Some Good Twin Stories

Now that I’ve talked about what I don’t like in the media when it comes to twins, let’s talk about what I do like.

I’ll start with a movie. Now normally, I don’t like remakes. For the most part, I can’t stand it when they change the story in anyway, but there are a few exceptions (all of those Disney remakes) where I prefer the newer version and one of those remakes has twins in it!

The wonderful remake in question is “Escape to Witch Mountain.”

In the original, Tony and Tia were siblings but not twins, in the remake — they’re twins, and that’s just the beginning of the changes done in the remake. But those changes work! It’s a fantastic story. As much as I like the original, I really love the remake. Nice job Disney. :)

Now for some good books about twins. :)

One story I’ve read that I liked was “Jacob Have I Loved” by Katherine Paterson. This is one story that doesn’t have any stupid changing places or evil twin/good twin junk and it does deal with something that can be an issue for twins.

I came across this book in high school and I really enjoyed it. Not that my twin ever stole love and attention from me, I’m not even the older twin, but there was that issue with wondering if I was the evil twin. Sometimes I did feel unloved and unwanted especially by my father, so this book spoke to me.

It resonated with me so well that even after all these years later I haven’t forgotten that book, which I’d checked out of the school library. So much so that I recently tried to see if, I could find it again. I wasn’t even sure that I remembered the title correctly, but I did!

Amazon has it in both paperback (used) and reader form. I finally own a copy! I can’t wait to read it again.

Katherine Paterson got it right, and I’d like to thank her for a job well done. :)

A second good book with twins in it is “The Harbor of His Arms” by Lynn Bulock. This  is a Love Inspired novel that I’ve read several times, not because of the well written twins in it but because it’s an engaging story, which is of a widow mother of twins who needs protection and gets it from an old friend of her husband’s and well, it is a romance, so they fall in love.

I guess I could copy the blurb from the back of the book to say more, but I’d prefer to talk about how well written her sons are. I would hazard a guess that Bulock knows such a set of twins because she got them so right! And cute. :)

I really love how the boys finish each other’s sentences, and even better, they had different personalities. It’s an excellent job inside a well-written and engaging romance. Nice job, Ms. Bulock. :)

Another good story with twins in it is “A One-of-a-kind Family” by Holly Jacobs. I was to the bottom of page 22 when these lines started:

“She showed Anna into the living room where there was a man who looked remarkably like Liam Franklin. More than remarkably like him — he looked exactly like Liam. They were twins.”

And I thought wow! The hero and his brother are identical twins, yet she gave them different personalities!

And yes, I knew that right away, because you see, Liam (the hero) hired Anna (the heroine) to help him with his brother Colm who was mentally a child. I have to admit it’s a sad reason they’re different, but still, Holly Jacobs did it! This Harlequin Super Romance is a very sweet story despite the sad backstory. Nice job, Ms. Jacobs. :)

A Thousand Words Times Two

Today I’m continuing my posts about funny conversations, though this one isn’t necessarily about being a twin it did come about because, well, I am a twin.

To set the stage, our father was a shutterbug, even a semi-pro photographer, so as a kid we got our picture taken, a lot. I can remember when we were seven or eight visiting Grandma’s house and there were numerous other people there, lots of Dad’s cousins. The whole mill included several sets of twins and someone suggested getting a picture.

Dad got out his camera and arranged us. The oldest two sets (including the only boy set) sitting on Grandma’s couch and the youngest two, which included my sister and me, kneeling in front. I can remember posing for the picture, and I can remember glancing over at my sister just as he snapped it. Because we didn’t live with Dad, I don’t remember seeing the picture until several years later.

Five or six years after that, our older sister’s boyfriend mentioned a friend of his was going to a birthday party he’d heard about and we could go with him. From what I understood, we’d be crashing it, but we’d be welcome. Wanting something to do that night, I went with my older sister. (All three of us girls may have went, I don’t remember.)

The hosts, birthday girls, yes twins, held the party in their front yard, but at some point I asked permission to enter the house to use the bathroom. As I was going back outside, I glanced over a display of family pictures in the hallways as I walked past them, then stopped short.

In the middle of the display was a picture of four sets of twins, the two oldest sets in the back and the other two sets kneeling in front.

I was still staring in shock when one of the birthday girls came looking for me. I asked her who was in it.

She said, “I remember we’re all cousins, well except the youngest set, their dad is our cousin. I think he took the picture.” She pointed to the oldest set of girls and named them, then said, “I don’t think I’ve seen the boys since. I don’t remember them, or our cousin’s girls, but Mom might.”

I pointed to me in the picture. “That’s me. Dad took it at Grandma’s place.”

Needless to say it was rather funny getting invited to a stranger’s party only to find out they were your dad’s cousins, first cousins no less, and they had a picture to prove you’d met before.

As an addendum, with the advent of Facebook I’ve come in contact with several extended family members who I really only know because I can trace our family ties. One such young lady on Facebook I friended knowing she was part of the family but unsure where she fell in our extensive tree. Then one day she posted a family picture and the mother in it was ever so familiar. I asked her if she was the mother of one of the three daughters in the picture. The young lady said she was one of the daughters. Yeah, I know exactly who her mother is, more or less. One of said twins whose birthday party we crashed all those years ago.

Pet Peeve #3

My third complaint is that it seems when the media does any story about twins they go with identical twins. There doesn’t seem to be as many stories on TV and in print about fraternal twins. I even once met a woman who was a fraternal twin who informed me that more than once growing up, someone had told her that her and her brother could not be twins because they weren’t identical.

She’s the only one that ever told me that, and I do know other fraternal twins, including relatives, so it isn’t a big problem, but it does exist. And when I first thought about writing on this topic, I was thinking I didn’t know of many stories with fraternal twins.

Until, of course I remembered Dick Francis. He has two such novels, both with the same main character, Kit Fielding. He has a fraternal twin sister and you can meet both of them in Break In published in 1985 and Bolt published in 1986. I’ve read these and I particularly like the relationship between Kit and his sister, wonderfully portrayed. Of course, I haven’t read a Dick Francis I didn’t like. (I also happen to like his son Felix Francis too.)

On top of this, Konnie informed me Tamora Pierce has a character named Alanna in a series of hers, and this Alanna has a twin brother. I also recently watched an interview with the actress playing the twin sister of the character accused of killing his wife in the movie Gone Girl.

From what they said on TV, Gone Girl is a book too, though I can’t say I’ve read either this book or anything by Tamora Pierce. Konnie tells me Pierce does seem to know twins, but, with apologies to my fantasy reading (and writing) twin, that’s not going to induce me to read the stuff. (Give me a break, I have read Chronicles of Narnia and her fantasy and I’ve seen a cartoon version of The Hobbit. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a lot.)

Except all of the aforementioned stories, excluding The Chronicles of Narnia, are of male/female fraternal twins, is anyone out there aware that fraternal twins can be of the same gender? Think about it folks, all the examples I’ve given are either of identical twins or of brother/sister sets, and I can’t think of any stories that have fraternal same gender sets. Can you?

I do know of one (ridiculous) movie, which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito as twin brothers, which is a good start, except they ruined it by the script calling for everyone talking about how alike they are and how they supposedly can’t tell them apart. The trailers turned me off. If you can’t tell the difference between DeVito and Schwarzenegger, you’re blind as a bat! Ergo, the movie was ridiculous.

Why do the people of the media find it necessary to pretend two completely different actors are identical twins? This is worse than having one actor playing both twins. Frankly, I can see the need for having one actor play identical twins, their only other choice is to find actual identical twins to play the parts, which I’m sure isn’t always possible, but when there are two actors playing the parts, let the characters be fraternal! Don’t pretend they’re identical.

Don’t you agree any other way, is just insulting our intelligence?

Who Are You

Over my lifetime I’ve had some memorable conversations having to do with being a twin. Some I’ve mentioned before, when people recognized me because they knew my twin. But I can think of two really funny conversations because I’m a twin.

During most of my high school years I lived near a small college but moved away before I graduated. After high school, I returned to that college and, as expected ran into friends I hadn’t seen for at least a couple of years.

One day I was walking across the quad and spotted a young man. I knew immediately who he was, well more or less. You see he was a twin too.

One of the Nielson boys my sister had befriended in eighth grade and we both liked him. The other, well, let’s just say he and I were oil and water.

I stopped to talk. “Hi. Long time no see.”

“Yeah. How have you been doing? Where’s your sister?”

“Fine. She’s back home. How’s your bother?”

Our conversation continued giving some detail as to what our respective sibling was up to without ever saying their name.

I personally was getting frustrated. I knew I’d have to tell Bonnie I’d seen one of the Nielson boys and she’d ask me which one but at this point our exchange had given me no clue. At no time did he mention his brother’s name, and I had hoped he would. Though in hindsight, I never once mentioned my sister’s name either.

I finally realized I couldn’t stand there talking much longer and made some indications I should be leaving. He agreed with me. I’m not even sure which one of us suggested giving greetings to our respective siblings first but I know we both did. But that still posed a problem. I still didn’t know which twin he was.

I finally decided I needed to ask and apparently he’d come to the same conclusion because we said in unison. “Now who are you?”

We literally heard gasps all around us. It was so funny I couldn’t help laughing even though I’d been talking to the Nielson boy I couldn’t stand. We exchanged a laugh and quickly parted ways while agreeing to convey our messages to our respective siblings.

Then not long after that I was walking towards home and found the path blocked by three people in conversation. One young man had his back to me but I could see the faces of the couple he was talking to. I knew both of them, again from eighth grade.

I peeked around the man I didn’t know, saying, “Hi.” Letting my presence be known.

My two acquaintances brightened at my appearance, hugging me and gushed with enthusiastic greetings, which, like the Nielson boy, included asking about my sister.

After several minutes of polite inquiry into what my sister and I were up to they both deemed they must be courteous and introduce me to their friend so the young lady asked, you guessed it. “Who are you?”

The completely stunned expression on the poor man’s face was priceless and of course his first response was, “Don’t you know her?”

I believe it was my male acquaintance who explained it. “But there’s two names for that face.”

Sometimes, it can be funny being a twin.

Pet Peeve #2

My second pet peeve about twins in the media is stories about twins switching places. The first one of this variety I can think of is, of course, Parent Trap, but that’s because I’ve seen that one. However, in browsing through bookstores or the library I’ve come across tons of stories about either one twin replacing the other or someone mistaking one twin for the other.

And I hate them not because there is no way I could ever fool Konnie’s family (even though I know I can’t) but because the one, and only, time we ever tried to switch places I was completely lost stepping into her classroom, even though she showed me around in advance.

I’ve read blurbs, and only blurbs because I refused to read the book, where the main character moves to wherever her twin had been living and takes over her life, including her twin’s significant other, without anyone figuring it out! We’re talking unplanned, she got dragged into pretending her sister wasn’t recently murdered in order to find the killer, and her sister’s love interest is one of the suspects.

Now come on people! Konnie and I once planned for weeks to switch places on April Fool’s day and I lasted at most five minutes before her teacher figured it out. I promise you, if a mere teacher can figure it out that fast, a love interest should be able to, especially if they were serious. Or at least I would hope such a person could, which brings me to the second scenario: someone mistaking one twin for the other.

Okay, folks, that does happen. It happens a lot, but I’ve seen blurbs (again not reading the book, because I hate the concept) where it’s some idiot sleeping with the wrong twin. Really?

When Konnie and I were in high school we took a class called Marriage and Family, and one day the teacher instructed the class to individually make a list of ten things we were looking for in a mate, and then rank them in order of importance. Near the end of class, the teacher started around the room asking each of us to share our top priority.

When she reached Konnie, Konnie turned to me and I faced the teacher and said that we couldn’t decide if religion or being able to tell us apart was the most important.

The teacher said, “Considering how religious you two are, I would think religion is paramount.”

My response?

“You’re not a twin.”

And that really said it all. Around that same time, our father had walked past the kitchen and entered the living room. When saw me watching TV, he demanded to know why I wasn’t in the kitchen doing the dishes, as, he insisted, it was my chore that week. Konnie came charging to my defense, drying her hands on a towel as she did, because she was doing the dishes, per her assignment.

That wasn’t the first time he made that mistake either. And don’t get me started on our youngest brother who insisted on calling us both by Konnie’s nickname. As for the oldest of our brothers, I honestly think he mixed us up just to irritate me, but I promise the mix-ups were annoying especially when our Stepmother could tell us apart easier than our mother could.

We had discussed the subject before and after that class. Thanks to the stepmother/mother situation, we knew telling us apart wasn’t a matter of being related, truly caring was all that mattered, ergo we wanted to find men who truly cared.

And I promise that is what we found.

I admit the first time my husband (okay, I’ll admit it, his name was Tom), ever saw Konnie, he said, “Hello, you must be Konnie, where’s Bonnie?”

And this was only days after our first date!

The first thing Konnie said that day, after he left, was, “Now he’s a keeper.”

Yeah, I kind of noticed that one already. J

When it came to Konnie getting married, well, I was in Norfolk, Virginia where Tom was stationed at the time, and Konnie was in Tacoma, Washington. We’re talking right around the time that Iraq invaded Kuwait and (okay let’s just get this over with) Jerry (yes our husbands’ names were Tom and Jerry) was also in the Navy, stationed at Bremerton.

Because of the situation he was told to get ready to ship out at a moment’s notice and they decided to hurry up and get married before that happened. I didn’t even have enough time to plan the trip, let alone find the money to pay for it. So the first time he saw me was sometime later, when their oldest daughter was an infant, and he arrived home from work to find me on their couch holding their daughter; he took one look at me and said, “Well hello there, nice to meet you, where’s my wife?”

So, I honestly think this is a case of where: “You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time,” comes into play. Not even identical twins can do it, and I think the people in the media should stop trying to tell us they can!

Identical

I spent most of my growing up years with my sister somewhere near me; to the point that everyone I knew was fully aware I had a twin. Then halfway through our junior year in high school we moved, to a new state and a large city with its huge high school.

Then one day it happened. A friend in PE commented I’d changed since that morning. After clarifying she meant what I was wearing before dressing down for PE wasn’t the same clothes I’d had on when she’d seen me before school started, I had her describe what I’d been wearing, which of course was what my sister was wearing that day.

The whole conversation was funny, and has brought me much enjoyment over the years, but her question on learning I was a twin was logical. She asked how to tell us apart.

Logical, but hard to answer. After all, we are identical.

Since then I’ve had dozens of occasions when people I knew learned I was a twin. Now I understand people asking me questions about my sister. I also understand saying you’re a twin doesn’t give anyone much information beyond the fact your mother had two kids in her womb at the same time and you were one of them.

So while I can understand the questions about my sister the usual gamut of them is perplexing me.

To illustrate my point is my most recent encounter with someone learning I’m a twin. Granted this is someone I’d just met. But in the course of our conversation sisters came up and I mentioned mine− well, at least the one.

I’ve had this conversation enough that I rarely just say, “I’m a twin,” because it doesn’t give any real information. I generally say, “I have an identical twin sister.” And if I don’t, I manage to slip that uniquely definable word into the conversation somewhere, mostly because it should answer a lot of questions.

You see one of the first questions I’m asked is what my sister looks like. My co-worker asked to see a picture of her.

I don’t carry hers around. I wouldn’t think it’s necessary.

The mere definition of the word identical should make it obvious that seeing one of us means you have a pretty good idea what the other one looks like.

As I mentioned in my last post, it has happened, and on more than one occasion, where someone I didn’t know called me by name simply because they knew my sister, and knew she was a twin and she couldn’t be where we were; and correctly assumed I was her double. Then there are all the times we were mistaken for each other.

So why do people ask what she looks like or ask to see her picture?

Seriously? What don’t you understand about identical?

 

Pet Peeve #1

What I really hate is stories about twins, not all of them, just most of them. The first kind of twin story I hate is the evil twin.

These stories bug me because, growing up, they were all over the place, not only in books but also in the movies and TV. They were so prolific it got to the point that I questioned if I was the evil twin. After all, it seemed to me like everyone thought for you to be twins one of you had to be evil and one good. And quiet, shy, peacekeeping Konnie was certainly not evil, whereas my temper is — well, quite honestly, horrible.

Then again, people labeled both of us goody-two-shoes.

I remember once watching an episode of Colombo where the killers were a set of twins. I was thinking it was an excellent episode until the end of the show where one twin — I can’t remember, she either killed or attempted to kill her sister. It started out so well and then it was still the evil twin story. UGH!

Listen up people. Twins, particularly identical twins, who are what the media is obsessed with, are more in common than they’re different.  

Look at us. How do we differ?

Let’s see:

In looks, well, yeah, we’re identical.

In personality — okay, clearly we are not quite the same. She’s shy, I’m not, and I do have a temper, but when it comes to things we like and dislike — well I’m not much into fantasy, which she is, and I’m more into sci-fi than she is, but we both read, and write, romance! We even prefer the same type of romance, either sweet or inspirational.

And when it comes to political views, we rarely disagree, and we have the same religious views.

The big differences really the fact that she has a husband and five kids and I’m childless widow and that certainly has nothing to do with our genes.

And yes, we are mirror twins. Please take to into account that she’s a soprano; I’m an alto. She’s, well, a natural lefty. Having grown up in an era where teachers insisted on teaching all children to use their right hand, she eventually figured out how to do it, so she’s ambidextrous. And I’m right-handed. In other words, I’m right dominate while she’s left dominate. We’re mirrors.

And I think I illustrated it quite well in my blog post of July 9^th, titled Choosing Twin-ness. And I’m telling you right now, that mirror exercise was dang hard once Mr. T paired us with other members of the group!

The thing is I have never met a set of twins where one was good and other bad, not one. And folks, twins, especially identical twins, run in my family. Yet to go with the media’s take on the issue, this is common. People, I don’t think it even exists. What you do think?

Illusions

Ever listen to a recording of your voice? Didn’t it sound odd to you? The reason is because you hear your own voice both internally and externally but can only hear the recording externally.

You know what I hear when I listen to a recording of my voice?

I hear my twin.

I have, in fact, listened to a recording of us having a conversation. I couldn’t tell you who spoke when, even though it was right after we chatted. My brother-in-law heard a similar recording and asked my sister why she’d been talking to herself. (I suspect he was teasing her.)

Now find some old family and school pictures. Can you pick yourself out in all of them?

I have pictures I know I’m in but I could never tell you which one is me. I have others of just one girl where I’m not at all sure if it’s me or not. Then there are others where I can tell you if I’m in the picture and which one I am, but that’s because I remember the day or the shot or the clothes, or some combination thereof.

I’m sure there are people in this world who don’t fuss with checking their appearance very often, but how many do you know who would just as soon not even glance in the mirror?

Most bathroom sinks have one prominently above the sink and I rarely even glance, pretty much for the same reason I don’t like listening to recording of my voice. I see my twin.

Okay, I know her grey is all in one streak down the back of her hair while mine is most visible when it’s pulled up in a ponytail because it’s scattered mostly in the bottom layer. I know our hair is distinct lengths. I also think our glasses are different. I also know she doesn’t have the same freckles I do and I don’t have the scar she does.

We still have the same forehead, eyes, nose, mouth, ears, well, everything.

I see and hear her which is disconcerting.

So I avoid mirrors and listening to recording of me.

So next time you want to ask a twin the age old question: What’s it like to be a twin? Think about this first.

How would you feel if every time you looked in a mirror or heard a recording of you, you didn’t hear or see you, but that person who looks and sounds like you?

How would you feel if a total stranger could recognize you?

Oh, you don’t think it could happen?

Once I went to the mall in Tacoma, Washington with Mom. While there I spotted an older lady pushing her double in a wheelchair.

As the shy one, I looked, and commented to Mom, but didn’t approach them.

The lady pushing came up to us and asked if I was me, by name!

Turns out she knew my sister and figured I had to be her twin since my sister was in Idaho. I do have other similar stories.

Think about it.

Caller ID and Ring Tones

Sometimes I think people reading this wonder what our blog has to do with being twins. After all, we’re not reporting yet another incidence where someone mistook one of us for the other one. Since we live so far apart now, the last time that happened was at my husband’s funeral. As it stands right now, the next time will be over Christmas.

The fact that Konnie has to deal with teenagers and young adult children while I live alone really has nothing do with us being twins, but it does have to do with who we are, but as we live so far apart, we don’t experience our twin-ness — well, in any momentous way.

I’m sure none of you would think anything of Konnie answering my call without saying hello, but starting out with saying something that clearly shows she knew it was me. With caller ID and special ring tones, that isn’t hard to do. I’m sure lots of people do it these days, but how would you react if I told you we could do that before we had caller ID or cell phones?

And what would you say if I told you we usually know when the other one is trying to get ahold of us. A case in point is an incidence that occurred some years ago.

A pipe that buried in my backyard burst, and when my landlord went to dig it up, he knocked down the phone pole, in short, no phone, no internet, and no outside communications.

Anyone could suffer that fate, but only a twin could suffer what I did for the four days I was without a phone. You see, I knew she was trying to contact me. I was as certain of it as I am that sun rises every morning.

I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was at least calling our relatives who lived closest to me, to see if they had talked to me lately. She actually called every family member who lived within a two hours’ drive of my place, trying to find someone to stop by and check on me.

Why she called my brother I don’t know, two hours is long drive, especially when I have several family members within a half hours drive of me, but she did. My brother was on the verge of calling the local sheriff to have him check on me.

And when I saw the nearest uncle at church that Sunday, he informed me Konnie was trying to get in touch with me. I sighed and said, “Tell me something I don’t know.”

And my phone rang within minutes of getting the line fixed. You can guess who it was. Even my husband knew that time! But after she called so did our brother and several other family members all checking on me because Konnie had panicked over not being able to get in touch with me.

There’s even a few times when I was busy and I knew she was about to call. The phone would ring within seconds and I say, “Tell her I’m busy and I’ll call her back.”

The first time I did that, my husband looked me as if I was weird as he answered the phone. Once he told me it was Konnie, I said, “I know. I’m busy. I’ll call her back.”

“Wait a minute. You knew it was her before I answered the phone.”

“Yes dear, I did.”

Twenty-eight years of marriage and that drove him nuts, especially since I only knew in advance who was calling when it was Konnie. Any other time the phone ringing took me off guard.

And that’s just one aspect of being a twin!

The Zombies are here

Not too long ago my two youngest daughters were complaining about their brothers and pointed out several things.

When my girls were young they played house, they ran and played outside. They made up games and entertained themselves for hours. While I’ll admit they got into a lot of trouble and scraps, they also learned a few things. Like closet shelves aren’t meant to hold that much weight. They also understood compromise.

Playing house none of them wanted to be the daddy. (They are girls after all.) And none wanted to be the baby. (I think it’s rather telling that my oldest always wanted to be a teenager, my middle daughter was always the mom and my youngest was either a dog or a cat.) So they had to negotiate, either house meant no daddy or baby or they took turns with the dreaded parts. Then my oldest son came along. While he couldn’t walk, they had a real baby to play with, as long as mom was nearby. When he could walk, he was elevated to the part of ‘daddy’, though he can’t remember any of it.

By the time my older boy was three, my girls had out grown playing house. They still spent time outside, but the imagining together stopped, gradually replaced by emersion in good books, emulating me.

I got my first computer when my youngest daughter was a baby, but I bought my first internet capable one when I was pregnant with my oldest son so my boys have never lived in a house without internet access.

Needless to say, they’re wired. Even my older son, who can and does read for pleasure and can write fiction, spends way too much time plugged in. Even time with friends includes computers.

I recently read a “The Kill Zone” blog post by James Scott Bell, in which he quoted Ray Bradbury. The article compared the horrors Bradbury saw as the decline of civilization, the mindless pumping of stimulation, music, into one’s mind without having to think or interact with anyone. Bell wondered what Bradbury would think of our world today, populated by people mindlessly on their tech and not interacting with anyone around them. I’ve also seen pictures tagged “The zombie apocalypse is here”, and it showed a group of people walking down the street while fully engrossed in their screens.

A decade ago when I had to go anywhere and sit and wait for an appointment I might see a few people reading a magazine or the rare book, but that didn’t deter conversations. Occasionally someone would have a phone and they might be in constant banter with someone who wasn’t there, but that was about it.

Nowadays when I have to wait somewhere it’s possible to have a whole waiting room full of people, even kids, so engrossed in their screens they don’t even realize what’s going on around them. Someone actually reading a book is rare and that includes the fact my daughters generally have a book with them. I’ve heard of people texting each other when they’re sitting side by side, or sitting in a restaurant texting other people instead of talking to their dinner companions.

We’re being overrun. In my house we have six laptops, three smartphones and one tablet for just six people. (I’ll admit I own the most, a laptop, a smartphone and the tablet.)

That’s the true apocalypse. Let’s put down the screens and engage, communicate, interact! Now! Stop the zombie take over!

Technology without teens

When Konnie wrote her blog about how attached to their gadgets people are, I couldn’t see the problem. When I drive around town, I don’t see lot of people walking around with their face glued to their screen. Okay, I don’t see a lot of people walking period, and only once did I see someone walking along talking on their phone.

It’s not as if I haven’t seen people answer their phone while shopping, I have. I’ve even done it, but I don’t see people so intent on their devices that they don’t see or interact with the people around them. This problem doesn’t seem to have hit around here.

Nowadays, I usually eat alone, even when I eat out. And the last time I did so, I saw three generations of a family enjoying each other’s company and a man sitting alone reading the paper, which seems to about normal from my experience.

I don’t even answer my phone when I’m driving. I do know people do. I have a friend who did that once when I was her passenger and she cut the call short when she noticed how panicked I was. Sorry, but I know that’s dangerous. It scares me.

Konnie talked about people not interacting with other humans, just focusing on their devises, she talked about people doing that sitting in waiting rooms. Well, okay, sometimes I do take my reader out, but other people are reading the magazines made available there. Other times, I strike up a conversation, if the person next to me isn’t reading something. And I do admit, I spend most of my days on my computer, but I am alone now, besides part of the time includes chatting in IM with Konnie or her daughters, or some other friend. Sometimes I even chat with several people at once in IM, but I am interacting with others!

Maybe I don’t see the problem because I don’t interact with that many young people (other than Konnie’s kids). I have friends who don’t have computers, let alone cell phones or readers. When I go out to lunch with my friends, we chat over the meal. When I go to visit my friends, we visit. I can only think of one person in all my recent visits who even had a computer, and she did leave it on, but she also turned her back to it to chat with me.

I do have friends with cell phones, but they don’t sit around sending messages instead of visiting. I’ve actually never seen any of them send a text message, not even those with one of those smart phones. Selfies? I barely even know what the word means, never witnessed it.

I do know there is a problem in some areas. Once our local news had deal about students at a university further east of here having problems with drivers hitting students who weren’t paying attention to where they were going because they had their faces glued to their screen. But they only mentioned it happening at university across the state, not at the one here in town, and honestly the last time I drove past there, I did see students walking, but none of them had their faces glued to their screens, not one.

And my hometown is bigger than the town where they have had a problem, so it can’t be size of the town. But maybe, just maybe there is hope for our future. At least the young people here aren’t glued to their screen.

On Lying

I’ve heard many people adhere to the principle of not lying to  their children and use this as the basis, as did the mother in “A Miracle on 34^th Street” to not ‘lie’ about such things as Santa Claus and the Easter bunny.

I personally don’t lie to my kids. Don’t get me wrong. I have perpetuated the stories of all the magical characters that inhabit childhood and bring fun and pleasure to kids. I figure I exist, and as a mother I wear many hats. A few jobs designed to surprise, delight and maybe even mystify my kids is all the more fun for me. And my stature made it really easy for them to accept that I’m an elf.

Now to my point.

My youngest son is greatly opposed to the consumption of vegetables, more so than any of his other siblings. Doctors have told me his health issues would be alleviated if he would eat more vegetables. Meaning I’ve had to discover ways to get him to eat them, which hasn’t been easy.

One of our family’s favorite meals is tacos. Part of the reason we like it is because we can fix our taco how we like them. My son doesn’t eat tacos. You know the vegetable thing. He eats bean and cheese burritos. For some time now I’ve been making him eat some of the lettuce, just a few bites, with each burrito. But recently, something I heard years ago and our own fresh crop of them got me to try something else to get more vegetables in him. Zucchini.

He didn’t comment when I added it to the stroganoff or the first time I grated some and mixed it in with the refried beans. But the other night as we were eating supper he insisted someone put lettuce in the beans. I honestly told him, several times, “I did not put any lettuce in the beans.”

I didn’t lie. Zucchini is not lettuce.

I haven’t even tried it in cake, brownies or cookies yet. Though the very thought we might be hiding vegetables in the foods he does like has him promising he’s going to prepare all the food on his birthday so we can’t ruin any of it.

Well the boy does need to learn how to cook.

Now my sister tells me I lie by omission. I didn’t tell my kids I was all those magical characters, and I haven’t told my son (neither of them actually) what I did put in those beans. It’s not like I never told them, or that I never will.

Just as my kids all discovered the secret of Santa Claus, eventually they will know how to gets kids to eat their vegetables. I don’t see withholding information until they are capable of understanding all the reasons for it as lying.

What do you think?

Opposites Attract

In this month’s Reader’s Digest there is an article titled “He spoke my language,” by Jesse Ren Marshall about how she, a writer, fell in love with and married a grammatically challenged guy, and it got me thinking about a certain writer who married a dyslexic malaprop.

I should have realized there was a problem early in our courtship when he didn’t know the meaning of the word sibling. Honestly, I can see someone not knowing it if they have only sisters or only brothers, but he had both! Why didn’t he know the word?

But even then, I didn’t question dating him.

Then I left for college and at one point, he sent me a nice “missing you” card, but don’t ask me what he wrote. His handwriting looked more like scribbles. Talk about illegible. During our next phone conversation I even told him it was illegible, to which he asked me what I meant.

And I found myself yet again defining a word for him. It became quite a regular occurrence to the point that when one day he used a word I’d never heard before. (My excuse is husband spent a lot of his growing up years in the great outdoors, and I was very much a city girl.) The word he used was rutting. And if you don’t know it, I’m going to assume you’ve never been out in the woods in the fall.

But I soon found his lack of vocabulary extended to the point of making up words. I mean he was a malaprop, occasionally using the wrong word, but he more frequently made up words. (Where he was concerned, translate dough not as don’t and provoding as provoking.)

On top of that he tended to start a sentence talking about one person, but by the end of the sentence, he was talking about someone totally different (often saying the opposite of what he started saying) making following a conversation with him difficult at times.

And, as he was also dyslexic, once we were married, I took on balancing our checkbook and doing all our correspondence. Over the years, I updated his resume, filled out applications, and wrote all our letters, only allowing him to sign when needed.

And I learned not to try and correct him. There was no use changing him, after all, he was a fantastic man.

I guess it’s just one more case of opposites attract.

Judging Covers

Appearances can be deceiving, or never judge a book by its cover.

Recently Darlena Cunha (who writes for “The Huffington Post” and Thought Catalog) wrote about her experience driving to pick up her WIC vouchers in her husband’s Mercedes. The article itself is about how she felt doing it and considering the judgmental backlash she received, I can understand her consternation.

In finding this article, I also found an “Onion” article about an all knowing woman named Carol Gaither. The tongue in cheek piece details all the situations in which she knows those around her are making errors in judgment, most specifically her assessment of how people spend food stamps, including describing buying TV dinners instead of the stuff to make dinner from scratch.

I also saw a Facebook post about a campaign in Florida to put a different face on homelessness by having homeless people hold up cardboard signs saying something about themselves. They included college graduates, computer geeks, those fleeing abuse and the gainfully employed. All had a story how they ended up there, but not one you could see looking at them.

So now my opinion. You can’t judge a book by its cover and appearances can be deceiving.

Darlena admitted she’d used her husband’s car because her Honda wouldn’t start.  So next time you see someone at WIC or the welfare office driving a fancy or nice car, think it may be possible they’re borrowing a friend or family member’s automobile, the reason doesn’t matter.  And don’t judge Darlena’s husband for keeping the fancy auto. Consider how much more you’d spend each month with a car payment and the additional insurance required when you don’t fully own it. Personally, having a car costs me more each month than keeping a roof over my head, because I have a car payment.

I smiled at the “Onion” article. I’ve bought the pop, chips and TV dinners with food stamps. I’m no longer eligible for welfare, though I don’t buy such things anymore often. Not nearly enough to please my kids anyway. For all you people out there judging what others choose to spend their money, or food stamps on, try eating home cooked meals every single day, with little variety because you can’t afford much. Everybody needs a treat once in a while and Banquet TV dinners are less than a dollar each, plus each of my kids can have something they want without the daily argument over what’s for dinner. True, I’ve known people who bought all the highly processed, pre-prepared foods they could and then complained about not having enough to get through the month, nevertheless it doesn’t mean everyone who happens to buy those types of foods always purchases them.

And homeless?

I ended up between homes and in a shelter once. A situation beyond my control because we’d moved from one state to be closer to family and had difficulty locating housing. It didn’t last long, however you never know how or why someone ends up there.

So what you see in one brief encounter doesn’t give you the whole story. Seeing a homeless person on the corner doesn’t tell you anything more about them than they have no home. Noticing someone buying candy, pop or TV dinners with food stamps may tell you they don’t know how to budget, or maybe they can’t cook, or it might mean they’re tired or fed up and just need a treat or something fast and easy for dinner. That woman arriving to her WIC or welfare appointment in an expensive car may have borrowed it because she didn’t have one, or hers broke down. Or maybe, just maybe, she paid for it in full before her finances took a nosedive. Since you can’t judge a book by its cover, you don’t know the story and appearances can be deceiving.

Dumb Question

Some time ago, I forget how long, in an issue of the Reader’s Digest there’s a comment about stupid questions. The guy is asking if there is no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask.

My first response was to repeat a quote from my high school trigonometry teacher, who said, “There are no stupid questions . . .”

Then I remembered an event during my junior high years.

My family had just moved to a house out in the country and it was our first day on the bus. My twin sister and I were sitting together when a high school boy sat on the seat in front of us, faced us, and said, “You two look a lot alike. Are you related?”

“We’re twins,” I said. Duh! We’re identical.

“Oh, really! Wow!” he said then looked me in the eye. “What’s your name?”

I gave both my sister’s name and mine, knowing she’d be uncomfortable answering, since everyone on the bus was paying attention by now, even the driver. The high school boy thought that over a second then, still addressing me, asked, “Where you born?”

I answered.

He then turned to Konnie and asked her the same question. She answered then he turned back to me and asking, “When’s your birthday?” while snickering started around us.

I answered again.

He again turned Konnie repeating his question. The snickers turned into giggling. Once she answered, he turned to me and asked, “How old are you?”

I answered yet again.

Then he again turned to my sister, opened his mouth, and asked, “And how old are you?”

I think he was glad the bus driver had pulled up to his stop at that point, because everyone broke out in loud guffaws. And I doubt he’s ever lived it down, since his sister was still laughing as she walked into their house.

I’d try to make him feel better by saying he’s not the only one, but I’m afraid, people are more apt to make the same stupid wisecrack about there being two of ME, than they are to launch into a ridiculously stupid duplicate third degree.

That isn’t too say I haven’t received other queries about my twin-ness, I’m just saying no one else has been so stupid as to query both us about our shared stats.

The most frequently asked question has always been, “What’s it like to be a twin?”

Unfortunately, they never like my answer, but that’s another topic. J

Anyway, maybe there’s only one person stupid enough to voice a stupid question, and I was present to witness his downfall. J

Or do you know of any others?

Being Unique

Lately I feel like a broken record. “No two people are exactly alike.”

It’s an old saying. I’ve heard it since grade school, at least, which was a number of years ago. I know it’s true, from personal experience.

As our one time blind high school counselor pointed out, my sister and I walk and talk alike. Anyone looking at us can see we look the same. A fact I’m reminded of whenever I glance in a mirror. Physically, in more ways than not, we are identical.

Yet we’re not.

I’m not talking about the length of our hair, which has switched several times over the years, or the style of our clothes and glasses. I’m not even talking about our family situations, which are clearly polar opposites right now. I’m talking about who we are.

My clearly and completely right handed sister has little or no sense of humor and a hot temper. She always did well in English, however struggled with Math and don’t ask her about Biology (she never got mitosis and meiosis). She also aspired to be a lawyer. I think she’s persuasive enough she could have too.

I’m her mirror, therefore, I’m a lefty although raised in righty world I’m now ambidextrous. (Hence the mirror exercise she mentioned where our fingers touched, her right, and my left.) I always managed English and did fine in Math. I found Biology fairly easy. (Mitosis and meiosis, yeah I got it the first time.) Lawyer? Are you kidding? It requires talking, to lots of people. Never happening. I also have a sense of humor. As for the temper, well I have one. Considering how infrequently I explode, when I do, watch out!

We do both write, however even in that we’re different, our word choices, sentence lengths, and structure, all distinct. We both write romance with some similarities, yet she doesn’t do fantasy or sci-fi (unless you count the one story, but it’s more romance). She does poems, something I’ve never really mastered. Her writing’s been published before.

Some of our leisure time activities might be the same, or at least similar, though others are not.

Her late husband did Rendezvous reenacting, and she joined him, including hand beading his hat band for him. She made period clothes for them too. You’d never catch me camping, let alone doing so like the early frontiersmen, and trappers did in the American West. Considering her issues with math, I don’t think you’d find her doing Sudoku, something I enjoy.

Another old saying is “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”

With people this is especially true.

They may look, talk, and walk alike, but under all of it, they’re not the same person. Every individual is unique and deserves to be recognized and accepted for their individuality. And perhaps that’s why I sound like a broken record, because I can remember being Jacki’s little sister’s twin.

Stand up. Be counted. Be unique. Be yourself. Because everybody’s different and this world would be a boring place if we weren’t.

Choosing Twin-ness

You can choose your friends, your outfit for school and what you're going to have for lunch -- but you can't choose "twin life," as this witty (and collaborative) yearbook quote points out.

Posted by Reddit user Some_Random_Guy_, the following senior quote printed in a yearbook was so good that it was meant to be shared -- by twins, that is.

And here is a twin quoting it!

You don’t choose being a twin, that decision was made at some point inside your mother’s womb when her body released two ova or for some reason the zygote slit in two. Either way, it wasn’t your choice to share the womb with another human being.

It is, however, your choice about how you choose to live that life — whether you ignore that or celebrate it.

Of course, I have no idea how fraternal twins feel, because I am not fraternal, quite the contrary.

To illustrate just how alike Konnie and I are, let me tell you about something that happened to us way back in high school.

One day, after school, we attended a drama club meeting, and the advisor (a fellow we called Mr. T at his request because his last name was hard to pronounce) instructed us on how to preform what he termed the mirror exercise, in which two people faced each other and one lead while the other followed. The object was to become so in tune with your partner that it appeared as though you were moving at the same time.

Then Mr. T had us pick partners. It wouldn’t be hard to guess whom I picked, considering we were new at the school. Anyway, we set to work doing as he instructed along with everyone else present, however, after a few minutes someone in the crowd noticed how well Konnie and I were doing, and everyone stopped to watch us.

Seconds later someone noted that if an empty frame were hanging between us, it would look like there was only one person there, just looking in a mirror, which got the whole group talking about just how identical we were — our attire, hairstyles, and glasses being the only differences.

That’s when Mr. T chose to ask which one of us was leading. Each of us pointed to whom we thought was the leader and our fingers touched!

The differences they saw in us then are the only differences you’ll see in us today, though you have to add in now our different family situations.

I’m clearly not Konnie, because I don’t have a home in Vegas with a husband and five kids (four of which still live at home), and she’s clearly not me — a childless widow residing back in our hometown.

Living so far apart now, the last time anyone got us confused was at my husband’s funeral and some of my husband’s friends, who hadn’t seen me in a couple years and didn’t know I was at the time dragging around an oxygen tank everywhere I went, let alone that I’m a twin. That is until Konnie told them she wasn’t me.

Our various family members were the only people there not surprised about how much we looked alike; all my husband’s friends were doing a lot of double takes.

But we didn’t choose to be mirror twins; that’s just part of our genetic makeup. We do choose to be writers, we do choose to help each other with that, but everything that happens to us because of our twin-ness, we don’t choose, it’s just something we have to deal with just as we deal with our nearsightedness and our shortness. It’s just life.