Party like it's 1999

Today one of my best friends turned 30 (she will remain anonymous to protect the guilty.... I mean, to not highlight how old any of us are getting). She hosted a cook out at her new house, which was a great excuse to get together and visit. However, somehow being 30 involves children, which means the visiting is not like it was in the good old days. Don't get me wrong, I like kids. (Yea, ok, this is a blog, and who knows who reads it, so I have to say that). Honestly, I like some kids, not all kids. The kids I like are the ones I know. For example, I happen to enjoy playing with one kid, whom I taught how to build a fort one time. That was awesome. Oh, and we went bike riding.... well, I pushed the bike. That was fun. I enjoy babies that are cute and let an amateur like myself hold them, and they just smile. As soon as the crying starts, back to mom they go. Oh, and if a child remembers me, they have totally won my heart. Mostly because I know kids memories are not like adults, so if you aren't always around, they really might not remember you.
Back to today. There was one child at the party who let me help put together a puzzle. I am cool with that. It involves letting the child try to figure out the pieces, and gently suggesting some possibilities. However, there were other children who were hard to distinguish from jumping beans. They wandered around, got up and down, and while I know it is a party, and maybe we should be "jump up jump up and get down" (or however the song goes... you know the one) I just found myself thinking, thank goodness for a calm and quiet home! I have always felt this way, wanting peace and quiet. I was seven years old, and we were living in Scotland. There were 4 kids, and in Scotland they didn't know what a minivan or a station wagon was, so we all had to pile in the backseat of a sedan. On one occasion it had been a while since I had been around my entire family, and as we piled into the car, it was noisy and crowded, I remember looking out the window and thinking it would be nice to be in a quiet place. One of my favorite quotes is from Home Alone, where Macauley Culkin says, "When I grow up and get married, I'm living alone!" The other thing I find interesting is apparently parents get some sort of equipment or ear piece from the hospital so that these things do not register to them. Parents can carry on conversations with other adults while children are jumping around and doing whatever it is kids do all the time. I find it very hard to have a conversation when kids are around.... I think because I am not used to constant interruptions.

So then the other thing about the party is I didn't know all the adults there. So you introduce yourself, explain how you know the host, and then usually ask people what their job is, or if they are in school, or how old that jumping bean is that they call a kid :) One particular encounter highlights how awkward I sometimes find my state of life. A woman that my friend had known a couple of years ago was there, and she is single. So I asked her what she does for work, and she said she didn't have a job. So I asked about school, and she said she had just moved to the area, and had been going to school previously. So I said oh so you are getting settled and finding a new job now that you are done with school, that is great. So she asked what I did, and I told her I work at IBM. At this point most people get the wow look on their face, and so she asked what I do there, and I said I write software, and at this point she is backing away with a really wow look on her face. Now I feel that she is backing away because she has been confronted with a person who obviously has their life together because they have a concrete job. And I always feel awkward having a concrete job in front of people who are still figuring out what they want to do, because I don't have it all figured out. I am just very blessed to have a job that I seem to be good at.