A Step In the Right Direction

The attached article is just a quickie, about the push to ban food waste in the UK. If this goes through, all food, vegetable and plant matter that CAN be composted, WILL be composted - either in home garden compost bins, or by a pick up service. The Brits see their waste as an opportunity. Brilliant!

Click Here For The Article

Peanuts, and other examples of the Golden Rule

Today, on Momlogic, I read an article that got my dander up. I've linked it here:

Dander raising article

In summary, it's an article about a group of parents in a school in Volusia County School District, who want a child removed from a first grade classroom and homeschooled instead.

Why? Because she has a peanut allergy, and her allergy requires her classmates to take certain precautions with her health. The parents feel these precautions are too much for their first graders to bear, and so, the child in question must be gotten rid of.

Before I begin my rant on the subject, let me make a couple caveats:

I read just the ONE article on the subject, and didn't do any fact checking. I don't know where the county or the school are, and I don't know the date of the Reuters article that is quoted in the blog. I have not been reading Momlogic long, and won't vouch for them.

In short, for all I, and presumably, YOU, know: One parent suggested to a reporter that the child be removed from school, and this is not the feeling of the rest of the class parents. Out of context, the suggestion sounds horrible. In context, it could have been an offhand remark, a bit of unrecognized sarcasm, or the opinion of one person without the authority to speak for the group.

I point all of this out in a Devils Advocate sort of way, in hopes that I might inspire people to THINK about what they read online. Hope springs eternal.

Now, on to the subject at hand:

According to the article, the children of the classroom are being asked to take the following steps to help ensure her safety:

1) Wash their hands after arriving at school and after lunch.

2) Rinse their mouths out after eating.

That's right. THESE CHILDREN MUST PRACTICE BASIC HYGIENE!

Oh, the horror.

What they are NOT asking the kids to do, or the parents to do:

Stop eating peanuts or peanut butter.
Stop bringing peanuts or peanut butter to school.
Alter their little lives in anyway other than washing their hands and rinsing their mouths with tapwater.

Now, we're going to disregard a few things here. Things like my supposition that at least 50% of the peanut butter being consumed by these kids is of the Skippy, Peter Pan variety, and not actually fit for human consumption. That's another rant for another time.

We're also going to disregard: If being made to wash their hands is the biggest issue in these childrens lives, I'm moving my whole family to this town.

In many schools and afterschool programs ( I taught in one.) peanuts are entirely verboten. Not allowed. At all. So many children are being diagnosed with allergies to peanuts now.. and the allergies are not of the 'runny nose and hives' type. They are of the 'dead in minutes' type. These parents have no idea, apparently, how good they've got it. The little girl with the allergy is going to have to eat her lunch in seclusion, but their kids can still have their PB & Js. They should be thanking the school board, really.

Let's look at what these parents are teaching their children with their 'remove the offending child' rhetoric:

"Your friend has an illness! Don't be friends with her!"
"Your classmate is different! Make her go away!"
"Your playmate could keel over dead at any moment! Be afraid, be afraid!"

Now, I haven't been to church in 20 years. But I do remember the Golden Rule.
'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.'

(I know, I know, Old English! With all these peanut allergic sick kids, who has time for learning that?! Here's a translation: "Treat people the way you would want to be treated.")

One father of two is quoted:
"If I had a daughter who had a problem, I would not ask everyone else to change their lives to fit my life," said Chris Burr, a father of two students at the school.

Ahem. *coughbullshitcough*

If your daughter had a problem, like say, Juvenile Diabetes.. YOU WOULD WISH FOR A FUCKING PEANUT ALLERGY. you moron. And you would absolutely expect the other children in the class to A) Not make fun of her. B) Learn from her disease, to not be afraid of needles, how the body works, nutrition, and a bunch of other things. and C) You would bring a lawsuit the size of which no one has SEEN if the school suggested she leave.

Trust me. I know whereof I speak.

I know it's unlikely that I'll be believed, but I do understand where these parents are coming from. It's SCARY to have a sick kid in your childs class. Especially 1st grade, where so many parents are learning the educational ropes for the first time. I imagine that these parents are wondering what will happen to their child if this little girl DOES fall ill, and have a reaction in the classroom. Will their children be traumatized by the epi-pen, which will be injected as her throat closes and she's having a seizure? What if it's THEIR kids fault? If Tommy forgets to wash his hands, and Sally dies as a result.. how's that gonna play out?

These folks are doing the normal thing, and looking at the situation from their, and their kids, perspective.

Let's look at it from the Allergic Girls perspective.

She's 6 years old. She didn't ask to be born with this allergy. She just wants to fit in. She wants to have friends, and go on field trips, and be normal. No one will let her, and now there's all this attention being put on her allergy, and Tommy isn't allowed to play tag with her at recess.

Is that how you would want your kid to be treated? yeah, I didn't either.

I'm sure that in a few weeks, if I go looking (because happy endings are NEVER publicized.) I'll find that the school board met, the parents got educated, a few were still grumpy, and life went on. The girls not going to get kicked out of school. Nor, realisticly, is she going to die from peanut poisoning. The other children will probably be healthier than the rest of the school, because they have to wash their hands so often. With luck, they will remember this someday in the future, and use it as a lesson in being nice to people who are different.

Hope springs eternal.

It's snowing. Juuust enough to make me wish I could turn back time and be in the sunshine with the kids again, like I was yesterday.

Spring, Eventually

Once upon a time, I used to have a rule.

The cable went on each Thanksgiving, and was turned off each Easter.

We live in New Hampshire, where the cold winds blow for months on end, and summer is a stolen afternoon. No need to waste our precious sunshine on television!

Eventually, we just didn't turn the cable back on. Can't say I miss it. What TV I watch, I get a la carte on my computer, without commercials. It's rather lovely.

Instead, a new distraction must be conquered this year. More insidious than cable, it disguises itself as 'communication'. I fall for it every day, no matter how hard I try to resist. Gone are email, and phone conversations. Gone, too, are my blog posts and painting. Time to reclaim my creativity, at least until the Autumn winds drive us back indoors.

From May 1st until at least Sept. 1st of this year, I will not be on Facebook. I won't have access to it, nor will I have the passwords.

Instead, if you want to kayak, or garden, or drink iced tea... See photos of the kids at the beach, or hear the latest in the Oden Tales.. If you're just dying to hear my dulcet laughter..

Call me.

Or, text, email, or comment here.

I'm not losing touch with reality, just with Facebook.

Shamble for a Cure! Or, you know, Braaaiiinnnsss

I hear that there are towns in New England that hold Fall Festivals with things like apple pie baking contests and foliage peeping tours.

Thank God I don't live there!

For the Fourth year running, Dover was the host city for a Zombie Walk. A shambling, limb -shedding horde that gathers each year to .. well, really, to go for coffee. We don't have a higher cause or greater purpose. We're zombies.

This years walk started out at the Silver Moon Creperie on 3rd street, for a little pre-stumble apple cider. When the crowd reached 'horde' proportions, we made our way through downtown Dover, amusing and attempting to eat passersby. Those diners who chose window seats at Central ave restaurants got lunch AND a show, as the more articulate undead pressed themselves against windows and grunted "mmMm! Sushi Brains!" and the like.

The re-animated mob made it's way to Adelles coffee shop, where we were treated to half price coffee, a costume contest, and a brain eating race. I hear there was a discount on drinks at the Barley Pub, as well, once Woodsman Zombie Jill put away her chainsaw and got to work.

The brain eating race gets under way. This years winners in the no handed, 120 second feast? Two grade school boys who teamed up on one brain. (Yay Thai!) The cranium comestibles were disturbingly realistic in their nearly solid, bounced when dropped on the pavement texture. I heard that the "Cheese Brain" was taken from a Packers fan.

Our fearless, soulless leader, Captain Clow.

Folks, I'd like to propsoe a rule: If you get turned in to the walking dead, do NOT eat EMO KIDS! You will only turn them in to one of your own brain craving, bone gnashing kind.. and that's how we wind up with scenes like the one above. Emo Zombies. Feh.

Zombie love. It's eternal.

The horde sipping their 1/2 price drinks from ADELLES COFFEE SHOP! (Go there, buy coffee, make art.)

Never. Ever. Flip off a zombie nun. Because that's not HER finger she's holding up.

This is what a vegetarian zombie who grosses out at the sight of fake blood looks like. I can't explain the unicorns.

Itty bitty zombies need their bottles, and daddys.

Zombie walk rule #1: Obey the walk signals. This keeps you animated to shamble another day, as well as allowing valuable "freak out the people sitting in their cars" time.

Micheala taking advantage of the wait for the walk light, growling at passing motorists.

Our fan club. Yes, we have one. Don't you?

haHA

After Much ado, I've managed to worm my way back in to this Blog. Forgotten passwords be damned, we're all here now, and I, for one, intend to make the best of it.

Watch this space!

1/2 way there..

Well, it's sort of a halfway point. We've about a month left in our journey, not quite a midpoint on the calander, but it's a milestone, of sorts, today.

It's half past midnight here, and Tris and I are waiting for the call from Nancy to tell us that her (delayed) flight has arrived, and we should come get her at the airport.

For the past two weeks, we've been on our own, and utterly irresponsible. It's been delightful, this time to sit and do nothing if we feel like it, to just relax. Tris and I are recharged, rejuvenated, and raring to get on the road.

Plus, we don't want to out stay our welcome. Nancy and Aaron have been the kindest of kind, giving us this time to get ourselves together. We've had a wonderful home to stay in, a surrogate dog to play with, and some great heart to heart conversations. Time for us to take all this newfound energy, and do something productive with it.

We'll be here in Las Vegas for a few more days - really, we haven't spent any time with Nancy, except for 24 extremely jet lagged hours- and it will be interesting to hear her take on New Hampshire. I wonder what's changed back home that I had taken for granted, that will surprise her. And what's stayed the same.

Mid week we'll get in the car, me and Tris and our cameras, and head... well. Not sure yet about that. Maybe to California first, for Carlsbad caverns and Legoland. Or perhaps we'll save that for the end of the trip, and strike east, and north from here to Colorado. Time enough to make plans in the morning.

Meanwhile, I've an internet to surf, cable to watch, and a dog snoring at my feet. Doesn't get much better than that.