Five Random Facts

Tabetha at “The Closet Intellectual” challenged her blogging friends to share random facts about ourselves.  She posted hers on Thursday.  I had fun reading her post, recognizing that in at least a couple random ways, Tabetha is a kindred spirit. I’m sort of wishing we were neighbors.

Here are Mine:

Five Random Facts About Me:

Random Fact#1: I Am Not As Soft As I Look, aka, I Wish My Hair Was Red

 In high school, I was so timid that even the tough gangster girls were protective of me.  I was voted, along with a truly kind-hearted boy, as The Most Easily Embarrassed of my graduating class, which fact was immortalized in our annual (though I was the proof editor, I didn’t have the authority to change such irrevocable decrees).  Also in high school: someone decided that after years of mild-mannered repression, I would be the most likely to flip out and start belly-dancing–which scenario actually appeals to me now, ironically.

No wonder I’ve always wished I had red hair.  After the birth and subsequent open heart surgeries of my first daughter, I dyed my blond hair red….a drastic measure for me at the time (you can tell how stressed I am by what I’m doing to my hair).  Later, after the red had grown out (nothing else a blond can do with red dyed hair but let it grow out), a friend who hadn’t known me with red hair saw a picture and said, “Wow!  You actually looked spunky with red hair!”

My profile picture on EveryDayBloom?  That’s a wig.  I’m still blond, and last year was super stressful, so under those pretty auburn locks my hair is short.  But I’m liking it again.

Proof of toughness despite blondness:  I earned money for college working at a lumber mill in Central Oregon.   Me, my sister Leah, and the Spotted Owl (bless his soul).   Leah lost a co-worker to a saw accident at her mill (chain broke, whipped around, cut him almost in half).  At my mill, the woman at the other end of the table saw I worked at was missing a finger.  One day she narrowly escaped further loss when a long, long (like ten foot long) sliver of wood got caught in the backspin of our saw, and shot through her glove like a spear.  It just nicked the webbing between her thumb and forefinger. 

moving lumber for house construction…. this is as close as I can get to proof of lumber mill experience

Random Fact #2: My Hygiene Practices Embarrass My Children:

 My daughter Maurya thinks I should share my morning grapefruit rind ritual.  Yes.  After I eat my grapefruit in the morning, I rub the remaining juice all over my face and neck.  Sometimes into my hair (this is shortly before my shower).   Which seems absurd to my kids and visiting friends (I imagine I look a bit like a cat at her toilette).   But I am not ashamed.

My logic: I’m operating off the notion that citrus, particularly grapefruit, has exfoliating properties.  And will somehow, magically, make my skin glow, if I both eat it and wear it (I come from a long line of food remedy fanatics).  This may be a desperate grasping at straws, but somehow, it makes me feel better about moving from 42 to 43.  

I also use olive oil versus facial cleanser and moisturizer.  Odd, I know.  But it works for me.

#3: Strange Anatomy: Toes, and…Nose?

I’m told I have twin toes, which is supposed to be proof that I’m not adopted (they are an inheritance from a great grandmother). I’m not seeing it.  I need further proof…oh, wait.  Yeah, forgot the nose. I’m convinced.

#4: Food Practices:

I love food—chocolate, bread, fruity desserts, salads.  Salads with nuts, salad with cheese, salad with fruit….

And (as mentioned earlier) I come from a long line of both food adventurists and food remedy-ists (a rare heirloom: my Great Grandma Barney’s “The Grape Seed Cure”, written in the early 20’s).  I drink a green smoothie once or twice almost every day, eat radishes and seaweed when my mother worries about my thyroid—I already disclosed the grapefruit thing.  And other such nonsense (Kombucha!  Mmmm, kombucha).

However.   Like Tabetha at The Closet Intellectual, I was, as a teenager, diagnosed with food allergies.   My allergy tests consisted of sitting for long hours in the waiting room while a nurse administered rows of tiny shots of each food’s “essence” underneath the skin on my arm.  If the shot site swelled (like a mosquito bite), I was allergic.  

Everything swelled.  I had to wonder if the test was viable…I mean, wouldn’t anyone swell up with a bit of banana under their skin?  Since when have our bodies adapted to banana under the skin?  Or wheat?  Or celery?

So, now, I cook. I eat. Mostly, I’m happy and healthy. Sometimes, in low, stomach gurgling moments, I wonder if I should wean myself away from wheat. Live on yams and spinach for awhile. And then I make some bread.

#5: I Have Amazing Taste in Art & Entertainment.  

At least I think I do.

When it comes to humor, once again like Tabetha, I prefer random silliness.  Sometimes dry tongue-in-cheekness, but never potty humor or sitcom humor (unless it’s Phineas and Ferb).  Monte Python cracks me up (Love the dead parrot sketch, and the bicycle repairman sketch, and…).  I laugh so hard I cry watching Tim Conway be a dentist, and have searched all over for the “Gone With The Wind” parody when he falls down the stairs in slo-mo.  (And Carol Burnet, as Scarlett, wearing the drapery).

I’m also a sucker for romance.  And whimsy. 

Here’s a glimpse of some of the stuff I enjoy:

Gustav Klimt

Modigliani

Andrew Wyeth

Mary Cassatt

Van Gogh