Hodgpodging On Ash Wednesday

Joyce From This Side of the Pond stopped her Mardi Gras festivities long enough to toss us some questions for this week's Wednesday Hodgepodege.
1. The season of Lent begins on March 9th this year...do you participate and if so, in what way?
I do participate in Lent.  It is one of my favorite times of the year because I am an Easter person.  Tonight we will have our Ash Wednesday service and receive ashes on our foreheads during the service.  Frank and I will begin our 40 day prayer time together.  During Lent you are supposed to give up something sacrificially.  This year Frank and I are giving up time to pray together as a couple.  I can't wait to get started.
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?
Butter and Good Old Fashioned Maple Syrup on my pancakes please. I do occassionally like Blueberry...but only if it is from Maine. There is something about those Maine blueberries.
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. I suffer terribly from seasonal allergies. Spring is the worst time....but that does not stop me from loving the flowers.  Jonquils, Camelias, and the flowers on Tulip trees are my favorite spring flowers.

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 agree sort of.  I have formed many opinions this way because they either made me feel better about myself or not....but I have formed snap opinions about people and given it very little thought and definitely no time to decide what I see in them or through them.  Sometimes I was wrong....others...not so much.  I am a pretty good judge of character.
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?
I was in the Orange Bowl parade when I was a child.  The Macy's Day parade is my favorite.  Rose Parade is my second favorite.  I love to watch all the action....but on TV.  I do not want to go to one.....I am not a crowds kind of person.
6. You would jump up and down and shout for joy right now if someone told you___________?
I won the lottery?  They were giving me a trip to Alaska?  It was the beginning of Spring Break?
7. How clean is your car on the outside? Inside? Is there junk in your trunk?  My car is pretty clean on the outside.  We took it to Goo Goo Car Wash last weekend after my teaching buddy Don told me I should be ashamed to park my car in the parking lot at school.  Inside is pretty good too.  I have a blanket, camera case and  atlas in the trunk, a coat on the passenger seat, and a rug we bought on Sunday in the back seat.  I am getting it out tonight.
8. Insert your own random thought here.
Why do Doctors act so hateful?  Whatever happened to good bedside manners.  I met my mom and the nursing home lady yesterday at the Dr.'s office and when he FINALLY came in he was very short and not sweet at all to neither her nor me.  The nursing home called me and asked me to meet them there.  I had to take time off from work, and the doctor personality came in and wanted to know why I was there.  I told him I did not know...hello that is his job....we were referred by another doctor....did he not read the papers he was sent?  Anyways, my 81+ year old mother was asleep in a rolling chair and he was rough with her.  He will never know how close he came to getting a punch in the nose (whoa...where did that come from).  I was not thrilled to see him jerk her arms and legs around.  She is so very fragile.  Once he realized she had possibly had a stroke he was a little (key word here is little) more gentle.  Happy Wednesday!