I’ve been ‘semi’ tagged by Reya to reveal six weird things about myself. It’s a blog thing going around; like a chain letter. I don’t normally particpate in chain letters and when I get them in my email from friends that say ‘pass this on to xxx more people and your wish will be granted’ kind of thing, I normally toss them in the trash. You’re supposed to ‘tag’ six other people, but since I wasn’t properly tagged, I’ll skip that part. But, if you want to participate and try your hand at it, by all means let me know and I’ll tag you.

This has made me think: am I weird? I don’t think I am ... but then again let’s see if I can find some things other people might think are weird. I’ll let you decide.

1.
I smell books. I open them up, stick my nose deep within their pages and inhale deeply. Ahhhh. New books smell the best, but older books have their own scent too. If I need a book fix, sometimes I just pick up one of my newer books and riffle the pages close to my nose. Its book-y scent wafts upwards through the air, filling my nose with happiness. Each one has its own unique scent. Don’t believe me? Try it for yourself. Take a book, open it up and put your nose down next to the pages while riffling them. Now go on to the next. See? I also smell magazines. The glossier they are, the better they smell. Something about the print process I guess. I don’t get into smelling other things, mostly books. Well ...  maybe except for my dogs’ feet; they smell like popcorn.

2.
While we’re on the subject of books, I also ‘collect’ them. I buy them and stack them up next to my bedside. I open them up and scan their pages, but I don’t always read them. I put off reading those books that I think are going to be really good. Saving them. Anticipating reading them. When I finally do get around to actually reading one such book and it’s as good as I thought it was going to be, I feel sad and let-down when it’s finished. These kinds of books hold a permanent place on my bookshelf. I can’t seem to get rid of them. I’ll read that again, I think to myself. Somehow I hardly ever go back and read a book a second time [although there have been exceptions] because there is always a new book to read. I used to play ‘library’ and haul all my books outside to the picnic table under the trees on nice summer days. It was more fun taking them all outside than it was bringing them back in at night. See the photo below and you will see my book collection started early in life.

And oh, by the way, I was the first kid in my first grade to read. I read a book [about a rabbit, but I can’t remember the name] in front of the whole class. Just a little extra trivia for you. And yes, I still have the book.

3.
I never put lids back on anything tightly. Jars, tupperware containers, leftover food, pills, you name it, anything with a lid. This results in lots of spilled things. It doesn’t bother me, but it can be very frustrating for poor Rick when he goes to pick something up and the whole thing [except for the lid] falls from his hands. The other morning he was still half asleep and reached for the aspirin bottle. I heard him yell from the bathroom, d#$% it Lynne!!, and the game of 52-pill-pick-up from the bathroom floor began. But who can open those child proof things if they are closed properly anyway?

4.
Déjà vu. I do this a lot. I’ll be going about doing something and wham! a wave of déjà vu will wash over me and I realize that I’ve done the same thing before. The whole scene flashes before my eyes and I get goosebumps. It’s creepy. Sometimes it’s just about mundane things and other times not so mundane.

I also get vibes from old houses and castles, and sometimes places. Usually they are negative vibes; the positive ones don’t seem to affect me as much. Not long ago we toured Ringwood Manor, an old estate not far from our house. I didn’t like it. It was depressing. The only room in the house that I got a good feeling from was in the dining room. I kept saying to Rick, I don’t like this place; it’s not a happy place. After I got home and did some research online about it, I found out that it’s on the list of haunted places in New Jersey. I had no idea before I went.

5.
I’d love to chuck my bra and wear a bodice instead. So much more comfortable. My first experience with one was just this past year when I bought an outfit at the Renaissance Faire. [See my blog entry Wench for a Day] It kept my ‘bits’ in check, improved my posture, and made me feel sexy all at the same time. I guess the corsets women wore in the mid 1800s to the early 1900s would fit the bill precisely. Alas, it’s not possible to walk around dressed like that today. I caused quite a stir in our local paint store when I decided to stop in on my way home from the Faire ... without changing my clothes. Sigh.

6.
I secretly want to be a backhoe excavator operator. I’m talking the big CATs® here that have a bucket scoop on the front and the whole cab swivels. Seriously. It looks like so much fun. We have road construction [or should I say re-construction] happening on the way in to town, and everytime I go in I nearly run off the road trying to watch the magical ballet of those articulated arms. The heavy equipment operators make it look so easy. They are one with their machines. It’s difficult to discern where machine ends and the human begins. They can use their articulated arms just like it was their own hand and fingers reaching out to gently tamp down the earth, or rake rocks into place. How do they know how close to the ground they are from up there in their cab? Not to mention scooping up a satisfyingly huge bucketful of dirt, swinging around and dumping it somewhere else.

You can tell I’ve given this more than a little bit of thought. I’ve thought of asking if I can park and watch, but I’m sure they would think I was certifiable, not to mention an insurance risk and definite no-no. I am jealous of the town cops that stand in for ‘real’ flagmen in our part of the world. They get to stand there and watch in between regulating the one-way traffic patterns. They probably don’t even care.

Where did this weird fascination come from? I have no idea. Truly, I don’t. I would not have even known it existed if not for the road construction by our house. True, I did have a sandbox as a child and spent many happy hours filling buckets with wet sand, only to turn them over for upside-down-wet-buckets-of sand. In my day, girls didn’t aspire to be heavy equipment operators. Even today, in what we think is an equal opportunity world you don’t see many women behind the joystick of a big CAT®.

ENOUGH.

I’ve thought of a few other weird things along this journey, but they are not the kind I want to share with my readers. I’m sure you understand. You’re probably all scratching your heads and wondering why you are still reading. So, with that behind me, I’ll leave you with the impression that I am a sloppy [#3], bra-less but bodice-wearing [#5] clairvoyant [#4] wielding the joystick of a piece of heavy equipment [#6] while smelling and stacking up books [1 & 2]. And hey, if that isn’t weird enough for you, we’ll need to have a chat later. In private.

We had our second coating of snow overnight. Just enough to cover the ground, but it’s mostly melted now.

While I wait for my photos to finish downloading off my Rebel, I’m sitting here sipping my recently brewed [I cheated; I used the Tassimo] cup of hot chocolate with a tablespoon of fat-free Cool Whip® on top. Yum. I really needed it to warm myself back up. Brrr…baby it’s coooold outside! It’s 27 degrees with a wind chill of about 15. At least it feels that way. I was silly enough to think I needed some fresh air and exercise, so I walked down to the pond. Hang on ... I need to change into my cozy slippers. My feet are too cold. Okay, back now. Let me see if I got anything worth sharing ...

The pond is frozen now.

The shadows were interesting.

Only two ‘vases’ left.

Tomorrow is supposed to be absolutely frigid with highs only in the teens and wind chills to -13. A good day not to take a walk!

Our Sam is a Copy Cat. He adores the printer. The minute the machine whirs into motion you can count on Sam to come running. He likes the noise it makes as it prints the page. He sits and watches the paper as it slowly advances towards him; finally to be spit out and the cycle completed. To him it’s cat magic. He likes it so much that he has figured out how to make his own copies.

One night, just after we went to bed, we heard a strange beeping noise. Was it a cell phone low on battery? A smoke alarm low on battery? After getting up to investigate, I found Sam sitting on the printer. The beeping sound was coming from the printer; it was out of paper. Sam had made lots and lots of blank copies for himself. Oh joy.

He must know I’m writing about him this morning because he just jumped up on the printer. No copies yet ...

Hmmmm ....... now which one of these buttons makes this thing work?

This rather ugly statue sits in a front flower bed of our house. It came with the house, presumably left by the first owners. We can’t decide whether or not to get rid of it. Is it good luck or bad?  What is it? Does anyone know?

Please help us decide:

good vs. evil?
good luck vs. bad luck?
or just plain ugly?
toss it?
keep it?

Yesterday morning upon rising we were greeted with our first measurable snowfall here in the ‘mountains’ of New Jersey. Not much—about a half inch—but enough to cover the ground. As the sun rose and grew stronger, it started to chase the snow away. I managed to snap these photos before it left.

This photo gives new meaning to the term Snow Fence.

And of course, my favorite tree had to cast its own shadowy spell over me. I’ve never noticed its shadow before. The first shot is when I first saw it; the second one is a little bit later. You can see how much the snow had melted by then.