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My niece is back home.
Jul. 26th, 2015 07:36 pmLis's brother in Florida tied the knot with his girlfriend a bit over a week ago, which means that her daughter is now OFFICIALLY our niece. In celebration, we got to take her up here for a week. And it was wonderful.
This was the first time we spent a lot of time together -- we'd only met her a couple times previously. And we knew we really loved her the minute we met her, but this just cemented it.
Our niece is sixteen, and is going to be entering into junior year of high school in the fall.
What kind of person is she? Well, first, she's the kind of person who fits in better in New England, the Pacific Northwest cities, or Chicago better than in Florida, if that makes sense. Or, another way to put it -- in general outline, she's similar to our friends and us.
She was given a bit of spending money for her trip. The tertiary thing she spent it on was a few articles of clothing and the like from thrift shops. The secondary item was books. And the primary item was art supplies. Thrift shops, bookstores, and arts and craft supply stores are three HIGHLY respectable places to spend your money. There are other places to spend your money that are AS respectable -- kitchen supply stores, scientific equipment, computer supplies, to name just a few -- but none that are BETTER.
We spent a week hanging out with a teenager who wanted to go to art museums and sketch things, and find nifty things in thrift shops, and read books, including re-reading her favorites, such as THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA and THE HOBBIT, and drink tea. She is a LOVELY houseguest to have, and I think she was intrigued to note that she saw lots of teenagers her age who were going places on the MBTA in groups, and dressed in ways that were congruent with the way she likes to dress, and reading books in public, including books that she liked ... and the time that she noticed that someone she found attractive was checking her out, too, probably didn't hurt, either. I mean, Lis and I weren't letting her date while she was up with us, of course -- but I think it was intriguing to her to discover that ideals of beauty are different in different parts of the country, and she is very much closer to the New England ideal than the Florida one...
This was the first time we spent a lot of time together -- we'd only met her a couple times previously. And we knew we really loved her the minute we met her, but this just cemented it.
Our niece is sixteen, and is going to be entering into junior year of high school in the fall.
What kind of person is she? Well, first, she's the kind of person who fits in better in New England, the Pacific Northwest cities, or Chicago better than in Florida, if that makes sense. Or, another way to put it -- in general outline, she's similar to our friends and us.
She was given a bit of spending money for her trip. The tertiary thing she spent it on was a few articles of clothing and the like from thrift shops. The secondary item was books. And the primary item was art supplies. Thrift shops, bookstores, and arts and craft supply stores are three HIGHLY respectable places to spend your money. There are other places to spend your money that are AS respectable -- kitchen supply stores, scientific equipment, computer supplies, to name just a few -- but none that are BETTER.
We spent a week hanging out with a teenager who wanted to go to art museums and sketch things, and find nifty things in thrift shops, and read books, including re-reading her favorites, such as THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA and THE HOBBIT, and drink tea. She is a LOVELY houseguest to have, and I think she was intrigued to note that she saw lots of teenagers her age who were going places on the MBTA in groups, and dressed in ways that were congruent with the way she likes to dress, and reading books in public, including books that she liked ... and the time that she noticed that someone she found attractive was checking her out, too, probably didn't hurt, either. I mean, Lis and I weren't letting her date while she was up with us, of course -- but I think it was intriguing to her to discover that ideals of beauty are different in different parts of the country, and she is very much closer to the New England ideal than the Florida one...