The Pied Piper of Elegant Leisure

Because of my unemployed Life of Elegant Leisure I get to spend more time with friends and their kids during the day.  So lately I've been feeling like the Pied Piper. The kids, they're flocking.  Yesterday was especially so. My friend Heather's kids have become my new best friends - they're the ones I had a coloring party with a few weeks ago.  They were having a Grandparent's Day at school and since their grandparents live far away Kaiya asked if I would come as her Special Friend.

Would I!

I hung out with her in her classroom and we made a fancy construction paper Christmas tree and I chit chatted with the 7 year olds about who they liked more, Katy Perry or Taylor Swift (Taylor won out.  I didn't even ask about the Bieb.) and then strolled around the book fair.

It was only the cutest thing I've ever done in my life.

When I got home from that I headed over to watch another friend's kids where we made enormous Lego towers and danced whenever we knocked them over.  There was a lot of dancing.

And that's not all.  Because after I got home from the Lego tower dance party Heather called to say they were coming over with a surprise.  She and the kids brought me a Christmas present of multi-ethnic skin tone markers and color pencils.  I did not know that these even existed!  I can finally stop coloring everyone with peach skin.

Since I had a few hours of free time I invited the kids to stay over and color.

Is this not the best picture you've ever seen?  We're coloring and painting and drinking hot chocolate with candy canes in them.  I'm going to frame it and look at it whenever I'm having a rough day because that is nothing but pure joy.

I was just about to type that kids seem to be the way to go when it comes to having fun but then I recalled that just about an hour ago I had a Facebook exchange with my friend Andrea (HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!) wherein we reminisced about doing crazy things like getting lost on a dead end road then nearly running over a hobo and wearing pioneer bonnets around Old Town Pasadena.  So I will instead say that I appear to collect friends who don't mind having funny adventures with me - no matter what their age.

Pajama Day

It was a pajama day.

For the record, I did change out of my jim-jams today.  I changed from a shorter pair of jammy pants to a longer, warmer pair of jammy pants and put on a different t-shirt, which I then covered with a sweatshirt, because suddenly it's all cold and fall like around here.  And also, for the record, I showered and washed my hair and shaved my legs.  And I put on a bra, which connotes some level of responsibility, right?  But I wore pj's all day long.

Even though I spend the majority of my time at home these days I still make it a point to get dressed and do my hair and put on mascara because it makes me feel more like a human being who is an active part of society.  I find that I am way more productive when I get myself ready for the day, even if it is just to fill out online job applications.  But the odds were stacked against me today. 

1.)  It rained all day.  I have mentioned here before that I have a made-up condition called weather paralysis which means that I feel like I am not capable of doing anything but eat cheese and watch Pride & Prejudice when it's cold and rainy. 

2.)  I have two of the largest zits that have ever sprouted on any face in the history of all zits.  And faces.  Which is a really long time.  What I am saying is that they are enormous and if mascara and non-stretchy pants makes me feel human, these zits make me feel like an alien from the planet Sad And Tragic.

3.)  Also from the planet Sad And Tragic, I woke up with a sty.  Gah.

4.)  Did I mention is was cold and rainy?

So, you see, it HAD to be a pajama day.  And I did, in fact, eat cheese and watch Pride and Prejudice, all 5 hours, while hunched over my crafting desk, submerged in felt.  Apparently I can be productive without mascara.

The Woman of Elegant Leisure Strikes Again

Did you hear I'm looking for work...again.  Ugh.  My time at the Pod came to an end a few weeks ago.  I miss everyone there, but I do not miss, among other more serious things which we will not discuss, the smell of old people or the occasional glimpse of a foot that looks like meatloaf.  (Have I mentioned to you to avoid diabetes like the plague.  Because I think it may actually be a plague.  Like toads and locusts type of plague.  Egad, the horror.)  It was a good run, and I knew it would only be temporary and, let's face it, what other job would let me flit off to Africa for 3 months and still welcome me back with open arms?  The answer is:  no other job.  So I'm grateful for the time there, but do so miss a regular income. 

Being back on the job hunt has reminded me how much I hate the job hunt.  Mostly because it feels like an enormous waste of time.  You're basically spending a lot of time putting out feelers and sending out resumes and filling out online applications that take all morning to complete (read: this morning).  Only to hear nothing but your bank account gasping for breath in the distance.  I recognize the importance of all this effort (I went for an interview last week and the guy gave me an A. Like, he literally wrote it on the top of my resume.  I high fived myself!) and I certainly put the time in but it gets old not seeing a whole lot of results.  Also, did you know how many scam job postings there are on Craigslist?  Possibly a gajillion. 

So, there's that.  But there's also the joy of a free schedule.  I love going to the grocery store in the morning with the other old ladies.  I love going to gym when the gym rats aren't there to disturb my workout with all their grunting and preening.  I love writing a little itinerary out for myself every night (8:00 am, make breakfast, 8:30 am make something funny out of felt, etc.) and checking things off my to-do list.  One day the Wealthy Benefactor will come along and he'll be amazed at how well I fill my leisure time.  I'm a pro at it.

It's No Love Boat But It Will Do

On any truly serious Woman of Elegant Leisure's list of 101 Things To Do Before Going To That Silk Upholstered Boudoir In The Sky in a transatlantic crossing on an ocean liner.  Not a cruise ship.  That's just tacky.  An ocean liner.  One that will properly stow all your hat boxes and fur muffs.

I got close on Saturday at Laura and Mike's wedding (Holy Cats, Laura!  You're married!!!) aboard the Queen Mary.  An honest to goodness old-timey ocean liner that movie stars and royalty used to sail on back in the day before it was permanently docked in Long Beach a few decades ago.  Liberace sailed on it so you know it's high class.

If you are wondering what are appropriate activities on a docked ocean liner, here's a helpful list:

1.  Lounging on deck chairs

2. Dance Dance Revolution

3.  Heavy consumption of Shirley Temples

 

Also, if you're in the market, you can get married by the captain of the ship.  I posed the question before the ceremony, "How does one become the captain of a ship that doesn't go anywhere?"  I got my answer by asking the man himself.  His answer, "I'm a captain on another line.  They contract it out.  All the captains of the Queen Mary are dead, my dear."  He was a charmer.

A Pretty Good Afternoon

Today I sat on the beach on a giant over-stuffed pillow reading Dickens and digging my feet into the super soft sand.  A waiter brought me a lemonade and a thin crust margherita pizza and said "Bon Appetit".  Then I swam in the Mediterranean.  The seaweed looked like pieces of lettuce.  On my way out of the water a man asked me if I wanted a camel ride along the shore.  I declined because that sounded unpleasant in a wet swimsuit.  But I thanked him and nestled back into my giant pillow.

Also to check off: eat exotic fruit

If your Life of Elegant Leisure Check-list does not include "Bunko Night with Embassy Ladies and Diplomat Wives" you're missing the whole point.

Mine, naturally, did include it and I can now check it off. We played last night and Bronwyn and I both came home with prizes and, I'm just going to say it even though it wasn't officially recognized, the sweet victory of bringing the best treat. Homemade peach jam and cheesy scones. Score! I am not competitive by nature and I feel like I'm a gracious player and loser. But I do love to win.

While we're sort of on the subject of food, let's talk grocery shopping. There are a few options here: 1.) the embassy commissary where we can get some common American products, 2.) the produce market where we get the fruits and veggies, and 3.) Carrefour, the international Wal-mart. I've been twice to Carrefour, once during Ramadan and once after. It was like the difference between the population of North Dakota and the population of India. Madhouse. But a glorious one. And I've been twice to the produce market, this last time all by myself. The guy helping out spoke a little English but I still had to play a bit of charades with him. After he was done bagging up what I'm pretty sure was some form of pumpkin he offered me this mystery fruit. It was about the size and shape of a large olive, it had smooth dark red skin and he motioned for me to just bite into it. Why not? (I'm not writing to you from my cell in an opium den so you know it ended well) (I'm not sure where it comes from but I've always had this notion that all international scrapes end in an opium den. If I do get in scrape (which I won't, Mom) and don't end up in an opium den, I'm going to be a little disappointed.) It was sweet and had the consistancy of a not-quite-ripe apple. Crisp and crunchy. I asked him what it was but he didn't understand, "What is this called?" or "What is the name?" or "Name?" or the universal sign for "What is this?" (point to thing, furrow brow, shrug shoulders). So I had to dig deep into my non-existant French to come up with the word for name and all I could think of was nomme de plume so I said "nomme" and did the aforementioned shrugging and that did the trick. It was a jujube.

I can now check off "Eat exotic fruit offered to me by a stranger in a foreign land" from my list.

The Gnome Has It.

For years I use to keep people's addresses in random notebooks or, worse, scraps of paper that I would tuck into notebooks. Or worse yet, I would shove old envelopes into a shoe box and when I would need an address I would shuffle through it hoping that the person sent me something first. This is not conducive to a Life of Elegant Leisure. You can't expect to keep up your correspondence with the aid of a shoebox. It's vulgar, is what it is.

So I bought an address book - a cute pink one! - and it has been vary handy for several years now.

Or it was handy up until a few months ago when it vanished. I say vanished because that is the only plausible explanation. It was spirited away by gnomes or something. Because I don't generally lose things. I have a pretty good grasp of where everything is. I'm not the most organized gal but I like it when things have assigned places. Brooches go in the center drawer of my jewelry box. Ribbon is in the top right drawer of my crafting desk. Let's say I want my Aragorn bookmark that Rac sent to me years ago, I know that it's on the lower shelf of the book cupboard, because that's where bookmarks go. So you can imagine my dismay when I wrote a note to someone a while ago and went to grab my address book from the lower cubby on my desk - the place where it belongs, right next to my dictionary - and it wasn't there. I checked in all the other cubbies and drawers, not there. I checked under the pile of filing I have to do, not there. I checked on the floor around my desk, in the box under the desk, under my bed, in the living room, amongst the shoes in my closet, all around the dining room table. Anywhere an address book could possibly be I looked and came up empty handed. It's a real mystery, my friends.

It's been missing for a couple of months now and I'm ashamed to say that I'm ridiculously stubborn about these sorts of things. I know that as much as I want to believe that it was spirited away by gnomes it wasn't and that it has to be around somewhere and I don't want to buy a new address book and go through the work of getting every one's address and filling them all in again because I know that as soon as I do it will magically appear.

Except that I need addresses. Christmas is coming and I have cards to send out. And several birthdays have come and gone and I have signed and sealed cards that are embarrassingly late now.

So, can you be a pal and email me your address? racheknecht at gmail dot com. You don't have to if you don't want to. I mean, maybe we're not friends and you feel weird sending it to me. Really, how do you know I won't send you bad poetry written in highlighter on strips of toilet paper every week? You don't know. And the truth is, I actually have sent bad poetry written in highlighter on a strip of toilet paper to someone. So you're probably wise in not passing on that info to me. But if we are friends and you think that I may need your address for such things as thank you notes or birthday cards or invitations to lavish galas I occasionally throw then you know what to do. And while your at it send me your birthday and phone number because I keep that stuff in there too.

And if you get an invitation to a lavish gala thrown by a gnome, tell him I want my cute pink address book back.