#28 - When I was seven, I planted a peach pit from a canned peach. My mother told me it wouldn’t grow. It did. The tree produced tiny, rock-hard sour peaches but it was more than enough for me that it burst into exquisite deep pink blossoms every spring. And that a grown-up was wrong.
#97 – I still lust after the big set of Crayola crayons and always will.
#09 – I once loaned money to a student assistant. Ada Ruby, her name was. A roaring twenties flapper of a girl with long straight black hair and short bangs, who always wore a bee-sting of red lipstick. She was sighing about being broke and I figured she was out of groceries, but as it turns out, (I was handing her the money) she was out of wine.
“You know how it is,” she said, in all sincerity, “You need a nice glass of wine and candles when you’re in the bath at the end of the evening.”
I doubt she had food at the time, but I figured hell, if she knew what she needed. She paid me back the next week. And I gave her my most prized hat before she left for New York to become famous. It was a tiny black velvet number with a veil and a huge curving feather on one side. She was the only other person I could ever imagine wearing it.
#10 – To France S, the lovely dancer, before I left Toronto, I gave my velvet 30s dress with the opera cape.
#11 – So, there is no such thing as a seed a child can’t grow, one can never have too many crayolas, and there is no such thing as a frivolous or wasted item of clothing.
9 comments:
Things I Never Thought I'd Have Occasion To Say, #128: I actually have not one but TWO boxes of 64 Crayola crayons sitting not 24" from my left elbow at this very moment. They're in a small cupboard. The air reeks of them when I open the door, and not in a good way.
Love your peach pit story!
My friend, buy yourself those Crayolas! Lifelong lust is rarely so easily satisfied!
Also, love the peach tree story. When I was little, I was fascinated with the idea of planting and growing... but I didn't quite grasp the ins and outs of what things could be planted and what couldn't. Like, I kept trying to grow Coca-Cola trees by pouring the contents of my soda can onto the soil in our back yard.
I'll buy the crayolas. Why not? Money for crayons is no object at this point in life!
Meanwhile, I wonder if anyone's noticed a Coca-Cola tree in bloom in your home town.
I wonder if any kid ever thought it was dumb of Jack to trade the cow for magic beans? Bet not.
Jess. If you clear the air and throw the crayons out, you'll need them. Probably the next day.
This theory explains the frightening condition of my closets.
You the crayolas, me any item of clothing in a leopard skin pattern - leggings, top, I don't care. Totally un-me but something my inner vamp has always lusted after.
This is a really lovely piece of writing. Can I ask how you chose the numbers. Do you play the lottery, I wonder?
Everybody out of the closet. You're going to have me confessing to a lot worse than Crayolas soon. Actually, I have confessed to a lot worse than Crayolas, come to think of it.
And yes, Aleida - the NEW box is always better. It's the greener grass of crayons.
And Tomato, peach...the point is...it grew. And if the parental figures happened to point out that it wouldn't, all the better.
I play the lottery. Geez. The Scorpio & me split on tickets. I buy them. (He made that rule and I didn't get a vote and he wasn't paying attention to my speech on how lucky I'm not.) I pick the numbers here at random. I buy lottery tickets via machine pick. Biggest win I every had $100. And I won the raffle for a quilt made by artists. Other than that? I argue that I might as well use my toilet as a wishing well and throw the damn money in there. But I keep trying. It's my current retirement plan, so really, I have to keep doing it.
Any informed gambling advice and instruction on actually winning the lottery would be appreciated.
You won a quilt!! :)
The only thing I ever won was a case of motor oil!
Junie
What an epiphany that, when I was little, the big box of crayons symbolized prosperity and abundance. For whatever reason my parents never bought it for me.
I could easily have the crayons now. What else am I overlooking that would make me feel rich?
Oh Junierose! You need some crayons. Motor oil? I hope you didn't spend it all in one place.
(Oh - and by the way, each quilt square was made by a different artist. I loaned it to the library where I look and one day it got packed up and lost. Forever. NO one knows where it went.)
Teri - Another little childhood rich-thing:
Cupcakes. Package of 12 - 3 with pink icing, 3 with white, 3 with brown. Not a single ingredient in them we could consider to be food.
Post a Comment