Do, a dear, a female deer

Remember that song from The Sound of Music that starts Do, a dear, a female dear, Re, a something something light.......then ends, which brings us back to Do? I had a train of thought yesterday that reminded me of that song while at Hickory Park for my nephew's third birthday party. It went as follows:

Do: I was thinking about crying stories. I used to share crying stories with friends, that is, stories where the conclusion is always me crying at the end. I always seemed to have more than anyone else I knew. Hmm.

Re: The waiter came and asked about our ice cream orders. My nephew's mom was asking about peanut allergy information for the different types of ice cream. My nephew has bad peanut allergies, so the ice cream choice is a matter of life and death. Well, not that bad, she does have an epi-pen.

Mi: That made me think of something rather morbid, that is, kids in elementary school trying to trick him into eating peanuts, not really understanding that it would be very dangerous for him to do so.

Fa: That made me think of this kid from my class in elementary school named Umer. I couldn't remember his last name. It also confused me for a moment why I suddenly remembered a kid from 20 years past that I probably hadn't thought of for just as long.

So: Then I got it. I remembered that some kids had invited him over to their house once and offered him some pizza. Umer was from an Islamic family, so they didn't eat pork. Well, the pizza had pork on it, and the kids tricked him into eating some. This memory must have been triggered by my daydream about my nephew.

La: That made me think about the fact that Umer and I had the same lunchbox. A blue lunchbox that had a Transformers picture on the front. A big picture of Optimus Prime, with the Transformers logo next to him.

Ti: That made me think about the time I was walking home from school by myself and accidently tripped and fell, smashing my lunchbox upon the ground. The impact forced the lunchbox open, revealing a lot of food that certainly was not mine, with a note from a mother who was not my own. I remember it smelling fairly strong and spicy and there was a lot of half eaten food inside.

Do: Which brings me right back to crying stories. I don't know why, but when that happened, I stood there right out near one of the busiest streets in Ames, just bawling that I didn't have the correct lunchbox. I don't know if the fall mixed with the surprise of weird food made me cry, or if I thought I'd get into trouble for having the wrong lunchbox or what, but I stood there confused and crying for two or three minutes before trekking the last block home.

Well, that's my song.