Friday, July 11, 2008

Friday 55 & Da Count-Enthusiastic Imagination

I'm a high fashion model strutting down the runway. Everyone wants to be me.



I'm a fairy princess here to grant your wishes with my magic wand.



I'm a scuba diving ocean explorer discovering a shark no one else has ever seen.


Some props, some costumes, and a bit of imagination is all it takes.


DA COUNT

The remaining Limelets and I were invited to a friend's house for dinner last night. We had a terrific time. These friends have 4 children under the age of 6. While dinner was being finished the wee ones took us on a tour of the house and showed us their favorite costumes and danced to some fun music. It's been a long while since my Limelets have spent much time playing dress-up but it was great fun to spend time watching the transformative imagination that young kids have so much of. We saw ballerinas, queens, elephants, and panthers right before our very eyes because all it takes is a fancy dress, a regal bearing, your arm as a trunk, or your fingers as claws to make you anything you want to be. So in addition to enjoying time spent with grown up friends I had a blast watching all the imagination too. I think I counted this once long ago but I'm counting it again anyway.

So tell me, what did you used to pretend when you were small? You already know I spent time as Tarzan and Mowgli but I'll also tell you I liked to pretend I was a nun too....a flying one, of course. (Thank you, Sally Field.)

34 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey... I was Tarzan once too... in fact won a fancy dress prize at 7 for it! I really don't think we can count imagination quite enough... great count. Cheers!

Breazy said...

this is a really great 55!

I used to dress in the entire poodle skirt, sweater , button up shirt, basically the whole nine yards. Once I was completely dressed I would stand on the stairs and pretend that I was on stage singing oldies like At The Hop, Rockin' Robin, It's My Party, One Fine Day..etc..to thousands and thousands of adoring fans. I use to have some really great times doing this and they are some of my favorite memories.

My vacation post is up since I am leaving in the morning.

Take care!

airplanejayne said...

one of the kids I babysat used to pretend that he was a Mad Scientist (not a normal one, mind you, a Mad one). He wore one of his dad's white shirts as his lab coat....

Kat said...

I always pretended to be an indian. The indians were always the good guys when I played cowboys and indians. :)

furiousBall said...

love that last picture

Craver Vii said...

Me? A detective (like Starsky) or a professor (like the one on Gilligan's Island).

James Goodman said...

oh, what a fun and excellent 55, you have here, Lime.:D Nicely done.

The memory that comes to mind for me is playing superhero with a pillow case tide around my neck as a cape. :D

Rob said...

I used to pretend I was a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader... and would dress like them and be able to go places with them and follow them into the locker room and...

Oh, wait a minute -- that was just last week!


I can't remember pretending as a child! ;-)

Anonymous said...

LOL... those costumes are GREAT!!! :)

My brothers and I pretended we were going on an airplane trip. We'd find our little backpacks and dress up our large teddy bears and we'd sit on the couch for hours pretending we were flying off to some great land. LOL... I can't fathom how we were able to play at that for so long so many times... but it was great! :)

Awesome Count!

Katie :) said...

Imaginations are so precious! What a great evening!
I was a professional roller skater and always dressed up as a "school teacher" 1800's style! :)

Happy Friday

Pam said...

i always was a teacher or a mommy...guess i didn't have a great imagination. LOL i love the imagination in kids...they are so creative. this was a really cool 55, lime.

S said...

LOL Of course you were The Flying Nun ! LOL

I used to play that I was a Roller Derby queen, and my best girlfriend, Susan, (yes true, Susie and Susan, best friends) and I would do that thing where you would whip each other ahead on the "rink" (the patio with a chalk oval drawn on)..etc...no cussing allowed.

I also LOVED to play office because I loved the staplers, phone, paper clips, pens, etc...(precomputers of course)

I loved to play "cooking show"...not only making stuff but we'd tape recorder it and explain what we were making ya know like a cookin show....

Then there was candy store...the first few days after Halloween there was so much candy in the house after three kids did the entire neighborhood, that we would set up little stores and sell/trade to each other. (and break into each others stores and swipe pixie stix!)

And the best, borrowing our moms powder compacts to use as spy mirrors so we could be Get Smart, Cheif or 99!

Hee hee that was fun!

Akelamalu said...

What a great 55! I love the piccies.

I used to pretent to be (you won't know who I'm talking about) one of The Vernon Girls! They were backing singers on a pop show.

Suldog said...

"Limelets"

I like that, a lot. Swell shots.

I used to pretend I was a trolley driver. One ran in our neighborhood, and I wanted to be the driver very badly. I probably would have been, too, considering my age :-)

I would also sometimes pretend to be a television pitchman, selling whatever I happened to be eating/drinking at the moment. No, I'm serious! And, in some small way, that led to my being what I am today - a professional voice-over artist.

Shame you didn't become a professional Tarzan, though. I'll bet you're stunning in a loincloth :-)

Mona said...

What a lovely cute 55 that is accompanied by illustrations! I LOVE this 55! It reminds me of my own time when I used to take part in Fancy dress. I was once ,one of the three witches of Macbeth!

& How Cool that is! Its such a coincidence! Even I pretended to be a nun, & not just any nun, but one particular nun. Her name was sister Vineeta, & I wanted to be her because she used to play Piano & I, O so badly,wanted to play the piano!

Anonymous said...

We used to play like we worked at Toys-R-Us with toy cash registers and such.

I also used to act like I was Luke Duke from Dukes of Hazzard. Haha!

San said...

We had this enormous weeping willow in our back yard. When it went without pruning, the branches would droop to the ground. It was our jungle.

On a weirder note, I once had a slumber party at which my friends and I decided we worshiped a dead sister named Martha. We ran around the yard waving our arms and shouting MARTHA. Then we went into the garage and bowed down to her shrine. It was my dad's lawnmower.

Anonymous said...

We used to pretend we were The Beatles. We'd "air-band" a lot of the songs...sometimes put on shows for the neighborhood.
I used to conduct the orchestra when my parents put on "their" music...
I used to pretend to read the news, like on TV. Which I ended up doing on radio..until I realized what a ridiculous job that was...

smarmoofus said...

This would come as no surprise to my ex, but... I didn't pretend anything as a child. *hangs head and feels left out* I seriously lacked imagination. I never did preten play... it was always reality-based. I'd build sand castles (or sand creatures) and Lego models. Swing. Swim. Ride bike. Active stuff. Which, in retrospect, probably confused the heck out of my parents because I... um... wasn't a healthy child. *chuckle*

Great 55, and adorable pictures, Limey.

-smarmoofus

(M)ary said...

I USED TO CRAWL UNDER THE COVERS AND PRETEND I WAS a scuba diver...but i didn't have the cool goggles you did!

G-Man said...

Limey...
Two birds with one stone!!!
Great 55 ( with pics even ), and da Count was sweet. Great Job Trini, thanks for playing, and have a GREAT week-end...G xoxox

Cath said...

Those pictures are great and their imagination is greater.

I used to be one of those posh women at balls with a mask and stuff, or a princess, or, if brother was the cowboy, a very efficient Apache indian. Who won. Every. Time.

tsduff said...

We did scarf dancing... not much imagination but lots of color and flair :) That last picture is worth some kind of award...!

Jocelyn said...

I inhabited the character of Laura Ingalls Wilder, from my sun bonnet to my dusty feet. I was the kind of demanding Laura who forced her older sister to play "Mary."

cathy said...

I love dressing up.
As for pretending to be someone else... story of my life. LOL.

Anonymous said...

i was either Spiderman or Batman...i lived for Saturday mornings when i would glue myself to the screen waiting for them to come on...!!!

one afternoon at my nan's (i must have been about 6 or 7), i decided to hang out of her 1st storey landing window and see if i could climb along, or maybe even up a bit, just like my heroes...
i ended up scraping my chin, knees and elbows down the side of the house and had to go to hospital with severe lacerations...haha...!!! duh...my family still laugh about it now...!!! ;) oh yeah...and i had BOTH the costumes (^_^)

Anonymous said...

I always wanted to be Raggety Ann, but could never find those striped tights back then. Now they're available anywhere it seems. Grrr. I'm still bitter about that.

I also wanted to be Orphan Annie- even got a perm just like hers.
I'm still quite attached to my orange sweater, and I had a dog I named Sandy.

Anonymous said...

Those pics of you is hysterical good - thanks for sharing!

Me, well I was Tarzan too of course and now I've found my Jane - for the US - and that's not bad taking into consideration I'm a Norwegian ;-)

snowelf said...

I, ironically, was always a chef.
I ran an entire imaginary restaurant for my stuffed animals, friends, brothers, kids my mom babysat...I fed them the most spectacular dishes and desserts. Crazy huh?

--snow

~Tim said...

To quote Lily Tomlin, "I've always wanted to be somebody, but I see now I should have been more specific."

Anonymous said...

I think the reason costume parties/Halloween are so popluar amoung adults is that fantasy of becoming something else just by altering your appearance. It's magical.

NYD said...

I was, no. Make that, am always letting my imagination run away and getting into mischief.

I still play cowboys and indians.
Occasionally put on an eye mask and rally my fellow brigands to take as much swag as our chests can hold.

I still fly an X-wing as I make my way to school.

All I am missing is a kid of my own to share it with.

That party sounds like a lot of fun!

KFarmer said...

When I was little, I would pretend I was a farmer and so was my dad. Now I am. I also taught school to my stuffed animals and jumped out of trees and off roof tops trying to fly~ Playing dress up is still a favorite pastime of mine but I've given up trying to be a bird :)

Commander Zaius said...

Pretend when I was young? I regularly pretend even now to be the intrepid explorer Captain James T. Kirk. For all the interstellar adventures and also because he gets all the hot chicks.