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.)

Friday 55-No Way to Treat a Queen.

A craftsman hammers gold into a cup.
A queen sips her wine in luxury.
Conquering armies plunder the riches
to deposit in different storehouses.
The cup descends through countless obscure generations
until it finds its way to an old man
who brings it as a plaything for his grandson.
BBs ping off a regal nose.

I love the show "Antiques Roadshow." I hardly ever get to watch it because no one else in my family enjoys it. I will admit I get a perverse joy out of some smug socialite insisting her china once belonged to Napoleon and Josephine only to have the appraiser flip over a dish and point out the evidence that it was made in Japan in the 1930s. By the same token, I also love to see someone bring in an old item they either found at a yard sale for a $15 or that has been a cherished part of family lore but never recognized as monetarily valuable only to have the appraisers nearly die of heart failure at the rarity, value, condition, significance, and magnificence of said item. So, I got a kick out of this story, which is where I lifted the above picture from. A 70 year old British man decided to have his childhood "toy" appraised. Now it is expected to fetch nearly $1 million (US) at auction. He confesses to having used it for target practice with an air pellet gun.

I like looking at old things and imagining the life they had in all the generations before they came into my awareness. Who drank from this cup? Who was it made for? What sorts of political intrigues may have been hatched during dinners where it was used? Or what lover's secrets were exchanged as it passed from one set of hands to another? Was it a gift received with joy? Was it something looted by invaders? Give me a chapter of the story you think this cup has.