Mardi Gras Hodgepodge

This week's questions, from This Side of the Pond (see link at left) have a Mardi Gras theme!

1. The season of Lent begins on March 9th this year...do you participate and if so, in what way?

I don't give up anything for Lent.

2. Traditionally pancakes are eaten on the day known as Shrove Tuesday which is the last day before Lent (March 8th this year). So....butter and syrup? Blueberry? Chocolate chip? ewww, no thanks!! What's your pleasure when it comes to eating pancakes?

I like thinner pancakes. If they are too thick, they taste only of flour to me. So, I'd go for a crepe, and there are so many ways to enjoy a crepe, I couldn't begin to choose! Probably some kind of fruit....

3. Spring is coming. (It is coming, right?) What's your favorite springtime flower and do you suffer from seasonal allergies? Two questions I know, but they're lightweights.

Spring is here, in London! My favorite springtime flower is the hyacinth. I just love the scent. I feel pure happiness when I catch a whiff of hyacinth.  

I think I am allergic to the blooming of certain trees.

4. "Our opinion of people depends less upon what we see in them than upon what they make us see in ourselves." Author unknown. Agree or Disagree? Why?
I both agree and disagree. I agree because often something I don't like or disagree with about another person has its counterpart in my own weakness/fault/character flaw. Of course, it is easier to see it in someone else, and not own up to in myself. So, when someone bugs me, I ask myself what it is in me that is triggering this feeling.
On the other hand, I disagree, in the case where I admire and/or look up to another person. They may have a trait, or behave in some way, that I aspire to have, or do. In that case, what I see in them is more important to me than what they make me see in myself.

5. Since it's "March" and also the season of Mardi Gras....have you ever been in a parade? What's the best parade you've seen? 

Many decades ago, I would walk in the annual town parade as a Girl Scout. 

I think the best parades are the hometown little parades, with the local bands, and dignitaries waving at the crowd from open-top cars. Where you pull up a piece of curb, with or without a lawn chair or blanket, and wait in the warm sun for the drum majorettes to twirl their batons, and the fire engines to blast their horns.

On the other hand, one memorable parade I attended was the Tall Ships in New York City for the Bicentennial, July 4 1976.  Even though I was a baby, I remember it! Okay I was a "baby" in the figurative sense. Let's just say I was old enough to drive, and leave it at that.

6. You would jump up and down and shout for joy right now if someone told you___________?

I am waiting to hear whether our kids are being accepted into a school in Switzerland, where we are moving this summer. I really, really hope they have room for my kids. That news would put me over the moon!

7. How clean is your car on the outside? Inside? Is there junk in your trunk?

I don't own a car right now, as we decided to try living without one while  in London. 

But I like to keep a clean and neat car, offset, of course by the fact that my kids don't share the same sensibility.

8. Insert your own random thought here.
I'm so excited to be going to Florida for a long weekend, to attend my niece's wedding!