Tagged!

Wow, nothing like being tagged to get me back to blogging here. I'm totally honored that Jennifer Niesslein picked my blog--though as suggested, I'm sort of asking for it here. Still, fun to be picked by someone I've only met once.

Here are the rules:

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.

2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.

3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.

4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.

5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.


Hmmm. I'm not sure I know eight bloggers to tag. And eight random facts about me:

1) I kissed Jimmy Osmond. Yep, always with an eye for the less obvious heartthrob, even from girlhood, that would be me. Donny was obnoxious with those purple socks, but Jimmy? Adorable and overlooked as the kid brother. Luckily, my mother loved me very much and bought tickets to see the Osmonds perform at the Valley Forge Music Center--a theater in the round--remember those?--probably sometime around, oh, 1978 or so. (NO, not in the 2000s.) I had the seat on the end and at some point Jimmy wandered down our aisle, singing "Baby Face," and when he went to shake my hand, I just up and kissed the boy, pushing the mic out of the way. Hussy.

2) I am unable to eat peppers (the veggie, not the seasoning) without getting sick, which is tragic after the major role they played in my Italian-cooking-infused childhood.

3) Hardly a newsflash but I'm a terrible night owl and have been for years. My older son (all of 3 and 3/4, as of today) is also trending this way, which is unfortunate as the hours after he's asleep are when I actually get on the computer.

4) I have been to 45 states--35 for work. I'm missing Montana, Alaska, Oregon, Louisiana, and New Mexico. My original goal was "50 by 40," but having those kids in the second half of my 30s really slowed my travel. I regret nothing except missing New Orleans pre-Katrina. My last "new" state? Ohio. Really. Unless you count being in the Louisville airport, which is actually in Ohio...but I don't. And the one before that was Texas. Still haven't been to Dallas or Houston, but I can tell you a ton about the cockroaches in Laredo. (Not a slam against the people of Laredo...I mean the cockroaches for real. They galloped in herds across the floor of the ballroom where I was making a presentation, and no one blinked but me.) I think Alaska is next.

5) I grew up in a very conservative area of a very conservative archdiocese, and yet had a tremendously liberal Catholic upbringing, with things like celebrating the Passover seder in CCD and inviting the Quakers' youth group to Mass and meeting with them as part of their exploration of faiths. I know it was the 1970s but it still seems almost impossible that it happened that way and I feel lucky it did.

6) I never thought I would breastfeed a baby past four months or the cutting of the first teeth and here I am with a 22 month old still going strong.

7) My ears are not pierced. Neither were my mother's, nor her mother's before her. My grandmother was raised primarily by her grandmother, who considered it "paisan" (peasant, low class, in this instance) and not something "American girls" did. Times have changed and I should perhaps reclaim my heritage but in elementary school, I figured out that if I pierced them, I'd only ever get earrings for birthday gifts again, and that was the end of that idea.

8) My parents bought a color TV for the first time so I could watch Sesame Street in color. I was 9 months old. My mother told me for years that she never could have gotten dinner on the table if it weren't for Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, and Electric Company buying her the time to do it. So maybe this is why I let my kids watch tv despite a husband who actually worked on coding violence in children's television.

Hmmm, eight people. Well, there's Rachel, and Anjali, of course, although I'm thinking that she has done a meme like this before...and Tiffany. I'll try to think of others at a more decent hour!