Got some good news today to continue the positive momentum of 2014. The waivers are now available for the Tinker Bell Half Marathon and I discovered that Brad and I have graduated to Corral C! Woo-hoo! So what does this mean to the non-runners out there? Basically it means we’re getting faster. When you sign up for a runDisney race you have to provide your estimated finish time. For logical and logistical reasons they organize the corrals with the fastest in the front and the slower folks bringing up the rear. We have been in Corral D for every singe race since we started 4 years ago, so this feels like a significant leap forward. Corral C out of F! Not bad.
Now all we need to do is get Brad healed before race day. Poor guy got hit with the flu last weekend and a temp of 103! Scared the crap out of me. Seems he’s on the mend as of today, so please send prayers of healthiness his way, and prayers of immunity mine.
Nursing my sick fiance all weekend really helped me keep up with my New Year’s Resolutions. I cooked a new recipe (Hot and Sour Cabbage Stew with Tofu. Yum!). I made dinner two nights in row. I bought groceries. I cleaned the kitchen thoroughly including doing all of the dishes. I cleaned the cat box myself. I made the bed (whenever Brad wasn’t relegated to it). And since I couldn’t sleep in said bed with my germtastic fiance, I spent the evening in the living room, on the couch, catching up on my first book of 2013, “The Alienist.” All of that and I still managed to squeeze in my 11 mile run yesterday. Kind of a supergirl weekend for me. Hopefully I can keep it up!
In other Tinker Bell news, I’ve been trying to think of a costume for the race. I feel compelled to stay within the Neverland realm, but I don’t want to dress up as Tink yet again. I kinda sorta really want to go for Tiger Lily, but something about it just feels wrong; in the same way that the song “What Makes the Red Man Red?” is now painfully wrong when you watch/hear it. A white girl dressed up as a cartoon representation of a Native American? I just don’t know.
She is my second favorite character in Peter Pan after Tinker Bell. Maybe I’ve just become overly sensitive after years of working in Human Resources. I figure it’s better to be sensitive than totally offensive. Though this does spiral me into all kinds of questions about racism and racial stereotypes. If I had brown skin and I dressed up as Tiger Lily people would probably not bat an eyelash. But that’s kind of weird too, isn’t it? Just because someone has brown skin it’s acceptable? Let’s say that someone is Latina or Indian or Filipina, that doesn’t make them any more Native American than me. Is it perhaps worse that all brown skin people may dress up as other brown skin people because they are lumped into one acceptable group of “brown-skinned people?” No. I think that’s terrible. So following that logic, the only group of people who could acceptably dress up as Tiger Lily are actual Native Americans. That also doesn’t seem right since it is in fact a cartoon, and a caricature, and not an accurate representation of Native American culture, so to relegate the costume to actual Native Americans almost makes it seem like the presupposition is that Tiger Lily is a valid representation of a Native American girl. Since she is not, since she is a cartoon, since she is complete fantasy, shouldn’t anyone of any color acceptably represent her? One thing I love to see in the Disney parks, actually, is how the characters tear through racial boundaries especially among kids. I see little white girls dressed as Princess Tiana and little black girls dressed as Ariel. A blondie dressed as Mulan, and a girl with bright red hair dressed as Snow White. Girls dressed as pirates, boys dressed as, well, pirates. I’ve yet to see a little boy dressed as a princess though I’m hopeful the day will come when that is not taboo. If a little girl can dress up as a boy pirate and no one bats an eyelash, a little boy should be able to dress up as a fairy princess and no one should care. And if you care, what you’re saying is that dressing “like a girl” is somehow shameful but dressing “like a boy” is universal. I get very passionate when it comes to gender stereotypes as they apply to children because I’ve seen the shame that plants and seeds when a little boy is told to “act like a man,” whatever that means. Girls can be tomboys and they’re cool. Boys act like girls and they’re “prissy.” Drives me crazy.
Wow. I really went off on a tangent there didn’t I. What I’m trying to say is, if I had a little girl; a little blonde fair-skinned girl; and she wanted to dress up as Tiger Lily for Halloween. What would I do? Would I encourage her to learn about real Native American culture instead so she knows the difference? Ok, well maybe she does that and then tells me she wants to dress up as Pocahontas. Or Sacajawea. Wouldn’t I want her to be able to dress up as such interesting historical women? I just don’t know. I guess I’ll find out when I’m a parent.
Anyway, back to my dilemma!
With my obvious confusion on the subject, limited time (the race is Jan 19), and my lack of confidence to dress as Tiger Lily despite my love of her, I’m leaning towards this guy:
Gotta love Smee, in all his bumbling tomfoolery. I’ve got a soft spot for the klutzy guy in a perpetual state of clueless. Not to mention this costume could translate very easily into running clothes.
What do you think? Are you team Tiger Lily? Or Team Smee?
