THE CUP COMPLEX

The following is a "girls only" post; we'll have something for you later, guys!



Breasts, boobs, boobies, knockers, ta-tas, bosom, bozooms, ninnies, lungs, chest, jugs, bazoombas, etc., etc., etc.

As Yul Brenner said in the musical play “The King and I,” “Is a puzzlement.” Why do we have so many names for this portion of female anatomy? Do men prefer large breasts? Why do we use of these same terms when speaking of idiots? Is it societal pressure that causes sensible women to “enhance” their attributes? And, most importantly, what don’t I have big ones?

Okay, why do we have so many pseudonyms for these protuberances? Dr. Jackie Boles, Professor of Sociology at Georgia State University in Atlanta said, “Generally anthropologists have found that a culture has a lot of words for things that are important and few for those that aren’t.” If this is true, these outstanding female appendages must be intensely important to our culture.



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Now, I’m not saying all men idolize enormous breasts. Obviously not – or many of us would have remained unmarried and virginal. And it’s not just a matter of some poor guys “making do” when all the C and D cup women are taken. My own husband said, upon intense questioning, “Oversized breasts are no more sexually appealing to me than oversized earlobes.” Is he sincere? Of course. Do I believe him? Of course. He married me, didn’t he? Isn’t that uplifting for those of us with a paucity in our statistics?

Still, I observe that “built” women command attention. Be it bikini-clad beauties on the beach or stylish ladies swathed in silk, let a D-cup appear and all male eyes go “boing!” These eyes are, as my father used to say, “run out on stems.”

“The female body,” Dr. Boling explained, “is shaped to act as a stimulant to men, both coming and going. That is, large breasts and rear ends attract men.”

I have personal experience in this realm. While nursing my daughter, my cup runneth over. Many people, from my father-in-law to my nieces, complimented me. My step-sons (both breast men) teased me, “You’re going to make that poor baby nurse until she goes away to college, just so you can have a big chest, aren’t you?”

Suddenly I was a star. My public consisted totally of men. Doing ordinary errands became an adventure, not unlike wading through a muddy pen of affectionate hound dogs while dressed in white slacks. One day I drove to the drug store, got out of my car, and hoisted my heavy, sweet-smelling infant to my hip.

“WHOA!” Someone yelled. I jumped and nearly dropped my baby. “WHO-EEE! Look at that pair!” A pickup truck cruised slowly by, the two men inside grinning, shouting, and whistling as I trudged, red-faced and perspiring with embarrassment, across the parking lot. “Have you no respect for motherhood?” I muttered angrily to myself, shifting the baby around and carrying her tightly against my chest.

Then there was the time in the elevator. I went to the hospital for a checkup and X-ray. I completed my checkup on one floor and was going upstairs, in my hospital gown and jeans, for my X-ray. Several people rode the elevator with me. One was a wormy little guy who slouched, needed a shave, and smelled like last week’s garbage. Well, he clapped those bleary eyes on my unfettered, milk-swollen mammary glands, and remained mesmerized, transfixed, and totally unmoving throughout the ride. Arriving at my floor, I sailed past him, preceded by my magnificent prow, and only his neck moved to keep his eyes plastered my mighty melons.

Of course, there was occasional flirtatious eyeballing from attractive men and I basked in the realization of my childhood dream. All of this admiration, both the welcome and the unwelcome, ceased abruptly after weaning. But, for a year, I possessed the build I had looked forward to so expectantly when I was a child.

CUP COMPLEX, OR, MUST I WEAR A TRAINING BRA FOREVER?

When I was a child, during the 1950’s, buxom women were the ideal. Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield and Sophia Loren are just a few stars whose titanic “headlights” highlighted the silver screen. Boys dreamed of marrying full-figured Lovable (bra) girls when they grew up. Girls dreamed of achieving glamorous dimensions one day. I did.



Thumbing through a Sears catalog, I noticed how pretty the models looked. In plaid shirts. In frilly blouses. In evening gowns and swim suits. I yearned for the day when I, not “June” would “be bustin’ out all over.” I dreamed and waited. And waited. If only I had looked at my mother and all her sisters, I would have surely suspected the dreadful truth. Put all five of them together and you couldn’t come up with a decent pair of breasts. And I mean if you put them all together. Cross my heart (“with a Playtex Living Bra”). If women had worn Living Bras back then, theirs would have starved.

When I was nine years old, my mother fed my dreams by casually saying, “Drinking lots of cream makes you have big breasts.” One day as I ate breakfast at our chrome-and yellow Formica table, she asked, “Why did you flood your oatmeal with cream?”

“I always put lots of cream on my oatmeal,” I replied, skimming the slightly congealed top off with my spoon.

“But why do you use so much?” she persisted.

“I want to have big breasts,” I answered nonchalantly.

“You mean,” she sputtered, “that you put all that cream on your oatmeal because you think it will make you have big breasts?”

I felt the sweet hot cereal turn to ashes in my mouth. “That’s what you said!”

“Oh, ha, ha!” she shouted. She held her middle with both arms. “Ha, ha, ha!” She staggered to a yellow plastic-covered kitchen chair and collapsed into it. “I was just kidding, you nut! Ha, ha, ha!”

Well, I was devastated. As Mama laughed herself silly, I thought of the pounds of oatmeal, the gallons of cream, all for nothing.

Beneath my lashes I directed a venomous glance my mother’s way. She’s also the one who told me the hole in a doughnut is poisonous, causing me to leave a safety ring of doughnut around all those “poison” holes for years. But that’s another story.

To add to my mortification, as I grew up skinny and flat-chested, my next-door neighbor and best friend wore a 36D by the time she was 13 years old! I ask you, is that fair? I never will forget the day she started “growing”. I was eight and she was nine. As we walked home from church, she complained, “My nipples burn.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked, squinting at her. The sun beat hot on my head that summer noon, blinding me with it’s glare.

“They’re growing,” she answered. “That’s what happens when you start to develop,” she answered smugly, flicking her eyes over my concave front.

I was eaten up with envy.

“But it burns. I want to go home,” she said fretfully. Before long, she was running. I followed her breathlessly into her home, where she rummaged in the pantry. Grabbing a large can of Crisco, she scooped up some and, jerking up her blouse, rubbed it tenderly on her chest. “Oh,” she exclaimed. “That’s so cool!”

“What in the world are you doing?” I squealed. “Why don’t you use Noxema?”

“Because this feels good!” she snapped.

“That’s foolish,” I thought, but I kept my mouth shut.

Maybe it was foolish to use Crisco – still she ended up a 36D and I . . . . well, I didn’t.

IS THAT A CUT?

Speaking of foolish, booby and ninny both mean a foolish person, according to Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary. I wondered whether women’s primary recognizable physical trait is called by these terms for unflattering reasons. I mean, is this a put-down?

“I suspect so,” said Dr. Boles. “Check the derivation of the words.”

So I did. “Ninny” could be derived from the Spanish “nino,” meaning child. “Booby” is guessed to come from “bubby, perhaps an imitation of the noise made by a sucking infant.” I checked several dictionaries. These were the best explanations I could find. They seem to give ninny and booby a legitimate, non-denigrating derivation, separate from the “foolish” meaning. But I wonder.

GUILDING THE LILY

Maybe the “foolish” labels fit, though. What haven’t we done to enhance our bustlines? Falsies (store-bought and imaginatively home-made), padded bras, underwires. Now it seems surgery is commonplace in our quest for bounteous beauty. Ah, the stories I could tell . . . . Okay, if you insist.

In the early 1960s, padded bras were stiff enough to put a crease in your blouse. At 14, I wore an A-cup padded bra with little to put into it. One autumn night I attended a dance. My boyfriend and I danced very closely to dreamy romantic music. The first song ended and we smiled as we stepped away from each other.



My smile died when I glanced down and, to my horror, the dim light revealed, instead of two points against my white cotton blouse, I had two circles! With nothing to fill the cups, they had dented inward, resembling volcanic craters.

Whipping around so my back was to my friends, I frantically pressed my arms against the bra. “Tock, Tock,” the padding popped out, cone-shaped again. I spent the evening “tock-tocking” my bra, desperately hoping no one, especially my boyfriend, noticed my affliction.

Three years later when I visited relatives in Florida, we went to the beach. I had carefully sewn my soft pink foam falsies into my bathing suit, having learned my lesson a year earlier when one escaped and floated to shore. The sun played hide-and-seek behind the racing clouds and the wind blew relentlessly.

Swimming in terribly rough seas with my male cousin and his friend, I eyed the stripes all over their torsos where jellyfish had stung them the day before. Nervous, I closely scrutinized the water about me constantly for the tell-tale pastel blobs carrying the noxious tentacles. The much bigger boys dragged their rafts out past the breakers and enjoyed thrilling rides to the beach on that stormy day. But I just couldn’t fight my way past the breakers. The boys even tried putting me on my raft and pulling me out, but the surf was too strong.

So, while they were far out, bobbing on the swells and awaiting their next ride, I paddled around by myself in waist-deep water. A huge wave knocked me over and rolled me along the sandy bottom, while the surf roared in my ears. I burst from the water like a blowing whale, coughing and blinking the burning salt water from my eyes.

There, between my upper arm and my breast floated a pastel blob! Too terrified to touch it, I screamed and splashed at the creature hysterically. Expecting the stinging tentacles to assault my legs at any moment, I whirled, crying and splashing, trying frantically to get away from that terrifying thing which stayed despite everything. Hysteria abated shortly and I realized it was not stinging me. After my tears had diluted the sea water in my eyes, I stood still, panting, and looked carefully at the blob . . . .

Yes, it was my falsie, tenaciously clinging where I had sewn it, but plopped out by my wrangle with the undertow. Mortified, I looked around hastily, plunged under the water, and deftly stuffed my stuffing back into place. No, neither my cousin nor his friend witnessed or I wouldn’t be alive now. Do you doubt embarrassment can be fatal? To a teen?

Later in my life, my husband told me of seeing a lovely girl stroll down to the water at a beach. As she waded into the surf, nylon stocking began floating from her bikini top. “What did she do?” I gasped, cringing empathetically.

“She stuffed it all back in and came out of the water,” he replied matter of factly.

I guess men just don’t understand. To be deficient is bad enough. To be caught bluffing is unendurable. Still, a woman’s gotta do what a woman’s gotta do.



THEY’RE OUT!

Then came Twiggy – a pretty, big-eyed face attached to a skeleton barely covered with skin. Even more flat-chested than I. And proud of it! Women burned their bras, and we moved into a very comfortable period. Sure, sure, politically there was world-wide upheaveal, wars, death, and destruction, etc. Who cared? We were braless! No sliding straps. No tight bands around our bodies. No digging, strangling foundations garments. With small, firm breasts, I was in style. I was happy with myself – adequate at last.

THEY’RE IN AGAIN

So finally women were “politically aware” and physically free. We learned to accept and respect ourselves for who and what we are.

But are we allowed to age and die happy? NO-O-O! Busts are back. Everywhere you look, mountainous cleavage, billowy breasts bulging from décolletage. An ad in a department store reads, “Increases your bust by a whole cup size!” Do you know what they are selling? Little satin-covered half-pads to put under your breast. A rolled up sock would work just as well! A friend complained, “You can hardly buy a bra without underwires or padding anymore.” Yes, even the plain bra, uncomfortable though it may be, has given way to torturous devices. Wires to squeeze and poke you, padding to swelter you in summer.


What next? Where did this all start? Perusal of the fashion pages blames it all on the rock star Madonna. Madonna of the outside underwear. The pointed breastwear that reminds one of the opera soprano wearing braids and armored breastplate. We’re back to the beginning, with the pinching, cutting, slipping “cheaters” that promise to make us feel adequate. Well, all I can say is, “Thanks a whole heap, Madonna!”

Going Batty at Cochran Mill Nature Center

Echo, a Big Brown Bat


At the Cochran Mill Nature Center, where I work on Saturdays, we have a newish exhibit -- bats. These bats are Egyptian Tomb Bats. You'd think these four girls would be vampire bats, since they are Tomb Bats, but they eat fruit. Grapes, bananas, melon, etc., they love their fruit. They might consume tiny insects on their fruit, but it's accidental. Other bats eat a wide variety of foods including insects, small mammals, small reptiles, lizards, frogs, birds, other bats, nectar/pollen, fruit, flowers, leaves, fish, blood, scorpions, and centipedes.

"Our Girls" Isis, Cleo, Pammie, and Phaedra


These bats are bigger than Georgia's bats, being about as long as my hand. Vicky Smith, bat lady extraordinaire, cares for these bats, as well as many that she keeps at her home. Some will never recover totally and Vicky keeps them, tenderly caring for them throughout their lives.

Little Juanita, a Mexican free-tail. She had to have her tail amputated after an infection and 3 fingers removed after she broke them. "See how cute the little pink end on her tail is. Unfortunately it has now healed back to the natural color," Vicky says. "She was so cute with her prissy little pink tail, it suited her personality." (Vicky is handling Juanita with bare hands because she has been vaccinated against rabies. She emphasizes that no one should handle a wild bat with bare hands!)


Sixteen different species of bats live in Georgia, according to Vicky. Most U.S. bats weigh less than an ounce (28 grams). The bats at the Nature Center weigh 110-140 grams. Sparky (see photo) weighs only 6 grams, full grown. Our largest Georgia bats weigh about 50 grams.

Mork, a Malayan Flying Fox. They are some of the largest bats in the world.


Since she handles wild bats, Vicky has to take rabies shots, similar to vaccinations that our pets receive. Our Georgia bats are rabies vectors, along with foxes, skunks, and raccoons. NEVER handle any of these wild animals. I was happy to learn that squirrels aren't much of a danger, since my toy poodle, Michelle, had a dust-up with a squirrel once. The squirrel won.


Keket, one of Vicky's original bats, unfortunately now deceased. The holes in her wings are where "punches" were made to test DNA. Usually they heal.


I clean the bat cage each week and enjoy interacting with Isis, Cleo(patra), Pammie, and Phaedra, who all hang by their feet in the front corner of their cage. When I must disturb their morning sleep, they migrate as a group across the top of the cage, fussing a little, and hang together until I'm through, then slowly move back into their favorite spot. You can tell it's their favorite by the streaks of . . . well, you know, running down the front glass. If I lean into the cage under them, sometimes somebody wets right into my hair! I swear it's on purpose. But they can be sweet, too, sniffing at my gloved hands and watching me closely as I polish the glass. They will move just far enough for me to wipe the glass behind them, never offering to bite or scratch. (I don't have to have rabies shots, since these bats are not at risk.)

Vicky gives a supplemental feeding of banana baby food to Phaedra, who was sick.



The bats have colored rings on their thumbs (which look like part of their wings) except for Phaedra, who has removed 2. Vicky identifies them by the rings. She calls them all by name, as she takes them from the cage and examines them. Pammie has the green band, Isis has the white/light purple band, and Cleo has the yellow/hotpink band.

Phaedra, Vicky says, used to sniff her hand loudly, like a little dog, and seemed to enjoy a belly rub. She wears leather gloves for handling the "girls" since they do sometimes bite or chew on her fingers. They have pretty little faces, sort of like Chihuahuas, and teeth that look similar, too.


These little fellows live with Vicky. Elvis, was injured in a bat house accident. Sparky was injured by fireworks. He is a Southwestern myotis.


One of them sometimes chews on my glove fingertip, moving slowly. I don't think she is scared or threatening me, just curious. They also peer out of the cage when I open the door and remove the mesh, but so far (thank goodness!) haven't tried to escape.

I hope you enjoy the bat facts that Vicky was kind enough to send me. I know that some people are creeped out by bats, but they eat millions of mosquitoes a year and I really enjoy them.

You can reach Vicky Smith at www.eeingeorgia.org (Please look under the organizational tab for A-Z Animals.) For a classroom demonstration with her bats at your school, her email address is batlady1964@yahoo.com
You can visit Cochran Mill Nature Center at http://www.cochranmillnaturecenter.org/index.html


Amazing Bat Trivia

*The world's smallest mammal is the bumblebee bat of Thailand, weighing less than a penny.

*Giant flying foxes that live in Indonesia have wingspans of nearly six feet.

*The common little brown bat of North America is the world's longest lived mammal for its size, with life-spans sometimes exceeding 32 years.

*Mexican free-tailed bats sometimes fly up to two miles high to feed or to catch tail-winds that carry them over long distances at speeds of more than 60 miles per hour.

*The pallid bat of western North America is immune to the stings of scorpions and even the seven-inch centipedes upon which it feeds.

*Fishing bats have echolocation so sophisticated that they can detect a minnow's fin as fine as a human hair, protruding only two millimeters above a pond's surface.

*African heart-nosed bats can hear the footsteps of a beetle walking on sand from a distance of more than six feet.

*Red bats that live in tree foliage throughout most of North America can withstand body temperatures as low as 23 degrees F. during winter hibernation.

*The Honduran white bat is snow white with a yellow nose and ears. It cuts large leaves to make "tents" that protect its small colonies from jungle rains.
*Disk-winged bats of Latin America have adhesive disks on both wings and feet that enable them to live in unfurling banana leaves (or even walk up a window pane!).

*Frog-eating bats identify edible from poisonous frogs by listening to the mating calls of male frogs. Frogs counter by hiding and using short, difficult to locate calls.

*Vampire bats adopt orphans and have been known to risk their lives to share food with less fortunate roost-mates.

*Male epauletted bats have pouches in their shoulders which contain large, showy patches of white fur that they flash during courtship to attract mates.
Important Bat Facts

Nearly 1,000 kinds of bats account for almost a quarter of all mammals.

Worldwide, bats are an important natural enemies of night-flying insects.
A single little brown bat can catch 600 mosquitoes-sized insects in just one hour.

A colony of 150 big brown bats can protect local farmers from up to 33 million or more rootworms each summer.

The 20 million Mexican free-tails from Bracken Cave, Texas eat approximately 200 tons of insects nightly. Mother Mexican free-tailed bats find and nurse their own young, even in huge colonies where many millions of babies cluster at up to 500 per square foot. They do this by smell and sounds.

Tropical bats are key elements in rain forest ecosystems which rely on them to pollinate flowers and disperse seeds for countless trees and shrubs. In the wild, important agricultural plants, such as bananas, breadfruit and mangoes, cashews, dates, and figs rely on bats for pollination and seed dispersal.

Desert ecosystems rely on nectar-feeding bats as primary pollinators of giant cacti, including the famous organ pipe and saguaro of Arizona.

Bat droppings in caves support whole ecosystems of unique organisms, including bacteria useful in detoxifying wastes, improving detergents, and producing gasohol and antibiotics.

An anticoagulant from vampire bat saliva may soon be used to treat human heart patients.

Contrary to popular misconception, bats are not blind, do not become entangled in human hair, and seldom transmit disease to other animals or humans. All mammals can contract rabies; however, even the less than a half of one percent of bats that do, normally bite only in self-defense and pose little threat to people who do not handle them.

Bats are exceptionally vulnerable to extinction, in part because they are the slowest reproducing mammals on earth for their size, most producing only one young annually. Loss of bats increases demand for chemical pesticides, which can jeopardize whole ecosystems of other animal and plant species.

HELPING BABY BIRDS AND ANIMALS

Most of us have been faced with this awful choice: What should we do when we find a baby bird on the ground?

Has it fallen out? Been pushed out by the wind? WHAT SHOULD I DO?





If the little bird has no feathers or only a few and appears unable to stand or hop, try to return it to its nest. The parents will likely continue to care for it. Look around the bushes and trees for its nest. If you can't find it, you can affix a small basket to a limb and put the baby in the basket. Leaves and pine straw might make comfortable lining. Try to put this makeshift nest where it receives some shelter from sun and rain. In all cases, please make sure the baby is warm. You can warm it in your hands. The parents might push a cold baby back out of the nest. Bird parents DO NOT abandon a baby that has been handled by a human.


If the baby is feathered and standing and hopping around, but unable to fly, leave it alone and try to keep pets and predators away from it. This baby is probably a fledgling and should be on the ground. Returning it to its nest will cause it to have to make another flightless landing and it could be injured. The parents are probably near by and caring for the baby as it learns to fly. An expert on a Georgia birders' chat line noted that song birds learn to fly from the ground up and not from the tree down. They may remain on the ground for a few days before they can fly on their own. I have seen a father cardinal feeding his son, even when the "baby" was as big as the father, and able to fly. If you take away the baby, it leaves the parents frantically searching for it and the baby is much less likely to live, even with good care.


PLEASE check your boats, RVs, campers, etc., looking under covers and tarps for hidden bird nests. We have had nests of baby birds brought to us from vacation spots where they were discovered after many miles of travel. Imagine the wind, rain, etc. these little ones endured (if they DID endure) and the bewildered parents back at home looking for their nests! It is difficult, at best, to get any of these little guys to survive such an ordeal.

Right now we are also seeing baby squirrels and bunnies. Please leave these babies for their parents to tend also; unless they are naked and helpless (eyes not open yet, etc.) DO keep your pets and other animals away from them, if possible. Moving them to a brushy area near where you found them might help. Even if they are very young, try to observe them for a while, maybe you will see a parent looking for them if you keep your distance and are quiet.
Does leave baby fawns alone for hours. They aren't abandoned. The fawns have almost no scent and stay where their mothers leave them until she comes back. This way they are safest from predators. Please observe from a distance and, again, try to keep other animals away. If you see the mother has been killed, however, or you need information for dealing with any orphaned wildlife, please visit this website: Atlanta Wild Animal Rescue Effort at www.awareone.org. If you live in other areas, please check under wild animal rescue, orphaned wildlife, etc. on the internet for help.

SOMEONE NEEDS A TRIM!

KADEN VISITS THE FIRE STATION

My grandson, Kaden, is almost three years old. He was invited to visit the fire station where Ben, my son-in-law, works.

For days, all Kaden could talk about was the fire station. He had his pre-school classmates, his fellow playmates at McDonald's, and every child he encountered thrilled and excited about his upcoming trip.

Even Julianna, Kaden's 1-year-old sister, was interested - vocal, if not verbal - in her enthusiasm about going to the station

Then came the big day!

We all drove to Ben's fire station. Kaden continued his spirited conversation about the upcoming treat.

"Kaden drive the fire truck, Mommy," he told Nicole repeatedly.

"Here we are!" Nicole cried as she and Daddy, Misha, unstrapped the tots.

"There's Ben!" she yelled, as Kaden pulled her across the parking lot towards the fire house. "Yea!"

"THERE'S THE FIRE TRUCK!" she continued. "Yea!"





Kaden arrived at full roar, stopping short at Ben's feet and looking up at Ben and the HUGE fire truck.

"Wahhhh!" he screamed, hiding his face in Nicole's knees. Instantly, Julianna joined in the chorus, "Wahhh!" She clung to Misha, tears rolling down her cheeks.

All the adults stopped their breathless advance as the smiles faded into bewildered faces.

"Kaden! It's all right!," his parents said repeatedly.

Calm, soft-spoken Ben offered a friendly hello. PawPaw and Grandy tried directing Kaden's attention to the shiny red fire truck.

"Wahh!" screamed Kaden and Julianna.



We walked into the big garage housing the fire engine and ambulance. Ben offered Kaden a plastic fireman's hat.

"No! Wahhh!" Kaden yelled, hiding his face again. "No Mommy, I scared!"

After a little struggle, Misha sat in the fire truck and Kaden let himself be handed up. Julianna simmered down, now that Kaden was quiet. We all relaxed and breathed a sigh of relief as Misha held Kaden in his lap and Kaden looked around the big truck. Then, as they started to climb down, Misha (bless his little pointed head) pressed the button that activated the siren.

"WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooo" bellowed from the truck.

"Wahhhh!" bellowed from Kaden. Julianna joined in.

Aren't kids fun?




The kids calmed down as I tried on Ben's equipment, which weighs TONS. Imagine wearing all that and carrying heavy hoses (or people!)


Eventually, Kaden and Julianna allowed themselves to be lifted into the truck, although Kaden admonished his dad, "Don't push the button. It's too loud. No do that."

FOOLISH FORSYTHIA

Most of us are ready, even eager for the first signs of spring after winter's barren landscape begin to pall.

It may be that this is especially true in the South, where we have very little snow to lend its eerie beauty to the colorless, seemingly lifeless land.

Because forsythia is one of the first plants to flower, I look hopefully each day for the tiny yellow bells, heralds of spring

Actually, these heralds tend to mislead us sometimes. Once it has endured a few cool days, foolish forsythia (as I call it) breaks forth at the slightest excuse.

It most commonly starts bursting onto the scene after near-balmy days in February here in Atlanta, but I have seen its bright sprays joyously blossoming as early as December.

This habit of optimistically springing into bloom endears the plant to me. Each warm day from December to March, forsythia tries again and again to proclaim "spring has come."

No matter how many times cold temperatures blight the flowering, forsythia never seems to suffer permanently, nor to become inhibited -- no matter how harsh the icy admonition.

When I see the forsythia bounding gracefully into the air like a fountain, or cascading over a wall like a golden waterfall, I am stricken, not only with it delicate, fairy-like beauty, but with its message.

Forsythia keeps offering its opinion that spring is near, that rebuffs don't really matter, and that it is worth the risk to put forth one's tender endeavors in an uncertain world.

WHAT I DID ON MY SPRING BREAK - THIRD POST

GROUNDS AT URQUHART

A DIFFERENT VIEW OF URQUHART CASTLE RUINS

URQUHART CASTLE RUIN ON LOCH NESS

A CRANNOG

HOLLY TRYING TO MAKE FIRE (AND NOT DOING TOO WELL)

HERMATIGE WATERFALL


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This is the last post of our Scotland trip. Please comment, if you like, and let me know what you thought.

We parked at the base of Craigphadrig Wood and CLIMBED UP THE HILL. Holly, bless her, sprinted gaily ahead of me. (I was beginning to hate Holly). The earthen, vitrified walls still exist, though rounded by passing ages and covered with grass. Vitrified walls, made by imbedding wood into the earthen bank and burning it, strengthened the defenses. Historians today cannot duplicate this technique completely.

Craigphadrig Rock was probably the best "ruin" for Holly's research. She lingered and walked all around the top or "rock" of Craigphadrig envisioning the fort's location and how supplies and food were transported. I enjoyed the sun, bird song, and peacefulness of the area, inhaling the strong scent of the tall pines swaying in the wind.

As we ascended to the Rock, we came upon a tree with bits of cloth and rags and even a police officer's uniform tie bound to its bare branches. We discovered this is a clootie or rag well, one of the few still actively venerated by locals seeking cures. The "rags," tied onto a tree as part of a healing ritual, struck us as strange in our modern age, but somehow belonged to the misty and mystical Craigphadrig Rock.

In Pitlochry we stayed in a Victorian house, nicely decorated, with stained glass doors and windows. Our host there, Paul, who has two daughters near Holly's age, let her borrow 2 books overnight that helped with her research. He also gave us directions and suggestions for our trip. All of the people we met were friendly and tried to help us. Scots are most hospitable when not behind the wheel.

On Saturday, we went to see Dunfallandy Stone -- an example of Pictish artwork. The family cemetery containing this stone sits on top of a hill, and this was the only time our Weather Angel failed us. We scrambled up to see Dunfallandy Stone in a chilling, blowing rain -- no pleasant "Scottish Mist" this time!

Our last touring day was busy. We visited a crannog --an artificial island with wooden palisades and buildings built in the loch on stilts. A high, peaked roof crowned the round wooden house. Our guide, Amanda, took us inside and we sat on skin-covered benches as she told us what is known and speculated about crannogs and their builders. These crannogs date from the Iron Age but were still in use in Scotland's Dark Ages.

Amanda told us the houses were built in the loch for defense reasons. In the Iron Age, an iron axe was a "treasure to be protected from thieves." Adolescent daughters were apparently routinely "stolen", so they and the livestock were kept in the crannogs overnight and when danger threatened, as well.

On a sad note, I must report that the "NeverLost" lost its mind at the airport, where we had to return it and the rental car. We raced frantically all around the Edinburgh airport, needing to turn in the car by 7:00 p.m. I suppose the proximity of the airport electronics confused our "lady" who calculated our route again and again without ever guiding us to the Hertz parking lot. We arrived (only after telephoning the return point for directions) within seconds of the closing time. And without a scratch on the car, I'm proud to say. All that steely-eyed, white-knuckled determination paid off.

It was a wonderful Spring Break and I greatly enjoyed being with Holly. Who knows whether we will ever get a chance to be together like this again?

As to the trip home, that is another long, sad story. Delta and British Airways apparently do not communicate with each other and between this and a delayed take off from Edinburgh; we missed our connection in London.

"Where are our tickets?" we asked the British Airways agent in Edinburgh.

"Oh, we cannot issue a ticket for your Delta flight from London," she replied airily. "You will not need a paper ticket. It's all done electronically. No problem."

Oh, really? Tell that to the security person who would not let us go from the 5th to the 4th terminal of Heathrow once we got to London.

"You need documentation," she explained sternly. "Don't you have a ticket or some sort of paperwork? Of course, you MUST have some documentation to go through Security."

Alas.

Well, after all, it was April Fools' Day. Enough to say that we arrived home a day late and MANY dollars short. But we did arrive and so did our luggage -- albeit a few days later.