The Battle of the Komandorski Islands killed my muffins

Dear banana muffins, please forgive my folly.

I had browning –make that very browned — bananas, so of course, that calls for baking something scrumptious.  Mind you, I already made a Hawaiian wedding cake, a coconut chocolate pie, and Hawaiian slaw today, but I was on a role, so why not?  After lovingly putting the muffins in the oven I set a timer and went into the other room to start researching for the day because I really need to get cracking on the actual writing part and I can’t do that until I’m done with research.

The Battle of the Komandorski Islands killed my muffins.

I was so completely drawn into reading about this battle that I didn’t even hear the timer go off.  It was my nose…30 minutes too late and little black hockey puck mini muffins later…that tipped me off.

Sidenote.  Why mini muffins anyway?  Who came up with them?  They are cute and all, but let’s be serious.  If I see mini muffins in my mind that just says, “ooo, I can eat six and not feel bad…because c’mon, six mini muffins make like one muffin give or take.”

Mini muffin rant complete.

After giving the muffins a proper funeral I went back to researching.  Have you ever heard of the Battle of the Komandorski Islands?  I hadn’t.  It’s an amazing battle that totally proves the hand of God in war…I’m not kidding.

But what struck me even more was how crazy it was that I’m pouring over all these books by my own choice in my free time, because, believe it or not, I use to hate reading.

Those who know me well don’t believe a lick of that, but I’m not kidding.  When I was little I abhorred reading because the teachers at my elementary school told me I was stupid. 

See, I was a slow learner.  I vividly remember in Kindergarten having to go to the back of class with the classroom helper, they would sit you down and put this little yellow reader in front of you.  If you could read the title, you got to turn the page, if you could read page one, then you moved on to page two – and so on.  Well, I never made it off the cover.  One of the helpers laughed at me because I couldn’t get “Sis Says.” 

Later on in school they would put us in reading groups.  There was the owl reading group, the hawk reading group, and the sparrow reading group

I was put in the sparrow reading group…me, the kid who stuttered, and a kid who always had a patch over his eye.  It didn’t take a genius to figure out the school’s magical coding system for the reading groups…sparrows are eaten by owls and hawks.  One of my teachers actually said to me that it was too bad everyone wasn’t born smart.

All that to say, reading wasn’t my favorite pastime.  I still lived in my head – always in a land of my own making, but I hadn’t come to realize that books were exactly that too.  Not until 7^th grade when a teacher pulled me aside and asked if I knew I was gifted.

“Gifted?  Are you calling me special ed?” I actually said that.

But she assured me she thought I was smarter than the rest of the kids, that my creativity knew no bounds and that I shouldn’t lose that.  She gave me the book Watership Down and told me to read it.

Have you ever seen Watership Down?  It’s an adult level book that is as thick as one of the later Harry Potters.  Remember…I hated books.  So, it went on a shelf and I went on my way.  Then one day in my sophomore year of high school I picked it up and started reading…and finished it a day later.  I’ve never been without a book since…who am I kidding, I haven’t been without three books going at once since.

Funny...my 7^th grade teacher has no clue that she changed the entire trajectory of my life.