Question:
It's our turn to provide snacks for my daughter's Brownie Troop. Did I buy enough pretzels and raisins?
(Full disclosure: I'm known to make too much food. Like, way too much food. For an eyewitness account of my need to have an "extra" turkey on Thanksgiving, please contact my grad school roommate, a professor who also goes by the name of "Mommy's Martini" on her blog)
Shake-Ball's Answer:
"Nothing can be made out of nothing"
(King Lear 1.4.116)
So, this is Lear in denial that he's just screwed up his entire life by handing over his kingdom to his two evil daughters. At this moment, Lear dismisses his Fool as a babbling idiot--full of "nothing." But the Fool says that it's Lear who's gonna have the big fat "nothing" for splitting up the kingdom.
How does this relate to snacks for the Brownies?, you might ask. I wondered about that too. Here's the answer: I shouldn't worry so much about quantity. The most important thing is that I bought the individual snack packs of pretzels and raisins. Although they are environmentally unsound, they are germ savvy. The kids will get "nothing" in the way of contagious diseases because the snack packs enable them to avoid all human contact. And maybe "nothing" will come of this "nothing."
But then we'll probably get head lice or something like that.
Lear just never ends well.
Bwahahahaha! I would have interpreted the Shake-ball thusly:
ReplyDeleteNothing good -- the growth of children into fine, upstanding adults, for example -- can be made out of nothing. So if you don't give them enough snacks to fuel their bodies, how do you expect to grown their minds. Can't feed a kid on air, after all.
This, of course, conveniently feeds (ha ha) your inclination to overcook. If it makes you feel any better, I made three pies at Thanksgiving. For a dinner with 11 people, two of whom are under 6 years old, and two of whom were coming just for the social occasion, having already eaten dinner at the other parents' house. Yes, that makes three LARGE pies for seven people. But, Shakespeare forbid, what if there weren't enough flavor choices?