Kobayashi Maru

So I picked the Muppet up from Kindergarten today.  It’s a fun thing to do when I am able to.  She’s always surprised that I am there, and she is always ready to talk about her day: who she sat next to at lunch (which has the possibility for endless drama on an almost daily basis), what she did at school, what she learned, who her favorite teacher is (which never changes, but she wants me to guess every time and seems genuinely amazed at my almost precognitive ability to guess right every time), and other such important details in the life of a 5 year old.

Truth be told (and every now and again it is here on the Maru) I really enjoy the entire verbal process.  It’s her inviting me into her world.  I know that she might not be so eager to do so later in life, so I relish it now.  Today I got some serious scuttlebutt on the goings on in the kindergarten class.  There is all kinds of stuff going on there.  The Terry Fox run is tomorrow and the kids are raising money for the Terry Fox Foundation.  The Muppet decided that she wanted to raise money for Terry Fox like she did last year.  She told the kids this.  They were not as impressed as she thought they should be - mostly because they are all doing the same thing.  SO, being the Muppet, she felt it necessary to remind them that she raised more money than them last year and would do so again this year.

Heh.  Funny, cause last year I was working in an office and I could let her go from cubical to cubical soliciting people who would feel occupationally obligated to help her out.  This year, I work from home…

But this would not be something that held her back.  She told me that we could make calls and get people to give on the internet.  Seriously, my child is 5 and has a pretty good understanding of the vehicles best suited for fundraising.  I told her that we would make some calls, but she had to do the entire solicitation.  SO she had to be prepared to ask people to sponsor her, and then be ready to tell them what she was doing and WHY she was doing it.  She seemed to get the picture, so I called a buddy and asked him if she could solicit him for a fundraiser.  I explained in great length that he was welcome to say yes or no because the lesson was learning how to ask and how to be grateful no matter the response.

So after the quick run down, I handed the phone to the Muppet.  She said hello and then immediately asked if he would like to support her cause.  (I winced a bit because first rule of making an ask is to spend some time establishing rapport with the donor…seriously, everyone knows this and the kid blew right by it.)  I could hear his side of the conversation and it went like this:

The Muppet: “Hello.  Would you like to support my cause?

Her mark: “Well, what’s your cause?”

The Muppet: “We are raising money for Terry Fox.”

Her mark: “How are you doing that?”

The Muppet: “I am calling people and asking them if they want to support my cause.”

Her mark: “How much are you trying to raise?”

The Muppet: “I am letting people decide how much they want to give.”

Her mark: “What does the money go to?”

The Muppet: “The money goes to help little kids in the hospital who have cancer in their bodies, so they don’t have to die like Terry Fox did.”

Her mark: ” <blink> <blink> “uh, okay…how much do you want?”

The Muppet: “However much you want to give so the kids don’t die.”

Her mark: “How’s $50?”

The Muppet: <pulls the phone away from her ear> “Daddy, he’s giving fifty bucks!!”  <puts phone back to ear> “Thank you…daddy will get your money.”

Seriously, this happened over and over for about an hour (though the $50 was the high water mark in single gift size).  She told the same story time after time.  I asked Ferf if she had coached her on wording, and she assured me that she had not, and that the Muppet had come up with that all on her own.

So she’s running in the Terry Fox run.  I am pretty sure she will be the highest fund raiser in the class again.  But, if you want to give, you can.  Click this link to the Terry Fox National School Run.   Where it asks for a participant code, type: APSEQT That’s the Muppet’s page.  Donate however much you want so the kids don’t die.  The Muppet and Terry Fox will both be grateful.

But to get back to the original point of this story - drama in the classroom.

Where were we????  Oh yes, we were on the way home from Kindergarten and the Muppet is sharing her day with me.  She sat next to Emma at lunch because her favorite friend was absent.  But that’s okay.  Her favorite friend was probably sick…or on vacation.  And Emma is nice to sit next to because she chews with her mouth closed.  And she doesn’t spit when she talks.  Both of which are social skills that are evidently not universally practiced in her class.  Then, with absolutely no segue, she mentions that Nate doesn’t like it when everyone in the class looks at him when he gets in trouble.  I mentioned casually that maybe he should stop getting into trouble if the looks of others bother him so much.  The Muppet seemed to be underwhelmed with my suggestion and gave me a look that I AM CERTAIN she learned from her mother who gives me the same look when she is underwhelmed with suggestions I make.  She paused dramatically to give the look and continued on with her story about Nate and his distaste for groups of people looking at him when he gets in trouble.  Wanting to be an active listener, I asked what kind of things he did to get in trouble and thereby garner the looks.  The Muppet told me that he is usually just silly or does inappropriate things.

Now, to be fair, the Muppet has a vocabulary that is kind of outside the norm for 5 year olds (at least this is what I have been told by others.  Personally, I think she has an appropriate vocabulary for a 5 year old, but then she is the only 5 year old I have ever had and thus she is judged against herself in my world - thereby ensuring that she is constantly normal).  So when she says that someone does something “inappropriate” I (a) know that she is aware of the meaning of the word and (b) ask a follow up question that you would expect me to: “What kind of inappropriate things does he do?”

Again, I am honestly expecting her to reply with something fairly benign like “forgets to wash his hands before eating” or “cuts in line at the water fountain.”  Inappropriate to be sure, but hardly earth shattering.  So, when I asked the question it was almost a throw away line.  I am driving, she is in the back seat and I simply want her to know that I am listening and engaged with her.  So you can understand that I almost drove off the road when she said, “Like when he’s inappropriate with others in the cloak room.”

<blink>

<blink>

<blink>

<remember to breathe>

<stop the trembling in your hands>

<release the death grip on the steering wheel>

<calm your voice before you speak and sound relaxed>

“What do you mean baby girl?  What kind of inappropriate things does he do with others in the cloak room?”

<blink>

<blink>

<blink>

<check the clock>

<what’s taking so long to answer?>

<don’t sound pushy>

<don’t panic>

“ahem…Muppet?  Did you hear my question?”

“What daddy?”

“I said, ‘What kind of inappropriate things does he do with others in the cloak room?’”

“oh…he talks.  You aren’t supposed to talk in the cloak room - it’s inappropriate.  He does, and so he gets in trouble, and then everyone looks at him.  He doesn’t like that.”

<as feeling returns to my extremities and thoughts of justifiable homicide recede from my consciousness and my heart rate returns to normal>

“yes…I can see that.  Wanna listen to the radio for a bit?”

Seriously, we’re like 3 weeks in…I don’t know if my heart can make it through a whole year of this kindergarten drama…And poor Nate has no idea how close to death he came today - somebody was gonna get hurt real bad!

note to self - teach the Muppet another word for “inappropriate”…one that doesn’t illicit such strong emotional responses from little girl’s fathers.

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Yes, it has been a long time.  Officially this is the longest I have gone without a post of some sort since I started this voyage back in 2006.  My bad.  It’s summer and things have been hectic.  Remember that Ferf broke her foot?  She milked that for a full 2 months in a big boot and “couldn’t really walk” and I was doing WAY more than normal around the house - which is saying something cause, let me tell you, on any given day I do A LOT.  Seriously, Ferf married well!!  But I was doing way more than the way more than normal I do, and bottom line - I (a) didn’t have time (b) was too dang tired or (c) couldn’t come up with an amusing was of telling any stories for a bit.  Oh, and add to that the fact that I had been working more than ever on Ferf’s website and running the business side of her occupation and well, one can only do so much.  At least I can only do so much.  A dear friend of mine recently said to me, “turns out I have a ceiling.”  Evidently I too have one, and unfortunately, the Maru was on the other side of it for a bit.  But two things have me encouraged - first, I am back on the Maru.  Second, I may have a ceiling, but at least it ain’t glass!!  (though that would be so cool during a thunderstorm - but probably not so much during a hurricane)

Anyways, this summer was back to nature here on the Maru.  We, as a family, spent a good deal of time outside and got back to the whole natural eating thing we had slipped away from for a bit.  To that end - we did some serious canning and freezing. So if Y2K ever shows up again, I suppose we’ll be ready.  But don’t you come knocking on my door simply because you didn’t prepare like I did.  I don’t have enough for everyone - but my neighbor down the street does still have a chemical toilet left over from 1999, and he’d prolly let you use that if you came by and needed it.

So, one of the things that Ferf wanted to do this summer was to get some fruit - lots of fruit.  She wanted blueberries, a whole lot of blueberries.  The upside of living where we do in Canada is that fruit grows here like mushrooms in sheeit.  It is everywhere and it is wonderfully sweet and juicy and yummy.  For those of you who were not blessed with knowing me as a young child (and believe me that would truly have been a blessing to you) you would not know how strange it is for me to have written a sentence like that last one - no, not the you would have been blessed to know me as a kid one…the one before that about fruit and it being described with terms like yummy goodness.  As a child I was NOT a fruit fan.  I would eat apples (red delicious only) and occasionally grapes (especially green seedless ones frozen in the freezer).  That was about it.  I simply did not like the flavor or the texture of such things.  I figured that if eating a piece of fruit caused the freaking fall of man, then I was better served to stay away from such things.  Imagine how much better off we’d all be if Adam hadn’t liked fruit.

Genesis 3

The Fall of Man

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, ³ but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ”

“You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. ⁵ “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her.

But Adam was not a fan of fruit and said to his wife, “No thank you.”  His wife said to Him, “But I have taken of it and eaten and did not die.”  Adam cocked his head to the side and said to her, “Look woman, this has nothing to do with the rightness or wrongness of eating a piece of freaking fruit.  You wanna listen to a dang snake, you go right ahead.  But I don’t like fruit all that much, so back up off me woman.”

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and she hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.  But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?”

He answered, “I’m over here, watching my wife try to hide from you in a berry patch.  I told her the thorns would hurt, but she dove right in.  It’s crazy!  She said she had to hide cause she’s nekkid”

And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she ate some.”

Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

Then Adam said, “honestly, I don’t know what’s gotten into this one Lord.  She’s hanging out with snakes, eating bad fruit.  The whole thing is sketchy to me.”

And the Lord, wiped serpents, Eve and fruit off the face of his creation and replaced them with dogs that could speak, beer and women that were totally hot and utterly compliant.”

But that is not how it went down, and here we are today.  But that is not really the point of this post, I was simply letting you know that I used to loathe fruit and now, I really like it.   No, the point of this post is the berry picking portion of the story, which I haven’t even been able to get to yet, cause that saucy tart Eve screwed stuff up so long ago.  We’re still paying the price for her…<sigh>

Anyway, back to the story…let’s see, fruit, yummy goodness, oh yes, I remember!  Ferf wanted fruit.  We have an abundance of “you pick it” fruit farms around us here in the valley.  She thought we might go pick some fruit.  Blueberries to be exact - cause it was blueberry season and she wanted like A LOT of them.  I am into this a bit, but still leery that I will be doing the majority of the picking because the Muppet will enjoy it for about 10 mins before she gets utterly bored and Ferf has the broken foot…SO, I ask the ever-lovin’ wifey how many berries she is thinking about obtaining.  She tells me, “no more than a hundred pounds.”  Oh, good.  Nice to have an upper limit.  100 FREAKING POUNDS OF FRUIT!?  Are you kidding me??  And you want to PICK IT?  BY HAND???  “Well,” she tells me, “it would be cheaper.”

Admittedly, that does tend to get me attention.  “How much cheaper?” I ask.  “I can call and ask,” she replies.  (don’t you love the witty banter we have in our home.  We’re like the Gilmore Girls, only we’re not named Gilmore, and we’re not mother and daughter, and we’re not both female, and..you know what - turns out we’re nothing like the Gilmore Girls…just ignore that whole train of thought.)  SO she calls.  Turns out that to have them picked is $0.10/pound more than you picking them.  Hmmm…so if we got 100 pounds, that would be a $10 difference in total price…It would probably take me 2 days to pick that many berries doing 8 hour days, so my time would in fact be worth…<add the two, sum up, carry the naught, divide by the sum of the parts> $0.62/hour.

So we called and ordered 100 pounds of already picked berries.  WooHoo!!  The next day I got to the berry farm to pick up said berries.  I go to the counter and give them my name and they go to get the berries.  As I am standing there, I figure I’d give something a shot…So I ask the girl, “Since I am buying so much at once - I assume I get a bluk discount, right?”  She looks a little bewilderd, but says, ” I can give you $0.10 off per pound.”

That would be excellent!!!

I love berries!!!

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