Day 44: Children’s Drawings

Early this morning I got a text from Eleni, who was still semi-asleep when she wrote it.

I regret to inform you that after further consideration we will not be moving forward with your application for a server position at the potato-Southern fusion restaurant I opened up in the Santa Cruz mountains in my dream just now. Best of luck in your future endeavors.

My friend Genevieve (of squirrel fame) is a highly skilled ESL teacher up in Oregon. A few weeks ago she asked a number of her friends to volunteer as a virtual conversation partner for one of her international students. I didn’t sign on, because I am bashful and not kind or helpful. But when she asked again (persistent one, she), I agreed. The commitment is to six 15-minute Zoom sessions. I had the first this morning, with a sweet and shy young woman (Anette) from Mexico. I’d thought she’d be prepared with questions or prompts, but she wasn’t, so I had to pull out my best Delaware cocktail party skills to keep the conversation going. A year ago she was speaking no English, and today she was able to communicate quite well. I admire anyone who has aptitude, leave alone fluency, in more than one language. And English is a beast for non-native speakers. Anyway, Anette and I will “meet” again next Wednesday.

One of my former students in Mexico posted a wonderful series of photos on Facebook that, for the life of me, I can’t find a link to. It was entitled “If children’s drawings were real…” from something called Curioso Mundo. Here is just one of my many favorites.

Oh, I can’t resist. Just one more.

These remind me of a drawing Ember did several years ago, which inspired me to embroider a likeness.

Another experiment at the suggestion of my mother: Put some peppermint oil on the top of the backyard fence, which squirrels use as a superhighway, and see if it deters them. I saturated another cotton ball and masking-taped it out there. Not long after, I saw my enemy approach. S/he paused for a millisecond, raised an eyebrow and then sauntered right on by, whistling a tune. I do hope the droppings I saw up on my porch railing this morning are from squirrels and not rats, though. I looked it up online (yes, there’s actually a page entitled How Do Squirrel Droppings Compare to Rat Droppings?) And the answer is, it’s hard to tell the difference.

I was wondering if one can freeze milk, so I opened my browser and typed in “Can you—” Before I could enter more text, up popped the list of suggestions, the first of which was “Can you freeze milk?” Now, how on Earth did it know that’s what I was going to ask? I don’t recall having searched for that answer before. But I must have.

Oh, look what I got in the mail: the second of four installments of puzzle pieces, consisting of the rest of the edges. Now I’m pretty sure I know what it will be, but it’s not what I thought at first. Guesses?