big toddler to start asking "why" question, and today it finally happened.
All of a sudden, I heard her ask why 4 times in less than 5 minutes!

YAY! I mean, why?

Memorial Day

Albeit it's a national holiday, I went to work for a few hours today because I missed 1.5 days last week and because you can accomplish a lot more on a holiday ( since there are less people working who can potentially slow me down).

My little department is made up of immigrants ( with an exeption of 1 born American who wasn't there today), so none of us 'grew up' with a Memorial Day. So when one of my coworkers heard me wish a "happy Memorial Day' to one of the residents he asked me what exactly are we celebrating? Instead of answering him directly, I asked him ' what does it sound like', and ' how many years have you lived in America that you still don't know what's being celebrated?'. I gave him the brief description of the holiday after I told him off for living in the country for 7 years and not caring to find out the cause for 'the bbqs and sales'.

Later this evening, after the kids were finally sleeping and the adults were enjoying the obligatory barbeque (burgers and hot dogs on a George Foreman grill version), my sister and I started discussing some people's short memories when it came to late saddam and America's war in Iraq.

Now just to be clear, I'm not really into politics. I am an ostrich. I usually let you mind your own business if you don't put it in my face and let me peacefully mind my business. And along the same lines I don't care for wars. But in the land of freedom and opportunity it somehow becomes so easy to forget that as a bumper sticker reads ' Freedom isn't Free".

If freedom was free - no lives lost, no emotional and physical wounds, no billions spent- would all the immigrants have come here today and in the past, or would they have remained in their 'mother' countries and enjoyed the 'freedoms' there?

To quote our president "It's Memorial Day. It's a day to honor not only those who have died in combat, but it's a day to honor those who continue to serve," Bush said.

Peace.

The simple truth

Today, while I was desperately attempting to catch up on some documentation politely left for me by my assistant who left for greener pastures during my vacation, my collegues were discussing our gym's politics. In a subdepartment of 7 it was quite an amuzing discussion.
It basically evolved around one person- who was nice to her, to whom she wasn't nice, retaliations, counter retaliations, etc, etc, etc. Naturally, the person who was discussed wasn't in the gym, but that's besides the point.

I told the general public my opinion on the matter. Then I said that I don't believe people should confuse coworkers and friends, especially if there is some inequality in rank. Be polite and friendly with everyone and stop there. Not much room would be left for hurt feeling that would interfere with job performance, etc.

Then the subject shifted to odnoklasniki.ru and one of my collegues husband's finding me there
-> my ambivalence about being 'friends' with people whom I used to know in my social-butterfly-days with whom I pretty much lost all contact -> the public admission ( though I've never kept it a secret). I can pretty much count my friends on the fingers of my hand. Though the 'admission language was 'I don't have friends' after which I realize I should probably elaborate.

--I only make phone calls on my way to and from work (even lunch time is phone free), my mailbox if frequently full ( because 1-I save messages from friends and think that in this way I'd call them back faster, and 2- I check my messages ~1x/wk or when someone sends me a text saying that my mailbox is full), I don't check my email as religiously as I used to, etc.

But I also admitted that after a while I decided to try to be ' friends' on these social sites with all the people that I used to know. I honestly tell them that I 'collect' friends- what the heck, one never knows where an opportunity for a rekindled friendship or a personal reform may come from.

PS It's 12:50AM now and I'm too lazy to check if this post is intelligible. Life.

Something I got from my oldest sibling...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24397323/?GT1=43001