Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Ten Things About Me

A little while ago I was tagged by a few bloggers to write 10 Things About Me. Thinking of ten separate things about me that you may not know is not easy. One or two I could do. But ten? Nevertheless, I’m giving it a go. So here are ten things about me.

1. When I was young I was very agile and very fast. I don’t think Todd believes me when I say that, but it’s true. When I was in kindergarten I was playing a type of tag with a bunch of kids. The side of the cafeteria was Home and if you made it there without getting tagged you were safe. So I ran for that brick wall as fast as I could – which, as I’ve already told you, was pretty darned fast. I looked behind me to see where the closest “it” was and when I turned back to the wall, there it was. I ran full speed into it. Knocked me clean out. Once the goose egg on my forehead stopped growing I looked like a Klingon. I still have a tiny bump from that little adventure.

2. I have a floater in my head. Not a floater as in, “Ew! You backwashed and now there’s a floater in my soda!” A floater as in I-ran-into-a-brick-wall-when-I-was-five-and-most-likely-chipped-a-tiny-fleck-of-skull-that-has-been-floating-around-my-head-all-these-years-and-likes-to-rest-on-my-ear-drum. What’s fun about this little guy is that it causes a sort of vertigo. Nothing dangerous. Just when I lean my head to the left I get a little dizzy. And I like it. It’s fun. Kind of like a big dip on a roller coaster. Every night when I get into bed I say, “Whoo!” and throw my hands up into the air as everything spins around me. Good times.

3. I was born three months after the Watt’s Riots in the same general area. I suppose that’s not really very exciting since the riots were over by then. But what is exciting is that my pediatrician was the same pediatrician that some of the L.A. Lakers used, one of which was Jerry West. We know this because my mother saw him at the doctor’s office. Frankly, I don’t remember. I realize there’s no connection between the Watt’s Riots and L.A. Lakers, but my birth and infancy seem to run together so it’s all related to me.

4. When I was about 14 or so I nearly had my face split open in a surfing accident. What little bit of pride I have is telling me I should stop my story right here and let you use your imaginations. I’m sure whatever you can think up will be better than the truth. But the truth of the matter is it happened in my friend’s pool. She and another friend were trying to climb on her brother’s surfboard. I had my back to them and happened to turn around just as they both fell off the back, causing the surfboard to shoot straight at me. Thankfully I saw it and quickly leaned back into the water. The tip of the board just grazed my eyebrow, causing a totally gnarly black eye, dude.

5. My Mother-In-Law gave me a job at the law office she worked at when I was in college. The two attorneys in the office were less than human, but I enjoyed the job and MIL taught me a lot. Because of that I went into paralegal studies and ended up working as a Legal Secretary/Legal Assistant for eleven years until I quit work to nag my children full time. The last law office I worked at was the large law firm Bill Clinton partnered at before he became the governor of Arkansas*.

6. While most children my age were singing things like Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and Jack and Jill, I was singing Hey Jude. It was the first song I ever sang.

7. I still have the tonette I received in my 6th grade music class at school. I drive Todd crazy by following him around the house saying, “give me a song,” and then attempting to play it. Either that or “Name That Tune.” Periodically over the last 19 years the little flute has mysteriously vanished, only to be found by me in the oddest of places. Poor Todd. There’s no escaping me.

8. I have an older cousin who was a stunt girl. She did a lot of movies with Burt Reynolds and was Cheryl Ladd’s double in Charlie’s Angels, just to name two of her many credits. At that time I had a friend with a huge crush on Shawn Cassidy (I was a Parker Stevenson kind of gal, myself). So I told her I was sure my cousin could get a small token from him. That was a total lie because I never even talked to my cousin. But anyway, I took some of my sun bleached hair out of my head, taped it to a Tiger Beat poster, scratched a signature and gave it to my friend. She was so excited that I couldn’t keep up the lie. After about two minutes of her screaming I fessed up. I think that cold dose of reality was a favor to her. She went on to be a neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins.

9. In high school my friend, Cindy, and I used to go roller skating at the beach nearly every day after school. We went from Torrance Beach, down to the Hermosa Beach Pier and back again – probably around 8 miles round trip. Any wonder I didn’t have a weight problem at that time?? On one of our trips there was a volleyball game going on at the Hermosa Pier. Wilt Chamberlain was one of the players. He always looked big on television, but in person the guy was huge. Huger than huge! Enormous! Cindy is 6’2” without her skates, but she was a petite little thing next to him.

10. When I was a senior in high school several of my friends and I went to Pasadena on New Year’s Eve. We had lawn chairs, sleeping bags and coolers full of sodas and food and set up camp on the Rose Parade route. We had marshmallow wars with the cars cruising the boulevard and played silly games like charades and I think maybe even Duck, Duck, Goose. We got to see all the floats the next morning, but we were too far back on the route to see the bands. It was fun and a great experience, but not one I was willing to do again. I enjoyed sitting in the stands with my parents when I was younger much more.

* Please do not read as support for Bill Clinton. I've had issues with the man long before he was president that have nothing to do with politics.

Labels: meme

Mused by Jenster :: 7:52 AM :: 20 People musing:

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