BlabberMouse

Happy Hollowayne From Yer Payple Dan in Naysheville

Hah!

Ah juss got bayck from the heelbeely deynist. He took some ayx rayes and he sie everythang look real good.

Iseyewcansay, ah've bin flossin' aynd a brushin' in priparieshun fer Hollowayne. Hahjane is reelemportin to mah famelee.

In other news, the November issue of Her Nashville is (SING IT SO I CAN HEAR YOU) in the pink bins (!). And for those who just can't wait for your next pink bin encounter, you can read my column HERE (YES, LARRY, CLICK ON THIS RIGHT HERE) as well.

The column is about ghosts.

Which are not real.

No, sir.

They are not.

Win Einstein's Money

Right. So.

A friend of mine sent me a link to this article this morning, which I promptly filed in my "ALL THAT IS WRONG WITH AMERICA" folder, next to Kate Gosselin and a box set of Twilight novels.

Evidently, Disney has decided to issue refunds to buyers of its Baby Einstein videos after being threatened with a class-action lawsuit for "deceptive advertising." According to the CCFC, who backed the suit, the Baby Einstein videos did not live up to their "promise" to make babies smarter.

They DIDN'T? HOW CAN THIS BE TRUE? Those DVDs feature snorting pig puppets and ... and circles! And wind-up teeth! Watching them is like auditing a class at Harvard.

How any parent can go to Disney and request a refund with a straight face is beyond my comprehension. Those videos babysat your kids for YEARS, and they cost you all of $16. If anything, THE DVDs SHOULD BE SUING YOU. In fact, I have half a mind to offer our personal Baby Einstein collection back pay and a retroactive pension plan.

Personally, I think Disney should make these ruffled refund-requesters prove that the Baby Einstein videos were ineffective:

Reason for Return: My kid watched these videos two hours a day for three years, and look at him! He's an IDIOT.

Except then there would be written proof of what we learned in the Baby MacDonald "harvest" vignette: APPLES. They don't fall far from the tree.

Do You Come Here Often?

I don't know why, but cheese has always found me very attractive. In fact, I think a hunk of Parmesan just came on to me in the kitchen. I was glad Larry didn't hear it, because Parmesans can be a little lewd. I was reaching inside the fridge for some carrot sticks when I heard this cheesy voice whisper, "I want to be inside you."

I know! So outrageous.

Who uses that as a pick up line?

So inappropriate!

Effective.

But inappropriate.

School's Out For The Fa-all

Gus is on fall break this week. Yes, fall break. Six days of it, in fact. Because, shoo, six weeks of kindergarten'll really take it out of a kid; someone give those little people a BREAK.

Larry took Gus hiking and fishing and rowing on Monday and Tuesday when their fall breaks overlapped, but the remaining days have been designated "Bring Your Kid to Work Day." So Gus went to school with Larry yesterday, and today he was tooling around my office trying his very best to be respectful of others.

“Are you busy?” he would ask my coworkers, before unloading a fleet of fire trucks onto their desks. “Should I come back later?”

I realize that dragging our son to work is not the most elegant solution to the fall vacation conundrum, but thanks to the patience and graciousness of the people Larry and I work with, there were no casualties. 

Gus has his own cubicle (with custom name plate), where he can draw pictures and build his own Matchbox city. I overheard him giving tours of the imaginary football stadium, which he would preface by saying "As you can see ..."

He punctuated the day with vending machine visits and trivia quizzes--(Mom, did you know those black dots in the middle of your eyes are called pimples? And why do people say 'for goodness snakes'?)--and then he begged me to let him keep our operations manager's cane so he could "do a play about handicapped people."

Periodically, I'd get e-mails from various coworkers in sundry locations: "Can Gus have a Reese's cup?" "Can I give Gus a small package of Whoppers?" "Is Gus allowed to have more bubble gum?"

NO! NO! NO!
DO NOT FEED THE ANIMAL.

In his crowning moment, whilst he was relocating his fire station to serve the "nearby condominiums", I heard him singing James Otto's "Just Got Started Loving You". He wasn't singing along with the radio, mind you. He was singing a capella. I’d been typing up some instructions for one of my printers when I heard his signature nasally refrain wafting down the hall ...

"AFTER ALL THE LOVE WE'VE MAAADE, IT SURE WOULD BE A SHAAAAME TO LET THIS MOMENT END SO SOON ..."

*Sigh*

Wouldn't it, though.

Where's a Good Grizzly Bear When You Need Him?

Well damn.

I feel like that scruffy cat-person at the end of Green Eggs and Ham. Do you remember the lengths he goes to to express his distaste for green eggs and ham? Writing in his online journal about the insane people who enjoy this delicacy, surveying his friends on Facebook (do you like them in the snow?), and then after all that ... he takes a bite. And they are tasty. Turns out he likes green eggs and ham. He likes them, Sam I Am!

I know. I'm going all deep and literary on you. Try to stay with me.

So we camped despite the rain (which subsided) and the cold (which did not), and I'm not going to lie. We had a hell of a good time. And thanks to my heroic feats of layering,  the boys and I hardly noticed the cold. In fact, Gus kept taking off his jacket and complaining that he was hot, which made me feel all happy and successful like a choosy mom who chose Jif. 

This is our tent (because I know you were all sitting there thinking JUST SHOW US YOUR TENT, ALREADY!) which my aunt and uncle gave us last Christmas ...

That chair is not in the picture to give you a sense of scale, by the way. That is Patrick's chair, which he placed there to guard the tent from "creatures". The chair is like 12 inches high. Our tent is not a skyscraper. But it is a supremely awesome tent nonetheless.

I wish I had some drama to report (frostbite! grizzly bear! a bonfire that got out of control!) but the most dramatic moment of the trip came when I woke up in the morning, brushed my teeth, and took a big refreshing swig of what I thought was Ocean Spray cranberry juice. I don't know why I thought that. Maybe because it was in a bottle that said Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice? Who knows why we do the things we do. But everyone was looking at me quizically, and I was all, "God this tastes so ... is it my toothpaste?" And my cousin Danielle enlightened me that it "wasn't just cranberry juice", which I am here to tell you is the understatement of the year. It was BARELY cranberry juice. And my family was all "Oh you didn't know there was vodka in that?"

Um, no. But I'm happy to see you all thought I did know, and that you felt it was perfectly within character for me to pour myself a 16-ounce glass of hard booze at eight o'clock in the morning.

Cheers!