Oh Thank God

Arwen, bless her cherished, plaid, flannel knickers, has tagged me for a meme (and I never thought I would type those words but nablopomo has humbled me) and not a minute too soon as it is 9:00 PST and I have not till this minute given a thought to what I would write about today. I am meant to confess to 5 (five) things that you might not know about me. Like Arwen, a lot of my readership (ha!) is friends and family. But since nablopomo started, I have acquired at least 2 (two) new checkers-in.
Onward, then!

1. I have never eaten sushi.
Despite having been born and raised on the west coast, I am not a big fan of seafood. Over the years I have come to appreciate scallops (esp. wrapped in bacon – um, BACON! YUM!) barbequed salmon, prawns & the like. You know – fish that doesn’t taste like fish but like garlic, lemon or salt. I like those foods. Sushi, unfortunately, has a certain fishness about it, plus the seaweed wrapper, which tastes undeniably of fish. I know not all sushi is raw. I know you can even get sushi that has no real fish in it. I don’t care.

I think it’s also because I don’t really like cold food. Sandwiches, for example. I would much rather eat a hot sandwich than a cold one. Even pizza. I warm up my leftover pizza.

Maybe this should read: 1. I am weird and often inconsistent about my food.

2. I am quite petrified of the telephone.

It’s a love/hate thing. I was obsessed with the telephone like everyone else my age when I was a teenager. Kept begging my parents: please can we get a second phone? We only had one and it was downstairs and I had to RUN to answer it if I was upstairs in my room. My dad would (he still does this) be sitting in the next room, reading the paper and holler “Telephone!” when it rang. He never answers the phone. I am ashamed to say I have picked up this habit from him. In fact I do it at work sometimes. Very annoying quality. Not on my resume at all.

The phone became scary when I got my first job as a receptionist. It was a fear of the unknown. It could be a nice co-worker in England calling to check his messages. Or it could be the fortune teller we’d hired for the Christmas party, calling to tell me she’d put a curse on me because we disagreed on the amount owing to her for her services. (true story!) In my current job, I get all kinds of phone calls. My phone number is (erroneously) listed on a website as a contact and sometimes I get the “I’ve tried 45 different numbers and YOU ARE THE FIRST PERSON WHO ANSWERED!” calls.

I volunteered on a telephone crisis line which is kind of the worst thing you can do if you’re scared of both the unknown and the telephone. But it did help me answer the phone at work. Even though my work (technically) has nothing to do with crisis intervention, it helped me with perspective. Is this person going to kill herself while I’m talking to her? Probably not, therefore I can chill.

So I’m pretty okay at answering the phone now, especially since Trombone was born and I’m less peopled-out. But to pick it up and call someone? I will examine a take-out menu for half an hour and decide what I want and then wait for Saint Aardvark to come home so he can call an order. All hail email.

3. I really liked “Elf.”

I think Will Ferrell is fucking hysterical.

4. I love the smell of gasoline.

My dad had an old truck, a Fargo, called Jean Batiste. It was burgundy and had a bouncy front seat and a gear shift that would take your knee off if you weren’t paying attention when Dad shifted into reverse. I remember blissfully inhaling the gas fumes while the attendant filled the tank. I thought it was a wonderful smell.

4. a) And also motels.

My teddy bear’s name is Gus and he smells like a motel. Even 25 years later, his stuffing spilling out from his oft-patched armpit and his belly all squooshed from being in a cardboard box since I started sharing a bed with another human being, he smells like a motel. I guess that means: musty carpet, stale cigarettes, long forgotten dreams ah ha ha, no, not really. I don’t know whether I loved him so because he smelled like a motel or whether I love motels so because they smell like my childhood friend. What I know is that whenever I go to a motel (hotels are NOT the same) I pause to take a deep, appreciative breath when I walk in the room. So enjoyable.

5. I have three holes in my right ear and two in my left.

In kindergarten I got my ears pierced. My paternal grandmother was adamant that I have pierced ears (she was Italian) and sent me lovely earrings for my birthday that year, then harassed my parents about whether I was wearing them. Mom had never had her ears pierced (she was a preacher’s kid) so we had them done together.

In grade 9 I wanted my ears double-pierced. All the cool kids, etc. Not to be deterred by being forbidden from having it done, I went with my friend to the hair salon at the mall and we each got a second set of holes punched. I purchased a number of pairs of large, silver-dollar-sized earrings to wear, thinking they would cover up the second pair of earrings. Which they did – except from behind. I got in trouble.

I got the third set of holes in 2nd year university. I bought a fishbone earring at a store at Granville Island and needed a hole for it.

A year later, I was a bridesmaid in my cousin’s wedding. She gave each of her bridesmaids earrings and a necklace to wear. I will spare you the photographs. But you can imagine: it was 1994, floral was “in” and this girl had been planning her wedding since she was old enough to flip through a bridal magazine. I removed my second and third sets of earrings in deference to the pink and pearl bridesmaid earrings and by the end of the day when I was taking off all the bridesmaidery, I found that, left empty in the August, Ontario humidity, the left of my third set of holes had closed.

So now I tag someone, right? That how these newfangled meme thingees work? OK, go Paige, go Metalia and go Ms. Suzie Hulahoop. Oh, and go Mr. Aardvark Senior. Your blog has languished too long, sir.