Dotty Parker

slick

I was out running around today and doing my thing, whatever that is. My foot slipped out from under me and I fell. I thought, "Man, I hope I can get up because there is no one around. I'll be eaten by bears. Damn the slippery mud!"

I did get up, of course, and walked myself home thinking, "Hey, this isn't so bad after all!"

So I made some dinner and ate it, too. I watched a bit of a movie and decided that maybe I should put my foot up. I noticed that it felt very good to put my foot up. So I looked at my foot. It was fine. My ankle, however, wasn't looking very pretty. Not pretty at all. It's big, like an elephant ankle. The parts that are bony on my other ankle are fleshy on the offending (offended?) ankle.

This isn't news or anything, but it feels like it: discovering that I have limitations sucks. A lot. Today's limitation only reinforces the constant battle I face everyday. My body isn't perfect. In fact, it is in revolt on many occasions. Have the flu? Have a body that's in revolt. Have asthma? Revolt. Diabetes? You guessed it, revolt. You pick any ailment, any at all, and the body that contains it is in revolt. Ending the revolution results in calming, less strife, less chaos. But the process is often miserable. It can taste like broccoli or make you feel sick to your stomach or make your hair fall out.

When I was in middle school and high school I thought I wanted revolution and intensity.

Turns out that I didn't want the revolution at all. Revolution is scary and painful and big. I just wanted the relief at the end of the fight. I don't think I would have cared for the process at all, not then and not now.

Nevertheless, these processes take place. In the end, after all the dust has settled, there's the calm.

For example, the day I can put weight back on my ankle, oh yes, that's the end of this revolution. I'll feel relieved that I'm all better and I'll feel morally superior because I was being a healthy person when I slipped on the slick. Oh! The struggle was worth it! (or not, in this case)

Still, it's the end of the struggle, not the struggle itself, that makes it feel so valiant. I'll take my victories however they come.

turtle dreams

Had a crazy dream about turtles this morning. I had a pet turtle that looked like a turtle puppet BrilliantEditor gave me many years ago. The turtle was always moving forward so I'd pick him and bring him back to me and he'd start again.

It was an apparently happy companionship.

I dreamed that the turtle and I had gone grocery shopping and we were in the bulk food section of Green Star co-op grocery. I was busy buying lentils of two different colors. The lentils were kept in carboard cylinders, like massive Quaker Oats boxes.

I was listening to a man complain about how much he hated lentils and dried corn and how he wished he could eat something else but he knew it was good for him.

I put the lentil containers away and put my bags of lentils in the grocery cart.

I couldn't find my turtle.

!

I started looking around frantically. I couldn't find him anywhere. People in the store were helping me and a few of them seemed to be from my high school Participation in Government class. I looked and looked and finally shrieked, "Do you think I lost him in the lentils?"

Debbie, from my high school class, said, "Dotty, he's not in the lentils."

I looked in the boxes anyway and she was right.

I had just turned around in despair when I saw him in a big box of pale green styrofoam peanuts. He surfaced and then dove back in. I scooped him out and was so happy that I found him and that he'd gone swimming!

And then the phone rang and I now have a job as a substitute teacher.

Good, sweet turtle. I think I'll name him Lentil.

tick tock

Usually noises bother me. A ticking clock, for example, can make me really crazy. Why does it have to tick? It doesn't really, does it? It could tick more quietly, right? Or the rattle in a car. I don't know where it's coming from but I do know it's invading my ears and driving me crazy. And I want it to stop.

Today, though, I was very proud of myself, indeed. I went for a walk with a friend and she jingled her keys the whole time. It wasn't a vigorous jingling, so it wasn't a jangling, you see, but she did hold them in her hand and let them dangle and whirl and jingle. Jingle jingle.

And it wasn't super annoying! Holy cow, my dears, it wasn't!

I am thankful for this glorious gift from the jingly angels. Now, when I substitute teach for the extra-noisy people, and they jingle their keys around (which they do a lot of) I will be protected by my jingly guardian angels.

Oh my. It gives new meaning to, "Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings."

i smell bacon!

I loved that commercial. From a dog's point of view...he said things like, "I smell Baaaccoooooon! Where is it? Where is that smell! Oh it's in there! What is that? I can't read!"

It's the part about not being able to read that makes me laugh the most. Sure, the dog can talk and be on a tv commercial, but he can't read. Poor dog.

It said, "Beggin' Strips".

However! I have discovered that most things I own smell like chicken. I know most things taste like chicken, but not so many smell like it. At least, they shouldn't.

BrilliantEditor has pointed out to me that I get smells "stuck in my nose" sometimes. It often signals a mood change or time for dinner. It could be stress, too. I don't smell the chicken right now, though. So maybe it's not stressful right now. Or it's not time for dinner.

school days!

Today I was a substitute teacher for U.S. History and Government. Also for advanced placement. For two classes we did a quiz game type thing. I feel like an old lady. There was a group of women who got very few questions right and I started thinking, "What do you people do? You must at least flip by the news stations..."

But I think they were tired and couldn't access their memories. That's today's assertion, anyway.

I had a great school-y day, though! I ate school food (which was truly gross) and there was a fire drill! Earlier this week I was here for a "lock down" drill. It was meant to practice what would happen if there was a scary person in the building. We locked the door and waited. No one with a scary knife, or even an unscary knife, was around. Is this like air raid drills?

I was afraid of nuclear war when I was little. I wonder if kids now are afraid of terrorists coming to their school. The world is a very strange place. Yes, indeed.

But fire drills and school food will never change.

Hooray.

i heart verizon

Last night I went to the Verizon store to try to get my phone back (I've had a loaner phone since I'd dropped my in the [clean]toilet in January). The technician wasn't terribly helpful, but he told me he wasn't actually allowed to be helpful--he could only follow the company rules, but I was welcome to call Customer Service. In fact, I could use the phone right there in the store!

I called them. I talked to Brandon. He was very nice. I left his supervisor a message indicating that he was very nice. He set me up with a new phone plan so that I spent ten extra dollars and got five or six hundred more minutes! Hooray! We were going to do that anyway! And! He gave me a new phone.

There were, of course, extenuating circumstances surrounding the phone loaning and so forth. I do love them, though. What swell folks!

I might not be saying this later, like when I find out that the number I've been calling has been magically assigned a special something that costs a million dollars, but I am very happy right now. Oh yes.

(When I spell check Verizon, my computer suggests Venison. Hee hee.)

winning the war on weeds

Every year I attempt to thwart the encroachment of weeds. Every year I manage to eke out victorious battles! Every year, though, the weeds come back again having won that year's war.

So far, I've not seen any poison ivy. Poison ivy and I have a long-standing feud. It hates me and I hate it. As with many other hatreds, it doesn't actually matter much. In the scheme of the world, my relationship with poison ivy doesn't matter in the slightest.

This year we purchased a huge quantity of mulch. While I began toting it around the yard most admirably, I have since become less ardent. The places where I did put lots and lots of mulch down are doing quite well--largely free of weeds and looking soft and warm and lovely.

Places where I haven't put down the mulch are shaggy and healthy and green.

There is one odd exception: I keep finding bones growing on the mulch. And there's a little, brown, hairy, barking farmer tending them.

new words

I was a substitute teacher for a biology class today. They had to do a worksheet with the word abiotic on it. I suggested that they take the word apart and use the bits and pieces of it to figure it out. So if they take the A off the front, they see biotic, which they know. And then add the knowledge that an A at the beginning means "not", and suddenly, the worksheet has one more question done without even looking in the book.

One thing, though. As much as I like to think that's helpful, I'm not so sure it truly is. Just like phonics, the promise of intuitive discovery is disappointing.

We discover that animals aren't actually what they are named. Dinosaurs are not actually great lizards, although their name says that they are. Phonics, while promising to eliminate impediments to literacy, spells its stupid name with a ph. Sound that one out.

So I've tossed these tenth grade folks information that was tossed to me when I was in tenth grade. Yeah, the use of root words and skills such as those do help, but I should have tossed them a caveat, too:

N.B. Few things are as simple as they could be.

old things

I've been looking at old yearbooks and old schoolbooks and remembering what those times were like. It's strange to see the world through the eyes of a ten year old or seven year old or even a seventeen year old. When I was seventeen I graduated from high school and I thought I was ready to take over the world. Maybe I was, maybe everybody who was seventeen would have been good at taking over the world.

I doubt it, though. I bet they would have fallen to pieces, little, weepy pieces that would beg to be put back together.

And this is what's so interesting about being slightly more grown up than seventeen: taking over the world is now much more daunting and significantly less intriguing. And all the while, unhappy pieces (pieces of me!) that would have surprised a seventeen year old have begun to make themselves known to this slightly more grown up person. The fault lines and the impending earthquakes and the crumbling landscape were inconceivable to the person who had her high school yearbook written in.

I think that seventeen year old should have learned the meaning of the word inconceivable.

Now, however, I am considering a career in seismology.

This seismologist has had her share of earthquakes for today and so will divulge a more charming and glorious entry from her senior year's year book.

Hey Sis,

I'll never forget Academic All Stars, even with therapy. I can't even list everything I've said and learned during those events except Grandma Moses and Hammondsport sucks. Moving right along, English sucks. Sheepistan lives! English sucks. I happen to like Boston better than North Carolina Crackerland, but have fun in college anyway. English sucks.

That's my friend Doctopolis. We were once mistaken for twins. The Cranstonopolis twins, in fact. We look nothing alike. Except that we're striking and gorgeous creatures. I suppose twins don't have to look alike, but it's absurd nevertheless. I dated Doctopolis's brother and there was a bit of concern about incest...no need to worry, though.

I came from France.

shaddup, rabbit

I've got a stuffed animal bunny that my friend Ali got for me. I'm pretty sure it's a boy. His name is Rabbit. Rabbit is very soft and appears to be quite affectionate and has a very relaxed nature.

Bugs Bunny, on the other hand, may be soft, but I think he doesn't have a relaxed nature. I don't think he's affectionate either.

There is an exception to this rule, however. Bugs really digs wind-up, girl bunnies. The evil scientist uses them to lure him back to the lair. And then Bugs outsmarts him.

Rabbit would not likely outsmart anyone.

Then there are gangsters that Bugs gets mixed up with. The little guy with the angry voice says, "Shaddup, rabbit." Surely Bugs can handle that kind of speaking. He's a rough and tumble bunny.

But Rabbit, he gets sad. Sad because it's rude to say such a thing. Sad because he can't talk anyway.

stressful vacation

Some vacations require a different kind of mindset.

I'm on one of those.

I've determined that since I'm in the middle of a big "wow, this is a vacation I do not want to be on" (it's like that movie Speed II which I never actually saw but I do know that they couldn't stop the boat. I imagine that was stressful, too), I should try some new things just to take advantage of the unusual situation.

I don't usually drink caffeine. I thought, Hey, why not? Oh yes, it makes my hands shake more than usual, and lately they've been shaking a bit.

I don't usually eat fast food. Now I'm a pro, though! Check me out! In the king of burgers eating food and reading a paper. AND I didn't say "bless you" to the guy who sneezed. Twice. I was a regular American.

I don't usually do hand-stitching projects. I thought it might be a nice change. I was wrong, though. It's hard to use a needle properly with shaking hands.

I've been driving in the car with my mother--my mother has been driving. I try to reassure myself by thinking, "Oh, she's only been in one accident." But she drove past our street when we were trying to get home and she waits to go through traffic lights long enough that they're almost done being yellow and she doesn't see people coming when she'd backing out of her parking space. And she looks at other things when she's driving. Things other than the road. So it's like being on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

It's rather terrifying. Although I guess it makes a person feel alive. I'm not sure that's what I'm after. Not that way.

But! I have my very own bathtub on this vacation. Oh yes. A bathtub.

tropical heat wave

Dotty's going on a bit of a vacation. Hitting the road!

I'll be sure to let you know when I'm back.

BrilliantEditor often introduces me to

BrilliantEditor often introduces me to things that I might not want to know about. Morbid curiosity, though, creeps up and makes me want to look at these things. Mysteries of human nature, natural, perhaps, but rarely humane, have been celebrated, parodied, and demonized in the Left Behind books. Just as those quizzes intrigue me--will they tell me the mysteries of myself? Will they make everything clear?--the Left Behind books just might give me insight into the journey that a twisted group of people believe may or may not doom them to life on earth with the rest of us.

The Slacktivist has been going through the book page by page and making comments on it all. I shall link for you so that you might enjoy the bizarre phenomenon that is the Left Behind series from a safe distance.

so sick

Last night I felt v. bad. My brains were on strike. I couldn't write a thing.

So I took internet quizzes and looked at stupid stuff.

So here's one http://www.modestypanel.com/ I particularly like the quizzes "Sexxx or something else?" and "Art or Crap?" The one about Michael Jackson's nose is funny, too.

Then there's this one http://www2.b3ta.com/clickthecolour/ You have to click the buttons on the bottom to indicate what color the word is written in. For example, if the word "pink" flashes on the screen and the text is blue, you click the blue button. Right now I've gotten to 40. Earlier today I got 104, but I think maybe the program wasn't working properly.

The fellow who made that, Rob Manuel, has other bizarre and silly things on his site. I hesitate to send you directly there as some are a bit distressing. Many of them are extra crass. I don't actually go in for extra crass. Crass can be okay--a burp is funny, fart jokes make me laugh (don't tell anyone), my father's use of naughty language reduces me to spasms of laughter--but add the extra on and things can be gross and nauseating. So you'll figure out how to get there if you want to.

Then, of course, there comes the sex test! http://home.neo.rr.com/bugslair/sextest/comparison.htm. You can be a fish, a gazelle, a kitten, a lion, or a rabbit. I have my bets on who's who, but I'll keep those suspicions to myself...wouldn't want to be crass.

Then there's the quiz to find out what Spongebob character you are.
http://www.allthetests.com/quizerstellungneu/dasquiztd.php3?testid=1013447933. . I'm Sandy. I'm a squirrel. I suppose that suits me. Sort of. Or not.

And that's what happens when I'm so sick. So sick.

a head full

Generally I make jokes about having a head that is filled with the nonsensical and not very useful. Today, however, it is not a joke that I have a head full of not very useful stuff.

I have a cold. I have a head full of snot.

Gross, you say. And, boy, do I agree. Why is it that I can't think so good when my head's full? The brains are, perhaps, compressed into a configuration that doesn't allow them to undulate in a truly Dotty-licious fashion? I'm not feeling so Dotty-licious. There's no undulationability.

See for yourself. (and that's only the top layer)

day for the mother or not mother

The Vernal Community Center had its mother's day pancake breakfast this morning. My mom and BrilliantEditor's mom and their mates and our pals Tex and Florette all came over to have pancakes and whatnot. I like the whatnot best. I like it when my friends and family come to events such as these. It's good fun.

We had lots of people come and we got lots of people all clogged up with bacon. Mmm. Bacon.

I'm a little cranky today (oh, is that different?), but I must say that some of the commentary at the breakfast today was a little bit over the top. For example, Florette came to the breakfast. She got to the table to pay and was asked, "Are you a mom?" Every female got asked that since moms ate for free. When she said no, the cashier gave her a mournful and pitying look. Then she asked if she was a senior citizen.

What? Where the hell do these people come from?

For another example, a woman from the historical society put her hand on my tummy and asked, "When are you due?"

Smile, blink blink, "I'm not."

I was saying that as people get older, maybe they learn not to say things like, "Are you old?" or "I bet you're pregnant." Obviously this isn't what's going on, though. Perhaps they just don't care as they get older. Perhaps perhaps perhaps.

At any rate, Florette and I are going to go to the grocery store together so we can get a senior citizen discount and park near the store in the reserved spaces with the stork signs. For expectant mothers.

(What kind of mother isn't expectant?)

calling all alphabets!

There's a radio station called Wink 106. I capitalize only the first letter because its call letters are actually WNKI. Dotty supposes that this actually would be said, "winkie".

Nevertheless! The announcers and singers and whoever else says it, they say Wink 106.

In high school my friend Marco and I liked to whine and complain and generally prove that we were better than everybody else.

Which we were.

One evening as we were driving around trying to find something good on the radio (there wasn't anything), the singers sang, "Wink 106, double you eye enn kay!" But the announcers say "double you enn kay eye". So the singers spell "wink" while the announcer spells "winkie".

Marco sighed a big sigh and said, "What Hooked on Phonics moron said that WNKI spells Wink?"

I still laugh a little when I hear those crazy singers make the little tune flow melodically from my car radio. Tee hee. Hooked on Phonics.

swollen

I heard another ten dollar word today. Tumescent.

tumescent
adj : abnormally distended especially by fluids or gas

Is it somehow similar to turgid? It seems like it should be. They feel the same, to me, anyway.

turgid
adj 1: ostentatiously lofty in style; "a man given to large talk";
"tumid political prose" [syn: {bombastic}, {declamatory},
{large}, {orotund}, {tumid}]
2: abnormally distended especially by fluids or gas; "hungry
children with bloated stomachs"; "he had a grossly
distended stomach"; "eyes with puffed (or puffy) lids";
"swollen hands"; "tumescent tissue"; "puffy tumid flesh"
[syn: {bloated}, {distended}, {puffed}, {puffy}, {swollen},
{tumescent}, {tumid}]

As far as the derivation goes:

Etymology: Latin tumescent-, tumescens, present participle of tumescere to swell up, inchoative of tumEre to swell
Etymology: Latin turgidus, from turgEre to be swollen

So they aren't related any more than tumble and fumble are related. The first is Middle English and the second is Scandinavian. But I do love the word "Scandinavian". I think if it made patterns of colors in the air when it was spoken, it would look like a Viking ship wearing a sweater. And if it looked like that it would likely taste a bit like wool and wood. And then it wouldn't be much fun to say. And then I wouldn't like it anymore.

But it doesn't look like anything in the air, so two things are wonderfully true. One, I'm not as kooky as I would be if, to me, words looked like things floating in the air. Two, I can still like the word "Scandinavian".

questions

I visit this question with some regularity: Do I really need to sleep?

Tonight, for example, I feel tired. I could sleep quite easily, which is not something that can always be said. Sleeping, however, is not what I want to be doing. I'd rather be playing the fiddle or weaving small squares of fabric out of dryer lint. I'd rather be reading or writing. I'd rather be thinking about pickles, relish, vocabulary, and reading good.

Why, oh why is it necessary to sleep? My cell phone recharges pretty darn quickly. Twenty minutes, maybe. Can I recharge in twenty minutes? Nope. Not me. But if it did take only twenty minutes, would I resent that, too? It seems like I might not. But I probably would. Especially if that's all I knew. If I wasn't aware that twenty minutes wasn't a normal amount of time to sleep, if I didn't know that some doctors want you to get between eight and ten hours of sleep, then I'd be ticked off that I had to "waste" twenty minutes recharging.

I imagine having some kind of plug, likely in my elbow, that I could attach to the source of human energy sustenance. (Likely a den of teenagers and college students who sleep constantly. Or not at all.) I bet, though, that if there were a meter, I'd be staring at it thinking, "Come on! What's the hold up? Hurry! I've got things to do! This twenty minutes takes too long!" Just like a microwave takes too long. Or driving into town takes too long.

I wonder why it's necessary to sleep and I imagine having a way to get recharged without sleeping or spending too much time. I also imagine a day when I'm satisfied with what I've got, when sleeping feels good, just good, not guilty or necessary or something to get enough, but not too much, of. Sleep.

eminent vocabulary

I've been reading Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey. It's a very smart book. I suppose I could become smart if I read it. And I am reading it. The names of people escape me, though. It's hard to describe historical figures as, "that crazy guy, with the religion, you know, he traveled and people didn't always like him."

Who doesn't that describe?

But it's smart for a number of reasons. Firstly, it's historical. That takes some smarts right there. Secondly, he writes in the style of the person he's profiling. For Cardinal Manning, he writes in a religious, over-the-top style. For General Gordon, an adventurer and, perhaps, martyr, he's quite regimented and factual. For Florence Nightingale, there's the feeling of a journal--someone who keeps track of things and is very, ah, concerned about how things are done. Finally, there's Dr. Arnold, a man who believed education was most valuable when loaded up with Greek verbs and sermons about morality and Christianity.

The third reason it's so smart is its vocabulary. I think my vocabulary is pretty good. (She says that having just written, "pretty good".) This book has, however, shown me how little I know and how annoying I could be if I tried just a little bit harder.

I write in the front of the book (in pencil, I swear) words that I don't know. That way I can look them up later and discover, "Oh! It was a fake word all along! What a kidder, that Lytton Strachey!" So here's the list thus far.

apotropaic adj : having the power to prevent evil or bad luck [WordNet]

obloquy Censorious speech; defamatory language; language that
casts contempt on men or their actions; blame; reprehension.
[1913 Webster]

Shall names that made your city the glory of the
earth be mentioned with obloquy and detraction?
--Addison.

effete adj : marked by excessive self-indulgence and moral decay; "a
decadent life of excessive money and no sense of
responsibility"; "a group of effete self-professed
intellectuals" [syn: {decadent}] [WordNet]

speciecoins collectively [WordNet]

Circassian n 1: a member of a Caucasian people living in the Caucasus but
not speaking an Indo-European language
2: a northern Caucasian language spoken by the Circassian
people [WordNet]

pullulate v 1: be teeming, be abuzz; "The garden was swarming with bees";
"The plaza is teeming with undercover policemen"; "her
mind pullulated with worries" [syn: {teem}, {swarm}]
2: move in large numbers; "people were pouring out of the
theater"; "beggars pullulated in the plaza" [syn: {pour},
{swarm}, {stream}, {teem}]
3: produce buds, branches, or germinate; "the potatoes
sprouted" [syn: {shoot}, {spud}, {germinate}, {bourgeon},
{burgeon forth}, {sprout}]
4: become abundant; increase rapidly
5: breed freely and abundantly [WordNet]

biretta A square cap worn by ecclesiastics of the Roman Catholic
Church. A cardinal's berretta is scarlet; that worn by other
clerics is black, except that a bishop's is lined with green.
[Also spelt {beretta}, {biretta}, etc.]
[1913 Webster]

contretemps An unexpected and untoward accident; something inopportune or
embarrassing; a hitch.
[1913 Webster]

I believe I should have known some of these words, but hey, sometimes a gal can't be all she might want to be.

Fourthly, Lytton can be a real punk. I'm sure that many of these people had outstanding traits that he plays down in order to take these historical figures down a peg or two, but this quote is a delight.

The Reformers must be exposed; the yoke of the secular power must be thrown off; dogma must be reinstated in its old preeminence; and Christians must be reminded of what they had apparently forgotten--the presence of the supernatural in daily life. "It would be a gain to this country," Keble observed, "were it vastly more superstitious, more bigoted, more gloomy, more fierce in its religion, that at present it shows itself to be."

How marvelous that Lytton's prose is so religious sounding! And how marvelous that the religious man who is quoted sounds like a big stink head!

I'm glad I can read good.

pickles

Sometimes I say to BrilliantEditor: "What should I write about tonight?"

Tonight he sleepily said, "Um, pickles."

Pickles are pickled cucumbers. But other things can be pickled. I've had pickled watermelon rind. It's not bad. There are pickled pig's feet, pickled eggs, ickle me pickle me tickle me, too, pickled cabbage (sauerkraut and kim chee and probably lots of other things), cole slaw can be pickled, escabeche is pickled carrots and garlic and things, pickled peppers. Peter Piper picked a peck of those babies. But when a person says, "Pickle", this person thinks of cucumbers.

The same idea applies to relish. Certainly I can relish the idea of something, but when it comes to condiments I always think of pickle relish. And so cucumbers. But relish can be lots of things. Salsa is kind of a relish. In fact, I think some places I've ordered food with a mango something or other topping. It has been called a chutney, a relish, and a salsa.

Relish: That which is used to impart a flavor; specifically,
something taken with food to render it more palatable or
to stimulate the appetite; a condiment.
[1913 Webster]

Salsa::salsa
n : spicy sauce of tomatoes and onions and chili peppers to
accompany Mexican foods [WordNet (r) 2.0]
-or-
Etymology: Spanish, literally, sauce, from Latin, feminine of
salsus salted -- more at SAUCE 1 : a spicy sauce of tomatoes,
onions, and hot peppers [webster.com]

Apparently the webster.com people haven't gotten the news that salsa can be made out of all kinds of things. Or maybe I haven't gotten the memo that salsa is actually only made of tomato, onions, and peppers.

But back to relish. I like sweet pickle relish on my hot dogs. But you can buy dill pickle relish if you want. It's nice to have if you eat a lot of hamburgers and like pickles on them but hate fishing out the little chips of pickle. But dill pickle relish isn't very good on hot dogs.

Right now we have some Mount Olive pickles in the fridge. They're from North Carolina. The town's called Mount Olive. I knew a girl who grew up there. She says that the whole town smells like pickles some days. I can't imagine that to be a pleasant thing.

I also knew someone who came from the mushroom capital of the world. Kennet Square, I do believe it is. Mushrooms like moist organic matter. They like humus and peat moss and compost. They also like manure. Can you guess what Kennet Square smelled like sometimes?

I grew up in Corning. The Crystal City. Crystal doesn't smell. Is it sad that I don't have a town smell? No, not so much.

If I did have a city smell, though, you can bet that it would be different from those of Kennet Square and Mount Olive.