Jenny C'est Quoi?

I babysat my nephews tonight while my sister and her husband took my parents out to the Opera. We Hursts are a cultured breed. Driving home, I regaled my parents with the ridiculous exploits of their adorable grandsons. Milo has allegedly been described by his supervisors as "the king of the nursery." My mom chooses to interpret this as an exhibition of pro-social, friendly behavior. Milo's mom fears that her son may be the class tyrant. Alas, we literate folk are too close to death to ever truly understand these playground politics. Is it that Milo is self-possessed? Effortlessly cool? At any rate, my parents and I agreed that he had a certain "je ne sais quoi" which must set him apart.

"I want to have je ne sais quoi" I remarked from the back seat, not a little jealous.

"Jenny sais quoi" offered my Dad. Apparently that's what I am. Jenny sais quoi.

I like it.

For all you non-french speaking people (although you should know this anyway because it is a figure of speech) "je ne sais quoi" is what you use to describe something that is indescribable. I tend to imagine it being said by a middle aged lady swirling a champagne bottle in her right hand. I want to be indescribable. To break it up though and translate it into my dad's version it is literally "Jenny know what." But when he said it out loud my mind immediately interpreted it as "Jenny c'est quoi" which (as far as I can tell)  is pronounced exactly the same but means "Jenny is what".

Well seeing as I like to view myself as that adorably quirky girl with strange habits and a penchant for using hair gel as contact solution, I kind of like this pithy little phrase.

Jenny is...what? It's kind of my life's mission to find out. And if you ever see me and say to yourself 'what the bucket is that girl doing'? let me know if you figure it out. Because I sure haven't yet.

And with that in mind, I would like to offer a case in point of my ....adorable quirkiness? On my way home from Alabama I started getting freaked out about everything that had to be done before I left for Uganda. It's like preparing for the apocalypse. All these aspirations that I would never do in a million years if I was at home suddenly have a deadline to them. When I'm stressed I like to make to- do lists because they somehow make everything more manageable.  Here is the result. Keep in mind these are preparations to go to the poorest country I have ever visited on the other side of the world for two months

1. learn to braid hair
2. buy chacos
3. load up the kindle
4. learn camera
5. steal Emily and Matt's music
6. figure out $ in Africa
7. babysit for E+M -make $!
8. skirts and long pants
9. really effective bug spray and sunscreen
10. but new contacts
11. start wearing retainer
12 find glasses!
13. figure out what to do in London
14. back up files on computer
15. fix computer
16. start washing face
17 jogging
18. yoga
19. movies for Africa
20. earbuds
21. buy the song Waka Waka
22. cut hair