The Welcome Mat: A Virtual Venn Diagram
Mamacita says: I’ll start this off with my usual flippant “Bring it on.”
There is a child’s world, and there is an adult’s world. Often, they intersect. Sometimes, they don’t, and each is best kept in his/her proper section. Those who believe adults belong in every aspect of the child’s world are intruding, behaving inappropriately, and are probably very unwelcome. Those who believe children belong in every aspect of the adult’s world are equally intruding, behaving inappropriately, and are no doubt very unwelcome.
Most of the time, the world is open to us all, and everybody is welcome. The problem arises when someone is of the opinion that his/her own personal point of view is everybody’s point of view, and if it’s not, seeks to make it so. “This benefits MEEEEE, so everybody else needs to chill.” Um, no.
Just as adults are creepy and intrusive when children are trying to interact with each other, children can be creepy and intrusive when adults are trying to interact with each other.
Nobody is welcome everywhere. Why should they be? Most places, yes. Come on in. Bring the kids.
But some places? Come on in. Children only on the playground, please. Adults, stay 
back. And other places? Come on in. Adults only, please. Children, stay back.
Find out ahead of time and save us all a lot of whining, disappointment, grief, stress, complaining, elitism, pushing, insisting, and tears. I’m talking to all of you, no age limit.
P.S. If your kid poops in the theater and you don’t snatch it up and run like bloody hell for the door before the smell grows feelers and crawls into everybody else’s nostrils for a good long stay because you paid for a ticket, too, and deserve to see the film without interruption, you’re a jerk. This applies to everywhere else on the planet.
P.P.S. If you go to a child-friendly establishment of any kind and think you’ve got a right to make an equally repulsive stink because a family dared let themselves be seated near you, you’re a jerk, too. This also applies to everywhere else on the planet.
P.P.P.S. If the children have lovely public manners, please feel free to step over and tell the parents so. If you’re rich, buy their dinner. Seriously. Well-behaved kids’ parents don’t get nearly enough public attention; people seem to save it for the disruptive kids’ parents.
To quote Inigo Montoya, “Let me sum up.”
Find out a place’s policies before you show up at the door. If you’re allowed in, behave yourself and make sure everybody with you does likewise. If everybody behaves, nobody else has any right to whine. If someone in your party – no age limit – refuses to act nicely and seriously annoys other people – for whatever reason – go home and try again in a year.
There is a time and a place for adults to interact with children, and there is a time and a place for children to interact with adults. There are also times and places for children only and adults only.
Before I forget: adults do NOT belong in the midst of an Easter egg hunt that is intended for small children. Shame on any adult who runs out there and “helps” a kid win. I’ve seen ’em knock little kids down trying to beat them to a golden egg. Sad, pathetic entities, those.
As for adults who scream obscenities or demand exceptions at children’s ball games. . . they’re all going to hell, and the devil is disgusted, too.
I repeat: Bring it on.
Shhhh, hear that sound? That’s the universe applauding.
Faith and Begorrah
Mamacita says: 
May you be buried in a
casket made from the wood
of a 100 year old oak
That I shall plant tomorrow.
Oh, tis a wondrous thing to be Irish, although the same could not be 
said earlier in our country’s history. Many people do not know how unwelcome the Irish were here, in those days. We’ve since learned wisdom. About the Irish, anyway; some people are still working on wisdom in general.
I loved to read about Beany Malone for so many reasons, some of which were the casual ways their Irish ancestry was a part of their everyday lives. Beany’s cousin Sheila McBride was the also the source of one of my favorite expressions, “pogue ma’ hone.” It means, “the back of my hand to you.”
Click here for some cool St. Patrick’s Day experiments for you and your kids to do, stolen borrowed from the Master Magician Scientist, Steve Spangler.
What’s a little green water between friends?
This picture is by Tim Nyberg, a fantastic artist who draws awesome things which look even more awesome than they originally looked before he drew them so awesomely. He drew this one for the Wittenburg Door, which is a wonderful thing in and of itself; the site is down right now but you can still see it in its archived glory. (Don’t click the link if the corncob makes you walk funny.)
What is it supposed to be?
Why, it’s St. Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland, of course.
It was no mean feat, and I should know.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you all. If you’re not wearing green, strangers are allowed to pinch you.
What’s that? I can’t hear you. Come a little closer. . . thaaaaat’s right. Gotcha.
I repost this, adding a little here and there and subtracting a little likewise, each March 17, so if it looks familiar to you, you’re not crazy. Well, not about this post, anyway.
Pogue Ma’Hone to you all, for you know why you deserve it even if I don’t.
Beware the Ides of March
Mamacita quotes from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: Act 1, scene 2, 15–19
Caesar: Who is it in the press that calls on me?
I hear a tongue shriller than all the music
Cry “Caesar!” Speak; Caesar is turn’d to hear.
Soothsayer: Beware the Ides of March.
Caesar: What man is that?
Brutus: A soothsayer bids you beware the Ides of March.
And what, pray tell, are the Ides of March, that Caesar needed to be warned against them? Should we all beware the Ides of March? What are Ides?
There is no reason for any of us to beware the Ides of March. Or the Ides of September. Or the Ides of February. Etc. Heck, my beautiful daughter was born on the Ides of June.
The Ides of any month are simply the 15th of any month. The soothsayer (truthspeaker) was merely warning Caesar that something bad was going to happen on March 15. Caesar had already had other warnings – one from his wife! Caesar was very superstitious and took the warning seriously; however, this didn’t prevent him from leaving the house on March 15 anyway and walking out into the public forum.
. . . . where his best friends were waiting for him with daggers, whereupon they jumped him and stabbed him to death. For his own good, and for the good of Rome, they believed.
Caesar was just too ambitious, they thought. So, rather than risk his rise to power and popularity, they offed their best friend.
Caesar, Brutus, and Cassius – the three musketeers, the Bobbsey triplets, the inseparable pals. Caesar trusted them; he loved them; they were his friends.
Which is why, when Caesar saw who was attacking him, he cried out, in disbelief, “Et tu, Brute?” Which means, simply, “Even you, Brutus?”
But Brutus and Cassius, and the others, had realized that their pal Caesar was a little too cocky for Rome’s own good, and when even one’s best friend brags in public that he was as elite and cool as a god, one must do something to protect the nation.
“Beware the Ides of March.” And now you know what that means, and why Caesar was warned to be careful of that day.
It was, like, you know, cuz the soothsayer somehow knew that Caesar’s dearest and most beloved friends had had enough of his bragging about his coolness and were going to take him down. And they did.
But even when I was a kid and first read that scene, something inside of me SAW the expression on the man’s face when he realized that his best friend in all the world had stabbed him in the back. It was a heartbreaker.
And now you have a perfect example of another expression. Backstabber. Stabbed in the back.
Shakespeare is so awesome; I loved the language even as an elementary student. It’s exactly the same language that you’ll find in the King James Version of the Bible, which I also love.
Perhaps one of you can also answer a question that has puzzled Shakespeare fans for years: Why in the world did the man bequeath his second-best bed to his wife?
I tend to agree with Jane of Lantern Hill, who was of the opinion that “Perhaps she liked it best.”
P.S. Don’t be afraid of the language. Relax, and try to see the poetry and the amazing graphics in Shakespeare’s witty turn of phrase. It’ll knock your socks off, if you let it.
