Chocolatears

my brother, matt and sister-in-law, amy just got back from orlando and visiting disney world. it was a pretty big trip considering they were there for only three or four days. they went down with my two year old twin nephews, amy's parents, sister and sister's boyfriend, so it was quite the undertaking. i had the pleasure of watching the three dogs of the traveling party, one of which urinates immediately upon contact with me. and only me. so while they were basking in the humid, sun drenched floridian climate, i was watching two spastic dogs and one spastic and chronically urinating dog. i'm exaggerating. it wasn't that bad, considering they were nice enough to pay me for it all.

anyway, i'm digressing. when they got back yesterday, they got me a two small gifts (which was nice of them), a rice krispie treat shaped like mickey's head with chocolate coated ears and a bag of chocolate covered pretzels. the pretzels are in the shape of what else mickey's head and written on the bag is the word, "chocolatears." at first, i read it as "chocolate tears" and thought "god, how awful. why would they make such a sad confection aimed at young children?" of course it only took me a second to realize that it was meant to read as "chocolate ears." but i couldn't get over my own reading to appreciate the neat pun those in ye olde disney candy shoppe had achieved.

my brother presented the sad little gift to me after he told me a story about their visit in orlando with my nephews. for the past two weeks or so, matt and amy have been sufficiently exciting my nephews, ryan and liam about the trip. they've shown them pictures of mickey, minnie, donald duck, and goofy and told them "we're going to visit mickey, et al. you're going to see them all." this would elicit an confused yet excited reaction from my nephews, thus engendering them with an understanding of 'seeing' mickey and the gang. they did a similar thing before i arrived home from new zealand. matt would show ryan my picture over and over again, and say something like, "uncle chris is coming home soon." the ultimate effect was that ryan was able to point at my picture and get a reaction from surrounding adults by saying "un-ca, un-ca." matt told me that he was planting the seed for my return, so i got excited that my nephews would probably be excited for my return. when i finally arrived home, though, ryan and liam were incredibly confused and almost scared. the "un-ca" from the picture had come alive somehow and was now standing, moving, and talking before them. he was picking them up and startling them with his presence. what had happened? so when matt and amy escorted them through the photo op area of the magic kingdom (apparently the disney characters were too frequently accosted by disney patrons and are now safely on display in a sort of professional photo studio) the tension was palpable. the family turned the corner and suddenly there they were! and not only were they there, but they were huge, seven, eight feet tall, giants of cartoon reality. the reaction wasn't exactly the same, as matt told me. apparently they were happy to see everyone (liam was especially happy to see goofy), but not just happy, amazed, and in tears of joy. "g-goofy!" liam mumbled through his tears. he couldn't contain his emotion. he was shuttering with amazement. apparently, matt and amy couldn't even get them close enough for a photograph.

it's amazing that something meant to bring such joy for young children, can over achieve like that. it got me thinking about how much our minds, emotions and moods are a result of the exterior world. we like to think that emotions are "ours." that we can control them totally somehow. but even if we do sort of control them, we do it by putting on a favorite song, thinking about a particular image, or relishing a chocolate covered pretzel. we summon things other than us. when it comes down to it, even the emotions are a result of serotonin, etc. chemicals are responsible for how we feel. what, then, do we have control over is not our emotions? our lives are too rooted in the physical world of media, family, friends, for us to make our lives entirely our own. i guess there's a beauty there, though. there's so much that can affect us. at least we still have a choice what can affect us, what we let into our lives.