Interrupting Cow Goes to Pot(ter)

Last night, I finished the sixth and latest "Harry Potter" book, a tale so complicated (at least in my current state of medication) that I thought I was going to need a decoder ring and an org chart to figure it out. I admit I was not surprised at the death (if you haven't read it, don't blame me if I am about to ruin your happiness by spurting out all kinds of details) but DID find myself getting waaaaaay too worked up about the varying romantic plots that litter this particular book.

It's like someone unleashed a rampant spell on all the students -- Hormonus Rageamongous? -- but it seemed every character except for the giant squid in the Hogwarts castle lake was gettin' their "snog" on with someone.

The plot goes something like this:
a) Harry and friends go back to school
b) Harry and friends are ridiculed
c) Harry and friends are famous
d) Harry and famous friends don't look so bad now to all the suddenly boob-laden/perfume wearing hoochie witches who start throwing themselves at the young boy wizards with the same crazy ass love potions that Ric Ocasek must have used on that super hot model wife of his (there is no other explanation for a pairing of someone that heinous and someone that...not heinous)
e) Harry and famous friends decide that a little promiscuity here and there never really hurt anyone, and besides, wizards invented the cure for herpes, right? so they and their classmates fling themselves at every willing target they encounter (including a couple of ghosts, and maybe a centaur or two)
f) Harry and famous friends all switch partners and resume "snogging"
g, h, i) - repeat, repeat, repeat, until you have swapped saliva with all of your classmates, your classmates' siblings, your enemies, your local bartender, and half the staff of Hooters of Diagon Alley
j) fight some bad guys
k) dream about who you plan to snog in the next book

I realize I may be simplifying things a bit. I also realize I am something of a Harry Potter freak and spend far too much free time worrying about what kind of hair products Hermione must use to keep that mess under control, whether or not I could convice Dan that our next child's middle name should be Hedwig, what shape my own Patronus would take on (probably a cow -- and yes, THAT would certainly stare down death and have it fleeing in terror....), and whether I could get my OB/GYN to give me a lightning-bolt shaped scar on my next C-section.

That's all for now. Daniel -- READ THE DAMN BOOKS. It would make this post much funnier.

EXPELLIARMUS!!!

(Did your keyboard go flying out from under your hands there??? eh??? am I good or what?!?)

Noggin'-a get this crap outta your head

This, my friends, is Ooby. At least one of them is. The other one is Uma, his sister. Both of them are pure baby crack in our house, capable of holding Molly's attention longer than all of her expensive battery/solar/plutonium-powered walking/talking/hokeypokeying toys put together.

Ooby is one of the programs regularly enjoyed by toddlers and stared blankly at by parents on the lovely invention called Noggin -- "It's Like Preschool on TV!" In our house, it's like free babysitting, albeit babysitting by an alarming concoction of uppity British animals, claymation thingies and hands with eyeballs stuck on them.

I don't know what I thought I was planning to do with our child when I brought her home from the hospital before I discovered Noggin. I thought we would be doomed to old standards like Sesame Street and...er...Sesame Street -- let's face it, cartoons and kids shows have gone downhill fast since the days of the Banana Splits, The Great Space Coaster, Captain Kangaroo, the Smurfs, Shirt Tales, JEM...OK, maybe that last one wasn't so great but it didn't stop me from wishing I had long pink hair and could get any 7 year old hottie I wanted with my wicked guitar playing.

Baby Einstein videos were a good start, but nothing prepared us for the pure rapture of discovering Noggin and its seemingly endless parade of strangely named animal characters, brain-rotting between-show snippets that you CANNOT GET OUT OF YOUR HEAD, no matter what you try, and commercials clearly aimed at grownups that make me laugh like a maniac.

I do, however, have some concerns about some of the Noggin shows and the mere fact that these bother me so much means that the evil gamma rays of mind domination emitting from channel 110 in our house have already taken hold of my brain cells. These are brain cells that were so full of useless 80s song lyrics and statistics about the 1968 Detroit Tigers that it must be a hell of a battle going on in there for the few remaining snippets of sanity.

Let me start with "64 Zoo Lane," a show about a bunch of zoo animals who frequently reminisce about their lives in Africa, despite all having Her Majesty's perfect British pronounciation, and who cavort at night with their little friend Lucy who a) has no discernible accent whatsoever and b) apparently cannot afford more than one pair of pajamas which probably smell pretty rank considering she runs around all night with hippos and such. The problem with this show is its theme song, which now runs through my head at extremely inopportune moments such as during conference calls, merging into 6 lanes of traffic or during sex. And I can't remember half the words, so my lovely inner voice sings "there's one with....ermefffff...and one who can...mmfffhf...and one who is...WELL A LITTLE BIT PLUMP (I always remember that one). I could go in the car and crank Audioslave at full volume and still be muttering WELL A LITTLE BIT PLUMP as I get out of the car.

Another show that causes me far too much stress is "Franklin," about a kid turtle who happens to be the only one on the show with an actual name. I guess you don't worry about having a wuss name like that if you're a turtle - not like someone can punch you without breaking a hand on your shell. But his friends are cleverly named...Rabbit, Beaver, Bear...well alrighty, let's just succumb to stereotypes here and assume Rabbit is not the only child of Mr. and Mrs...Rabbit. What are the other kids' names? Rabit? Rah-byt? Is it like that group Tony Toni Tone and they just spell them all differently? And the adults are all named Mr. or Mrs. (species,) so that makes his friends Bear Bear, Rabbit Rabbit and Beaver Beaver. This bothers me to no end.

Onto Oswald the octopus, voiced by where-has-my-career-gone Fred Savage. Oswald has a dog named Weenie, which is appropriate because she actually is a hot dog with a tail. I always wonder if Fred couldn't have had a bit more influence and have her named Winnie instead? That would set up a great inter-species junior high hormone fest. Oswald's best friend is an insanely effeminate, uppity penguin named Henry, voiced, as one would clearly expect, by SQUIGGY from Laverne and Shirley. ???? I keep hoping that Henry meets a horrible death but so far, no such luck.

Thank GOD Molly has not yet discovered Dora the Explorer, who, while I'm sure she provides wonderful education to children, makes me want to hurl her off a cliff while screaming both See Ya Sucka and HASTA LA VISTA, BEEYATCH!! See? I learned some Espanol from her.

First of all, where the HELL are this kid's parents??? At this rate Dora's going to become Dori or Candi or Trixi and be a streetwalker by the time she's 15. The other thing that drives me BATTY is when Dora asks her friends at home a question, and then they stand there and stare at you for what seems like 25 minutes while the little characters blink a couple of times and then yell "That's RIGHT!!" How long do they think kids need to answer them?? And HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT'S RIGHT?!?! When Dora asks me if I see her backpack on the screen, I usually yell back something like "SHOULDN'T YOU BE IN SCHOOL!?!?" and am answered, pleasantly, with "That's RIGHT!!!!" ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHH.

We love to watch Connie the Cow (also inexplicably British), Miffy the weird emotionless claymation bunny thing, and especially the antics of the cleverly named "Moose A. Moose," Noggin's official mascot. I just love saying it. I plan to name my next child Hearsch A. Hearsch. We are also strangely obsessed with the creepy sing-along songs led by Lori Berkner, and now randomly featuring where-did-my-career-go-too-by-the-way Lisa Loeb. My hope is that they branch out soon -- I would love to see the White Stripes going at it with "When You're Happy And You Know it (smoke some weed)" and some very frightened looking children staring blankly at them.

If any of my readers here can explain to me why Hedgie the Hedgehog in Connie the Cow's neighborhood wears a striped sock on his nose, looking very much like a cross between bad hosiery and a candycane prophylactic, please enlighten me at once.

For now, I have to go. These earnings charts aren't gonna sort themselves, you know.

WELL A LITTLE BIT PLUMP -- arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!!!!! damage done, already stuck for the day. Rassin' frassin'.....

Baby Chicken -- YOU get up.

We have a lovely tradition in our household on weekend mornings. It starts with the traditional game of "baby-chicken," in which Dan and I attempt to drive the other out of bed to retrieve the babbling, poo-covered screech monkey that inhabits the crib down the hall (a breed of monkey who apparently has NOT been bred to understand that mommy and daddy DO NOT FUNCTION before 9 on the weekends; 10 if drinking was involved the night before). We each crack an eyelid open as carefully as possible so as not to let the opponent know that we actually are awake or are acknowedging the hooting and squawking blasting over the baby monitor (despite the fact that this is what this device was designed and purchased for); we let out a few badly-acted snores and grunts; we flip over violently so that our backs are to each other, making sure to yank the blankets with utter disgust as we both silently curse the neglectful parenting skills of the other who will so selfishly NOT go tend to the racket in the other room.

Finally one of us snaps the covers back with enough force that we hope will mimic a vicious lockerroom towel snap to the ass, and trudges down the hall to get said screech monkey.

I must point out, since it is my blog and I can tell the truth as openly as I please, that ONLY MOMMY seems to ever notice the rancid stench coming out of Molly's diapered area after 10 or so hours of sleep. Daddy, miraculously, who can distinguish between cuts of pork chop in a wok and types of seasoning used in chili from 2 miles a way, cannot apparently smell a thing. It is at this point that whoever got up first usually decides that now would be a perfect time for some family bonding, and so back we go to mommy and daddy's bedroom with (half the time at least) a poop-laden very chatty baby who spends the next 45 minutes standing on the head and attempting to squelch the eyes out of the poor parent who is still trying to fake being asleep.

"That's RIGHT! That's MAMA! Say, HI MAMA!!!" pokepokepoke gurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrghlelelgh as she decides to take a step on my trachea shortly before trying to hurl herself headfirst onto the hardwood floor for the 1000000th consecutive time.

Eventually, the parent who was sucker enough to get up takes Molly downstairs for breakfast and the second part of the weekend tradition -- watching the highly addictive lineup of Noggin's morning shows. More on that next time though...and if you are of the mindset that toddlers shouldn't watch TV, I invite you to try to pry this child away from either Elmo, Miffy the weird non-lip-moving bunny thing, or Ooby the freak show human hand with eyeballs on its "head." Seriously.

Cow, Interrupted

I suppose before I ramble on any further I should explain the extremely secretive, uncrackable-by-even-the-globe's-finest-spies title of said blog.

1) I have a cow obsession.

2) I have the sense of humor of a 3 year old.

Combine these two highly combustible elements and you get my signature joke, one that I tell on every occasion I get and one at which I cackle and snort like livestock with Turrett's. It's hard to tell in writing, but I will try. You -- do your part and participate where required:

Me: "Knock knock."

You: "Who's there?" (If you said "Whose there," please stop reading now and GET OFF MY BLOG, you grammatically challenged pile of smoking dung.)

Me: "Interrupting Cow."

You: "Interru..."

Me: (YELLED for best effect) "MOOOOOOOO!"

Ya get it? Interrupting cow?? I interru...oh, nevermind. I find it endlessly amusing though. Most people laugh not from the actual joke but from watching me writhe with mirth as though you just told me the funniest tidbit on earth -- like "Tom Cruise has a point" or "The Tigers could definitely contend for the wildcard this year!"

I should probably mention my second favorite joke, so that those of you with children under 4 or particularly dumb pets can pass along something they will appreciate:

Q: What do you call a fish with no eyes?

A: FSH.

hahahaha. Get it? No "i"s??

Wheeeeeeee, and again, SO many people wonder what higher power deemed it appropriate for me to procreate.

Moo.

Funny Ha-Ha

I have never realized how hard it is to sit around and try to randomly throw out bits of sparkling wit until now. First of all, I am still struggling to figure out what the point of blogging is anyway. Who wants to read this crap?? How do people like Heather Armstrong (my personal blog heroine, dooce.com -- one of the funniest writers currently alive) get started?! And how do they stay funny??? It's not like my friends and family are gonna come on here and catch up on my life -- I see them all the damn time anyway. Like they really need color commentary in addition to the daily play-by-play they already see of my life??

I am basically doing this to succumb to peer pressure, in that everyone always says "ha ha, you are soooo funny, you should write!" and I say "ha ha, I also like money and I should have a job which supplies some!!" So I do (the latter), but I still miss (the former). So there you go, poor denizens of cyberspace, I guess I will have to use this as my brilliant canvas of linguistic creation. Also, I want to impress the cool mommies on my babycenter.com birth board, who all have unending witty things to spew on their own blogs.

Egyptian Hula

Why is this badly made-up woman doing the Egyptian hula in a white potato sack?

There's no punchline, that's seriously what I was doing in "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" in January 2005. I am a theater geek (as if there was another variety of theater person), currently doing "West Side Story." My "home theater" of choice is Ann Arbor Civic Theatre, which if nothing else provided the setting for me to meet all of my best friends. Oh, and husband, who subsequently hates everything to do with theater. It's not my fault he bound himself to a life of suburban boredom because he found me there but if he wants to take it out on AACT, he's perfectly welcome.