Dear Kid,

Overheard randomly at work.

Coworker A: I thought about spontaneously buying a house this weekend
Coworker B: What?!
Coworker A: Yep.
Coworker B: When I want to spontaneously buy something, I get Tic Tacs, not a house!

Speaking of Tic Tacs, there are now Minion Tic Tacs. Please do NOT buy them for me, but I think it is hilarious that they exist. Guess what flavor? Banana! Shout out to friend Crystal who dropped everything to let me know about the commercial for them.

Speaking of Things Not to Buy for Me and Tic Tacs, did you know there are also pizza flavored Tic Tacs? I have no idea why, but there are. At least according to the images on Google. (I couldn’t find any reference to pizza flavors on the Tic Tac website.)

Turns out the Tic Tac people (who are not paying me to write this post, but probably should be) have a sense of humor. For example, their description of Wintermint Tic Tacs says that they checked with the corporate lawyers who are fine with people enjoying wintermint during all the seasons.

Happy Monday!

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Yesterday, 2,100 of my closest friends and I got together at the Duke Energy Center for the annual YWCA Women of Achievement Awards.

First there was lunch. (I took the picture because I knew you’d be interested in the food part.)

After the awards part, Gina Davis (the actor [yes, she refers to herself as an actor]) spoke. She was fantastic. In addition to being an actor, a graduate of the world-class Boston University, and a world-class archer, Gina runs a foundation that does research about women in the media.

It may not surprise you to learn that women are not equally represented in movies. For every 5 major male roles, there is one female role (and she’s generally a cute sidekick).

What’s really interesting is that when you see crowd scenes (everyone in the village runs out to see what’s going on), only 17% of the crowd is female. Real world: women are 51%. Movieland: women are 17%. Real world: women are 51%. Congress: women are 17%. And she had tons of examples showing there is something about 17% that is a limiting wall.

I wish I had a transcript of her talk. But the basic point is that there are tons of examples of women being underrepresented and hyper-sexualized in films and she’s working to try to influence change. Because the more we see these types of images, the more we get used to them and consider it normal that women should be underrepresented in business and government.

Did I mention she’s a smart lady who went to BU?

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

It’s Cinco de Exhausted.

Turns out the World’s Most Wonderful Children kept me out past my bedtime last night. The good news is I adore my children and adore spending time with them (even if we really only associated with each other on the drive to and from the movie). The bad news is The Avengers is not a movie to sleep through (especially since it cost a mortgage payment to buy the tickets and 2 bottles of water).

And while you—as a college student—can probably manage on a few seconds sleep, Moms of college students, not so much.

So while I’m contemplating wearing extra mascara to give my eyelids a nice resting place, most of the world is celebrating Cinco de Mayo (or Cincobration if you’ve been reading DearKidLoveMom for a while).

Which means people everywhere are eating tacos, drinking margaritas, swinging at piñatas, and other cinco stuff.

Except for the people eating hoagies because it is also National Hoagie Day.

The people in charge of marketing Cinco de Mayo have done a much better job than the people marketing hoagies since absolutely no one knows it is National Hoagie Day.

As far as I’m concerned it’s National Take Five More Naps Day.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

The Wizard of Oz, All because of a tornado

Once upon a time, there were no tornados, and nothing on either side of the rainbow. Then 1900 tornados were invented and L. Frank Baum wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Shortly thereafter preteen girls began reading the entire series. Longly thereafter your mother (who is old, but not quite that old) read the entire series. I can still tell you where in the library the books were kept.

Somewhere in between the first set of preteens and your mama as a preteen, The Movie was made. The Wizard of Oz (the movie) premiered August 12, 1939, in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. This is important because Oconomowoc is fun to say. Try it, I’ll wait.

In honor of August 12^th, here are several a bunch lots some fun facts you probably don’t know (unless you’re my friend Judy L who knows everything and then some about TWoO).

The Cowardly Lion’s costume was made of real lion pelts and weighed about 100lbs. For the record, it is not easy to schelp around 100 pounds of fur. It is also not easy to continue as a real lion when you have been deprived of your skin.

Speaking of costumes, in the book, Dorothy’s slippers were silver. Ruby red slippers were more interesting to look at in Technicolor. When the Wicked Witch of the West tries to take the slippers (you remember that part, right?), fire erupts (it was actually an effect done with apple juice).

Dorothy’s dress (the blue and white one) was actually blue and pink (pink looked better on film). Speaking of things that didn’t work on film, the Tin Man’s “oil” was actually chocolate sauce.

The Horse of a Different Color was actually several white horses that were covered in (wait for it) Jell-O! Being smart equines, the horses kept trying to lick the Jell-O. No one else tried to eat their costume, especially WWW since her makeup was toxic (she lived on a liquid diet to avoid accidentally eating any).

The Tornado was made using a 35 foot muslin stocking. They spun it around while dirt, dust, and wind blew against it. You can see this recreated in our house on pretty much any windy day.

Remember the sweet snow that Glenda sent to wake our heroes in the poppy field? It was made out of asbestos. Yup, the stuff that causes cancer. Talk about oxymorons.

L. Frank was paid $75,000 for the movie rights. In those days, that was HUGE money. If anyone wants to pay me HUGE money for the movie rights to this blog, I’ll be happy to entertain offers.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

When you look up “turkey,” you get all sorts of results—not all of them expected. You get Turkey (the country), and turkey (the bird), and flamingos, and storks, and tulips, and a goose. Which got me wondering where the phrase “cook one’s goose” came from. I looked for an answer, but it turns out that no one is quite sure. There are lots of guesses, but no real agreement.

When I was a kid (lo, those many years ago), Grandma and Grandpa decided it would be fun to cook a goose and have people over to enjoy the cooked goosery. A few months later, one of the families who had attended the goose dinner moved out of town. The goose dinner had been so much fun, we did it again the following year. And a few months later, one of the families who had been at that year’s dinner moved out of town. Rinse and repeat. Once the entire east coast was down to a population of 16, they stopped having goose dinners. You have been warned about the consequences of serving goose.

In case you happen to have a load of cash you don’t know what to do with, I have a suggestion. Don’t invest in BitCoin, buy your mama a ring. A Ring Clock to be specific. They are pretty darn cool, but it turns out you have to charge them for about two hours every day. Not loving it that much. And they are not exactly cheap. But when the perpetual motion variety comes out, you can feel free to put one in a box for me.

Did you know that Disney is coming out with a movie called Frozen? I think I’d like to see it, which makes it the 476th movie on my list. Sigh. Still haven’t seen Despicable Me 2. Double sigh. Anyway, the cool thing about Frozen is how much technology went into making the snow look and act like snow. There is a very interesting video about this that I didn’t understand at all. Might have had something to do with not having any sound at the time I watched it. Since it looked very technical I’m not going to watch it again with sound on the off chance that I still won’t understand it and  won’t have a reasonable excuse.

Love, Mom

Tune in tomorrow for some Amazing Facts About Turkeys!