ceci pas une chouette

Camille is doing a report on owls so we’ve all been reviewing owls, the pellets, the fixed eyes, the round ping-pong ball eggs. In French they don’t call a barn owl an owl hibou, they call it a chouette, like it’s a different kind of bird. Also, as you know, chouette means cool, or neat. Camille and I think it’s funny that when you’re saying, c’est chouette you are saying, “that’s cool/barn owl.” In her report she talks about the difference between the chouette and the owl. Barn owls don’t have the feathers that look like ears.

Last week her class visited the zoo, and a visitor had something in a bag squawking. He pulled it out and here’s what it was:

I think he wanted to sell it to the zoo, all the animals in the zoo here are local animals, but they already have an owl. Three species of owls live in Niger, owls are quite a successful species!

Last night I stayed up way too late stenciling this t-shirt dress for Camille to wear when she does her presentation: (although I’m not sure how cool it is to walk around wearing a dress that says “not cool.” I’m not sure how much 5th graders are into irony. Hmm, maybe I’ll do a chouette lower down that says, “c’est chouette.” Oh god, back to the freezer paper.)

Later. Okay, I added it and she loves it, although she had me cut it off so it’s a shirt, not a dress. I took that dress out of the hand-me-away bag anyway, so it’s least it’s having one more go-around. Of course Stefan wanted in on the owl love.