Erin had a sleepover last weekend with her Japanese friend Mizuki. Mizuki's mom doesn't speak any English (or French) so we communicate via email, which she then translates.
Here's a summary of our email exchange prior to the big night.
Me: Erin would like Mizuki to come for a sleepover on Saturday night.
M's mom: A sleepover? What is that?
Me: It's when a friend comes to spend the night.
M's mom: Mizuki would love to come. I will feed her dinner and bring her over at bedtime.
Me: Ah, could you bring her over earlier?
M's mom: Well, she doesn't usually go to sleep until around 10 pm, so I will bring her over then.
Me: If you bring her earlier, I'll give her dinner (since she doesn't know about my cooking, I figure she might see this as a positive)?
M's mom: And then what will they do?
Me: They'll play, eat sugar and make a horrible mess in the apartment.
M's mom: And then they'll go to sleep?
Me: Well, no, they don't actually sleep. They just lie next to each other and giggle until about 4 am, keeping the rest of us awake, at which point they fall into a fitful doze. Then they wake up at about 7 am and start giggling again, making another horrible mess, and demanding breakfast and another movie, which they watch until it's time to go. Both children will spend the rest of the day and the early part of the following week cranky and exhausted.
M's Mom: I see. So you would like me to bring Mizuki over for a sleepover where she doesn't actually sleep but makes a terrible mess with Erin in your apartment and prevents anyone else from sleeping as well. Then I will pick her up the following morning and she will be irritable for several days afterwards.
Me: Exactly. How's five o'clock?
I feel pretty good about exporting this charming American custom to the rest of the world.
My other news, and this is pretty big, is that someone finally spoke to me at the gym! I've been going fairly regularly for six months; I see the same people there every time and one of them finally spoke to me. I was very excited. He tottered over to me (I'd put him at about 93) in his yellow sweat suit (Big Bird comes to mind) with a big smile.
I was on that machine that's supposed to work your obliques, which are those vague things hanging off your waist (well, maybe not your waist). I believe the layman's term is 'love handles.' I'd been whimpering and sweating as I was doing my set of 12, 10, 8 and 6 reps, increasing the weight each time, which is a clinically proven method of effective weight training. I should mention that it has not been clinically proven to do a damn thing in my case.
So Big Bird wandered over and observed my suffering for a few minutes. After the usual French pleasantries (it's not easy to exchange pleasantries in a foreign language while whimpering, mind you), he pointed at my waist and said,
"If you want to get rid of that, you're going to have to do a lot more exercise." He wished me a pleasant day and went off to give helpful advice to someone else.
Bastard. I went home and ate three croissants.
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