Signs of the Apocalypse

From a license-plate frame on the Honda Accord in front of me on Hwy 121:

I can't sleep...clowns will eat me.

Cereal Bowl

On the way to work yesterday morning, I was stuck in a long line of traffic at a stoplight. Looking around vacantly to pass the time, I noticed a fellow commuter eating breakfast in the SUV to my left. He didn't have a McMuffin, a breakfast burrito, a biscuit, or an energy bar: he had CEREAL. In a REAL CHINA BOWL. With a SILVER SPOON. Nothing disposable. Even more perplexing, the cereal looked like either Raisin Bran or something-flakes, guaranteed to fuse directly to the bowl if not immediately washed. My own husband has thrown away more than one bowl of mine when I neglected to rinse the cereal out before it hardened.

What kind of person was this? He looked like an office kind of guy. Surely he wasn't planning to take his half-eaten cereal into work to wash it out there...? Even more unthinkable was the idea that he would consider leaving the bowl in the car to harden in the 100-degree heat all day. I guess he could have even every possible flake in the bowl, leaving nothing to harden at all. Or maybe he was so devil-may-care that he planned to throw the bowl and spoon out when he got to the parking lot.

Yeah.

Musika

Small children + long commute = "kidsong" music requirement.

Maybe younger parents have a high tolerance for idiotic children's nursery rhymes and TV episodes of Barney. Younger parents, after all, are only a few years' removed from watching Barney themselves. Younger parents don't have as much musical experience to draw from; perhaps they haven't got the 'ear' to distinguish good tunes from mind-numbing drivel.

I am not a younger parent. I am a mature parent, someone who didn't really expect to contribute my DNA to the gene pool of the future human race. From childhood to now, I have been a witness to the changing musical styles of the 60s (my sister's 45-rpm records), 70s (my brother's 8-track tapes), 80s-90s-00s (my own cassettes, albums, and CDs). I have an appreciation for most musical genres and consider myself a pretty good bet to win any music-trivia game. I cannot, however, stand to listen to the average schlock that is the current made-for-kids music. Yet I have 2 little kids, and little kids will not listen to SportsRadio on an hour-long commute in the morning. They demand entertainment.

The music industry recognizes people like me, because they are making and marketing some kids' music to appeal to the mature parent: cleaned-up, kiddified versions of rock/folk/dance hits from years gone by. On one of these CDs you get "Everyday People" (Sly and the Family Stone) and "Our House" (CSNY) along with "Walk Like an Egyptian" (The Bangles) and the disco hit "Gloria" (Laura Branigan). These recordings have of course omitted or altered any lyrics that might prove harmful to the tots: "Snap your teeth on a fingertip" subs for the original "Snap your teeth on a cigarette" in the Bangles' hit. There are other odd changes as well...instead of "I'll make you mine" in the pop ditty "Build Me Up Buttercup," the kid version says "I'll make you happy." Huh?? Current Top-40 hits have whole sections omitted or instrumentalized since there would be rampant cursing and sexual innuendo if left as originally recorded.

In addition to the kid-music, I have forced my kids to listen to the Backstreet Boys, The Moody Blues, The Beatles, Judy Garland (showtunes of all varieties, in fact), Frank Sinatra, even some opera. Old recordings of wacky tunes like "Yes, We Have No Bananas" were also given the thumbs-up. I enticed them to watch the movie Woodstock on TV one weekend and they were even OK with that (the little one preferred Santana to Jimi Hendrix, so I guess there's no accounting for taste).

So after the kid-music and the normal music, there's the current-but-original music for children: artists who actually make a living writing NEW silly songs. There's Raffi who sings about recycling and and wishing for peace on earth; there's John Lithgow with his twisted orchestrations; and the very-popular Laurie Berkner who plays the guitar and relies on the very-repetitive verse-chorus-verse-chorus-verse-chorus to keep the kids singing along.

In the backseat, one kid sings but the other one doesn't. Sometimes they fall asleep to Harry Connick Jr. droning "Over the Rainbow." Sometimes they want the same song over and over. They have no concept of song titles so they scream out random phrases to "request" their song of choice. They can recognize the songs from the first few bars of music. They act like they don't care, but the music eats into their soft brain-parts and later on I catch them singing in their own rooms.

Yesterday morning, a strange but welcome turn of events: "Let's have SILENCE for a while," the boy suggested. So we did.