My bridge, my purple, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle* would be apalled!

I find myself irrationally possessive of things that can't be owned. Or at least owned by me.

I'm sure someone owns the Golden Gate Bridge, but I usually refer to is as "my bridge." Why? Because I was born near it, as were, I imagine, lots and lots of other people, my brother included. I don't really have ownership or dibs or anything. I think I mean it in the same way as I would say "my home town" if I ever had one of those. I don't really have a "home town" because we moved about enough growing up that I don't feel like I really "settled in" anywhere. This past August I reached a milestone and at 7 years, I'd lived in the N. Dallas area longer than I'd lived anywhere else in my life, knocking Grayslake, IL (6 years) out of the #1 spot. Anyway, the Golden Gate is my bridge in that sort of way... landmarky & familiar, even though I don't really own it. I understand and appreciate that lots of other people can claim it too, but I still think of it as mine.

My purple is a little harder to define, as it's sort of a range of purples that I consider mine in the way of... well they don't define me, but if I ever had to answer the question, "What color defines you?" I would pick one of the smoky lavenderish colors that I like so much. It's the love-child of fog-colored grey and the washed out royal purple that isn't quite pink enough to be lavender, but that's what I call it. Semi-amusing side note, one time, many years ago, my friend Karen was talking about... life and feelings and things and stuff and was unhappy with some of the limiting options of the universe or something like that, only in a much cooler and non-whiny way and she mentioned that very question as the sort of summation of everything that was wrong. How was she supposed to know what color defined her, how was that even an applicable question?! Only, I think we all sort of paused and said, "Blue." at about the same time, because...well, it was just sort of a no-brainer for us. So, while I know that I don't really own or have any controlling interest in my as-yet-unsatisfactorily-named shade of purple, I still sort of claim it.

I understand referring to preferred brands as "mine" though I have very few of those. Skippy is my peanut butter. I sort of invented giraffapotamus although I don't claim to be the first person to ever wonder what would happen if you crossed the two. I think the official answer I've decided on is a sort of short-tailed brontosaurus looking thing, with a giraffe head & horns on a giraffe neck that attaches to a hippo body... and it's all sort of hippo colored with the pattern of a giraffe. Giraffapotamuses like baths, and often fall down and trip over their own feet. They get really mad and fierce, but can't do much about it because of the giraffe head, not the ferocious hippo teeth... that seems about right to me.

*I know I'm not just making this up, but I can't seem to find the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books that I remember... ones where she fixed kids with behavioral problems by giving into the bad behavior and then letting it go to the extreme and whimsical solution... where the kid who hated baths didn't have to take them and then someone put seeds in the dirt on their skin and grew vegetables or flowers or something? And a selfish kid who got to label EVERYTHING in his world with his name and an identifier... let's call him Mike for this example. His mom had a "Mike's Mom" sticker and he wrote with icing or condiments on all his food "Mike's Cookie" "Mike's Sandwich"... I don't remember how that one got resolved which maybe says a lot about me as a human, but what I want it to say is that I loved and still remember those books...