Manners

We were returning from a movie (The Grinch, Jolee loved it), and Shayna was
doing grocery shopping with Melanie. Jolee and I were in front of the grocery
store. I sneezed. A woman passing by said "Bless You." I said "Thank you."
Jolee turned to me and glared, "Do you know her?" She said this with a great
deal of suspicion, as if I had just been caught acting improperly. "No," I
replied. Jolee turned away and sighed "You shoudn't talk to strangers."

Have a Happy Thanksgiving, tomorrow we will all be on a plane to Florida for
six days. Jolee is very excited and Shayna is her usual happy self. We are
going to see family, we are not on a field trip to help with the recounting
of ballots. Here's a thought, in the country of Chad, are the little
thingamabobs on the back of ballots called Floridas?

Election Scandal Rocks Bay Ridge Play Place

Last Wednesday, Melanie reported to me that Jolee's teachers had a "mock"
presidential election (which has subsequently become a redundant term) in
which all of Jolee's class (13 kids) voted for Governor Bush, with 1 child
voting for Nader. "OK, I thought, that's some good material. How do I phrase
it so as not to offend the sensibilities of those on this mailing list who
may be supporters of the candidate who received less of the popular vote?"

I mulled this over for several days, and today I was willing to take that
step and break the Jolee/Shayna mailing list silence. But first, I thought,
let me check my facts! So I called Jolee's teacher and asked her, and she
claims that we were given incorrect information, that Jolee and her
classmates all voted for Gore, with one boy actually changing his vote after
the outcome was announced (no butterfly ballot here) and switching to Bush.

So where does that leave us? I was going to gently (very gently) chide the
people who voted "with the three and four-year olds," but then that turns out
to be me (or does it?). I could praise the wisdom of our youngest citizens,
but then what if the second report is false? Shall I call back the Bay Ridge
Play Place and demand a recount? Shall I throw out all reports, since both
teachers involved voted for Nader?
Is this not indicative of the chaos that our country is currently enduring?

I can't get anything more from Jolee other than "A bush is supposed to grow
outside." Shayna is too busy completing amazing feats of psychic ability (how
does she know that whatever she touches will be something that Jolee will
want immediately?) to even care, she'd rather have the Bear in the Big Blue
House move to the Big White House.

So, I guess we're just going to have to accept that we really will never know
who captured the Bay Ridge Play Place electoral votes. NBC originally
reported that Barney the Dinosaur won, but we all know how reliable the media
is.

Jolee and Shayna wish you a happy November and there will be pictures posted
soon on Photopoint so you can see what they've been up to (I tried to dress
them for Halloween but Melanie wouldn't let me, she said no one would "get"
that Jolee was Janet Reno and Shayna was Elian Gonzalez, especially them.)

Who knows, maybe this election business has, if anything, broken the
Jolee/Shayna update silence. Perhaps, before the next update, we will know
who the electoral college will select as our new president, since we can't
rely on a bunch of kids in pre-K to make that decision.