Sheesh, Ten More?

Well, gee, here's goes.

1. When I was about five I lifted a submerged ladybug up out of the irrigation water (pop quiz: how many here know what irrigation water is?) and held it on my hand til it dried out and flew away. I decided that I must be a gifted healer of animals. It occurs to me now to wonder how in the world a ladybug came to be "trapped" underwater in the first place. Perhaps she was attempting to end it all and I ruined her day.

2. When I was four (I have to go way back to find things that no one knows, especially when my kids, sister and partner are here) I overheard my mother and father fretting about money, and I assured them that they didn't have to worry so much because soon I would be going to school. Which I assumed was a paying job. They looked at me as if I were strange.

3. You know those things on school playgrounds that look like a ladder married (or at least flirted brazenly with) a pyramid, with the poles in the center to slide down? I was always terrified of them and deeply ashamed to be so.

4. I was also afraid to do the monkey bars things, the ones like a horizontal ladder, and yet I would stand up on the seat of my bike. Didn't let go, but did stand up.

5. I know all the verses to Good King Wenceslas. Oh, wait -- David knows that because I sang them a couple of days ago. It's possible all the kids know that, too, although I'm not sure I ever pointed out to them that these were all the verses. How about this? I know all the verses to Good King Wenceslas (although not necessarily how to spell it) because my grandparents came for Christmas when I was about seven or eight and there had been a carolling session on the plane (it was a simpler time) and they left the little booklet of songs, which I then studied.

6. My favorite memory of one set of cousins was going to their little farm just outside Mesa (which is now in the heart of Mesa) on a very warm evening and making peach ice cream in an old wooden crank ice cream freezer. I don't much care for peach ice cream, but that batch was wonderful.

7. I could do a cartwheel. And the splits. And stand on my head. I tried a headstand not long ago as part of my yoga session and it seems my center of gravity has wandered off somewhere else entirely.

8. I learned to knit at church when I was 10, and was taught by a woman from England and another from France.

9. I only recently found out that I love love love Medieval History, which is a pity because I didn't know it in time to major in it. Instead, I majored in Art (where all the boys flaunting the dress code were, heh heh) and minored, in a minor-ish way, in English. Had I waited til I was 50 to go to college I might have applied myself and learned something.

10. I go all ADD in the presence of especially beautiful colors and can just sit and soak them up forever. I inherited an especially wonderful hand-crafted kaliedescope from my friend Gabriel who passed last year, and I mostly leave it on a shelf because once I hold it to the light and start slowly turning the wheel, I'm a goner.

Ahhhh!!!!!!!!

No one to tag, I only read the family blogs, really. Oh, okay: Noah.

Pretty sure he doesn't read this one. :o)