Janet 101

Somewhere or another I missed the memo about having to do the 100 things about me meme for the 100th post, so my 100th post came and went with no fuss made over it. It happened to be the Queen's birthday post, which made it worse, because of the competition, so it's now sulking in the corner. I've apologized but it won't listen.

So for the 200th post, which I have cleverly coincided with my 1st blogoversary (I am such a hypocrite -- I really hate jargon, but as soon as I find some I can relate to, I throw around made-up words like confetti), I will do the 100 things meme.

Feel free to groan and click away to the next blogger. (NOW'S YOUR CHANCE! RUN, RUN!)

I have found other people's lists very interesting to read, but I'm having trouble coming up with 100 new things about myself that even I care anything about knowing, so you may dimly recall seeing some of these before as you're yawning too widely to read the rest of them.

And now, in no particular order, here I am.

1. I have texture issues with food. For example, I love tomato sauce, but I don't like to eat whole tomatoes. The exception is a marvelous Greek pizza that I make from the Enchanted Broccoli Forest cookbook by Molly Katzen (of Moosewood fame), and French bread with cream cheese, a tomato, and fresh basil broiled in the oven. OK, I don't like to eat RAW tomatoes.

2. I went to three different colleges (and had 4 different majors) before I finally graduated.

3. And another college for graduate school.

4. I went to a private non-denominational Christian school from 5th-12th grade.

5. It was depressing to the point of considering suicide not a good experience. But that's another post. Or 12.

6. My first "real" job was as a legal secretary for 2 attorneys who had just graduated law school and couldn't afford a real secretary. Basically I typed up legal briefs. I took the bus downtown every day and ate lunch (plain hamburger and water - I was cheap) at Burger King. I made $3 an hour plus bus fare. (Minimum wage at that time was 2.85 or something.) I got paid every other week. The first paycheck I opened a savings account, put in half and put the other half down on a suit for my mother. At the end of the summer, I had paid for her suit and had a nice little sum in savings. The lawyers wanted me to stay, but I had to go back for 11th grade. I was NOT happy about that. (See #5.)

7. I worked at Opryland the next two summers (the lawyers had a real secretary by then). I worked lots of double shifts. Lots more money in savings. (Where are the savings? First year of college ate every bit of it. Expensive, college is. I haven't been a good saver since.) Opryland is abandoned now and there's a ridiculously large mall in the parking lot. Like Nashville needed another mall.

8. I was 17 when I first saw the ocean.

9. I was 18 when I went to Disney World. Epcot was under construction at the time.

10. During college and grad school my work study was in the library. I worked in the back sorting the new books and typing up cards for the card catalog. (Does anyone still have those? I miss card catalogs.) I LOVED it. I probably should have been a librarian.

11. I got a small college scholarship based on my PSAT scores.

12. I held the record for the school's highest ACT scores from between 1975 (when the first graduating class took the test) to 1997.

13. I got 1580 on the SAT.

14. I also did well on the GRE, which is what got me into grad school, as my college grades were not straight As. Let's just say that good test scores are not necessarily an indication of academic achievement.

15. And a college degree is no guarantee of a lucrative and satisfying career.

16. I waited tables for several years during college and afterward.

17. I once got a $20 tip from Dwight Yoakum for putting LOTS of extra sprouts on his salad. It was closing time so I gave him the rest since we had to throw them away anyhow. He did not speak except to order. (It was the night of the CMA awards and I think he lost.)

18. I have been in 4 car wrecks. I was driving in 3 of them, 1 was my fault (fender bender), and 1 almost killed me - you're reading this because I had a seat belt on.

19. I was a cheerleader in grades 6-9, 12, and sophomore year of college.

20. I was a cheerleading sponsor when I worked at a junior college for 3 years.

21. I was scorekeeper for basketball in high school, and for basketball and baseball occasionally at the junior college.

22. I taught theatre, English, and speech (oh, the irony - see #53) classes at the junior college.

23. After I graduated from college (finally) I worked as a temp for HCA. I sorted, stuffed, and stamped payments. I generally didn't pay attention to the checks, until I saw one with my name on it. I was making $6 an hour, and HCA was paying the temp company $11 an hour for my services. I would have taken the job for real, but I was only there while someone was on maternity leave.

24. I have had 46 cats in 43 years. This includes 20 kittens (2 mothers - my first cat, Patches, had 3 litters. People didn't talk about spaying and neutering much in the 60s). Once I was grown I spayed or neutered all the cats and dogs I got. I got one cat from the pound, the rest just found me. The most cats I've had at one time (aside from kittens) is 7. Most of them when I was young ended up being given away or died of old age. One lived to age 16 and died of kidney failure. One had bone cancer and had to be put down at age 10. One was run over before she was a year old. Another was run over at age 11 and had to be put down. Two may have been eaten by a coyote. One was killed by our dogs. Currently we have 5, ages 14, 11, 8, and 7. (The 11-year-olds are sisters. They are not friends.)

25. I had 3 dogs as a child - none of them lasted very long, because no one knew how to properly train them, so we ended up giving them away. I was very young and didn't get a lot of say in the matter.

26. I got 2 dogs after my divorce, and they lived with the Mountain Man while I was trying to buy my house. One disappeared and the other was a deaf Dalmatian who ended up getting poisoned by the neighbor after I bought my house. The house came with 2 Rottweiler puppies (a very large German Shepherd had jumped the fence and misbehaved with the owner's purebred Rotty, and I offered to take the puppies. The owner probably would have drowned them otherwise.) They both ended up getting parvo, and one survived. He's now 140 pounds and will be 9 years old in September. Another neighbor had a pretty boxer mix named Elly, and they moved away neglecting to take their dog. So I kept her. She ended up getting poisoned as well (antifreeze this time, to the tune of $420). Several other dogs in the neighborhood died and one of the other dogowners let it be known that he owned a rifle and if another dog died he would see about it. Imagine our astonishment when nothing else ever happened. I had another Rotty for a little while who I think got stolen. But he was a bit of a problem, so it was actually kind of a relief. We currently have the big Rotty, a shepherd-coyote mix the Mountain Man got after his 14-year-old Golden Retriever died, and a little feisty terrier mix I found at a work-related event and brought home with me. She rules the other two.

27. It occurs to me that the dog and cat entries don't really qualify for this list.

28. I love swimming.

29. I hate running.

30. I have asthma brought on from the second-hand smoke of roommates and boyfriends. Who knew? And probably from working in the restaurants, too.

31. I love rock climbing. (Ropes and anchors, thank you, no free soloing for me.)

32. My first backpacking trip was with the Mountain Man, using equipment borrowed from his ex-girlfriend, with whom I was working at the time. (You might want to just take a minute to process that one.)

33. I won typing contests in high school.

34. I can sail a sailboat. (I will get a sailboat someday.)

35. I can drive a motorcycle. (I may get a motorcycle someday. Honda Valkyrie.)

36. I can use lots of power tools, including routers, drills, circular saws, reciprocating saws, jigsaws, and nail guns.

37. I can sew my own clothes (but I don't much anymore).

38. I have a great personality. (oh, wait . . .)

39. I like counted cross stitch, crochet, and embroidery (which is different from cross-stitch), and I do lots of other crafty things.

40. I love acting. I was in several plays in high school, Cheaper By the Dozen being the most fun (I was Ernestine). I didn't do anything in college, then after I graduated I took some acting classes and got involved in theatre in Nashville, but mostly as a prop person (I was so good at props they wouldn't let me act - sometimes quality bites you in the butt.). My first big role was Portia in Merchant of Venice after I moved here. I may have neglected to mention my previous reputation as Prop Queen.

41. Which is when I met the Mountain Man. He played Bassanio.

42. When I first met the Mountain Man, I thought he was gay. Which was cool with me.

43. He wasn't. Even cooler.

44. I started taking piano lessons at age 6 and continued through age 18. I play more now than when I was taking lessons.

45. I hate with a white-hot passionate hate that could eat through lead dislike recitals.

46. I can still play my senior year recital piece from memory (Rustle of Spring by Saint-Saens).

47. It was my grandmother's favorite piece. She played it beautifully.

48. It is not my favorite piece. I do not play it beautifully.

49. Whenever people came over, someone always said, "Janet, play something for us." (See #45.)

50. I have been a piano accompanist on several occasions, most recently spring of 2007 for The Apple Tree. Far more nerve-wracking than memorizing several hundred lines of Shakespeare.

51. I sang "El Shaddai" on the Grand Ole Opry stage in front of 600 people. Unfortunately, not one of them was a record producer. Or a musician in need of a singer.

52. I enjoy singing solos. Only one note at a time to worry about. If my hands are shaking it doesn't affect my voice. If your hands are shaking while playing piano, well, it isn't pretty.

53. I had to take public speaking class 3 different times in college. I kept dropping it and they wouldn't let me graduate without it. I found a professor who gave you credit for showing up, so I managed a B.

54. I have been paid for writing Sunday school materials for various religious publishers.

55. Wow! You're still here! Go have a snack (or a drink, or heavy drugs, whatever you need). I'll wait.

56. I owned approximately 27 Disney movies before I ever even thought about having kids. (We have more now.)

57. I have lived in 3 of the 4 major cities in Tennessee, and 3 tiny little towns in eastern Kentucky.

58. I have lived in 13 different houses or apartments in my life (not counting dorms).

59. I bought my first house when I was 37.

60. It was a money pit fixer-upper.

61. It took us 2 years to sell it after we got married (because it took that long to finish the renovations begun 3 1/2 years before we got married). Every time I'd start to fix something, I'd discover 14 things that had to be done first (the wiring was worthy of an HGTV show. Bob Vila would have LOVED that house.)

62. I think the telephone is an invention of Satan.

63. I finally got a cell phone May 15, 2008.

64. I had 2 wrong numbers the first week.

65. I have LPs of the Rolling Stones and Elvis that belonged to my parents (not people you would have considered to be the rock-n-roll type).

66. I had have both of David Soul's albums on vinyl. I also bought the sheet music. (I still have it.)

67. I have all of Billy Joel's and Dan Fogelberg's albums on vinyl, and most on CD.

68. I have all the Partridge Family albums on vinyl. And CD.

69. I have the same birthday as George Clooney (1961), Tom Bergeron (1955), Tony Blair (1953), Bob Seger (1945), Willie Mays (1931), Orson Welles (1915), Rudolph Valentino (1895), Gaston Leroux (1868), Sigmund Freud (1856), Robert E. Peary (1856). I'm the baby and the only girl. *smirk* (Not by much - Clooney is only a year older than I am.) And I know who all those guys are, too. Almost without consulting Google (except for Tom Bergeron, who I got confused with Tom Berenger. Not the same. At. All.)

70. I have owned 5 cars. Numbers 2 and 3 were bought new. The Beretta was my favorite one - it was totalled in the wreck that almost killed me.

71. I remember watching the first ever episode of Sesame Street.

72. I met Mr. Rogers at a convention in 1988.

73. My brother and I were on the Bozo Show.

74. My nickname is Moose.

75. It's related to softball (I played catcher).

76. I did not play any sports in high school (back then, cheerleading was not a sport).

77. I played softball on 2 different work teams.

78. I have traveled to Germany, Belgium, Holland (I got to see the Keukenhof Gardens on my 35th birthday), Luxembourg, and Iceland (technically only the airport at Reykjavik, but I count it because we deplaned down steps and actually walked across the tarmac to the terminal. It's cold in Iceland in May at dawn).

79. This was a week after the wreck (see #18 and #70) and my face was still stitched up and nasty. When I presented my passport in Luxembourg, the attendant looked at it, looked at me, and said to his colleague, in French, "Such a shame - she had a pretty face." I smiled at him and answered (in English - I'm not that good), "The stitches come out next week." I really did look hideous. But he was totally unprepared for the stupid hick American to understand French.

80. I have been to 27 states. (I don't count Texas because I never actually touched the ground at the airport, and I try not to remember sitting in Houston for 3 hours. In the deathtrap airplane. On the runway. In a lightning storm.)

81. I have been to Vancouver Island, BC.

82. I like to catch patterns on the odometer. For example, I saw the Jeep turn over 222,222. (Do you sense a hint of desperation at this point?)

83. Cheers and VCRs debuted the year I was a college freshman. My roommate's father (who as it turned out went to college with my father) taped all the episodes and when I went to visit her during the summer, he said we should watch them. We did. EVERY EPISODE. In a day. And I never missed an episode after that. I should mention that his VCR was a Beta model.

84. I like to dress up for Halloween. One year I dressed as a {ahem} lady of the evening and the Mountain Man wore a shirt with a picture of a Coke can on it. Together we were . . . (I'll turn on comment moderation so you can guess with impugnity. I should offer a prize for the first correct guess, if for no other reason than getting this far.).

85. I would eat all meals out if possible. Unless I could get a house elf who would clean up. I would be exceptionally good to a house elf.

86. I never went to very many concerts. However, I have seen an eclectic mix: Kenny Rogers; Oak Ridge Boys; Crosby, Stills and Nash; Dan Fogelberg (twice), Leo Kottke, PDQ Bach - all in Nashville in the 80s; Neil Diamond (on the front row - 1993 or 4 in Louisville); Widespread Panic on New Year's Eve in Atlanta at the Omni (2000 or 2001); Nancy Griffith, Dar Williams (late 90s, Lexington); and several music festivals around here with names like Zoe Speaks, Rich Kirby, Jean Ritchie and the like.

87. I once dyed my hair purple. Being a brunette, it wasn't that noticeable.

88. I have 4 piercings in one ear and 3 in the other. Currently I only wear 1 earring in each ear. Less ammunition for DeBoy.

89. I love shoes.

90. I hate spiders.

91. I like mysteries (Agatha Christie, Patricia Wentworth, Donna Andrews, Mary Daheim).

92. I don't like horror (Stephen King, Dean Koontz).

93. I love gardening, though I'm not that good at it. I like to plant bulbs and let them alone. I'm not much for a lot of annuals. We're trying for some veggies this year though.

94. I've made my own yard art and switch plate covers out of Sculpey.

95. I have had surgery 6 times: wisdom teeth out at age 18, TMJ surgery twice, lasik surgery to correct my nearsightedness and astigmatism, and 2 c-sections. 3 were outpatient.

96. When I had THE car wreck, I basically got my face in the way of the steering wheel and the shattering windshield. Among the 50 stitches were 8 inside my mouth and another 8 in my lip. (They didn't stitch up my thumb at all or even clean it - I cleaned it myself several hours later when I noticed it - it's still not right). Anyway, for dinner that night they served me fried chicken, corn on the cob, and some kind of crispy bread. I sent it back.

97. I deliberately got in trouble in the 5th grade in an attempt to keep the kids from calling me teacher's pet. It didn't work.

98. I have always been rather uncoordinated as well as the smartest girl in the class (a deadly combination, and not in a good way). In our high school class prophecy, it was predicted that I would start a computerized charm school.

99. I attended a Methodist church as a very small child. In second grade we started going to a non-denominational fundamentalist evangelical type of church. In 5th grade I enrolled in the school associated with this church. Eight long years. My mother and stepfather divorced my senior year (because he left), and because divorce is a sin, all the fine upstanding Christians in this church stopped speaking to my mother because Christians aren't supposed to associate with sinners. She went back to the Methodist church in which she had grown up and I went with her. I tried attending the local Methodist church when I moved to Kentucky, but there was too much racism, sexism, homophobia, and just intolerance overall for me to keep it up for very long. I have a whole series of posts on that topic that I haven't trotted out yet.

100. I wear socks to bed. If my feet get cold, the rest of me can't get warm, no matter how many blankets I have.

101. I have obsessive compulsive tendencies. The fact that I am standing here struggling through this list when I don't really have to should be proof enough of that.

Happy Anniversary to Me!