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Sunday, March 08, 2009

I is for Imp

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imp
-noun
1. a little devil or demon; an evil spirit.
2. a mischievous child.

There is a lot of folklore about imps. They take other forms too, such as gremlins, goblins and gnomes (what's with the "G"s?), and Pan and Puck, oh and Dobby the house elf.

I was told recently by my sister that my life path number (15) indicates the need to let loose and be more of an imp. If your older sister (eleven years older) tells you something like that, doesn't that impart a mandate? This was especially intriguing as it came just after I'd added that little girl to my sidebar. I thought, hmm, not only am I shrinking back to childhood, maybe this is a call back to a childhood I never lived, that of the mischievous child.

So, picture the image at the top, and those aren't sheep, but chickens.

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Don, suddenly looking up from his Hobby Farms magazine, over his reading glasses: "What the . . .?! How'd the chickens get out!!?"

Ruth: "Wha?"

Don, now at the window, confused: "Look! I didn't let them out!"

Ruth, turning to look through the window at the hens frolicking with Khan, then back to Henry James to re-read the same sentence for the fifteenth time: "Wow, that's weird."

Don: "Did you let them out?" he asks incredulously. Suddenly he reviews the mental calendar in his head wondering if it's April Fool's Day yet.

Ruth: "Moo heee?" (pulling a phrase her impish mother used to say for "Who me?")

Don, scratching his head: "Maybe I didn't latch the coop tight last night." And he throws on his jacket, steps into his farm clogs and lets the door bang behind him.

Ruth peeks out the window at him, trying to enjoy watching him make a beeline for the coop door. But she's afraid. What if one of the hens got gobbled by a hawk in the last 15 minutes since she snuck out and opened the latch? That would be a bad life path number 15.

Don returns. "I must be losing my mind. And I'll never get them back in until dusk. Oh well, hope they enjoy the day out."

Ruth: "So they're all accounted for?"

Don: "No, they're scavenging now, so I won't be able to count until they're back in the roost this evening."

Oh dear, Ruth will have to suffer as an imp all day Sunday. And oh no! Last night was daylight savings, prolonging the misery an extra hour!
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61 comments:

Anonymous said...

What lovely images you paint, Ruth!I think there's an imp in all of us,just waiting to get out--perhaps we allow them the privilege occasionally? Chuckle!

Nautankey said...

I feel I always have the imp avtar and need to be good soul @ times. Hope u have more impish adventures :)

Susan said...

Now, see, down in hillbilly country that's what we would call downright ornery! Confounding your poor, unsuspecting hubby like that! I love it! You should be impish more often! What's next? Tying his shoelaces together? Putting shaving cream in his shoes? Painting a clown face on him while he's napping? LOL

Moo heee? ROFLOL!!!!!

Susan said...

I just did my life path number (8) and it's obvious I was born on the wrong date. My life experience doesn't correspond to anything in that description!

Gwen Buchanan said...

Oh I needed that little chuckle this morning... how did you know, you Imp?

I guess, It is never too late to start catching up with life path 15!!! What's next?

Lluvia said...

Ruth, I am an eldest sibling, and more often than not, my brother next in line and I would coerce the younger siblings into acts of mischief. Oh, we would do just as much, and we would all get into trouble. But the younger ones always felt as though we had tricked them somehow. =)

Loring Wirbel said...

I think it was The Family Circus that always had the imp wearing a T-shirt that said "Notme".

Dakota Bear said...

Thank you for the laugh. Sorry you have to suffer an hour longer.

California Girl said...

Never a mischievous child but certainly a willful teenager, I still thought I was going to hell. That's what comes from being raised Baptist! Read the Dec 8th post and it is wonderful too. Love the etchings and bits about Milton.

cathyswatercolors said...

Oh too funny,I'm still laughing. Hey, you little imp can you come over to my house,my husband has about 5 million albums we could start on fire, or maybe use as flying saucers,or I'm sure you could come up with something you imp you.
(Just jokin Dave )

Carl H. Sr. said...

Why you stinker you! Giving up your sister's age like that.
I guess she DID ask for it.
I always enjoy your stories Ruth.
I just don't comment much lately.
I am happy to read about the upcoming marriage on the Farm!
There should be some fine pictures with all the sunflowers.

Barry said...

Congratulations, you are definitely an imp.

Is there some kind of official ceremony we should put you through?

VioletSky said...

I hope you put your clocks ahead! You should have one less hour of misery

I told you: blame 'Little Ricky Ricardo'

ds said...

HA! Now, how are you going to protect yourself from retaliation? (tag: you're "imp"!)
Guess you could always blame the wind...

Anet said...

I live day in and day out with a couple of imps. I try to ignore them as best I can.
I bet Don is pretty good at ignoring them too. Being a 3rd grade teacher. Good thing for you Ruth, as you travel down your life path 15.
I think it's so important to let out your inner imp, especially if you were the "model" child. Let it out Ruth!!!

Babs-beetle said...

Ha ha! Very fubby!

Ruth said...

Delphine, if I played mischief in one of your castles, no one might ever find out!

Ruth said...

Oh! Nautankey, I didn't know that was an imp! Somehow I believe it fits. :)

And look what I just found while Googling "imp India" - hoping to find some mythological imp character: the IMP - Internet Movie Poster awards. :)

Ruth said...

Susie Q, if you knew what I put up with! I could spend the remainder of my life making up for a certain someone's impishness.

Oh, I'll have to find out what 8 says. Does it say grumpy, mean, untalented and unfriendly?

:D

Ruth said...

Gwen, maybe I am worse than an imp. Maybe I am a witch!

What's next? Me not tellin. And I hope it will feel better next time.

Ruth said...

Lluvia, and so you did!

Wow, in my family, the top tier of siblings is even less mischievous than me.

Ruth said...

Hehehe, Loring, maybe I can find one of those t-shirts if this becomes a way of life.

Ruth said...

Dakota Bear, you just have to understand that as a kid I lived in fear of doing the wrong thing. I can only live the impish life in this fiction. Might as well laugh at myself. Thank you for laughing with me.

Ruth said...

Seriously, California Girl! The guilt of Christian families.

Thanks for reading that other post too. I guess Eve was the ultimate imp.

Ruth said...

You raise an interesting proposition, Cathy! If you come up with the imp ideas you can hire me to implement them. Not being an imp myself, I have no ideas. I had to get this one from the image in the post, which I got from wrapping paper I bought for a child's gift.

Ruth said...

Oh hi, Carl, it's good to see you! If you knew my sister you'd know she's proud of her age. That's one thing our good imp mother taught us.

Thank you, we are excited about the wedding! I saw that your bamboo is doing fine, and your dear shed.

Ruth said...

Well I dunno, Barry, are there? You saying you don't know? And I was certain you were mischievous!

Ruth said...

Ok I had to think about this, Sanna. But what I was figuring was an extra hour of daylight at the end of the day for the chickens to stay out!

Ruth said...

DS, what protects me is my usual innocence. He just wouldn't suspect me for more than a second. 'Course if I keep it up, I'll threaten that reputation. So I'll have to play this low and quiet.

Ruth said...

Hey Anet, I'm afraid if I let it out completely, we will begin a battle of the imps that will never die. On the other hand, Don has way too many imp ideas. I could never compete!

So I'm trying to guess which are your imps, and I think Noah must surely be one of them.

Ruth said...

Babs, yes, very fubby. And imps make good dancers, I think.

VioletSky said...

Ah, I see.
My bad!

Ruth said...

Nah, it could go either way!

Susan said...

"Does it say grumpy, mean, untalented and unfriendly?"

Yep, that's me in a nutshell! How'd you guess? ;)

Boy, those paybacks are h-e-double hockey sticks, aren't they, Don?!

Ruth said...

Susie, but I thought you said your life experience didn't fit anything in the description! That's what I was getting at.

:( I would never say such terrible things about you - only the opposite! :D

Ruth said...

See, I'm a bad imp.

Susan said...

Holy moley! We got all discombobulated! I know you weren't insulting me, sweetie!

I was actually asking your DH how it felt to be on the receiving end of impish shenanigans! Yikes! I have to stop being so cryptic!

XOXOXOXO

Ruth said...

:D It's all good! Too many twists and turns for me to keep straight! I think my imp career might be in jeopardy if I can't imp with the best of 'em.

Jo's-D-Eyes said...

Hee Ruth, Whats that IMP? I better not react on the term because I do misunderstand sometimes the meaning of English words (Ask you sis G.) I am back:)

Sorry I could not react on anything, because of an (1 week!)internet disturbing I am back now!
greetings JoAnn's-D-Eyes/Holland

Ruth said...

Hi, JoAnn, that's understandable. It's just that I'm trying to be a little bad.

Ruth said...

In case anyone comes back here, let me just say, this was a fiction! I didn't really do it.

I am such a (w)imp.

Helena said...

Imp was a new word for me. :-)

PS. There's an award for you in my blog.

PeterParis said...

Maybe it was a Swedish troll?

rauf said...

i get the imp attack at 2 in the morning Ruth, i nearly burnt my house twice and almost blew up my cousin's no more disasters but
i continued playing with electricity.

photowannabe said...

I read this with impish delight. So bad...so good.
A fun read.

GailO said...

One must let one's imp out now and then! BTW - what are life path numbers?

freefalling said...

I thought your life path number could only go up to 9.
How did you get 15?

Ruth said...

Oh thank you, Helena, for the award!

Ruth said...

Peter, I was thinking of trolls too.

Ruth said...

Hahaha, rauf, "imp attack" - I will remember that. Were you having an imp amp attack? (building amplifiers?)

Ruth said...

Sue, it was all in my head. Maybe one day I'll carry out an imp attack.

Ruth said...

Oliag, I don't know much, they're in the practice of numerology, which I don't follow. You add the digits of your birthday, in my case 8 + 22 + 1 + 9 + 5 + 6. I can't get it to work now, so maybe my sister added it differently than I did, but it's supposed to equal 15. You can google "numerology" and have fun with it.

Ruth said...

Letitia, it's 15 before breaking it down to 6 (1 + 5). Some numerologists use both the last two digit number (but 11 is prime) and the addition of those two digits, and balance them with each other.

Ok I looked up my notes from my sister:

1956:
1 + 9 + 5 + 6 = 21, then add 2 + 1 = 3

8/22 (or in Australia, 22/8):

2 + 2 + 8 = 12

12 + 3 = 15

Then once more:
1 + 5 = 6

:D

freefalling said...

Okay.
So I got 5.
It's a bit scary how accurate the 5 profile is to myself!

Has Don got all the chooks in yet?!

Bob Johnson said...

Excellent story Ruth, mostly because I never had you pegged for an imp,lol. I pronounce the G in Gnome, drives my wife nuts,lol(the imp in me)

Ruth said...

It's a fun exercise, huh, Letty?

You know this was all imp fiction, right? I said "picture the image at the top . . " and everyone is so ready to believe I'm an imp!

I never!

Hahaha. I guess that was rather mischievous of me, but I didn't mean it to be.

See how the loop goes?

Ruth said...

Hahahaha, Bob, why does that tickle me so much?! My mom did that too. She loved the English language, and she loved to point out its inconsistencies.

Now you realize, this was an imp fiction. I am, alas, a (w)imp.

sandy said...

haha, funny post. I use to do numerology for relatives and friends (way back before internet)...it was fun, and reading this brought back memories.

I'm a 7...always have always will be and I fit it to a tee!

So go out and have more fun, sounds like good advice...although the six energy it adds up to...means lots of family duties and responsibilities...or community..

Ruth said...

Hi, Aunty Sandy! So you did numerology. That doesn't surprise me somehow.

My sister talked about 6 too, and the book she was using said it's good to balance the two numbers. Balance makes sense to me.

Ginnie Hart said...

LOL, Ruth. I love this (of course, you knew I would). Guilty as charged...and also, as you've said, the 15 is reduced to 6. I totally agree with Delpine that there is a bit of the imp in all of us, waiting to come out if it hasn't already. I think God has a lot of imp in Godself! Otherwise how could you possibly explain so many things, especially in Nature! When someone comes into my life who brings out that imp in me, I hang on to that person forever. That kind of humor helps to make the world go 'round, while it appears to be falling apart! We need imps in this day and age, IMHO.

Ruth said...

Boots, if we can't laugh and have fun, this is going to get pretty dreary these days!

Thanks again to you for your numerology tutelage. :)