Bumblebee Sweet Potato

to all my favorite dads out there (including the one I’m married to, of course).

It’s a little odd, but I feel like I’m delurking on my own blog to post today. I think I’ve reached that phase, which seems to happen to so many bloggers, of wondering whether there is really any there there, in blogging.

But not today. Today there is free snark, no waiting.

As I posted a few days ago, the end of the school year is kicking my butt. Still happening, as the end of the school year seems to last from roughly May Day through September 1. Last week, in my role as PTA president, I had the great joy of attending sixth grade commencement (I’ve also had the joy of attending 8th grade commencement and the high school’s academic awards night, in my role as distributer-of-US-savings-bonds).

With all this end-of-year activity, I have a whole new understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of various members of the school community. Particularly the weaknesses. Particularly in the area of public speaking.

NOTE: I realize that many people do not enjoy the public speaking. I am not one of those people. While I wouldn’t characterize myself as particularly gifted, I get to speak in public in various settings a dozen or so times a year, and I think I’m moderately okay at it.

However, if you are the superintendent of a school district of any size, you should probably know that you are going to have to speak at a graduation or two. You might want to, in that case, consider visiting superintendentgraduationspeeches.com, or whatever, and cribbing something. Because lecturing the parents of incoming middle-schoolers about how they (the parents) just need to keep an eye on who their kids are friends with? is not going to endear you to those parents. Especially when you, the superintendent, look as if you may be about to enter middle school yourself.

Sigh.

Also? Giving the same speech to the graduating elementary school kids that you give to the graduating middle schoolers? does not bode well.

I’m not sure, but I think I’m going to be even happier about the end of the school year than the Bee. The PTA-related activity that is back-loaded at the end of May and beginning of June is freaking me out. Between the end-of-school parties, the yearbook, the field trips, the school projects, and the need to buy both personal and PTA gifts for the retiring third grade teacher, I’m a basket case.

In my continuing role as a cautionary tale for the other parents in my office, I painted a bobcat at work last week. (Be clear–the Bee was allowed to buy a bobcat–I wasn’t helicopter parenting–it was just the only one I could find was paint-your-own, and she needed it in a final state that night.) There was a lot of hilarity at my expense, and my officemate insisted on being allowed to help. Even my boss ridiculed me, saying it looked like a cross between a cow and a dog, and insisting on calling it a ‘dow’ all afternoon.

Why, oh makers of the paint-your-own-bobcat kit, did you only put red, blue, black, yellow, green and white paint in that kit?

Needless to say, my bobcat did not exactly achieve a color that occurs in nature.

In other PTA-related news, I finally found a vice-president–a very nice kindergarten parent, who has no idea what she’s getting into (oh, those were the days!). The corresponding secretary recently told me that she and her family are moving to another state at the end of the school year. But for a brief few months this year, we had a full slate!

So it was Back-to-School Night tonight. There was a great turnout, I’m happy to say–it was standing room only. When I got up to do my presidential bit, I had the ESL teacher translate into Spanish, so all the parents could understand. I’m not that used to speaking using an interpreter, and I kept forgetting to stop so she could keep up. But I did succeed in getting one of the bilingual parents to agree to interpret at future meetings, which was great. I think that people appreciated it.

I also found a volunteer to do web design, someone to translate flyers into Spanish, and someone to take pictures at school events, which was like hitting the Trifecta as far as I was concerned.

I was feeling really good about the night. Until…

I was sitting in the Bee’s classroom with a couple of other parents. Landisdad had gone to the first session, so I went to the second (the kids were with us and weren’t allowed to come to the sessions), which was much less well attended–it’s basically for the people who have 2 kids in school–there were only four people there. The teachers were talking about the great student-to-teacher ratio (there’s a teacher, a co-teacher and a student teacher, with 20 kids), and the state testing, which the third graders are subjected to for the first time.

At the end of the session, the only dad in the room made a comment along the lines of, “well, that’s what you get when you let all those Japanese kids into our country–they make our kids have to work harder.”

I had one of those moments where time seems to stop, and I thought, “I can’t believe he said that, I can’t let it go, what the fuck do I say to that, who the hell’s dad is this?, why aren’t any of the parents of color at this session? is anyone else going to say anything” Finally, I blurted out, “well, I have to tell you that my brother is married to a Japanese woman, and I have a couple of half-Japanese nieces and nephews, and I found that remark kind of offensive.”

He snorted at me, and said, “well, it’s supposed to be a compliment.”

Oh. My. God.

Yeah, the waves of Japanese immigrants washing over our shores are sooooo threatening to your tiny ass. Your kid is struggling in third grade because of a group of foreign students who aren’t even represented in this class.

Give me a break.

It’s times like these, I wish I was a quick-witted as Pierre, who I’m sure would have skewered him, filleted him, wrapped him in butcher paper, taken him home and broiled him. Instead, I came home and watched the Chris Rock DVD I got from Netflix this weekend, and wished I could have unleashed Chris Rock on this guy.

The really bad part is, this guy’s kid has been in my daughter’s class for three years, and I never knew he was an asshole before tonight.

So, my first PTA meeting as president is over. Did you know that the PTA president has to host the first meeting at her house? Before school even starts? Huh. Good thing it rained all week, so landisdad and I had lots of time to clean.

I’ve made two major changes to the PTA agenda for this year.

1) Fundraising can only occupy half of every meeting, not 98% (100%, if you include the treasurer’s report).

2) New topic: outreach to other parents (as opposed to just sitting around and complaining about how no one else does anything except us).

I got the group to agree to each personally meet one new parent on the first day of school, and one new parent on back-to-school night. It wasn’t that hard–I was actually pretty amazed at how receptive people were to the idea.

Baby steps, people.

Next month–an email group!