Linda, who posts at hello its me (every day, unlike some of us . . . ), has kindly given me an award! (Last week, actually, but I'm having a bit of trouble getting back into the routine of posting. Maybe next week.)
I am to pass this on to three bloggers, and then reveal seven obscure things about myself. . .
One award goes to Kai, who's been my good friend for several years now. Unfortunately, we'll never meet in real life since she's in Texas and I'm not, but that's probably just as well for the rest of the world. Another to Susan who blogs at Blackberry Creek and posts all sorts of interesting home-type things, plus cute dog pictures. And the third to someone who will probably never know, because I'm pretty sure he doesn't read this blog, but his is well worth a look or three: Lance Mannion (politics, movies, books, neat photos, and so forth and so on).
And now: Seven Obscure Things About Me.
1. I listen to trees. They don't actually say anything, but they feel. It's difficult to describe.
2. Years ago, I learned to play a little bass guitar (mostly AC/DC and Waylon Jennings covers. And Creedence.). I was awful, but I was loud and I had fun, even if anyone listening didn't. Then reality intervened; i.e., you're pretty close to tone-deaf, you're 45 years old, and you don't have 18 hours a day to practice just to be mediocre. However, it did give me an appreciation for a good bass line.
3. I can tell when one of the cats isn't feeling well even if there's nothing obviously wrong and she isn't acting out of the ordinary, but when they're feeling fine I have no sense of them whatsoever.
4. I'm always terrified that I'll run out of things to read, even though we have probably several thousand books here. As a result, I have a several-foot-high pile of "things to read next" that never get read, so I can read them if I'm snowbound or bedridden or something.
5. I've never once, in my entire life so far, felt grown-up. I keep waiting to miraculously turn into a 'real' adult, but so far it hasn't happened. Or if it did, I missed it.
6. I see a lot of hawks and crows, and more often than not they are in threes.
7. I still want a pony. And a gypsy wagon, like Mr. Toad's, with cubbyholes and shelves and baskets hung underneath, and places for everything . . .
(In fact, I've wanted a pony since I was about five. I have a fair amount of Scandinavian ancestry—mostly Swedish, I think—and the other day I remembered that in pre-Christian Scandinavia the horse was sacred to Odin, the All-Father. Interesting, no?)
Now, as to the winning words: Theodora Goss has a new book, The Thorn and the Blossom (And it's absolutely gorgeous! It's a love story told from two points of view, and the format is an accordian-fold in a beautiful slipcase.) She's having a three-week contest/giveaway, for which the prizes are a copy of her new book and her book of short stories, In the Forest of Forgetting. The first week's contest involved writing a description of one's favorite garden, real or imagined—and I won one of the prizes! My entry is here, as well as the other winner and the honorable mentions. (All the submissions are in comments here. You ought to read them all; each is lovely in its own right.) The second week was about travel; winning entries are here, and all of them are in comments here (including mine; of course, I couldn't win again, but I wrote something anyway). And the third week's question concerns the nature of 'true' love; keep an eye on comments to this post.
So, there's that. No posting tomorrow (Well, I might have put up a photo. You never know.), in protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA). Bad things, both of them; you can Google to find out more, but you might have to wait until Thursday.
