Ten ways to make three

If you understand, things are just as they are;
if you do not understand, things are just as they are.
-- Zen Proverb
One of my opinions on the subject of TV and how much of it is healthy for kids to watch is that it's better for parents to watch TV with their kids. Having said that, I have struggled to find a show that I would find tolerable that would not be inappropriate for kids.

The result: The Amazing Race. The kids have been primed to the idea of a "race around the world" by the Backyardigans episode of the same name, so it was not a difficult sell to interest them in a real race around the world. Downloading a full season was more time consuming. Cheryl and I have seen neither season 1, nor either of the seasons since the shark-jump worthy Family edition, season 8.

Tonight we watched the first episode of season 10, and while the dude wandered off about halfway through, Neva remained intrigued. She learned from watching the end of Yojimbo with me the other morning that a story can be told in subtitles, so it may be for this reason that she asked me to read the names of the racers every time they flashed on the bottom of the screen. It turns out this is quite often, but I didn't mind. She also seems preoccupied with knowing who is winning and losing at any given moment. Unlike in the Backyardigans episode, this is not always obvious. Only as contestants arrived at the Great Wall of China could we count them in (and out).

During dinner, I advised her that she had to finish three bites of the sushi that she and I made for her to have a good supper (and get a treat). She looked up and asked me if I knew "the ten ways to make three".

It might have been the Japanese food or the Kurosawa, or maybe the racers in China, but in my mind, this question took on an uncharacteristically Zen riddle character.

Then I remembered that I had told her once that there are ten ways to hold up three fingers on one hand:

11100	11010	11001	10110	10101
10011	01110	01101	01011	00111

I may have solved the riddle, but she's still the master.