Joe Fark

I love the internet. Sometimes I hate it too, but I love that the internet allows us to connect with people that otherwise we might never have had contact with again. My old office-mate from grad school found me on facebook this week, and now I'm waxing sentimental about people I'd really like to find again but probably never will be able to.

One of those people for me is Loan (pronounced Low-Awn) Nguyen. Many of you have heard me talk about my brief (not brief enough!) work experience with the beef jerky industry in Detroit. Loan and I started work the same day. The jerky baron didn't want his employees forming any relationships (because then they might revolt), so he insisted that all lunch times be staggered. Now, you can't really force people to eat lunch at 10 a.m., so some people got to eat together, and Loan and I got that privilege. There was just one problem: Loan didn't really speak English. Not much anyway.

So each day we would sit in the little tiny lunchroom for an hour and have a conversation in broken English. I learned that her daughter's name was Mimi (short for Miriam) and I knew each day that I could ask how Mimi was, and that would start a conversation that was comfortable for Loan.

In the middle of October, I asked what Mimi would be for Halloween.
"Joe Fark," replied Loan.
"That's nice. What will her costume look like?" (I had no idea who Joe Fark was, but I was trying to play it cool, you see....)
Loan demonstrated pulling a sword from a belt, and I thought, ok, Joe Fark carries a sword.
She showed me something that looked like armor, and I still had no clue......

Let me break in here and give a little background on Loan that I later learned. She was born in Vietnam, and her father was somehow working for or with the American government. She and her sister were sent to France during the Vietnam war. So she grew up in France. She was educated, and she was a teacher before she came to the states. Her husband had grown up in the middle east, and had spent some time in prison for being a Christian and had sustained serious injuries. I never knew how they came to the states. But they got to Detroit, and he worked as an electrician, and she as a bookkeeper. And they were learning English from Mimi, their only child.

So you probably can guess now what Mimi was for halloween. She was Joan of Arc. And it only took me about a week of asking questions until I put it together (so cool, you see...). My lunches with Loan were by far the best part of that job. I'd love to see her again.

Anyway, forgive my sentimental ramblings. Loan, wherever you are, I hope you are doing well.

Such a good little mama...

Here's Gen and her baby. Same baby from the other video, by the way.

Gen's got her in the high chair, and is combing her hair. Three guesses where we fix Gen's hair each day?

My helper.

Today was grocery day, and here's a picture of Gen "helping" me put away the groceries. She's become very interested in helping mommy lately. Yesterday I found her rolling up clean diapers and stuffing them into her Diaper Champ.... The day before she assisted me with the laundry by unfolding everything I had folded and scattering it through the house. And the day before she took a wipe and started cleaning the floor (I'm sure that wasn't a hint about my housekeeping...)

Now, if you are reading this, you have met me at least once and know that I need a little (possibly a lot) of assistance from time to time! I'm not sure this is the kind of help I need!

Gen blows kisses for Valentine's Day

My ethnic child.

So please note the new hairdo. We have officially graduated to big girl pigtails. At least early in the day, that is. By noon, she needs a third pigtail to take up all the hair that has escaped the first two.


So Gen is taking on some ethnic qualities.

Her name is very French, and she eats like a Frenchwoman. Bread, cheese, and fruit. I can just picture her choosing her food at an outdoor French market, with a little basket over her arm, pushing her bicycle and some sort of kerchief on her head.


But Gen is really a German girl, and that is coming out in her speech! She has taken to adding a very German gutteral sound to words. "Cookie" is "Cooxghy" and "Daisy" is "Daxghy" and "Cracker" is "Craxgh-er."

Oh Baby!

Genevieve is fascinated by babies. She sleeps with at least one of her babies, and the rest of the day has to have one with her as well. She protests heartily if we take baby away (you know, so she can eat... or bathe). Last week at Sunday school she had found a baby, and it was a sad moment when baby had to stay at church and Gen had to go home...

"Baby" is her favorite word. We hear it all day. As I write this, Gen is in her crib to go to bed, and she is singing to herself, and, I can assume, the 3 babies that went to bed with her. Here's my best rendition of the song:

la la la baby ohhhhhhhh ummmmm baby na na na na na baby ni-ni baby.... you get the general idea!

And here's video of her with her babies... this just cracks me up!