Eccentric Flower:199811/grasshoppers turkeys and other object lessons

twenty-five eleven eleven

grasshoppers, turkeys, and other object lessons

Tomorrow's Thanksgiving. I'm not looking forward to it. Big dinner with lots of strangers, and I'm shy. Plus I am the Known Dessert Pro, so I must make pies tonight, in addition to writing a mouth organ column. Fortunately I already know what both the column and the pies are going to be like.

Woke up with the nasty head again today. Ranjit wrote to say that for some reason his brain kept reading my earlier comment as saying that my head had been "stuffed with grasshoppers." Not far from the truth. Two mornings now I have had to steam my sinuses open in the shower. The sore throat is from sleeping on my back and breathing roughly through my mouth all night, nose unusable. Oddly enough, I don't consider this critical or debilitating - this is just what winter is like for a Southerner in New England.

By the by, I've noticed something about Thanksgiving in New England. If you're also a mouth organ reader, I beg your pardon, because you're going to see this twice, but basically, I've noticed that of the two "American" holidays, Thanksgiving is a bigger deal in the North and the Fourth of July is a bigger one in the South. We never laid on a huge feast or invited random people to Thanksgiving at home. Many places didn't close. Here everything closes. On the other hand, on the 4th at home the huge picnic/barbeque spread is laid out, all manner of humans are invited over, etc etc. Here there's a gala to-do on the Charles, but not much in the way of home celebration.

Oh well. I just offer that as idle speculation, especially since any postcards from me in the next few days will be catch-as-catch-can. Tomorrow is hectic, and on Friday I hope to be wining and dining a visitor from the West Coast.

- - -

Radical change of subject now. I'm not bothering to try to segue these two together.

I was commenting to someone about quirks involving objects. Things which must be in a certain place, arranged a certain way, et cetera. Oddly (since, in general, my true love is the anal-retentive one and I'm a freewheeler) I have more of these than she does. We're both slobs a lot of the time (too busy) but I'm an eccentric slob.

She leaves her credit card receipts all over the house because she doesn't use them to check her books later; I do use mine for that, and therefore the receipts must be in one of several set locations for me to not lose them. If I see one of her receipts lying around, I hate to throw it out - she might want it - but I also don't want it lying there, I'll think it's mine and panic because it's not where it's supposed to be.

I despise changing the kitchen light. It's a very high fixture which I have to stand on a chair to reach, it involves two headless screws which are nearly impossible to undo, and the glass panels tend to come out when you move it, which means you need a third hand. So I turn the kitchen light off whenever no one's actually in the room. She seems to think of the kitchen light as the "security" light - when she's home, it's on. So we're always flipping that switch back and forth. On the other hand, I believe in leaving the light on in the front hall when I leave the house, and she usually won't leave the house until it's completely dark - every light must be turned off. I ceded that one - I can find my way around the house with my eyes shut now.

I leave my glasses in one position every night when I turn off the computer and go to bed. That position has drifted a few times, but the point is, if the glasses aren't in that special location or actually being worn, I will generally have trouble finding them. This is one quirk which may actually be advantageous.

I don't like her to spread out one day's newspaper until she has recycled the previous day's. If for some reason the previous day's needs to be kept out, then I want her to keep each paper in a separate room. I hate mixing newspaper sections.

I don't have problems with my keys, which is what originally inspired these musings, but that's because they're always either in my dresser or my pants pocket. If I were wearing dresses and carrying a purse I might have more trouble.

I guess everyone has weirdnesses like these. If you want to share some of them with the world, send them to me and I'll mention them here.

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