Gay Penguins and Grooming the Kitty

October 12, 2007

Ah, yes. It’s Friday. Sigh.

I woke up late (9 a.m.!) and then I took Hermia (my aged cat) to Petsmart for her first ever grooming! She’s pretty tubby, and old, and so she has a hard time cleaning herself. We decided we should take her to get washed/brushed.

We’ve washed her in the bathtub before, but then she usually ends up getting matted fur. The picture to the left is from her last bath, about a month ago– there she is stepping off of the Weight Watchers scale.

She was soooo mad. She’s a pretty vocal cat and boy was she talking today. But it was really needed. Anyway, she looks nice and soft and lovely now.

Today was one of those mornings where I thought, you know what? I deserve a cheese bagel. I don’t usually eat bagels, let alone cheese bagels but it had been a long long week so I had one of those NACHO CHEESE BAGELS (you know the one with a huge slab of cheese melted over it and jalapeno peppers) from Einstein’s. Add some light cream cheese and tomatoes and i’m in Heaven.

Then I did prep work for one of my classes– the one that meets at 8 a.m. on M/Wed. I like to get it done before the weekend so I can do my own work. This week, though I was exhausted by Thurs night (after teaching m-thur, teaching night class mon/wed, and taking a writing class Tuesday night) I still had a really good week of teaching. In my Advanced Comp Class at the community college we had a very cool discussion on banning books– focused on the book, “And Tango Makes Three” which is a much lauded/award-winning children’s book about the two male penguins in the Central Park Zoo raising a baby penguin.

The book has been ‘challenged’ in various schools and libraries over the last year –for its ’subtle homosexual undertones’ –deemed inappropriate for a children’s book (because kids don’t have gay parents, right?), so I brought in this article for the students to read and discuss. This is an ‘argument’ based class (all of the essays they write deal with various arguments/persuasion/rhetorical strategies involving argument) and I asked them to come up with various claims about the book–should it be banned? why or why not? etc.

The students were mostly (and refreshingly) candid about their feelings–and, almost unanimously against the banning of the book. Just about everyone was very gay friendly and the class seemed pretty united on that front. There was one student, however, a foreign student, who disagreed with everyone, saying that children shouldn’t be reading about homosexuals. They are too young, she said. They should be reading fairy tales, not about abnormal lifestyles. The jaws of most of the students dropped to the floor and I could see several of my kids getting visibly upset about her comment. Of course I need to try to remain fairly neutral and allow everyone to share their opinions freely and respectfully, but I couldn’t help but to repeat her statement back to her, “so you’re saying that kids who are being raised by two parents of the same sex are living in an abnormal household?”

Anyway, that’s why I wanted to have the discussion, specifically for statements like hers so that we can have intelligent, provocative, and hopefully thoughtful discussions. And we did. The book, I have to say, is pretty damn cute and just about everyone agreed on that.

Here are some excerpts (images and text courtesy of Simonsays.com/Simon and Schuster, Inc.) :

And in the penguin house there are penguin families.

Every year at the very same time, the girl penguins start noticing the boy penguins. And the boy penguins start noticing the girls. When the right girl and the right boy find each other, they become a couple.

Two penguins in the penguin house were a little bit different. One was named Roy, and the other was named Silo. Roy and Silo were both boys. But they did everything together.

They bowed to each other.

And walked together.

They sang to each other.

And swam together.

Wherever Roy went, Silo went too.

Adorable.

Ok, going to make some dinner now. Friday night Ted and I usually stay in and make a nice dinner, martinis, watch a movie or read, and take care of our baby penguin. I know, exciting life, right?

Tonight i’m making Salmon Patties and a side dish of sauteed arugula and cannelini beans (a modification of this weight watchers recipe, only without the pasta).

I’ll blog more tomorrow– and tell/show you my new postcards for the next post.due postcard swap. I made two new postcards last night and am going to make a few more tonight. If you’re reading this and want to do something fun– join the post.due postcard swap on swapbot! it’s a blast. I’ve already recruited two of my friends, Lee and Shin. More on how they’ve become these amazing crafters/postcarders who put my flimsy little postcards to shame tomorrow as well as some good advice I received last week from two collage-ers.

Happy Friday.