A sunny day

Today when I got to tutoring Mineisha was very spacey and hardly talked at all, which is totally unlike her. So we went out into the wonderful sun and talked and walked, and I found out the probable cause of her spaceyness: she had been witness to a fight and had been called into the school office during the lunch hour to tell what she’d seen, so she hadn’t had lunch. Apparently the school called off its Valentine dance because of the eight-or-so fights there have been in the past few days. Rayneisha told Xanthe about it too, so I guess it’s big news. *sigh* What these kids see every day.

While Mineisha was still in her funk and we were sitting on the playground swings, some little boys came over and said hello. When I said hello back, they invited us to join them in catching ladybugs. Mineisha didn’t want to but told me to go ahead, so I went with them and saw all the ladybugs they’d already caught. They had them in an empty plastic chip bag. They let me hold the biggest one, which was a lovely bright red and had seven distinct spots, and they generously offered it to me to take home. I thanked them but said no. Sweet kids. I can’t tell you how delightful it felt to be hanging out with kids on a playground in the sun, letting a ladybug run over my hands. Here’s an image I found online to make you smile if you, like me before this afternoon, haven’t seen a ladybug in a while.[link broken]

Oh and another boy told me out of nowhere that he liked my sunglasses. It was cute. It’s always sweet to get compliments from kids. I’ve gotten a lot of compliments on these shades. They make me happy. I remember my then-best friend Becky and I used to make a habit out of complimenting Miss Ochinero, our math teacher, every single day in fourth grade. We were always sincere in our compliments and I’m sure Miss O loved it.

After tutoring I had tea and another great conversation with Margaret at Far Leaves. We talked about kids, grad school, and consumerism, among other things. Then I had dinner with Maggie at Thai House. Maggie had pad see ew and I had pad thai, and it turned out she liked mine better and I liked hers better, so I ate my shrimp and most of her noodles and she ate her chicken and most of my noodles!

currently: full and happy and ready to do some work

[This post was imported on 4/10/14 from my old blog at satsumabug.livejournal.com.]