6 Weird Things about 1 Odd Woman

For the longest time, I have wanted to be tagged to do a meme (I was schooled that this word should rhyme with 'scream' and not my previous thoughts of either 'mee-mee' or 'meh-may', as in 'grandma').

Much love to Liz, who has tagged me to spill a half-dozen weird factoids about myself. I feel a little naked writing all of this, but I've never had much of a problem with public exposure, so here goes. . .

1. I love to be scratched. I mean L-O-V-E to be scratched, and not just on the back. Arms, legs, fingers (especially the webbing), feet, head. The only off-limit place is my front torso which is way too ticklish.

In college, I was fortunate to have a roommate (and friend) with good nails, and she would scratch my arms whenever I asked. My sister (Mrs Q) and Fairly Odd Father know how annoying I can be about this. Just writing this makes me want to find a good tree against which I can rub my back.

2. Before I had kids, I had a cable show. It was called "Pet of the Week" (catchy title, huh?) and aired on a local access cable channel to a tiny part of Massachusetts. Along with some of my fellow animal shelter volunteers, we would show off animals up for adoption, often with hilarious results. For example, there was the time I squatted down next to a little beagle and had him hump my back as I spoke. Or the many times a dog chose to poop on camera.

3. I can think of about 100 things I'd rather do than go to see a movie in a movie theater, or even sit and watch a video. For this reason, I have missed almost every major movie release in the past 10 years (except for Clerks II which I caught opening weekend). My husband had to trick me to see Fargo by telling me that 'no one dies' in it. I loved the movie, but had to laugh at how inaccurate his review was. I have not seen any Star Wars movie except for the first, but Fairly Odd Father still married me.

4. Given #3, it may seem ironic that our third child is named after a character in a movie. In the spirit of anonymity, I will not reveal his real name, but D is named after the lead character in the first movie Fairly Odd Father and I saw together----a rental I had seen before but he had not. I chose the movie as a test---if he liked the movie, I knew our sense of humor was compatible. If not, he was a boring drone and we would never make it past the third date.

5. I will not buy anything leather for myself. This is a leftover from my strict vegetarian days when I wouldn't touch a dead-animal product. Over the years, I have loosened up a tad on the eating thing (bacon has called my name a few times), but I still avoid leather as much as possible. In the spirit of full disclosure, I do own a leather belt (bought when I was in high school), leather running sneakers (that are never worn) and a pair of black leather dress shoes I grudgingly purchased when I failed to find a faux pair two days before my high school reunion. But, usually, pleather is my friend.

6. Wow, six already? Let's see. . . OK, here it is: I cannot do a cartwheel, serve a volleyball, hit a softball or throw a ball any more than about 10 feet. I am pathetically unathletic. When I ski, my legs are so far apart, faster skiers can just ski under me. I broke my arm trying to snowboard on a hill flatter than my driveway. I view rollerblading, ice skating and cross-country skiing as high-impact activities.

Of course I blame my mother for a lot of this. She thought that sports were not ladylike and convinced me that I was too tall, too clumsy, too awkward to be successful in sports. Not surprisingly, gym class was torture until 'walking' was introduced as an elective sport and I was able to avoid all softball games, tennis matches or dodgeball games.

I would give my right arm to do a decent cartwheel or serve a volleyball over the net, but that would be a bit problematic.

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So, that is it! I will tag Rachel and share the love.