In my last post, I introduced Lucy – the 10-year-old that I bonded with over a single night of babysitting. I alluded to her saying something at bed time that struck my memory, and I said I’d save that thought for next time. Welcome to next time. So after our evening of sharing hearts, her asking me every question under the sun and her telling me I was her favorite babysitter (not the first time that’s been said…), I tucked Lucy in to bed. On my way out of her room, Lucy called to me. “Hey Stacy…” “Yeah, Luc?” (We were definitely on a nickname basis) “Have a good life.” It wasn’t specifically Déjà Vu, but I knew that wasn’t the first time I’d heard those words in her exact, earnest tone. I tilted my intrigued head and scrunched a baffled brow as I pulled from my memory. My wonder eased into a smile realizing “have a good life” was something I’d said to a friend and written about on my Asia travels way back when (surprisingly a year from last week—time.flies..flipping.fast.). I pulled out some Asian archives, edited slightly and here’s the basic recap: As I hugged Toby goodbye
Florida Girl In The Mountains
And Again I’m Provoked By A 10 Year Old
A friend of mine out here (CO) works at One Steamboat Place— the newest, nicest resort in town. If you’ve ever sipped on tap water, it’s likely you won’t ever stay here (having bathed in the tap water is fine, but don’t you dare have brushed your teeth with it). Over the Christmas week, this friend set me up with a few babysitting jobs for the visiting families. Paid my rent in a few nights. (And there I go making myself sound like a stripper again) So one family I babysat for had like 8 kids. Well it was two families, that shoved their wild child(s) into one condo for me to police. There were a few 4 year olds and 7 year olds and then one girl who was 10- the coolest 10 year old I’ve ever met. She was basically sitter numero dos –so much of a right arm that I thought I should have slipped a ten or twenty under her pillow when her parents handed me their pennies, my fortune. Lucy was from Chicago but had recently moved to London on account of her dad’s job. He trades currency, trillions of currencies. She’s been in London
A woman reported that someone stole her $2,500 cooking mixer from a storage unit.
I left the key in my front door yesterday- for a good 4 hours. I had no clue until my roommate came home and made my idiot mistake apparent. “Not that it matters, this place is like Pleasantville,” she assured me. Pleasantville, add snow, I think she meant. Every day in Steamboat’s local newspaper, there is a section called “The Record”, and it’s a log of the phone calls made to the police department –the police blotter, though it’s basically the comics section. I’ve compiled a few from over the three weeks I’ve been in this unthreatening, okay-to-leave-your-key-in-your-front-door town: 11:42 a.m. Police responded to a report of a gas skip in the 500 block of South Lincoln Avenue. There was an error at the pump and no gas was stolen. 10:02 p.m. Police and mental health professionals were called to a report of an intoxicated person in the 500 block of Tamarack Drive. 12:11 a.m. Steamboat Springs Police Department officers were called to a report of an open door or window in the 800 block of Lincoln Avenue. Everything was fine. 1:38 a.m. Police contacted an intoxicated man on Après Ski Way. Officers released the man, who was a block
Worth it to the bottom of the bag.
In my last semester of college, I developed a Chex Mix addiction. I’d add dark chocolate chips into the mix, and every sweet and salty bite seemed like a taste of heaven. That last semester, I’d also broken a finger playing flag football. My intent was to intercept the ball entirely, but instead, I just tipped it, with my pinky. It snapped backwards, or sideways, or some direction that, it too, never intended on, and it hurt like hell. It was one of the first plays of the game, though –I had to keep going, but by the end of our loss, my itty bitty pinky was the size of an aroused man. I went back to my sorority house (where I’d lived the past three years) and showed it to our chef, Martha (who’d become my mother away from mothers). She’s a super sassy ball of whippersnapper fire, a touch over 5 feet, and her spiked gray hair matched her take-no-bullshit, give-no-bullshit attitude. “Honey, what the hell happened, that thing looks like an erection” “I know, I know… I need ice, or tape, or one of those metal splint things” “No, ya idiot, you need
“Random, as always”
A friend wrote that on my Facebook after I posted about my moving to Colorado . I didn’t even tell him, and I’m not planning on calling him anytime soon, I just let Facebook (and I guess this follow-up blog) do all of that for me. I must address how Facebook-dependent my life sometimes (most times) can be. I swear I respond to Facebook messages near as often as e-mails (infact, I’m more backlogged with FB messages, but that could be a result of my unemployed-ness…). And really, people find out about my life/happenings/whereabouts (and vice versa) more via Facebook than any other medium. Could be a blessing or a curse, but it definitely makes me shy away from calling or getting together with certain friends. I italicize because that term friend because it’s up for extreme debate, thanks to Facebook, again. I’ve got 1793 “friends” on Facebook, but I’d say only 8 of them do I actually keep live dialogue with on the daily, and one of those 8 doesn’t even have Facebook (freak). The task of weeding through said friends and “unfriending” (I see this word in Webster’s next edition, as well as another definition being
No Plan is a Good Plan
“So first we’re going to practice our songs for the show at the hot tub, and then we’ll practice in the sauna for our performance at dinner, then after dinner we’ll rehearse for tomorrow? Okay, can that be the plan?” My 9 year old family friend’s granddaughter asked for my approval on her structured agenda over the past weekend I just spent in Steamboat Springs, CO. I said, slow down there with the planning cowgirl and told her no plan is a good plan. She didn’t grasp it, and continued to suggest we have a sleepover in her bed, then wake up and make pancakes and then we’d split for a few hours –she’d go sledding and I’d go boarding– and then we’d meet back up and practice more, then go to the hot tub and of course practice again, then I’d braid her hair and then we’d sit next to each other at dinner, and we’d perform any or all of Lady GaGa’s chart toppers. Anyone who strayed got an arm removed, or so her meticulousness seemed to threaten. Truthfully, it all did sound fun and great (especially the pancakes part, er, or the GaGa ballads), but come on