the lakeshore limited
Jun. 13th, 2019 09:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7So, today was Big Doings for Miss Farmkid. Her last day of school was Tuesday, and last night was the Moving Up Ceremony Picnic, which she attended with her mother. Today was full of Doings, among them her last dance class of the season (she is taking pre-pre-ballet), and then straight from that, she was off to the train station with her dad, and just the two of them are taking the Amtrak train, the Lakeshore Limited service all the way to Chicago, and then switching to the City of New Orleans line and going down about two or three hours to Mattoon, which is in the exact center of nowhere and is about 20 miles from where her dad was born, and where her Papa still lives.
So they're going to do a Big Epic Journey around various relatives out there, and then back up on the train to Chicago to see yet more relatives, and then they're flying back next Sunday. So it's a Big Trip and it's Just Them Two and no car. We'll see how it goes.
My sister is of course going to miss them but also has been planning for weeks about all the Things she is Going To Get Done.
(She has already purchased fixtures to redo the upstairs bathroom, for starters.)
BIL is slightly worried that she's going to be so happy while they're gone she won't want them to come back, but watching the way she wouldn't let go of Farmkid through the car window, I have a feeling she's not really going to feel that way.
I drove them to dance class and the train station, because Sister had a thing she had to do tonight, some kind of presentation about preserving farmland, which is great and all.
So I got to watch the dance class-- normally, parents have to sit out in the hall, which I understand because there were several little girls during this class who had to run over and consult with their parents every five seconds. Farmkid's bestie kept looking to see if her mother was doing the movements too, she was very invested in this. Her mother, who was sitting next to me and who is absolutely hilarious, obliged perfunctorily. (She's also talked about how the kid is constantly like "Mom watch me!" and she's like "I'm watching from the corner of my eye!" and it's become a catchphrase. "Mom did you see that from the corner of your eye?" "Yes darling I did!" It's very entertaining.)
Kindergarten dance class is almost too adorable to bear. The teacher was lovely and earnest and had a wonderful manner with them ("Which are our ballet fingers? Yes, these, like so! Now we use them to gather up glitter from the floor, and we scoop it up, and we let it down over our heads, like this!"), and kept explaining things to the parents very endearingly. "I know that skipping doesn't seem like such a big deal to you, but I am so proud of these girls because each and every one of them has mastered it, and it's actually a huge developmental milestone, to tuck the other foot up just so, and to keep their heads up and not look at the ground, and to be able to move their arms fluidly-- they have worked very hard on this and I am so proud of their progress!" And then she'd call out whatever it's really called in French, and then they'd each take a turn doing it, and she'd cleverly used Post-Its on the floor so they'd know what mark to aim at so they didn't run into the wall or anything. And of course the wall is covered in mirrors and every small child wants to always admire herself in mirrors, even after week upon week of coming into the same room and admiring herself in the same way.
They'd learned how to spot for spinning by doing it from a seated position with a partner, which was also really charming.
There was an emphasis on having music for everything, but I must say, at fiveish years of age, there was not one child that had any idea of rhythm or a beat in any meaningful way.
My gosh it was cute, and my gosh you could not pay me to try to wrangle a room full of children like this. The teacher had three teenaged assistants, and there were... about twelve? kids? Maybe? Not a ton, but it was A Lot anyway.
It did make me think that Children's Ballet Teacher is a super-underused fanfic AU trope. It was intense.
After I dropped them off at the train, I went down into Troy and found Middle-Little sister and we got Korean food and hung out a little. mostly she told me the problems of friends-of-friends I don't care about, which is how she rolls, it was sort of reassuring. We did have some fun existential discussions. Her apartment is such a disaster you really have to go through it like an obstacle course. I feel good about my housekeeping, and then I feel guilty. Oh well. She's making progress, it's just not the kind of progress anyone recognizes.
I have weeded about, hm, maybe fifteen to twenty percent of my flax patch, and I bet that's all that's going to get done. I did find one more little flat of camphor basil, and so I weeded a chunk at the end of the flax patch and stuck the six or seven little plants that had made it in right there, because it's a good sunny spot and I hope it'll grow. I need more camphor, and more, and more, because the goddamn ants will not give up on the yurt. Little fuckers.
I may have adopted a few more plants to put into my yard but I swear I'm done now, for really real. Just this homeless bronze fennel and then I'm done.
So they're going to do a Big Epic Journey around various relatives out there, and then back up on the train to Chicago to see yet more relatives, and then they're flying back next Sunday. So it's a Big Trip and it's Just Them Two and no car. We'll see how it goes.
My sister is of course going to miss them but also has been planning for weeks about all the Things she is Going To Get Done.
(She has already purchased fixtures to redo the upstairs bathroom, for starters.)
BIL is slightly worried that she's going to be so happy while they're gone she won't want them to come back, but watching the way she wouldn't let go of Farmkid through the car window, I have a feeling she's not really going to feel that way.
I drove them to dance class and the train station, because Sister had a thing she had to do tonight, some kind of presentation about preserving farmland, which is great and all.
So I got to watch the dance class-- normally, parents have to sit out in the hall, which I understand because there were several little girls during this class who had to run over and consult with their parents every five seconds. Farmkid's bestie kept looking to see if her mother was doing the movements too, she was very invested in this. Her mother, who was sitting next to me and who is absolutely hilarious, obliged perfunctorily. (She's also talked about how the kid is constantly like "Mom watch me!" and she's like "I'm watching from the corner of my eye!" and it's become a catchphrase. "Mom did you see that from the corner of your eye?" "Yes darling I did!" It's very entertaining.)
Kindergarten dance class is almost too adorable to bear. The teacher was lovely and earnest and had a wonderful manner with them ("Which are our ballet fingers? Yes, these, like so! Now we use them to gather up glitter from the floor, and we scoop it up, and we let it down over our heads, like this!"), and kept explaining things to the parents very endearingly. "I know that skipping doesn't seem like such a big deal to you, but I am so proud of these girls because each and every one of them has mastered it, and it's actually a huge developmental milestone, to tuck the other foot up just so, and to keep their heads up and not look at the ground, and to be able to move their arms fluidly-- they have worked very hard on this and I am so proud of their progress!" And then she'd call out whatever it's really called in French, and then they'd each take a turn doing it, and she'd cleverly used Post-Its on the floor so they'd know what mark to aim at so they didn't run into the wall or anything. And of course the wall is covered in mirrors and every small child wants to always admire herself in mirrors, even after week upon week of coming into the same room and admiring herself in the same way.
They'd learned how to spot for spinning by doing it from a seated position with a partner, which was also really charming.
There was an emphasis on having music for everything, but I must say, at fiveish years of age, there was not one child that had any idea of rhythm or a beat in any meaningful way.
My gosh it was cute, and my gosh you could not pay me to try to wrangle a room full of children like this. The teacher had three teenaged assistants, and there were... about twelve? kids? Maybe? Not a ton, but it was A Lot anyway.
It did make me think that Children's Ballet Teacher is a super-underused fanfic AU trope. It was intense.
After I dropped them off at the train, I went down into Troy and found Middle-Little sister and we got Korean food and hung out a little. mostly she told me the problems of friends-of-friends I don't care about, which is how she rolls, it was sort of reassuring. We did have some fun existential discussions. Her apartment is such a disaster you really have to go through it like an obstacle course. I feel good about my housekeeping, and then I feel guilty. Oh well. She's making progress, it's just not the kind of progress anyone recognizes.
I have weeded about, hm, maybe fifteen to twenty percent of my flax patch, and I bet that's all that's going to get done. I did find one more little flat of camphor basil, and so I weeded a chunk at the end of the flax patch and stuck the six or seven little plants that had made it in right there, because it's a good sunny spot and I hope it'll grow. I need more camphor, and more, and more, because the goddamn ants will not give up on the yurt. Little fuckers.
I may have adopted a few more plants to put into my yard but I swear I'm done now, for really real. Just this homeless bronze fennel and then I'm done.
no subject
Date: 2019-06-14 03:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-06-15 11:11 am (UTC)