Lots of heavy things are coming up in 2012, in addition to my fear of the perspicuity of the Mayans centuries ago, so why not end 2011 on a light note?
So, here are Ten Things That Make Me More Interesting, Or Eccentric, Than You Ever Imagined:
1. I am absolutely taken by the old 1950s Dragnet TV Show. The 1960s ones are OK, even if I don’t believe that marijuana makes innocent girls poke their own eyeballs out, but nothing beats the black-and-white splendor of Joe Friday, et al, making L.A. safe for good-hearted citizens.
2. Before the wreck, even in my early 40s, I played basketball better than most people. My son once said I had a better hook shot than any of his friends’ mothers — then realized that, actually, that that would be hard to quantify.
3. I DO NOT understand, nor ever have and likely never will, the appeal of the Beach Boys.
4. I learned to drive a Case backhoe before I mastered the intricacies of a passenger-car stickshift. We used the Case to clear off Jeff’s early nursery property; unfortunately, I only mentioned to him after we bought the 1982 Bronco II 5-speed that I didn’t know how to drive a stick.
5. Owing to my father’s obsession with baseball, I learned to keep official score, which involves more than tallying runs, by the time I was 12. If you know that baseball’s “hot corner” is 5, you know what I mean.
6. I really need to get over this thing I have with finding the perfect purse. Because it doesn’t exist, and I buy too many trying to find it.
7. Why, yes! I WAS named after jazz chanteuse Keely Smith! Lamentably, her music almost makes me run toward the Beach Boys. Or poke my eyes out.
8. In my pre-Christian days way back when, I and a couple of other members of Women Against Violence Against Women Against Violence Against … committed acts of vandalism against some of the more hideous of Tucson’s LIVE! LIVE! LIVE! NUDE GIRLS! dance parlours. I regret the acts, but never the sentiment that motivated them.
9. I once rode my bike, back in 1980, nonstop from Tucson to Phoenix — some 130 miles. We started at 6 a.m. and pulled in by 3 p.m., caught a ride back, and partied vigorously that evening, after which I recall getting up and putting in 50 the next morning. It’s safe to say those days are over. Both the partying and the biking.
10. If someone told me the inside of my house looked just like Aunt Bea’s on the old Andy Griffith show, I’d be the proudest homemaker in town. I’ve emerged from my rustic/cowboy-influenced thing, skipped over contemporary, lamented my “everything’s political” period, flirted with Victorian, and now want a house that looks, on the inside, like some old Methodist lady’s from the 1940s.
BONUS: If I won a million bucks, I’d splurge on a $300 pair of women’s tobacco-colored or deep-russet Frye harness boots. And buy a pair for my husband, because I think they’re just wicked sexy. Alas, I don’t play the lottery, there’s no rich uncle, and I’ll just have to save my nickels . . .
OK. Now you have a more fully-orbed view of your hostess, who sincerely wishes you and yours a New Year full of peace, joy, prosperity and hope. Let the Spirit guide you into keeping the Lord Jesus enthroned as Lord and Savior, Advocate and Friend, and pursue the things that speak truth, lead to peace, and honor others before yourself. Thanks for reading — and feel free to share Prevailing Winds with other co-agitatorss, or even with others who think there’s nothing out there to agitate against.
Buy the boots now!
Comment by Sally — January 5, 2012 @ 12:12 am