Thursday, March 09, 2006

Randomly numbered things about me: a selection

#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.