Z is for Zip in and Zip Out

I'm sure you heard that Kate Middleton, wife of Prince William, had their third child last week. By all accounts, she zipped in and out of the hospital quickly as far as these things go. Kate entered the hospital around 6 am and 5 hours later she delivered a healthy baby boy. She went home a mere 7 hours later. And some time during her short stay they introduced the new baby to the crowds waiting outside.

And Kate looked beautiful. Granted, she is a beautiful woman to begin with. Granted she had her hair and makeup done by a team before she went out. But she looked perfect and she was wearing heels! I don't know how she did it.

After I gave birth to Wally, I was totally wiped out. It had been a long, induced labor, but nothing out of the ordinary. I stayed in the hospital a couple of days as we tend to do in this country, longer than they usually do in Britain. When it was time to bring Wally home we carefully strapped him in his new car seat and I rode in the back with him while Ward drove. We had a fairly short drive I think, but I don't remember. What I do remember is that I was exhausted and not feeling great. As soon as we pulled into the driveway, I went into the house to lay down.  On my way, I asked if Ward could get Wally out of the car and deal with him. I had to lay down. No ceremony about welcoming the baby home. Just an exhausted mother, a proud father, and a crying baby.

Newborn Wally

So when I think about that experience, there's no way I could have done what Kate did. Even with a whole team around me like she had, I don't think I could have faced the crowds. I don't think I could have worn heels. I don't think I would have been ready to leave after 7 hours even if I had been going home to a household of helpers. I just don't think I could have zipped in and out like she did. But who knows? Maybe she didn't feel like doing it either, but she's a royal and that's what you have to do.

Y is for You Choose

I got a potato peeler as a wedding gift (1). It was just like my mother's and the only kind I had ever used. It worked great for about 25 years without any special care--meaning I put it in the dishwasher when I shouldn't have and so on. Then I decided it was getting a little dull so I bought a few inexpensive, new ones supposedly just like the first one. They didn't work as well as my old one, so I got rid of them and used my old one. Then after a few more years, my thumbs started to hurt when I used the peeler and it was still a bit dull, so I tried another kind altogether (2). This one has a place on the back to put your finger through so you hold the peeler in the palm of your had to use it. It was advertised to be gentle on your joints and hurting hands. Well, maybe my thumbs felt a little better, but I could never get the hang of using it. Thus I went back to using the old one.

A year of so later I listened to a friend's daughter give her pitch for Cutco products. These are expensive, fairly good knives that kids sell to raise money for college. I didn't want to spend much money, so I bought one of the cheapest things they had--a potato peeler (3). This one had an ergonomic handle with a good blade. It felt okay in my hand and I actually took care of it like I was supposed to. However, after a little while, I went back to the one I had gotten as a wedding gift. It just seemed to work better.

Then enter Theo who was doing the majority of the peeling in the house. He asked if he could buy a new peeler because none of the ones we had worked very well. He liked the original one the best also but the blade was getting dull. I asked if we could sharpen it, but he said there were several nicks on the blades and he thought that it wouldn't sharpen well. I said sure, so he researched and bought one (4) for $6 on Amazon that was guaranteed to be just like the ones that your mother and grandmother had. Sounded great because it looked just like the favorite one we have. However, when we got it, I found it is not as comfortable to use because the handle was narrower than the one we got all those years ago as a wedding gift.

These days I find myself using a knife (5 or 6) as much for peeling as a peeler. The peels are a little thicker so I'm wasting more of the fruit or vegetable, but that's what works best for me. Someday I'm going to look into having my 35 year old peeler sharpened. It seems to have a design that can't be beat.

However,  you choose for yourself. Which one of these things would you want to peel with?

But wait, before you make your decision. I just found another one (8). I felt like I was missing one and I was. I found it as I was putting the other ones away. So add this one when you make your choice.

X is for an 'Xceptional Afternoon

Recently, Ward and I visited the Meadowlark Botanical Gardens. The weather was warm and the spring flowers were in full bloom.  We had a great time both looking at the flowers and plants, and people watching. Here are some pictures from our eXceptional afternoon.

Tulips provided the major color in the gardens. Notice that daffodils were intermixed with the tulips.

A closer view

There were total white beds, also.

Ward liked the angles on this arbor and thought he might want to build one like it.

There were both paved paths and mulch paths through gardens and woods. The grass there hadn't greened up yet.

I think these are Jack-in-the-Pulpits, but Jack has a rounder, whiter head than I've seen before.

The trees were providing shade for the plants along the path in this hosta garden.

I really liked these dark red tulips.

The yellow tree is a yellow leafed Japanese maple.
 I had never seen one before and was totally fascinated by it. Now I want one.

This is the entrance to the Korean Bell Garden which is part of the park.
 (Next 5 pictures are from the Korean Garden.)

 Ponds provide water for the plants in the gardens.

These statues, representing grandfathers, are used to guard villages.

This is the 3 ton bell that the Korean gardens were designed around. The bell represents peace and harmony.

These totem poles were also used to guard villages among other things.

W is for Windmills

On one of trips across the mountains last summer to see my mother, we drove through a windmill farm. It was located along the Appalachian Front in eastern West Virginia.  The closest windmills I had seen up until that point were olden ones in the Netherlands. (Think Don Quiote). Thus I was fascinated by seeing these modern windmills up close.

Note: All energy sources have advantages and disadvantages and wind is no exception. However, I'm not going to discuss that here today. I'm just going to give you a look at this windmill farm. I didn't get a picture of any of the miles of roads they had to build on the mountains which are a part of the farm.

This is typical of the Allegheny Mountains with their green, parallel ridges.

Along the top of the ridges, they installed windmills to catch the wind. You can see them in the distance.

These were close to the road and Ward was listening to see how noisy they were. That day there was a quiet swish, however I don't know what it's like living by them.

As with any energy source, you have to have a way to transfer the power to the customer as seen with these large towers. There were large substations also, but they were on the wrong side of the road for me to get a picture.

W is also for Wily-Nily
Things are a bit wily-nily around here. And if I don't make a list soon, I may crash and burn. We're getting ready for a trip along with household chores and work chores. I still hope to complete this challenge on schedule. However, I don't know if I will have access to the internet where we're going or if I will get the posts done on time. If not, I will finish them next week sometime. So, I'll see you again when I see you. :)

V is for a Very Good Book

or what is Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard

This is a well written, fascinating story about the rise of James Garfield and his untimely death.

Millard tells of Garfield's very poor childhood, his education, his time in the Civil War, and his nomination for President despite the fact that he has no desire for the nomination. Then the story really begins. Crooked politics, arrogant doctors, a mentally ill man, and a brilliant scientist all figure into Garfield's six short months in office. Add in a "puppet" Vice President, a letter-writing invalid, and a sweet love story at the end and you've got a book. There are so many facets to this tale, that if it had been a fiction story, I would have thought that the author was being too dramatic. Destiny of the Republic proves the saying, "Truth is stranger that fiction."

My only criticism of the book was that occasionally it would seem as if the author was going off on a tangent. But usually these tangents were background for an upcoming part of the story. Also, I found it hard to read some of the medical practices with my current medical sensibilities.

Destiny of the Republic was originally recommended by an acquaintance and later we read it in my book club. Everyone in the club liked it even those who didn't think they would. So if you want to brush up your history, I'd recommend this very good book.

U is for Up your nose with a rubber hose.

or Part Two of Twenty Words and Phrases that Show Your Age

Yesterday, I mentioned a link from Dictionary.com that listed 20 words or phrases that are considered dated. I discussed my opinions on ten from the list yesterday and today I will give my opinions on the other 10.

1. Up your nose with a rubber hose: This phrase comes from the sitcom, Welcome Back Kotter, a popular TV show in the 1970s. One of the characters would use this phrase as an insult. I never liked the saying the first time and I am glad that it's outdated now.

2. Pigpen, you got your ears on?: This is something you would say on a CB radio. CB radios were really trendy in the late 1970s and used for communication between truckers mostly. These too have been replaced by several iterations of technology and I'm not sure how many people today would understand that phrase if they heard it.

3. Walkman: A Walkman was a portable tape player that came out in 1979 and became very popular. But technology has evolved light years away from it. Yep, this is an word that shows your age.

4. Fotomat: A Fotomat was a place where you dropped off your film to be developed. This is definitely an old word because people using film to take a picture are few and far between these days.

5. Goodnight, John-Boy: This was the last line in most episodes of the heartwarming TV series, The Waltons. The show aired for a decade starting in 1971. I'm not sure how many people today have seen the Waltons so I've got to believe this is a dated phrase.

6. The thrill of victory (and the agony of defeat): This was one of the opening lines to the TV show, The Wide World of Sports that ran from 1961-1998. The list authors said that we have 24/7 sports watching available now and the the phrase is no longer relevant. I think it was a great phrase and should still be around.

7. Just one more thing: I didn't even know that this was a special phrase. Apparently on the TV show, Colombo, Detective Colombo used it a lot. So did Steve Jobs later. I have no opinion on this one except sometimes it is a useful thing to say.

8. Mood ring: Mood rings were popular in the 1970s. It was a ring that changed colors depending on your body temperature. Body temperature was supposedly an indication of emotions or moods and different temperatures produced different colors. Thus, you could supposedly tell someone's mood by looking at the color of the ring. This is an old fad, but I think it is a fun thing to remember.

9. Pet Rock™: Pet rocks were also a fad in the mid 1970's when people bought rocks to be their pets. The marketing genius, Gary Dahl, behind the fad became a millionaire from it. The fad only lasted 6 months, but it does come up then and again in discussions about how people will buy anything. Today, it is a trend to paint rocks with positive messages on them and leave them random places for people to find. Occasionally, I hear these kindness rocks compared to pet rocks.

10. Rolodex: a Roladex is a turning paper address file that very few people use any more. Most contact information is located on a person's computer or smart device these days. I will grant you that Rolodex is an old term.

Once again I had my Millennial son look at the list and tell me what he thought about the words. He said the The thrill of victory (and the agony of defeat) was the only one he heard used regularly. I found that interesting and not what I would have predicted.

So what do these words and phrases say to you?

T is for Twenty words that show your age

or T is for Ten Words Today and Ten More Tomorrow

While on Dictionary.com this link caught my eye, Words (and Phrases) That Will Show Your Age. Of course, I clicked on it to see what they considered old. Some I agreed with and some I didn't. Half of the list is below with my comments. I'll share the other half tomorrow.  See what you think.*

1. Making whoopee: This comes from a 1920s Eddie Cantor song and means having sex. Although I've heard this phrase a lot, it seems old even to me. 

2. Wet-blanket: This means put a damper on things and comes from putting out a fire with a wet blanket. It's been used since the 1800's and still seems relevant to me today.

3. Little black book: And while I understand that most people, especially the younger ones, don't carry an address book or the little black book version of one that list potential dates, this is a phrase that I still hear used and most people understand it.

4. VCR and videotape: This is definitely old technology, but it is still around. Who knows?  The Millennials may understand it someday when VHS tapes come back like vinyl records have. (Note to self. Need to get the VHS family movies transferred onto DVD's or whatever the latest technology is.)

5. Long-distance call: This is probably a phrase that does show you are older if you use it. Extra charges for calling out of your area code are a thing of the past. Texting, Skyping, Face Timing, etc. are probably used more than phone calls in the younger group.

6. Davenport and Chesterfield: These are both names for sofas derived from Davenport who commissioned the first leather sofa and Chesterfield a furniture maker. They were popular in the early and mid 1900's. I have never heard of a sofa called a Chesterfield, but I have heard of a Davenport and always wondered where that name came from. I agree with the article. These are probably old terms and becoming obsolete.

7. How’s tricks?:This phrase was used in the 1950's and 1960's by men asking women how they were. The phrase probably had origins from men who were managing women turning tricks. I still hear the phrase occasionally and didn't realize that it was a one way question. If this phrase is not becoming obsolete, I think it should be because of its origin.

8. “Dear John” letter: This phrase became popular in World War II when a girl would write to a serviceman and tell them their romance was over. The article suggest that John is an old fashioned name and maybe it should be updated with something like "Dear Lucas". I think that's just silly. Most people know the phrase and what it means and it is still used. However, they also suggest it could be replaced with an emoji. I don't like that idea but I will concede that emojis are taking the place of a lot of words and phrases these days.

9. Web surfing: They say this term was more prevalent when the internet was newer and we don't need a term for this any more. Slightly different meaning, but I would say that Googling would be a better substitute.

10. Fuddy-duddy: This one means stuffy and old fashioned. Maybe this is a bit out of date, but is it really that much worse than using Old Fart as they suggested as a more modern phase? Not in my mind.

You've heard my perspective on this list but I am a Baby Boomer, i.e. an older person. For a different perspective, I asked my Millennial son, Theo, what he thought of these words. He read them over and said the only one that he hears used regularly is Wet blanket. I don't know if he's representative of his age group, but I did find that interesting.

Tune in tomorrow for the other ten words and phrases that are considered old fashioned.

*Blogger and I aren't getting along again. I couldn't get rid of the white background in the time I had.

S is for Saturday Morning

S is for:

Saturday Morning

the red and grey Sunrise out the window

Sleepy eyes trying to wake up

the Smell of coffee wafting from the kitchen

the Sound of meowing cats who want to be fed

the Start of another day.

R is for Red

or Red is not for Redheads.

What's your favorite color? Do you have a color you don't like at all? Do have certain colors that you think you look better in? For the first half of my life, I had one color that I didn't like and thought I didn't look good in, Red.

I was one of those little girls who had the long, dark red curls that everyone said were beautiful. However, after every comment that someone made about how much they loved my curls, it was followed with a comment about how redheads couldn't wear red. I heard it so much that I grew up to dislike red in all situations, not just in clothes. As time went on, I also heard that redheads shouldn't wear pink either. Pink was just behind red in my dislikes.

Advance to several years when my oldest sister went to a Color Me Beautiful party. This was a home party where they determined what season you were according to your hair and skin tone and what colors looked best on you. My sister learned that she was an Autumn at this party and looked good in earth tones or Autumn colors. The rest of us, sisters, had similar coloration to her and followed her lead in what colors we should be wearing. Years later, I even got a Color Me Beautiful book as a reference for my colors. One of the first things I learned from this was there are two basic colors of red, a blue based one and an orange based one. The orange based one was okay for Autumns to wear. Wow! Red was okay to wear.

However, now not only did I know a whole set of colors that supposedly looked good on me, I had whole set of ones that supposedly didn't look good on me, not just red and pink. I'm not sure this was progress. As time went on, I did gravitate to the colors that were recommended for Autumns. And they probably did look better with my skin tone.

But I don't really care any more. If I like the color whether or not it is supposed to look good on me, I wear it. If it makes me happy, it will show on my face and that will make me look better than anything else. And these days, I like red. I wear it, I decorate with it, and I paint with it. I am happy for this progress and sad for all those years, I missed out on the fun things that were red.

Q is for Qute

or Q is for Cute

I have a thing about "qute" spellings of words. I don't like them. I didn't used to mind, but that all changed after one year in New Orleans doing a service project with our church.

Ward and I were young professionals spending a lot of time at our jobs. We had big projects with deadlines that could only be met by spending many hours at the office. To add something else to our life besides work, we spent every Wednesday afternoon tutoring young kids at a local church. The kids were in kindergarten through second grade from disadvantaged families. A van would pick them up after school and bring them to the church for snacks and tutoring from volunteers, including Ward and me. The idea was early intervention with learning would help prevent problems further down the road.

What a surprise these kids were for us. Reading was a big part of both of our households growing up, but not for these kids. They had no reading material in their homes. Not a newspaper, not a book, not even a TV guide. None of these kids could read and not all of them even knew the alphabet. TV was the main form of entertainment and where they got their examples. "What's a word that starts with J?"
"Jack from Three's Company"

Their home life was difficult with all of them living in housing projects. I remember one day when Eric, whom we worked with, was excited because he was going to get to visit his uncle in jail. His father was no where in sight and his uncle was a special person to him.

As I saw how these kids struggled, I started to look at things differently. I noticed when words were spelled with cute spellings for advertising. All I could think about when I saw them was how hard reading was for these kids and they didn't need help with nonstandard spellings.

And I started to be less judgmental about what people were reading. I didn't realize it, but I was judging people by their choice in reading material. I didn't think as highly of someone reading a romance novel as someone reading a classic. But after working with these kids, I was very happy to see someone reading. Anything. It didn't matter what the content was. Ward and I rode the bus to work through some of these housing projects where these kids lived. Not many people were reading on the bus, but my heart sang when I saw someone reading, no matter what it was.

I'd like to say that Eric eventually went to college because of our early work with him, but I don't know where he ended up. And the saddest part of the whole experience was I felt like were already too late. We went every week, but I didn't feel like we were making a difference with these kids. They needed more help than we could them, but I hope I am wrong. I hope we planted a little seed somewhere that helped them live a better life.

P is for Poetry

April is National Poetry Month, so it seems appropriate to feature poetry for the letter P. I do not seek out poetry to read, but pick it up from time to time. A few years ago, my husband and I got a book that declared to include the 100 best poems of all time. We read it aloud to each other and I found it occasionally enjoyable and sometimes tedious. My speed is more the like the clever stylings of Shel Silversteen. However, I think my favorite poem of all time was one written by one of my childhood friends, Jon.

I was in sixth grade in Mrs. Greathouse's English class and we were writing poems. I dutifully wrote my totally unmemorable poem that I then read for the class. I was pleased with what I had written until Jon stood up and read his. Jon was one of those boys who was smart enough, but was always horsing around instead of doing his work. He tried to get away with the least amount of school work that he could. So not surprisingly, he only wrote a few lines. His poem went like this.

The thunder roared,

The lightning flashed,

A tree fell down, 

And a frog got smashed.

Even though the poem was very simple, I was impressed. With only a few words, he told a story that brought very clear images to mind. And it had a surprise ending. I was also impressed because he had spent most of the period goofing off while I slaved away on the assignment. That was the day, I developed a crush on Jon. The crush didn't last long, but the memory of his poem did.

O is for Octagons

or Man-made Octagons

When I think of octagons, I first think of stop signs. Did you ever wonder why a stop sign has an octagon shape? Well, I never did until Theo was talking about it the other day. Not surprisingly, early roads didn't have traffic signs at all because there was no need for them. However, as there more cars on the road, the need for control increased. Thus the stop sign. The first stop signs were posted in Detroit, Michigan in 1915. They were square and white with black lettering. By 1923, stop signs were standardized to be octagonal. With a standardization of shapes you could tell what the sign was signifying even if you saw it from the back.

As for the octagonal shape to the sign, there was a bit of logic to it. The theory was that the more important the sign information was, the more sides it would have. A circle, with infinite sides, was used at railroad crossings where a car doesn't have much of a chance with a train. Next up is the stop sign with eight sides where stopping is important to avoid a collision with another car. Following that is the diamond, with 4 sides, indicating information like pedestrian crossing, and last is the rectangular sign also with 4 sides, but oriented in a more traditional way with information like speed limits. Where does that leave the yield sign with only three sides? It seems to me yielding is more important than the speed limit. However, the yield sign was not added to the highway signs until 1954, long after the other shapes were established.

By JERRYE & ROY KLOTZ MD - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,
 https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24260904

Also when I think of man-made octagons, I think about a church near where I grew up that was built as an octagon. There have been several stories as to why it was built this way the most logical one being that that shape gave it the most capacity inside for the fewest number of materials, in other words, cost effective construction. However, the story I like best is that it was built "round" so that the devil could never trap you in a corner.

There are probably lots of other man made octagons out there, but it's time to move onto P.

https://didyouknowfacts.com/stop-signs-8-sides/

http://www.trafficsign.us/yellowyield.html

N is for Nothing

Nothing. I've got nothing. I've hit a brick wall with this A-Z Challenge. I've been thinking a couple of days now for an N topic and have been drawing a blank.

I thought about telling you something about my Nose, but could only come up with I've never had a nose bleed. And it's never been broken, but it was black and blue once when I was a kid and fell while I was playing volley ball. That really hurt!

I thought I might talk about my Name, but that would be a problem with the anonymity that I'm trying to keep on this blog. I guess I could tell you that after two girls, my parents only had a boy's name picked out because they were sure that I would be a boy. Didn't happen. So after the nurse insisted that it was time to fill in the birth certificate, they named me after a neighbor they liked.

I thought I could talk about Navy beans and how I cook them to avoid the gas problem with them. However, everyone already knows that, so I thought I could tell the story when I was a kid I called them Army beans and all the grownups thought it was very cute. To this day, I'm still annoyed with them smiling and laughing at me for that mistake even though they did it in a nice way.

I thought I might share how I am very prone to motion sickness along with my other sisters and how we all got Nauseated riding along the crooked roads to visit my grandmother. However, I thought it would be too gross to develop that story.

I considered doing something about Needles and sewing, but that topic was covered pretty well in the knitting post. One of the things would have been that my mother had a rule that you couldn't be on the sewing machine until you were in fourth grade. My fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Hildreth, had had a sewing machine needle pierce all of the way through her finger which made a big impression on me. I was very cautious when I started on the machine.

If I had wanted to leap out of my Neutral position here on my blog, I could have talked about the News today. But that subject too infuriating to many, and I just didn't want to go there.

Actually, Nature would have been a good topic for me. It's a subject that makes me happy and is important for everyone. If only I had thought of it earlier, I would have done a post about it. But now it's time to move on to O is for... It will be interesting to see what I will do for that one. So far, it's a lot like N and I've got Nothing.

But until then, here's the start of a nature post. If only I had thought of it in time to make it my N post

The ornamental pear in the front yard is in full bloom.
In the bottom of the picture is Ward with the neighbor resetting our mailbox.

I turned around yesterday and found our neighbor's cherry tree in full bloom.
Our apple tree in front of it is not quite there yet.

M is for McDonald's Pizza

McDonald's is known for fast service and predictability. That's why people eat there even if they're not big fans of the food. You always know what you're going to get. However from time to time they waver from this predictability and try new menu items. Sometimes those work or sometimes they don't. For example, breakfast burritos are going strong but the Hula Burger isn't.

Source

One of the new items they tried was pizza in the late 1980s. However, it was gone by the early 1990s. It didn't seem to fit the fast food model since it took 10 minutes to prepare and it literally didn't fit through some of the drive through windows. The plan was that it would be a dinner item and families would come into the restaurant to eat, but they didn't. Thus it was discontinued.

That is all except two places--one in Ohio and one in West Virginia. Both stores were owned by the same owner and year after year he kept making pizzas. And people kept eating them. One of those McDonald's was in my home town. I had already moved away by the time they started serving pizza, but ate it many times while visiting my parents. In fact that was one of the things we'd do, get a pizza from McDonald's when we visited. There were other places to buy pizza in town, but Micky D's was my parents' favorite. They had their little ritual. They'd order a pizza with everything and my mother would pick off the meat and give it to my father and he would pick off the veggies and give them to her. The McDonald's pizza was not bad and certainly a bargain at $6 for a large.

These two locations served these pizzas for years with no fuss until they got word of it in Canada where the McPizza was first tested. Three young men made a trip to WV to try the pizza and the idea went viral. Traveling to have McDonald's pizza became the thing to do. And when the corporate office got wind of the whole thing, and they said the pizza had to be discontinued. That was how they could control the predictability that was one of their trademarks.

Last summer the last pizzas were served and my mother got one of them. Her friend got her one and brought it to her in the nursing home for lunch. Sadly, this time my father wasn't around to exchange toppings with her, but she enjoyed it all the same.

Time marches on and things change. That's the way it was for the Micky D's pizza and as trivial as it seems, the pizza is missed.

Note: There is a McDonald's in Orlando that started serving pizza in 2016. The store is 18,000 square feet and is one of the largest McDonald's in the world. There are many other items on the menu besides pizza that are not on a regular McDonald's menu.

L is for Left-Handed

I mentioned yesterday that being left-handed made it hard for me to learn how to knit. That is just one of many things that are harder for left-handers who are living in a right-handed world. It seems as if everyone else is getting attention for differences today, but not so for the 10% of us who are left-handed. I'm not sure that's right.  There, that's my political statement for the day. :)

Apparently left-handers have been in the minority for a long time, at least as far back as the  Neanderthals. Researchers found the right hand was used more often than the left hand among this group when they looked at how their teeth were worn. Neanderthals softened hides by chewing and the shape of their teeth determined whether they picked the hides up with their right or left hand.

Why should we prefer one hand over the other? One theory is that handedness evolution had to do with cooperation vs. competition. Cooperation among people was important for progressing society.  If the same hand was used from person to person for tools and other objects, things would work more efficiently. Preferred handedness evolved for this reason. (Why the right hand? That's not explained.) Some people remained left-handed because competition was still important for fighting and protection.

To test the competitive part of the above theory, researchers analyzed data of professional players in several competitive sports. They found there were more left-handed people playing these professional sports than in the general population, meaning greater than 10% of the athletes were left-handed with baseball and pro boxers having about 50% left-handers.  This correlates with the idea that left-handers evolved to be competitive and fight to protect the tribe.

That theory was interesting, but there's got to be more to developing a preferred hand than cooperation and competition in our early ancestors, because both apes (except orangutans) and dogs prefer their right hand/paw.

To really understand handedness, we need to understand our brains and how to sort out the nature vs. nurture question. Scientists are working on it and have identified some genes associated with left-handedness. They are studying how these genes affect brain development among other things. However, that's only a small part of a very complicated question.

What I do know for now, is that my left hand works better than my right hand. And I guess that's all I really need to know.

Are you left-handed or right-handed? Do you ever think about why?

https://www.livescience.com/17009-left-handedness-ambidexterity.html

https://www.everydayhealth.com/emotional-health/0504/why-are-lefties-so-rare-blame-society.aspx

http://www.anythingleft-handed.co.uk/fighters.html

https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/do-other-animals-show-handedness/

K is for Knitting

I know some very skilled knitters, but I am not one of them. I am in the beginner category and have been since I started. The first time I knitted, I was 8 years old and learned from reading a book my mother had. It was a very frustrating process. Every time I tried, the stitches got tighter and tighter on the needle until they could not be worked. With a little more practice, I was finally able to do a garter stitch (straight knit stitch). Eventually, I learned to purl.

One of my earliest creations--a dress for Midge.

However it remained a difficult process because of this basic problem. I knit left-handed. I did what came naturally when I taught myself and by the time I figured it out, I couldn't switch. I have never found another left-handed knitter to help me. I know they are out there, but they are few and far between. I had forgotten until recently that my mother signed me up for a knitting class with a neighborhood knitter when I was trying to learn. The teacher used a mirror trying to help me reverse the stitches. Maybe that's how I learned to purl. I don't remember.

I went along for years being confused by many directions and pictures and didn't really progress much. At one point, I asked my sister to help me learn how to crochet and that didn't fair any better. She used her right hand and I used my left hand. This resulted with all of my stitches having the tension on the wrong side of the stitch and I wound up with a loosely bound, holey, mess of yarn.

One of my felted purses at the community fair
that is very generous with ribbons.

I eventually learned the basic patterns you could do with knit and purl stitches and made several things. I looked for simple patterns and went through a phase where everyone got a hat and scarf I had knitted. After that, I knitted felted purses until I had once again exhausted my relatives and craft shows with my wares.

If I were learning to knit today, it might be easier with all of the tutorials that are on You Tube for left-handed
knitters. Maybe I'll watch them and see what I can learn. Or maybe I'll be happy with the status quo. There are other things calling for my attention these days like learning about post-mortem photography during Victorian times. :)

Do you knit or crochet? How did you learn?