(Here are Mama Squirrel's, Firefly's and Thicket Dweller's responses. Later note: I am having trouble linking to Firefly, and am not sure if it is I or the website, so if you can't get the link to work, I apologize, but I do not know how to fix it.)
*A- Favourite Animals: I am not much of an animal person, but I have recently fallen in love with a bunny.
*B- Favourite Bad Habit: (You know, that one that you like too much to even try to break. You like being addicted.) That would have to be the Internet, and especially blogging. Sad, but true.
*C- Favourite Cookie: Semi-sweet chocolate chip oatmeal
*D- Favourite Drink: That's a hard one. It used to be coffee, but I'm coming out of that now. Perhaps high quality hot chocolate.
*E-Favourite Egg Style: In an omelette with cheese, mushrooms, ham, bacon, sausage, fresh vegetables and sour cream. It's the Omni Omelette from Le Peep. Yum. We need to go there soon. (I have a tendency toward low blood sugar. There is enough protein in this omelette to keep me going all day.)
*F- Five Favourite Fiction Books: (Having been driven nearly insane with surveys that limited your selection of favourite books to Exactly One of Any Kind, The Equuschick is broadening the topic. Still difficult, but not quite as miserable.) A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Little Women, Little Men, Jane Eyre, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Adam Bede, Emma...
*G-Favourite Gadget: I'm not really gadget-y, but Mr. Honey has a tablet PC with digital recording capabilities, and that excites me. I don't want to use it, mind you, I just want him to be our sound man while we play and sing for the recorder.
*H- Favourite Hymn: Canaan's Land ("Oh, for a breeze of heavenly love...")
*I- Favourite Ice Cream- Double Chocolate Malted Crunch from Thrifty Drug in California. This is a childhood favorite, and I have only gotten to have it once since we moved away.
*J- Favourite Jam: Apricot (the all-fruit kind, like Polaner's)
*K-Favourite Kid's Books: The Frances books, Frog and Toad books by Arnold Lobel, Miss Suzy, My Blue Boat, A Hole Is To Dig, Katy and the Big Snow, Mike Mulligan,
*L-Favourite Love Song- We Are In Love, as sung by Harry Connick, Jr. "I know you so well, I can tell by the sound of your voice if you're really in love with me, and you are. Yes, you are." What a classy sentiment.
*M-Favourite Memories: Standing in the dark in the middle of the street with my cousins, all of us holding sparklers on Fourth of July. Sitting on the counter as a small child, in the kitchen at the church with my cousins, clean and fresh and given a treat while the rest of the Singing School was in the other room continuing evening assembly. Singing and singing... and singing, as we sat around between services at church meetings growing up. Singing really strong alto like Grandmommy. Singing "Lord, Lead Me ON" very loudly (the alto, of course). Getting to sing high tenor just like my beautiful cousin. Jumping off the high dive for the first time. Riding my bike uphill to school-- and soaring downhill with the wind in my face after a disappointing day. Getting a part in the high school musical and finally feeling like I might have a "place" at school. Finding out I got into the university with a scholarship. Women's Chorus at Long Beach, and learning to breathe, relax my face, and appreciate the miracle of a banana (the ultimate convenience food, my teacher would say-- even comes in its own biodegradeable packaging). Lessons with Shigemi, learning to hold myself like a singer (erg. I need to relearn that. My core is now so weak.) That incredible master class when I was helped to hold my neck straight and sing with pure freedom, and the months afterward which I spent trying to recapture that position on my own because I couldn't afford private sessions with the master teacher (I can't even remember the name of that elusive technique anymore), and going to the beach with music friends after practicing all evening, and enjoying a bonfire. My basement room in San Francisco, and the night Mr. Honey attempted to ask me out without actually committing to asking me out. Walking down the aisle toward Mr. Honey and not being able to get that silly grin off my face. Our honeymoon trek across half the U.S. Outfitting our first tiny apartment with purchases from Wal-mart across the street. Purchasing our first home. Bringing our first child home from the hospital. Having surrogate grandparents next door to cuddle the baby and encourage the new mama. Moving from Tennessee the day after Christmas (Christmas with mountains of boxes, a nervous little dog, a one year old, and a tiny Christmas tree). That feeling that no other baby could ever have been as precious and beautiful as our own new little baby, and the irresistable urge to sit and stare by the hour, to make a connection with those eyes. The Christmas Santa brought a lot of red balloons to fill up the living room (the girls were newborn, three and six) Triss' second birthday in the "Hundred Acre Woods" (a friend and I stayed up half the night finishing the Pooh Bear birthday cake). The Sunday morning we realized that little Triss could read. Daily visits to the duck pond and sometimes to the marshy grasses near the lake the winter I was expecting Cornflower, and Triss was five and Mariel was two. Doing dishes, vacuuming, dusting, making supper-- all with a baby Mariel in her sling. The cuddly Mariel content to stroke my arm in church. A single quiet hour each day when Triss was three and Mariel was a baby and I kept four little toddler boys, and the fun and whimsical projects we did at the little table. Beautiful little girls in blue and white sitting in daffodils. The first time the girls saw the ocean in San Francisco. The first time the girls saw the Atlantic Ocean. The day we purchased our bookcases from Ikea and realized we had no way to get them home. The two weeks of going to bed with contractions, sure that I was ready to have the baby and awakening with no contractions to continue daily life and wonder when-- the night we dropped Triss off at the grandparents and had Mariel in less than three hours. Watching our current house as it was built. The realization that we had found a church where we fit. The birthday that Mr. Honey took me to a fancy restaurant and his friend the head chef kept bringing out plates and plates and plates and wrote my name on the dessert. The afternoon we intended to clean house and ended up having a baby three weeks early instead (Cornflower). The Sunday morning when the "bow wore the baby" (she was so tiny that the glitzy cream-and-gold baby headband and bow overtook her cute little face) and she rested in a basket under the Christmas tree. The smell of our babies~ I could just sit and drink in that sweet baby smell. I miss that a lot. Cozy evenings when Mr. Honey read aloud from The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. Explaining the difference between hair conditioner and air conditioners to Cornflower. Daily fellowship with friends of the heart who happened to move in across the street from us (and then moved away after three years). The look on that sweet girl's face when we kept digging up sweet potato after sweet potato. Walking onto the ship this past February with Mr. Honey, and then seeing all that water, and nothing but water, as we sailed to Mexico... this is a tough question. How do you pick just one or two?
*N-Favourite Nonfiction Books: Hmm. The Bible. Strong's Concordance. The Saving Dinner Cookbook. The Oxford English Dictionary. I guess.
*O-Favourite Operatic Song: "Batti, Batti" from Mozart's Don Giovanni, or "V'Adoro pupille" from Handel's Giulio Cesare. I think I prefer the Handel to the Mozart.
*P-Favourite Piece of Music at the moment: Mozart's Sonata in C, k.330
*Q-Favourite Quiet Spot: I just realized I don't have a favorite quiet spot. Perhaps I should make one.
*R-Favourite Reading when you're sick: Emma or Jane Eyre.
*S-Favourite Song that you want played at your funeral: (Obligatory weird question, sorry. It isn't a real survey if it doesn't have at least one very strange question.) I will leave that choice to those who need comforting, as I will not be worried about anything at that point.
*T-Favourite Task: Fixing the girls' hair after they have had baths. Mmm, the scent of their hair, newly washed, being blow-dried or brushed into a ponytail or twisted into braids.
*U- Favourite Ugly Animal: (Can you think of a better question for u?) What were those little animals that were known to frequent Mother Bhaer's home in the book Little Men? Brops! Those are my favorite ugly animals, although perhaps Unusual would be a better description. When their skins are removed, they can be quite charming~
"The Brop is a winged quadruped, with a human face of a youthful and merry aspect. When it walks the earth it grunts, when it soars it gives a shrill hoot, occasionally it goes erect, and talks good English. Its body is usually covered with a substance much resembling a shawl, sometimes red, sometimes blue, often plaid, and, strange to say, they frequently change skins with one another. On their heads they have a horn very like a stiff brown paper lamp-lighter. Wings of the same substance flap upon their shoulders when they fly; this is never very far from the ground, as they usually fall with violence if they attempt any lofty flights. They browse over the earth, but can sit up and eat like the squirrel. Their favorite nourishment is the seed-cake; apples also are freely taken, and sometimes raw carrots are nibbled when food is scarce. They live in dens, where they have a sort of nest, much like a clothes-basket, in which the little Brops play till their wings are grown. These singular animals quarrel at times, and it is on these occasions that they burst into human speech, call each other names, cry, scold, and sometimes tear off horns and skin, declaring fiercely that they "won't play." The few privileged persons who have studied them are inclined to think them a remarkable mixture of the monkey, the sphinx, the roc, and the queer creatures seen by the famous Peter Wilkins." --Little Men by Louisa May Alcott
*V-Favourite Vintage Book: I'm just a beginner at vintage book collecting, so I will name the favorite we already own~ a maroon book called "Shakespeare Complete" with an interesting binding and tissue thin pages, which includes all of Shakespeare's plays and sonnets, the occasional picture, a biography, an index of characters, and an essay on the Shakespeare and Bacon Controversy by Sir Henry Irving. All in a reasonably sized book which I found at an old book store in Nashville, Tennessee around eleven years ago and gave to Mr. Honey for Christmas. Copywright 1927. We use this as one of our Shakespeare books when we read his plays. The print is very small, so I usually use this one and Triss, who is nearsighted, takes another volume that does not have every play, but has larger print.
*W-Favourite Writing of C.S Lewis: The Screwtape Letters were very enlightening. The Chronicles of Narnia were a great joy and comfort to me in childhood. I am just beginning to explore Til We Have Faces. And I have almost come to the conclusion that I dislike his rendering of heaven and hell in The Great Divorce, symbolic or not, although metaphors from that book continue to come to mind in daily life. I guess I'm still chewing on it.
*X-Favourite Word That Starts with X, Because The Equuschick Couldn't think of Any But xylophone: xylem
*Y-Favorite Yellow Wildflower (I'm borrowing Firefly's "Y" question): Daffodils. They do grow wild, oh yes they do. At a park near us. In the spring. Profusely.
*Z-Favourite Zoo: I'm not a connossieur of zoos, so I will say my favorite is the one we hold a family pass to~ The Dallas Zoo. They do have a fun Nature Exchange center that we like. The kids can bring in a nature item and they get points for telling the staff about it~ the more accurate detail, the more points. They then turn in their nature thing, and use the points to "purchase" some other nature item from the center. Fun!
2 comments:
That was a blast to read. Be sure you print it out and stash it in a memento box somewhere, my friend.
I enjoyed reading your list. That favorite memories was a loaded question, wasn't it? I'm glad you just went for it.
The links to my post seem to be working fine now, by the way. God bless!
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