deaths

It's been quite a day.
First: Well, first I woke up and hit my snooze button. But you don't care about that mundane stuff. Though, I did shortly thereafter do some sit-ups! What does it say that I'm actually PROUD of that.

First, that's of relevance to this blog entry: As I walked into day care, and my meteor of a child streaked (in the 'fast' sense, not in the 'without clothes on' sense) past me down the hall toward her classroom, I noticed that the recently ailing rabbit in the day care lobby -- Sunshine -- was lying awfully still and stretched out. And her eyes were just a wee bit open ... Hm. I leaned down for a closer look, and when I stood up, one of the ladies said, "She's dead. But we don't want to have to tell the children." I thought, oookay. Which National Lampoon movie am I suddenly in?
So I walk down the hall, chuckling and shaking my head, for lack of a more appropriate response. This is the rabbit that my daughter stops to pet, every day, before she leaves. And -- holy crap. I just realized that she wanted to do it last night, but I said, no, we didn't have time, and she asked if she could do it tomorrow, and I said, sure ... Oh man. I am a horrible parent. Time to figure out what lesson on death we need to impart this evening. Ugh. Lizzy seems okay with this stuff, so far. Disney characters kick the bucket right and left, and we discuss that at length. We haven't concocted a Disney heaven for them all or anything (some parents might say it would be more like hell), but she's pretty matter-of-fact about the concept. Maybe we'll be okay.

As I walked back down the hall a couple of minutes later, on my way out, the day care director was just starting to carefully fold Sunshine into her blanket. The bunny hearse -- a pet carrier -- sat on the top of the hutch, door ajar, awaiting transport. Andrea, the director, was sniffling and wiping tears from her eyes. Suddenly, I felt really evil for having chuckled. But, again -- it's quite funny, from my first not-so-appropriate impression. When I stopped to consider that this animal was essentially Andrea's pet, and had greeted children coming to day care there for longer than Lizzy and I have been coming, I felt a bit more sober about it all.
Rest In Peace, Sunshine. May greener pastures, and fewer grubby hands, await you. We loved you.

In other deaths: I'm going from sad to mad here. You're telling me that PLUTO IS NO LONGER A PLANET!?? Next thing you know, we'll be discovering that the world is actually flat. Peanut butter is bad for us again. We're converting to the metric system. "Under God" is being removed from the Pledge of Allegiance! I have to tell you, accurate or not, Constitutional or not, I cannot deal with these sorts of changes. Please -- enough things change. Can we just, at least, agree to still have nine planets?! I have enough to deal with right now.
And if we can't do that, then why not roll in the other three planets instead of cutting one out? Can we include, instead of being exclusionary? Can't we all just get along? Besides -- I really liked the idea of having a planet in our solar system named "Xena." There's always room for a Xena at any party! (unless the ceilings are low.)
My boss joked that if Xena had a moon, it could be named Gabriella -- HAR. (a little lame Warrior Princess humor for ya.)