Bigger or Better: Life outside of Texas

 For some reason, I have been thinking about wishes. If a fairy godmother appeared before me, or I found a genie, or the panel on Miss America inquired, or Santa Claus wanted to know what I wanted, or I saw in a vision God asking what I would that He give me, what would I say? Anywhere from my 20s on down, I couldn't imagine asking for something intangible. I remember swinging on a swing as a kindergartner, absolutely positive that when I opened my eyes, I would be wearing a beautiful pink princess dress because God would know that's what I wanted. [Frankly, I'm glad I didn't end up with a dress, because how useful would that be to me now, several sizes bigger?] There was always some new toy, or an enticing dessert, or a best-seller book that I could ask for, and be satisfied with. Why would all the beauty pageant contestants on Miss Congeniality  declare they wanted world peace? And certainly all of the wishes in the lyrics of "Grown Up Christmas List" were

 I am sure that somewhere in my blog posts I have mentioned that I am not really sporty--I have nearly-missed hitting my father-in-law's head with a golf ball; I was so terrible at my attempts to play racquetball with Mark that he has not even bothered trying to play tennis with me; and my teacher in a college badminton class actually laughed at my efforts. Well, that hasn't changed. a representative photo for visualization purposes About a month ago, Mark joined a local softball team [it's such an easy game to social-distance in] , and has twice called upon me to toss balls to him so that he can practice his batting. I warned him beforehand that I am fairly incompetent at sports, but he didn't have a whole lot of available options in this pandemic life, so me it was that threw ball after ball after ball in his general direction. And when I say ball, I mean it in both senses: I was underhand-tossing a physical ball, AND I swear 99% of them were balls-- not a strike, not