Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Lola plays the race card

We've been assailed by vicious storms these last few days, storms which we welcome heartily with the hope that our drought-afflicted reservoirs will recover, but from which we recoil in fear of traffic accidents and power outages (it took me two hours yesterday to make what should have been a 42 minute drive on 280; two horrendously stressful, white-knuckle hours during which I hydroplaned twice and drove past three accidents). The children and I looked about cautiously as we were leaving the house to take Iris to her evening writing class. "Is it going to rain?" they asked me.

"I think so."

Lola took offense. "You're racist!"

"What?" I didn't get where that was coming from.

Lola explained. "Maybe that is a colored person cloud, not a rain cloud. You're racist!"

I stared at Lola nonplussed. Iris explained. It turns out there was an all-school assembly today in honor of the Dr. Martin Luther King, and Lola was quite impressed by it. Why she would take this new-found commitment to acceptance to turn against her own mother, who baked a cake on MLK Day in remembrance of one of the most celebrated graduates of her own beloved university, Boston University, though, remains obscure.

7 comments:

hughman said...

you might want to tell her "colored person" isn't exactly the most PC nowdays.

also, i almost went to BU! i was accepted but went somewhere else.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
hughman said...

obviously i'm speaking the wrong language.

the Drunken Housewife said...

There's been a lot of spam lately here, but I hate to turn back on the comment controls because, sad to say, some of the most valued, long-term commenters get filtered out as well. Some of our most beloved readers haven't quite got their heads around mastering the intricacies of blogger.com.

the Drunken Housewife said...

p.s. I also can't bring myself to delete comments written in kanji. I allow the children to be rude and aggressive if they can do it in song or in an extremely witty way, and I will allow the spambots to spam if they can do it in a visually appealing foreign language.

Vodalus said...

Heh, I'll use my blogspot log in for just this once.

Would your girls' school like a free 50 gallon aquarium complete with two filters, real plants, driftwood and pretty rocks? There's also some Serpae tetras, snails, fancy meat-eating plecos, and some algae eaters.

I think the dimensions are 3 feet long, 1.5 feet wide, and 1.5 feet deep. Those are called "breeder" dimensions as the depth allows for greater freedom for swimming.

At one point it was a beautiful tank that I maintained frequently. Then grad school and chronic depression happened. The good news, though, is that I can promise that a minimum amount of maintenance is necessary to keep these fish alive. The bad news for me is that my fiance wants me to get rid of it because I don't maintain it anymore.

Anyways, I'm looking to donate it to a school or similar organization. Its the sort of setup that's hard to sell for any worthwhile amount but would be a great tax write-off. I can't deliver, but I'm sure that there is at least *one* PTA mom with an SUV at the school...

the Drunken Housewife said...

Vodalus, that is a sweet offer, and I understand about the grad school thing. Law school put me in a giant funk... and at least it was go in, get out in 3 years. The Sober Husband went through a funk in grad school that made his PhD take a couple of years longer. I will check with our school... actually, I think that our former preschool might want it also. I will get back to you next week. Thanks!