I never knew the rhyme as anything but "tiger" until... five years ago, maybe? My parents, growing up in 1940s-50s Oakland, grew up with the other version -- which I found out when Matilda was showing off her counting-rhyme knowledge to my dad a few months ago and he whispered to me that he'd felt sick to his stomach until she hit the word "tiger."
I did hear one relative use the other word, once, at a Thanksgiving dinner when my aunt and uncle thought they'd reach out to some distant cousins, a retired cop and his wife, who lived out by Sacramento somewhere. They didn't get invited again (not that regular family members don't say some cringey things, but they've always been very oblique about it; it's one thing to
think
those words, but incredibly gauche to say them out loud).
Accomplished today... uh, I did dishes and vacuumed the living room, which already needs a second go. And I took Matilda to see
My Little Pony
with one of her classmates and the classmate's mom; the place was packed, with a line out the door and almost round the corner, and the four of us got the very last tickets before they closed the door and sent the last 50 people away. Including the Brony behind us who'd been liveblogging his waiting-in-line experience to his YouTube channel -- another linestander asked him how many followers he had and he shrugged, "Not many. Some. Less than a lot of people. Maybe twelve hundred?" Then he did a Cadence's Wedding Day Song duet with a random teenage girl on the other side of us.
Also including at least 25 little girls and their caretakers.
I don't know whether it was the theater or the distributor or who, but someone badly failed to take the adult fandom into account; it was supposed to be part of a Saturday old-timey kids' matinee series, but the place was packed with high school and college kids and very young grown-up junior hipsters. I'm hugely relieved that we got in, because there would no question have been a tearful meltdown if we hadn't, but I'm still annoyed with the Bronies and their peer cohort. Grown-up fandom is delirious good fun, but if you're playing in a fandom originally made for kids, don't crowd the kids out! Poor form, dudes.
In my childhood version of the rhyme, we caught a tiger by the toe. Because that rhymes with Moe. Even then I thought, why...? how...? My imagination spun out an image of catching a tiger by the toe that remains with me today.
The place where the cat scratched me two days ago is closed up neatly and it's a little red; it doesn't look bad for a two-day-old fairly deep cat-claw scratch, but it's itching and burning to the point of distraction. I wonder if maybe I'm allergic to something I put on it (Neosporin cream, or the non-latex bandage, or something). Or maybe it's tetanus and I'm going to die.
Can someone reassure me and maybe give me some sensible advice?
I'm listening to Danny Elfman's "Corpse Bride" soundtrack. It's lovely, very Elfman. Very Nightmare Before Christmas. I'm used to hearing familiar musical phrases in favorite movie composers' stuff, but Elfman seems to use larger chunks.
Brony?
There are some questions that are best left unasked.
I'm still annoyed with the Bronies and their peer cohort
Are they not supposed to go to their show? While supply and demand makes it effectively a competition for the tickets, they're not going mano a mano with tweens or anything. Just consuming their product and indulging their fandom.
Are they not supposed to go to their show?
Well, yeah, kind of. When it's billed as a single showing that's part of a series of Saturday morning kid's movie matinees, when it's going to come out in wider distribution at some point, when the theater saw what direction things were headed and hastily secured and announced a second showing at a more grown-up-friendly hour in midweek, and when their indulging their fandom results in tears and flipouts by tiny humans with incredibly poor powers of self-control... it's not required, but it'd be nice.
The bronies who were turned away shrugged and were bummed and went out for coffee or wandered home to see what bootlegs they could ahem. The kids who were turned away had wailing fits that their parents, who'd schlepped them out to the ass-end of the City for this, then had to negotiate down and spend a couple of hours making up for in order to make the rest of their Saturday not-shitty for the entire family.
Not required, I totally concede, but would've been nice. Especially with the second showing on offer. Bigger people can cope with, "Aw, damn, not today, but I'll just go Wednesday instead" much more easily.
So nobody cares if I have tetanus. Fine. I see how you are. More interested in bronies than my arm falling off.
But it's okay. I can see a big red area around the scratch, like a burn but in the shape of a Band-aid, so probably I'm allergic to something in the non-latex bandage (which I bought specifically because I'm allergic to latex). So carry on with your brony talk. I'll let you know if aliens sprout out of my arm. I'm fine over here, by myself, all alone. If I die, someone will find out eventually. Don't trouble yourselves.
More interested in bronies than my arm falling off.
I'm going to go on record as saying I'm against your arm falling off.
I'd be careful with a cat scratch, Zen, but stop using the bandage, and hope it was that?
