Thursday, August 02, 2007

aaaaall the way

"What is your job?" four year-old Lola asked me.

"Well, my main job is looking after you. My volunteer job is fostering kittens. I don't have a paying job, though. I used to be an attorney when I had a paying job."

After some discussion of the perennial What-Is-An-Attorney question, as well as the ever-popular How Can It Be Considered A Job To Hang Around with Iris and Lola, the conversation turned to jobs of the future, after I allowed that I might want a paying job after Lola got into kindergarten or first grade.

"What are you going to do? What kind of job?"

I hate being asked that from anyone, much less pint-sized wiseasses, so I deflected the question. "What do YOU think I should do?"

Lola was quick off the bat with an answer. "I think you should be a ballerina! A ballerina!"

I didn't quite know how to explain that I am too old (and not anorexic enough) to take up ballet seriously. Iris tried to explain to Lola: "If Mom was a ballerina, she wouldn't be able to pick you up at school! Don't you want Mom to pick you up at school?" (Iris obviously remembered a prior conversation about careers, where I explained that people with important jobs need to pay nannies to look after their children because they needed to be at their jobs a lot. Clearly "ballerina" is one of the most high-powered careers). Lola was not persuaded, though, and said dreamily, "If Mommy was a ballerina, she'd dance all the way to my school! All the way to my school!"

6 comments:

Freewheel said...

That reminds me of a scene in the movie "Dazed & Confused." The geeky kid who always said he wants to go to law school and become a public defender suddenly tells his friends that he's changed his mind. He thinks his clients will be too ungrateful. His friends ask what he wants to do now. "I want to be a dancer!" he blurts out.

Sounds like a great second career to me.

Silliyak said...

Even if it's an unpaid position, dancing your way to school could be a solution to the "not enough exercise" thing. And think of the culture! (My contribution to the culture is never dancing, I could kill it. Hoards of people cringing "OMG! I'm never going to dance AGAIN!"

hughman said...

well she obviously thinks you can do anything which is sweet. i see you more as an interpretive jazz dancer.

the Drunken Housewife said...

Funnily enough I have studied belly dance (although I stopped due to time & money concerns). I'd like to get back into that. I've been doing a funny thing which is practicing belly dancing to David Bowie music (at belly dancing, they always use wailing tribal music, but I contend that much modern music can be used satisfactorily as well).

Missy said...

Dancing of any sort is always a good thing with me. :-)

Anonymous said...

But, on those hills?! It would be like the Red Shoes!