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28 July 2008

3/4 an ear of corn, the size of 1/2 a toenail, a portion of a meme

Charlotte did a Forty Things Surprise on her blog today. I don't have the energy to think creatively right now. So here are a few of my responses that I could give. The missing ones might have been more clever, more surprising, if my motivation for writing right now wasn't so large that it could take up about 1/2 as much space as my small toenail.

1. My uncle once: told me about liberating Buchenwald in April, 1945. He cried telling me about this. His daughter thinks that it was the only time he had ever talked about that experience. I wish I hadn't been so young and immature at the time and had made better notes, even if they were only mental notes.

7. There’s this girl woman I know: who is a cancer survivor. I admire the courage disguised beneath her everyday life.

And just so you don't think all of my answers would be so serious:

8. Once, at a bar: someone threw a punch. The man in front of me ducked. I was hit. I threw my beer at the puncher and slapped him across the face. The entire bar broke into a fist fight. I kicked off my heels and ran. It was a dive bar; I was overdressed having just previously attended a charity fundraising event for the zoo. Only black eye I ever got in a bar. It was 20 years before I went to another zoo fundraiser. There is no correlation there. I've never been back to that bar. My husband goes there all the time. It's really a mellow laid-back place -- allegedly.

12. Next time I go to church: will be tomorrow so I can leave 11 3/4 ears of sweet corn in the refrigerator for someone to pick up. (I couldn't make this up). Some day I'll write about my grandfather teaching me how check corn for ripeness -- it would explain the missing 1/4 cob.

21. I have a hard time understanding: how people can go through life without being compassionate.

22. Take my advice: always remember to never say never -- or always.

32. The world could do without: poverty, famine, hunger. And celebrity magazines. Not that those things are anywhere near equal.

35. Paper clips are more useful than: staples. I can never find my stapler. There are always paper clips on my desk.

36. If I do anything well it’s: sleep, according to my son. When he was 6, he completed a questionnaire about his family. He said my hobby was sleeping. My mother, who had supervised his homework that evening, made him erase it. I told her it was better than if he had written sleeping around. Mother didn't like my comment. Child didn't like being told to fix his homework. (He didn't).

37. And by the way: I wish I knew what the last 3 items on this meme were, but I doubt that I would have completed them. You can find the other 27 items at Charlotte's Web.

5 comments:

Kay Cooke said...

Your responses make for entertaining reading even if you were tired!

Rebecca H. said...

That bar story is pretty, well, funny, although I'm sure it wasn't at the time! And the sleeping story is funny too! :)

Anne Camille said...

Well, the bar story is in my cadre of funny stories I tell. I should really write it up in a more descriptive, short story way -- because there was lots more & it WAS funny. Remember those awful business suits that women wore in the 80's -- with the really stupid feminine neckties? Yup, that was me looking very yuppy-ish. In a dive bar. Inadvertantly in the middle of a fight. Fists flying, chairs thrown, people crashing through doors, being thrown over the bar. Cops called. That kind of fight. Could have been a scene in a movie -- except it would seem too cliche.

Emily Barton said...

I should have done what you did and edited this one. If you want to know what the other three absolutely ridiculous items were, you can find them at my blog. Your bar story (with the exception of actually taking a punch, is very funny).

Ted said...

I enjoyed your answers too! This meme is like a game of telephone, it's subtly morphs as it travels from blog to blog.