Stuff You May Not Know About Me

The Girl Next Door tagged me for this one, and it’s a good thing. I’m a little low on post ideas this week. She bailed me out of a slump, so a round of margaritas for her, please. Here are the instructions:I certainly have enough odd stuff to choose from. The only dilemma is picking things I haven’t already revealed about myself. I think these are new to you.

1. The number of times I have personally vacuumed or mopped my floors in the last three years would fit on one hand. Hand to God, I do not know where the on/off button is on our vacuum cleaner. Our house isn’t dirty, mind you. It’s just that I have very little to do with the actually cleaning of it, and that’s because (a) I suck at it. Even when I try really hard, I don’t do a good job and (b) there is a lovely lady who comes to my home on Fridays and takes care of this for me. We are not wealthy, but good housecleaning is one of those things I’m willing to pay for, even if I have to eat macaroni and cheese every night to afford this privilege. It gives me more time with my family. Keep in mind, I do plenty of household chores, just not the sweeping, dusting and cleaning the stove and toilet kind. If you need someone to bake you an orange soufflé with cream sauce, I’m your girl. Just don’t ask me to do the dishes.

2. Bad table manners drive me insane. Ask Teen Angel. She’ll tell you how many times I’ve admonished her for sucking loudly the dregs of her drink through a straw. My biggest pet peeve is slurping. Papa T. made so much noise slurping up his vegetable soup at Bob Evans the other night, I wanted to smack him. It literally makes me come unglued. File this one under the category of little things that shouldn’t matter much but make me act irrationally.

3. The only color of eye shadow I can wear is brown. Apparently, I’ve become allergic to most pigment used in eye shadows. If I stay with brown, I’m okay. If I get stray into other colors, my eyelids swell up like jellyfish. I think it’s God’s way of punishing me for all the generous amounts of purple eye shadow I wore in the 80’s.

4. I have forgotten to pick up my child….twice in one day. Yes, twice….when she was thirteen. I forgot to pick her up at school on my way to aerobics and had to turn around and go back for her. By the time I got her I was running late for aerobics, so I took her with me. She patiently waited in another room, and after class I proceeded to leave without her, making the five minute trip home without remembering her until I hit the back door. That was the year I was NOT nominated for Mother of The Year.

5. I do not handle anesthesia well. I have a terrible time waking up from it. It makes me angry and takes away that filter that keeps me from saying things I shouldn’t. One time in the hospital recovery room, I leaned over the rails of my hospital bed and yelled “shut up” to the man howling in pain next to me. When I had my wisdom teeth cut out a couple of years ago, I asked for a Coke when I woke up. When the dentist said no, I yelled “fudge!” Only I didn’t say “fudge”. I used the mother of all swear words, and I’m normally not friendly with that word ‘cause my mama would slap me up the side of the head if she heard me say it. I had to apologize to him when I returned the next week for my follow-up visit. This same filter disappears when I drink adult beverages, which is one of many reasons why I do not drink to excess.

6. The one thing I do drink liberally is iced tea. I drink at least a quart of it each day. I usually buy a large unsweetened tea (one Sweet-N-Low) at lunchtime every day and sip on it all afternoon. My coworkers call this the “big tea”, and have been known to call me on a busy day to see if they need to pick up the “big tea” for me. I make more tea when I get home. I drink two or three sodas a week and this usually happens when I’m running errands. As a side note: I hate Pepsi and RC products. If I go through a drive-thru and order a Coke but am told all they have is Pepsi products, I politely say, “No thank you.”

7. Because of my former job in television news, I have been privileged to see all of the U.S. Presidents since Ronald Reagan, in person. No matter your party affiliation, it’s always cool to see the president, and I feel very lucky I’ve been able to do that.

Okay, there you have it. I’m supposed to tag 7 other people, but I’m not good at tagging, so consider yourself it if you’d like to play along. If not, that’s okay, too.

Five Lines

Here’s an interesting assignment I’ve been tagged with by Oreneta. I was supposed to go to the nearest book, and write down what I found on page 123, line 5 and the next three lines.

This was challenging for me in that it required me to print something out of context, and I spent seventeen years in journalism fighting the urge to do just that. This took me completely out of my comfort zone, but that’s okay. I need to do that every now and then. I grabbed three books that were handy, started turning pages and for various reasons, was pleased by what I found.

My first book was Home to Holly Springs by Jan Karon. If you liked her Mitford series, you’ll like this book. It’s the first in a new series of books about Father Tim going home to Mississippi. I’ve really enjoyed it. I’m 55 pages from the end and it has taken me FOREVER to read because I’ve had about ten minutes of reading time each night in the last two weeks. I hate it when I can’t make time to read. Am I rambling? Here it is:

“Thank you for having me.” The palm of her hand was cool; she wore a suit the color of the blue parlor walls.
“I didn’t know whether you’d come.”
“I wasn’t so sure about it myself.” He’d changed pants in the stockroom of Brooker’s, put on his linen sport coat, and left Barnabas with Red.
“Please,” she said. “Let’s sit in the window.”

It’s an okay passage, but examining it allowed me to drift to the next paragraph, which I really liked. I encourage you to read it slowly.

The room was greatly changed from his visits many years ago, though the overall spirit of it was brighter. They sat in high backed velvet chairs in the bay window, at a table furnished with a silver tea service and a vase of roses. Three petals had fallen onto the white cloth; a small cake, ornamented with a curl of shaved chocolate was displayed on a crystal stand.

I’m glad I read it a second time because it forced me to appreciate her descriptive style, something I didn’t do when I raced through it the first time on my way toward the next chapter. I need to do that more often…appreciate the author’s work, not just the storyline. Am I being all philosophical?

Book #2—Me & Emma by Elizabeth Flock. I haven’t read this book yet. It was one of several I picked up at the library on my last trip there. That was a good library day. You know how sometimes you go and find nothing that excites you and other days you find more books than you have time for? This was a good day. Am I rambling?

We’ve never really talked about how Daddy died—I always figured Emma didn’t think about it, her being so weensy when he was killed and all.
“I don’t know,” she says.
“His killers live in this forest and we’re hunting them down?”
“Well…”
“Well what?”
“They might live here, you never know. They never did catch ‘em did they?”

Ooh, now I’m really interested in this book, more so than when I pulled it off the shelf.

And finally, I grabbed the closest cookbook I had sitting near me. I’m never far from one. It was a hometown cookbook that contains this recipe on page 123. This is longer than five lines, but it wouldn’t be fair to give you only a partial recipe.

ITALIAN BEEF

1 beef rump roast 1 clove garlic, crushed
1 can beer 2 tsp Italian seasoning
1 package dried onion soup mix

Put roast in a crock pot. Combine remaining ingredients and pour over roast. Cook on low for ten to fifteen hours. Serve on French rolls.

This is a great recipe that I’d forgotten all about. I’m so glad I stumbled on it again. Perhaps that whole “out of context” thing isn’t quite so bad. Thanks Oreneta.