Sickly Sweet Childhood Memories

The following is one of, if not my all time, favorite childhood memories.

My younger sister, Clare and I, were outside playing on one of those winter days where it is warm and sunny, even though there is a good several inch layer of snow on the ground. On this particular day, we were getting along pretty well. Which, for us, meant only trying to assassinate the other once or twice.

We squabbled famously until this year. I finally broke down and matured, I guess. She's my closest sibling, as we are a little over a year apart. When this story takes place, I believe we are about ten and nine, respectively, perhaps a little younger.

Any way, on this lovely winter day, we happened to venture out by the gravel road of our rural home and lo and behold! A half emptied bottle of Pepsi- all alone and unguarded, just waiting for two lucky kids like us! We were thrilled to find that this bottle of the ever coveted carbonated treat was still two thirds full, and after some deliberation, we decided the benefits of free soda far outweighed the risks of someone elses backwash.

On a normal day, we would have fought like cats and dogs over the soda, causing such a stir that my Mother would have come outside to see what all the fuss was about and confiscated our prize. However, the stars were in harmonious alignment that day, and we agreed to share it equally.

We were going over the nitty gritty details of how to split the soda properly when suddenly, inspiration struck. I don't recall whose idea this was, or if this was our intent from the very beginning, but we decided that the same good and kid-loving gods who had sent us this soda had also bestowed upon us a surplus of snow with which to mix it. (Slushies!!)

This presented the problem of how to blend the slushies. We weren't stupid, and we knew revealing our secret would result in either less slushie per person, or no slushie at all depending on who found us first, a sibling or a parent. Thus, we acted with great resourcefulness and efficiency in our covert operation, procuring an old dog dish (yes, it gets grosser) to hold the goods (which I declared, with older sisterly superiority, to be quite sanitary after sitting in a freezing snow bank. Germs freeze to death. Duh.)

Then we found some clean(ish) snow to put into the dog dish and then we poured our precious Pepsi on top. Finding a stick (which was also the very picture of sanitation after we picked most of the bark off of it), we stirred the slushie in song. Seriously. We made up a slushie song. Heck if I know how it went, but I distinctly remember singing. And stirring.

We used sticks to scoop the first spoo...I mean stickfuls into our mouths. We agreed that it was excellent and congratulated each other on our genius. It was then decided that such genius should be applied further and that the fruits of it's labor should be named.

We decided to call it, with the sweet, senseless logic of children, A C Cola, short for 'Anna and Clare's Cola' This was obviously the thing to call a snow saturated Pepsi product. It was perfect.

And so, we ate and made merry and declared it one of the best things we had ever eaten. (I'm not gonna lie, it was pretty darn good.) And dispite our twisted sanitation efforts, we both survived.

I love that memory... I know ya'll think I'm revolting, that's okay, it's true. But that memory so captures what I remember of being a kid. Freedom. Creativity. Simplicity. Innocence. Sure, in theory we knew it was gross to drink someone elses soda, that dog mouths are not clean and neither is what birds put on snow. So what? We did it anyway. And we loved it. We thought it was perfect.

And so, it was.

Hibernation: Phase One

After the temperature drops below sixty degrees, it starts. My semi-hibernation.

I am a pretty cold person, actually. This is actually recent, but as I've gotten older, I am cold a lot of the time. Not like disproportionally with the weather, I'm not wearing a sweater in July, but come October? Yeah. I'm wearing a sweater. And shoes with socks. Which is just wonderful living in the Midwest. And to add to the fun, I live in an old farmhouse. With leaky windows. Yeah. It gets cold. Once January hits, I'm pretty much in full blown hibernation. My adaption of hibernation is not nearly as good as the real thing, but human beings don't seem to get away with naps that last more than a day, much less ones that stretch over a whole season. So I do what I can (besides wishing I was a bear) to keep somewhat warm and sane during the colder months of the year.

Phase one of the hibernation: I drink like seven cups of something hot every day.

It begins with a nice cup of coffee. Oh, glorious coffee! I don't have a set way I 'take' my coffee, as it were. Sometimes I like it black. Sometimes with just a little milk. And sometimes I go cream and sugar. It depends on the mood.

Then, I have a mid morning cup of green tea. I love green tea. So, so good. It's got spunk. Don't tell me it doesn't taste like anything, because it does and I like it. You can enhance this with honey if you're feeling healthy or sugar if you just can't live without it. Most often, I go for the latter.

Then comes my three o'clock(ish) cup of oolong. Another splendid tea. It's a bit like black and green tea blended as far as flavor in my opinion. This needs sugar. Period. This is the one tea I interchange. I must have green in the morning! I must!! But this afternoon cup of tea sometimes becomes afternoon cups of tea and so I'll start with oolong, move on to apple cinnamon and finish off with a nice cup of gingerbread, depending on how adequately stocked the tea cupboard is and what I'm in the mood for.

Last but not least is the bed time cup. In the dead of winter, this is very important. This is the cup that needs to get you through that awful moment where you jump into you bed and shiver as you try desperately to circulate body heat... brrrrr.... It's almost (and I said almost) as bad as that moment getting out of bed. No. Forget it. I lied. It's not even close. It's only getting into the fifties at night here and I have two blankets and a comforter (folded in half) on my bed. My sister asks what I'm going to do when it's really cold.

Drink more tea. And find more blankets. And wear more clothes. It's all part of the grand hibernation that keeps me alive during these cold and cruel winters.

We're only in phase one right now. And goodness, you have to love tea. I hope you love coffee as well, because it is quite fabulous also.

I've just finished my cup of coffee. They say it will be in the seventies today, but if not, you can bet I'll be drinking a nice cup of green tea in a few hours.

Maybe I'll drink it anyway... it's good stuff, you know.

Musing I

If seeing is believing, what is it that I am seeing and therefore, believe?

Anna's Top Ten Ultimate Weaknesses

Reveling one's weaknesses is a practice to be generally discouraged for several reasons...

A) You are a superhero and reveling your weakness could result in your crushing defeat and demise, or

B) Your family reads your blog and can and will use this against you.

I, however, have decided to flaunt my humanity, risk my superhero identity and offer my family and excellent reference for all kinds of pay back and share with you my top 10 weaknesses.

1. Cake / Cookies / Chocolate

The jury is still out on which one weakens me most. All have a ridiculous amount of calories , start with the letter C, and I can't stop eating them.

2. Shiny objects.

If I were an animal, I would have to be a deer. Headlights are so shiny. I also stop and stare at jewelry displays and tilt spoons to that they catch the light.

3. Pretty things.

I'm a girl. I can't help that I like pretty. Shiny, pretty? They go together. But if it's pretty and shiny, it's just even better and cannot be denied.

4. Clothing Sales.

A perfect excuse to go shopping AND expand my wardrobe!! What more can one ask for?! (Again, I'm playing the girl card. It excuses me for all sorts of insanity.) Irresistible.

5. Puppies.

A little black nose... a pair of moist little eyes... too big paws... floppy ears... heaven help me, I melt. All baby animals do it to me, really. Colts and kittens in particular. They're so dang cute. They're defenseless against me and I against them.

6. Blue Eyes

Deadly. Just deadly. Why are they so much prettier and sexier than brown eyes? Why are they so much deeper and more beautiful? Not fair.

7. Being Tickled

Yes, I'm wildly ticklish. It's really an ultimate, ultimate weakness. The only reason it doesn't go higher up on the list is because I am not completely powerless in it's throes. I often get violent when tickled and will probably kick you in the face, gut or where ever I think will get you to quit tickling me.

8. Diet Coke

It can talk me into anything.

9. That Which Is Forbidden

Come on. That just makes it a thousand times more appealing, right?

10. Pride

Okay. It's more like number one. It's also the most serious, though and it was going to kill the mood there at that top. So I just kept pushing it back... and back... and I almost didn't put it on the list at all. (Bad Anna! You lie!) But believe me, it is a weakness and a vice. A big one.


There you have it. My weaknesses. If you are reading this for insight in how to defeat me, I would ask you pick one of the more pleasant ones. Death by chocolate sounds very pleasant indeed. Funny how many of these things would make it on my favorite things list. Funny how much I love to loathe many of them.
 
Aren't people odd?

Ships, Planes and Paper Possiblities

While assembling (okay, more pretending to help while someone else assembled) a bookcase for the Library I work at today, an interesting thought struck me (yes, I actually had one and I lived to tell the tale.)

Bookcases are like treasure chests.

Solid walls of wood encase the diamonds, emeralds and rubies of the literate and cultured world. (Some of us are capable of reading, but do not enjoy it. There are those who love reading for reading's sake and those who like reading for the subject's sake. I am the former and I will tolerate the latter. But those strange people who loathe reading in general, I pity.)

The best bookcases are the ones that are filled, top to bottom (what is an empty bookcase, after all? A crime, that's what. A sad and sorry lack of that which is good. A dull emptiness, begging to be filled.) stuffed, squeezed, glutted, bursting, full up with books, books and more books. The fuller the chest, the greater the treasure, no?

Glorious books. Ships that always have an extra spot for an eager stowaway. Planes that beg you to climb aboard and lift you into the sky of imagination. Dreams that envelope you and offer you endless possibilities. They are escapes, and yet they are grounded in humanity; men cannot write things that do not speak of men.

This makes books both windows and mirrors. They open up the horizons of other worlds and offer more insight into your own. The offer both insight and introspection.

So what else could a bookcase, loaded down with these marvelous thing, be but a treasure chest?

And so, being the good little library employee that I am, I would encourage you to go forth and find a bookcase. Library, bookstore, your neighbors house, I don't care. Find one and take a look. I guarantee it's a worthwhile investment. And speaking of investments, it is also a worthy and wonderful endeavor to build your own bookcase. Collect the jewels that mean the most to you and allow them to occupy a chest in your own home. (That way, when you're neighbor reads this, he can just come on over to your house to find a bookcase.)

And the more chests there are out there... the more likely someone else is to find one.

On A Technical Note...

Like my tweaking? Yes, I did change a few things. Look around, pretend you noticed them right away.

Someone had too much fun with the buttons on Blogger today.

Prose I

How do you forget
The things you once held
Close to your heart and mind
On purpose
So that you wouldn't forget them?
How do you let go
Of the things you once loved
And clung to in a sick desperation
Just to feel your own heart beating?
How do you recover
From a collapse so complete
Like a star falling
From a self imposed sky
Shattering on the ground
Where it never belonged?
How do you love
When there is so much hate
Swirling inside you
Surprising you by it's presence and strength
That you selfishly directed
Safely and soundly
Yet deadly?
And how do you read
The words, the tears, the pictures and the faces
That color, create, make and break
That surround, yet isolate you
Into the hallow drum
Of questions, loneliness and heart beats
In a rhythm, a song
Of hopeful despair?