OK, so my post about the woman with the lovely accent lost a little steam over the past few days, and now I don't really remember the conversation. That's what I get for postponing the ending, but I had to go, people, I had a meeting! It was something about phobias...something about someone who was so scared of something that was in someone’s backpack, that they must have an acutal phobia. There was more detail...but it's gone now. If you are interested in phobias, check out the book 'The Pop-up Book of Phobias." According to Amazon…"Brought to life by outrageously macabre artwork and startlingly innovative pop-ups, The Pop-up Book of Phobias is an engineering marvel and cult classic in the making--an offbeat…treasure..." I saw the book when my other half and I (I really need to think of something else to call him...other half is so banal...maybe I will call him king…he would like that…he likes to think he is king of the castle…or how about RickyBobby…yeah that’s better…hehe) So RickyBobby and I were looking at houses with his brother, and this one house, which was actually the house he ended up buying, was so very very cool. It had the coolest furnishings- lots of antique-looking furniture…only not the fragile stuffy kind that you are afraid to touch, but good sturdy furniture that looked like it had enjoyed a nice long life in family after family and had the dings to prove it. The walls were adorned with 8x10 black and white photos of two adorable little girls in various candid moments –on a swing at the playground, at the beach, in a field. The kitchen had managed to attain the look of casual beachside cool which can be hard here. And books! All kinds of books! There were books everywhere. But the one that I could not resist opening, even after repeated requests from RickyBobby that I stop being so nosy, was the Pop-up Book of Phobias. The outside of the book looked well worn and old. I thought it was an old, old book about phobias and expected it to contain antiquated ways to confront your phobias. I must have glazed over the pop-up portion of the title, so you can imagine my surprise when I opened the book and a phobia literally jumped out of the book headed straight for my face. I can’t remember which phobia- it might have been fear of heights-but I decided then that this was a book I had to get. (Which I have not done yet…but it’s on my mental calendar, and I will get it someday.) Do you have phobias? I have a laundry list of made-up phobias (so don’t be offended if you have a real phobia, I know mine are bogus)…cast iron, (stuck my finger to a hot cast-iron skillet as a child), tornados, driving in the rain, drowning, flying in things that do not have jets (you will not catch me in a prop plane or a helicopter unless it’s some sort of emergency or I’m unconscious), partially hydrogenated oil, haha, this giant teddy bear that my mom has had since a teenager(Don’t get that one at all. My dad won it at the fair for my mom when they were dating. It’s black and white and about 3 feet tall. Growing up, it was always on the top shelf of my closet, and I was always aware that I was avoided it, but I never really knew I was so scared of it until my mom and I were cleaning out my closet when I was around18. She asked me to get it down from the shelf and I refused to touch it. You can imagine that she was very amused by this. She didn’t understand that I really really did not want to touch the bear. She threw it towards me, expecting me to catch it. And I did what? Screamed and ran! Oh my goodness it gives me the creeps! Even now, thinking about it I can hear the way it makes this crinkly sound when you touch it, like it’s stuffed full of tissue paper. And I just realized that I was squinching up my whole face like I just caught a sniff of bad eggs or something. Oh, that bear…) So, what scares you, Constant Readers? The length of my blog entries, perhaps? :)