Of Cookies And Songs

If you followed my last and first* blog two years ago, you may remember that my packing for a trip is essentially, if both unintentionally and unwillingly, a reenactment of Laura Numeroff's "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie."**

A masterpiece.

So far, though, I've almost completely managed to avoid the circular tale that is my packing process, primarily because I've almost completely put off packing altogether. Instead, I've been doing other very important things to prepare for our upcoming trip. For example, I've spent about three days trying to come up with good titles*** for this blog. Most of my best ideas have come from song titles. For example:

Thai and Love and You

Thai Wanna Dance with Somebody

Hannah's Song (Oh, Thai Thai Thai)

Every Thai-le A Memory

ThaiMCA

Since Leah was about ready to punch me after I suggested ThaiMCA, we actually still haven't come up with a name for the blog. I'm writing this right now with a placeholder title. I'll be fascinated to see what title we agree on by the time this post gets to you. (Hopefully we do actually agree on a title at some point. If we can't, I'm not optimistic about our cooperative capacity over the next 30 days.)

And yep, that's about all I've done on the "preparing to leave" front so far. Well, that's not strictly true. I had been planning on entering a 4th of July bake-off at a community center near where Leah horseback rides at Stanford, but another commitment came up and I wasn't able to make it. So this evening I held a private bake-off against myself at home. I totally won.

                  Another masterpiece.

Moral: If you Give A Hannah A Packing List, it might be kind of like Giving A Mouse A Cookie. Or she might just Bake Herself A Pie.

Footnotes

* I find it fascinating that the meaning of the phrase "last and first" is so different from the meaning of the phrase "first and last." Seems like it violates some sort of lexical symmetric property.

** You may also remember that the independent genius of "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie" was somewhat undermined by the sequels "If You Give A Moose A Muffin" and "If You Give A Pig A Pancake," which were in turn further undermined by "...Cat A Cupcake," "...Pig A Party," "...Mouse To School," and "Mouse To The Movies." I must report that, as of Fall 2011, we can also Give A Dog A Donut.

Probably not a masterpiece.

I'm not sure that I'm qualified to speak on the principle of Dog Donut-Giving in general, but I can confidently aver that my pets do not need any more calories. Furthermore, the release of Numeroff's latest title underscores a striking double standard in contemporary children's entertainment. Why is it that we condone Numeroff Giving Cookies, Cupcakes, and Donuts to various Animal Species, but are upset when Cookies are Given to Monsters? Trekkie Monster would be outraged.

*** Meaning titles that involve enough of a pun to make me happy, but are at least relevant enough to our trip that Leah doesn't reject them outright.