X! I knew from the beginning of this A – Z challenge that ‘X’ would be a tricky one!
A few things:
1) Samuel Johnson included no words in his dictionary beginning with ‘X’. He believed that there were no words in English that began with the letter ‘X’.
2) I thought about writing about the only word I know of in Words With Friends that begins with ‘X’. But what could I say about ‘Xi’, other than it’s the 14th letter of the Greek alphabet and is best played on a triple letter or triple word space?
3) I have an ‘x’ in my last name. (It’s French.) I hated it when I was in 2nd grade and learning cursive. We were not allowed to write our name in cursive until we “learned” every letter in class. A boy whose last name began with “Z” and I were the last kids in the class to print our names. We were buddies for the last few days of lessons because we felt left out — and we both could tell from looking at the banner over the chalk board how to make an ‘X’ and a ‘Z’!
4) I have one moderately amusing x-ray story. This is it:
When my son was 6 he needed to have a test done that involved swallowing a very large pill with rings in it. A very expensive pill. Then, he needed to have x-rays done daily for 6 days to track the path of the tracer rings. He had never taken a pill before and this massive horse pill was quite the introduction. We finally coaxed him to choke it down and began the daily trip to the lab.
On the evening of the second day, he came to me looking worried. “Are pennies a bad thing to eat?” he asked.
“I imagine that they wouldn’t taste very good and have no calories. I don’t recommend trying them”, I replied. He started to cry.
“But I won’t die? It was a little bigger than that pill so I thought I’d see if I could do it.”
His regular pediatrician convinced me that it wasn’t a big deal but to watch for any unusual digestive problems. After a week, we went to see the specialist who ordered the test. While we were waiting for the results from the lab — she was quite upset that she had not received them in advance — we were chit-chatting. I told her about the penny. She told me that she was often called for emergency operations to retrieve lodged pennies, so she was glad that she hadn’t seen us a few days before in the ER. She also said that we now knew he didn’t need liquid medicines in the future. When the test results were faxed from the lab, the doctor looked at the sheet in disbelief.
They didn’t mention the rings at all, she said. But they said that the penny passed on the 4th day. Could have saved the cost of that pill!
5) I had thought about photographs of ‘X’s, but was a bit perplexed by what I could shoot. As I was pulling up my driveway this afternoon, I noticed the shadowy patterns on the drive and porch, and a few up in the trees. There were even some O’s to go along with the X’s:
6) And, although it’s a leap, since X’s & O’s go together, these shadowy shots are my submission for this week’s Weekly Photo Challenge: Together. Be sure to check the comments for other participants. I bet most all of them have better “together” shots than these. X’s & O’s, hugs & kisses to all. Have a great weekend.
This post is part of the Blogging A to Z Challenge. Today’s letter is X. Thanks for stopping by. Please leave a comment and let me know what you think. You can find other A to Z participants by clicking on the graphic. You’ll find an index of all of my A to Z blog posts here.
Four Deer Oak 