Blogging on the Powwow

In the coming week, I will turn 40 years old. Finally . I think that I have been waiting almost forever  to be the age that I have felt most of my life. Even when I was a young girl, I just wanted to be "grown up." To add fuel to this instinct, from the time that I entered my early teens until even last week, people have always thought that I am much older than my actual age. When I was 13, people used to mistake me to be the 17 year old in the family. They would bypass my sister and say, "So, where are you applying for college?" You can imagine the delight this gave a 13 year old and I am sure that I am made sister aware of it every possible moment.  When I was in college, we had a guest to the Psychology Dept. This individual saw me carrying around some papers and addressed me: "Are you a secretary here?" "No, I am not." "Well, then you must be a graduate student?" "No, I'm sorry." "Then...are you a facul...

I think that it all started with the "penny bowls" - you know the ones: "Take a Penny - Leave a Penny." When did that start...20 years ago? I think that I was a teenager, so maybe 25 years. You're at the register and your tab comes to $3.31. You have $3.30 and don't want to break a new bill, so go ahead - take a penny to bring your total to $3.31. And, when you get 1 penny back from handing the cashier a 5 dollar bill for something that came to $4.99, you leave the penny in the little bowl. When this tradition started, I remember liking it, thinking that it was a nice gesture. It somehow seemed supportive - a common recognition that we all need a penny from time to time! Looking back, I'm not so sure that it was about helping your fellow man or woman...I think it was just a sign of the truer coming trend - the limited value of the penny. The more recent trend has surprised me, though. Somewhere in the past few years I was a penny short and there was...

There are lots of fancy ways to organize one's spices and I have tried many of them: shelves, uniform glass bottles with little labels, swiveling racks, etc. But, I always come back to the wooden soap box that came out of my grandfather's childhood barn in Gardner, Maine.  For a long while, probably more than 10 years, every time I would grab for a spice, I would grumble to myself that "this arrangement just isn't working!" - spices stacked on top of each other, unable to see the labels, etc. It can take several tries before one finds the desired spice. During one of these grumbles, I remarked to Neil that I needed a different system. He remarked that it would be a tragedy to put this old box out-of-use.  I gave it some thought and I couldn't agree more. This old, wooden soap box traveled from the barn of the Perkins' family farm to join our family and deserves to be put to good use. Now, it is. Well, it always was,  but now it is appreciated as we...