TBT - Your Giraffe Makes Me "To Laugh", 2011

As promised, this week's Throw Back Thursday is of the next section I have completed of the small illustrated book I am working on. As I said last week, today I'll be sharing the original poem with you that the book was inspired by. Please, keep your expectations low. If you are looking forward to reading the poem at all, your expectations are probably too high. Indifference is probably the right state of mind... (I could, but I don't have to, I mean, my life doesn't depend on it, but I might as well...)

The poem was created on the first night out with some new friends in Italy. The group consisted of two other American couples and an Italian woman who was learning English (and who helped many of us learn Italian). The host couple whipped out this board game, that for the life of me I cannot remember the name of, in which you fill in the blanks of song lyrics, one couplet at a time, to come up with a new song. It's a cross between mad libs and Apples to Apples if you ask me. As an aside, does anyone else perpetually think "dust to dust" after they or someone else says "Apples to Apples"?

To play, we started out with the song based loosely on Twinkle Twinkle. The game gave us a card that read: Giggle giggle little _______, how I wonder why you ________. This is the quasi-mad lib section. Everyone wrote their own two words to fill in the blanks and turned them in. Now the game turns into a rendition of Apples to Apples (dust to dust). The person whose "turn" it is, sings the couplet with each pair of words written by the players and then chooses their favorite.

Also like Apples to Apples (...), each player has their own "way" of playing the game. My way was to make sure it rhymed. The funny thing is, I didn't just think it was my "way", but the "only way" anyone would play this particular game. Boy was I mistaken.

The first round of Twinkle Twinkle started, the cards were collected, and one by one sung aloud. This one rhymed, that one rhymed, and out of left field someone wrote: elephant, smell. Someone doesn't understand how to play the game yet, I thought. It must be Marta, she doesn't understand English very well yet. Nope! After the card was picked, the owner turned out to be my very own husband. What!?

The second card read: Your _______ makes me _______.
"Giraffe" "to laugh" This one ended up belonging to Marta, which made sense because in Italian, the infinitive is used differently than in English.

The third card read: Like a(n) ________ that can ________.
"Penguin" "Boogie" ended up being the chosen card. I should have known. By this point no one was choosing anything that remotely rhymed.

Okay, all together now...

A Day at the Zoo

Giggle giggle little elephant, 

How I wonder why you smell.

Your giraffe makes me to laugh

Like a penguin that can boogie.

Giggle giggle little elephant,

How I wonder why you smell.

So there it is. I titled it "A Day at the Zoo" afterward, because that was the only way I could rectify all the lines together in my mind. Now, whenever I think about or quote this poem, it makes me "to laugh". What a great memento from such a fun first night out with new friends!

My goal is to complete this children's book, with the kiddos of one of the couples attending as the main characters, get it printed through Lulu, and send a copy to everyone who was there that night. 

So, to get to business, here's what I have for the line "Your giraffe makes me to laugh". 

P.S. Did you ever do this sort of thing growing up? (Where you moved your hand up and down over your face, changing expressions as your hand moved past?)