Ran...dom

Why is that no matter what cooked baby carrots are served with, their very presence on the plate makes the meal look like it should be served in nursery school?

I don't know. But let me ask you this- I know that baby carrots are not really baby carrots, but instead are shaved down real carrots- so what do they do with the rest of the carrot they shave away? Does it become baby food? Carrot cake? Beta carotene?

And who was it that came up with the idea of shaving carrots to create "baby carrots" anyway?

Lord, Lord. Seems to me that we Americans become more infantalised (that doesn't seem to be a word but you know what I mean) every moment. We all have our bottles and sippy cups of water and coffee and we love our coffee made into into creamy kiddie drinks, blended with creams and milks and sugars and chocolates. Drinks which are, in reality, nothing more than milkshakes but somehow, if there is a shot of espresso in there, they are not milkshakes but are ADULT COFFEE DRINKS and thus, the ten million calories don't count. Come on, y'all. Let's just get a milk shake.
And get a cup of coffee on the side.

It occurred to me yesterday that the blog world is a bit like that magic mirror in Romper Room when I was a kid. Okay, most of y'all are too old to remember Romper Room but okay, here's how Wikipedia describes the magic mirror bit that the Romper Room lady did:

At the end of each broadcast, the hostess would look through a "magic mirror" – actually an open hoop with a handle, the size and shape of a hand mirror – recite the rhyme, "Romper, bomper, stomper boo. Tell me, tell me, tell me, do. Magic Mirror, tell me today, have all my friends had fun at play?" She would then name the children she saw in "televisionland", saying, for example, "I can see Scotty and Kimberly and Julie and Jimmy and Kelly and Ed and Judy" and so on. Kids were encouraged to mail in their names, which would be read on the air – first names only.

Do you see why my generation was so bizarre! Seriously. But, you know, I distinctly remember the day that Miss Nancy told us that Alaska became a state and thus, the flag had another star on it. Or maybe it was Hawaii. Or maybe it was both.
God, I'm old.
And god, I still try to be a Do Bee and not a Don't Bee and yet, I have smoked a few doobies (marijuana cigarettes for those of you who are not in the know) in my life and I have always wondered if we did not adopt that term for the evil weed from our beloved Romper Room. Ah, we didn't just act out against our parents and the government, we boomers. No, we acted out against Romper Room and really- who could blame us? Romper Room? And I do believe that the New Math had something to do with it.

Well. From baby carrots to doobies and Romper Room. Where was I going with that? Oh yes. Blogland and the Magic Mirror.
I can't really see you and you can't really see me but here I am thinking of you and here you are, sort of seeing me through what I write and the pictures I post and despite the fact that we don't say the Pledge of Allegiance here every morning, it's sort of the same.

Let me pass out the coloring books.

Very good, Kimmy! You are coloring inside the lines so nicely! Now. Have a baby carrot.

Sometimes I wonder how my generation got from there to here. From LSD to antidepressants. From canned mixed vegetables to baby carrots. From Viet Nam to Afghanistan.

And oh- I just remembered what I thought I was going to write about today. Oh well, I'll make a note somewhere and write about it later. I'm sure it will be profound, as is everything I write. And get this- I had one of my house dreams last night and instead of the basement being filled with dining, finely dressed ghosts of people on the Titanic, it was a sunny, wood-floored place filled with tasteful but kitschy sixties-styled orange sofas and geometric prints and in my dream I thought, "Wow, I'll have to write about this on the blog!" and I knew I was dreaming but it was sort of conscious dreaming and it delighted me.

Okay. Enough random rambling. It's cooler this morning which feels wonderful and makes me hope that spring will slow the fuck down a little and I have a full day ahead of me to walk and plant and dig and get dirty in. A day to laugh at the squirrels chasing each other through the trees for love and to find more and more evidence of new growth and soon-to-be beauty. A day to observe and be thankful that I don't have to pledge allegiance to anything that I don't want to, to color outside the lines all I want, to think and dream and be.

Romper, bomper, stomper, boo.
Tell me, tell me, tell me, do
Can you see me?
Can I see you?

Now. Go drink your coffee however you want it. And if you're gonna eat a carrot, EAT A DAMN ADULT ONE!

Morning, y'all.
Love...Ms. Moon