Dictionary Day

Today is "Dictionary Day" at Seth's school. The idea is that each child is assigned a word and then dresses up like that word for "Dictionary Day." It's not required but it is fun and it is also extra-credit and who doesn't want extra credit? Seth came home pretty excited a few days ago because "Mrs. Stewart is nice and let us choose what word we wanted to be." His choice: Gondolier. And ever since I found out I've had Tony Bennett stuck in my head. :) Why Tony Bennett you ask. I don't know. Maybe the whole thing about Gondoliers singing and his song "That's Amore" being Italian. Kind of. Anyway, I immediately decided he needed a striped shirt and the straw hat. I have always had good luck with this sort of thing at thrift stores in the past, so I thought I'd check out the one here in town. I walked in and started looking at the shirts. The one he's wearing is the second one I picked up. Perfect. Boatneck, horizontal striped, navy blue and white. I ran to K-Mart which was right next door to see if there was any wide red ribbon for the hat and sure enough there was some with the Christmas Decorations (I cannot believe Christmas stuff is already in the stores--wow, time flies!). I also got some crepe paper for his oar. Did you know that contrary to popular belief Gondoliers don't use poles, they use oars. Apparently the waters of Venice are too deep for poling. I never knew that before today. Anyway with the red and the dark blue and his black pants and eyeliner mustache, I think Seth made just about the cutest Gondolier ever.