Big Baby Land

Amy and I had an interesting conversation earlier. In line at Cafe Rio this afternoon, we witnessed a toddler hoisted into the air by his nanny, and a thought struck us.

Amy: "Wow, how horrifying would that be? To just be picked up and manipulated by people four times your size..."
Grace: "Yeah... I sometimes think about how weird it would be if we still had to stand on tiptoe to see over the counter, or jump to reach door handles."
Amy: "Yeah... Hmm..."
Grace: "You know, this could make for a really great amusement park. Make everything giant-sized so we adults can experience the torture adult-sized reality must be for people less than three feet tall."

So then Amy made this drawing as part of a sales pitch to our backer, Tristan:
Giant cookies, counter tops above eye level, chairs you need a step stool to climb up to... And of course funnel cakes and cotton candy, too - essential foods that no good theme park can do without.

I'd also like to point out that giant furniture has made it into the world of high art. In 2003, Robert Thierrien made this really awesome installation piece at the Tate Modern in London. A Google search for "giant table" yields this picture of the piece:

See? Pretty awesome. If giant tables and chairs are worth £125 million in an art museum with no entrance fee, think how much you could charge people to lounge in that giant furniture while eating Dippin' Dots.

Sadly, Tristan isn't sold on the whole Big Baby Land thing, so Amy and I are still looking for funding. Any takers?

I AM WOMAN, HEAR ME ROAR!

This is what I woke up to on Wednesday morning. Judith (as my minivan has been baptized) had a flat tire. Very, very flat. So flat that when I kicked it, I made a dent. This is a close approximation of the conversation I had with myself:

"You're totally stuck. Changing tires requires testosterone and technical know-how. You have neither."
"Great, what am I supposed to do? I don't have home teachers yet... no boyfriend... Call Dad? Maybe he can fix it telephonically."

Luckily, she was just parked in the driveway, so Judith's misfortune wasn't a pressing issue. I then proceeded to forget about the problem until Friday night, when I phoned my dad.

"Hi, Dad. I have a flat tire."
"Well, sweetie, you could always try to put on the spare yourself. Just read the owner's manual and follow the directions closely."

What?! Fix it myself? Hardly. Instead, I made a quick Facebook post ("Anyone love me enough to help me change a tire?") and again placed Judith's plight on the metaphorical back burner.

I had a couple volunteers for assistance when I woke up on Saturday morning, but at exactly 11:51am something strange came over me. I snatched camera and keys and went out to the driveway.

"Hmmm... I might as well take a look at the owner's manual to get an idea of how labor intensive this is going to be," I thought, "and by extension how much curry I'm going to have to pay out my helpful manfriend with."

At this point I went into a wrench-jack-and-spare-tire-induced trance, from which I awoke to find this:


I had changed the tire myself.

What?

I then rushed in to the house yelling, "Amy! Amy! Come take a picture of me! I AM WOMAN, HEAR ME ROAR!" So yeah. I changed a tire all by myself. And documented it.

Next step: start a soroptimist club.

This moment also fits nicely into this article my friend Alex (ha! Note the gender ambiguity) showed me, called "The End of Men" from the July/August Atlantic.

My new house!

I live in a new house! A real house - not an apartment. I even have my own bedroom. Have a look-see:
I also have this cute little bookshelf, so that now all of my books can see the light of day:Credit goes to my beautiful mom for helping me get moved in and organized. You are the greatest!

I also have a new job teaching French 101. My class is great - I love my students, I love teaching, I love making a fool of myself to pull a good Bonjour, comment ça va? out of a frightened Freshman. The job takes a lot of work, but it's always those things we invest the most in that we get the most out of, right?

Anyway, I get to do all kinds of silly things for my job, like make pictures on Microsoft Paint (which I haven't had any excuse to do since 7th grade...). Last week we learned how to talk about nationalities and professions. Here's the evidence:
"Il est président.""Il est mexicain."

Plus 9 other equally ridiculous images. I had so much fun. Love love love my job.