Skip to main content

My New Friend

I like boys. I understand them. A lot of this has to do with the fact that I come from a family with a lot of boys. They just make sense to me.

Last weekend I met the most beautiful, intelligent pre-teen girl. Our initial interaction involved me telling her in Portuguese how much I liked her alternating pink and blue nail polish. She's very shy, and I noticed that she tends to sit back and take in her environment before jumping in. Fortunately, I'm good at respecting that.

We eventually bonded, though, through our walking tour of touristy Orlando and a few comments about the frigid air. The 8 year old girl who traveled with us eventually complained, "You keep holding hands and hugging each other."

Yep. We did.

We talked in Portuguese about the rides and rated the roller coasters. We discussed the fact that her uncle is one of her favorite people and which American music she liked. We smiled and laughed and I felt such a protective instinct about her that I gave her my raincoat to keep her dry on Jurassic Park and shielded her from the water.

At one point, as we walked hand in hand, she looked up at me and said, "[My brother] goes with [my uncle], and I go with you."

Are you smiling yet?

The Brazilian and I even taught her our silly English game, and we walked out of Hulk shouting, "I vas verrry scarrred on dot rrrride." We left the ride arm in arm...the Brazilian linked to one side of me, and his niece on the other.

I told her later that night how much I liked her, and she enthusiastically responded with a smile and "me tambem." When I told her mother how much I liked the girl, she smiled and said that the feeling was mutual. "You both are like one."

We exchanged email addresses, and I hope that we are able to continue this relationship. I'm a bit excited to watch her grow. She will, I'm sure, continue to be amazing.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Carnival

It's a beautiful Saturday afternoon here in southwest Florida, although still a bit too warm for my November tastes. I'm learning to enjoy my weekends with as much unstructured and unscheduled time as possible. Last Saturday was a delightful unstructured day. A new friend of mine (the one from the Everglades excursion) and I went to a local carnival. Now, here's the thing...I LOVE carnivals. The food. The people. The rides. The lights. I can easily spend an entire day wandering through the crowds. He's no carnival slouch. The first thing we did was walk through the entire place, scoping out the rides. Then the fun began. We rode almost every ride there (except for the kiddie attractions and the broken Tornado). The Wild Claw. The Scrambler. The Orbiter. The Space Oddysey. The Swings. The Pharaoh's Fury. The Ferris Wheel. The Giant Slide. The Haunted House. The Avalanche. It was all good. How can you top a ride that uses centrifugal force to plaster your body against...
2 comments
Read more

Busy Days Ahead

It's been a busy week for me. I left my house at 4:30 Monday morning for my drive down south and pulled back in my driveway at 1:20 this morning. The days have been long, too, between working at the new school from 7:30 until 3:00 or 4:00 and then working at the new place until 9:00 or 10:00 each night. I now have callouses on my fingers and not one intact finger nail. I think I've also developed a new twitch somewhere on my face. One afternoon this week, I stood in the middle of our new living room and took in the sight of missing drywall, a growing hole in the floor and soaked up my husband's predictions that we still won't be ready to paint by the weekend. All I wanted to do was cry. All I felt was nothingness. Numbness. Anyone who has ever reached the point of numbness knows that it's scarier than feeling like you're falling apart. It's one step beyond feeling like you're falling apart. I couldn't help but wonder just what we had gotten ourselves...
5 comments
Read more

Stranger Obligations

I had to make a few difficult decisions this week. At least, they were difficult for me. I wish I could be the kind of person who completely makes decisions based on his/her own needs and wants and boldly moves through life with unabashed freedom from how our choices affect others. But I'm not built like that. I had placed an ad for my former stray. I felt like it was time to find her a more permanent home because so much in my life right now is uncertain. One person answered the ad, but she did not seem like a good fit, and I gave up further thought. This week I received another response. As long as this person is telling the truth, it's an ideal situation for the dog. Yet, I had a strange feeling and could not sort out whether or not it was my intuition kicking in or that fact that I actually like the dog and don't want to see her go. In the end, I decided that it was in my own (and my Winnipeg's) best interest for her to stay with us through the summer. (I seri...
5 comments
Read more