Jenny McB tagged me! Me me me me me — my favorite subject. (Just kidding. My favorite subject is Houses. As in, how do we sell This One and buy a New One Before the Summer is Over?) With no further ado, I present:

Ten Scintillating Facts About Moi

1. I am boring. You may have already guessed this. I hardly ever go out at night because I’d rather stay home with my husband and watch Jeopardy! The Simpsons! Or Star Trek! Then I get grouchy, because the player I liked on Jeopardy didn’t win, or it wasn’t the Planet of the Apes episode of the Simpsons, or it wasn’t the Way to Eden episode of Star Trek. Then I fall asleep. When I do go out, I’m all, Damn! This is so fun. Why don’t I go out more?

2. I have a little bit of a problem with being dissatisfied, and I think I’m a little ADD. Or maybe a lot. Or maybe I’m not at all. Or maybe I’m ADHD. Or maybe I just need to watch Grey’s Anatomy and grouse because they killed off Denny.

3. I do not like Dungeons & Dragons type fantasy stuff at all, or sci-fi anything, especially not Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which my husband tried to force me to watch last week. But I adore Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom and Ian McKellen, thus my obsession with the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I tried to force my husband to watch it with me, but he was seeking revenge over the whole Hitchhiker’s Guide thing and refused.

4. Like Jenny McB, I, too, am 5’10”.

5. Also like her (this is getting kinda weird) I have wicked motion sickness. (I’m totally copying Jenny now, because the hockey game starts in 10 minutes. Go, Sabres!!!)

6. I love to garden. If I’m feeling low, I mow the lawn, weed for awhile, plant some flowers, drink some iced tea. Next thing you know I’m a new woman. Way cheaper than therapy, and my yard looks good.

7. I like my coffee half milk, half coffee.

8. If I had a million dollars I’d be rich.

9. I love to write down stuff my kids say. I just found this in a notebook from two summers ago: “Do you feel like we’re in a movie?” — Wacky Girl. (Yes.)

10. I get crushes on 17-year-old hockey players, but I wait until they’re 18 to talk about it.

Now, to tag ten people. Argh! OK, how about the Gallivanting Monkey, Leslie Gould, Planet Nomad, Iowadrift (who is no longer in Iowa — will she undergo a name change? If so, I say dibs on Iowadrift), Chez Musser, A Flyover Blog, One Woman Army, Vader’s Mom and Dad Gone Mad and HOCKEY GOD! (who does not even know ten people, so this will be tricky for him).

ONLY (just wait) I’M PUTTING A TWIST ON IT. Make it: Ten Interesting Things My Family and/or Friends and/or Dog Don’t Know About Me. Ha! Take that, Internet!

“What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?”

–Ursula K. LeGuin, author (1929- )

“Meditation, then, is bringing the mind home.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

13ers,

Have I been happy lately? If you read this blog regularly, you’re probably shaking your head and saying, “She’s not happy.” But the winds, they are changing. Still, here are…

13 Things I’d Rather Be Doing Right Now

13. Getting my nails done.

12. Running off to Rio, Rio by the sea-o.

11. Hiring a babysitter. Oh, wait… I did!

10. Celebrating our ten-year anniversary. Early.

9. Drinking a vodka-7. Oh, wait… I am!

8. Watching “The Office” and dang it — it’s not on ’til tomorrow night.

7. Watching “Lost” and dang it — it’s not on for four hours and 20 minutes.

6. Eating Indian food with mango lassi, relish and chutney. And naan. Oh, naan, how I adore thee.

5. Playing with a little puppy, then sending him home with someone else so they can pay his vet bills.

4. Watching the maid fold the laundry.

3. Having a “Land of the Lost” marathon with the kids instead of fixing dinner.

2. Hearing my son’s take on Shakespeare. “This is stupid! I don’t understand what this language even is!” No, actually I’m glad I’m not doing that.

1. Experiencing springtime in New York — the black squirrels in Central Park, a little shopping in the East Village, maybe going to a Broadway show, then going out to see the Statue of Liberty.

Ten years ago next week — May 9th, 1997 — my husband-to-be and I went out on our first date.

I had a mangorita, he had a vodka rocks. I was so nervous I dropped a hunk of bread in my water.

When we got engaged two months later — not quite two months even, because really, why waste time? — we were in Lisbon, Portugal. He took me there to introduce me to my future mother-in-law, who was working there at the time. If you have never been to Portugal, I highly recommend you get your booty over there. They have it all — romance, the gorgeous ocean, incredible beaches, castles and nice people, great food, streetcars that go careening around hither and yon. And Portuguese, which I do not understand one word of. I barely speak English, I think that’s probably obvious by now.

So when we went out for Chinese food, and the six-foot-tall Chinese waiter came over to our table and asked me, in Portuguese, what I would like for dinner, I turned to Hockey God (who was not yet Hockey God, he was just this cool guy I’d run off with to Europe) and he ordered for us. In pretty good Portuguese. Which he had never spoken before. That, to me, was very cool. I did not drop my bread in the water this time, mainly because no bread was served.

More about Lisbon: It is sunny there, and they have funiculars. Funiculars! Also we ate a lot of ice cream.

But we had no rings! So off we went to Iowa City, Iowa, after a brief visit to Prague (for my beau) and a trip back to Portland (for me) and bought a couple of gold bands at a jeweler’s downtown. Then I met my father-in-law and stepmother-in-law for the first time. I may have dropped my bread in my water glass. We had a fun trip.

(that’s us)

Happy Anniversary, sweets. It just keeps getting easier, doesn’t it? HA!

Wacky Girl: “Let’s watch South Park.”

me: “No.”

Honestly — you have to show some kind of control, occasionally.

No, it’s not anti-freeze — it’s the gallon jug we watered the plants with. Was he ever mad when he got too big to wedge his head in there to get a drink. (photo by Hockey God)

“Hey, wanna take a nap?” (photo by my sister)