Monday Musings.

Double rainbow last Thursday evening.

There are some people who really, really pique my curiosity.  There are three such persons that I see almost daily.  The first is a woman of a certain age - 'tho it's impossible to tell what age - who I call Walking Woman.  She has long grey hair, parted in the middle, a deeply lined face, and always wears flip flops, a skirt and a plain overblouse.  She walks along the side of the road at quite a clip and very purposefully.  Walks and walks and walks, and walks some more.  She is always walking in the same area on my drive home.  Except for once - I was working out in my yard early this spring and who should walk by on my country road?  The Walking Woman!!!  I was so stunned, I didn't ask her the five million questions that have been forming in my head over the past 4 years.  Apparently, she is related to one of my neighbors in some tenuous way.  We had a short but pleasant conversation about the abundance of wild fruit that is along our roads - then, suddenly, she was walking away.

The other two are also what I would classify as out-of-the-ordinary characters.  Two women, one young, one older, both always (even in summer) clad in full length black coats.  They are tall and gaunt.  The older one always has her head covered - either by a kerchief or a hat.  And they are always in the same place on my way home, walking their dog by a small lake.  As my car comes along, they all freeze and look away.  Except for the dog, who looks quite animated.  They remind me of characters out of an Edward Gorey book.

Who are these people?  Where to they come from and, more importantly, why do they go where they go every day?

Today's scientific question:  Why can't we tickle ourselves?  I am extremely ticklish; if I even think someone might be thinking about tickling me, I fall apart.  Yet, if I try to tickle myself - nothing.  nada.  It's sort of like the difference between washing my hair myself, or going to the hairdresser (or, should it be "stylist"?  I'll have to ask Mary which she prefers) and having her wash it.  It feels so different.  Many years ago, on a faraway island (not far away enough, though) in another life, I used to get my hair cut in Chinatown.  Of course, you know by now that I have always been, um, frugal.  On that island of $100+ haircuts, I got mine cut for $17, PLUS a shiatsu scalp massage.  Holey moley.  It was heaven.  I am sure I was snoring and drooling at the end of the wash, but I didn't care.  And it was a great haircut to boot.

Why does the wind bother me so much?  At any sign of a good gusting, I start to get anxious.  Wind at night will keep me from sleeping.  It kicks in my worry gene big-time.  I start to think of the pioneer women who were out on those lonely, windblown prairies, stuck alone in their sod houses in the inky dark with their children, while their husbands were off.  The ones that survived were certainly made of sterner stuff than I;  I would have folded like a sheet.  I used to work in a high rise on the same island as referenced above, on the 38th floor.  When the wind blew, you could feel the building move.  This was years before 9/11.  Now, I work on the 7th floor and I ain't goin any higher.  I can handle the stairs.

My favorite cartoon character was and has always been Bugs Bunny.  He was a smarty-pants and it gave me a little thrill as a child to see how he always managed to out-maneuver Elmer and everyone else.  Years later, it seemed like he was created for adults, not children.  Every so often, my dad and Uncle Jim (on my mom's side - we used to call him Uncle Mimmy) would drive us to the Saturday matinee - I won't tell you how much it cost (for the day) since then you will think I am a fogey.  Once in a while, they would stay for the show.  If there was a Bugs Bunny cartoon between features (it was a double-header), the two of them would sit and roar with laughter.  It was completely embarrassing for us - we usually managed to edge down the row a few seats, trying to look like we weren't with them.  This was an old movie theater, with a stage and a piano to one side of the audience.  When I was very young, I took tap dancing lessons there, from an old Vaudeville dancer.  His wife played the piano.  After having been turned down by the ballet teacher (as "too clumsy" for the delicate art of ballet), I got my revenge by tap-dancing my way to a solo performance.  I even remember what I wore:  black patent leather MaryJanes, white ankle socks with lace trim, a short, red cotton skirt with bloomer pants (modesty was the name of the game) with matching suspenders, and a white short puffed sleeve blouse.  Not a sequin in sight.  But, I was the cat's meow - the bee's knees - I was going to the TOP!  Look out, Fred Astaire!  Then I discovered horses.  The end.