Meme me (times 20)

This is recycling at its best. Here is a list of 20 things about me.

1. I have lots of beliefs & behaviors that people assume stem from some ideological decision. Decision? Rarely. They’re just my collection of wack-a-doo preferences even though they put me in a fairly predictable box. A box in which you might expect to see me sporting Secty-hair with an ankle-length dress and tennis shoes (shudder) and holing up on a compound in Alaska with some of our closest relations…

2. I’m a vegetarian. But my Papa was a trapper in Montana and my parents raise beef. I would LOVE to go elk hunting sometime, especially with my dad. I’ll kill it, dress it, pack it out and cook it… for you! I just don’t like the texture, smell or taste of meat. (You people EAT chicken? Have you touched it raw?) When I was 13 I thought I would try being a vegetarian while standing in line for a junior high cafeteria lunch. It smelled nasty, and I figured if I couldn’t kill it I shouldn’t eat it. That’s changed a bit, a la Xena the elk huntress, but I still haven’t eaten any for years and don’t see a need to. My inlaws and Papa like to tease me about it, but they’ve been very accommodating.

3. After the elk hunting revelation it’s probably no surprise that I’m a gun rights advocate. Whoa Nelly! In my circle of friends, profession and city that makes me a freak in four languages. This past weekend on the way to a lovely chamber music gig I picked Jonathan up from a gun show where he had purchased “the least PC thing there”. Think, “say hello to my leetle friend” and you’ll be on the right track. He also teaches a concealed-carry class. Sexy.

4. I have yet to discover a children’s show worth watching. I cannot stand modern Sesame Street. We do watch Veggie Tales (just see if you can get the monkey song out of your head) but the Pirates movie was a disappointing Disney sell-out. Speaking of selling out, as I type a truly insipid episode of Bob the Builder is playing for Toby. So I’m the worst possible kind of snob- one willing to sully her brain stem and make her children stupider for the sake of convenience and pure adoration.

5. I wish I had more shoes.

6. I still daydream about a Fetique bow I tried at a dealer showcase in Aspen in 2000. It cost more than our Jeep, even back then. For a long time I had a French bow that was worth more than my old viola, but a little less than a new Jeep. I kind of hated that bow’s guts and still wonder why I lost my mind and had to live with it for so long. Lots of non-string players are shocked that the stick makes enough of a difference to justify really shelling out for one. Bows are amazing, just look at them all curvy and lithe.

7. I’m allergic to stone fruits and tree nuts. That includes avocado, apricots, apples and my favorite food ever, cherries. I was perfectly fine eating all of these (though my mouth would get a little itchy) until I turned 19. Now they try to kill me. Between that and the vegetarianism, I cook an awful lot of stuff for my family that I won’t eat and I’m not very fun for the host of a dinner party. Though I will eat lettuce, cranberry sauce & rolls and call it a feast at Thanksgiving, so at least I’m not that kind of picky. (Mmmmmm, cranberries…)

8. I am going to talk about brrrrreastfeeding (roll that r, people). I seriously had never really given it a second thought before I had kids. Did people really do this before? With the hanging bits out in midair and futzing with strangely S&M looking boob-gear and public gnawings? Life is weird. Humans!
Anyway, because of all the stupid allergies, we (by which I mean me and the ladies) breastfeed our spawn for a whole year before they get any solid food. Toby didn’t seem to mind. Isaac, however, is beside himself at 10 months of age. He eats lint and will sprint-crawl if he sees a scrap of paper. When he sees us eating he smacks his lips and all but points repeatedly to his gaping pie-hole. He trolls around Toby’s chair at mealtime like a DHS-bound Lassie and sneaks chews on the leather handles of the antique trunk in our living room. So I suppose he won’t end up with allergies but he will contract Anthrax and have strange fetishes. Sigh.

9. I love crosswords and am really annoyed that Verizon doesn’t have a NY Times app for me to buy. Lewzers.

10. I’m frugal but not cheap.

11. I love doing laundry and dishes. Seriously. When they’re done, they’re done. Clean or dirty, no in-between. So unlike practicing the viola.

12. I didn’t vote for Obama, but I still respect his office and have hopes for his time there. I believe strongly that the government is a picture of inefficiency and should be used sparingly. If that makes me conservative, fine, but I have yet to meet a political party with which I identify.
What is with people being a-holes on either side? Why was Palin such a lightning rod for anti-mother, anti-special needs anti-family ugliness? It's fine to disagree with somebody but what's up with the personal attacks? What did people really know about her? That she was on the wrong side. A colleague said of her big family, “what CENtury are we in, anyway?” and it bit me. Because if you don’t have a nanny and two kids max you are a backwards idiot? I saw a bit of anti-Obama propaganda the other day and it also made my blood boil. He is the president, and that deserves some respect. Can’t you see me shaking my cane?

13. I like peonies best.

14. My mom is a welder and my dad regularly wins his age group at marathons. I hope when I grow up I’m like them. I’ve started running 1,972,358 times. J and I have done two 10k’s and a triathlon, but the last great endeavor was 2 years ago. We have a treadmill in the garage and as soon as I am getting more than 3 hours of sleep in a row I plan to hang out with that sucker every morning.

15. Noisy places undo me, and I get wander-y.

16. Jonathan is muuuuuch more sentimental. Not in a pack-rat kind of way, but in a touchy-feely, tearing-up, giving-a-crap kind of way. He is excellent at remembering that I mentioned I wanted a gizmo three months ago when it’s time to get me a gift. I am terrible at dates of any sort and have to count on my fingers how many anniversaries we’ve had. One year I nagged him five times a day all week to tell me what he wanted on his birthday. And then the day of? I forgot until evening and was cross with him in the afternoon. When we were dating I once forgot it entirely, completely. AND, AND!, the date is part of his email address. I deserve harsh punishment.

17. I hate the color yellow. When I was sick as a kid, I told my mom I felt yellow.

18. I am secretly horrified in a nauseated way of escalators and automatons. My nightmare is a busy shopping mall with Kenny-G Muzak, a bell ringer, a big Christmas-deer-robot display and banks of escalators with no stairs in sight. And it smells faintly of sausage. So basically, Clackamas Town Center.

19. I am an evangelical Christian. But wait! I think the way the Church has dealt with the following topics has been pretty much Evil: homosexuality, abortion, art, evolution.
That being said, I can’t just leave that hanging and am going to address abortion: I am not pro-Choice because I have seen empirical evidence that a fetus is a life and because babies are now surviving from as little as 25-26 weeks. There is no question that there are situations in which it is terrible for the woman to have to carry a fetus to term, and I’m not talking about medically terrible. But how can we say that it is okay for us to encourage that choice? And how about those first weeks? After conception there is no watershed developmental moment- it is all one big fast (very very fast) cascade from there. So while you are wondering about where the line is, couldn’t we just assume in favor of the fetus in MOST cases? I am not sure I’m for outlawing abortion, but I am definitely in favor of early ultrasounds and full information for those not at medical risk who are considering one. If more information is dangerous to a viewpoint, that viewpoint is likely biased for extenuating reasons and therefore is flawed.
But I will not think poorly of you for disagreeing.
Also, evolution and creation are not mutually exclusive. Both are still mysteries of which their own proponents admit we only know a weensy bit. If you you have spent time with a toddler lately you’ll agree that dangerously nutty stage makes no evolutionary sense whatsoever.

20. Well. If you are still reading, you must be my mother. How’s our wing of the compound coming?