So what if you could be reincarnated?

There have been many times I have been asked the question, "If you could be reincarnated as any animal in the world, what would it be?"  Not sure if that is a former random prep for pageants question or one of those questions lots of people get asked that is somehow telling about who they are as a person or whatever.  I used to think about all different kinds of animals - let's face it, the life of a cat is pretty easy - eat, sleep, stretch, repeat.  Dogs are man's best friend and everything.  But I always come back to the same animal. 

 

I love these birds.  I love the "don't mess with me" look that they have without looking too intimidating.  I love their coloring, from the snow owl to the great horned owl.  Of all the birds out there, these are my favorites and I only wish I lived in a place were they could be seen much more often.   

But I also love them as characters - like this guy.

I loved him in the commercials and thought it was absolutely stupid of a kid to bother such a wise creature with the stupid question of Tootsie Pops.  Everyone knows that if you get to ask a talking owl to share their wisdom, it should be matters of greater importance.  Tootsie pops - psh.

One of the other reasons I love fall, besides football, red leaves, crisp air is that it is the cool time of year to do things with owl - decorations, treats, etc.  I just found this guy here. 

 

Seriously, how much fun would this be to make?!? 

I am presently on a mission to see all the great owls out there - projects, printables, treats, etc.  I'll share here, but if you find some fantastic ones you want to share, please feel free to email me (tasha DOT seegmiller AT ironmail DOT org) or blog about it or whatever.  

Why I Hope Rodgers and Hammerstein Get Reincarnated

When I was in 5th grade and an unwilling participant in the mandatory maturation program, some idiot inspired teacher thought it would just be so cute to have all the girls learn some songs to sing at some parent assembly.  One of the songs was I Enjoy Being A Girl.  Maybe as a pre-dating program - but 5th grade?  Seriously? 

I have a few problems with that.

The depiction of the girl in the song when I was in 5th grade drove me crazy.  Our teachers told us all how were were supposed to look.  Bras weren't cool.  Curves weren't cool.  Because that meant other things were happening, whether or not we wanted them to.  The boys were relentless to us for these things. 

I didn't want boys calling me all the time - I didn't like most of them.  My opinion of many of them never improved. 

Since several of us had already started having zits, our idiot clever teacher switched "a pound and a half of cream on my face" to "a pound of Noxema on my face".  Yup, feeling lots better about that!  Sure glad I'm a girl. 

Dresses made of lace.  Puke.

We had to learn actions to go with this song.  Because it was cute and that's what girls do.

Our dads were sitting in the audience and very aware of why we were singing this stupid song.

That just made everyone uncomfortable. 

Over the next few years, there were increasingly fewer reasons I enjoyed being a girl.  Love it when I had a deep cut four inches long above my ankle trying to shave.  Yanking individual hairs out of my eyebrows is a kick.  Hormonal imbalances just make me giggle with delight (BTW how come guys hormones don't ever get out of whack?).  And don't even get me started on boob issues.  And I get to enjoy all these wonderful delights for 20 more years at which point I'll go into menopause, whether or not I WANT to, and get all sorts of fun new things to enhance the "girl" experience.

Therefore, it seems to me that the only way for things to be fair is when MEN write songs about what they like about girls and say it's what we like, they should be able to have a personal experience of how much fun it really is.