Something Weird

I know what purple tastes like.

I know. That is a strange statement. I will explain if I can.

I love flowers. All those colors make me happy. 

My mother also loved flowers. She insisted that a large portion on every garden we ever had be devoted to flowers.

I love the pretty orange of marigolds. I do not like their smell.

Apple blossoms fill the air with such a beautiful sweet smell.

Violets are delicate little purple flowers that bloom shortly after the bright yellow dandelions.

The bright red of cockscomb is stunning.

None of these flowers project a flavor.

Gladiolus are flowers that grow from bulbs. They come in vibrant colors from all across the spectrum and they are all gorgeous.

The purple gladiola is a deep deep purple color. Their fragrance is extremely strong. 

Our sense of taste is usually combined with our sense of smell. Did you know that? Of course you do.

I have never eaten a flower. Except for sheep shower which. tastes like dill.

Purple tastes like purple gladiolas smell. Why no other color tastes like a particular flower I cannot tell you. I only know the taste of purple.

Emotional Vampires

Have you ever known a person who is always in a negative mood? Maybe they are permanently angry. Maybe they are a constant victim. Maybe they are always depressed.

No matter the cause of their negativity they are so willing to share it. They can make everyone around them feel terrible. They feel no better but the people around them carry that exhausted feeling for a long time.

I am not talking about someone who just got bad news and has not had time to deal with it. And someone with a condition they cannot completely control such as clinical depression. At times like that most people are happy to help.

But there are those who are not happy until they have made everyone around them as miserable as they are. And even then they are not happy. So they move on to make someone else share their pain.

Now I am a disgustingly happy person. I have had a wonderful life. I am content. 

I sincerely offer help or a shoulder to cry on if needed. I can afford to be helpful because I have such a good life.

My sister calls the doom and gloom people emotional vampires. I am terrified of vampires. I refuse to suffer for them. 

Do you know any emotional vampires? How do you deal with them?

 

A Dime For Your Thoughts

 I always left my coins on a table. It was simple to take them at the end of the day and just lay them there. 

Nobody bothered them. After a while I would roll them up and take them to the bank. It was almost like found money.

As my children got a little older they were sometimes home alone after school until I got home from work. The money on the table was for them to run to the store for a snack.

It made me crazy that they would not touch the money. 

Then I began having grandchildren. What a wonderfully unique feeling that is.

My grandchildren did not bother the money either. But occasionally a spare coin would try to escape and end up on the floor.

For some odd reason my second granddaughter was eagle-eyed. Even though she was only a toddler she would pick up the fugitive coins and give them to an adult. Except the dimes.

I do not know if it was because a dime is the smallest in size but she liked them... to eat.

If she was on the hunt for change we had to watch her closely. If she found one she popped it right into her mouth. We then had to pry it out and put it where it belonged.

Sometimes it would get caught in her throat and she would choke. I became a bit of an expert at applying a baby Heimlich maneuver. It made her spit out the dime.

Thank goodness she outgrew her love of dimes. She is beginning nursing school this year. Then she can deal with the little ones who put odd things in their mouths.

Setting Pins

As a child I had many little jobs. Weeding gardens was hard work. 

Delivering newspapers was a large enough task that my two brothers shared the job with me. On Sundays and holidays Daddy helped because we had to go to the next town to pick up the papers then deliver them to farms on the way back. Then we took a stack of them to the town after ours and left them with a cafe. Then we went back to our town and got on our bicycles for our regular routes.

Of course I was a babysitter. 25 cents per hour was the going rate.Almost any little chore that people would pay for I did.

The bowling alley in our was located beneath the post office. We had 8 lanes. We were advanced enough that we had a pin frame so we did not have to crawl out and reset the pins manually.

I guess I should mention that I worked there as a pinsetter. It was the first job I had where I had a schedule to work. It was also the first job where I was paid by check and paid taxes and had Social Security deducted from my pay. I was 11 years old.

Usually a pinsetter was assigned to two adjacent lanes. We went back to the pit behind the pins by walking along the gutters and then sliding under the frames. There was the extension of the ball return lane that we sat on when people were in the process of bowling.

The ball came down the lane and knocked down the pins. The pinsetter then jumped down, picked up the ball, and sent it back to the bowler. Then the pins that were knocked down were collected and put into the spots in the frame that had no pins under it. Hopefully the pins fell into the pit.

If all the pins were knocked down or after the bowler's second try the pinsetter pulled the cord that set the frame down. It would place the pins for the next bowler.

The pit was aptly named. It was dark, dirty, and collected bits of the wax that keeps the lanes smooth. We were not pretty creatures when our night was over.

A complete game in bowling is called a line. Most people bowled several lines and there were multiple people at a time. We were paid a penny a line. It was good money.

One of the reasons I tell you this is because I was 11 years old when I began working there and paying taxes. When I was laid off from my final job I was 62 years old. 

I worked and paid taxes for 51 years. I was happy to be retired. A person should not have to work that long.

Ring 'Em Up

 The first year I worked as a cashier at the store that sold all things from grocery items to clothing to auto supplies Christmas came. 

Christmas is a busy time for all stores and a store like that is no exception. Sales for one day at our store would be at least a million and a half dollars. The selling season is about a month long.

Needless to say there were a lot of people with really big orders. You could see carts piled high with merchandise. Most cashiers did not mind ringing up those big orders because they would simply slide the merchandise down to the end of the lane and someone else filled bags.

For people who only stopped in to pick up a few things and did not want to wait in a line of big orders we had express lanes. If a person was buying 20 items or less these were the lanes to use. It was a lot faster for them and easier for the cashiers.

That first Christmas I was assigned to an express lane. I was kept busy all night.

Then I looked up. Pulling into my lane was a woman with 2 carts piled high with merchandise and groceries. 

I nicely said, "This lane is only if you have 20 items or less." I pointed to the sign above my register. 

She told me she had been sent there. By who? She pointed to my manager.

I looked at my manager. She shrugged her shoulders and lifted her hands as if to say, "What else could I do?"

I gave the manager a dirty look. Then I smiled at the woman and rang up het groceries. I bagged them as I went. Some of the other items were too large for bags. Those I placed right back into her carts.

Then I did what the baggers were instructed to do. I asked if I could help her take her merchandise to her car. She said she could manage 

I then turned off the light indicating that my lane was open. I took my 15 minute break.

Lefties

 I am left-handed. Being a lefty in a right-handed world can be terribly confusing. 

Most things are designed for righties. So we try to adapt. Another problem is that since we are so used to seeing the right being used the left does not look correct either.  

The Latin word for left-handedness is sinistral. It comes from the word sinister which is what we think of as bad.

For many years if a child showed a preference for using the left hand teachers would insist that they use their right hand instead. That caused problems for so many people who actually became no-handed.

As I grew up the only other lefty I knew was my uncle. He is three years older than me. 

When he started school the teachers trained him to write with his right hand. His handwriting is illegible.

When I started school my mother told the teacher that under no circumstances should she try to change me. 

Then Mom taught me how to slant the paper I was writing on. A righty's paper is slanted so the top is toward the left. It stands to reason that the opposite works for a lefty. 

Because of that my hand does not curl over the top of my paper. The only problem I have is the lefty's curse... ink or graphite staining the side of my hand.

You would be surprised at how many famous people are known as lefties. I am about to bore you with a partial list.

Lisa Kudrow, Jennifer Aniston, Gordon Ramsey, Mother Theresa, David Bowie, Rinfo Starr, Paul, McCartney, Julius Caesar, Judy Garland, Harpo Marx, Spike Lee, Madonna, Annie Lennox, Aristotle, Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Matt Groening, Marie and Pierre Curie as well as their daughter Irene and her husband Frederic Joliot Curie... WHEW...Ty Cobb, Barry Bonds, Babe Ruth, Sandy Kofax, Ted Williams, Emma Thompson, Helen Keller, Mozart, Joan of Arc, Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain, Morgan Freeman, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, 8 presidents, and Napoleon.

There are so many more. You can look them up.

Two of my four children are lefties.

Now you know more about lefties than you ever dreamed you would.

 

Different/Same

As you know I have four children. It has always amazed me how much alike they are. Yet they are so different at the same time.

It began at birth. The first was the ugliest thing I had ever seen. It broke my heart and at the same time I loved him so much. After a couple of hours his features settled and he was beautiful. I was glad I had loved him from the beginning.

My second son was perfect. He had a pretty round face, pink cheeks, and blond hair. He looked like a cherub or Cupid.

When I had my third baby the umbilical was wrapped loosely around his neck. He was the prettiest lavender color for a few minutes. While we were still in the hospital he developed a little brownish spot on one eye. As I watched in fascination it got larger while we were there. By the time we went home he had green eyes.

My daughter was as red as a beet when she was born. Her head was covered with little dark curls. The most interesting thing was her legs. She had legs like a girl. Not baby legs... girl legs! My mother said, "What did you expect?"

All of them inherited their father's quick temper. Some manage it better than others but they all have it. Then they also hold a grudge like me. It is a terrible combination.

They all use what we call the family finger. When angry they pull out a pointer finger and shake it at the person they are mad at. The first time I saw it my mother-in-law was mad at my father-in-law. I was horrified.  

My second son is not particularly interested in music. The rest are. KISS is a favorite but my third son is just short of being obsessed. My oldest likes Queen the best. My daughter likes Bon Jovi.

I could go on but I will tell you one last way they were alike. I once told them I knew it was hard to have a mother like me. (I have not completely grown up.)

I was told, " Not really. We thought all mothers were like that."