I miss Dr. Seuss

And sometimes I miss my old peach-colored countertop with the cracked tiles and the grout wearing thin. I know I'm a lucky woman to have a brand new shiny granite countertop. But honestly? I don't care much for its camouflaging trickery. Ketchup drips, mayonnaise smears, chopped olive splatterings and overflowing BBQ sauce just disappear into its God-given variegation. It's a little embarrassing when a friend happens to discover a spill with an ill-placed elbow.

So today I attended a creative writing workshop at my new local library. I say "new" only because it's new to me. It's actually an old library with a musty aroma. It has the proper library aroma as far as I'm concerned. It's the scent of well-loved books. The town is currently raising money to build a new library, and when it's finally completed I hope they move the aroma along with the books.

So the writing group meets once a month, and the moderator gives us writing "prompts," about which we write, non-stop, for 20 minutes or so. Today she arrived without her list of prompts, so she picked one out of the air. Dr. Seuss.

I had no trouble writing about Dr. Seuss. He's always been a favorite of mine and I read lots of his books to Tech Guy and Big City Girl when they were little. I'm a big fan of silly rhymes. In fact, I wish I could write some of my own. But, unfortunately, I don't have a rhyming brain. I'm pretty sure it's an inborn trait.

Several of the group members shared that they find Dr. Seuss books boring. I couldn't understand that, and I mentioned it to Mr. Gadget after I got home. He agreed that Dr. Seuss is indeed a boring read.

"Don't you remember all those green eggs and ham, green eggs and ham, green eggs and ham?" he asked me.

"I guess I just remember the colorful characters and the rhyming," I said.

Did I ever mention that Mr. Gadget walks on the treadmill--for an hour sometimes--and while he treads he watches the weather channel? Now that's boring. I like to walk outside where there's interesting stuff to look at. But if I were to walk on the treadmill, like if it was raining and I had an overwhelming desire to exercise, I'd need some much more stimulating entertainment than the weather channel. Maybe the audio edition of The Cat in the Hat.