Hodgepodge Wednesday

1. National Read a Road Map Day falls on April 5th. Would people say you have a good sense of direction? Do you rely on a GPS when you drive somewhere new? When was the last time you used a map? 
I inherited my father's very good sense of direction (unlike my mother, whose then-four year old son had to tell her how to get around the town she'd lived in for six years already). I've used my Blackberry's GPS feature exactly once. I was seriously annoyed by the voice talking to me, plus it runs down the phone's battery very quickly. I do, however, frequently use the map feature on both my Blackberry and my Droid, and I love that! It's wonderful to punch in an address and get the written directions plus a map within a few seconds. I haven't used a paper map in years!

2. What's your favorite cookbook? Mine. (My notebook binder of recipes that is.)

3. What painting would you like to "walk into" and experience? Why? Hmmm ... shades of Mary Poppins! I would like to walk into a painting that I picked up at a flea market some 25 years ago. A lovely young woman, dressed in gauzy pale pink, is sitting in the foreground gazing wistfully out over the moonlit water. I'd like to sit where she's sitting for a while -- it looks so incredibly tranquil. I'd also like to own the gauzy pink dress.

4. What annoys you more- misspellings or mispronunciations? Misspellings. I don't know what schools are teaching in the way of spelling these days, but it doesn't seem adequate, based on what I see. I recently found a letter written in 1950 by my great-aunt, Florrie. Florrie had had to leave school at a young age in order to go to work (we're talking the late 19th century here), yet the spelling in this letter was impeccable. Today it seems that too many kids graduate from high school and are still unable to spell.

5. What is something your mother or father considered important? My mother thought it was important to stand up straight, and since I had the round shouldered slump of so many tall teenage girls, I heard about that A Lot.

6. Do you like or dislike schedules?  I both like and dislike them. It depends on the circumstances. Schedules surely have their place in life or we'd all be living in chaos. But the use of schedules (on a personal level) can be carried too far and even abused, impinging on a person's well being.

7. Let's have some fun with National Poetry Month (that would be April)...write your own ending to this poem-

"Roses are Red

Violets are blue..."

I should be sleeping

At quarter to two.

(Written in the wee hours of the night.)

Incidentally if you'd like to read the history behind that little ditty you'll find it here.

8. Insert your own random thought in this space. Randomly speaking, I am not cut out for whirlwind tours. I wake up in the middle of the night and have no idea where I am.

Thanks, Joyce, for another Hodgepodge of great questions!

- Catherine