![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mrsbrownI left work early this afternoon, having convinced them that I was genuinely sick with my great, hacking, wet cough. They were quite happy to see me leave earlier, but I thought I would be OK, although, after I put my head down on the desk, I decided I was probably ready to leave...
I drove home with a wizzy taxi driver, who knew how to change lanes, get across roads in front of oncoming traffic without making me feel unsafe, spotted the plain clothed police car, described how he would fix the worn engine mounts with a pair of jacks (they creaked every time we went over a speed hump) and told me stories of "6am shopping" for hub caps and side mirrors. He also got me here faster than any other cabbie. I hope I get him again.
After I lay in bed reading for a while, my children started arriving home. G and Z almost simultaneously and then T with a troupe of friends who are all off to a Buffy fest together this evening and needed to pickup T's entire Buffy collection. I knew she'd arrived because I heard her and her friends giggling in that special way that happy, silly 15 year old girls in a group do, and then the gate slammed and their feet clomped on the front verandah. They kept up the chatter while T got changed and someone else knocked on the door. G had a friend over too. There were probably 10 people in the house.
I started feeling all matriarchal and proud. My children have friends and they're happy to invite them to my house. I love having a house full of happy sociable people. And it's even better when I'm not responsible for feeding, or hosting them.
The word is gezellig (I used an online dutch translator and had to use the word "sociable" to get the word I wanted. It's just not precise enough! Gezellig is so much more than sociable)
I drove home with a wizzy taxi driver, who knew how to change lanes, get across roads in front of oncoming traffic without making me feel unsafe, spotted the plain clothed police car, described how he would fix the worn engine mounts with a pair of jacks (they creaked every time we went over a speed hump) and told me stories of "6am shopping" for hub caps and side mirrors. He also got me here faster than any other cabbie. I hope I get him again.
After I lay in bed reading for a while, my children started arriving home. G and Z almost simultaneously and then T with a troupe of friends who are all off to a Buffy fest together this evening and needed to pickup T's entire Buffy collection. I knew she'd arrived because I heard her and her friends giggling in that special way that happy, silly 15 year old girls in a group do, and then the gate slammed and their feet clomped on the front verandah. They kept up the chatter while T got changed and someone else knocked on the door. G had a friend over too. There were probably 10 people in the house.
I started feeling all matriarchal and proud. My children have friends and they're happy to invite them to my house. I love having a house full of happy sociable people. And it's even better when I'm not responsible for feeding, or hosting them.
The word is gezellig (I used an online dutch translator and had to use the word "sociable" to get the word I wanted. It's just not precise enough! Gezellig is so much more than sociable)
