Who knew fairy tales could be so, well, grown up?  During our trip to Alabama my nephew introduced us to Once Upon A Time by saying “Here, watch this but you can’t watch just one.  It’s addictive.”  (Thanks Alley Cat!)  And he was spot on.  We spent every spare moment we could watching this highly addictive show on Netflix and then HuluPlus to finish up so we’d be ready for tomorrow night’s episode!  When I say every spare moment, I mean during the time we were supposed to be sleeping, during the time we were supposed to be packing, and during the time we were waiting at airports.   Hannah and I were watching the first night we watched until 2 or 3 in the morning.  The next day she jumped ahead of me and I had to lose sleep to catch up!   The night before our trip I caught some shut-eye while she sped ahead so that when we were waiting at the airport I could catch up to her.  It has been ages since I’ve followed any TV show like this.  And that made me wonder why.

The writers have captured our childhood dreams of defeating evil and true love winning every time and by breathing modern life into familiar characters we go into this series with long time connections with the characters.  What little girl didn’t want to be Cinderella or Belle or Snow White and dream of finding her own Prince someday?  What little boy didn’t want to slay dragons, be the hero, and rescue fair maidens?   And what about as adults?  Don’t we gals still want to defeat evil (think equal rights, equal pay), see true love prevail, be a princess (think of all those clothes and accessories that say “princess” on them and I’m old enough to remember the “princess” phone!), and be cherished by a faithful guy who thinks we’re worth fighting?  Don’t grown up men still want to slay dragons (think sports, video games, business deals), be the hero (think winning, being successful in whatever area they consider success is found), including being the hero to the girl of his dreams?  Dog-gone right we do!  And Once Upon A Time  takes us there, from our earliest memories of beloved fairy tales with a visual twist we’ve never imagined to seeing them action in our world today.  What a punch that packs!

I’m confusing my cats by associating them with the characters that best match their personalities!  Bandersnatch is undoubtedly the Wolf (just look at his picture and you’ll see what I mean) and Mona is Granny, sweet and quiet but a, ahem, wolf when crossed. Gizmo is Rumpelstiltskin because he is constantly pushing the others around in the nicest way unless he decides to quite literally attack them.  I’ve tagged Blaise as Snow White and Morgen as Prince Charming.  Since I know Bett plots quietly to get rid of all other kitties we own I’m calling her the Evil Queen.  See how crazy this is?  I haven’t wanted to play make-believe in eons and certainly never with my cats!  Alex, this is all on you if I go loony (loonier)!

I’ll be staring at the TV tomorrow night and don’t anyone bother to call, text, come over or in any way distract me.  These visits with familiar characters that I know and love but am meeting for the first time face to TV screen are the best distraction ever.  And traveling to Storybrooke and the Enchanted Forest is, after our recent travel mishaps, as far from home as I want to go right now.

Come on, seven o’clock!