Hi!
I am this weeks special guest.
I don’t know how long my wife, Duck Duck Goose, has been hanging around here, but when she first started, she didn’t really want me to join in. (What an awful sentence! Why can’t I write properly?)
She has urged me to try the place out recently, and I decided to post this to let her and you know I was here. (I listen to her sit and grouse at the stupid server taking all day to load threads. Maybe she wants me here now in order to torture me.)
I could have just lurked around until I knew all about you and the place, but, patient, prudent, and cautious is not my style. I don’t need to wait until I have all my ducks in a row before taking a shot at life. Or maybe I do. I am not the introspective sort.
Now to something you must know about me and DDG. When my oldest daughter was making a big decision she once said to us that it was not helpful to ask her parents advice. Her mother was too negative and I was too positive. Her boyfriend (who started his relationship with our daughter by being placed on DDG’s death squad list) once asked me how two such different people married. I told him that “If you discount the one big difference, we aren’t so different–DDG is after all an Earthling.”
The point is; DDG and I are opposites in almost avery way.
So, here is a pet theory of mine that expresses something of our differences; I believe intelligence is found in 6 areas; who, what, where, when, why and how. You may have noticed that DDG rocks the world in matters of trivia. She knows the who, what, where, and when of everything in the universe. She is no slouch in the intellectual pursuit of why and how, but these do not drive her or show her true capabilities. She is a “just the facts, Mam” sort, through and through.
Guess which areas of intelligence Boxer excels in? My keenest interests is always the how and why. Like DDG is competent in the how and why arena I am not a dolt in these who, what, where, when categories, but I come no where near her extraordinary level of knowledge in trivia.
Here is the most stunning thing that thrills me about this. Our three children seem to have, each and every one of them, gotten all four of DDG’s strengths and both of mine. They are each brighter than the other; as intelligent as intelligent gets.
DDG dreads the thought of getting up to give a speech. It is my fondest dream. Our children did not get the best of this one. They tend to the shy side, though none is as socially retiring as DDG her own self. They can handle themselves socially quite well enough, but they can’t enjoy social settings as their Dad can. The oldest, for example, had a tough go of one situation in Kindergarten. Since she was so bright and she had a little of her Dad’s public attention seeking bent, the teacher thought she would make a good lead for the class play. Since she also had half of her Mother’s genes, her flight instincts were in overdrive. Between one impulse and the other she wound up just wandering around the stage in rehearsals, staring into space, or acting like she was peeing (with sound effects!). She has always been somewhat absorbed at times. Not out of touch with reality, just very deeply aware of and focused on her own inner thoughts. There you have the worst of this mixed and mixed up set of genes.
DDG is from a very educated family. (Here is an argument we have “enjoyed” over the years: I think that she is likely the only person our age in the US with all for grandparents who attended graduate school. She hates it when I talk about this because it can never be proven and besides it makes her special and she only wants to fade into the wall.) My generation produced the first college attendees in my family line. All four of DDG’s grandparents were in full time Christian work for parts their adult lives. My family members were the county drunks. She types. I mistype. She has had hobby after hobby and they all end when the moment they get to the point of practical results. I have only had a couple or three hobbies and they start out so practical, and end up as completely pointless time wasting.
I could go on and on. Say, reading the length of some of DDGs posts I think maybe we do have one thing in common.
Later.
