Squirrelly Car Talk

Yesterday morning MissM and I were in the car on our way to her Preschool Meet & Greet. So, out of the blue she pipes up from the back seat and tells me, "when I'm a grown up lady, I'm going to have a baby girl and I will name her Alaska, that's spelled J-E-L-E-N." (She has apparently called up Gwyneth Paltrow and Jason Lee for baby name advice while I wasn't looking.) Crazy as it seems, I simply spelled A-L-A-S-K-A correctly for her and silently vowed to commemorate this proclamation for use against her at some later date many, many, MANY years from now.

The Preschool gig where she gets to briefly meet her teacher for the upcoming year and see her room was all very anti-climactic as she has the same teacher and room as last year; luckily, she's a great teacher and MissM is as excited as ever. She wanted to stay and play, but the next child showed up right on time and we were shuttled off with a handful of papers and a "see-you-next-week" promise.

In the car on the way home, MissM requested the "squirrel" song from our new favorite CD, the movie soundtrack to Mamma Mia! which was one of my birthday presents. Normally she requests Mamma Mia, Dancing Queen, or Gimme, Gimme, Gimme (a Man after Midnight), so I was puzzled by her request. Upon further inquiry, it turns out "the squirrel song is number 2 on the CD, Mom! You know that one!"

Now, track 2 is Money, Money, Money. Unsure how this is the squirrel song, I cued it up and we sang along...
"Money, money, money
must be funny
in the rich man's world."

Actually, MissM's version went like this:
"Money, money, money
must be funny
it's a rich man's squirrel."

So, now you know. Money is a rich man's squirrel. I can't explain it. Maybe she's been watching too many reruns of this hilarious Phineas & Ferb song.

Summer (TV) Lovin'

Summer used to mean endless reruns and lots of sports on TV. Thank god for the new trend in original cable programming that doesn’t adhere to the “school year” schedule. There are 3 shows I’m in LURVE with and would totally marry, if one could marry a TV show.

Burn Notice is just plain fun. Michael Weston is one part James Bond, one part MacGyver, and one part Equalizer, all wrapped up together in a smart, sexy, and sarcastic package. I idolize Fiona, she’s such a bad @ss; and Sam is too adorable for words, semi-retired spy, full-time boy-toy.

Project Runway Season 5 is off to a slow start. I can’t really explain my fascination with this show. I’m not exactly a fashionista, as anyone who has seen me clothed in the last decade can clearly attest to. And I’m not really a huge fan of the models. They’re all so thin, I want to invite them to dinner and feed them pasta carbonara and crusty bread and crème brulee. But watching the designers scramble and stress and succeed and fail is strangely fascinating. I love the runway show (the good, the bad, and the ugly), and I love Tim Gunn. I don’t have any favorites among the designers yet. Suede referring to himself in the third person drives me insane, and tanorexic “Holla-At-Ya” boy is annoying. So far, I don’t have any strong feelings about any of the female designers, one way or the other.

My third new summer TV obsession is Mad Men. Thanks to my mom for getting me hooked on this one. She watches because the fashions and the daily habits of the characters take her back to her childhood. I find it engrossing, but I’m not sure why. The rampant chauvinism, chain-smoking, and non-stop alcohol consumption make my stomach turn, but it’s like a horrible wreck… I can’t look away.

And coming in as an honorable mention, my daughter’s new favorite show on the Disney Channel, Phineas and Ferb! This emmy-nominated, animated delight has plenty of sarcastic humor that flies right over my preschooler’s head, but she loves it. And I love it, too. The little songs and catch-phrases are clever and cute. I’m amused by Candace’s angst at never successfully busting her brothers, Isabella’s “what’cha doin’ and her troop of super-competent Fireside Girl scouts, Perry the Platypus, aka Agent P, whose only vocalization sounds a little bit like the menacing, growly sound of the ghosts from the movie The Grudge, the cheesy and hilarious evil Dr. Doofenshmirtz, and Ferb, the boy of few words who always gets the plum and pithy lines at the end. I love them all.