Minky & Me

This picture was taken on Sunday after we decorated our tree. I told Minky that I thought everyone in this picture looked so cute. She then pointed to each person (and dog) and said their name, “mommy,” followed by, “so cute.”

Getting our tree was a real hoot. After finding our usual place shut up until December, we drove around until we found a fully stocked garden center. Wonder of wonders, Elmo was there (Elmo was actually some poor teenager, a girl I’d say, from the way she walked). Minky is bonkers for Elmo and insisted on following him around, dragging her sister along behind.

She was quite inconsolable when we insisted she could not follow Elmo into the garden center. That is until we saw the goat pen. Yes, beside Elmo there was this funny little goat pen with short, horned goats. I would have sworn they were hired as some movie extras, on account of their funny size, had we not been far, far away from any movie sets. The added attraction with the goats was that you could put .25 cents in gum ball machine that dispensed feed of some sort. We used up all our quarters, buying food so these little goats could lick our hands.

Back in the car, warm and out of the snow, Minky made several positive remarks about the whole proceedings. I think she used one, “oh my God.” You know it made an impression when she trots that phrase out.

Tonight while I was having a phone conversation with Daddy, Minky commandeered the phone and for the first 30 seconds of their conversation just listened to Daddy begging her to say something. Then she took off into her room saying, “Playing toys. Playing moogat (music).” I didn’t mean to eavesdrop on their private call but I couldn’t help myself.

The new catch phrase this week is lookit-the. All the words are run together quickly; it sounds very rhythmic. So far I’ve heard:

Lookit-the kitty.
Lookit-the pumpkin.
Lookit-the Coco.

Our current favorite book is Ernie by Tony Mendoza. It is a photographic memoir of a cat the photographer lived with in the 80’s. The book was out of print for a while but has made a recent comeback.

There is one picture in the book of Ernie hunkered down in a suitcase. He looks ready to be zipped in. This morning I asked Minky what Ernie was doing. She said, “Ernie. Suitcase. Plane!”

Writing over. Minky has just requested that I read Ernie to her again.

So much going on these days. Finishing up a class, which is a lot of work. Getting ready to move, which is also a lot of work.

Since it’s late and I’m tired, I’ll write just a quick story. The other night I went into the bathroom leaving Minky alone in my bedroom for a minute. A half minute after I left there was a huge thud. A vision of her lying unconscious on the floor loomed up in front of my eyes. As I rushed down the hallway toward her, she rushed toward me, sobbing.

“What happened?” I bellowed.

Sensing her limited opportunity to pick up a forbidden object while I was out of the room, I deduced that Minky had lifted the iron and then promptly dropped it when it was too heavy for her to carry. The noise must have scared her out of her wits from the way she was crying. As she led me to where the iron lay she exclaimed, “oh my God.”

What was striking about hearing her say that was how perfectly she used the expression. It was also a flawless imitation of the way I say “oh my God.” You’d think I’d be over the tiny-person-using-adult-language thing by now, but I’m not.

Layr told me that she said the same thing when he put black socks on her feet a month ago. “New socks! Oh my God!”

I didn’t believe him.

There are two new movies. A Blooper and A Nudie. Find the link on the right side of the page.

Speaking of movies I’ve changed things around a bit. I’ve put all the movies back on the homepage. I think it works much better.

A note of caution. The movies are BIG files. It will take awhile to view them especially if you have a slower connection.

Me: Mom, you know that awful cranberry jacket you bought that I don’t like. Well, you left it here and it’s downstairs in our front closet.

Mom: I blame your sister for that. Why didn’t she tell me that jacket looked frumpy? I can always count on you, though, to be brutally honest.