A Fine Line

Boy was that turkey good.

In order to stave off the discomfort of the Palin public humiliation and slaughter of Alaskan birds, I had to fool myself so I would be able to eat the dinner my sister so generously prepared. It had to have been a lot of work. Approaching the front door I smelled the trademark family holiday smell and it was good. It took me about seven seconds to get to the carving tray where I hand-hovered over the little hunks looking for just the right catch then pecked a long piece of white meat like a bird plucks fish out of a lake.

When meat is sliced, it doesn’t look like an animal anymore. It became in my mind, sort of like cake that signified a party. The rest of the “cake” still took on the look of a turkey, yes but cake makers can be very clever these days (yeah, that’s you Ace of Cakes). I convinced myself that it was a plate accessory, rather than the main character of the dinner story.

I’m probably not the only one in America who swore not to eat meat again after the sideshow of last week, and certainly not the only one to have gone back on the promise to myself and to other living things that they would no longer be my next guilty pleasure. Now, after the way I went after that meal even my dogs are looking at me with suspicion.

I’m weak I’m weak, but right after I eat the take home pie Grandma Jo sent me out with, I’ll gird up my loins (don’t worry pigs) and renew my resolve to cut out the meat. On a grander level I’ll try yet again to prove to myself that there is at least the small possibility that I might be able to exhibit a modicum of willpower and self-regulation.

This year I blame my sister as I wipe cold turkey sandwich off my face, she and my pumpkin and apple pie baking mother who use culinary art as a form of mind control.

It worked.

Wow, I’ve never seen turkeys being slaughtered before. I’m one of those people who operates with my fingers in my ears, saying la,la,la,la over and over again until the truth teller goes away. My meat is grown on Styrofoam. There have been a couple times in the recent past, however, that caused me to erase my vote for eating meat. One was a newscast showing how Foie Gras was actually made. Stretching a goose throat and forcing it to feed was horrifying. I’ve never ordered it, but never complained about it either. This turkey slaughter debacle was the other. Shoving a turkey head first into a machine that punctures, then drains the turkey of its life blood was not easy to watch. “Well, where do you think turkey dinner comes from?” I ask myself as I’ve asked my students through the years. Seeing it was something different.

When we talk to children about rural vs. city life, the discussion is always steered to farms. Every year there are kids who look absolutely stupefied when asked where things like bacon, hot dogs and hamburgers come from. One child, when asked the origin of pork, yelled out “Chickens!” with a weird sense of certainty. Another was convinced ham was from cows, hamburger was from pigs and fish were declared to have sprung from…fish. One for four.

In the interest of full disclosure, I think we have a responsibility to understand, and pass on the understanding to our children that when we eat meat, something had to die. We need to connect the living things of the world with, if nothing else, acknowledgement. I’m not for making people feel guilty about what they choose to eat, or not eat and I’m sure I’ll be diving in to a nice grilled steak sometime soon. I’m not, nor have ever been a vegetarian. Meatloaf reminds me of my childhood, shrimp cocktails preclude special events, hot dogs and burgers bring families, tailgaters and neighborhoods together. But I think killing is starting to get to me, on every level.

At the very least, we all owe it to ourselves to think about it. So thanks, Sarah. You gave me pause for thought. Your thinking still scares the hell out of me, but this was a good wake-up slap across the face. If only the executioner would have taken a moment to thank each animal for its sacrifice, maybe it would have felt a little different. But then, it's not about me. From now on when I talk with kids about where food comes from, I’ll be sure to put a bit more heart in it.

There are some things teachers do not look forward to and November is one of them. Report cards, which take many volunteer hours to do, parent/teacher conferences which also take hours to appropriately prepare for are the first two. More than that, it is the welcome mat for the upcoming holidays. There are some things parents can do to make their child’s school life more productive than it normally is at the end of each year. Some teachers pretty much feel that come mid-November, the idea of teaching anything new, difficult or the least bit complex should be put on hold. The kids are falling to hype just the way many of us are. November brings Thanksgiving, which brings relatives in many instances. Children are excited to hear of all the plans for the day. They go along shopping for the turkey or turducken or tofurkey and see it become the 400 pound gorilla in the room until the holiday is over. Children know that right after Thanksgiving goes out the back door, _______ (fill in special day here) comes in the front. Even if your family doesn’t celebrate a holiday during this time, school is out. This is reason enough for kids to be excited. Something different is great, as long as it doesn’t last too long.

At the risk of seeming like jerks, teachers say very little about things these two months. We write our plans in pencil. It would help if parents could keep in mind that after the kids are wound up, they come spinning into classrooms the following day. Please:

-Don’t start baking cookies until December. Nothing says school’s out like staying up until 9pm putting frosting on sugar cookies.

-If Grandma and Grandpa are coming, hold the news inside until the morning of the day they arrive.

-Under no circumstances should you take children shopping for gifts with you. They become temporarily disassociated with reality, much like democrats on the evening of November 4. It takes a while for them to come down off the possibility high.

-Withhold all holiday plans from your children. Every day can be a new adventure. Pretend it’s spontaneous.

-Don’t let kids sign holiday cards. It adds a commitment to their celebrations…a binding contract.

-Keep bedtime what it always is. No late nights no matter how much fun they are having watching the adults play Trivial Pursuit like a blood sport. In fact, move bedtime to an hour earlier.

Families please, have mercy on your child’s teachers. Go along with us in our sometimes futile attempts to keep school a place of learning. If a bunch of art projects that take the shapes of turkeys, snow people, horns of plenty, and the ubiquitous evergreen trees start coming home, you’ll know we’ve given up.

Happy (Insert holiday here.)

Hey, have you stepped outside? It’s cold out there. Children don’t necessarily pay attention to the weather; they run right over it on the way to the equipment. You won’t believe what they don’t notice. We will find kids outside with no mittens, and they don’t seem to get that you can pull your hands up into your sleeves or put them in the pockets of the warm jacket they did remember to put on. Don’t bother with gloves. They are useless to little kids. First of all the kids can’t get their fingers in them if they are lined or when they are wet, and secondly half of them don’t know left from right so it takes a lot of time to twist the glove around. Many kids don’t even consider it’s on the wrong hand. Help a teacher, buy mittens. Thrill a teacher; buy mitten clips.

Children have hoods, but they are so floppy that little ears are bright red after time outside. Many a teacher has taken off their scarf to wrap around a child’s exposed ears. It seems like it is only then that some realize how cold they actually are! Be sure your child’s hood closes tightly or a hat comes to school. Be sure to label it with a name, though, because blue or purple knit hats all look alike.

Whoever invented boot liners should have taken forty kids outside in winter before going to the patent office. As long as the liners are in the boots things are fine, but after the first roll in the snow they come out with the foot and the sock. Don’t get boots with liners. Your child will be frustrated every day.

Snow pants. The plastic adjusters on the shoulders either don’t work or they break. That’s just a fact. Figure out a way to make them so they don’t slip and pass it around to all the parents of Shorewood. We will all thank you. Once again, put a name on the inside.

Just so you know, when kids come to school on a really cold day improperly dressed we can’t help but wonder. Even if your child refuses to wear stuff, send it along in a bag and we will force them to put it on later. It usually doesn’t take much. We’re not you. They succumb and later thank us for it, but not out loud.

Sweet winter. How we have missed you…