Happy Bunny Day

Bless Him

Fred is in town and I am wondering whether three weeks will suffice to get him to listen to at least one episode of Bill Moyers’ Journal. He loathes the program but more than that he fears it. To him it is an ever threatening anathema to his Weltanschauung and so is the green movement, and -- for that matter -- any movement at all.

To Fred, the world is at its best. Human beings are the crest of evolution and in light of a dooming ice age, global warming is a good thing. I am not kidding you. Fred, biology professor and renaissance man, believes in fairy tales and lies to soothe his troubled soul.

Why, I wonder, do continue to be amazed and puzzled at the state of this world.

For the next days, however, I will be out of town to find bliss on other shores. I am leaving the kids with Fred and Yia Yia and, hopefully, Zoe will have set grandpa straight by the time I get back. I am quite confident.

When in Britain...

One thing I am beginning to realize two months into our lives in Britain is that British culture is one to reckon with. The Brits have their very own way of doing things and for most part, I think, they’ve got it right.

While it may be debatable whether tea must always be served with milk, they certainly have got a point when promoting locally grown produce, preserving farm land, and supporting the arts in the class room.

As a matter of fact, I like their take on most things. Maybe that’s just because their stubborn approach to so-called progress in some way mirrors mine.

After all, why should streets be broadened only so that more cars can drive on them? Why should more farmland be given up for development so that more people can commute from further away? And, really, why should the UK become part of the EU only because everyone from the Balkan to the Baltic is doing it?

However, I am, to say the least, mildly bewildered when it comes to understanding the rational behind their extremely complex education system.

While it may be regarded as merely cute that they call public all that is in fact private (for what else would you expect a Brit to do?), it can become rather time consuming and annoying when trying to figure out the sheer endless variations on the theme.

There are state-funded state schools, religious schools, grammar schools, and comprehensive schools. Prep-schools and pre-prep schools, however, seem to be always private, uh, public.

And while it is generally conceded that state funded schools are not as good as privately run institutions, some of them may actually be very good and quite exclusive. To get into them you have to be eleven years old and must have taken an exam, the 11+. That much I have figured out. However, different age requirements seem to apply for boys.

I also have figured out that it is basically impossible to find a reputable school to take a child beyond the age of 15 because the so-called top schools are very concerned about their final exam averages and, therefore, wouldn’t want to run the risk of taking on anyone but Einstein (if, in fact, they could make him out in a crowd).

I conclude, therefore, that the Brits are just as confused and panicked as everyone else in this world as far as their off-spring, i.e., their gene pool, is concerned.

How to ensure that their children will make it in this breathtakingly fast and efficient (albeit otherwise doomed) world doesn’t seem that clear to them. And, really, it isn’t.

It’s just sad that for all their stubbornness they haven’t come up with anything more... British.

Just like everyone else they scurry around like a mad bunch of chicken like in the movie Chicken Run advocating tougher entrance exams, national standards, and if all fails, elite education. Like everywhere else, mummies in this country busy themselves running their pallid third graders across town three times a day to keep up with that elusive thing called ‘a good education.’

What ever happened to four o’clock tea, I wonder? What happened to that minute or two reserved for quite introspection?

I saw an add for an after-school study program yesterday that read, “(...)exams, coursework, homework, revisions, essays...secondary school education is not an easy thing. Many children are suffering the symptoms of stress and exhaustion as the demands and expectations on them increase. So what can you do to help your child (...)?”

AFTER-SCHOOL STUDY PROGRAM??? Hellooooo, anyone home? Where are all ye smart Brits now??

I have to admit that while I have a hard time concealing my disappointment about this blind frenzy, I am grateful that at least the Brits are elitist enough to allow home education.

However, for a moment there I was swaying ready to succumb to the pressure, spurred on by the human desire to fit in, because after all most is good imn this corky little island state.

But then, what’s wrong with being more British than the Brits?

Aah

I just took a long bath. I sat in the steaming tub until I couldn’t feel my legs anymore.

I was afloat.

For a moment or so, I actually dozed off and found myself in a space between reality and dream. While my mind wandered in the past, my feelings remained suspended in my comfortable aquatic environment.

I relived our last year without the anxieties that have trailed on our heals like a surly gnome. And suddenly it all wasn’t that bad at all.

It was a strenuous year, one that was filled with good-byes, suitcases, taxi rides, water bottles, fluttering hearts and queazy stomachs. But while bobbing in my extra deep tub, my skin turning into a rubbery mess, all of that didn’t matter.

Ah, the midnight bath. It’s a tough drug to resist.

Mad Scientist

I usually have a pretty good gut instinct when I throw clothes into the washer. Anything light or with light stripes or dots, even if most of the fabric is a darker shade, I wash them with whites. It seems logical and has worked for me. Well, friday it didn’t.

The sounds of my quiet and subsequently less quiet desperation called everyone in the kitchen where I sat kneeling on the floor, a pile of bright pink dress shirts on my lap. The culprit, a light pink T-shirt was guiltily cowering on the edge of the open washer.

“Not good,” I scolded the wet miserable lump in front of me (in fact, I may also have used some other more pointed words). I used to be even more of a compulsive type, taking this kind of defeat rather personally. And even though I wanted to kick my own ass (and almost succeeded in doing so), I managed to move on leaving failure behind me like dried out tube of toothpaste.

Years of living with children and being forced not only to face my shortcomings but also to live with them has taught me a neat trick: shrugging. I am still no pro at it and the tenseness between my shoulders tends to get in the way of it...but I am working on it.

Anyway, after the halo of fumes lifted I decided to google and find out what exactly had happened to Matt’s shirts and to see whether a lesson could be learned and maybe even taught. I also decided that maybe the inevitable bleach bath would be fun for the children to observe.

And did they have a ball. Clad in my white bathrobe to avoid further unwelcome stains and wielding toxic substances while elaborating on pigments and dyes I looked like the mad chemist from their comic books. In fact, Zoe liked my performance so much that she has decided to study Chemistry when she is done being a concert violinist and a relief worker in Sudan

That, or she may just have gotten the wrong idea...that scientists are people who walk around in bathrobes all day...

Gone

I should probably not be sitting here typing right now. It’s the middle of the afternoon. Julian and the girls are jammed into a small crowded room pretending they are monkeys in the dark. And if I interpret the noises correctly they are about finished sharing bananas. The thuds and bumps are getting harsher and there are distinctly fewer giggles now than just five minutes ago.

Ah, yes. Life.

I keep sneaking away from it from time to time. I hide in some remote corner of the house, a small space tucked away on the second floor, hoping it won’t stumble upon me. I dig my fingers into the key board as if that would keep me safe.

My words will forever be last words, like the confessions of a death row inmate. And just like that last blabber, my words will remain suspended in a vacuum after I will have been called away.

But right now, I am still sitting here typing away pretending there is no limit to time nor travel. While this moment lasts, I am free.

In fact, this moment is what makes me appreciate that freedom. It reminds me how precious it is. And as with most things in life that we appreciate, we tend to treasure them, because they are scarce.

And, whoops, gone...talk to you later...gotta go.