Let's say, hypothetically, that I cut up the last avocado for lunch today.

And this avocado was pitted through with this fibrous brown/black stuff, like... I don't know, like scar tissue on the inside of the flesh. On the inside of the hypothetical flesh, that is.

So, in this situation, I have two questions:

1. What causes this?

2. Since this hypothetical avocado is damaged goods, do I have to replace it? Or did I would I have saved my sister a world of trouble, so no worries there?

Okay, so, one of my long-standing interests is The Folk Process.

That's actually part of why I like language, because The Folk Process is (more or less) what gives us etymology.

So I skip around in some bizarre pattern from reading up on nursery rhymes (and no, Ring Around the Rosy does *not* mean what you think it does. I'm wary of hidden meanings in general, but that one's pretty provably wrong), then to children's songs (the ones written *by* children, meaning they're often alarmingly inappropriate) to jump rope rhymes, to chinese jump rope patterns (you see the thread there, right?), to hand clap rhymes, to folk songs and ballads, to etymology, to urban legends, to fairy tales, and somehow I inevitably end up with military cadences, no, I don't know why.

Right now Ana's into hand clapping, which is great except... uh... I was a bit of an outcast as a child. AND we didn't live near my school or anything, so it's not like I had much of an opportunity for forced socializing either. (I can't jump rope either.) I know precisely three handclaps from my childhood, and one of them is Quack-dilly-oso, and so it probably doesn't count. (Fun facts: 1. My sister and I spent a summer in Belgium teaching Quack-dilly-oso to other children, and if anybody in Wavre still plays it it is entirely because of us, thank you very much. 2. If the term "quack-dilly-oso doesn't make sense to you, try the name "Stella Ella Ola". Better?)

So here I am, dutifully trying to come up with a few more to teach her. (Evangeline is interested in them too, but she is really too young to quite get the mechanics of them. She has the words down pat, though. She has a remarkable memory for songs, tell the truth. It's amazing. All those games of "I'm going on a trip" must be sticking!)

It's easy enough to find sites and sites of people transcribing (with predictably poor spelling) the various rhymes they use, and the zillion and a half different variants known to mankind. Finding melodies (for those rhymes that have them) is a bit harder, and finding clear instructions is impossible. Most of them, the contributers didn't write instructions at all, and in the rest they're about as clear as mud.

There need to be vidoes, or, barring that, step by step photographs. Why nobody has done this yet, I don't know.

I can find a few on YouTube, but many of them go quickly, or aren't what I'm looking for. And anyway, they're *hard* to find on YouTube! YouTube isn't always as useful as one might hope :(

So, anybody willing to help me out here? Even scanty information is better than *no* information, really. (Information on chinese jump rope patterns, jump rope rhymes, the kind of songs kids sing but you wish they wouldn't, and - yes, lizziey! - cadences are appreciated too. And in other languages! Go whole hog! I can whip up almost poetic variations if I have a literal translation.)

Oh, and since we're (loosely) on the subject of kids' pastimes - remember that first BSG of the season? Where a big(ish) thing was that bag of jacks so-and-so found in the-spoilery-place? Yeah. When's the last time you saw jacks like that being sold? Huge plastic ones, and they're hard to find too. Clearly, Earth is not of our Earth.

OH WOW HEY!

IT'S SIXTYTHREE FUCKING BEAUTIFUL DEGREES OUT!

Hey! No jacket for Connie!

I'd head to a playground, but yesterday Ana asked for a nap today, so I think we'll come home after school and when she (inevitably) decides to go out we'll just hang out around our block or go to the park.

Ana has a real gift with communication.

She does. Evangeline is a very fluent speaker, moreso for her age than her sister, I think, but Ana communicates better, when she has a mind to. And she's better with conflicts than I think I've ever been, certainly when I was five!

A few weeks ago, for example, she was frustrated with her sister poking over her shoulder as she worked with her paper dolls - a toy that's largely off-limits to Evangeline because she's only three and might reasonably rip them (and anyway, they're Ana's). Instead of doing what I expected from her (and from any five year old, really), which is some combination of whining, screaming, tattling, and pushing, she did something innovative and very effective:

Evangeline: *shoveshovegrab*
Ana: *moving away slightly and turning her body*
Evangeline: ANA! YOU'RE BEING MEAN TO ME!
Ana: I'm sorry, but you can't just do that, I don't want to play with you when you do.
Evangeline: YOU'RE BEING MEAN TO ME!!!
Ana: *workworkwork*
Evangeline: You're being mean to me!
Ana: *workworkityworkwork*
Evangeline: You're being mean.
Ana: *workworkwork*
Evangeline: Can I see that? It's pretty.
Ana: Sure! Here, why don't you help me? You can't do *this*, but you can do *that*.
Evangeline: Okay.
Me: Uh....

I listened to it, and I've thought it over, and for the life of me I can't figure out why it worked. Some of it is Evangeline's more-or-less easygoing personality, but... I don't get it. And yet, it did work, and very well.

Yesterday, she was being chased at the playground by another girl, and she came up to me to tattle and get... I don't know, a hug? Advice? Me yelling at this child? Apparently the girl was chasing her and saying "mean things", but what mean things, I don't know. So we cycled through the options of "Don't chase me" and "I'll tell your mom" and "I don't like that", and finally I grit my teeth and suggested that if all else failed, she could pull a line like "I don't want to chase. That's silly" combined with turning her back on the girl and standing absolutely still. (They can't chase you if you're not running.)

As she was talking to me, the little girl came up, and, in fact - before I gave her that last bit of advice - Ana was already using it. The girl opened her mouth, and Ana turned around and didn't look at her. I *know* I didn't grasp that sort of body language subtlety at her age. There's no way. How does she know these things?

At any rate, some time later the girl came up to her again, and Ana turned to walk away without so much as deigning to reply to her, but the girl said "Wait" and started a civil conversation, something about if Ana could go down the bar slide or not. I was trying desperately to eavesdrop, but I just couldn't get a good spot, and when I did, Evangeline called for me. Grrr.

(Incidentally, I'm very firm with Ana that she mustn't tell lies unless she can tell good lies, which is apparently the same line my father gave me. "You always say that!" she says, and she's right, I *do* always say that. Why? Because it's damn good advice, that's why. If I say I bought something, and Ana says no, Daddy did and he plans to use it for dinner, I know one of us has to be lying and for sure it isn't me. The problem is that she *is* good at lying, she's very convincing. Fortunately, her lies are so a. predictable and b. over-the-top that she's still easily caught in them. She's bound to smarten up sooner or later, though.)