Bachelor Lamps, Star Wars, and Night Lights

REALLY stretching on this one, Random Word Generator. Couldn’t be something cool like Spy? Or Rapids? Or Credenza? Because lamp is… wow. This little tool is supposed to make writing easier, isn’t it?

Okay. Lamp. *Cracks Knuckles*

Lamp from Childhood: I used to have a dusty pink colored clip on lamp on my headboard when I was a kid. I used to wake up early, move it so it was inches away from my face and turn it on. Presto: instant “fever” for faking sick and then turn it off right before my Mom came to wake me up. (Also useful to hold a thermometer against to continue to fake said fever. Care must be taken to not have a 140 degree fever or burn your tongue. Is an art.) As a mother I will be checking the lightbulbs of my daughter’s lamps on days they swear they don’t feel good and need to stay home sick.

Head Lamps: we periodically walk the six blocks or so to the restaurant on the edge of our neighborhood for dinner and bring headlamps with us for the walk back in the dark. The older children LOVE it. Out at night? Walking? Headlamps? Joy of Joys! I also give one to the toddler and she just turns it on and off for the entire walk back. Considering she insists (even in the dark) of having the stroller canopy up, it’s like pushing a giant firefly through the neighborhood.

Bachelor Lamp: My husband had a brass lamp with a black pleated lampshade next to the bed when we first got together. We don’t have it anymore. Not much to that, I guess, but I just never could understand the concept of a black lampshade…

Grandma Lamp: After my grandfather died my grandmother was on a mission: get rid of all these dratted earthly possessions. (I think she was signaling to the higher ups just how serious her readiness to get a move on was) She asked her grandkids what we wanted of hers: Rugs? China? Clocks? I said if anyone hadn’t claimed it yet I’d love the lamp in the spare bedroom where we’d all slept for sleepovers. Huge, overly ornate thing. Gilding, sage green, marble and brass base. Massive 3′ shade with gold embroidered flowers and many a grubby paw print acquired over the years. (one of them mine, as I distinctly recall). She said her father had picked it up for her at an outside secondhand store- it had been broken and her father had fixed it for her. (I’d never noticed the crack, in all those years of looking at it) It’s in our storage room now, because I can’t find a spot in our house I deem safe enough for it.

Night Lights: in our house currently we have a ceramic one shaped like a bird that glows at night (ala dead Jedi masters), a pink gummy bear battery powered one, and one that shines green stars on the ceilings. Are like lamps, right?

jedi

The rage I feel from the goddamn replacement of Sebastian Shaw with Hayden Christensen in this scene is pretty much unparalleled to anything else I’ve felt in this life up to this point. Anyway. This is what the bird nightlight looks like.

Bedside Lamps: Matching green glass, quasi bottle looking ones next to our bed. I got both on clearance at different Ross stores and was super proud of myself. They’re too big, and glass lamps at toddler level is probably not the best idea, and they match nothing in the room. I’m pretty sure that checks off all the proper points for having lamps, right? And they’re a constant reminder to read something at night not from a glowing screen but from something that actually requires turning on of said bedside lamp.

Lamps.

 

 

There is a kids’ story or two in here somewhere…

Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away… I remember helping my cousin Jennifer collect bugs  once for a school project. And now that I think of it- she was homeschooled so how the hell did that work? Anyway. I caught a huge red wasp in a tupperware container- and it beat against the lid like a drum. And there were a few beetles, maybe a June bug? All I remember is the wasp really (for obvious, scare the hell out of you reasons) and that I was SO good at catching bugs she put me in charge of the jar. (Gee… thanks? Is white-washing the fence fun too?) But anytime she would point out a butterfly I’d only pretend to try to catch it and shoo it away instead. At the end of the day we had enough bugs for her collection and not a single one was a butterfly. I was 10.

And today not only do I grow plants in my garden to attract and feed the adult butterflies I love so well, I grow host plants for their caterpillars to eat too. And while some of the caterpillars are cool, some really display the depth of my devotion because they… well they’re not cute. I have a key lime tree which is the host to my favorite butterfly, the Giant Swallowtail. Who’s caterpillar is basically bird poop. Think I’m kidding?

cater

Boom. Evolution is wonderfully specific at times.

And then that thing turns into this…

butterfly-1403392

My Precious!

And I really don’t know why the story was about an ugly duckling turning into a swan… because bird poop turning into a butterfly wins that competition ALL day long.