Thrifting With A Monkey On My Back

Yesterday I went thrifting.  There was a lot of negotiation, bribery and threatening involved, because it was not a monkey free trip.

You need to be good, Yes it’s going to take a long time, I will buy you a treat, If you are not good I will take away the treat.
I had an awesome time. (Don’t ask about the shadow/monkey).

I thought I would see if they had any cute summer dresses and they did-I tried on six (monkeys love it when you go in the fitting room) and I bought two. I am wearing one today and tried to get a good photo. I have a new appreciation for Etsy shop photographers! The very first photo is by a monkey the others are me in a mirror.  It matches my toe nail color perfectly although I was not trying to match- the Oh So Koi- by Opi was already on my toes when I bought this dress:

I am in love with the ruffles down the front, the ruffled sleeves and the cute coral colored buttons that go the whole length of the dress- And it fits me perfectly.

My jump for joy moment was when I found the FREE TO BE YOU AND ME book for (drum roll) 99 cents! When I was a child I had a record player in my playroom with several shoe boxes of vertically stacked singles from the 60’s and 70’s- To this day I know songs by heart from my parents’ collection.  Out of all those records I only had two of my own, Free To Be… You and Me and There’s A Hippo In My Tub.

This book has all the song, stories and poems from the original soundtrack and even includes some scored music. The primary focus of the album was to teach tolerance and acceptance and to defuse gender role stereotypes and to celebrate feelings, happiness and individuality. I fell for all of this. A lot of the poems, stories and song are still relevant in today’s world. The idea was conceived by Marlo Thomas and features such artists as Carol Channing, Michael Jackson and Diana Ross on the album and in the subsequent movie/video.
My favorite outtakes from the soundtrack and now book are:
Free to Be… You and Me, Boy Meets Girl (the story of two new born babies trying to figure out if they are a boy or a girl), Parents Are People “Mommies are people/ People with children./ When mommies were little/They used to be girls,/ Like some of you/ But they grew.” I remember listening to these lyrics really wanting to picture my mom as a little girl AND picturing myself as a mommy! It’s All Right to Cry “It’s all right to cry/Crying gets the sad out of you./ It’s all right to cry/ It might make you feel better./ It’s all right to know/Feelings come and feelings go.”

My two MOST favorite are both by Shel Silverstein Ladies First: “I am a real little lady. Anybody could tell that”-is a story about a little girl who "ladies first's" herself to a tasty demise by a lair of tigers- and Helping.

The funny thing is that Ladies First was my favorite as a little girl but Helping is my favorite as a mom. Dr. J loves to sing “And some kind of help is the kind of help that helping’s all a-bout. And some kind of help is the kind of help we can do with-out”- during those ever so helpful moments when the monkeys are creating more work for us while they ‘help’ us- Of course the monkeys have always been oblivious to the sarcasm or true meaning of the lyrics.
Click to read reviews or to order the same book for as little as one cent! Or order the CD for less than $5

I found this grainy video of the movie that I vaguely remember seeing- the sound quality is great- just the video sucks- anyway it’s 44 minutes long- I just played it as background and it made me feel so happy.
If you are interested the first two songs are Free To Be... and Boy Meets Girl (voice by Mel Brooks).

Free to Be... You and Me (1974)
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