Monday Musings

I am musing, today, about the Three Rs - Reading Riting & Rassling.  Those are my three Rs, not the other ones.  My Rs have nothing to do with Rithmatic.  And not to be a stickler, tho' I tend to be about some things, what is with the "R"s?  Reading - fine.  (w)Riting?  Non.  (a)Rithmatic? Non, non, non.

As you have all read (ad nauseum), I am reading books!  This makes me so deliriously happy.  How easy it is to be too tired, too busy, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera (as the King of Siam would say) to take time out to explore new worlds.  While I wouldn't trade adulthood for childhood for my Aunt Nettie, I do miss being naive enough to think that I had tons of time - the world was my oyster and I was going to take my good sweet time and enjoy it.  Now, while I still may think that the world is my oyster - I am aware of the shelf-life of fresh oysters and I am in a hurry!

I have many favorite books:  Alice in Wonderland, Through a Distant Mirror, Confederacy of Dunces, The Beak of the Finch, anything by Dickens, to name just a few.  I think I grew up in a magic time - before television became as much a part of life as two-ply toilet paper - before computers, video games, and parental guilt.  My mother saw nothing wrong with plopping me in a playpen to amuse myself.  She was pretty adept at turning a deaf ear to my screeching  Very shortly, after receiving no attention for my bad behavior, I would busy myself with my toys.  I learned to enjoy alone time.  She got things done, I was amused, it all worked out.  Besides, as soon as I was able to toddle, I was off, so I am sure it was safer to keep me penned up!  Hmm.  I wonder if that harness thing started my lifelong love affair with dogs?

We would go to the little local library once a week and get a stack of books.  One book that we took out almost every other week, was entitled "The Sweet Patootie Doll".  Lawdamity, did I love that story!  I have absolutely no recollection as to why I did.  It was about a little girl who found a sweet potato that looked like it had a face.  So she dressed it up and hauled it around.  It had the usual dramatic bit where the little girl puts it down and it's temporarily lost, then found.  My mother loved to read it, and that might have had something to do with it.  So, for her birthday one year, I went on a quest to find it.  After 6 months, I think I found the last surviving copy.  For $125.  I bought it and I don't want to discuss it.

Riting.  I love to write.  I love to write with a pen, rather than a pencil.  I never cottoned to pencils.  I do my crossword puzzles in pen.  Now, don't get all het up thinking I'm bragging - you've never seen a crossword puzzle of mine.  Sometimes I've changed a word so many times it looks like another black square!  My third grade teacher, Mrs. Puca, was a real taskmaster when it came to learning proper cursive.  I found that I had a real talent for it and that suited my smug little brown-nosed self just fine.  But, besides that, I really LIKED to write.  And I still do, although my hands are showing signs of their hard use, and the cursive is a little shakier than it used to be.  I used to sashay up to the blackboard and write out the lesson in perfect chalky cursive.  Mrs. P. would go on and on about my lovely form, while my classmates stewed.  Not surprisingly, after school I learned the fine art of...

Rassling.  I was a tough kid.  I grew early and was able to hold my own right up until fourth grade.  Then I stopped growing and everyone else shot up.  Fourth grade was tough.  Little did I know, back in the old neighborhood, that I was in training for my true calling:  sheep rassling.  What I did yesterday went beyond rassling.  It was a knock-down-drag-em-through-hell-hath-no-fury-body-slamming event.  Hoosier, Cocoa and Freyda went to their new home and we were introduced to the lovely Apria.  I will admit that I had a fleeting desire to drop kick Coca into the van.  But I didn't.  We were too busy staggering under the burden of having to carry the loony tune.  Things have calmed down and the remaining sheep are not quite as leery of Apria as they were.  She's a beautiful, big girl with a heavy fleece.  Which is in need of a trim - this spring.  I had all kinds of visions of bonding with her, comforting Banyan after losing his crazy mother and his Uncle Hoosier, scritching ears, all that lovely stuff.  Instead, I threw hay at them and went inside and had a glass of wine to help me forget all the bumps and bruises.  Amen.