I just explained my high school radio telescope to the friend of my niece's who came over after their half-day to run around screaming in the snow of my parents' side yard. She wanted to know what the dish was for. I had to correct my own assumption that all seven-year-olds know the shape of our galaxy, but otherwise it went all right. She seemed interested in the idea of being able to map something that couldn't be seen with the eye. It finally struck me as hilarious that for more than twenty years I have been explaining the distribution of neutral hydrogen throughout the rotating spiral of the Milky Way with the simile of cream in stirred coffee when I never drank the latter in my life.
In other news, I am at my parents' house, tied up in the pleasant work of niece-care. Yesterday after school was spent almost entirely in playing cats, which was a lot like calisthenics with more purring. She has learned about headbutts and delivers them enthusiastically. She hunted a leftover dreidel all through the house, singing to it exactly as Hestia does with our socks. "String is really tricky," I have found myself saying solemnly. "String is really cunning prey." I convinced her to eat enough protein at dinner by ventriloquizing said protein in the act of traversing a plate blithely fearless in the knowledge that no cat was going to come along and NO WE WERE WRONG ABORT ABORT CHAOS HELL NIGHT DEATH AND THE DEVIL ALL IS LOST and the little cat licks her chops and giggles and waits for the next foolhardy bite. This routine worked until we ran out of protein and then it worked on the starch. I know children enjoy repetition, but I'm still entertained. She loved the dragon stickers sent her by![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
minoanmiss and the book of mythological stickers that arrived today from my godchild. She likes it, by which I mean she is insistent that I not stop even when it's her bedtime, when I read to her.
My physical state is just not acceptable, but my niece is a delight.
In other news, I am at my parents' house, tied up in the pleasant work of niece-care. Yesterday after school was spent almost entirely in playing cats, which was a lot like calisthenics with more purring. She has learned about headbutts and delivers them enthusiastically. She hunted a leftover dreidel all through the house, singing to it exactly as Hestia does with our socks. "String is really tricky," I have found myself saying solemnly. "String is really cunning prey." I convinced her to eat enough protein at dinner by ventriloquizing said protein in the act of traversing a plate blithely fearless in the knowledge that no cat was going to come along and NO WE WERE WRONG ABORT ABORT CHAOS HELL NIGHT DEATH AND THE DEVIL ALL IS LOST and the little cat licks her chops and giggles and waits for the next foolhardy bite. This routine worked until we ran out of protein and then it worked on the starch. I know children enjoy repetition, but I'm still entertained. She loved the dragon stickers sent her by
minoanmiss and the book of mythological stickers that arrived today from my godchild. She likes it, by which I mean she is insistent that I not stop even when it's her bedtime, when I read to her.My physical state is just not acceptable, but my niece is a delight.
