Sweet Blossom the Possum

Would you like to meet my alter ego?

This is her!  Her name is Sweet Blossom the Possum! Sweet Blossom was a darling little creature - practically perfect in every way, but oh, the things she had to deal with!   


And, what a lot of adventures she's had!

When my kids were little, we had our normal bedtime ritual, and part of that ritual started with, "Tell us another story about Sweet Blossom the Possum!"  

Ha ha ha... It still makes me smile.  Whatever was going on in our lives... that's exactly what was going on in Sweet Blossom's life.  I'm telling you, I think my kids were in junior high before they caught on! (Ok, maybe not that old, but...)

Let's see the comparisons:
I had a talkative daughter = Sweet Blossom had Trudi, Judy, & Beauty who, although they were three, always acted as one.
I had a younger, kind of shy son = She had Buck.
I had a little dachshund = The possum family had a lizard.
We lived in a two story house with the kids' rooms upstairs = The possum kids had their spots on the higher branches.
If we had company coming, so did they.
If our dog had to go to the vet, so did the lizard.
If our family had a trip, so did the possum family.
If we had something crazy happen at the grocery store, it happened to them at the creek.
If my kids had messy rooms, Trudi, Judy, Beauty, & Buck had messy limbs.

And whenever Sweet Blossom's name was used, it was always preceded by flowery adjectives. (Precious Sweet Blossom needed... Darling Sweet Blossom thought... Delightful Sweet Blossom discovered... Amazing Sweet Blossom found...)  

Once we "met" the REAL Sweet Blossom. I wrote a story about the time (totally and completely true) that Precious Sweet Blossom got trapped in our garage for a couple of days.  She tore open the garbage bag.  She crawled around on the shelves and broke canning jars.  She knocked over rakes.  She eventually found a fairly cozy spot in our Christmas tree box.  And, I wrote the whole story from that Daring Sweet Blossom's perspective.  

Here is an excerpt from that story:
(This is when she made the decision to go into the garage and got into the trash.)

She moved one foot, another followed, then another.  Before she knew it, all four feet were on the gray hard ground, the man-made ground.  She crept closer.  The smell was coming from a big black bag.  She stopped.  Waited.  There was no sound.  Her tiny, pink nose twitched.  Her long, white whiskers twitched.  Her paws began moving again.

The temptation grew too great!  Curious Sweet Blossom forgot her caution and jumped.  It was easy to rip through the bag.  Once inside she discovered sweet things, sour things, crunchy things, and salty things.  Precious Sweet Blossom, who had always been so neat and tidy, lost all self-control.  She licked, chomped, and chewed until she could barely move.  Taking a deep breath, she sat back and began to groom her paws and whiskers.  It was then that she noticed she was sitting in a pile of clutter.  She couldn’t possibly rest in this jumble of papers and cans, but she was so full, so tired.  Waddling to the other side of the big room, she settled for a short nap.

Weary Sweet Blossom awoke with a start to shouting voices of the family who lived in the house...

 Thanks to my friend Vaughn for 

taking the photo I used to paint

Sweet Blossom's portrait.