Pareidolia

Remember that woman who had a cheese sandwich with the face of the Virgin Mary on it? Seeing the face of anyone, mortal or immortal, in a thing such as a cloud, a sandwich or a water tower is called pareidolia - betcha didn't know there was a name for that sort of thing. (I'm sure there's a name for someone who pays $28K on ebay for said sandwich, too....such buyers being born every minute.)

There are names, words for just about anything - the trick is looking something up when you don't know what it call it. The only daily arrival I allow in my email box is about words, and if you aren't familiar with it, you're missing out on something cool and worthwhile: http:wordsmith.org

I'm getting ready to paint my bedroom, and while it'll be nice to have something clean and pretty and from this century (I currently sleep in a room with 1940's cowboy-and-Indian wallpaper), I'll miss my own form of pareidolia - making faces, characters and shapes out of the ripped off areas of wallpaper, plaster patches, and the old water stains on the ceiling. I have, among others, a big fish, a camel who's thinking a thought (when he acquired two more thought balloons it was time to repair the roof) and Mike Doonesbury in profile. Yes, I'll miss these guys.

I once grew an eggplant that looked like Richard Nixon. If I can find the pictures of it, I'll post one. Meanwhile, I'll sand plaster and work on refining my vision of the farm, watching the snowfall...here on Jackass Hill.