Are you an owlcoholic?

There's been a pretty cool phenomenon that's hit the internet in the last week, and it doesn't involve a celebrity death, Hollywood, Snookie, or a reality show -- well, of the human kind.

It involves a barn owl named Molly whose been watched by the world as her five eggs, all laid in February, have begun to hatch.

Molly at 5pm Friday (now!)... just chillin' and sitting on Max, Pattison, Austin and the two remaining eggs.

Molly and her "partner" McGee are so far the proud parents of three owlets -- Max, Pattison, and Austin. The wooden box they reside in occupies a spot in the yard of Carlos and Donna Royal in San Marcos, California. Molly and McGee took up residence, according to the local media's reporting, a couple months ago.

You can view Molly -- who is still waiting on two babies -- anytime, 24 hours a day, from a webcam broadcasting online. The hatching of the three owlets so far have been caught on camera and watched by worldwide audiences.

Max, the first hatchling, and the eggs which haven't yet hatched, are just visible as Molly moves away from feeding him.

One little warning -- for the squeamish: If you have kids, and want to show them Molly and McGee, you may want to check out the screen first. Barn owls dine on rodents, and there have been a few times when I clicked to find them chowing down on a rat. Ew.

Second warning -- this can be addictive. Since I found out about Molly about a week and a half ago, I've been watching non-stop. I even pulled my sister in on it. We find ourselves texting each other between 7am and 10pm alerting each other to owl updates.

Check out Molly and McGee, and watch for their two other babies to hatch sometime between today and March 31st at this link. You can also check out the previously recorded videos (look at the screenshots just below the live stream) of the owlets hatching, and Molly tending to each of the new babies. Enjoy!

Apparently, I'm not the only one with Rocky Point Park memories

Several times in various places on my blog (like my run-in with Patrick Swayze in the early '90s), I've made reference to Rocky Point Park. It was an amusement park in Warwick, Rhode Island, much smaller than your typical Six Flags-sized establishment, where you could eat your weight in clam chowder and fritters (no, I'm not licking my lips. They're just dry) in the giant hall and then feel it coming back up as you spent the afternoon riding the Freefall, bumper cars and the Skyliner and walking through the House of Horrors.

Guess which one of those places was secretly my favorite? Clearly the dining hall.

With my dad and his spectacular 'stache in the "World's Largest Shore Dinner Hall," circa 1993.

So with all these great memories our family has of all our trips to Rocky Point, it's a shame that we can't relive them since the park closed its doors in 1995. But in poking around on the interwebs tonight, I came across and am really excited to see -- a 2007 documentary called "You Must Be This Tall: The Story of Rocky Point Park" that tells the story of the park's rise and fall.



The Providence Journal apparently gave the film five stars, and it's won several film festival awards. I bought a copy online tonight, and I'm actually really excited for it to come.

If you're a fellow New Englander with fond Rocky Point memories (during its good days, the park was ALWAYS packed), you can order the DVD -- FREE SHIPPING! -- online at the film's website, www.rockypointmovie.com. They also have some nifty merch that you can buy there -- t-shirts and sweatshirts with the Rocky Point logos on them. I think I just might pick one of those up.

I'll write a post about the movie once I receive it, but until then, I'll leave you with a few pictures of the ol' Rocky Point from her heyday, courtesy of the website. I miss the park so much!

"The World's Largest Shore Dinner Hall"



"The Enterprise"



"The Skydiver"

"The Skyliner"

Reading is STILL fundamental

I have always been a sucker for a good book.

Some of my best memories from childhood involve reading -- reading a book with my dad at bedtime every night ("Monsters Come In Many Colors"), or reading "Cinderella" with my mom and sister while we waited for our clothes to be done at the laundromat still seem like they could have taken place yesterday. I used to get so excited even just getting to pick out a free book when the RIF (Reading is Fundamental) representatives would come talk to our class each school year.

Remember book fairs? Or when you'd get those book club papers from your teacher once a month or so? It was all so exciting to me. I have always loved to read, and so has my husband. For a few years of my adolescence, I had a serious obsession with the Babysitter's Club Little Sister series. I could read one of them a day, even though they were chapter books, and used to make my mom take me to the Norwichtown Mall Waldenbooks to get new ones all the time. I loved to read.

Knowing how not only beneficial, but also enjoyable reading is, and the memories we both have of it as kids, reading to the baby is very, very important to us. We started early, and we do it often. Since he was a newborn, he has loved looking at the illustrations and touching the pages. He's constantly smiling while we read to him, and we swear he understands.



My husband John reading to our then three-week old son, John Logan. He was already interested in looking at the pictures.


Taken last week -- John reading to the baby (who is now eight months old) for his nightly 'storytime.'

We will read to the baby and with him once he's old enough to read, and always encourage him to read on his own. So, in the spirit of tradition, hubs and I sat down last week and wrote up a list of books we'd like to buy our son (we're up to 8 purchased, now) that we consider absolutely and completely necessary. We defined those as books from our childhoods that really stuck out. For me, I remember a TON of Caldecott Medal award-winning books. There was something about that shiny gold leave paper on the cover that lured me back time and time again.

We've gotten about 20 marked down, and as I said, we've already purchased a good handful ("Where the Wild Things Are" was a favorite of both of ours, and as you can see from the picture above... maybe it'll be one of Johnny's too). Here's what we came up with on our totally and absolutely completely most necessary books for us to splurge on.


Alexander and the Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
by Judith Viorst
I remember reading this with my first grade teacher Miss Moran. It was a wonderful book then, and even though I haven't read it in years, I'm sure the little guy will love it.

If You Feed a Mouse a Cookie
by Laura Joffe Numeroff
My sister and I read this with our mom as kids. They now have a series of "If You Give a Mouse..." books.

Strega Nona
by Tomie de Paola
This book was a legend to kids back when I was one. Everyone loved it, and I actually can't wait to read this to Johnny.

The Snowy Day
by Ezra Jack Keats
This may have been the book that started my Caldecott Medal obsession. I loved the vivid color block drawings, and instantly remembered reading it.

The Mitten
by Jan Brett
John picked this one, and once he mentioned it, I definitely remembered reading this in elementary school.

Hey Al
by Arthur Yorinks
Mrs. Debartolo read this to us on my first day of kindergarten. Other than the books I'd memorized and read with my parents, this was the first I was ever read in school.

Berenstain Bears
by Jan and Stan Berenstain
What kid my age DIDN'T love the Berenstain Bears? We collected many, many of these books, and just bought the baby a 'big book' of the stories. The only other family besides my own that I wanted to be in!

Little Critter
by Mercer Mayer
I remember scouring book fairs and book club pamphlets for the newest installment whenever I could. I loved Little Critter, and had so many of the books in the series, and now I have the treasury to pass on.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
by Judi Barrett and Ron Barrett
My first grade teacher gave this book to my friend Courtney and I as a challenge because we were ahead of the rest of the class -- find as many contractions as we could. We loved this book.


What books did you buy for your kids, and what's still on their wish list? Which book(s) bring(s) you back to your childhood?

Blast from the past: Marketing fail

*Note: This is something I wrote on an old blog a long time ago. Since I was reading through old posts the other night, I figured over the next few weeks, I'll put them up here. Enjoy. : )

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Last night, I was watching TV, and I saw what may be the most disturbing commercial I’ve ever watched in my entire life. It’s not bad enough that it was an ad for feminine hygiene products. It’s not bad enough that we have graphic demonstrations of just how much liquid said heavy-duty products can hold. But now, we're told that if you use X brand of maxi pad, you'll...

"Have a happy period."

Go fuck yourself, a happy period. No such thing exists, much less when you need to use the product advertised. At the end of the commercial, they show a maxi pad covered up, getting a good night’s sleep. Are you fucking kidding me?

I’m not generally one to talk about such subjects. Typically, use of the p-word makes me shudder, but come ON. A sleeping maxi pad? That’s an insult, and it's surely not going to get me to buy the product. Do you want to picture your maxi pad taking the night off? Or sleeping on the job? I don't. But come to think of it, I don't want to picture a maxi pad, PERIOD.

I saw a commercial for burger king featuring a large tooth that bothers its companion by constantly repeating "ranch" at odd times -- a poker game, a goodnight kiss, what have you. A ranch tooth. I get it, but I don't get it. It’s a play on someone with a 'sweet tooth.' yes, I understand this. But a ranch tooth? It even wears a cowboy hat. You really think that will make me go and buy more burger king? It won't. I can assure you.

Or the kitty litter commercial where it covers up the stink of litter boxes so well that the resident cat needs to hire a bloodhound, who STILL can’t sniff out the box. First off, I’d really actually shy away from buying a litter that I thought my cat couldn’t find. Second, why would the marketing department come up with this? “It smells so good your cat won’t find its litter box and thus will pee and poo in other places!” Yeah, way to sell it. Marketing fail.

You know what kind of commercials work? The ones with good music. Integrate a good, ol' classic rock jam into an ad, and I’ll probably give it a second look. It’s catchy; it gets stuck in your head (*up to date update: I downloaded “Let’s Groove Tonight” because it’s in that laundry detergent commercial. See – thoughtful marketing DOES WORK!). But throw a sleeping maxi pad, a verbally abusive tooth, or flowery kitty litter at me and I’m not picking up what you're putting down, and neither is anyone else.