random 8
I've been memed. Thanks, D-Ray.
Bloggers must post these rules and provide eight random facts about themselves. In the post, the tagged blogger tags eight other bloggers and notifies them that they have been tagged. Uhm. I don't really correspond with the blog world...I'm more a lurker than a corresponder. Not to mention that Don pretty much hit the few people I do know. So, the buck is stopping here. Although, if someone reads this and would like me to post-facto meme them, just let me know!
ITEM #1
When I was a kid, my favorite game was to pretend that I was blind. Oddly, I only played this game at the grocery store check-out. I'd stare off in the distance while my hands traveled over the Tiger Beats and the Charleston Chews. It was an extremely credible performance. The goal was to get people around to not only notice me, but to gasp and utter something in hushed tones. "Look at that little girl. She's blind!" When I felt I had enough of a captive audience, I'd raise the stakes by taking my father's meaty paw and faux-sign into his hand. After a few seconds, he'd figure out what I was up to, shake my hand off his and loudly proclaim, "YOU'RE. NOT. BLIND." Then I'd turn to the folks with their jaws agape, look them dead in the eye and grin my fool head off.
ITEM # 2
I have killed every houseplant I have ever had, with the exception of my bamboo plants. They live to see another day.
ITEM # 3
Growing up, I was a tomboy of the first degree. I lived to climb trees and pick at the scabs on my knees, just to watch the skin scar. At the age of nine, I read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. That summer, at the public swimming pool, a boy name Tom dared me to meet him in the fort at the top of the jungle gym. When we got up there, he scratched our names in the metal and kissed me. I thought I was destined to fall in love with a boy of that name, so I kissed him back.
ITEM # 4
One of my very few regrets in life is that I spent 10 days in Ireland and only drank Guiness twice.
ITEM # 5
Every now and then I get a very distinct picture in my head of the last time I saw my maternal grandfather. He had died at a VA home and was donating his body to the medical school. He did not want a funeral service held. When offered a last chance to see him and say goodbye, we were pointed down a ramp by the mortuary owner. With no warning, we turned the corner and walked into the prep room. He was lying on a stainless steel table and had not been "readied" for his trip to the school yet. My last image of him (as well as my mother's and siblings') is of him lying on the table in a near fetal position, naked but for a thin sheet covering part of his body, his jaw slack and open, his hands frozen in mid-clench. I can't remember if his eyes were open.
ITEM # 6
No matter what you may have been told, I did NOT cry while watching Snakes On A Plane.
ITEM # 7
Last weekend, holed up in a hotel room after a long day of shilling in the sun, I played online poker for the first time in months. I finished 19th out of 360 players. My goal was to make it to the final table. I won about $23...eight spots from my goal. I was short-stacked and sleepy from my sunburn, so I stupidly chased a flush. While I ended in the money, it was still the end of me.
ITEM # 8
That grandfather I mentioned earlier, had one of the greatest names I've ever heard. Meynard Pickles. I get an oddly liberating feeling knowing that I have an ancestor with such a fantastic moniker.
