Monday, October 13, 2003

Holiday Road


To those American Federal employees celebrating Columbus Day: I hate you guys, very, very much. University employees are celebrating Columbus day by ... Working. Go Chris! Our Canadian neighbors to the south (HaHa! I love saying that, because it's true) are enjoying Canadian Thanksgiving. Yum. Do you suppose they eat turkey loaf pressed into the shape of a maple leaf? Bwah. Just giving you grief, my frigid friends.

Actually, I am thankful for both Columbus Day and Canadian Thanksgiving, because it has given TinyTuna something to talk about in her fourth-grade class for current events. (I think I may have talked about this once on Hamster Time -- sorry if this is rehash. Alzheimers, you know) Twice a week she is supposed to talk about a current event she has seen on the news, read in a newspaper, etc. I send her to school with human interest stories, nature stories and so on. She comes home relating the tales of mothers who drown their children, gas station attendants who are shot, and the Detroit Tigers, who "suck". I had a moral dilemma regarding the Detroit Tigers current event, because well, technically it's true ... They suck! I just don't think nine year olds should be saying that. So today in the car I tell her there are some current events stories she could share in class: Columbus Day and it is Canadian Thanksgiving. I ask her if she knows who Christopher Columbus is. She say "Oh yes ..... uh ...... he invented ......." and I stop her right there. I don't have the time for TinyTuna's revisionist history of the world. I say "No. He discovered America." And then I stop. And mumble "Well, sort of....But not really." TinyTuna can't hear me, so I tell her again that he is considered to be the man who "discovered" America. I can't help but think to myself ... even though there is an entire nation of people who would disagree.... I decide not to enter a philosophical debate regarding Christopher Columbus, for fear that she'd drag it right to class. I also tell her about Canadian Thanksgiving. Notice how I never call it plain-old Thanksgiving. Nope. Canadian Thanksgiving. So we don't get it confused with real Thanksgiving. Hee! I'm kidding again. I tell her it is to celebrate the harvest and things to be thankful for, but since Canada is only 70-cents on the dollar, their Thanksgiving comes along earlier than ours. Bwah! I love Canada jokes! Have no fear, I didn't say those thing about Canada to TinyTuna. But I did think it. Because I'm that way.

Dear Canada,
Please save me some mashed potatoes and a leg. Thanks!
~~Green Tuna


This whole current events thing is a real dilemma for me. I am constantly pulled between "you can't shelter them forever" and "this is too much for kids to handle." Based on what I hear from TinyTuna, I know I'm definitely on the sheltering side of the fence. But a part of me feels very strongly that kids have their whole life to hear about all the crappy things people do every day. Case in point -- September 11, 2001. TinyTuna was in second grade. That particular day, being a Tuesday, I was up north teaching, and didn't even hear anything about it until almost 11:30 am. I grabbed any time I could to make phone calls (lots of family in the Washington DC and Arlington area) and to call the schools to see what they were doing. I drove home not having any idea what TinyTuna was told or had seen. In the end, I gave her some extremely basic facts, but purposefully left out words like "evil people" or "bad men" because I didn't want to scare the Beejeebus out of her. I tried hard to make sure the news wasn't on so she wouldn't seen the buildings collapsing over and over again. A week or so later, she saw a brief clip of the morning news with one of the planes flying into the buildings. She asked if that was what happened, and I said yes. At that point she looked at me with all seriousness and concern and said "But mom...The man who was flying the plane.....Was he blind?" From the mouth of a seven-year old. It stopped me in my tracks, and I'll never forget that.

So, I'm just as happy with TinyTuna talking about spiders, and the new Michigan Quarter and Canadian Thanksgiving. There is time enough for the rest much, much, much later.

In other news - No word on Annie. I vow I'm not checking their webpage before 10 am, and then no more often than once an hour. Think I'll make it? Heck no. I'm a loser. I also got another email from The Cheese late last night. I can hear Uber-Auntie Tuna stroking out from here. He wants to come visit. Like, Thursday. Hmmmmmmmmmmm....

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