Animal TV

Wife and I have never owned a television. Our reasoning is as follows:

Television is stupid.

Of course, at the moment we are staying with my mother-in-law and she owns a television. We have a couple of children and we do what we can to protect them, but sometimes grandparents have a different take on things.

My father-in-law is in town. The kids really love him, so we let 5y stay up last night and hang out for awhile. Heck, we're leaving town, right? Let the kids have fun.

It was suggested- why don't we all watch a little TV?

No.

Aw, come on. Just an animal show or something? What's wrong with animal shows?

Whenever people want to advocate for television, they always hype the animal shows. I was uneasy. I don't want my kids associating TV with family fun time. But I was outgunned. Even wife was in agreement.

So on goes the tube. Grandma starts scrolling through the channels. Ah, here we go. Look it's a bullfight.

!

Yeah, and the bull's winning. Look there- he's tossing that man about, and oh, the man's pants have just been torn off.

!!

5y pipes up, "That's bad."

Grandma changes the channel. A bit more scrolling and, ok, here we are- elephants. Gentle giants on the march. The narrator tells us there is a drought. The herd is looking for water. See now, there's a young elephant bringing up the rear. He's straggling. He's tired and thirsty, too weak to catch up with the rest. Oh my, he's fallen down.

5y looks concerned.

Nevermind, the little elephant is up again. Oops, no he isn't:

"He has fallen for the last time."

5y is screaming.

". . . as the other elephants stand by over his remains. . ."

5y is inconsolable. I grab her and take her into our bedroom. She's holding me pretty tight. I'm mad. Wife feels bad. Grandma's crying. Grandpa's sewing.

It's true. At some point during all of this grandpa slipped out and began sewing pillows. He does stuff like that. He's super-productive. Maybe I'll go to the drug store, and when I come back the entire garage has been rearranged.

I can be productive too, but my timeline isn't as rigid as some. Earlier in the day I planted a kumquat tree. I was supposed to do this 9 months ago when 9m was born. The idea was that we would plant a tree in 9m's name and bury wife's placenta along with it. We had been keeping her placenta in the freezer, but then we moved in with wife's mother. My mother-in-law has a lot of stuff in her freezer. Wife put her placenta in the refrigerator in the garage. Nobody told me this. That was two months ago.

Here's something remarkable- placenta keeps very well. It did smell pretty bad, and there was a spot of mold on it, but overall I was really impressed. I took some pictures, but wife won't let me post them. Anyway, we should get some pretty good kumquats out of the deal, insha'Allah.

We've got a ton of laundry to do today. When that's done, I'll pack. I hope to post a list of what I'm bringing. Until then . . . .