Jillian Makes A Funny: The Sequel

This morning, Jillian and I had the following conversation:
J: I want a snack, I am hungry
Me: Do you want Cheerios?
J: NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
Me: do you want a cheese?
J: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
Me do you want grapes?
J: NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
Me: do you just want to stand there and whine?
J: Mommy I am not allowed to drink wine. (Laughter)

At least she knows the rules - no wine when you are two and a half. Even in my house.

Correction

In "Crazytown" post, I have now learned (thank you rockstarjenny) that there is no such thing as a wheel-barrel (that is why the spell check insisted it was misspelled, and why I stuck in the hyphen making up my own word). What I was talking about was a wheelbarrow. Despite the fancy kindergarten, I still have alot to learn.

I am admittedly not good with words that I only hear. For example, song lyrics. I mess them up all the time. Like on that SNL faux commerical for a record of people singing songs with the complete wrong words. Here are some of my better ones:

Little Red Corvette (Prince) as sung by me: "Miracle Baby, Baby you drive much too fast." These words do not even go with the tune.

Jumpin' Jumpin' (Destiny's Child) as sung by me: "Ladies leave your man at home, the club is full of ballers and their cocks are full grown." I was shocked that they were allowed to play this on the radio.

So it is not surprising that I thought wheelbarrow was wheel-barrel.

At least I never got an assignment to write a report on Euthanasia and do one on Chinese teenagers. I forgot who did that but remember the story being hilarious....

Jillian Makes A Funny

We went to the circus on Saturday but ran some errands before going. I generally travel with a snack for her, and since she is obsessed with cheese, I offered her some for the ride. Here is our conversation:

Me: You ready to go?
J: Yeah, but I think I will leave my doctor's kit here.
Me: You probably don't need it at Lowes...
J: Can we get a car cart?*
Me: Sigh, yes. Do you want a cheese for the car?
J: Mommy, the car doesn't need a cheese, it isn't hungry! (Laughter)
Me: (Laughing) Fair point. Would you like a cheese to take in the car?
J: Yes, orange rectangle cheese (read: cracker barrel extra sharp cheddar).

* I curse the person who thought it would be an awesome idea to start making shopping carts with "cars" that kids "drive" attached to them or somehow incorporated into them. They are ridiculously hard to push, nearly impossible to maneuver, and sometimes unavailable which needs to be explained to J repeatedly when it happens. Also, J makes me pull it over in the store every few aisles so that she can put more "gas" into it.

Crazytown

I am ringing in summer 2009 by eating leftover spaghetti-O's and watching a documentary on getting your kid into a preschool in NYC. It is bananas. Seriously. You have to call to get an application (which means that you may not even get to apply), then tours, then interviews and maybe 20 of 120 kids get in. And some of the schools cost close to $20K. The parents are like "if you get into Mandell, then you will get into the best elementary school, the best high school, and then an Ivy."

Crazy.

Town.

I admit that my parents wanted me to go to a private kindergarten - the Wallard Harpridge School. I remember being interviewed/tested to get in. My parents were apparently watching out of sight during the process. One of the questions they asked me was "how many wheels does a wheel-barrel have?" I answered "one" and my mom just sighed and said that was it, I wasn't getting in, because a wheel-barrel has three wheels. Needless to say, I attended the WHS that fall.

From then on, public school for me (except one year in Catholic School that went horribly wrong and caused me to threaten my mom with abandoning the Church if she did not put me back in public school). And then an Ivy. So there.

I must also admit that Jillian will be attending a private school in the fall. One of the best in the city. X and I pulled our shizz together for our interview and Jillian, of course, rocked hers. The interviewing teacher was at a birthday party that Jillian was attending and told X that she strongly recommended J even though J would not even be three when she enrolled. J played with the teacher, explored, and basically ignored us. Awesome.

(But J is generally awesome - today she was allowed to pick out a toy and chose a sand toy shaped like Cinderella's coach - effin' princesses. I opened it for her, she "read" the directions via pictures, and informed me that she needed sand for this toy. Correct-o-mundo little boo. So she said that she would take it to grandma and grandpa's house at the beach. Problem solved.)

I think that the school took J because J is going to grow up and do something awesome. And they want to be like - yeah that woman who is president or cured cancer or won the nobel prize started her education at our school. [Again I have no intent to push J to be any of these things...but if it happens I mean I won't turn down visiting her at the White House or anything].

That or applications were down because people can't afford the tuition in these trying times.

So to all my NYC peeps with kids - I will keep my fingers crossed for you. Come on fat envelope! But the documentary is ending and the most obnoxious family, but the one clearly with the most money, got into 7 schools. Some of the other kids didn't get into one. Bummer because every kid deserves to go to school.

Sorry for the long post - again - see first sentence of post. Not much going on right now.

Personality Test: FAIL

I am not an actual princess, and unfortunately neither is J. Thus I have to work. My current job makes me what to shove a pen in my eye, so I interviewed for an in-house position last week. It went pretty well, I liked the General Counsel, and it seemed like one of the few companies that is growing these days. I was there for over 2 hours. During that time I was interviewed for about 25 minutes and spent the rest of the time alone in a conference room taking a math test, a grammar test, and a personality test.

As of yesterday, the word was that I had aced the math and grammar and that the General Counsel really liked me but they were waiting on the results of the personality test. Today I found out that I had failed the personality test and so I would not be continuing the process of interviewing.

I realize that this is an inherently ridiculous thing - judging someone on a "personality" test without bothering to actually get to know them or assess their skill level for a particular job. Especially because a bunch of the questions were real lose-lose questions like "When you make a promise you (a) always keep it no matter what the consequences or (b) feel that promises mean nothing." I am sorry but I believe in promises, think I am pretty loyal and that people can count on me. If, however, I promised to meet someone for lunch on a Saturday, but J wakes up that day all sick, then I cancel. This test implied that I would either have to screw all promises OR in the situation just described, take heroic measures to make J better or take a sick child out to a restaurant (which is a stupid move for many reasons.) I remember thinking to myself, why don't they define "promise?" Are they thinking of something like adhering to plans or something bigger like vowing to "love honor and cherish?" Which is a promise I made and kept until the bitter end. Would they judge me for leaving a shittastic marriage? So the test was frustrating.

As you can tell, I am annoyed. And while I am trying to keep a level head about it all, I can't keep thinking that I failed a personality test and that is a blow to the ego. Also, given my continued success in dating (I am now on date 4 with someone who kissed me once on the third date and zero times on fourth - there is no one else on the horizon for me) maybe I am doing something wrong. Like in a deep way, not perceivable to people outright, or that I am even consciously aware of, but sensed by others in some visceral way, using an internal gauge. Or by a personality test. Maybe I should ask for the test results....

Yes, I realize that I have friends regardless of the test. And that I probably do not want to work for a private company owned by people who insist on basing their hiring decisions on a bull shit personality test. Even when the department hiring would like to continue getting to know someone with the "wrong" personality. Still, I am bummed. I could use a win.

Interpretive Dance

So much to say due to the lag in posting. Vacation in Paris, 10 year reunion, job stress, hilarious Jillian stories.

But I am tired and Gossip Girl is on so I am just doing a short post. And here it is...in honor of TFry's birthday....J doing an interpretive dance to "Can you feel the love tonight" from the Lion King.