all i owe ioway

In preparation for our joyful return to the state of Iowa tomorrow, I've been singing us the "All I Owe Ioway" song from State Fair.

And by "us," I mean Oesa and me: Sid will have none of my musical singing, even when I tell him the song is perfect for him.

For example, one of the lines is, "I owe Ioway for her ham and her beef and her lamb and her strawberry jam and her pie."

And Sid loves—really loves—meat. He loves it so much that this morning at the Hotel Colorado, he ordered the Teddy's Special Omelet. That would be Teddy Roosevelt, the Bully for You President who stayed at the Hotel Colorado while hunting bears.*

Teddy's Special Omelet had fried chicken in the omelet. I want to stress this so much that I bolded and italicized it. This ostensibly healthy breakfast choice—the benign omelet—was filled with fried chicken.

With a nod to some semblance of health food, it also had asparagus, but I think the fact that Sid ordered this omelet proves how much he loves meat.

Or maybe how much he wants to be Teddy Roosevelt and get to stay in the Roosevelt Suite at the Hotel Colorado instead of in our Premier Family Room with two bedrooms {that's right, people: I got my own room last night.}

Let's assume it's his meat-lover side—not his history-lover side—coming through, and tell him one more time that he should appreciate the song "All I Owe Ioway," especially when his sister-in-law is singing it.

I'm sure you all will appreciate this, so I've included a video of this song. I plan on singing it and other songs from State Fair while we're at the State Fair on Friday, admiring the butter cow and eating many fried things on sticks.

* Bonus historical information: the Teddy Bear was created at the Hotel Colorado. President Roosevelt had a particularly disheartening bear hunt—disheartening in that he didn't get to kill anything, which sounds rather heartening to me. The maids at the Hotel Colorado felt so sorry for him that they sewed him a little bear from scraps of cloth.

And that is how we got the Teddy Bear. These are the kinds of historical facts I share with Sid all the time, and he looks at me as if I were a bear he'd like to hunt.