Toys

When this blog says "recently," it actually means May of 2006. Sorry!

Recently, Ness posted a blog commenting about the toys of our childhood. I, being a slacker, didn't leave a comment until I was verbally beaten about the head and neck for not posting. I told her that I would torture her with something , and I feel that I have succeeded. As a matter of fact, I was so proud of the level of torment I threw at her, that I decided to share it with all of you.

Yes, I can tell that you are awed by my unadulterated goodness.

So here begins my post about my personal favorite childhood toys:

This is an absolute no-brainer.STAR WARS ACTION FIGURES!!!

My God, what would my brothers and I have done all year long if it weren't for those little pieces of plastic that held all of us in such a trance. We would pile fallen pine needles into stages, corridors, whatever it took to give us an excuse to have some kind of conflict that could only be solved by a battle royale between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker.

We would dress the part, too, in the winter, with my hair pinned into giant croissants placed with care just above my ears, in a white nightgown, my eldest brother wearing a long scarf tied in a knot as a sash, trying to do the weird growly noise (which, to this day, is the easiest way for any man to impress me. To do the Chewbacca growl is the epitome of assured masculinity and virility in my eyes.) and look as though he would indeed tear out an arm and beat you with it.

My other two brothers were Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, respectively...although it never did come to blows, to my obviously understandable dismay. I was Leia, dammit, and I wanted some BLOOD!

And where would the world be without WEEBLE WOBBLES? Man I loved me some Weeble Wobbles. Especially the little tree house play set with the slidey slide. God, hours of fun in the back yard on the sand pile.I could actually go on for a lot longer, because, really, I grew up in like the Golden Age of toys, if you ask me...From Hot Wheels to Mr Potato Head to Etch-A-Sketch.

We didn't have Candy Land, but my cousins did, and so we would go to their house and play games over there....Candy Land, Chinese Checkers, Monopoly (where began the lifetime of hatred I feel for that game), Superman, and, of course, War. Not the card game. I hated playing war with my family, hated it with an all consuming passion. This had nothing to do with my purely pacifist stance in conflict, but, rather, reflected my earliest encounters with gender stereotyping. I was a girl, so I had to be the nurse.

For those friends of mine who are indeed, nurses, this may not seem like such a terrible thing, but to me in my 5-9 year bloodlust, this was tantamount to being horsewhipped with barbed wire. There is no thing on earth that I think could possibly compare with the boredom of waiting for my brothers and cousins to get tired, and play wounded so they could get a little rest so that I could play, too. Wow, that sounded so sad. *sniff* But really, it was what it was, and I didn't hate it too terribly or I would have found something else to do.

Little Golden Books...need I say more? I loved them with a passion that wouldn't die. I think I knew I read too much when I hit about age 11 and my mom would yell at me to get out of my room and get my nose out of a book. If I was particularly bad (which occasionally I was, believe it or not), she would threaten to burn all of my books. At that point, she usually got me to heed her.

There is, however, a penultimate toy that we all had as children, and it's one that you really don't run into that often any more, and I think it's a shame. In this world of PS2, Xbox, and portable dvd players so little kids don't get bored while Mom is driving to the store, the toy that I notice as missing more and more often is a very simple one. It's called "imagination". I don't think that we, as adults and children, take enough time to turn off the tv, pause the computer game, go outside, and play games of "What If?."

I think there is something to be said for the ability for people to ENTERTAIN THEMSELVES. When I was young, I heard that only boring people get bored, and really I do hold this to be truth. I notice that as I age, I think back most fondly on the simpler things that I enjoyed. I remember "Pong" like it was yesterday, but better than that I remember the little arrow plants my brothers and I would pick and throw at each other while playing "Chiefs."

I think that if "imagination" was something that was sold in a box or a bag,I would love to buy all of us some.
Lovies!

Trick or Whatever

Halloween-time
You can really tell sometimes, when people are related. Sometimes they look alike, have a similar personality quirk (Tourette's, maybe?), or beat a much loved phrase into the proverbial dirt.
My mother and I have something in common, something which I am convinced surpasses mere habit, but is something carved into the core, the essence, the very fiber of our communal beings.
We hate trick-or-treaters.
Don't get me wrong. We both love Halloween. The costumes, the morbidity (all right that might be a smidge more me), the chocolate in very very big bags.
But the trick-or-treaters? Not so much. Even less than that, actually.
We're cold blooded and lazy. Don't come and knock on our door and beg for candy. It's not a commercial. Don't you see that there's a cat on my lap? I'm on the computer. Go away.
I don't think that children exist that are "precious" enough for me to give a flying never-mind about (and if you think I really mean to say never-mind, you have another thing coming), and get off my soft, comfy couch for. Buy your own candy, Mom and Dad. You cheap so-and so's.
To alleviate the problem of the trick or treaters in this village (it's literally too small to be classified as a town), Mom and I have come to a conclusion.
We're skipping town.
While small children run around getting razored apples, poisoned candy, and frostbite, Mom and I intend to be shopping, or having a bite to eat in a cozy restaurant.
Stop. I can feel your palpible envy.
Lovies!!!!