7 Weird and Random Facts

In all the excitement of holding my breath til the election was over, I almost forgot! Darling Petunia tagged me for the 7 random/weird facts meme.

So here are the rules:
1. Link to the person that tagged you, and post the rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.
4. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

I know I've done this one before, but I couldn't locate it in my archives quickly enough, so hopefully these are new and weird enough for you!

My Weird/Random Facts:

1. I will eat blue cheese on just about anything. Even dessert. I just had a baked pear and blue cheese concotion that was divine. Salads, hamburgers, I'll try just about anything with blue cheese on it. Yes I know it is probably bad for me, what with the mold content and all.

I knew, just knew, for real and for true, that my husband and I were soul mates when on the day of our honeymoon at Hearst Castle, we both picked a container of blue cheese to have on our crackers for our lunch picnic. And there were no leftovers! :-)

2. We went to Death Valley for our honeymoon (stopping at Hearst Castle on the way). It was amazing, we did some really fun hikes, saw the castle, and I still love looking at the pictures we took. I giggle at remembering being so amazed by the colors of the rocks, then getting my photos back from the developer (this was a while ago, 1990!) and being disappointed. Of course, it was because everything looked soooo great with my rose colored sunglasses that I was wearing everyday. I haven't been back since, but I'd love to go during the big bloom of the spring flowers.

3. I have trouble throwing away wine corks. I have several containers of them, and I don't have any reason to keep them. But whenever there is one remaining after the wine bottle has gone into the recycling bin, there is the cork, sitting on the counter, practically taunting me. I don't know why! If they ever get thrown away, it must someone else, not me. I love the shape, the size, the squishiness, the squeakiness, the scent, the interesting printing, the remnants of wine on one end.

I know at one point I saw a bulletin board made out of wine corks, and I thought, oooh, I want to save up corks and make one. That may be when I started saving them. I have carved some into a nice group of small stamps. At one point I was going to do an entire cork stamp alphabet. Hmm, haven't done that either. And I know I read something about cork trees being endangered or threatened or going extinct...

It is a pretty harmless compulsion as far as compulsion go, I suppose. As long as we don't start drinking tons more wine, I'll probably not die under a collapsing pile of wine corks anytime soon.

This guy might though, he's trying to collect 1 Billion corks to make Kon-Tiki out of them!

4. Over the course of my life, I have owned or been owned by the following twelve cats:

Lady de Winter (she's the first one I remember),I recall sitting on the garage step eating dry catfood with her so she would have company while she dined, she was killed by the neighbor's Doberman Pinscher (that was one of the worst days of my childhood).

Velvet, a soft and sweet black cat who ended up being kicked out of being an inside cat because she used the sand in the gas-fired fire places as her litterbox, ewwwww.

TC, short for Tiny Cat, the cat Marc had when I met him. He loved to ride on a record as it spun around on the record player (remember those from waybackwhen?)

Calvin, Hobbes, these two were a brother and sister pair, our first cats as a couple, they both lived for a very long time and moved with us to the Redwood Forest when we escaped from suburbia.

Ticonderoga, ran away to live another family down the street when we got our first dog. She was renamed Princess and was much happier there.

Yertle, was tragically killed by the garage door.

Zippy, born to a feral mom cat, we got him as a kitten from our nurse at the medical office in our town. He and Alex were "kittens together", so he is 13 now and quite the stately, in-charge gentleman cat. In our family, he is known as MY cat. But he still puts up with being manhandled by Alex quite a bit.

Lucky, so named as he was rescued from the pound. He is a black and white tuxedo cat who moved himself strictly outside when my sister-in-law came to live with us, bringing her two cats, one of whom did not get along with Lucky. I think Lucky thinks that he is still somewhere inside the house so he usually refuses to come in. He accepts exactly two pets on the head when you feed him, but that's the limit, strictly enforced.

Rexie, Named thusly because when he was a kitten he'd fight standing up on his hind legs, and he reminded the boys of a T. Rex. He is without a doubt, the sweetest, floppiest, mellowest cat I've ever known. Especially since the injury to his throat this fall which required a lot of medicine and skin cleaning. He put up with it all, and is even more appreciative after the ordeal. It is really hard to stay awake when he is napping on you, something about the timbre of his purr puts everyone right out. When you're sick, he's the one who notices and sticks by you while you laze around in bed.

Pele, Rexie's sister, who was nicknamed Danger Cat as she as a kitten was always getting into places she shouldn't have. Unfortunately she somehow had the cat tower knocked over onto her, she almost died, was blind for a while, and is brain damaged in some way. She isn't able to tolerate much interaction with people, so she hides under the couch in my studio. Late at night when everyone is asleep she roams around and sometimes will put up with some petting. She is really beautiful, and sweet in her own way, and I'm sad that her life turned out this way :-(

Spike is Alex's cat, he is the meanest, crankiest cat I've ever had. He fights with all the other cats and is basically a real jerk. He is the only cat that was raised entirely by Zelda the Wonder Dog, so he is quite dog like in a lot of ways. They play together and pal around outside, probably because he isn't much liked by the other cats! He is also the cat that insists on sleeping on your face. Literally on your face, I'm always waking up gasping for breath because he's once again sealed off my nose and mouth. Gaaack.

The last five are still alive (nearing crazy-cat-lady status), the others will always be with me. The only time I've been without a cat was when I was away from home at college and for short time between college and moving in with Marc (aka Mr. Husband).

5. I can't throw away any fabric scraps. I know I've talked about this here before, booooorrrring, I know! But I really am finding I have a problem with this habit, and it is impacting my studio space. I do enjoy using the scraps eventually, and I also enjoy the processes that make the scraps in the first place! So maybe the issue is just with the storage part of it. I truly think of them as another type of paint in my paintbox. I'm not about to go to the extreme of sorting my scraps by color or some other crazy gambit like that. You'd never hear from me again, they'd have to put me in the loony bin. Besides, the main way I use them is in the serendipitous juxtapositions that come up as they are randomly taken out of the stuffed plastic boxes they're living in. If they were sorted, then it wouldn't be the same fun process that I've worked out for myself.

I think I just need to be more compact in how I store them. This requires some more thinking.
Or I need to make more stuff, faster than I make scraps, or ???

6. I like making found poetry out of a printed page:

7. I miss being in marching band. There. I said it. I miss that thrill of performing in the cool fall air, under the football field lights, with all my band buddies, the cheering crowd, making big pictures form with our mass of bodies, playing tv theme songs and Sousa marches, wearing the tall red fuzzy hat where we stored our Tab sodas for the first quarter of the football game, wearing the scratchy unflattering polyester uniform, finding new ways to put up my long hair so it would stay in my hat and above my collar. I miss riding on the bus to the games, singing "Breakfast In America" at the top of my lungs with the rest of the sax players and the after performance pizza parties.

Hmmm, who should I tag?

C'mon, share the weirdness! You know you want to!

1. Deirdre of the Sloppy Studio

2. Laume of Beach Treasure

3. Jaye at ArtQuiltMaker

4. Kristen at ArdentPeace

5. Cherie' at Farm Fresh Textiles

6. Nellie at Nellie's Needles

7. Margi at MaverickCrafter

And anyone else who wants to do it, let me know in comments!