silly – Page 6 – hannah ananas

Oh, to be a lion…

I love “The Lion King”. And I mean this not as the average, casual use of the word love. I mean it in a deep down, somewhere inside of me is pulled by it kind of love. Toward my core, that is why my love for “The Lion King” resides. And it draws me.

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be part of that circle of life, as presented in “The Lion King”. Certainly, I want to be a living part of it, but I want to be over there, actually in it, as opposed to over here, living in the regular world full of buildings and suits and such. I want to live with the lions in Africa. I want to be one of them, an honorary member, so to speak. Sure, our diets don’t exactly line up with one another, but that would be part of the beautiful balance of it all. I would love them, they would love me, and no one would be stealing anyone else’s food. Perfect.

Anyway, I realize how silly or odd this might sound. I get it. That in no way changes the desire I have to be part of whatever that magical world is that is presented in “The Lion King”, both the film and the stage musical. Perhaps it is that beautiful balance of power and majesty, combined with belonging, love, purpose, and community. Whatever the case, I have daydreamt of being with the lions for decades, and am still working on how to make something like that happen.

Roar.

Post-a-day 2017

Pants at home

Tonight, a few friends and I got on the subject of housemates and the comfort of being pant-less at home (US pants, not British, of course). It reminded me of my first flatmate. When we lived together, it was a quickly-known thing that I ditched my pants almost immediately after I walked in the door after work.

Truly. It was part of my ‘arriving home’ routine, really. I would walk in the door (and shut it, of course), set down my stuff, take off my shoes, shove off my pants, toss them to the side, and then put my shoes on the shoe rack. Some days, I even would collapse forward onto the carpet after the pants-removal step, and sigh with exhaustion and relief. We live in Houston. It gets hot here, but the insides of buildings do not. At my job at that time, my classroom was guaranteed winter temperatures, so I was extra overdressed for the outside weather. Sometimes, I would be more peeling off my pants than sliding them off of me, it was so hot outside.

Since it was a well-known fact that I was pant-less almost the instant I arrived home each day, slight precautions were taken. One day, I received a message from my flatmate’s boyfriend, asking if I were home. He said that he was told he should text me before coming over, because I might not have any pants on. I think I let him know that I was home and all was appropriately dressed. He then added that perhaps he should have just not asked, and just shown up and caught me off guard. I chuckled hard at that one. I knew it was a joke, and he knew that I would understand it to be, so the comment was actually quite funny, instead of terrible, as almost any other person in the world would have caused it to be.

Thinking about all of this tonight had me notice how rarely I am pant-less nowadays. I guess I’m just not so hot outside anymore, that I want to strip the moment I arrive home. I also have little space of my own, in which I am even able to be pant-less. Though, I don’t recall being without pants/shorts very often in Japan… You know, I think I have moved to a slightly different style of pants/pant fit. The other bits are valid, too, to a certain degree, but so is this one. I found a pair of pants that I used to wear to school, and wore them tonight. It was warm out, but not hot. I remember peeling off these guys regularly in the afternoons. Yet, now, I can hardly imagine being able to peel them off, they are so loose on me. Have they stretched with the aging of sitting around? Have I lost weight in my legs? Both? This would not be the first pair of pants that has seemed oddly large on my legs lately, however, I still weigh what I have weight the past two-ish years. And I haven’t done enough exercise since moving back (I think, anyway) to have had such an impact on my body yet… have I? I don’t know, but, if I am losing fat in my legs, it’s for the better – my body needs it. Now just to trade that loss of fat with some gain of muscle and tone.

Anyway… this has gone a bit of a ways from being pant-less at home. I will leave this open for further consideration, and I will go to sleep now. Goodnight, world. Sweet breathing.

Post-a-day 2017

an old fashioned telephone and a strawberry?

A strawberry and a telephone – what do they have in common? They have both low-grade injured me in odd ways.

The strawberry – oh, that dear strawberry – actually drew blood instantly in its incident. You see, I was simply pulling off the green tops of my strawberries, and then eating each strawberry. On this particular one, when I grabbed the green leaves atop it, pushing the end of my thumb nail underneath the little green stem that sat in the middle of them for nowhere near the first time in my life, I suddenly felt an extreme, sharp pain in my thumb. Somehow, the strawberry had launched itself into the depths that appeared at the underside of my thumbnail, ripping apart the nail and the skin. I yanked away immediately from the strawberry, and watched the blood overflow from underneath my thumb nail. Despite the pain, I found the occasion a happy and hilarious one. I mean, who gets injured by a strawberry? Since when do strawberries draw blood? I’m not even clumsy, but they apparently do it to me. 😛

The telephone was what reminded me of the strawberry incident today. I was looking at the last bit of a splinter – or what looks like it might be the last bit of a splinter – in my hand just now, and thought of the insanity of what my splinter was: a piece of a telephone. You know the old black, rotary dial telephones, with the receiver that rested across the top? That kind of telephone. Something had fallen on one Saturday night, sending out shards of black telephone onto the black floor. I did not realize that the phone had even been injured until after I took my shot – this was in a photo area – on the floor, playing my ukulele. Hours later, it took some consideration before I discovered what the source of my chunk of black plastic-type material splinter was. When I removed the splinter, the spot bled a little, and then began to hurt. I mean, really, what kind of injury is that? Blood drawn by telephone, and no throwing of any kind was involved, nor were any other people. Silly.

So, an old telephone and a strawberry have a big something in common, see?

Post-a-day 2017

Love Notes for the World

My mom sent me an e-mail today that reminded me of one of my fun activities in college: my (love) sign.

You see, when I was in high school, I was doing partner dancing. A guy in the dance community in Houston died at some point, and it caused people to reminisce often. I’m not sure if I ever met the guy, because he died shortly after I began going out dancing (as opposed to just dancing at the studio and in classes), but there’s a chance our paths crossed a handful of times. Nonetheless, I have always remembered this guy. My friend’s dad was talking about this guy, and talked about “his signs”. I inquired, and discovered that this guy would carry around signs – I think they were poster boards, actually – with various messages, and would use them when at the club for dance socials. The specific example I remember was how, if two people were really flirting or kissing, he might hold up a sign that read, “Get a room.” As this is by no means a social norm, the idea always stuck with me.

In college, for some reason, this memory arose right at the time my flatmate was in an art class and had extra art paper at home one night. It’s the really thick, soft paper that is similar to poster board, but is used specifically for drawing or painting (or possibly both). So, that night, I had a torn-off section of this art paper, and I decided to make my own sign. On one side, it read, “you should, too”. The other read, “I love you”.

I carried this poster around with me almost everywhere for the remainder of that semester. I think I even had it while I rode my bike (actually, yes, I do remember riding my bike as I held on to it). It was incredibly odd, but completely accepted by my college. I was really nervous about it at first, but very quickly became comfortable with carrying around the sign. I mean, come on… kids do all sorts of odd things in college, so this was just one more in a million odd things we would cross.

Anyway, I loved it. I miss it at times, even. I don’t exactly live the same sort of lifestyle now as I did in college, however, I think I could work out something. The thing my mom sent me was about business cards that read simply “YOU MATTER”. And I think I want to make some more of my own things, but following this fashion of a small card that can be given to others.

When I lived in Vienna, a friend found a stash of the ‘Our Daily Bread’ cards, which is a sort of deck of little cards, where each is shaped like a bread basket and has a bible verse on it (these had German on one side and French on the other). We handed them out to people at the train station late at night, while another friend would do his regular harp serenading for the late-night folks waiting at the station. (Yes, that is a whole other story.)

So, I guess, my point is that I am now planning to combine these three ideas. I don’t know exactly what I’ll put on my cards yet, but I know that I want to do them. I can start this week, and see what comes up, see how I like them, and see what to change for the better.

What I wrote with this one on Facebook, back when I originally posted it:

A girl in the WG found a bunch of little cards with Bible verses on them. One side was in German and the other side was French. I think they were made in Belgium. No one really knows whence they came, but the girl decided to start giving them out to people, specifically in the subway station when David, the harpist, would play late at nights. I am now hooked, and want always to have some on hand, that I can give out to people as food for thought – you never know what people have going on, and thus never know what might make a difference in someone’s life. So don’t let anything stop you from sharing your love and care for others. Rather, find a way to have those things that are holding you back actually Help you to accomplish that which you wish

Post-a-day 2017

The article my mom sent to me today

Swiping Nuts

My mom steals nuts. She really does. Well, sort of, anyway… She doesn’t actually steal in the traditional sense…

Every time we go to this specific grocery store, I somehow forget about this fact. That is, of course, I forget about it only until my mother walks up to me and offers me some nuts. “You want some nuts?” she’ll ask, and proffer me a handful of mixed nuts. The first time she did it, I didn’t understand. Where had she gotten a handful of nuts? Did she bring them in with her, and I just hadn’t noticed? But it quickly hit me.

“Did you get those from the …?”

“Mmhmm,” she cut me off, and then offered me the nuts again.

Naturally, I accepted. They were a bit old that first time, but that was it. Today, they were actually quite good. I really enjoyed them.

Perhaps you are wondering how it is my mother gets these nuts in a way that I do not feel any guilt or obligation in eating them. Well, you could call it a sort of recycling, in a way. You know how some stores have the pull-down dispensers for nuts, and sometimes even for cereals and other grains and such in the dried bulk foods section? And you know how there are almost always those same dried bulk foods spilled around on the little shelf below all of the dispensers? Do you see where this is going?

Hopefully, you aren’t entirely repulsed by this idea. It isn’t as though there is anything else on the shelves – they are cleaned constantly, as is required for something in such proximity to unpackaged foods.

Anyway, this particular store has a sort of tricky system for making those shelves look nice all of the time. Instead of just having it be a shelf to catch the falling dried foods, it is a sort of grate on top of the shelf, and the grate allows the foods to fall through it and onto the shelf, while leaving the appearance of a totally clean and clear shelf, free from food spillages.

So, as I went to get another bite of nuts after we finished what my mom brought over to me today, I had to enlist the help of my mother, because I did not yet know the last piece of information I just shared here. However, she happily showed me her secret means of stealing nuts destined for the trash, and I got my other desired bite of fresh nuts, and I felt good about helping prevent that extra bit of unnecessary waste.

Next time you’re at a grocer with some nut dispensers, perhaps you’ll consider helping prevent waste, eh? ;P Or you could just imagine my mother showing up and saying, “Want some nuts?”

Post-a-day 2017

A towel in your hair

Tonight, just after showering, towel still on my head, I took out the trash. I had kind of hoped someone, anyone, would see me, but, alas, not a single person or car passed me on that brief voyage down the street…

But it was still cool (and quite cold), because I had mostly kept on the towel simply because it sounded like a fun thing to do, going into public with a towel on my head. Sure, it isn’t the same as waking into Kroger one night with my hair wrapped in a towel, but that was back in the US, and I needed something silly in my life here tonight. 😛
Peace and love and goofiness to all, and to all a good night!
Post-a-day 2017