1 post tagged “roald dahl. dr. seuss”

Patricia in the Garden 2

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My Dear Neighbours:

It's time for me to take a short holiday from blogging. I want to spend a few weeks catching up with everyone in my neighbourhood whose blogs I haven't had time to read in the past few months, as I've been so busy with writing. I feel as though I've lost touch with many of my friends,and am missing very important things in their lives, not only here on VOX, but at home, too. Also, my garden is full of weeds and needs tending. I will be back in August. Before I go I want to thank all my neighbours who tagged me for the "Eight Things You Don't Know About Me" game. I didn't want to respond to only one person, so I decided this would be a good way to leave off, by responding here. Thanks for the tag, everyone, and... here we go:

Eight Things You Don't Know About Me:

• When I was twenty, I took classes to learn how to assemble car transmissions just to impress a boy I was in love with, who was an auto mechanic. I put a C-6 transmission together, all by myself. Now I probably couldn't remember what it looks like.

• I sold my first engagement ring and went on a tour of the European continent with the proceeds. I'm serious- Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, England, Belgium, Amsterdam and more, all for the price of one sparkler, which the man who gave it to me told me he didn't want back.

• I come from a family of amazingly talented musicians. I, on the other hand, am tone deaf. But God made up for that deficiency by blessing me with the biggest feet you’ve ever seen on a 5’ 2” woman. (Size American 8 Wide – real grape stompers from my Sicilian ancestors.)

• My former business partner and I once took an overnight train  from the northern border of Greece back to Athens carrying a satchel stuffed with approximately 4000 USD in cash. (Long story.) The train was filled with derelicts and poor refugees. We were very uncomfortable, to say the least, two women alone, carrying all that money. To top off our discomfort, my business partner got hit on by the station manager. She turned him down, but kept his phone number to show to her husband when we got back home. Bless his heart, I don't know what upset him more - the fact that we could have gotten mugged, or that a strange man had approached his wife. Once we were home safely, the whole experience seemed a big adventure.

• Several of my pupils at a NYC junior high school were gang members, unfortunately. I truly cared about them all, and worked very hard with them, not only on reading and writing, but on their lives. One of them astounded my colleagues when he got up and read an A.E. Housman poem aloud in our classroom. The next day he was arrested on suspicion of murder. I’ve always wondered what he could have become were his circumstances different.

• I love to read to children. Bernard Evslin or Roald Dahl are my first joys, but I’ll read Eric Carle and Dr Seuss gladly, too.

• In my middle-age I have become a ‘gym rat.’ I work out with heavy weights four times a week. Some of my friends are the male body builders I work out with. I never knew men with muscles so big would have hearts to match. I learned a lot about how men really think from working out with them. They are not at all as I’d imagined when I was young. Apart from the body builders, I am lucky to count as my friends people of both sexes, all careers, sexual persuasions, nationalities, and age ranges from 20’s - 80’s.  The world is full of intriguing people wherever one looks.

• I can cook pretty darn well, especially Italian and Greek food. My baklava and tiramisu are legendary. I hope I can prove it to you all some day.  And when I divorced my Greek husband, he asked me to leave him my shrimp scampi recipe before I left. I did leave it for him, (and didn't even leave out any of the ingredients for spite.)

    I'll be seeing you on your blogs. Enjoy July!