Monday Miscellany: Made in China

I took the seven year old boy and the five year old girl camping last month. On the way to the campground we listened loudly to a children's CD by They Might Be Giants. One of the songs, titled "Where Do They Make Balloons?" runs through a catalog of origins for famous products/items and asks:

Marmalade's from Scotland
Rugs from Pakistan
Mexico has jumping beans
And cars are from Japan

Clowns are from the circus
Barking comes from dogs
Eggs come from a chicken
And log cabins come from logs
But where, where do they make balloons? (where)

My son looked over at his sister and said, "I think they are probably made in a factory in China."


My father, the incarnation of preparation and planning, taught me through his example to check your camping equipment before taking it camping. After last year's camping trip left our tent as a worthless pile of broken fiberglass and sodden canvas, he gave us his old one. Two days before we left, I carefully took out the tent and assembled it in the back yard to make sure that I could assembly it by myself and to seal the seams with seam sealer. The next day, I took it down, bagged it, and put it in my trunk, safe in the knowledge that the tent was in good shape, easily assembled, and relatively waterproof.

Once at the camp site, we began the process of setting up the tent only to find that the two fiberglass support members, without which the tent is merely an elaborate, zippered tarp, were still in the backyard, a hundred miles away. At this point a series of errors in judgement on my part resulted in an excursion to North Carolina, a drive down every road in Blairsville, Georgia, and the three of us sleeping in my Corolla.

The next morning my son vomited. We were home by noon.


Because no one signed up to take summer school for history, I have been watching the entire run of Arrested Development at Hulu and trying to keep the kids from killing each other. I have been more successful at the former than the latter.

Today, my five-year-old daughter lost another tooth. Tomorrow we register her for kindergarten. I don't know what to say about that.

Peace
..._