“Give crayons. Adults are disturbingly impoverished of these magical dream sticks.”
The morning is cold but gives hint of a warmer day. The sun is bright, the sky a cloudy blue. The air has the aroma of burning wood. I was struck right away by how much it felt like a Ghanaian morning during the harmattan when the air was downright cold and filled with the sweet smell of burning wood from the compounds outside the school grounds. They were my favorite mornings.
My car had a dusting of snow on the windshield and the back window but barely enough to cover. There must have been flurries earlier. The high today will be 34˚. The wind is slight.
I made no lists for today. Yesterday I was busy in the house, and I also hauled boxes and bags to the trunk which had finally defrosted. The dump is closed until Wednesday, and my larder is full so I have no reason to go out and about. I have a new book I got for Christmas just waiting to be read, the new Patricia Cornwell. I have everything I need.
I used to like to color. Every Christmas I always got a new coloring book and crayons. Sometimes my mother and I would sit at the kitchen table and color together. She beautifully shaded the crayons so there were light and dark colors. I was a bit blunter with my colors. My favorite colors were the reds. My least favorite color was white. You could never see it on the paper, only feel it. I only remember using it for Santa’s beard and fur and for clouds.
We always had construction paper in the house. We’d use it for all sorts of crafts and projects. I remember we used to draw on the different colored papers then we’d cut out our drawings. We’d glue popsicle sticks to the backs of our cut-outs using more than enough white glue, and we’d make puppets of a sort. I remember stick figures were my specialty. Females wore skirts, the only way to differentiate between my male and female stick figures.
I always liked sticking my fingers into the bowl to mix flour and water to make paste so we could sculpt with the papier-mâché and strips of newspaper. We used balloons covered in papier-mâché to make piñata’s one year. They were deep and round, and we decorated using crepe paper.
I am so much older now and much has changed. One thing, though, has not. I still draw stick figures. The females still wear skirts, colored skirts now.
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January 24, 2022 at 6:40 pm
Hi Kat,
Today the sun hasn’t shined and the temperature topped out in the low 60° range. Although we had the second coldest December in 130 years, we are only 1°F below normal for meteorological winter.
There’s a very small possibility of snow flurries on Thursday morning. I will believe it when I see it.
When I was a kid I loved coloring books and sheets of manilla paper. When I was a kid, I thought it was imported from the Philippines. 🙂 Of course my parents wouldn’t buy my sister and I the giant box of Crayolas and we had to do with the smaller size with I believe 16 colors. I like to think that my parents frugalness stunted my artistic talents. 🙁
There are some interesting statistics about pilots. Many of us are first born sons or daughters. Many of us play or have played musical instruments. I play my iPhone. A larger than normal percentage of pilots, compared to the general population, are left handed. Flying is an artistic skill requiring thinking in three dementions. Artists are considered right brained which controls the left side of the body. I’m also a south paw. 🙂
January 24, 2022 at 8:11 pm
Hi Bob,
We are in the middle of a really cold spell with highs in the 30’s. The nights are even colder. I tend to want to stay home comfy and warm.
We’ll have flurries or even maybe more by the weekend. They’re still not sure. We have been lucky so far. I can’t remember when last we had so little snow by the end of January.
I had got a new, larger box of crayons every year. When I was an adult, my mother gave me a commemorate tin with a regular box and a smaller box of the discontinued colors. It is a neat keepsake.
My uncle, who had his own plane, was outside the norm. He was the third of 4 brothers. He didn’t play any instrument and was a bit unimaginative. He sold insurance.