When The Clock Strikes Twelve

For me, there is more tradition wrapped up in New Year’s than any other holiday--even Christmas. Sure, I have childhood memories of frosting sugar cookies and putting ornaments on the tree, but, somehow, the stuff we did at New Year’s has escaped the tarnish that comes with looking at the past through adult eyes. There were so many cool things that rang in the new year. Long ago, my dad, police officer by profession but Wild West gunsmith in his heart, crafted a breadbox-sized brass cannon that just begged to be shot off at midnight. He would position it in the middle of the deserted street and do all the patch and powder preparations while holding a match between in his teeth (perhaps this is where my fascination with things macho started), aim it away from the crowd (well, me, my brothers, and whatever friends were spending the night), and…BOOM!!!!! It was so loud and visceral that it simultaneously scared the stuffing out of me and made me feel a little more alive (see: “fascination with things macho” above). We stayed up late, watched the ball drop, drank a ton of normally-forbidden ginger ale, and got up early to watch the Rose Parade through bleary eyes. All things considered, a banner twenty-four hours. Nick chose to read “Happy New Year” from Disney’s My Very First Winnie The Pooh Growing Up Stories, which I wouldn’t have done because it’s not January. But daddies build cannons and read recklessly…they are wild men.

http://www.librarything.com/work/468501

http://www.paperbackswap.com/Kathleen-W-Zoehfeld/author/

If You Can't Take The Heat...

I come from Southern California. I have an August birthday. I could have taken surfing for P.E. credit in high school. Baby oil is for tanning, lemon juice is for highlighting hair, and shorts are for riding your new Christmas bike. I am a sun-worshiping beach baby who declares an act of God if the temperature dips below 70 and stays home (well, wants to). My version of Hell is not toasty warm, but snowy cold instead. If I were to commit some crime that involved a judge, he or she could truly punish me by sentencing me to snow skiing or ice fishing rather than a cozy cell somewhere. I didn’t choose to be born in California, but I do make a specific point of staying. Two of my brothers, So Cal boys born and bred, now live in Manhattan. Which they love. For part of the year. The months that are filled with bone-chilling, soul-freezing cold and, worse for a West Coaster, snow, are the times they dream of places where the temperature is never measured in negative or single digits. The sound of lawn mowers and the smell of cut grass are part of a perfect day in my book. In Disney’s Pooh’s Very Hot Summer Day, the tubby little cubby is trying to find a friend to enjoy the sun with him, but is unsuccessful because none of the Hundred-Acre Wood folk have an appreciation for the heat. Those acres must be somewhere in New England.

http://www.amazon.com/Poohs-Very-Hot-Summer-Day/dp/B001MVVST8/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271814413&sr=1-4


http://www.randomhouse.com/kids/disney/

You've Got A Friend

Jeff Foxworthy says that your best friend can never bail you out of jail--because if they are really your best friend, they’ll be in jail with you. So true. I got to reconnect today with a best friend I haven’t seen in way too long. I’ve known her for more than a decade, she has been with me through some tough times, and she can make me laugh faster than almost anyone. She has cared for and about my kids, jumped my battery way too early in the morning, given me a safe place to stay, listened to me cry/rant/rave and nearly suffered mortal injury from helping me take out my Christmas tree the first holiday after an awful divorce. We have so many inside jokes that we speak our own language. She knows a lot of my secrets, much of my past, and all of my flaws. I don’t have any sisters, but I have Christina, and that must be pretty close. Scarlett had Winnie the Pooh on the brain today, so Nick read her Nancy Parent’s Friendship Day from the Lessons from the Hundred-Acre Wood series. All the woodsfolk come up with special, handmade gifts for everyone on Friendship Day--all, except Eeyore, who can’t think of a thing. Naturally, Christopher Robin steps in with a creative idea and the morose little donkey is the day’s big star. Prairie dogs. Naughty koalas. Temptation Island. Birdie. I could tell you what these mean, but you wouldn’t understand. Unless you’re Stina.



http://www.flashlightpress.com/authorillustratorNancyParent.html


http://www.amazon.com/Disneys-Winnie-Pooh-Day-Lessons-Hundred-Acre/dp/1579730876