A Melange

In case you were wondering, yes I have a firm handshake! 

Thus, I shake your hand across the miles.  Firmly.  I grasp it.  It's good to have hands to grasp.  And it sometimes takes a crisis for us to realize how much we appreciate that.  How much a helping hand means when people feel stranded, or about to be, and suddenly a hand reaches out.

People trapped in earthquakes must really understand that.  That human hand that that appears to reassure.  Maybe with a bottle of water at a time when they might have felt all was lost.  You can see how carefully hands hold babies.  Not just when they're rescued.  But all the time.

A hand is the first thing we feel when we're born.  Never thought about it till now. 

Did you know that when medical students learn to dissect the human body, the last things they dissect are faces and hands?  Hands are that personal.

When you fall in love, you love to hold hands.  We use a hand to reach out, even to strangers, with a helping hand.  Interesting how we define it that way.  That the hand that helps stands for the help itself.

Hands are so personal.  If you see a photo of even one hand, you feel you've got a glimpse of a person.  When I was teaching young children, I was always reaching out to them.  I had this theory about education, that it all depends on forming relationships and that if you can connect with a child, that child will learn.  I never realized it till now, but maybe one of the most important things I did as a teacher was to reach out with a caring hand.  Whole new theory of education right here in this post....

LisB, I'm sure, could make all this into a lovely poem.  I might try - but it would take me a long time.  Stratofrog could also do interesting things with all these ideas here.  I wish she'd come and try....

I honestly didn't intend to write all this about hands.  Just the first sentence.  But that's what came.   (In high school I learned that if I could just get that first sentence, the rest would follow.)  I actually intended to tell you about the dishwasher, in case you were wondering:  The one that died 6 years ago.  The one Mr. TheraP has been "installing" for nearly 2 weeks now!  It's nearly installed...  ;)

Maybe you were wondering about other things.  Perhaps you can tell us about that in the comments.