for janoska:
an airplane, about 8in, made of airplane coloured tin, with little flashing lights. also makes cool engine noise when picked up. says singapore airlines on the wing, i dunno why. i mean why whould and airplane boought in toystore say singapore airlines. that's what he wanted, that time, you know, when we went to that toystore. my firsttime, in vasarhely. an airplane, he said. an airplane. but all we found was a plastic truck.
for katika:
a fake barbie. i woulda bought a real barbie, found some cheap enough but all the barbies had blond hair. why would i buy a kid with definite black hair something that would make her feel less in the dollfantasyland kinda way of little girls. for not having blond hair. so i searched all the barbieknockoffs too and found some steffies. some kinda german barbieknockoffs. for black hair there was only an extremely cheesy indianmaiden kinda thing with, you know, fringes. so i then had to settle on one with brown hair for no discernable cultural effluvia.
for gyuszi:
that time, when i took the kids to macdonalds, all but gyuszi picked nicebig hamburgers and nicebig fries. but gyuszi wished for that bag that had a toy in it. a toy too, it said. but gyuszi, said, i think there aren't realbig food things in there, i think they may be smaller, are you sure. i'd like a toy, he said, eyes shining. so that's what we got, the kiddie bag that also had a toy. he was very excited, ripped it open when it arrived. it had a miserable little plastic car in it and a couple of rails that you were supposed to put together for the car to ride on. except it wasn't even the full set of rails, you were supposed to keep buying the bags to get the rest. he put on a brave face and pushed the car around, ate his little hamburger. it's nice, he said, it's nice. so then we all gave him a piece of our hamburgers too.
so for gyuszi i bought a car. nice shiny 6in metal car. you can open the doors and everything. it has porsche written on it but the irony will be lost on gyuszi. though not me.
for misi:
nifty pants with zippers allover and a veritable sports emblem overload. slick blue material. back then, when i had scoured used clothes stores for the kids, nothing really fit him. so i promised i would bring him the coolest pants i could find. when i came back, i would bring that. and, i said, you know when i promise something i always do it. or at least i try real hard, i said. trying being a good thing to teach kids. like hope, you know. that things may turn harsh, but that you gotta try again, cause maybe they won't.
i bought little presents for all the other kids too, but the above were the more personal kind. the other kids are little and i do not relate easily to little kids. i am better with ones who can talk. then we can talk.
when i get there i will try this:
that janoska, katika, gyuszi and misi can come over to where i am to stay. which will be a cheap little hungarian hotel. and that i will give them the presents there and they can start rip open the packages and start playing with them there. so then i will destroy the fancy toy moounting boxes, throw them out. throw that out. i know children like those kinda things but if i destroy that then maybe when they take the toys home their father will think the toys used and think them worthless. maybe. and maybe cause even if he takes them away at least they will have had an hour, a day, a couple of days, a week. he won't take them while i am still there.
gyuszi remembers having had a bicycle. maybe that's a good thing, remembering. do you think so? do you think it is better to remember having had something than never having had anything at all?
-e
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Sun Nov 18 2001 - 12:13:00 PST