Monday, October 06, 2008

A Song Revelation: Not about the plague

I'm feeling much better now thank you very much. I think I was run-down after the trip to England, hurricane Ike and visit from mum & Auntie Edna.

This weekend we had plenty of R&R, including a visit to Ikea for a new bed for Jack. I love Ikea. I know a lot of it is cheap Swedish crap and the store is brimming full of manic people, but it's worth it to get a good deal and something a bit different. If I didn't at least try and get something from Ikea my house would look like a display in Target.

We also got to see some friends at a Buckeye game party Saturday night. Thank God they won as I was getting a tad worried and even pretending to read the Ikea catalogue in the last 5 minutes as it was too painful to watch but then - yea! - Terrelle Pryor pulled it out and we won. Phew.

Sunday we took Jack to his first of 10 weekly gymnastics classes. The teacher wasn't there so we got lumped with a student helper that had no clue what she was doing but hopefully next week it'll be better. One good thing was that Jack got to see his friend Katy. NOW, I was totally flummoxed at one of the songs she had us sing. The song was "Ring around the Roses" which I have been brought up to believe was a nursery rhyme originating from the great plague in England, hence the words:
Ring a-ring o' roses, a pocketful of posies. a-tishoo, a-tishoo! We all fall down.
But she (and everyone else) sang:
Ring around the rosy, a pocketful of posies. ashes, ashes! We all fall down.
So I looked all this up on Wikipedia and turns out there's loads of versions. Including rather odd ones from India & Canada and one from Louisiana which requires you to run up and down stairs too, as if it wasn't energetic enough. So there you have it. You learn something every day don't you.

And finally:
  • Jack's done a 180 on potty training and has gone from being totally potty-trained to wanting nothing to do with it. Strange? He also misses my mum and every day asks "where's nana?, where's auntie?". He loves the tea set we got him from Ikea and has spent all weekend making us have tea parties with him.
  • The debate last week was everything I thought it would be. Biden = Informed & Presidential. Palin = Regurgitated everything she'd been primed to say, didn't answer direct questions and kept winking at the camera. How annoying. Let's hope tomorrow's debate is a bit more meaty.

2 comments:

Emily said...

I've always grown up singing the version we sang in class yesterday, and I only recently learned the meaning - the PLAGUE?!? Yikes. I had no idea.

I'm hoping for a better class next week, too.

Expat mum said...

Well, I think "That One" did a lot better than the person to whom I shall henceforth refer to as the "crotchety old git". (Have you seen www.thatone08.com?)
And - if you'd read my book you'd have known all about the Tishoo business. Actually, since it's for Americans going to the UK, there would have been no need for you to read it, but there you go. Next one.