signify

I'll never forget learning the word "akimbo." It was second grade, circa 1987. I was telling my friends that my middle inital, "S," stood for Sandy and not Sarah. I do not know why. I'm pretty sure it had nothing to do with the movie Grease. Right about the same time our classmate Roni T. had returned from a family vacation to Hawaii and insisted that we start calling her "Leilani: The Hawaiian Princess." Mrs. Ship, our teacher, who coincidentally was quite (read: extremely) large and hefty, stood in front of the green chalkboard, hands on her hips and her right foot jutted out, demonstrating "akimbo."