Small Talk at the Tea Party of the Surreal

Nana bought her plastic food.
For her birthday.
And she liked it.

Much of child's play, no matter how inventive, is rooted in realism, a heaping serving of practice-for-adulthood garnished with the silliness-of-childhood to make a sort of magical realism. Moms who use their kitchen to microwave popcorn buy their children play kitchens, filled with play food that the children play cook while their parents heat up a frozen pizza. Parents who shudder in boredom and horror at an invitation to a fancy restaurant snap pictures of their children's fancy tea parties, where people who normally drink water from a Smokey Mo's plastic cup sip Kool-Aid from delicate china cups.

The whimsical and the surreal mingle with the mundane: your daughter may play in her play kitchen, but produce a pickle and cheese sandwich with the lettuce on top. Teddy bears bedecked in more accessories than your average bingo hall crowd get Kool-Aid splashed on their paws by a five-year-old in a licensed Cinderella dress whose wand keeps getting caught in her plastic tiara.

I wasn't an entirely normal kid, but much of my play was firmly grounded in magical realism. Despite having a robust collection of Barbies and stuffed animals, I was determined to put our pet rabbits in the dollhouse, even though they refused to stay posed. I also went through a phase of pretending I was a dog and crawling around on the floor on my hands and knees. Green Milk Bones were the best, as I recall. I once followed the dogs around for a whole day, taking notes.

Eleanor, as my eldest child, took her play as seriously as she has taken everything else in life. There were rules, dear Lord, there were rules. There were the rules, the exceptions and exemptions and qualifications to the rules, and the rules to follow when the exceptions and exemptions were contradicted by the qualifications. When Eleanor invented a game, it was a sure bet that both siblings would wander off in boredom during the Reading of the Rules, before the game actually started, and, in fact, the Reading of the Rules generally lasted longer than the game itself. She once designed an Exercising School for her siblings with a seven-day revolving schedule and a signed contract. Then had a tantrum when they wouldn't sign it.

The proper attire for your big sister's tea party.
Just look at the enthusiasm!

Bruce, too, was grounded in realism, being the extremely concrete child that he is. As a preschooler, he decided to dress up as an owl. Paper feathers, boas, or just pretend were not good enough, not real enough. No, he got naked and taped real feathers all over his body. I'm a little surprised he didn't try jumping off the roof. Being easy going, he often allowed Eleanor to coerce convince him into playing her games.

Betty, however, has never been content with realism, even the magical kind. Her imaginary landscape is firmly in the land of the surreal. She had two friends (Ava and Lola) for six months before any of us realized they were imaginary. Despite having a bin full of Barbie clothes, her Barbies were always naked, generally with very short hair, and often missing a limb or two (likely as a result of accidents occurring when their clothes or hair were removed). To Bruce's horror, they were usually found in the bathtub. If he ever visits a therapist, the first childhood trauma he will relive is going to take a shower and being confronted with a tub full of naked, dismembered Barbies with bad hair, sort of like the climax of a really bad horror movie set in a sorority house. Just last weekend, she produced an abstract musical play ballet that, as best we can tell, involved faeries, of varying numbers, jumping, and some sort of sleeping sickness.

Abraham Lincoln, who may actually have
been 6'1" in that hat.

Which brings us to the ultimate Tea Party of the Surreal: the Third Grade Biographical Research Project, which was a Very Betty Event. Each student had to present their subject, in costume, and respond to questions from the audience--all in the first person. Betty had a beard and a suit and a stovepipe hat and was introduced to the class, not as Betty, but as The Sixteenth President of the United States. It was the ultimate dress-up. Her best friend, Albert Einstein, was quite fidgety, perhaps because s/he went first and had a burst of nervous energy to release. Bill Gates asked Helen Keller, without irony, how she died, and she confessed she didn't know. How-did-you-die, it turns out, is a popular question, along with its corollary, Are-you-still-alive, also asked completely without irony. Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell did not remember how she died, but could tell you confidently and without irony that she did and that she was born in England. Bill Gates related his criminal record (speeding and driving without a license) and wanted to know if Helen Keller knew where her grave was. Thomas Edison really needed a drink of water but had to try to sit still while Albert Einstein explained that her/his favorite equation was E=mc2. Abraham Lincoln was able to correctly state that s/he had moved to Indiana as a youth (s/he had said India in rehearsals, putting an entirely new spin on history), and s/he was able to articulate with gusto the details of his/her assassination by Wicksbooth when questioned but wasn't sure how long it had taken him/her to die.

For an hour, the dead and the living mingled on blue plastic chairs, asking each other personal questions, while tugging on homemade costumes. Each delivered their three-minute, three-index card Spoon River soliloquy, while proud mammas and grandmas sat in the back row, iPhones up and recording. The only thing missing was a set of tiny china cups and a box of cookies.

Because the Sofa Might Eat Us

Or, The Logic of Fear

Dogs, I've often thought, are us as we'd like to be, our ideal selves. They approach the world with eagerness and a spirit of adventure, and they approach others with loyalty and playfulness. A dog will go with you on any adventure, convinced that whatever's at the end of the car ride is going to be awesome, merely because you're taking him there, even if last time was the v-e-t.

Cats have trust issues. They remember that last trip to the v-e-t perfectly well and they definitely aren't fooled by spelling it out. They know that you are not trustworthy because of the multiple occasions when you didn't feed them until 6:35 a.m. instead of 6:30 a.m., when the empty spot in the center of the food bowl reached the size of the donut you were eating right in front of them while not filling it, when the Red Dot of Doom stopped before they indicated they were done chasing it. A cat is perfectly happy to have an adventure--on her own terms, under her own direction, and if she is in control of the adventure and can end it at any time by coming back inside and taking a nap.

In other words, cats (like most of us) adopt a certain suspicious attitude toward change.  Even the most welcome changes can bring that heightened sense of foreboding-tinged joy: this is awesome--when's it gonna start sucking? Unwelcome changes bring on full cattitude: not gonna, don't wanna sulking, an alphabetized list of 3,459 things that will go wrong or reasons why said change won't work, or even a teeth-bared, fangs-out attack on the Unwelcome Change and anyone who supports it.

I've had occasion to hear several people proclaim loudly and earnestly that they LOVE change, that they embrace it. These people, generally speaking, are lying. At least, I assume they're lying based on their flushed faces, raised voices, nervous twitching, and the plethora of anxious questions or speculations about whether and how the future is going to suck that tend to follow the declaration that they love change.

The thing is, it's okay to not be thrilled with change, especially at first. Because, our inner cat remembers all of the changes that haven't ended so well and has heard all of the media speculation and water cooler grumbling and anxious 3 a.m. self-talk that the Unwelcome Change was written into the Holy Books as a clear sign the End Times Are Nigh.

The Change Victims, aka Bob and Daisy

Which brings us to the sofa. We got some new living room furniture last weekend. This involved several changes that had a major impact on Bob and Daisy, our cats. The first change was removing the old sofa. We humans, being Management, had a big picture understanding of why the sofa needed to go. It was too low to the ground for Mother, it didn't fit the shape of the room, it attracted cat hair as though it were trying to reupholster itself, and the cushions not being attached meant that the cushions were always either piled on the floor or about to pile on the floor. It was an easy decision to make, and, after all, we are Management and get to decide things.

The Change Victims, as you might imagine, had a different perspective. They liked the old sofa. The non-attached pillows were soft and made a perfect place to take a nap. The arms were a nice fake leather that is oh-so-soothing to poke holes in with one's claws, and the low back made it easy to launch over during those occasions when one needs to tear through the house like a maniac for no particular reason. So, removing the old sofa was Not Okay.

Kitty Crack

Also, Management did not present the change in a particularly empowering way. Specifically, Management dumped some Kitty Crack in the middle of Bruce's bedroom and shut the door for a couple of hours and when the door was opened, the Unwelcome Change had happened. Friends, I tell you it was horrible. The old sofa was gone, just gone. There was an empty space. No cushy cushions. No clawing material. The Change Victims wandered around in the desert, meowing.

With time (approximately two hours), the Change Victims became sort of used to the Unwelcome Change. The cushy cushions were still gone, but having a ton of extra space in which to chase the Red Dot of Doom was a nice bonus. It was much easier to get to full speed before trying to run up the wall by the a/c closet. The Change Victims felt that maybe, just maybe, they might survive the Unwelcome Change.

Then, the next phase of the Unwelcome Change occurred: the delivery of the new furniture. Once again, Management dumped Kitty Crack in the middle of Bruce's room. While cats, in general, have excellent memories and the Change Victims probably knew at some level this was duplicitous, such is the nature of Kitty Crack that they couldn't help themselves. This time, when the door was opened, New Things were in the living room. New, dangerous things. Yes, it may look like a sofa, but, you never know, it could eat us.

Potentially Cat-Eating Sofa

Thus ensued hours of Cat Drama: ears back, fluffy tailed resistance to the invasion of comfortable furniture. Bob sat under the coffee table and stared intently at the recliner for ten minutes, waiting for it to make its move. When I sat down in it and popped up the foot rest, both cats bolted from the room. Because, you never know, it could've been booby trapped. A full 24 hours later, the sound still made Bob jump. What, you've never seen a La-Z-Boy spit poisoned darts? It could happen.

The first to embrace the Unwelcome Change was Daisy, who is older and wiser and really, really values cushy cushions because her primary activities are sleeping and sitting. (Management facilitated this acceptance by putting her favorite napping bed on the sofa. It is a proven fact that a sofa with a cat bed on it is rarely lethal.) Slowly, Bob, who is young and skittish, has come around, mainly because he is a climber and he can get several inches higher on the new furniture. Also, because the sofa hasn't eaten Daisy yet.

The old sofa is gone; the Unwelcome Change happened. Like many changes, the Change Victims didn't know why it had to happen and they didn't have control or agency regarding the Unwelcome Change. The new furniture is here. There are some things that are good about it, for sure, and not everything changed (there are still some excellent napping options, for instance...just different ones). But the past in all its glory has to be let go, set aside as a memory. The future may indeed suck; the sofa might grow fangs and eat us. It might, however, turn out to be pretty awesome, and while it might not be in our natures to truly embrace an Unwelcome Change, perhaps we can come to terms with it, accept that it has happened even if we fight to change the change, and, with enough time and openness, curl up and settle down into it, own it.

At least until it eats us.

One, As Yet Uneaten, Sleeping Cat

Dyslexic Abe Lincoln, Emo Chris Columbus, Bigot Thanksgiving, and the Filters We Put on History

I have learned much of history that I didn't know from my children. 

Emo Chris Columbus
Bruce, 3rd Grade

For instance, Christopher Columbus was a sad, little hipster man. Bruce taught me that one a few years ago via on of my most treasured Kid Art Masterpieces: Emo Chris Columbus. Just look at those sideburns. The right one might even be a man-bun, escaping from a hat that might once have been sharply befitting a ship's captain, but has, perhaps through ennui, slouched ironically into a sort of limp ferret. His eyes are round and full of tears. Perhaps, as a friend once suggested, he has the feels about that whole genocide thing. You can almost see him shrugging his shoulders: not that he wanted all that gold anyway, because Emo Chris is clearly not that kind of dude (his suit is definitely Salvation Army and might even be a rather threadbare velvet) but the fact that the gold wasn't there was just some sort of commentary on wealth and how it wasn't fairly distributed and also how advertising sucks.

Dyslexic Abe Lincoln
Betty, 3rd Grade

I also learned a bit about Abraham Lincoln this week, courtesy of Betty's third grade spring research project. He stored papers in his hat to keep them dry, which may explain why it looks a little rumpled and bulgy. He also may be a Twinkie, unless the white stripe is a vague tie or he got splinched in a very bad apparition accident. Also, I am more impressed than ever that he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, given his lack of arms. He also proves conclusively that Emo Chris is a wimp, because his sideburns are so masterful that they grow into his beard, forming a giant happy smile of facial hair. Take that, Emo Chris! You may have led the Spanish to North America, but you just got schooled on sideburns. Bam!

The most adorable thing about Honest Abe, however, is that he, like my beautiful daughter, appears to be seeing the world in a unique way. Note that Dyslexic Abe is standing in front of a intricately drawn--yet backwards--American flag. I told her he was just standing on the other side of it, but Betty insisted on redrawing it. Strangely enough, the version with the forward facing flag was less detailed, the stars becoming fuzzy dots swirled in a tangled blue net and the pole on the wrong side of the flag. I much prefer Dyslexic Abe, his smile is more genuine and kind. You can tell from the Charlie Brown arch to his eyebrows that he is happy to have freed the slaves and ended the war. He looks like a great guy to sit down with on the White House lawn and feed the birds. Arms are over-rated anyway.

I've learned a few historical facts from the kids' elementary school that were considerably less profound, we'll call them 'alternative facts.' The kids' father and I celebrated that November 2015 was the final year for Bigot Thanksgiving, which was becoming more cringey by the child. Bigot Thanksgiving is a frankly horrible Reader's Theater play that our school does every year with second graders. It was...unsettling...when Eleanor was in second grade. It was that kind of creepy-funny where you're embarrassed at that one time you chuckled during the performance when Bruce was in second grade. It was just wrong, wrong, DO YOU KNOW WHAT YEAR IT IS, ROUND ROCK???? wrong when Betty was in second grade.

Are you ready to enjoy Bigot Thanksgiving? Are you sure? Well, in this magical world, three girls are Pilgrim Women, three boys are Pilgrim Men, three girls are Indian Women (yes, of course they're called 'Indian'...this is Bigot Thanksgiving, silly!), three boys are Indian Men, there's the Preacher (a boy, all three times), and the remainder of the kids are Corn or Turkeys. The teacher reads a story of the First Bigot Thanksgiving, and when she says their character, the kids respond in what is presumed to be their character:

• Pilgrim Men: Bang! Bang! (Are we really equating masculinity with firearms in the second grade?)
• Pilgrim Women: <get ready for it....> Mercy me! (Complete with dramatic sigh and backward hand to the forehead, because, you know, women are such delicate, dramatic little creatures, particularly the ones who uproot from their home country, cross months of stormy seas and battle famine and unending labor in the wilderness. But yes, MERCY ME!)
• Indian Men: Big and brave! (Which is not, technically, something they would say, so much as an overgeneralized stereotype that seems to come out of a really cheesy Western, but, whatevs.)
• Indian Women: <there's no getting ready for this one, sorry> Shhhh! (Complete with finger to the lips, because, as we have seen on the Senate floor, the only good woman is a quiet one.)
• Preacher: Praise the Lord! (We'll just ignore the whole church-and-state thing, as well as the fact that the elementary school in question is quite diverse and many of the children are of other faiths. We'll also ignore the tendency to cast the preacher as a boy, mainly because I already wrote this particular school regarding their sexist end-of-year awards a long time ago.)
• Corn: Pop! Pop! (Did they seriously pop the corn at the first Thanksgiving? I am skeptical. And why corn? Before you suggest that they didn't want to embarrass a child by having them wear a potato hat, I'd like to point out that my middle child was Clyde the Dancing Cockroach in the end-of-year play. Child dignity is not necessarily a priority.)
• Turkeys: Gobble! Gobble! (Okay, fine, except that at the very end, everyone, including the corn and turkeys, says, "YUM! YUM!" all together, which has some rather disturbing cannibalistic overtones if you think about it too hard, which you tend to do by the third child.)

So there you have it, history in elementary school. Personally, I prefer Emo Chris, who is unafraid of his emotions and may have learned some valuable life lessons along the way, and Dyslexic Abe, smiling, warm, and unfazed by his backwards flag and lack of arms, to the starched white and saccharine identity boundaries of Bigot Thanksgiving. In the real world, we soldier on through difficulties and learn from our mistakes. In the real world, we are not defined by two-word labels. In the real world, women and people of color don't have to be silent. And that is something to be thankful for.