Can You Top This?

I admire those who are Graceful and I have no problem admitting that I am not one of them in many regards.   There are many things that I do and/or like to do, I’m just not the most natural at doing them.  Let me cite you some examples…maybe you can relate?

1.)  Waking Up Before Others (Without Waking Them)– Thank goodness my husband is usually the one who gets up before me on workdays.  If it were the other way around, he wouldn’t have a hope of getting any sleep whatsoever the minute that I hopped out of bed.  And, the more quiet that I try to be, the louder I am.  Have you ever noticed how that happens?  Inevitably, I manage to drop something on the floor or bang into something leaving a resounding noise that would wake our outside cat.  For as big of a guy as my husband is, he is one of the most stealthy that I know of in the mornings, and it works in my favour as the last one who rises.  He goes through his whole morning routine as quiet as a church mouse.  The only time that I am awakened for a brief period is when I feel his presence leave the room, which I happen to think is actually kind of neat.  Then, I drift off again.

2.)  Eating Pasta–  I LOVE pasta of all sorts, and have often thought that I should have been born and raised in Italy.  Unfortunately, that is not the case, but I have visited there and the food (and wine!) is everything that I thought that it would be and more.  My few days there yielded an extra ten pounds as a result.  No word of a lie.  Thus, it may be a good thing that I do not reside there.  Aside from lasagne, my favourite of the longer noodles is, by far, fettuccine.  So delicious.  Yum!   After all of the times that I have eaten it, you would think that I would have mastered how to eat the flat tendrils…but, I haven’t.  I just cannot seem to gracefully wrap the wet, starchy goodness around my fork, pasta spoon to coerce and all, no matter how much swirling and twirling I do.  It always ends up being that I have to quickly stuff the hangover bits of noodle into my mouth, so as not to look childish for too long.  For someone like me, pasta is definitely not a first date kind of food!  Luckily, I am married and my husband is used to watching me try to ‘lap up’ the yellow stretches of pure delight.

3.)  Biking/Skating–  Until recent years, I hadn’t been on a bike since my late teens when ten speeds were still in.  (Gee, that really dates a guy, doesn’t it?!)  Being that my husband owned one, we decided that I needed a basic mountain bike too, so that we could ride together on occasion (which has turned out to be not that often).  The first time that I endeavoured to ride again was more than awkward as I tried out various kinds of bikes at a local sporting goods store.  My tires swayed from left to right, right to left, as I tried to remember what it was like to maintain my balance.  I must say that the audience of kids nearby didn’t help my confidence too much.  Before long though, I had a good feel for one of the bikes and home it came.  Whenever I jump on my bike these days, it still seems to take me a minute or two to get the hang of it all over again and going downhill scares the pants off of me.  I always ride the brakes for fear that I will lose control; meanwhile, my husband happily embraces any such opportunity.  Talk about a psychological experiment of sorts.  I think it’s safe to say that I won’t be entering any biking contests anytime soon.  I’m sure that the local hospitals are unknowingly grateful.

As for skates, you’d think as a true north Canadian that I’d be ‘all over them and then some’ or however the saying goes, but nah…not really.  To be fair to myself, I haven’t been on winter skates for a long time, but when I was, I was sure easy to spot.  I was the one who first needed a stool to push around to get a feel for how to move around on icy surfaces with thin, metal blades as my only means of support.  When I finally graduated from the ‘training wheels’ of my four-legged stool, I was still easy to spy from afar, as I was the one whose legs eventually grew further and further apart from each other with each half-stride that I took.  My body seemed to think that a wider base yielded better steadiness….again, not really.   Having said that, I should give it a shot again sometime soon.  You never know.  Maybe I’d be skating circles around everyone else.  Yah, not really, but it would be fun to try:-).

4.)  Drawing/Following a Straight Line-  As a kid, I couldn’t use a ruler to save my life, nor could I cut in a straight line.  I guess I was/am just a crooked kinda girl.  You know, a little off-centered.  I would actually buy that explanation given my personality, as I can be a bit ‘kooky’, as my husband often says.  As an adult, things really haven’t improved much.  I am still not very successful at anything to do with ‘straightness’, including taking pictures of the horizon even with the grid lines turned on.  At least I am aware of it–that’s half of the battle, isn’t it?!  Just as long as I don’t entertain the idea of becoming an engineer or anything of the sort, I think I’ll be okay.  Just know that if you ever receive a gift wrapped by yours truly, the decorative paper is sure to have some interesting folds and seams, which is okay since chances are you’d be ripping into it, anyway.  (Or, maybe you are the ever-careful present ‘unwrapper’, who tries to fold and save the paper for another occasion?  That was me until my ex got thoroughly annoyed with my light-fingered nature, and was in pure shock & disbelief at my desire to ‘save the wrap’; sheer heresy in his opinion.)  Remember to let me know when your birthday is;-).

5.)  Dancing–  I like doing it and I like to think that I have some rhythm, but unless the music is slow, my arms and feet seem to take on a mind of their own which just happens to be opposite of each other, I think?!  Clearly, I missed the line-up upstairs when the Big Guy was handing out gross motor coordination of sorts.  I mean I can walk and run okay, but dancing…hmmmm.   I think that’s why I always used to do better with a little rum and Coke in me.  At least that was my perception as I seemingly improved with each sip that I took.  Of course, that could have just been the rum talking.  Regardless, I happen to think that dancing can be a whole lot of fun–even doing the polka, which is a set of simple steps that for a partly Ukrainian girl like myself, is an absolute MUST know how-to-do!

I’m sure that my list of things could go on, but I will choose to end my post here, in a not-so-graceful fashion equal to my ideas presented today.  Happy Saturday!