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I HAVE AN AUNT AND uncle who are twins. Upcoming in September they will celebrate 180 years of living. Now, I, myself am a twin (You didn't know that, Dear Reader? People always seem surprised--as though I would have some little telltale sign about me). My twin brother and I have shared many birthday celebrations. And that brings up one factor that figures very large in the life of a twin: Sharing.

We shared the womb, we shared the day of birth, we shared the bottle---Pet milk and Karo syrup. My mother came home from the hospital, put us down and mixed up 30 bottles of "formula"---the preferred alternative of the day to mother's milk. We shared the crib. We shared the toys. We shared the attention. Yes, we had to share.

On our ninth birthday, Mama planned a big party and invited our whole class from school. Crepe paper streamers decorated the basement, and that's where we all crowded around the ping-pong table to eat the birthday cake with the candy "Happy Birthday" letters, the guests all jostling to be near the lucky birthday honorees. When it came time to open the mound of presents, each of the gift-bringers vied to have his or her offering presented first. "Open mine!" "No, open mine!"

There was the book about the sea "to Kenny and Kathy, from Billy", which was fine for sharing. And there were also the amazing Micky and Minnie Mouse masks from Sylvia, and they were quite a hit, with Halloween right around the corner. (I've saved so many things through the years. To this day I wish I had that Minnie Mouse mask!) Although we didn't have "ice cream rabbits and ice cream ducks to eat with the birthday cake," as did Billy and Bobby, (the twins in our school reader [textbook?]), we did have a positively thrilling time.

So now I am wondering. Are twins more adept at compromise and sharing than the average person? Or are they less adept, greedy for space and things of their own? I've never read any studies on this, and likely no one really cares!



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ISN'T THIS A gorgeous pepper? Last summer when I plucked it off of my garden......um, yes, my garden consists of one pepper plant...I was so proud of it that I felt it was worthy of its own portrait.

Now, this year, in these lush, fruitful days of summer, I hope I can manage to be patient and not harvest all of the beautiful green peppers that hang so bounteously from my pepper plant until the sun eventually puts its blessing on them and brings them to a glorious shade of crimson. Or would it be scarlet. At any rate, they turn red. Sigh. It's such a long wait. I've decided to expand my garden next year. I'm going to plant at least two pepper plants.


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DID I SAY THAT I procrastinate?

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I'M CONTEMPLATING the word "blog" It has such a heavy sound, much like laboriously slogging through a muddy bog, the sloppy earth sucking at your booted feet with every step. Yes, yes, I know it was an offspring of weblog, but I'm just thinking that if there's going to be a new word coined, some consideration should be given to the way the word sounds as it rolls off one's tongue and the mind pictures it creates, and the feeeel of it.

How about the feel of skipping, dancing, trotting, cantering, hopscotching, flitting, flying, soaring...through grass, sand,clover, feathers, flowers, fields, meadows, leas, vales, dales,skies, clouds, heavens. There now, aren't you already just a teeny, tiny bit lighter of heart and more enthused about your life in general?


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