one reason why I'm sad to be missing the Brandi Carlile show in Athens...

Brandi Carlile is an amazing live performer with an electric voice. Even if you are inclined to dis people whose work has appeared on Grey's Anatomy, I encourage you to give her a chance anyway. Listen to her voice and guitar work! I just love her.

This video was posted a few years ago and still brings a tear to my eye. Can you imagine the joy and excitement that girl must have felt?!

midwifery + Kim is awesome

My friend Kim Dau was featured in a snippet on an NPR station (WUNC) last week. She's a very happy, very talented midwife in Durham who coordinates a local program called Centering Pregnancy.

Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to post it on here. Fortunately, I was able to put it on my Tumblr.com page. Scan through my page and find it on 2/24: http://www.tumblr.com/tumblelog/jannygirljr

could she be any cooler?

I've told you before about some hilarious kids in Georgia I have the great fortune of knowing. I could have sworn I've mentioned Rio before, but perhaps not. She is the wonderchild of my NYU friends Eliza and Eric Obenauf (of $2 Radio fame).

Check out how awesome she is!

(photos courtesy of Eric & Eliza Obenauf)

I heart drugged up kids

hmmm...

Of course I find it sad that John Travolta's son died. Of course I think it's crappy that the paramedic (& others) tried to extort a ridiculous amount of money from JT after his son's death.

But I cannot get over how weird looking the kid was! Also: I'm very affectionate with my parents, but some of the photos make it look like Jett & John are on the verge of a kiss, or at least a lovers' embrace. Ick.

I'm evil. Goodbye.

Top 5 Reasons Obama Supporters Shouldn't Rest Easy

Hi, guys. The Obama campaign folks sent me the following list and I thought I'd take their advice and repost it. If you're not pro-Obama, rest easy--I'm not going to pressure you to change your mind (even though I really think you should!). If you are pro-Obama, reading the following list is very important!! Repost this list if you desire.

TOP 5 REASONS OBAMA SUPPORTERS SHOULDN'T REST EASY

1. The polls may be wrong. This is an unprecedented election. No one knows how racism may affect what voters tell pollsters—or what they do in the voting booth. And the polls are narrowing anyway. In the last few days, John McCain has gained ground in most national polls, as his campaign has gone even more negative.

2. Dirty tricks. Republicans are already illegally purging voters from the rolls in some states. They're whipping up hysteria over ACORN to justify more challenges to new voters. Misleading flyers about the voting process have started appearing in black neighborhoods. And of course, many counties still use unsecure voting machines.

3. October surprise. In politics, 15 days is a long time. The next McCain smear could dominate the news for a week. There could be a crisis with Iran, or Bin Laden could release another tape, or worse.

4. Those who forget history... In 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote after trailing by seven points in the final days of the race. In 1980, Reagan was eight points down in the polls in late October and came back to win. Races can shift—fast!

5. Landslide. Even with Barack Obama in the White House, passing universal health care and a new clean-energy policy is going to be hard. Insurance, drug and oil companies will fight us every step of the way. We need the kind of landslide that will give Barack a huge mandate.

If you agree that we shouldn't rest easy, please sign up to volunteer at your local Obama office by clicking here:

http://pol.moveon.org/obama/office.html?source=blog&id=14534-5183653-nFgmwbx&t=1

kwotable kidz III

Here are a couple from the little girl I babysit:

• E., 3, wanted me to play with her. "What should we play?" I asked. She thought for a few moments, and then her face lit up. "You be the prince, and I'll be the princess putting on lipstick!"

• E. also loves to look through my photos on my iPod Touch (fancy fancy). A few days ago, I uploaded all my photos from Panama & Costa Rica, and she looked through them one by one. When she got to this picture of my friend Sweet, she had a sharp intake of breathy surprise and said in awe, "Look at she! Look at she! She's proud....Proud of me."

Sweet does look sort of proud in this picture, though I doubt she was thinking of a three-year-old girl in Athens, GA.

And a couple quotes from a HILARIOUS little girl at AAHS...

• While at AAHS for storytelling last week, our resident comedienne, who's about 5 1/2, was on a roll. When Miss Rachel was leaving for the night, Miss Comedienne yelled out to her, "Bye! Bye, Miss Rachel! I'll be glad if you get everything you want! Be safe! Be safe!"

• A few minutes later, Diane and I were asking the kids about different foods in a picture of a picnic. The same little girl wanted to name all the foods she saw, so she began a list: "I see chicken, potato chips, hot dogs, possibilities, ice cream..." Wait...what? "Possibilities"? (Said as she was pointing to a stack of tomato soup cans.)
  

new kwotez from the kidz

In late June I told you about some good quotes from my favorite kids. Here are three more:

• P., the five-year-old, wanted me to play Lego people with him. He gave me a tiny Lego man who was wearing a plastic grey wig. "This is Old Granny. You'll be Old Granny, okay?"
  
• Later, E., the three-year-old, joined the game and asked for me to put a plastic sword in her character's plastic claw hand. She then adopted this grainy, mean, rough voice and slammed her Lego man into mine and said, "I WANT TO KILL OLD GRANNY!!"
• P. and B. (who's 8) were chasing each other around the house. B. decided he was a good guy, the best guy you can be: God. "I'm God, okay, so I made everything...?" "Okay, but I'm mean," replied Pace. B: "Okay, let's play now. [beat] Get away from me, Satan!" P (in a slight country accent with hint of surfer dude voice): "I'm not Satan....I'm a guitar player!"
• E. met Jim yesterday and became completely infatuated. She had a bevy of hilarious quotes. First off, she couldn't get his name straight, first calling him "John" and then deciding upon "Joe." On the way home from my house (after saying goodbye to Jim), she was talking to herself in the backseat. "Oh, I miss Joe," she said in her own voice. "Me too," she replied in another voice. "I love Joe." "Me, too!"
• When we got home, E. and I ordered pizza. I finished mine first and sat in the living room leafing through a magazine. E. was playing by herself. She held up her crust and pretended it was a person: "Hi, my name is Joe," she said gruffly. In her natural voice, she replied, "I love you, Joe!" "I love you, too," gruff voice replied. Then she took a huge bite and chewed hungrily. Hilarious.
  

kwotable kidz

I babysit for three smart, funny, and--let's face it--adorable children. They have all been known to say pretty hilarious, ingenious things, and once in awhile I write these things down.

1. While playing an imaginary war game, B. (who was 7 at the time), said to his enemy, "Well, I'm not listening to the devil! I'm listening to God and Jesus. Or whatever their names are."
2. P., who has been highly quotable from a young age, tends to create various accents during every game he plays. Once last year when he was 4, he stood on the couch and said to me very earnestly, "Davy Crockett. He had a wolf hat, cut up clothes, and bare feet." This was delivered in a country accent (with gestures) as the introduction to a Davy Crockett game he'd just thought up.
3. E. (3-year-old girl) who is potty trained but still needs help, thought it was hilarious that her underwear was on the bathroom floor next to the tub while she sat on the toilet to pee this afternoon. "You left my underwear on the floor! The bathtub will be laughing and crying about that." She then erupted in a cascade of giggles.
4. P. has a flair for the dramatic, as I mentioned above. He sometimes gets very apocalyptic and serious. Here he's playing the superhero-gone-bad game he likes so much, explaining why he, the bad guy, ended up in such a rough place. "The devil turned us evil until the devil died and we killed God!"
5. While playing Wild West shortly after his fifth birthday, my character told P.'s character I was proud of him for surviving in the desert. His accented response? "There's no proud here. This is the Wild West." During that same game I offered him a glass of milk. He refused me and then said, "We don't like milk. We like blood."
6. During a tour of the nonexistent family graveyard, one of P.'s self-created characters took me around to the tombstones to tell me about each family member buried there. "This is my grandpa. And my little brother, Tommy. And my mom, and my grandma, and my great-grandma. [beat] And I love this guy the best: God and Jesus."
7. During that same game, I asked him how his [imaginary] grandpa died. "He died in the war and got killed by an evil troll with an axe."
8. P.'s friend R. was over to play one day. R. has the adorably high-pitched voice of many five-year-olds. (I'm not being facetious here--she really is cute.) She was playing with some dolls and didn't want P. to play with her, since he said he didn't like dolls. Eventually he reneged and approached her with, "Can I play?" She reluctantly acquiesced. "Okay...but you have to be a mother." P. considered this and said, "...Or a dolphin?" "Okay!"
9. Nearly three years ago, 6-year-old B. inspected 3-year-old brother P.'s class picture and had a very important question he couldn't wait to ask. "P.? P.? P.? P.! P.?" "Yeah?" "Who's this Asian-colored kid?"
   

something my sister heard

My sister has a knack for overhearing really funny things. My father and mother share this gift. Come to think of it, relatives on both sides of the family do--my mom's side of the family tends to remember funny quotes from strangers' conversations by heart, whereas my father keeps little scraps of paper on which he'll write humorous tidbits. Ever the absent minded professor, he'd forget the specificity of the instance and only remember a general sense of hilarity.

Julie (my sis) has been sending me emails containing funny names she and her friends come across at work, in the newspaper, and on TV. The names are RIDICULOUS. The very best ones tend to be her friends' students at school or my people my sister has heard of through work, so that means I cannot share them. Confidentiality and all that. (I suppose very vague rules may've been breached, but posting them on the internet would be a little obvious.)

Here's an excerpt from an email she just sent. It made me laugh and made me overjoyed yet again that she'll be here next week for MY BIRTHDAY!

I overheard a strange conversation the other day at the grocery store. It was so strange that I didn't even remember it for several days.

Kid: I have a headache!"

Mother: "Well, duh! You had your head stuck in a hole in the wall!"

comings and goings

I knew when I got a job with the school district's Homeless Education Program that the kids I got to know through weekly storytelling and daily tutoring might come and go at the drop of a hat. My boss Tamara (quoted extensively in this year-old Athens Banner-Herald article that remains relevant) warned that getting close to children and then having them leave with no chance to say goodbye was commonplace.

In the last ten months of my employment, I've walked into shelters and had staff tell me, "Oh, So-and-So's not here anymore, so she and her kids won't be meeting with you, but there's a new family that'll be here..." I tend to nod my head when, in more cases than not, I want to say, "Wait, what? They're gone? When did they leave? Where did they go? Is everyone safe? Is their moving out a positive thing, or were they kicked out? What happened?" This information is not my business, however, and I know it. So I nod and think of how I'll probably never see Jane and Joe and Jim ever again. (Granted, the names tend to be a bit more inventive than that--extremely exotic, sometimes beautiful, and sometimes baffling--but I can't reveal them here. Confidentiality and all.)

Today I found out that a family I've known for quite a long time is leaving: I'll never see them again, barring any accidental run-ins (during which I'm not supposed to acknowledge knowing them--there goes the confidentiality again). No goodbye.

Got to another place tonight and was told by a young child that a few other kids are now gone from that shelter, as they moved out. I've known those kids for many months, too.

The families that are moving on are going to be successful. I have much hope for them. After months of struggle with a couple of kids from each of the families (as well as really good times, too), I had some big breakthroughs in the last ten days or so--hugs, smiles, and "I love yous" from heretofore pouty, somewhat violent children. Perhaps that's my closure.

Tamara said it'd be hard to get used to the fact that the kids are in your life one day (or one year, even) and out the next, without a trace. Still, I hadn't felt that sadness today.

That's all.

Taking the devil right out of Halloween!

My friend and former roommate NYU Sarah (known to me by the name of "Lover") sent me a wonderfully helpful link during the Halloween season. Unfortunately for all of us, I never check my NYU email account, so I didn't get the message in time to follow the Christian webmaster's suggestions. If I had, we could have had a Hallelujah Party! (you know, where people dress up as Bible characters!) instead of going downtown and drinking on Halloween.

Let's get planning for next year, kids! http://retirementwithapurpose.com/hobbies/afhalloween.html

this short video of a small child will restore your faith in humanity

Have you ever felt so tired you just nodded off in the midst of what you were doing? I can recall dinners, classes, and of course books during which I caught myself as my head and/or body started heading swiftly toward the closest hard, horizontal surface.

A few months ago the little boy I babysit (one whom I've known since he was a couple months old--now he's 17 mos. or so!) was being a Crabby Appleton, as my beloved Grandma Mary might say. During his lunch he barely ate a thing, so hunger wasn't at the root of his bad mood. Halfway into his meager portion of vegetables the problem surfaced: his eyelids grew heavy, he comically half-fell toward the highchair table again and again, only to catch himself at the last second. (I had my pand poised at the ready, of course--I wouldn't let that teensy little head get all smooshed in vegetables, let alone bruised!) But sweet lord--that was hilarious. I think it was my laughter that kept waking him up. The transition from wakefulness to sleep took about 2 minutes--amazing. I wish I could fall asleep that fast.

I cleaned him up and put him in his crib, where he went out like a light. Later I described this adorable and very funny phenomenon to Jim, but words could not begin to describe the event.

To my happy surprise, someone has captured the same event with a different child on video! And I know the people involved, so it's not like I've been cyberstalking a small baby! My friend Eliza and her husband Eric have a little girl named Rio; since Rio was born they've been recording short videos and posting them on youtube.com so that friends and family far away could see what she's up to.

Take a look--it's only about 1.5 minutes at the most and you can watch it on mute. So cute and funny. And the blog subject doesn't lie, unless you really are the grinchiest of them all.


Love,
me

tipping the babysitter...?

So one of the top stories on Google News talks about holiday tipping. And babysitters are mentioned as one of the people in one's life who should be tipped. Now I have been babysitting for years and have never received a holiday tip. I'm not complaining, just noting.

In New York, I was what a family called the "alpha babysitter," or the main babysitter. I watched an adorable and hilarious four-year-old boy four nights a week in his rather upscale Gramercy Park home. Now that's a family you'd expect a holiday tip from, eh? But no. No tip.

Before that NYC job, I babysat a lot but never regularly enough to be the recipient of a tippy tip tip. Nowadays I am the regular babysitter for a couple of families (I share this duty with Kelli M.!) but didn't get any holiday tippage last year; I don't expect it this year. That being said, I won't be disappointed not to receive it.

It's almost strange to me to see that people are supposed to tip the folks that help them out throughout the year even more over the holidays. Does anyone else do this? I am already so overwhelmed with needing to get presents for my family and the boyf--I can't go spending money on my elevator operator and parking lot attendant.

Anywho. Mainly I wanted to know if anyone else out there gave holiday tips to his or her hairdresser, handyman, or pet groomer. It seems such an adult thing to do. Surely I can be excused since I only have a part-time job and little to no cash. Tee hee.

chug a lug

Today I spent a couple of hours outside playing with a young little lad I babysit. While we were running around his yard and the cul-de-sac his family's house is on, a big ol' TruGreen ChemLawn (sp?) truck drove up. The driver sat in his truck for a good five minutes, engine loudly idling, while he did who knows what. The windows were down, so I know he wasn't using the engine to supply power to the AC or heater. (It was, after all, in the mid-70s this afternoon.)

He eventually emerged from the truck without having turned it off. Maybe he needs to hook up some hoses to the back of the vehicle or something, thought I, but instead he took out a simple pushable fertilizer dispenser and went on his way. For ten minutes he pushed this thing around the yard WHILE THE HUGE TRUCK WAS STILL ON.

I was quite confused.

And peeved.

Had he been just one house closer, I would have asked him why the car was on and wasting that much gas as toxins needlessly spat into the air. Instead, I remained timid and continued to be victim to the whims of a five-year-old, who kept insisting that we were astronauts or bratty teenagers at a birthday party. Walking up and accosting the man with a machine full of chemicals? Not such a comfortable prospect. Pretending to be a bitchy teenager at a party? Perhaps a role I could play a little better.

Passively, I stayed where I was. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to give the company a call and ask them what's up.

The end.

Wondering why I posted this on here,
Janet

Scrabbalicious

I've been a part of four Scrabble games in the last two days. Four. Two were with Jim. One was with two ten year olds when I was tutoring. Another was a virtual Scrabulous (<<---gross) game with Nina B. via facebook. She challenged me! I had to do it!

I LOVE Scrabble. Not in that obsessive, competitive, know-all-the-trick-words-that-not-even-English-professors-use-in-their-scholarly-papers way. But in the way that makes my heart race when I think I have the most incredible word ever, the same word that is suddenly rendered incomplete when a second glance at my letters reveals to me that I am missing a key vowel. That fleeting despair I face is known only known to people who love Scrabble in the way I do.

We forge forward. We find a new word, we hope for the triple letter score on a four-point W. A triple word score on a Q word is nearly unheard of, but it's one of my faint hopes, one I dare not speak aloud. Maybe...someday.

I seem to recall a move I made at my family reunion either this past summer or the one before when I extended a preexisting word all the way down to the triple word score, therefore garnering points from the other player's previous word, my new points, and of course the triple value of it all. One of my crowning moments.

Ooh, all this talk has me hot and bothered. Wonder if Nina B. has made her move yet in our online game. If so, it's my go...

(Dear lord: an hour later, and I've found a site where you can play SOLITAIRE SCRABBLE. I played against a robot and he/she/it pulled all those tricky moves, using words that aren't even in Merriam-Webster's. I don't dig that. But here's my solo game. I love not having competition!

Stop me now. But first, try it yourself: http://www.scrabulous.com/solitaire_scrabble.php)

10/18/06 - mirror, mirror, on the wall

October 18, 2006 - Wednesday

10:52 AM - mirror, mirror, on the wall Having no pen and paper, I had to use my laptop to write this down quickly, as I didn't want to forget it. The three-month-old I started babysitting recently is in front of me, lying on this blanket/toy that plays music and has soft cross bars suspended over his head upon which hang rattles, squishy things, and toys that he can't yet grasp. There's a plastic mirror that's been part of this get-up that he's paid no attention to at all until twenty minutes ago--but then everything changed. From the moment I repositioned the mirror so it was near his face, he broke into a smile and started staring at himself. He has yet to look away from it. It's really mesmerizing to watch. I could go into how I hope for him that I can always be so pleased with his image, how I hope that in the future staring at himself many minutes on end won't mean he's being self-critical. But that would ruin the moment, and it's really not what I'm concerned with at all right now. Right now, I'm watching this squirmy baby watch himself, and he's the most delighted little nugged you've ever seen.

10/3/06 - ouch. I have lost myself again... (with amazing comments!)

October 3, 2006 - Tuesday

7:59 PM - ouch. I have lost myself again... What's been going on today that things are causing tears to spring to my eyes so quickly? Perhaps it's a problem that I look for a scapegoat--often it's the case that I blame my period. But this isn't what's going on now. Maybe the fact is I'm just one that's quick to cry--I've always known this but somehow denied it lately. And by "lately" I mean for the past few months and years. There doesn't have to be a reason to be happy or to smile; so maybe there doesn't have to be a reason to suddenly feel overwhelmed all of a sudden and feel as if I'm going to cry. As Sweet and I might say (taking after _A Tree Grows in Brooklyn_), "My cup runneth over!" What a sensitive little kitty. 8 Comments - 1 Kudo

	anna	I have this problem too! I once tried to look up a self help book on how not to cry in public and it came up with only a list on how to get your baby to stop crying!!! Talk about adding insult to injury. Posted by anna on October 3, 2006 - Tuesday at 8:25 PM [Remove] [Reply to this]

	Crystal	I can relate. I've been known to cry during commercials. It was a really sappy commercial, though! Posted by Crystal on October 3, 2006 - Tuesday at 9:10 PM [Remove] [Reply to this]

	Joe	Sometimes kittens and soft children make me cry. Posted by Joe on October 4, 2006 - Wednesday at 11:56 AM [Remove] [Reply to this]

	amysalley	sometimes i make the soft children cry and then me and the kittens laugh. is that the same thing? Posted by amysalley on October 4, 2006 - Wednesday at 2:18 PM [Remove] [Reply to this]

	Joe	Yes. Posted by Joe on October 5, 2006 - Thursday at 7:14 AM [Remove] [Reply to this]

	jh	speaking of self-help books.............next time you want to cry just make up some titles to self help books you'd like to see in the store..........like..........."So, you think you're a Jedi Knight" or "Love begins where the porno ends." i think i post BLOG about this. Posted by jh on October 4, 2006 - Wednesday at 2:01 PM [Remove] [Reply to this]

	Joe	Sometimes I cry when I think about racoons, or sausage. Posted by Joe on October 5, 2006 - Thursday at 7:17 AM [Remove] [Reply to this]

Joe

Is it racoons or raccoons? Shit, it's raccoons, isn't it. Well, I cry when I think about racoons too, because they are misspelled and that's sad. Posted by Joe on October 5, 2006 - Thursday at 7:20 AM

10/2/06 - whattup 4:45 AM alarm?!

October 2, 2006 - Monday

2:39 PM - whattup 4:45 AM alarm?! Tomorrow my alarm will go off at around 5, give or take a few minutes. I have to babysit at (ready for this?) 5:30 AM. WHaaaaa? Had I had more foresight, I would have suggested some extra payment. Nah, who am I kidding? I wouldn't have asked for extra. But still. I wish I could have some extra dough, all the same. I mean, that's early! That's my bedtime, some nights! One of my favorite little boys is having minor surgery in the morn, so I have to be there when baby sis wakes up and must also feed and clothe big brother so he can get off to school in time. Real nanny duties, kids. Five or six hours later, I'll come home and maybe sleep. In the olden days (read: Pittsburgh & NYC coffee shop days), I woke up with frequency to greet the dawn with 5:15 or 5:30 shifts, and as much as I dreaded the alarm, I handled it well. But it's different when you're drinking free caffeine and serving lots of people, chattin' it up and acting chipper like it's your job because it IS your job. Tomorrow I'll be tired. And there will be small children whining and needing to get ready for school. And what if I feel decidedly Mom-ish? And what if I don't like it? And what if I do? Ew. Goodbye. Currently listening : ( ) By Sigur Rós Release date: By 29 October, 2002 1 Comment

(Steady) Eddy

Surgery on little boys sucks. Posted by (Steady) Eddy on October 13, 2006 - Friday at 9:14 AM