10 on the 10th - April Showers, Flowers, and More

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On the 10th of each month, Marsha In the Middle asks ten questions for us to answer in as much or little detail as we wish. I haven't done one of these yet in 2024, but I have a bit of time today, and I stumbled across Marsha's preview of the questions, so I'm early!

1. April's full moon is the Pink Moon. Tell us about your favorite pink item.

Pink isn't one of my favorite colors, or at least I don't own many pink things. I do like pink flowers though - tulips, roses, azaleas, lilies . . . so I suppose flowers might be a favorite pink thing. I don't own any pink clothes except for the hot pink jacket and pink sequined shoes that are part of our chorus performance attire!

2. For those of you lucky enough to be born in April, your birthstone is the diamond. Share a bit about your birth stone or about a favorite diamond.

December is one of those lucky months that has more than one birthstone to choose from. According to Gemstones.com, there are four: blue topaz, blue zircon, tanzanite, and turquoise. Zircon and turquoise are the two I knew about. I do like turquoise and have owned a few jewelry items with turquoise. Maybe the blue theme for the gemstones is one of the reasons I like blue so much? Now that I know about it, I really like the tanzanite!

3. For those of us in the Southern Hemisphere, it's time to harvest. For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, it's time to plant. Tell us about your favorite thing to plant (even if you end up killing it).

Yeah, I'm not a gardener, so I'm not into planting much of anything. At our house, I was all for letting the Black-Eyed Susans and any other wildflowers do their thing. I was involved in planting some tulip bulbs a couple years, particularly several years back when we got some of the Canada 150 bulbs for Canada's 150th birthday.

4. William Shakespeare was born in April. Please share a bit about your favorite Shakespearean play, quote, character, or plot.

I rather like Shakespeare's comedies, and I guess I have a soft spot for Twelfth Night because that was the first play I studied in high school. I remember enjoying all the clever wordplay and double entendre throughout, but it was a bit awkward because at the time, I felt like I might have been the only student in my class that understood it and got the jokes. Apparently it was not cool to read Shakespeare's plays simply for enjoyment. I wonder if the cross-dressing tropes and jokes in some of the plays would hit different in today's society.

I also think some of the speeches in the historicals, such as in Julius Caesar and Henry V are brilliant.

5. The first Earth Day took place on April 22, 1970. Tell us if and how you plan to celebrate.

I have no plans to celebrate. I'm on board with nature conservation and believe we have a responsibility to take care of our environment and use resources wisely. After all, humans were commissioned to be stewards of God's creation! But Earth Day and much of the modern environmental movement is propaganda and too much like worship of the earth itself, in my opinion, so I have no interest in being part of that.

6. The eclipse willhave already happened by April 10th. Share something you did and if you were in the path of totality.

We are almost in the path of totality - something like 94% I think? We made sure we had eclipse glasses and we stepped outside a few times during the day to check out the show, but didn't travel or take the day off work or anything like that. It was really interesting to see! 

7. On April 4th, 1964, the Beatles filled the first five spaces on the American singles chart. Tell us about your favorite Beatles song, even if it wasn't one of those five.

Come Together, Can't Buy Me Love, Let It Be, Penny Lane, Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da, The Long and Winding Road . . . I don't have one favorite, but those are the ones that come to mind as among my favorites. I used to say I didn't really care for the Beatles, but a number of years ago the choir I was in did a concert that featured Sir Paul McCartney, and as we worked on the music, I realized that I genuinely liked a majority of the Fab Four's songs written by Lennon and McCartney. But. I don't like a single thing McCartney wrote by himself or did after the Beatles broke up. Fun fact. 

8. King Henry VIII became king of England on April 21, 1509. Tell us about your favorite of his six wives.

This is an interesting question! I think I'd choose Catherine of Aragon, his first wife. From what I've learned about her, she was a woman of deep conviction and even after Henry annulled their marriage, she kind of quietly and stubbornly went about her business and didn't let him bully her. Then again, her daughter went on to become quite the tyrant (Queen Mary I aka "Bloody Mary") and Catherine probably bears most of the blame for how she turned out!

9. April's flowers are the daisy and the sweet pea. Share a little about your birth month flower.

The December flower is the narcissus or paper-white. I think they are so pretty, basically a dainty white version of the daffodil. A beautiful flower, and because they remind me of daffodils, they remind me that spring is coming! I've often thought I should have paper-whites in the house during the Christmas season (which is also my birthday season!) but I guess no one thinks to buy them for me, and I feel wierd buying my birth flower for myself. 

Note to self: Don't feel wierd about it in December 2024. Just buy the paper-whites and enjoy them.

10. The Ford Mustang was unveiled on April 17, 1964. Tell us about your first car.

I've often wished I'd owned a Mustang, especially one of those mid-60s models. Preferably in red. 

However, the first car I owned was not my own car but one I shared with my husband. When we got married, he had a very light tan colored Toyota Celica. I think it was a 1982 or 1983. Sometime in our first year of marriage, we bought a compact Toyota pick-up truck. It was black with a brown and tan sport stripe package and the colors reminded us of a Doberman pinscher so we referred to it as "The Lad" after the way the character Higgins referred to the dogs in the show Magnum P.I.

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Thanks for joining me for these fun questions! How about you? Did you watch any of the eclipse and what did you think? Leave a comment and let me know about that, or about your answers to any of Marsha's ten questions!

This post will be linked at Marsha In the Middle for the April Edition of 10 on the 10th.

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