A lion in autumn

An e-mail I recently received from Buy.com asked the deceptively simple question, "What will you be this Halloween?"

That quandary was immediately and permanently addressed within the body of that very e-mail, in the form of a timeless treasure buried beneath a pile of boring, foolish, or even mildly ridiculous costumes: "A Sexy Wizard of Oz Cowardly Lion!"

Just in case one did not immediately grasp the magic inherent in those words, they included a siren song for the eyes:

Seems astonishingly obvious once you hear it and see it laid out like this, doesn't it? I mean, right here you have the very heart* of the film if not of the original book series itself! The whole narrative, this fictional universe, it all begins to collapse without the hefty weight of the Cowardly Lion's sex appeal anchoring it all --unspoken, undescribed, unobserved... possibly nonexistent-- and yet I'll bet you never once thought of it before now. Genius. Just genius.

Now, granted, the "sexiness" of this particular creation is highly dependent on the nature of the clay used to craft it, but I'm pretty confident I have the body to pull it off. The only real stumbling block to my undisputed ownership of this and all future Halloweens is the fact that it's currently on sale for $77.

I may have to let some pretender claim my throne, for that price. Or else, hmmmm... what would one of those craft bloggers do?

I'm off to find where I left my tan Spanx bodysuit and faux-fur boots 'n' muff!

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* Tin Woodman be damned. Again.

Things that amuse me, Vol. 13

Though nasty she may frequently be these days, as she adjusts to waking up early for kindergarten, my 5-year-old daughter M- apparently still manages to be amusing enough to dominate the quote lists as well as this, the latest list of Things That Have Been Amusing Me recently:

1. When trying to find the words to describe the chaos that results from trying to simultaneously treat (and bathe!) eight 2-month-old kittens for fleas in the same evening, this is what she came up with: "It's like a KITTEN NURSERY in here! ...Except a kitten nursery run by drunk people who have no idea what they're doing!" It was an inspiring vote of confidence.

2. When trying to clarify what she saw when retelling part of a Tintin cartoon she'd watched, M- asked, "Wait, do 'bombs' have little, like, tails coming out of them?"

3. Kids love to keep you guessing... as I watched my 1-year-old son E- cruising around the school one morning, eating a tiny banana for breakfast and loving the independence, I figured I'd need to be on the lookout for the moment he would be struck with the unoriginal inspiration to rub it all over the disgusting hallway floor before taking another bite.

Instead, he decided to throw me a curveball by waiting till I blinked to subtly pick up some kind of mysteriously blackened bark chip off that floor and then stick it directly INTO the banana, for absolutely no reason at all. It's not as if he could say, "Oh, my mistake-- I thought it was that OTHER kind of thing we commonly shove into our bananas!" Even after 8 years of this, I was just not prepared for that move.

Classic quotes, Vol. 39

Here are a few recent notable quotes from my 8-year-old son D-, my 5-year-old daughter M-, and, in his quote-list debut, my 20-month-old son E-:

M- (among her rules for decorating the cakes from her little cake-making kit): No punching, no kicking, and no head-butting.

D- (smiling while reminiscing, after I pointed out he and his sister have already taught their little brother E- to laugh at mentions of bodily functions, by example): Yeah... heh-heh... we have...

M- (the day after the Olympics ended, out of the blue): I want to wear an outfit like those... who are those people, again, who jump over those GIANT hurdles? (Me: "Hurdlers?") Yes, hurdlers. I want to wear those shorts and one of those shirts, that shows my belly, then people will think I'm one of them! (giggles)

E- (begging for a bite of popsicle from his big brother D-): Bite! Biiiiite!! (after digging a tiny Nerf gun into his chest) Bite.