Magic Wish

Ok readers, here's your assignment: If you could magically have the skill or talent to do one specific thing, what would it be?  This assignment, of course, comes with some constraints.  First of all, it absolutely must be physically possible.  So no wishing to learn to fly, or run a marathon in 12 minutes or something ridiculous like that.  This is more of a Groundhog Day sort of thing, where you get to develop a skill overnight, but, in my magical case, you don't have to relive a single day over and over.  It's like in the blink of an eye you get to spend 1000 hours practicing something.  In the movie, Bill Murray does all sorts of stuff with his time: throw cards into a hat, ice sculpt, learn French poetry, play the piano (what else am I forgetting)?  But you only get one thing.  What would it be?  I think the exercise is more fun if you try to be as specific as possible.

To be a good sport, I'll share mine.  I think I'd magically learn to play Rhapsody in Blue on the piano.  I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that I could learn to play it, but I think I'd need every one of those arbitrarily-chosen 1000 hours.  Obviously, I think the piece is pretty cool, or I wouldn't waste my wish on learning to play it.  If you don't have anything to listen to for the next 14 1/2 minutes, here it is on youtube.  (I'll have you know that I did listen to 2 versions, but didn't like the other one much.)  I've listened to it like 3 times tonight, and I'm not tired of it yet.

Ella loves to line up crayons. She will sit for half an hour or more lining up t

Ella loves to line up crayons. She will sit for half an hour or more lining up things (usually crayons) and to end. This particular creation was first a house, and then became a crayon factory. (Why yes, we have been watching Mr. Rogers lately.) Surely this is a sign of Ella's deep genius, which will make it into her biography in later years.

I'm sure her super powers will start manifesting themselves soon.

Tonight Julia said 'I'll get us started tonight' and took off reading. I'm not

Tonight, Julia said "I'll get us started tonight" and took off reading. I'm not sure where she figures out how to read "astonished" or "iniquities". But I guess I don't know how she learned to read in the first place. She just seems to have figured it out. She's not all that good at sounding out words - she just knows them all, even if she doesn't know what the word means.

Ella, on the other hand, only knows a handful of letters. I guess you have to pay attention to second children, too. Ooops.