The Vintage Reader

I have found the cutest thing ever: a toddler and a kitten. Together. In a room full of helium balloons. With really long ribbons. It's total chaos, but in a fun way. And it's been going on for FOUR DAYS. But tonight the kitten goes home, and hopefully some sort of order will emerge.

1. Yet another discussion of Paying Off Your Debt vs. Putting Money in Savings.


2. Yet another discussion of The Mommy Wars, cloth diapers, or plastic bottles.


3. Periods. After. Every. Word. To. Make. A. Point.


4. Stock photos that are only loosely related to the topic of the post.


5. Ad blocks in the middle of the post.


6. Howtos for simple things that everyone already knows how to do.


7. "Roundups" of links to the same five posts everyone else is linking to this week.


8. Having a specific topic for every. single. day. of. the. week, usually with an alliterative label.


9. Lists of simple bullet points cobbled together from the lists of simple bullet points posted by every other blogger on the topic.

This Thanksgiving, I'm thankful for NPR's new music site, which currently includes Pass the Drumsticks: Thanksgiving Jazz, featuring a great version of "Flying Home" with Charlie Christian and Benny Goodman. Very nice!

I get most of my books these days from PaperbackSwap. As a matter of fact, I don't even remember the last book I bought new, but I'm sure I was disappointed in paying so much for it.

But there are some books I really don't want to get through PBS. The first one I came across today was a potty-training book for boys. Our pediatrician back in Buffalo recommended MONTHS ago that Vintage Toddler start "reading" about potty training, but since I find the subject rather distasteful, I sort of put it off. However, now I'm finding the idea of potty training less distasteful than changing diapers, so I'm looking into it. BUT. When the time comes for me to buy a book on the subject for Vintage Toddler to look through, I will go buy a brand-new one that has not been handled by a potty-training toddler, thank you very much.

The other one, which was posted just shortly before that one, was called Make Your Own Sex Toys: 50 Quick and Easy Do-it-yourself Projects. While the title is catchy, do you really want a used copy? I mean, it's possible that it was kept on a shelf in somebody's garage workshop, next to the hammers and saws and wood glue, but it's also possible that it wasn't. Hmm.

Have you ever started reading a book and realized that you've read it before?

Recently I became a little bit obsessed with finding a book for Vintage Toddler. I knew it was by Richard Scarry, and I knew there was a picture of a frog playing an oboe in it. I thought the line that accompanied that was "...and Froggy played his oboe."

So I Googled and Yahooed and so on, and finally decided to use Amazon's "Search Inside This Book" feature to see if I could find it. I tried the exact phrase, to no avail. Then I tried "froggy" and "oboe" together. Still nothing. "Froggy" and "Scarry." Nothing. Finally I tried "oboe" and "Scarry" and found the page with the frog playing his oboe. The line was "Froggie played his oboe." It was in a story about a chipmunk who has a birthday, and the story was in The Best Storybook Ever, which is a compilation of Richard Scarry books and excerpts. I ordered it and sat back to wait, assuming that the story about the chipmunk's birthday would be the only familiar one.

Not so. Every single story in this book is familiar to me. I remember the artwork, I remember the phrasing. The copyright is 1969, which is exactly when I remember reading the book: it was before we moved to Arizona, and I was 3. I don't remember anyone reading the book TO me, although I suppose someone must have, because hey: 3. But I remember every picture and every story, from Mr. Mouse going to visit Mistress Mouse to the polite elephant to the crow and the cheese to the country mouse and the city mouse. I remember them vividly. I loved this book when I was 3, and I'm glad I found it for Vintage Toddler. And if it weren't for Froggie and his oboe and "Search Inside This Book" I probably would never have found it again.

Okay, this is one of the strangest things I've seen lately: a blog "written" by two obsolete Hello Kitty characters, Zashikibuta and Tabby.

I did a search on "zashikibuta" just to see what I could find, because I loved Zashikibuta when I discovered him in the late 80s at the Sanrio store, but haven't seen him since. Little did I know that he was alive and well and living in the French countryside, and also blogging!