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My Profile
Fairytales for a Practical Princess - 2008-11-30
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11:33 a.m. - 2003-07-03
When I was a really little kid I watched "Romper Room" every day. I'm pretty vague about most of what went on during the show. Some b.s. about Do-Bees and Don't-Bees, but I DO remember the end of the show quite clearly. Miss Louise would hold up her "magic mirror" which let her look out at us in the TV audience. She would say, "I see Sally and Tommy and Jane..." etc, etc. I'd wave frantically and yell, "Here I am, Miss Louise!"... But she never said my name. It really hurt! This also gave me a horror of not being chosen. In the kid world it's pretty much all about being chosen, and dork that I was, I crashed and burned on a daily basis. It was years before I figured out the only way to get chosen is to not care if you are. Before that, the stink of desperation made me the inevitable target of the choosers' scorn. What pleasure they took in saying, "Ewww! Not YOU!" Humiliation piled on insecurity layered with constant rejection, it's a wonder I didn't turn out to be a psychopath. At the first junior high I attended I forgave the gym teachers for the horrible nerdtastic gym suits we had to wear because when it was time to choose teams they made us sound off by number. A far kinder way of dividing us and forever freed me from having to go through the torture of waiting, waiting, waiting while the sadistic team captains whittled the field down until the inevitable, "Ha Ha! You're stuck with LA!" and the resultant groan of the team saddled with me. Adults never got how badly not being picked hurt. Either they had been part of the golden elite first round draft picks all their lives or they had sublimated their own painful memories, but in either case their advice was always the same, 'Don't take it personally'. Right. There is NOTHING more personal than to have someone look you in eye and tell you you're not wanted. NOTHING. It's a gut shot every time. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In Hobbit House news, my garden is still delightfully surprising me. This week's new blooms include pale pink roses the size of babies' heads. Smaller, but super fragrant maroon roses, and about 50 lilies of assorted types. There's also some tall cone shaped purple spikes, but I think these are just a good looking weed, I’ve seen them growing wild. Anyone out there know how to make wine from pears? We have two pear trees that are LOADED with pears. Barring a bizarre mid-summer blizzard or a swarm of locusts, we’ll be looking at at least a dozen bushels of pears. I’m more than happy to share them with the deer and drop some off at the local food pantries, but there’s still going to be way more pears than we can possibly eat. I was thinking about trying to make pear jelly or something, but all three of my guys gave me the fish eye and flat out refused to have anything to do with it. Alex and Wolf are Welches grape loyalists and Mike will eat no jelly except raspberry, the kind with all the little seeds. (weirdo) The apple crop looks pretty poor. I don’t know why, the weather has been decent, there were plenty of bees around to pollinate, and the trees bloomed like mad, but most of the apple buds have stalled and there’s only a few which are plumping up properly. I’ll ask my favorite orchard guy when I see him next. Probably when I hit his place to buy apples this fall. And won’t that be a smack in the eye? BUYING apples when I have 4 apple trees in my very own backyard. Hmmph. Last night Mike and I went out to the new house to drop some stuff off. I haven’t really spent a lot of time out there after dark, painting and floor refinishing are daylight jobs. It was so quiet! It’s really private too. I’d noticed the privacy thing before. The Big White House is smack in the middle of pasture land and offers zero protection from passersby. We can’t do anything without half the town knowing about it. Everyone knows this place and by default “know” us too. We’ve been living in a humongus clapboard fishbowl. But the new house is amazingly private. The driveway entrance is barely visible. From the road all you can see of the house is the attic window and the roof peak. Though the neighbors are right there, the trees and such reduce their presence to window glimmers seen through the leaves. I stood outside the back door last night and breathed it all in. The scent of roses, the loamy smell of watered earth, the sweet sting of new cut grass. Ahhhhh.... I watched the lightning bugs flicker and the bats swoop and saw a deer cropping grass under the magnolia tree. She wasn’t bothered by me at all. How wonderful to have such a place that even the shy deer feel safe! I’m having a love affair with my new house. And you know, I think it loves me back. LA’s Pick of the Day: “Say My Name” by Destiny’s Child
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