Recently, “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” featured an opening animation that depicted Peppa Pig’s father dying of a heart attack while using a Peloton. I wouldn’t have gotten the reference a year ago; I didn’t know Peppa Pig from Pinocchio.
But Peppa Pig – possibly the worst drawn animated cartoon in the history of the artform – is now a part of my weekday experience. As is, of course, “Sesame Street.” The latter is compulsory viewing for American toddlers and my grandson loves it. I’m not so crazy about the show, mainly because Elmo is the show’s principal character and I can’t understand a word he says. Ryan Dillon voices Elmo in an annoying falsetto that is not friendly to a grandparent’s hearing. I try to make out what he’s saying but it’s like having a conversation with a squeaky toy. Of course, I’m decades outside the target audience and my grandson seems fine with Elmo’s high-pitched songs and soliloquies.
I used to spend my weekdays with Andrea Mitchell, Katy Tur, Nicole Wallace, Craig Melvin and other cable news hosts. They have been largely replaced by Sesame Street, Peppa Pig, Masha and the Bear, Team Umizoomi and Blaze and the Giant Machines. Bubble Guppies is probably the best produced, although it’s theme song easily degenerates into an earworm that lingers in my head for most of the afternoon. (Bub-bub-bubble, gup-gup-guppies! Bub-bub-bubble, gup-gup-guppies! – gaahhh!)
I draw the line at Blue’s Clues. I have my limits and the kid can live without it.
Joey – we still call him “Roo,” but I think that will change as he gets deeper into toddlerhood – just turned 14 months and celebrated his birthday by starting to walk. Kris and I have taken care of him weekdays since last March, when his mother returned to work. All of a sudden, a comfortable, if docile, retirement was upended by a tiny creature with healthy lungs whose existence was framed by bottles and diapers. Having a couple of septuagenarians provide child care for an infant seemed like a long-shot, an experiment unlikely to succeed. But it all came back: preparing formula, bottle feeding, changing, holding, rocking. It helped that Joey was and is an amazing baby. He’s engaging, happy, rarely cries, and exudes charisma.
About that. We took a family vacation to Hawaii over the holidays – the first time all five of us traveled together – and two people looked at Joey and asked, “Is he always this happy?” One was a waitress and one was a fellow diner. The answer: yes. He has a remarkably good disposition. He likes to flirt with waitresses and other diners. A hostess at Duke’s in Waikiki looked at him, stopped mid-sentence, and said, “Oh my God, I got lost in the eyes!” It was like traveling with a celebrity. Imagine that: hanging with a one-year-old gave us status.
He was still a rug-rat in Hawaii, but we bought him a walking toy, a Fisher-Price product known as a “Puppy Walker.” It’s designed to introduce budding toddlers to walking by giving them something to hold onto while learning to walk. It’s colorful, lights up and is easily maneuverable. The infernal device also talks, encouraging the toddler with phrases like “You’re Walking!” and “Keep Going!” in a – what else? — high squeaky voice.
Joey likes to push the Puppy Walker up and down the hall. After his first day of robust walking, we left it at the end of the hall. That night, in the early morning hours, I got up to use the bathroom (yeah, I’m old). I carefully walked out of the bedroom into the hallway on the way to the restroom. Then, in the blackness, the Puppy Walker blurted out, “DOO DOO DOO-DOOOO! LET’S GET WALKING!”
I almost didn’t make it to the bathroom. Lesson learned, the next day I stashed the perky little sleep assassin in the nursery.
We have a toy bin in the bedroom – for the dog. Zoey is hard on toys. She dismantles rope-and-ball toys and plays with the parts separately. We bought plush toys for Roo, but Zoey kept finding and disemboweling them. We replaced a couple, then gave up. I still have the remnants stored on top of my armoire. The island of dismembered toys. Heartwarming.
But don’t feel sorry for the kid because the dog shares her toys with him. When he comes over in the morning, the first place he goes is to Zoey’s toy bin. He especially loves the balls. He and Zoey are forming a bond and his father refers to Zoey as “his first best friend.” He will grow up around dogs and I suspect dogs will always be an important part of his life, as they have been for his parents and grandparents.
Certainly, taking care of a little one is challenging, tiring, sometimes frustrating. Occasionally, I’m a bit intimidated by the responsibility. But the wind is calm and there is a bright blue sky outside. Let’s get walking!
© 2022 by Mike Tully
Taking A Selfie with the Invaders
The scene opens in the desert night, on a dirt road surrounded by darkness. A car with an open passenger door and bright headlights is parked in the background. In the foreground, a blonde woman addresses the camera. She is not the kind of perky blonde you associate with Hollywood sitcoms, nor is she the authoritative newsperson type. Rather, she’s the lean, hungry, skeletal kind who makes you fear for the safety of Dalmatian puppies. “Here we are in the Yuma sector of the international border with Mexico,” she solemnly intones.
Her name is Karrin Taylor Robson and she’s running for the Republican nomination for Arizona Governor. She explains why she’s on the border. “It is evidence of a failed border policy,” she declares, adding, “Arizona is on the front line of this border crisis.” It’s a campaign video.
Cut to another desert scene. This time the sun is shining. Karrin is back on camera. A young woman and child walk past, followed by two young men with backpacks. Unlike the candidate, all wear facemasks. They are, at most, two or three paces behind her. There is nothing unusual or concerning about them, but Karrin has a warning:
“Behind me are illegal immigrants that were just dropped off on the Mexican side of the border,” she tells the camera, “And here they are crossing into America.” It looks like an ordinary family outing, but Karrin declares, “The invasion is well underway.”
Now, stop a minute and consider what I just described. Karrin Taylor Robson, who desperately wants to scare Arizonans into voting for her because of what she describes as an invasion on the border, illustrates the danger by taking a selfie with the invaders!
Robson describes herself as a “conservative outsider” who is pro-life, pro-gun (seemingly unaware of the contradiction), and anti-immigrant, promising to finish building Donald Trump’s border wall and to send the state national guard to protect it. She wants to spend tens of millions of Arizona tax dollars to build a wall and deploy an armed force to protect us from people so frightening that she takes a selfie with them. But they present a danger, right? Let them in and who knows what will happen? My God, they are likely to work on our farms, helping provide groceries. They are likely to build our houses, clean our toilets, landscape our yards and take care of our kids. They must be stopped – after taking a selfie with them, of course.
Robson describes herself as a loyal supporter of Donald Trump – and that’s a problem. She’s not Trump’s girl. Last September, Trump endorsed a rival, former Fox News Anchor Kari Lake, in the Governor’s race. There are also four guys running in the Republican gubernatorial primary, but all eyes are on the two women in the ménage -a-Trump.
Robson may have a name identification – actually, misidentification – advantage. She might be gambling that the voters will confuse Karrin Taylor Robson with Marjorie Taylor Greene. Don’t laugh: that can work in a Republican primary.
Julie Erfle of azmirror.com, was surprised by Robson’s over-the-top border selfie. “Was this the same woman who Republican consultants pitched as the anti-Kari Lake, the ‘moderate’ in the race who wouldn’t peddle Q-Anon conspiracies and Trump fantasies?” she asked. “If so, we’re in trouble.” No, we’re in Arizona. We are the same state that sent Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs to embarrass us in Congress. The Chairperson of the Arizona Republican Party is Kelli Ward,
“Honest question: does the Arizona GOP know how embarrassing they are?” asked Alexander Lomax in a guest opinion in the Arizona Progress and Gazette, a right-leaning website. “How could you otherwise explain that so many of them have followed state party chairwoman Kelli Ward’s lead into the abyss of unnecessary conflict, paranoia, and conspiracy? Surely they can read and interpret election results; Arizona voters rejected such insanity. Instead, Ward has doubled down.”
And that was before Arizona Senate President Karen Fann and Republican senators humiliated the state with the laughable “Cyber Ninjas” fake election audit. Crazy is as crazy does and Arizona Republicans have been baptized in the church of crazy. They are also apostles of Donald Trump, which is a gift to Arizona Democrats. The Ukrainian invasion has finally unmasked Trump as the unpatriotic Putin stooge most of us have recognized since 2015, but Arizona Republicans continue to genuflect to him. May they keep it up.
Arizona voters have been generally to the left of the Arizona Republican party. While the GOP has maintained a hold on the Legislature for decades, statewide races frequently go to Democrats. In 2020, Arizona voters gave their electoral votes to Joe Biden and elected the second of two Democratic senators. Arizona voters, through the Initiative process, have voted to raise taxes to pay for education, to raise the state’s minimum wage above the federal level while also mandating sick leave, and overwhelmingly legalized marijuana.
Republicans have only a one seat advantage in both legislative chambers. That will change and the change could come this year when most voters realize that Democrats are interested in governing while the Republicans give us candidates who take selfies with invaders.
© 2022 by Mike Tully
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