Road Trip Wednesday: The Queasy Flower Girl

Today's Road Trip Wednesday prompt, as initiated by YA Highway is:

Did you ever have a childhood memory that you viewed differently as you got older?

Yes.

When I was six, I was a flower girl in my cousin's wedding. The wedding was in Chicago, so my family drove down over a few days, camping along the way.

It was a big deal, being a part of this wedding, and I'd say one of the biggest moments in my life up to that point. My little cousin was a flower girl with me, and my sister was the ring bearer. My brother and my co-flower girl's brother were also in the wedding party (not sure what they're called though... the boy version of flower girls? Not sure).

Anyway, my aunt had made these pretty lace dresses for me, my cousin and my sister and we also had fake flower crowns (I'm pretty sure we still have one in our long abandoned dress up box, actually) as well as baskets full of fake flowers that we were supposed to sprinkle on the aisle as we walked down it in preparation for the bride.

Of course all of this we knew months in advance, and I was terribly excited about everything, from the dress to the flower crown to my shoes to my frilly white socks. (I had a thing about socks when I was younger).

Finally, the moment came when my cousin and I were supposed to walk down the aisle, throwing our plastic flowers on the white carpet that was rolled out before us.

And... I threw up.

Thankfully I hadn't eaten anything that showed up on my white dress, so my aunt quickly wiped away the clear liquid and sent me down the aisle!

I was mortified and horribly embarrassed at the time, so much so that I pushed the memory down and forgot about it for a while. Now, I think it's funny, and a good picture of what I was like as a six year old. Also it makes for a fun story! :)

What about you? Any horrible memories you tried to suppress, only to realize later they weren't that bad?

Tangerine and The Ways A Book Can Affect You

Do you ever have those weird thoughts that pop up sometimes, randomly triggered by something in your everyday life? I don't know, maybe you don't, but I do.

To backtrack a bit, the other day a fifth grader checked out a book called Tangerine. Strangely, the cover and title seemed vaguely familiar to me. I realized that at some point in the past I must have read it. My memory of the book slowly returned, although all I could remember at that point was that it was weird.

The fifth grader returned it, so I checked it out and am now in the midst of reading it. I'm only a few pages in, but I've come across a pattern. I've realized that a ton of those weird thoughts that pop up when randomly triggered came from this book that I read who knows how many years ago (when I was in elementary school, at least).

First of all, there's this part in Tangerine where the MC Paul is talking about his damaged vision, and how his teachers and parents use him as example, because the rumour is that he damaged his eyes from looking straight into the sun. "Teachers and other adults always seemed to value me as an example. I was the living proof that you shouldn't look at an ecplise or you'll go blind; that you shouldn't play in an abandoned refrigerator or you'll suffocate; that you shouldn't go swimming right after you eat or you'll get stomach cramps and drown." I recall that every time someone said to wait to swim after you eat I thought of this book.

Secondly,  in the book the school has portable classrooms. Ever since I read Tangerine, the thought and idea of portable classrooms kept coming back to me.

It's a really odd experience rereading a book you'd almost completely forgotten about, but that has affected you in so many ways and that you remember so well. Other than the memories, I don't remember anything particulary special about Tangerine (although I'm not done rereading yet so I guess I still could remember something). I almost feel like this book haunts me or something.

It's fascinating, the ways a book can affect you, isn't it?

(P.S. I know I'm not doing very well with my blog-every-Monday promise. But at least I'm still posting this week!)