We picked Antonia up from the friends where she spent the night and zoomed over by some beautiful backroads to the friends where we were supposed to be having dinner.\u00a0 We knew she was tired, but we figured in the worst case, she would be grumpy, or fall asleep on their sofa.\u00a0 We did not count on her being so tired she would be physically sick.\u00a0 We drove home very slowly after that, earlier than expected, and this morning we cancelled today’s social plans so that she could recover.\u00a0 She has certainly been in one of those zombie-states all day.\u00a0 I sometimes worry a bit that it really does show a less than normal stamina when a child needs 24 hours to recover for every day spent playing with friends – but that is how it is with her.<\/p>\n
Since she was a mess, I let her watch a thing called Bee Movie that she brought back from her last trip to the US.\u00a0 That was a bad move.\u00a0 I keep thinking I have seen the dumbest movie imaginable, and I keep being wrong.\u00a0 Now, I know this is not supposed to be a nature documentary but … male worker bees!?\u00a0 Big butch ‘pollen jocks’!??\u00a0 Yeah, those jocks are so smart, they do pollination by taking the pollen out of daisies and putting it on roses!!!\u00a0 I couldn’t believe it.\u00a0 (A real pollen jock is mostly interested in taking the pollen home to HER<\/strong><\/em> hive, anyway). And it’s a shame that one of the major premises of the movie is that our (male) hero has to choose one job for his whole life.\u00a0 Because a grade school book on bees would no doubt explain that the jobs bees do are dependent on their age, and every bee eventually does every job, except the queen.\u00a0 Female bees that is.\u00a0 Male bees really do have only one job, and it is, as Mike so poetically put it “pollinating the eggs”.\u00a0 Actually, dearest husband, they “pollinate” the queen, once in her life.\u00a0 The rest of the time, they just hang out, till winter.\u00a0 I guess he doesn’t know so much about ‘the birds and the bees’, after all!<\/p>\n So does it really matter?\u00a0 Does the ever popular “bull” with a bass voice, macho habits and udders matter?\u00a0 Well, this particular movie was high on a vision of patriarchal society that would make the Flintstones look progressive.\u00a0 And that vision was based on a lie about nature.\u00a0 I<\/em> think it matters.\u00a0 When you consider that if they had made a bee movie with just the same plot, but adhering to some level of truth about bees, it would have been a pick-up for little girls, instead of a put-down.\u00a0 And if they just want to make up whatever they want, why use a real species at all?\u00a0 What’s wrong with stripey pixies or something?<\/p>\n Do I think these people are maliciously promoting a questionable cultural vision at the expense of reality or do I think they’re very, very ignorant and stupid?\u00a0 Either way it doesn’t look good for them.\u00a0 Rant over!<\/p>\n Apart from that, I started teaching Antonia to knit, which went nicely.\u00a0 She spent some time playing with the synth software.\u00a0 It allowed her to record her voice on multiple tracks, modify it, and construct a nicely post-modernist soundtrack of herself arguing with herself, herself and herself.\u00a0 It is maybe a little bit amusing the first time you hear it.\u00a0 ‘Nuff said! She also made a few other little crafty things.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We picked Antonia up from the friends where she spent the night and zoomed over by some beautiful backroads to the friends where we were supposed to be having dinner.\u00a0 We knew she was tired, but we figured in the worst case, she would be grumpy, or fall asleep on their sofa.\u00a0 We did not … Continue reading We get a rest day after all<\/span>