Pot'o'Gold Day

Today is pot of gold day.
Actually, today is pot'o'gold AND puppy day.

When Brian graduated from Brandon University, we had two very young daughters, and a son soon to come. Unfortunately there was not an abundance of teaching jobs to be had at the time. We muddled through another four or five years of piecing together casual jobs, substitute teaching, and term positions before Brain got his first full year term teaching early years.

The first exciting thing we transitioned into was eating suppers as a family. I think me and the kids had eaten our way through many a McGavins factory eating toast and peanut butter before Brian started showing up for dinner and I discovered that our kitchen contained a fully functioning stove and range. (well.... except when it wasn't functioning....)

Quite possibly the second most exciting event became pot'o'gold day. This is a highly under-celebrated national event whose time has come for some unapologetic adulation. Now that Brian is a bonified teacher, who actually teaches, and regularly gets generously compensated for his wisdom and creativity, We Too have been ushered into the holy rites of pot'o'gold celebratory practise.

On the very last day of school, when the children begin to engage in unabashed fantasy of bionicles and bratz and broken oh henry bars; our school leaders quietly commiserate to torture our children endlessly with large screen tvs and twenty thousand dozen home baked cookies. Some thoughtful caregiver will throw a bag of ketchup chips into their child's backpack to share with the class. All that white, refined sugar needs an antidote: deeply fried, chemical smeared crispets drenched in blood pressure altering salt.

But I digress.

While the teachers patiently endure a long day of macaroons and chips, Christmas oranges and pepsi, the traditions of pot'o'gold are simultaneously unfolding. Children come before their leader and offer sacrifices of: Christmas mugs their parents received from their company Christmas last year and always hated, handmade drawings, depicting their beloved teacher deep in a well in wintertime, tins of homemade fudge and rumballs, (well.... rumballs only if you live in the catchment within thirty minutes of the big,bad, dirty city. Or, if you live in a town that has so strayed from its pacifist roots that it actually closets off a portion of its grocery store to sell the evil ingredient within...) Then there are the candy canes, the handmade tree ornaments, the dreaded "teachers are the bestest" paraphenalia, some nummy packets of coffee, and of course, some pot'o'golds.

Brian comes home at the end of that day with a look of relief verging on utter kleenex soaking, emotional breakdown and carrying a large box containing the year's booty. I hand him a beer, and then the kids and I lose all sense of reason. We pull out each offering, ooohing and aaaahhing and smacking and licking. We sigh and sort and stack and weep from the sheer joy of it. We stretch out on the davenport and feed one another samples of pinkinsides, orangeinsides, mocha, and caramel. We indulge in candycane flavoured hot chocolate mix slurped out of
#1 teacher mugs, sniffing the air for rich coffee and biscotti.

But this year, we will add a brand new element.
Tonight, at the departure of Joyce's last daycare cherub, we will open the door to a new family member. A small, furry, black-haired, blue-eyed baby dog named Shadow.

Now, change is never easy and I have been warned. A puppy is much like a humanchild infant. But this change should entail entirely new challenges, since from what I hear, a dog can not tolerate chocolate. No, a mere morsal of chocolate can be fatal to a wee dog.

But, like the lion and the lamb, and the spring that surely follows the winter, I will press on. This year, will be pot'o'gold AND puppy day. I feel sure of it.

Because on pot'o'gold day, Anything is possible.