would you allow me to vent

I love Mac's school. I really love Mac's school. He's getting a top-notch education, of that I have no doubt.

Tomorrow is the Dia de la Raza celebration at school. Dia de la Raza is like their Colombus Day but they apparently really do it up here beyond just having a day off school or work. This is a full-blown festival to celebrate multi-culturalism and diversity in race, culture, nationality and religion. The actual holiday is October 18, but the school is closed for a vacation week between tomorrow and October 18.

What this means in practical terms for Mac is that Mac's age group has had to learn the Cha Cha Slide (which he performs with the gusto of a hip hop artist out of downtown Detroit); he has to wear red, white and blue and a baseball cap; and he has to march into the opening ceremony with the other Americans and Canadians (they lumped us altogether) in sort of an Olympic Opening Ceremony fashion with something like "Born in the USA" playing.

What this means in practical terms for me is that I have to send in Oreos and potato chips to be sold, I have to loan a crock pot for hot dog cooking, and I have to provide 200 cocktail napkins. Oh, and I have to be there from 8:30am to 2pm tomorrow.

The problem is that "there" isn't the school; it's some former German sports club near the school that the school bought for its sports complex but which mysteriously doesn't have a street address. I've booked a taxi to take me in the morning but I can't book a taxi to bring me home because to book a taxi in advance, you actually have to have a physical address. I'm sure this is not surprising for you, the well-above-average intellectual reading this blog. It's apparently an unusual concept for the woman at school who answered the phone because when I called to get the address today, she told me to just use the map. Well this is great, Ms. Rocket Scientist, but what good does the map do when it's in my hands and not the taxi driver's? On the online taxi order form, you actually have to fill in the address and not draw a map. And if you call to order the taxi, by golly you also have to tell them the address. It's novel, I know.

So right now, the odds are very good that Mac and I are going to be stuck out in the hinterlands tomorrow afternoon. Nobody seems as preoccupied by this as I am. If you don't hear from me after tomorrow, please email Colegio Gran Bretanha to see if they can go around all the cow pastures out by the school to see if there's an American woman and her child wandering aimlessly. Seriously. And if we're not there, we might be somewhere on the 10 miles of highway between there and Bogota.

Thanks. Oh and Happy Dia de la Raza. Here's to celebrating all the peoples of the world, including Ms. Rocket Scientist.