Local Produce

So, I just ate a delicious orange, and I noticed when I pulled the sticker off of it, that it came all the way from South Africa!! WTF? Why is my grocery store in Milford, MA buying bags of oranges from South Africa? Does that seem weird to anyone else, or is it just me? I just can't help but wonder what that bag of oranges had to go through to get here. Was it nothing short of planes, trains, and automobiles for that bag of South African oranges?

I also can't help but feel guilty that I'm not supporting the local community, or better yet, just plain old America. I would much rather be supporting an American Orange grower....I'm sure there are plenty that need my support. Why does my Massachusetts grocery store out source their oranges to South Africa. (I know, I know, I should have gone to a damn farmer's market, but I didn't!) I can't help but think it costs a fortune to bring those oranges to the states. Wouldn't it cost the same to get them more locally? Can local farmers not supply the demand for such a big grocery chain? Am I dabbling in, dare I say the words,.....Global Economics right now? Those words remind me of college, and of scary college classes taught by terribly uninteresting professors that create nothing less than a snooze fest instead of economic awareness. Maybe that's why I don't know the answers to these seemingly simple questions.

Why can't the grocery stores stock their shelves with local fair? I'm sure the local farmers don't have the overhead of a factory over seas, or maybe the oranges came from a local South African Farmer who really drives a tractor.....I don't really know, but I still can't help but think it's weird that I still have 4 oranges left in my house that traveled here from South Africa. Oh if those oranges could talk......would they have a British accent?

Boys have a Johnson, Girls have a vagina...

So, this morning, when I was changing The Bird's diaper, Pigpen asked me where her "johnson" was. I told him that she didn't have a johnson because she was a girl, and girl's have a vagina. I then asked him if mommy had a johnson, and he said yes. I reminded him that mommy was a girl, and girls have a vagina, so mommy doesn't have a johnson. So, he shrugged his shoulders and went on his way. I then changed his diaper, and he was babbling something about mommy's "gina" and baby sister's "gina". I hadn't a clue, so I decided to inform them at school of his newfound information.

I told the girls that Pigpen learned that boys have a johnson, and girls have a vagina this morning, so I wasn't sure what great things he was going to say today. They looked at me half confused and laughing and just nodded. I left wandering if he was the only two year old that was aware of this....hmmmmm.

I had forgotten about the whole thing by the time I picked him up, and they didn't have any genitalia themed reports for me, so we drove home and talked about all the trucks and cars he played with at school. That evening when we were walking to the driving range, I told my husband about our conversation, and he thought that vagina was too "grown up" of a word to teach a boy who just turned two. I always thought you were supposed to call it by it's name and not make a big deal about it. Thus, we decided to call it "teetee" from here on out.

So daddy was taking him up to bed, and he told daddy that he didn't want to go to bed, he wanted to go to the store to touch "ginas". Daddy told him that those stores were illegal in Massachusetts, so Pigpen went to bed, and daddy told mommy that's why you don't call it a vagina yet. I'm still laughing!