Theme Translation

The original theme song for the 1966 Batman television program is Batman. The hero and his tune are inseparable. I’m not sure what people did without it for the first twenty seven years of his existence. I can’t see an image or symbol of Batman’s without getting that musical hook stuck in my head. “Na na na na na na na na…”

When Batgirl arrived on the scene, the writers decided to add a bit with her returning to her own “Batcave” on a tricked out purple motor scooter. Here’s how the planning for this plays out in my head:

Writers: “So, as she rides down the street, she’ll push a button. A section of brick wall will lower, then seal back up after she drives inside.”

Yes-men: “Genius!”

-3 months later-

Post-Production: “Um, guys? What are we supposed to do for audio over this sequence? As it is, she’s just zooming down the street. Do we want ambient traffic noises? Is there a voice-over or something?”

Writers: “Oh, crap! Uh… well, bounce it over to the music guys. Get them to write whatever to put over it.”
Post-Production: “Are you sure?”
Writers: “Yeah, why not? The theme song is gold. Hey, have them give her a theme song! Something swingin’!”

-Twenty minutes later-

Music Department: “They want us to do what?!”
Post-Production: “Hey, man, don’t, uh, Batarang the messenger. They want a Batgirl theme song, probably about 45 seconds long, for a vehicle sequence.”

Music Department: “But what about lyrics? They’re the word people.”

Post-Production: “We have faith in you; the show’s theme song was a pretty big success, after all.”

Music Department: “The theme song is just the word ‘Batman’ over and over again.”

Post-Production: “Is it? Huh. Well, people like it! You’ll figure this one out, too. Just make sure it’s outta sight.”

-Two weeks later-

Writers: “What the hell is this?!”

Yes-men: “It’s, uh… modern.”

Writers: "We're never using this again." Yes-men: "That's probably for the best."

The reason I think that the song was last minute is because the whole thing is pick up like after pick up line. Though the lyrics are very 60s, so they're a bit difficult for a 21st century audience to understand. That's good, because over half of the audience in my home is under the age of six, and the content of the song isn't appropriate for that age group. It's also too bad, because I wouldn't mind if my three year old was singing anything other than the Batman theme at the top of her voice, every single moment of the day. Because this is The Internet (and also for my own amusement), I decided to translate Batgirl's disastrous theme song out of swingin' 60s slang and into the more comprehensible language of today. I can only assume that my version is a true-to-life representation of the way "hip" "young" people speak to one another in today's world. Batgirl, Batgirl!

Batgirl, Batgirl!

I would like to get to know you better.

Why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself?

Batgirl, Batgirl!

Batgirl, Batgirl!

Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?

Those are some nice shoes. Do you want to make out?

Are you currently in a committed, exclusive relationship?

Batgirl, Batgirl!

Seriously, are you in a committed, exclusive relationship?

Batgirl!

Now all that's left is to put it to the original music. ...There might be just a few timing issues.

Internet Famous

I tweeted about my #momlife this morning, and when I checked twitter again this afternoon in an effort to distract myself from working, I noticed that Famous Footwear had made a little poster of my tweet.

He's done this every morning for the last week or so.

This could mean one of two things:

#1: They’re trying to get people to use their hashtag #momlikeaboss

or

#2: I’m totally famous now.

I’m just going to go ahead and assume the latter. If you need me, I’ll be basking in the sun on the deck (that’s what famous people do, right?)… where I’m sure my son will soon join me, if only to knock over my glass of water.

The Dream or the Story

“I had a dream that I was Batgirl!” my five year old told my three year old. As the younger one marveled, I opened my mouth to inform my eldest child that she did not need to claim that she dreamed something in order to entertain her sister. I was going to say something like, “You may tell her a nice story if you want to; you don’t have to dream about it first (or say you dreamed it).”

But then my own voice echoed down to me from the past: “And then you jumped on the motorcycles, and zoomed away!” I could see the bemused look on my mother’s face, and hear my brothers’ excited cheers.

I was probably ten years old when I had the dream. I did actually have one, it wasn’t just something I pulled out of thin air. It was an action/adventure dream, starring myself and my brothers, but, like most dreams, there were strange parts and parts that didn’t make sense, and parts that wouldn’t have fit easily into the feature film pitch my brothers heard. I started telling them my real dream when we woke up, but by the time we were dressed and downstairs for breakfast, I’d begun to fill in the slow parts and invent new interesting scenes, purely for their amusement.

“I think your sister may just be telling you a story,” said my mother. I rushed to make sure my brothers knew that the tale really did have sleep-induced inspiration, but they were already off, pretending a scene from my “dream.”

I smiled while I watched my children play together. The story, whether it was dreamed or invented, was entertaining them, and they were having a great time.

Super

"Oh Steve, you know you can't beat
the Nazis without me!" (tv.com)

My daughters have recently become interested in super heroes. It started with watching a couple of old 70s Wonder Woman episodes on Saturday nights with my dad. Then I picked up a pair of cape shirts for them at Target. We went to the library and borrowed a copy of The Princess in Black. The other day I heard my daughter singing her own lyrics to the Batman theme song: “Batgirl, Batgirl, she chases bad guys and runs away from them, and catches them sometimes, she’s a super hero, not a princess; Batgirl!”

I’m not a super hero, but that doesn’t stop my three year old from warming my heart when she says, “You’re the best, Mommy!” So I started to think about what super powers I do have. I can’t fly or do fancy martial arts, but I do have amazing ears.

People always say that moms have eyes in the back of their heads, but it’s not true. Vision has nothing to do with it. Moms have super hearing. I can tell if my kid is sick in the middle of the night or just having a bad dream, determine whether there are shenanigans during a suspicious silence, or know if the baby is crying because he is hungry or tired.

It may not be the most interesting power, but it really helps me out a lot. And just because I don’t run around at night chasing bad guys (or running away from them), doesn’t mean I can’t tie a blanket around my shoulders and chase my kids (and tickle them sometimes)!

Birthday List

It’s my birthday. Today I will:

Hang out with my kids

Play video games

High five my mom

Go out to dinner with my husband

Read

Crochet

Be amused by the number of people leaving birthday messages on my facebook wall who have not communicated with me since the last time they left a birthday message on my facebook wall

Be awesome (as usual)

The Blarg

Have you ever had one of those days when feel like you can’t do anything? For me, that day is today.

I have a serious case of Blarg.

The internet is vaguely distracting, but only in short spurts (usually until my body remembers the Blarg and starts shouting at me to find a more comfortable position. Not gonna happen, body. I doubt I’d be able to find a comfortable position in Zero G today). My children are cute, but not terribly entertaining while they’re napping (I would nap too, except that it would be ¾ tossing and turning and only ¼ nap, and that’s not enough nap to even justify walking into my bedroom). I love my kindle, but the two books I’m reading right now are unsuited to be read together (one has super long chapters and the other super short; I’ll let you guess which one is more interesting) (not to mention that the reading has to occur while I am sitting, standing, or lying down, and as I’ve previously mentioned, doing any of those things sucks for me today).

Sitting? Uncomfortable. Sleeping? Uncomfortable. Reading a book? Uncomfortable.

Blarg.

Mist in the Morning

My husband drives the same drive every day, back and forth to work: once in the morning, and once in the evening. It’s a lovely drive, but he doesn’t see it anymore. To him, it’s just the commute. Yeah, there are lovely rolling hills and beautiful river views, but he’s become immune to their breathtakingness.

I think we all get that way, sometimes.

This morning I rode along with my husband to work. We discussed normal, everyday things: future plans, what we were planning to give our children for Christmas. Except for when I interrupted everything with remarks about how gorgeous the scenery was. Mist was clinging to the ground, refusing to be chased away by the light of the rising sun. At one point we went down a hill and under a cloud lying low in the valley of a field. It was awesome. “Is it always like this?” I asked my husband as we pushed through a bank of cloud that obliterated the trees, clouds, and river. He shrugged. “Sometimes... A lot of the time, I guess.”

I wondered how often that sort of thing happens to me. Not that I’m often oblivious to lovely scenery, but it made me think about how often I might be failing to recognize and appreciate wonderful things in my life. I’m not the type of person who overexaggerates every disappointing moment that I experience, but I do have those times when I feel like stomping off to shout, “EVERYTHING IS THE WORST.”

But someone else “riding along” with me might be able to more easily point out the wonderful things in my life: my adorable children, my supportive parents, my awesome brothers (and their families), and my hilarious, hardworking husband. When I’m annoyed or stressed or frustrated, it’s easy for me to miss noticing that not every moment, not everything in my life is annoying or stress-inducing or frustrating. When I feel that way, I need to stop, look around, and notice the wonderful things that are always there, things that I might be too distracted or too used to having that I don’t actually see them.

My life will always have its hills and valleys, its good times and bad. But I hope that I never forget the beautiful things about it: the family I have been blessed with, friends who love me, and breathtaking views of mist in the morning.

Writing About Writing

It’s very easy for me, especially on the days that I can’t immediately think of something to write about, to let my attention wander on the internet. Sometimes it’s a good thing, because I will occasionally get inspired by a news article, or an argument about something random, or by the contents of a webcomic. Other times I will spend several hours reading the webcomic’s archives and floating in a state of non-working bliss.

Usually it’s the guilty thought of “I HAVEN’T WRITTEN ANYTHING TODAY” that pulls me back to doing what I actually should be doing, but occasionally I come across things like this.

Image property of The Oatmeal.

Earlier today I thought several witty things and amused myself, and found myself thinking, “if only I could draw, I wouldn’t have to write everything down; it would be less work.” Then I read this comic and realized that when you can draw, not only do you have to do the drawing part, but you also have to do the writing part. So really, not being able to draw is a good thing (if I’m looking at the less/more work scale).

Sometimes the only thing you can do when you’re in a state of “I’ve got nothin’” is to write about writing. You might think that “writing about writing” is the same thing as “writing about nothing,” but it’s surprising how stepping back to take a look at what you do will produce a wonderful piece. This comic, like most by The Oatmeal, is endearingly rude and half full of swears, but makes amazing and inspiring points.

As a writer, I get to make my own schedule. For me, this means that once I write something sufficiently amusing, I can do whatever I want for the rest of the day. Play video games, ignore housework, nap, whatever. Once I click that ‘publish’ button, my day is my own.

Every job has its faults, and even though this is my dream job, I still feel like complaining about it sometimes… just not to my wonderful husband who actually has real reasons to complain about his job. “I couldn’t think of anything to write” is such a lame thing to whine about in the face of his actual hardships that I’d rather write something I wasn’t happy with than admit that aloud to him. My husband is awesome.

I love the freedom of being able to write whatever I want. I remember being in school and chafing at ridiculous assignments that I had no interesting creative ideas for, and then feeling like I was set free to romp in a field whenever the assignment happened to be “write whatever you want.” Today it seems like it’s almost opposite. A day full of hours of promise, glistening with the freedom of writing whatever I want seems like oppression, but an interesting phrase, a few words, or an inspiring image can give me the structure I need to creatively produce something amazing.

Sometimes I wish there was an idea generator for the days I when can’t think of anything, a machine without feelings capable of being hurt that I could just push a button as many times as I needed to find something that inspired me. It would be better than playing the writing equivalent of “what do you want for dinner” with my friends. “What should I write about?” “Um, how about…?” “No, that sounds boring.” I suspect that when I inflict that sort of thing on myself and others that deep down I really just want to tell someone else that “your ideas are bad and you should feel bad.” Maybe it somehow makes me feel better? After all, when that situation comes up, I can’t think of anything good, so I suppose it comforts me to know that no one else can either.

An inspiration isn’t something you can control. When I get inspired (usually by a writing prompt of some kind), I can’t turn it off or walk away from it. If I sleep on an idea (or a story), it’s really hard to get that inspiration back. Several times I have ended up working late into the night on something because I knew that if I stopped, I would never be able to come back to it. “What? You want dinner? Well, I started thawing some chicken a couple of hours ago and the recipe I was going to use is sitting on the kitchen counter. Good luck with that; hope the kids like it.”

Cultivating seeds of ideas is sometimes difficult for me. Something funny will happen, or I’ll start pondering a situation and see the interesting or amusing things about it. The smart thing to do, you’d think, would be to write these ideas down somewhere so that later I can come back and use them when I needed to. And I’ve got one of those ‘somewhere’s, a google doc named “stuff to blog about” or some such. But I’ve found that sometimes, writing down that idea before it’s ready can kill it (or make me lose interest in it), just like planting a seedling in the ground ground outside too early. If it’s really a great idea, it will tumble around in my brain for long enough that eventually it will make its way out.

“Make a new friend,” The Oatmeal encourages near the end. “Learn to chainsaw juggle. Read a book. Go hang gliding in your underpants. If you have done all these things and you still don’t have anything to write about, then you shouldn’t be a writer. ...if you don’t have anything to say, then you shouldn’t be talking. And if you don’t have anything to write about, don’t write.”

It’s not like I don’t have things to write about. It’s just one of those moods you get in sometimes, like when you’re eleven and sitting in the middle of your room, surrounded by toys, and whining at your mom: “I’m bored.” I’ve got stuff to write about. I just started reading that cool Rothfuss series (Name of the Wind); there’s a rad spider who’s been living on our front porch for a week or so (I’ve been thinking about ways to start charging him rent, but I’m not sure how I’d monetize slightly digested insect carcasses); and my kids constantly pretend to be dinosaurs. There’s a wealth of stuff going on around here.

It’s hard to get rid of that mood, when you feel uninspired and that there’s nothing interesting enough going on in your life to share with your readers. So when in doubt, write about writing. You may discover that you’ve got quite a bit to write about after all.

Creepy Eyes

"Come on," my older daughter said to the younger as they snuggled down in their couch fort. "We need to stay safe from the owls; they're scary."
"Owls aren't scary, they're awesome!" I argued.
She gave me a gaze full of four year old wisdom and informed me sagely that "Owls eat people."
As I explained to her the nature of the diet of most nocturnal birds of prey, I realized that my tiny owl project was sitting on the table right next to her, and the most recent one to be blessed with eyes was a little creepy looking. It turns out that ivory buttons on white yarn don't look quite normal, whether you use purple thread to attach them or not.
The tiny owl didn't look like it was going to eat anyone. I haven't even given it a mouth yet. But maybe her surmises weren't that off-base. I don't know that I'd want those creepy owly eyes gazing at me from outside my couch fort.

Tiny Owlssembly Line

My daughter said to me this morning, "Mommy, when will you be done with these owls? We want to play with them!" Hey, kid, you can have them when I'm done playing with them.
I like to amuse myself by picking out and matching the yarn for the tiny owls, and today I set out a bunch of different kinds and did a tiny owl assembly line. By the time I was finished, I had four brand new tiny owls!
Now I just have to find some motivation for the tiny eye assembly line, so my tiny owls will be able to see.

Inflatable Fun?

My children have lots of wonderful toys. Beautiful toys. Educational toys. Toys that entertain them for hours on end. But since they’re kids, they can also have the same amount of fun with a stick they found in the yard. Or a cardboard box. Or a balloon.

$100 (@ WalMart) is a liiitle more
than I want to spend. 

As I watched them giggle and chase some balloons around the house last night, I considered all of the wonderful toys that have to be picked up every day and stored on a shelf. If they could all be inflated at a moment’s notice and deflated when they were no longer needed, there would be a lot more time for playing, since my kids could cut down on their cleaning up time. And toys would take up a lot less shelf space that way, too.

So, get on that, science. Who should I contact with this idea so we can get some engineers on this problem? Does Bill Nye take personal requests, or should I just call Hasbro?

I guess meanwhile my kids will have to content themselves with the toys that they already have. Oh, and the cardboard boxes on the porch, of course.

After a Long Day...

The best thing after a long day of work is having a serious heart to heart with your four year old during the car ride home.
The best thing after a long day of work is coming home to find your awesome husband making a delicious meal for you.
The best thing after a long day of work is heading to bed early to curl up with several good books.
The best thing about today was all of those things happened to me.

Yo

I’m not a huge fan of yogurt. I’ll eat it frozen (Ben & Jerry’s “Liz Lemon” is particularly good), but slurping it down for a snack is not my favorite thing. My daughters love it, and my husband buys it so he has something quick to grab in the morning on the way out the door. But there’s a strange phenomenon in our fridge with the yogurt: certain types seem to be tossed aside in favor of others.

“I don’t understand why he does this,” I told my mother over the phone as I grabbed a cast off flavor to favor my daughters with. “I know it’s probably just because he wants to try the different flavors, but he wants to eat the ones he likes first, but it just seems like he’s buying them all and then only eating the ones he knows are good.”

“Your father does that!” my mother replied. “I have to buy him peach yogurt. Only peach! And he just eats peach yogurt, all the time. I would think that the point of having different flavors is to try all of them; I’d want to.”

“He just knows what he likes,” I said. “It’s fun to try different things, but if you know you like something…” I fished around for a metaphor close to her heart. “It’s not like you make your steak different every time. You’re not like ‘ooh, I’ll cook this well done and see how that is.’”

“Hm, that’s true,” my mother admitted. She is a staunch defender of the rare-steak-or-no-steak agenda.

“if you’re not sure you’ll like it, it’s like you’re wasting your time.” I said. “If it’s gross, then you’re sitting there, wishing you’d eaten the thing you knew you liked.” My daughters chomped down on their Key Lime yogurt. “I win,” I concluded.

“Well, as long as it’s getting eaten,” my mother conceded defeat.

“As long as they like it,” I added. “And as long as I don’t have to eat it.”

My Best Laid Plans vs the Cold

The sun is shining on the newly fallen snow, and my daughters’ snowsuits are hanging in the closet.

I need some more materials for a craft project, but the car is covered in ice.

The warmest room in the house is the kids’ bedroom, but I need to work.

It’s cold.

Several of the above things sound fun. My daughters love to play in the snow. I’m excited to get started on a really cool project for my cousin’s Christmas present. But when it’s -DEATH° outside, and the cold is always trying to creep in, staying warm occupies my thoughts and keeps me from doing things that I would normally be happy to do.

Even more unfortunately, the tasks that can’t be completed by untangling the laptop from the mess of cords on the desk and sitting on my daughter’s bed for a while would have to begin with me going outside to scrape the car off. Taking my kids to the craft store after bundling them up isn’t going to be much fun either, but frolicking in the snow followed by a hot lunch and a snuggle read in the warmest room in the house should make up for it.

I will defeat you, cold. I will do everything I want to do and need to do. You can’t stop me… unless I can’t find my boots.

Then it’s an all-day book fest under blankets in front of the heating vent.

WHERE IS MY COASTER

My coaster is gone.

I work at my desk every day, and more often than not, I have a drink sitting in front of me. The glass desk and the paper and electronic things sitting on it do not welcome condensation from cold liquids, so I use a coaster. Last night, I discovered it was missing.

It's dapper, AND keeps
my desk from getting wet.

Did I go to the shelf where I know there are more in order to replace it? No. I’m using a broken photo booth prop that I’m sick of fixing (it’s a monocle, or it was supposed to be. I spent more time explaining what it was than people spent using it correctly in the booth). Why did I not immediately grab a new one? Because I don’t want to put it away when my coaster reappears.

It’s the way of things. As soon as I give in and get out a new coaster, a tiny person toddles up to me in possession of what I had until recently been urgently searching for. Since this tiny person was most likely the culprit that carried it off in the first place and hid it carefully while I searched, it’s hard to be thankful.

Until that happens, I’ll just set my Mountain Dew on this cardboard monocle.

Determinedly Observant

I am determinedly observant.

It is a trait that has come in handy in any job I have had. As a waitress, I got good at eavesdropping and picking up on visual cues. You’d be surprised how often a well timed salsa refill has kept a table from arguing with one another while simultaneously ensuring me a good tip. Or when listening to the woes of whiny, hungry child has saved the day when I swoop in with lunch, “and when you’re done, if your mom says it’s okay, I’ll get you some ice cream, how does that sound?”

I can usually tell my husband or my daughters the exact location of the thing they’re looking for. It’s not a super power bestowed on all moms, it’s simply because I happened to see him toss his wallet on the bed twenty minutes before he straightened the sheets, or that I was annoyed when she kicked off her shoes before she took a nap instead of putting them where they belonged, or watched the beloved bunny get tossed aside in excitement when her Daddy walked in the door.

Sometimes I forget that others haven’t honed their “attention to little details” skills like I have. I’ll comment to my husband on something I saw while driving down the street: “Did you see [outrageous thing]?! How crazy!” And he’ll say, “Huh? What are you talking about?”  (This is one of the wonderful differences between my husband and I. During any silent moment, he is thinking about how to ensure a brighter future for himself, his family, his work, and the universe at large, whlie I am paying attention to “what is that woman wearing?!” My husband is awesome and so am I, just in very different ways.)

Where is it
(this screencap is from Gardens of Time, which I have conquered.)

Occasionally, I torture myself by testing my observation skills. I play an online game of some kind, which either tests my memory or insists I find all objects in a certain scene.

And those games cheat.

It’s like they deliberately leave ONE thing out so that I can’t find it! I can’t decide if it’s meant to humble my bragging ways or to show me that I’m not that observant after all. Part of me thinks, “oh, it’s just a game, just go do something else and forget about it.” But another part of me is yelling, “HOW DARE YOU!! I will find this final chess piece if it’s the last thing I do.”

And I will. If it’s the last thing I do.

Natural Cute > Artificial Cute

Last night I saw a video of a tiny lion cub roaring. It was adorable, so I left the window up so I could show my daughters in the morning. They had a hard time deciding what it was. “Is it a doggie?” my three year old asked. “Khht!” my one year old insisted, pointing at the screen. “It’s a lion,” I told them, “do you want to watch a big one?”

They tumbled over onto the couch, and we watched a lion and lioness roar at the San Diego Zoo. I explained about a lion’s mane while trying to make sure they didn’t fall off the couch, and my one year old made enough surprised exclamations to almost cover the animal’s vocalizations.

“I want to see doggies!” my daughter said when the lions were done roaring. My kids can watch animal videos all day long. They can watch anything all day long, really, and they will if I let them.

I guess the reason that educational cartoons are still made is because watching puppies tumble and play won’t necessarily teach a kid sportsmanship. Plus, there’s all the merchandise to be advertised and sold. Although there’s quite a bit of money-making potential with all the doggie accessories that are around today.

So if you’re like me and you can’t stand to watch another episode of [insert most popular children’s program here], head over to youtube and search “puppies.” Four hours (sometimes even four minutes) of watching videos will not only make your kid forget about that show they were begging to watch, but also won’t drive you absolutely insane.

Stranger Curiosity

Forget “Stranger Danger,” my daughter is defining a new trend in children’s behavior: Stranger Curiosity.

A curious three year old is not a surprising thing. A kid that age is learning about the world, and all kinds of different questions are natural, whether they’re about earth science, how plumbing works, or who that guy walking down the street is.

Questions about strangers are normal. Usually the first people to be introduced to a child are his or her family, and they are people that the child knows all about: their name, their relation to the child, their age, and various other things that their parents choose to share with them. It’s different when talking about a stranger.

Three: “Who is that man?”
Me: “He is a stranger.”
Three: “What is his name?”
Me: “I don’t know.”
Three: “Does he have a name?”
Me: “I would assume so, but I don’t know what it is.”
Three: “Who gave him a name?”
Me: “His mother, most likely.”

Three: “What is his mother’s name?” Me: "I don't know either of them, so I don't know that either." Three: "Does he love Christmas?!" Me: "I... what?"

Usually I give her all the information that she could possibly want about the people around her, so not my knowing the answers to her questions is very foreign to her. And the answer “we are not acquainted with that person, so we do not know,” is not satisfying to her, but that might just be because she doesn’t yet have a definition for the word “acquainted.”

Someday she’ll realize that Mommy doesn’t know every person in the world, and if she wants to know something about someone she’ll have to get to know them herself. And then, as my mother-in-law says, “They’ll get the third degree!”