The Cow and the Alley Rat

Back when my kids Cookie and Teebo were growing up, Little Golden Books were staples in our playroom pantry.  Among those, I especially loved reading "The Owl and the Pussycat," that classic of children's nonsense poetry that Edward Lear penned in 1871.

So a couple weeks ago, when I needed to come up with a love poem to read at a performance of the local poetry group I belong to (see more at www.spofest.com), a parody of Lear's timeless masterpiece took shape.  The result was the following poem about another quite unlikely romantic pair (pictured below courtesy of my Beanie Baby collection).

I hope you will enjoy it, and, perhaps, share it with a little person you love.  Cookie, try it out on Sooby, Pooh, Bootsie, and Zoomba, and let me know what they think. Personally I think Pooh will identify well with the alley rat.  Here goes:

                                          The Cow and the Alley Rat

The cow and the alley rat took to the sky
In a polka-dot hot air balloon.
They took some Spam and blackberry jam
Just in case they got hungry at noon.
The rat looked out to the clouds about
And sang to a walking bass,
"You are udderly beautiful, Bessie, my love,
And those lovely black spots on your face,
     Your face,
     Your face,
You wear with such elegant grace!"

Cow said to the rat, "Though you're just a bit flat,
With some practice, you could sing better.
I think I am ready right now to go steady,
But how can I fit in your sweater?"
The winds whispered soft and kept them aloft
'Til they reached a castle aglow;
And there on a ray from the sun far away
Stood a stork with a bundle wrapped so,
     Wrapped so,
     Wrapped so,
And the rat told the cow THEY MUST GO!

"Dear Stork, we're quite harried 'cause we're not yet married!"
Said Rat as he mopped up his brow.
"Whether girl or a boy, this bundle of joy
Won't fit with our planning right now!"
So with handle of spoon, he popped their balloon,
Which sped up their trip back.  Oh dear!
They left the stork standing, then looked toward their landing
With great trepidation and fear,
     And fear,
     And fear,
And the rat said, "We're dead meat, my dear!"

The rat aahed and oohed, and Bessie just mooed;
They were certain they both were quite dead.
But before they met fate, the stork said, "Hey wait--
This bundle is just homemade bread!
In your hurry to fly your balloon to the sky,
This is what you neglected to pack."
With his expertise flying, he saved them from dying,
And they paid the favor right back,
     Right back,
     Right back:
They shared all the food in their sack.


 

Beenie's Other Christmas Present

Just two nights ago I was frying up three skillets of morels, which Mom, Pa-pa, Teebo, Beenie's mama, and I inhaled in pretty short order as we enjoyed a textbook spring evening out on our screened deck.  As we worked to founder ourselves on these delicate offspring of wet weather followed by hot sunshine, we gloried in a concert of birdsong and distant lawn mowers against a backdrop of lush green lawns and flowering trees ruffled by a welcome breeze.

As the evening wore on, the breeze picked up and turned cold.  By last night the temperature had dropped fifty degrees and a wintery mix of precipitation began to assault the tulips.  Today, we woke up to a historic cover of May snow that has continued to come down through most of the day.  Never, in all of my six decades of life, do I recall seeing snow in Missouri in the month of May.

And so, on a day when I was supposed to be having a garage sale with the other families in my subdivision, my thoughts have rewound themselves to the things of winter.  Chili is simmering on the stove, and I am thinking about Christmas.

Specifically, I am thinking about what I will get for Beenie, who is Grandkid #4 of the Fab Five.  Since Beenie and I have spent three days a week together most of this school year, I have a pretty good idea of the kinds of things he might like to find beneath the paper and bows next Christmas, when he will be twenty-one months old.

A typical boy, he likes trains and cars and basically anything with a set of wheels that he can push along the floor while making that cute little "bmm-bmm-bmm" motor sound.  He also likes phones, from the most basic rattler toy to my iPhone.  Every day, at some point, he will hand me the rattler, shaped like a landline receiver, and expect me to go through my familiar one-sided dialogue:  "Hello?  Yes.  Yes.  No.  OK.  Bye-bye."

I also have the Fisher-Price chatter phone and numerous toy cordless and cell phones.  Although he likes all of these, none holds a candle to my iPhone, whether we are looking together at the pictures and videos of Beenie and his cousins stored in my camera roll file or watching a musical You Tube video like "Five Little Monkeys" or "I'm a Gummy Bear."

Finally, I am proud to say that Beenie has taken after his Googie and seems to have an affinity for Beanie Baby stuffed animals.  (With a blog name like "Beenie," I guess he didn't really have a choice.)  Although most of my nine hundred (yes, you read that right) Beanies occupy a closet out of the grandkids' reach until they get a little older and more hand-tag-friendly, I do keep eight or ten  of the "better-loved" ones on a shelf in the family room for them to play with.

Every day Beenie will use the loveseat to pull himself into a standing position so that he can then point a little forefinger at the furry little critters he sees up on the shelf above.  This is my cue to get them down, one by one, and repeat their individual names as I put them within his reach.  Thus, Casanova, Woody, Mystique, Ally, Yours Truly, Kissy, Glory, Giraffiti, and Chocolate Kiss become an integral part of our play.

So toy vehicles, phones, and stuffed animals are all good candidates for Beenie's special present, come the more welcome and opportune snowfall that heralds Christmastime.  I will keep these in mind as I watch for sales and bargains that may present themselves over the summer.

However, whichever of these I buy will have to take second place to the other gift I have in mind for Beenie.  This is something I have been thinking about for a couple months now.  I get more excited about it every day.

It will be a tee-shirt that says "Big Brother."  Consider this the official announcement of the expected arrival of Grandkid #6 on or around November 10, just a day before what would have been my sweet dad's eighty-ninth birthday. 

This means I am going to have to spray-paint that sixth 8- x 10-inch wood frame for the googery, the gallery of grandkid photos I have hanging in their room here at Googie's.  (See "The Googery," my March 18, 2013, blog post for further explanation and a photo.)  It will be chocolate brown this time.

So, although this comes a little early, Merry Christmas, Beenie.  I hope you will like your present this year, whatever it is, and I know we will like ours.




         

What Poopsie Hath Wrought

The idea first occurred to me when I was looking at Poopsie. 

From his goldenrod color and distinct facial features, it is obvious that Poopsie, a Beanie Baby bear from 2001, was designed to resemble A.A. Milne's famous Winnie-the-Pooh.  I imagine the resemblance stops just short of any provable trademark or copyright infringement, but those of us who know Beanies and regularly read Milne's stories can assure you it is no accident that Poopsie and Pooh Bear could pass for twins.

Anyway, I am looking at Poopsie perched on my upstairs closet shelf with some 800 other Beanies and, just like in the comics, I envision the lightbulb over my head going on (the old incandescent kind, not the new energy-saving corkscrew type).  Wouldn't it be fun, I ask myself, if I could find Beanies in the collection to represent all of A.A. Milne's loveable characters?  Surely, the kids would have a ball acting out the various stories (and maybe making up some of their own?) equipped with a hands-on cast of Beanies.

Eeyore, the fatalistic donkey with the low, slow voice, will be played by Lefty from 1996, probably the most valuable Beanie in the ensemble.  Many people don't know this, but every election year Beanie manufacturer Ty Incorporated issues a new "Lefty," appropriately representing the Democratic party, and a new "Righty," an elephant representing the GOP.  Being plain gray rather than sporting the stars and/or stripes of some subsequent Leftys, the 1996 Lefty is far and away the best match for Eeyore.

The part of the ever-bouncing Tigger goes to Stripey the Tiger, a fairly new issue from 2005.  As for little pink Piglet, I choose from among several capable auditioners a pig named Luau from 2003.  Luckily, one of the Beanie kangaroos, named Ricochet, is a mama bearing a baby in her pouch.  The choice of Ricochet (2007) to portray Kanga and little Roo is a no-brainer.

Rounding out the cast as Owl and Rabbit are Hoot, a veteran Beanie from 1995, and Hopper from 2000.  Since there is no Christopher Robin Beanie, that part will have to be assumed by whichever child happens to feel dramatic at the time.

As I write this, my unique Beanie Baby cast is gathered around an open Milne board book atop an end table in the kids' room.  They and I patiently await the next visit of Sooby and/or Pooh (the boy, not the bear), which I predict will magically transform an otherwise normal bedroom into the Hundred Acre Wood.  There Winnie-the-Pooh will pursue his beloved honey pot, Eeyore will again lament his lost tail, and Christopher Robin will revel anew in the delightful land of childhood imagination.

 

Hooked for Life

My name is Googie and I am an addict.

Time has blurred since I took that first fateful step down the slippery slope of psychological dependence.  My habit began innocently enough, with little or no forewarning, at a typical summer garage sale.  There, a cute, sweet-talking college girl had a whole large plastic tub of stuff to sell.  I tried at first to resist altogether, then to be selective.  But despite my best effort, I was soon caught up in the moment, totally enamored with the product she was dispensing. On that day, she kicked her habit for good, and I got hooked.  That was the day I spent $35 to buy my first 103 Beanie Babies.

Fast forward almost three years.  My collection now consists of 813 Beanies, in which I have invested an average of 86 cents apiece thanks to auctions, yard sales, and thrift stores.  The variety of styles and colors is impressive, with no two exactly alike.  Do the math, however, and you will quickly see that I have squandered a little over $700 of my fixed retirement income on this menagerie of little bean-infested critters.  To Pa-pa's dismay, they entirely consume a double-wide closet in my upstairs hallway, barely leaving space for a sad, lonely stick vacuum.  Meanwhile, the seasonal Beanies stretch across the fireplace mantel downstairs.  Pa-pa is sure we are slowly being beanied out of house and home, and his fears may not be that far-fetched.

Originally, I convinced myself that I was starting the collection for Sooby, my only grandkid at the time.  It would be fun to give her a Beanie once in awhile on holidays and other special occasions, I reasoned.  With a stash of 103 on hand, I would not have to pay the usual $5-$6 retail price for a long, long time.  However, when I spread them all out on the built-in ledge below my family room windows, they just looked so darned cute.   That is when I came kicking and screaming to the conclusion that I wanted to keep them all for myself.

I have since found that there is great play value in Beanies.  Sooby is fascinated by the fact that each one has a different name.  For example, my Beanie fish--Propeller, Bubbles, Aruba, Jester, Goldie, Lips, and Reefs--are fun to pitch into a fish bowl.  She also loves the individual four-line poems that come on their heart-shaped hang tags and is always wanting me to read her their "nursery rhymes."  Many times we have pulled the likes of Chopstix, Bliss, Bananas, Mischief, and Pops from the shelf and acted out "Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed."  Other times, we use the coffee table to stage makeshift "puppet" shows.  The Beanies are soft and cuddly and perfect for small hands.  Their play potential is limited only by the imagination of a three-year-old and her Googie.

No doubt, bona fide collectors would shudder at any scenario involving Beanies in grubby little hands that are sometimes less than gentle.  They might cluck their tongues at the tiny creases we sometimes leave in the hang tags as a result of spirited, boisterous play.  They might bemoan the decreased monetary value of an itsy-bitsy spider named Hairy about the twenty-fifth time he washes down the water spout.

But here's what I think.  First and foremost, these Beanies are toys, and toys belong in the hands of children.  It would be criminal to deny a child access to these catalysts of imagination.  The fun that Sooby and I have and will continue to have with the Beanies makes the investment of a few bucks well worth it. 

Yes, my name is Googie, and I am an addict.  So if you happen to see a yard sale where I might get my next Beanie fix, please let me know.