Ferris Wheels & Carousels

When I was little, or rather, until recently in the last year, I have hated rollercoasters. My parents never let me do anything remotely dangerous (I wasn't even allowed on my neighbors' trampoline as a teenager). Ever. Ferris wheels and roller coasters were completely out of the question.

So my favorite rides at the amusement park were the two things that enabled the maximum possible thrill, without having my parents shout at me that I was going to die or mortally wound myself. Those two things were the swings, and the carousel.


One of the funny things about carousels is that each horse is so unique, that, as a child, finding just the right one is nearly as important as the fact that the thing moves. It's an integral part of the ride experience. My favorites were always goldish-brown, and tended to be saddled primarily in blue. My sister always insisted on pink.

A Little Princess

I recently re-watched this movie--I swear it still makes me cry every time. Someone gave it to me for my birthday when I turned six, and I remember it came with your very own little brass-colored locket. I also remember sticking it in the compartment of some McDonald's toy a couple of years later, and subsequently losing it when we got rid of all those little plastic toys. It was a sad day.

I always wanted a pretty Victorian school dress uniform like these. The frills and everything. And a window seat to sit on, too, with pretty, long, lacy curtains. My grandparents' had curtains just like these in "my" bedroom in their house, and my sister and I enjoyed hiding in them.



Interesting fact: this movie is one of my first memories/lessons about racism. Before this film, African-Americans were only a part of my life in the sense that I saw them in the supermarket, and I also saw that my mother generally avoided talking or interacting with them. In my little kindergarten mind, it didn't make a lot of difference, but this movie was the first striking memory of learning that I didn't interact with black people for a particular reason. I can't explain it exactly, partially because I don't remember much about how I came to understand racism while growing up with a racist family who never said anything about black people, but this was definitely one of my first clues in learning that dark skin meant something--something I wasn't supposed to talk or ask about.









Did you know a yellow rose means friendship?? I just learned this recently. One of my friends' favorite color is yellow. Like sunshine.

The locket I got with this movie actually LOOKED like the real thing, probably because this was back in the 90's when they still make movie products actually modeled after the movie...

castles and fairy princesses...

When I was first making the heading for this blog, I played around with several pictures. Here's what I came up with: