RIP Oscar the Fish

So Oscar, the goldfish member of our family, died yesterday. He was nearly one.

We went up to our cabin on Friday and put Oscar in a clear container for the hour-long ride. He was fine. I put him into the vase we use at the lake for his temporary bowl and he swam frenetically around, like he usually does.

I even put him on the shelf so he could see the lake while he swam.

Maybe that’s what did it. Maybe he looked out of his fish bowl, saw the lake, and tried so hard to swim there that he died trying? I don’t know. My son, the rightful owner of Oscar, having won him at a carnival and carried him carefully home in a plastic baggie last summer, thought it was because we overfed him. I guess we will never know.

But still, I feel bad. Poor Oscar. He’s in the garden now, having been unceremoniously dumped there by my son. We stood there, not really knowing what to say, looking down between the lavender and sedum where he lay, still wondering why he seemed fine in the morning, only to be lying at the bottom of the vase a few hours later.

“He was a good fish,” said my son finally, then he tucked the vase under his arm and headed back into the cabin.

It’s a weird feeling, having a pet fish die. I’m a dog person myself. I like to interact with my pets. I always felt that the fish was somehow aloof, uncaring. Yet, Oscar did have a personality. Of sorts. He was pretty hyper and seemed to like being fed. Our other fish, Achilles, doesn’t really do much. He’s a beautiful blue Betta fish. But he’s a poser. Oscar was just a plain, simple goldfish. He had to work to get our attention. Maybe that’s why I feel bad. Oscar tried hard.

He was a good fish.

 

The Wish List

Otherwise known as New Year’s Resolutions:

1. I will finish my manuscript. It will be so awesome that every agent I query will flock to me with advances and book deals.  It will be fast-tracked and appear on The New York Times Bestsellers list before the year is out. (This one is my ultimate fantasy; although I will finish my MS in 2011.)
2. I will lose 25 pounds and still be able to eat chocolates whenever I want. (This one has been on my NYR list for about 15 years.)
3. I will attend the SCBWI conference in January and meet fabulous authors and aspiring authors. (This one is definitely going to happen.)
4. I will stop calling SCBWI “sc-bee-wee” in my head and will learn to use the acronym appropriately. (This one will be tough.)
5. A publishing house will realize my self-published book, The Kangaroo Pouch, does have a good sales track record, will take over production and print the book in hardcover. (Another big wish, but maybe?)
6. I will get birthday cards out to people on their actual birthdays this year. Not their half-birthdays. (Some years I’m good about this, others, not so much.)
7. I will scan all my old photographs and put the good ones into scrapbooks that will make Martha Stewart weep with envy. (Hey, it could happen.)
8. I will not use adverbs, even though I secretly love them. (Discipline, all it takes is discipline. See #2.)

 

The Power of Words Across Cultures

Once upon a time, my family and I lived in England.  My children went to a fantastic British school, wore adorable uniforms, and had wonderful manners.  One day though, not so much on the manners…

I went to pick up my children from school and as my oldest son’s teacher spotted me in the crowd, a stern look floated across her face.  She took my child out of the line and put him to the back.  I could tell right then, I was going to get an earful.

Sure enough, when all of her other little charges were happily off with their parents or nannies, my son’s teacher frog-marched him over to me and she flicked her head toward a corner of  the school yard that was unpopulated.  So I took a deep breath, braced myself, and walked over to where she’d motioned.

“Your son said a horrible, terrible thing today,” she started, “I must tell you, if he ever says that sort of thing ever again, he will likely be expelled from school.”

At this point, my mind shifted from neutral to fifth gear as I tried to figure out what on earth my eight year-old could have said that – if repeated – would warrant expulsion from school.  A list of nasty words and their various combinations rushed through my head at breakneck speed, but I couldn’t imagine my son would even know half of them.

I asked his teacher what he said.  At first, she looked like she’d just sucked a lemon and then she looked all around at the sky, sighed, and told me she didn’t think she could repeat it, it was so… unspeakable.  At this point, my eyebrows were somewhere up around my hairline.  Unspeakable?  My son knew unspeakable words, not just bad ones?

I reiterated to her that I did really need to know what he said so I could have a proper conversation with him.  She looked around nervously to make sure the coast was clear, leaned in and whispered, “He said …” and then proceeded to mouth the phrase with her hands cupped around her lips so the birds and squirrels wouldn’t overhear, “bloody hell.”

Now, I’m American and I’ve lived in cities all of my adult life, where I’ve heard and said my share of nasty words.  I must admit, out of all the words and combinations of words that had sped through my mind, hell wasn’t even on my list, much less bloody hell.  So I was relieved at first that that’s all it was, but the look of sheer horror on this woman’s face and all the trouble she went through to mouth the phrase and not actually say it, told me that I was having a cultural moment and not to laugh.  I thanked her and mentioned my son had just seen the Harry Potter movie, where he picked up the phrase, and told her that I would speak with him about not using it in the future.

When I got home, out of curiosity, I sent out an email to my British friends asking them on a scale of 1-10, ten being the most egregious, where would they put this phrase?  Well, turns out it was pretty high up there.  All the American friends and family I asked thought it was hilarious that it was even a concern, let alone unspeakable.  But nevertheless, we were living in England and if this phrase was offensive, than we needed to respect that and not use it.

We learned a valuable lesson that day – a lesson I try to bear in mind as I write my book.  Words are powerful in their own right, in your own language, but crossing cultures can alter their significance in ways not easily imagined.  Be careful out there.