“I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant’s faithful one hundred per cent.”
                                                                                     from Horton Hatches the Egg
                                                                          by Theodore Geisel writing as Dr. Seuss

       When I was young, but old enough to know a few things about telling the truth, I developed a small bump on the tip of my tongue. My mom told me how I got it. "It comes from telling a lie," she said with such conviction that I believed her for many, many years.
       I don't know why I occasionally developed those bunps. I haven't had one in decades! I know (think) now that it was some cosmic coincidence.
       Lying is my default to avoid hurting someone's feelings. I fight it by looking for balance between truth and kindness..
       Lying is sometimes easier than telling the truth, like when I want someone to think I'm smarter about a subject: movie stars, popular music or fashion, than I really am. A little face-saving device I put on. Like nodding in agreement when I don't know what I'm agreeing about. I can always look up someone or some thing when I get home. Sometimes I do.
       I don't think there is ever a good reason for a whopper, though. Those always lead to trouble. Speaking practically, it is usually easier to tell the truth, in a way. At least I don't have a whole bunch of stories I need to keep track of. But it takes courage to admit it when I am wrong. It is an act of bravery to tell someone how I really feel. Stakes are high whether my feelings are good or whether they are bad. I'm working on it.
       Lies and truth matter--to my relationships with other people, to my relationship with myself and to my relationship with the world.
       Horton found out that truth reaps great rewards!

                                                                  --stay curious!

Mike Mulligan had a steam shovel, a beautiful red steam shovel. Her name was Mary Anne.
                                                   from Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel
                                                                        by Virginia Lee Burton
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       I named my favorite doll Rosebud. Her face was beautiful—-rosy cheeks, a perpetual smile and blue eyes that closed when she lay down. She wore a filmy pink dress that came down to her pudgy knees. And she wore underpants, too.  Her hair was bent in the shape of a handle, perfect for hauling her around.
       Even though Mary Anne was real, and helped Mike Mulligan do real things like dig holes for basements and especially town halls, Rosebud was as real as I needed her to be. I know I was as proud of her as Mike was of Mary Anne.
       After many years of togetherness, Rosebud started showing her age. Her head was getting pretty loose on her neck. The fiber of her body was starting to separate from the plastic of her head. I think because she always agreed or disagreed by nodding or shaking it.
       When it became clear that Rosebud’s life (head) was literally hanging by a thread, my grandmother came to the rescue. She told me she knew someone at a doll hospital who could fix Rosebud up, good as new. I was so gullible. (I kinda still am.) I trusted Rosebud to my grandmother’s care.
        Two weeks went by and Rosebud was still at the hospital. I asked and asked for her. Finally, I think my grandmother gave up hoping I’d forget about her and she returned Rosebud, not good as new, but same as she was. The hospital couldn’t help after all.
        Part of me wanted to keep Rosebud, but I knew deep down that I had outlived her. I found an old shoe box and carefully tucked Rosebud in with tissue paper and covered her up. I got my brother to dig a hole in the backyard where we buried our fish and turtles.
        A little part of me grew up that day. I learned that I didn’t need to look at Rosebud and hold her to love her. I know she loved me back.

                                                                  --stay curious!

This lodestone of longing, this certainty, drew him to lead his companions ever westward through wild and unknown country, as unerringly as a carrier pigeon released from an alien loft.
                                                               from The Incredible Journey
                                                                         by Sheila Burnford     
        When I was six years old, my family moved to a “new” house in a “better” neighborhood. We moved because we could. I’m sure my parents made the move to give us kids more opportunities, educationally and socially.
       The saying “bloom where you are planted” only goes so far. Sometimes, I think, we have a sense of where we belong. Sometimes we need to move household and family to get there. 
       Sometimes we just need to find safety in a world full of danger. 
       When she was in her early twenty’s, my great-grandmother moved to a “new” country where she did not know the language, the customs, or even how the money worked. She moved with my then three-year-old grandmother. She moved to give her daughter more opportunities, with the added dimension of escaping persecution.  
       As I think of all the people who are displaced, uprooted, unsettled, in a dangerous place, moving to an unwelcoming “new” place, I pause to thank my courageous great-grandmother who traveled across an ocean to find her daughter a better home. I pause to thank the welcoming people she found here, people who helped her thrive and who helped my grandmother thrive.
                                                                   --stay curious!

       Yesterday was Labor Day.
       My first job was babysitting for my neighbor’s three kids, two and a half, four and five. I was eleven.
       It wasn’t really babysitting. I played with the kids while their mother was keeping house. You know, laundry, dusting, mopping the kitchen floor and such. She was a housewife in a day before we had a name for stay-at-home moms. The moms mostly all stayed home. 
       It was summer so the kids and I played outside till lunch time. When we went in, I’d give them lunch and my job was finished. My neighbor paid me 50 cents an hour for a couple of hours of work a couple of days a week.
       I learned responsibility, time management and how to have fun.
The kids looked up to me. I learned to respect myself and trust my decisions.
       I just spent a week working closely with fourteen smart, creative, high energy teenagers. They mostly reported for work on time, stayed focused and worked well together. We all had fun.
      The world will be in good hands when these kids are in charge.
      Have a great and productive week!                                                                                                                  
                                                                 --stay curious!

       A while ago I decided to enter my pumpkin muffins in the County Fair. People had been complimenting me on them and asking for the recipe for several years.
       The Fair Board provides a rules booklet to anyone wanting to submit items from hand sewn quilts to photography. Of course all types of baked goods are accepted.
       After completing the entry form and sending it in with my $1.00 fee, I began to study the rules. I had plans for my $4.00 first prize.
       I finally found my category on page 18: muffins. (listed with bread) Pumpkin bread had its own sub-division. This should have given me a clue about how much competition I would have. But never-mind. I would make a batch, choose four muffins of exactly the same size, frost them with cream cheese frosting, and deliver them on a plain, white paper plate by 11:00 am on the day before the Fair began.
       Certain that I had won but unable to check because I was at work, I sent my younger daughter to have a first look at my ribbon. She said she couldn't find my muffins in the case. Why didn't I guess she just didn't want to hurt my feelings?
       After work, I went in myself. The muffins were there, all right. No ribbon, not even an honorable mention. I was bummed, for a long time. Three or four years, I think.
       I'm all over that now. I even discovered that muffins are NOT frosted. Who knew? It's too late for this year; the Fair starts tomorrow, but I'm definitely getting the rules booklet for 2016.
       What contest can YOU win?
                                                                   -stay curious!