personality – Crystal Witnesses Wonders

Once my niece and nephew and I were all buckled in the backseat of my sister’s ancient Montero, I turned to my nephew – proudly perched in his new booster seat – and asked, “So what was your favorite part of our adventure, buddy?”

“Um…” he said, grinning. “All of it.”

“All of it!” I repeated, arranging my souvenir bag on the floor as we pulled out of the parking lot, my hips wedged tightly between the two car seats, my shoulders scrunched. “That was pretty yummy chocolate, huh?”

“Um, yeah. And machines! Machines that make chocolate! It’s like a dream come true!” My nephew giggled, beaming out the window. “I’d need some pretty big Legos to make something that cool.”

Huh, I thought, the obvious dawning on me. I should’ve taken pictures inside the factory.

Welcome to Ethel M Chocolates.jpg — Ethel M Chocolates in Henderson, Nevada, featuring a chocolate factory and a cactus garden!

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When I was three or four years old, random friendly grown-ups started asking me what color this or that was, what my favorite food was, and what my daddy did for work.

“He’s a geophysicist!” I’d announce, and they’d look at my parents with something like awe, and make a comment about how smart I was to know a word like geophysicist.

I’ve always enjoyed a compliment, but if we’re being fair, I didn’t actually know the word. I could pronounce it, sure, and that’s not nothing for a pre-schooler, but I didn’t know what it meant. Flabbergasted I could use in a sentence, thanks to a Little Golden Book featuring poems about Sesame Street characters. Geophysicist, not so much.

Anderson Family 1992b.jpg — Left to right: Me, my oldest brother, Dad, and Katrina in 1992. Photo taken by my mother.

Continue reading “Crystal Metamorphing into Something Dad-ish” →