Function

I had a lot of "functions" to attend when I was younger. Family things. Impressive and all very proper. I never knew if anyone had any fun. They were always so tense. The people, the atmosphere... So much pressure to dress right, look right, speak correctly, mingle correctly... Condescension all around.

A few times I got so aggravated and stressed that I started trashing my whole family. Dishing the dirt to anyone who'd listen. - I wasn't drunk. I was STRESSED, and I let it out. Not loudly. Quietly, to anyone who'd listen. So in the end, I guess I did exactly what everyone was afraid of. If not worse. - Made them all look bad.

Maybe if people had spent their time and energy trying to genuinely BE perfect, instead of trying to give the impression of being perfect, the outcome would have been different. Maybe if they had treated me and others like we were fantastic, just the way we were, instead of embarrassments, there would have been no resulting self fulfilling prophecies.

Odds

The Odd Couple

I did the show (or maybe some scenes?) a very very long time ago. I played one of the Pigeon sisters. I barely remember it. It may have even been for someone's class. I had to smoke in the show. I did. Didn't like it. Never inhaled... - No really! I didn't. I held the smoke in my mouth and puffed it out. It didn't matter though. The smoke still wafted down into my throat and messed up my vocal cords for several days. I'm the only person I know who's that sensitive to smoke. I was glad when it was over. After that I said "no" to anything that required smoking. Even pretend. Even for a few days. Even for money.

Hoop

Hula.

I can't do the darned thing. It spins around me two or three times then continues spinning as it makes its way all the way down my legs to the floor. The closest I can get to "using" a hula hoop is to grasp it with both hands, flip the ring over my head, and bring it around under my feet, like a jump rope.

Cabin

Camp. I loved camp. Sleep away camp anyway. - Which is the one that had cabins! (I did not like day camp!) I was so happy to be away from home. Away from family, from the same ole grown ups. Away from teachers and the kids I knew. I thrived at camp. It was a dream come true for me in many ways. Dreams I didn't really know existed. After my first summer, I wanted to go to camp all year round, so I asked my parents to send me to boarding school. They said no.

Coming home from camp was always awful. Really really awful. Most people are sad to leave friends, of course, but it was deeper than that for me. I fell into massive depressions that lasted all through the winter and never let up. "Time" never healed anything for me. By spring, I'd start to get hopeful about returning to camp. Then I'd have another great summer, in yet another cabin full of kids, and when it was time to go home I went through the same thing all over again. It never got easier.

- I'm going to stop here because, even now, in thinking about it, I could still get *that* upset all over again. Like I said, it never got easier. The feelings never went away.

Collar

Collars... what a hassle those were. Something that would stay on my pets, that would be comfortable for them even when lying down. Something that they could slip out of if they ever got caught up in something, so they wouldn't strangle to death... I gave a lot of thought to collars. They were important to me because I needed to be sure my pets had visible ID on them in case they got lost. They never did but I had regular dreams about their wandering off and my frantic attempts to find them - The dreams even continued for years after they died. I "collar trained" any pet I had as soon as they got home, no matter what the age. Usually they were so overwhelmed with the new surroundings they didn't even notice the thing around their neck! All my pets were pretty great about keeping their collars on. Never fussed with them or pulled them off, even though they could. On the rare occasion when I noticed one of them running around without a collar, it was always due to the collar having been caught on something and their slipping their heads out to free themselves - and for that, I was grateful. I still have most of their collars. I keep them with their ashes.

Beehive

The hairdo.

What were they thinking? Seriously, what was it about those that made people think they were a good thing? I understand when someone goes through a punk rock stage or a fun or freaky stage and they wear styles that are non traditional, but I don't understand when something like a beehive is not considered "wacky and fun" but mainstream and fashionable. Unless you're wearing a ball gown and/or a tiara, I don't get it.

Hinge

She turned, almost in disbelief. Was it?

The door opened, and she saw at once, the Master. She hadn't sensed him. Quickly, she straightened, concealing her emotions as best as she could. She'd become practiced in this over the years, but his appearance, now, had caught her off guard.

"Come in," she said, "but stay quiet."

"Come in but stay quiet?" he asked.

She turned to look him directly in the eyes and said "My patient. I don't want her disturbed."

"Your patient," he snarled with contempt. "I don't know why you bother."

It worked, she thought. He believed she'd been talking to him.

Runway

My first thought was "Runaway." - I'll save that for tomorrow maybe ;)

Runway...

A friend and I took a modeling class together when we were around 14 yrs old. Our mothers signed us up. It was... odd.

I wasn't interested in modeling, and to be honest, neither were the teachers. The whole purpose of the "class" was to teach teens about how to improve their health, their hair, their bedrooms, their clothes, their makeup, and oh look! This store has ALL the items you need for that! You can get them after class if you'd like!

The class did culminate with a fashion show and runway walk. We were taught nothing about that of course. I didn't like my outfit, I didn't like my makeup, but there was free food. There was always free food. That was the best part of the course. If nothing else, my friend and I definitely ate our parent's money's worth of cheese, fruit, and vegetable platters.

Liberty

"And to the republic, for Richard Stands..."

Someone should name their kid that :)

Below

Somehow I knew this would be today's word after yesterday's "bellow" - which I tried to write about but ended up deleting. I wrote something like "Look out below!" she bellowed!

There. Now I've covered both ;)

Bench

I hated the sun at camp. I hated outside activities. I didn't even like going in the pool because that was in the sun too! I remember sitting on a bench at the end of a field quite often because it was TOO DARNED HOT to run around and play whatever game they were trying to make us play. Of course the benches were also in the sun, but sitting, even in the sun, was still better than running around.

When I think about day camp, I always think of blinding sun and heat. "HOT!" Hot hot hot!

I'm still not a sun person. Gimme rain and some indoor AC!

Crisp

Rice Krispies

I remember mailing away for some Snap, Crackle, and Pop, wooden figures. I thought they were the coolest things in the world when I got them. I loved them!

Cereal boxes don't have decent mail-ins anymore! Nor does bubble gum or any other food product that I can think of. Do they even put prizes IN cereal boxes anymore?

- Remember tilting the box and bowing out its cardboard sides so that all the cereal went to one side, and then the other side, and then the other.... looking for just a corner of the plastic prize bag? Ah yes... Those were the days!

Savage

John Savage

Hair

Laurie Beechman

I remember first seeing her in Annie, singing "NYC." Apt at the time. One solo moment, playing the part of the "Star to be," that stole the show and got her seen. "Who the heck was that?!" everyone said. - There are no small parts ;)

Later I recognized her in the movie "Hair" singing "Black Boys", and then she was pretty much everywhere. Great voice. Died during her prime - of life and her career I think. I remember her voice, her eyes, her hair...

Joseph... Cats... - Phenomenal.

Oil

Olive Oyl

When I was little, I loved the Popeye cartoons, and I loved spinach because of it. Every time I ate spinach I'd make a muscle with my arm, like Popeye, and I'd ask my father to feel it to see if it had grown. He always made a big deal out of it and told me it DEFINITELY had. -And I believed him every time :)

Apron

Smock

Remember art smocks from when we were little? I had to bring one to nursery school and to part of elementary school too, I think? I had a couple of plastic smocks, and I also remember having a large man's shirt at least one year. It was probably my father's.

So practical.

I should probably wear smocks now. Instead, I have a set of already ruined paint/craft/hair dye clothes :)

Thorns

Fairytales

Crown of...

Lion's paw

Why do so many fairytales and children's stories involve thorns? They're not deadly. (Unless you're a hemophiliac.) I'd have thought there were more dangerous natural phenomena that could have been common themes in literature, rather than thorns. I guess thorns were a big problem "once upon a time."

Trunk

I love trunks. Loved my camp trunk.

Wow... lots of stuff coming up....

Harry Potter's trunk of course.

A set of antique trunks (more like rounded suitcases really) that I loved but have no room for...

I still have one of my camp trunks. It's low to the ground and used as an extra low coffee table or seat when needed.

Champagne

I have a small bottle of champagne that's probably about 15 years old. Unlike wine, I don't think champagne improves with age. I keep trying to tell people I don't drink, but once in a while I'm given a bottle of something anyway, which I keep for "whatever." - Where "whatever" seems to equal "until it turns to vinegar."

Glimmer

My mind is on the water these days... I've learned so many things. Things other people probably never stop to realize "I didn't know this at one time."

I love that I've learned the difference between the sound a Pelican makes as it crashes into the water (Disintegrating upon entry is how someone described it!), the sounds that fish make jumping in and out of the water (They really do jump. Some little ones jump super high!), and the sounds that dolphins make (plural because there's usually two) as they swim along, breach, and re-enter the surface.

I don't even have to turn around to know what's happening within a certain radius of me now. I know without looking, because even with my eyes closed, breathing in the air... I now know the sounds. And I love that.

And "glimmer?" Sunrises and sunsets on the surface of that water.

Estate

I've been wondering about estate sales. Those that might happen for my family in the future. How to do that... So much stuff... how to whittle down belongings, little by little, in an "ok" manner, so that someday (someday far away most likely) when everything must be sold, the amount is manageable.

Looking around, even now, I see things I would want to have stay in the family, but I know I couldn't keep them. Not enough room.

I hope nobody around me realizes I'm looking at their homes and belongings in this way. But I am. Sort of. Because I think I might be the one who has to manage it all someday.