Cafe Hitch-hike

2004-05-14

Kids and 31 hours to go

Oh, man! 31 hours to vacation and counting...

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Here's one for Mary:

I went to see my sis Big Momma this past weekend. I often ask how her 4 kids are doing and about their little adventures. Big Mom and her kids are the proud owners of two gerbils named Jack and Zack, and they are so cute and friendly! When you open their cage, they come right to your hands sniffing and looking around, and when they are in your hands, they look like they want to talk.

Jack and Zack occasionally run lose around the house without that clear gerbil wheel (Big Mom says it makes too much noise). My niece Khadijah was told to get the gerbils because guests were soon coming. Khadijah caught Jack, but Zack scurried into the kitchen and under the refrigerator. She told her mom that they would have to move it, but Mom just said to forget it, and they would catch Zack whenever he decided to get out.

Zack didn't come out for a while, and the guests came. When everyone was having dinner, he decided to come out.

One of the guests saw Zack and screamed, "Eeek! A RAT! BIG MOMMA, YOUR HOUSE HAS RATS!" Khadijah got up and retrieved the rodent. The guest must had heart failure by then to see her scoop up 'the rat.' She then returned him to his cage with his pal while Big Momma explained.

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I am doing this at home 'cause I will probably have tons to do for my last day. For the past month, I've been assigned to write this grant-from-hell and I've been blocked. I have to make up a lot of stuff because my bosses don't want to do it themselves, since the grantors want to know how we plan to evaluate the program. I mean, the bosses will be the ones to carry out the program, but they just teach, they don't do evaluations and all that scholarly mumbo-jumbo. That was where I stepped in, to do my voodoo-writing-magic. I'll be so surprised if they get the fucking grant, but I'll feel better that my name is nowhere on the thing.

Aggh, I took it home last night to work on it and felt the worst case of mental constipation. I hadn't felt this way since taking an undergrad course taught by the genius Professor Stoddard with 2 or 3 Ph.Ds, where I was up all night trying to do a 3 to 5 page paper. So there I was at my favorite local coffee house, trying to squeeze out something sensible.

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Off to Florida. Things to do: nothing, nothing, nothing! Okay, more like:

  • get tan

  • go parasailing

  • see my friend Barbara who recently relocated to the Tampa Bay area

  • eat seafood

  • go to the beach

  • see the Dali Museum
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    Here's one to anyone who ever had their hair styled by a sibling during their childhood (or reciprocated):

    My niece Khadijah has an 8 year old brother known as Kevie. Kevie loves fashion and hairstyling, and often braids and styles his siblings' hair. One time he asked Big Momma if he could put dreadlocks in his sister Kia's hair. She said it was fine but he had to take out the braids.

    Kia ran around with the braids for a while and then decided she wanted them out. Kevie took out nearly all the braids when a rubber band got stuck. He asked Big Mom to help get it out, but her response was "handle it." He took some scizzors and cut it out along with some hair.

    Kevie combed Kia's hair when all the braids were out and noticed a chunk of hair was shorter than the rest of the length. He took the scizzors and trimmed the rest of her hair to make it even with the chunk.

    Big Momma was fuming when Kia came around. Her pretty, wavy black hair was cut in a one-length bob to the middle of her neck. She didn't have to do much correction to Kevie's styling, and Kia seemed happy with the cut. Khadijah thought it was cute and beamed, "she looks like a lady from the 30s!"

    Neither Big Momma or Kevie's dad got after him for cutting his sister's hair.

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