Saturday, November 22, 2008

Kreativ Blogger Award, Bookworm Award Meme and Four Things Meme

Memes, awards, taggings. I confess; they're not my forte. They're a bit like that sock basket that lurks in the corner -- the kind of thing I convince myself I'll tackle later, even though I really love warm feet (and taggings are a warm fuzzy).

Thanks to all who tagged me for the following awards/memes, especially for showing remarkable patience! Also, please forgive me if I neglect to mention it if you tagged me for one of these because I just finally figured out a good way to keep track of all those taggings -- up till now, I've been relying on my faulty memory.

I was tagged for the Kreativ Blogger Award by Tara, Heather and Jenclair:



7 things I did before:
1. Read (always)
2. Played four musical instruments
3. Painted in oil and acrylic and sketched
4. Ran regularly
5. Wrote long, heavily-anecdotal letters (the kind you mail with stamps)
6. Traveled to Colorado on vacation every 2 years (pre-marriage)
7. Wrote fiction daily

7 things I do now:
1. Read (yeah, always)
2. Blog, blog, blog
3. Make bookmarks
4. Feed, clean up after the cat and two guys
5. Photograph birds
6. Photograph lizards
7. Photograph anything and everything else I see

7 things I want to do:
1. Go back to school to get that Master's degree
2. Get paid to do something I'm good at
3. Take more risks
4. Summon up the courage to occasionally call my sister
5. Follow up the Master's degree with a doctorate
6. Travel to Australia, Italy, Ireland, Switzerland, Spain, New Zealand . . . I could go on
7. Return to hanging out with actual, three-dimensional humans on occasion

7 things that attract me to the opposite sex:
1. Sense of humor
2. Intelligence
3. The ability to listen (poor hubby really needs this ability -- actually, what he's good at is ignoring all that mindless chatter)
4. Honesty
5. Ability to think independently
6. Love of life
7. I have a thing for brown eyes and a nice smile

7 Favorite Foods:
1. spaghetti with caper sauce
2. cheese ramekins (a souffle) with asparagus
3. grilled cheese & tomato sandwiches
4. steamed vegetables of any kind with corn bread
5. thick, melty Mexican dishes (without meat)
6. pasta salad
7. veggie pizza

7 things I Say Most Often:
1. I beg your pardon?
2. Wahoo!
3. Come on, Kitty. Time to come inside. Please. Come on, Kitty. Spooky, get your butt in here!
4. Love you!
5. Drive carefully!
6. What kind of homework have you got, tonight?
7. What else can we get rid of?

I was tagged for the Bookworm Award meme by Heather and Teddy Rose:


The rules: Open the closest book to you, not your favorite or most intellectual book, but the book closest to you at the moment, to page 56. Write out the fifth sentence, as well as two to five sentences following.

The following quote is taken from A Primate's Memoir by Robert M. Sapolsky:

I had spent all of college in the dormitories subsisting on the horrid purple-flavored yogurt that was their sop to the vegetarians, and during the vacation breaks when I had stayed in the dorm, my forays into preparing food on my own had consisted of going to the local grocery to buy purple-flavored yogurt. I was living on rice and beans and cabbage in camp, occasionally even managing to cook them adequately. I hadn't a clue what to do with the zebra leg.

Pretty intriguing, eh?

And, I was tagged for the Four Things Meme by Care, whom I could have sworn tagged me for another of those awards (if so, I can't locate the post):

I'm having a spacing problem with this one, so you get The Joy of Commas, as well.

Four Jobs I’ve Had:
Accountant, Bookstore Clerk, Waitress, Humor Columnist

Four Movies I Can Watch Many Times:
Ladyhawke, About a Boy, Sense & Sensibility, Galaxy Quest

Four Places I’ve Lived:
Kansas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Michigan

Four TV Shows I Love(d):
Emergency!, House, M.D., Firefly, Northern Exposure

Four Places I’ve Vacationed:
England, Hawaii, Alaska, Maine

Four Novels (or series) I have enjoyed rereading:
The Count of Monte Cristo, Desiree, The Maltese Falcon, A Little Princess

Four Websites I Visit Often: Animus3, Other blogs, Google Reader, Blackle

Four Places I'd rather be right now: Australia, Italy, Wales, Hawaii . . . but, really, I'm fine right here, at the moment

Feel free to tag yourself, if you've missed any of these and want to play along!!

I have to go soak, now. I'm not human if I don't get my bath. Nighty night, everyone!

24 comments:

  1. I just added A Primate's Memoir by Robert M. Sapolsky to my TBR, even though you haven't reviewed yet.

    I can totally relate to dorm food for vegetarians. It was 1982 when I started college life. My dorm didn't have yogurt of any kind, but they did have a salad bar with past it's prime lettuce and other vegetables. That was usually it. They also offered hard boiled eggs, which I did not eat. However, I wasn't a vegan at that time, so I did eat cheese.

    It snowed a lot and campus was up a giant hill from town. This was at the time that Domino's Pizza was free if it wasn't delived within 30 minutes. When ever it snowed, I got free pizza. That's what I lived on my first year.

    I moved into a run down attic apartment the next year and cooked. I still ordered the occasional "free pizza". LOL! Sorry Dominos, I was a starving student. Thanks so much for helping me.

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  2. There's a lot of these going around. :-)

    I would love to travel to all those places you mention. Wouldn't that be fun? Think of all the bookstores we could visit!

    I love Ladyhawke! I haven't seen that in ages. My favorite character has always been Mouse. It was the beginning of my love affair with Matthew Broderick. :-)

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  3. Pure fun!

    In case you didn't catch my reply, A Primate's Memoir is one of Rich's favorite books, so I won't be needing to buy that one...sorry. :(

    And I had about a hundred things to comment on here, but I got so distracted by Emergency! that I can't remember anything else. I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED that show as a kid! My brother and I, along with a couple of friends, used to "play" that all the time. My brother was Johnny, our friend was Roy, and another girl and I always fought over who had to be Dixie and who got to be "the victim"! Oh man, thanks for the blast from the past!

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  4. Anonymous8:15 AM

    I'd like to get paid for doing something I'm good at, too, but first, I have to figure out what I'm good at. Uh, does your hubby read your blog?

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  5. I have a thing for brown eyes and a nice smile as well! :) What four instruments did you play?

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  6. I have not seen Galaxy Quest in forever. I remember liking it when I saw it though.

    We watch House M.D. too. Sometimes it is too graphic sex for me espically earlier this season but it seems to have gotton better.

    I have reread A Little Princess several times too. A Classic!
    Did you like A Secret Garden by Frances Hodgen Burnett?

    I have a Master's Degree in Biology. What subject are you thinking about?

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  7. Teddy Rose,

    I remember those days well! We didn't live in a climate that was harsh enough to delay the pizza guy, but we did subsist on pizza on the weekends. Thanks for sharing that story! I read a bit of A Primate's Memoir, last night, and I think it's terrific. I had to stop, though, because I've got others ahead of it in the queue. Darn.

    Wendy,

    I noticed you just posted a couple of these, yesterday. At that point, I was tired and didn't comment. Sorry about that. :)

    Absolutely. I think I'd have just as much fun looking at books I can't read because of a language barrier (and smelling them) as I would buying. It would be loads of fun!!

    I think I fell in love with Matthew Broderick because of Ferris Beuller (sp?), but he's fabulous in Ladyhawke. I think it's one of the most beautiful, romantic movies ever made -- the scenery, the music! I never grow weary of that movie!

    Debi,

    Darn, darn, darn. Well, at least I had the right idea. When I picked up that book I thought of you but it was partly because I thought your husband would like it. I've got another one that looks good, here: On the Wing: To the Edge of the Earth with the Peregrine Falcon by Alan Tennant. Too late? Already found that one? They're both library rejects.

    LOL! I had no idea I was going to hit such a chord with Emergency! but it's my childhood favorite and we recently got a digital antenna -- they're playing Emergency! nightly on that funky digital channel. It's still just as funny and exciting as it was in the Seventies. :)

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  8. Bermudaonion,

    I've had a little trouble zoning in on my own skills, too. My husband reads my blog on occasion. My in-laws read it regularly (and, apparently, my eldest son's girlfriends tend to find me . . . so you won't see many comments about his love life, LOL).

    Laura,

    I married a guy with brown eyes and dimples. Puppy eyes. LOL I played piano, flute, piccolo and guitar. I was pretty good at flute/piccolo (1st chair, most of my junior high and high school band years) but I didn't take piano or guitar for very long. I'd love to get back to both of those.

    Brittanie,

    I love Galaxy Quest because it's clean, funny and exciting -- just a terrific family movie (and very quotable).

    This year, I haven't seen House a single time. I think during last year's strike I became so frustrated by the breaks that I lost the habit of tuning in, but I need to get back to it. Yeah, it can be very graphic, but I love Hugh Laurie.

    Yes, I like The Secret Garden, too! I didn't find that one till adulthood, though. I still have my battered copy of A Little Princess.

    My degree is in business and I originally intended to get an MBA with emphasis in Organizational Behavior or Business Strategy then specialize for my doctoral work and do research and consulting. Really, I'm not sure what I want to do, now -- still thinking. I'd just like to go back to school.

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  9. 3-d humans? What are THOSE! LOL Great meme's Nancyroo.

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  10. Dangit--I just realized that I can't upload pictures to my blog and comment on other blogs at the same time. Boo! Always trying to multitask.

    Anyway, these memes can be a pain in the butt to do, but we love reading them so much!! I found myself saying--me too! to a lot of these. What would you get your Masters degree in? Do you think you'll ever go back to writing fiction regularly?

    Happy Sunday!

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  11. Andiloo,

    3-D humans are hard to describe but they're noisy and dangerous animals, yet . . . fun! LOL I'm going to Bible study, tonight. I do need to actually see other faces besides the two in the house, now and then!! :)

    Trish,

    I have that problem, too, plus a teenage malfunction -- if I have too many windows open, he tells me I'm screwing up his signal. Hmph.

    Now I'm dying to know what other "me too's" you observed. I'm up in the air about the degree, at the moment. I've got a business degree, but I'm not sure I want to go back into that field at my age. My son is driving, now, so I'm out of excuses. I need to figure it out and go back!!!

    Yes, I'm sure I'll go back to writing fiction regularly, at some point. I'm strongly effected by surroundings and we're working on clutter removal. I lose my creativity when I don't have open spaces. I've probably thrown out and given away enough for at least one garage sale, this weekend alone. It's great to purge.

    Happy Sunday to you, too!! :)

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  12. To list a few (well, copy and paste a few):

    5. Wrote long, heavily-anecdotal letters (the kind you mail with stamps)
    3. Take more risks
    4. Summon up the courage to occasionally call my sister
    7. Return to hanging out with actual, three-dimensional humans on occasion
    3. The ability to listen (poor hubby really needs this ability -- actually, what he's good at is ignoring all that mindless chatter)

    Good luck with the purging. I made a nice little stack of books that I'm ready to part with, but not sure where to take them--I guess the library? Hubby is currently cleaning out the garage and I'm trying to blog about our New England trip that we took over a month ago! Sheesh--how does one get so far behind?

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  13. Trish,

    Thanks for cutting and pasting those! It's really quite nice to know we have those things in common.

    We're doing a fantastic job of purging, but I haven't tackled the books. At this point, we're mainly focusing on the clothing and toys that we've stashed in the garage, over the years, and then forgotten about. Since my youngest is about to turn 17 and we've (ahem) all grown a bit, it's been a pretty easy job, thus far. The book purging is slower. I work on that all the time, though. It hurts.

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  14. I loved reading more about you. One of the books I always associate with you is The Counte of Monte Cristo (sp?!) because as I was reading it two winters ago you were so encouraging about it. It IS a worthwhile read; lots of lessons and drama!

    Plus, you deserve every award you've ever been given.

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  15. Thanks, Bellezza!

    Did I cheer you on? I absolutely adore the Count (and Alexandre Dumas, pere, in general). I'm glad you enjoyed the book! Lots of lessons and drama -- good way to put it.

    Aw, thanks. You're too kind. :)

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  16. Anonymous1:12 AM

    Yumyum You're making me hungry with those 7 things. Are you a vegetarian? I am too!

    And YAY House!! I love House. My BF got me hooked, he loves Firefly too.

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  17. I loved Ladyhawke and About a Boy and could watch them again. I'm still sad about Firefly's cancellation and still adore all of the eccentricity of Northern Exposure.

    Thanks for playing! I've enjoyed your responses to all of these memes.

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  18. Monica,

    I'm not a vegetarian, but I would rather be -- if that makes sense! All of my favorite meals are meatless and I usually ask to have meat removed from dishes, when I eat out. But, my husband does most of the cooking and considers meat a staple. He's used to seeing me take a bite or two and then shove the rest aside.

    House is great, isn't it? Firefly . . . oh, so sad. I keep hoping they'll have the sense to bring it back.

    Jenclair,

    I think we can safely agree that the two of us like a little quirky humor in our moves and television. :) We have a few seasons of Northern Exposure on DVD and it surprised me that it's still so fun to watch. It's not completely tied up in the decade; it's the characters that made it work.

    Thanks for tagging me! I'm slow, but I have fun with memes when I finally get around to them!

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  19. I've heard Sapolsky speak, and he's quite engaging and funny - clearly it carries over into his writing. A Primate's Memoir is on my wishlist!

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  20. Fyrefly,

    You lucky devil! I would love to hear him speak. When I happened across A Primate's Memoir in our library sale, I chose it by way of the "flip test" -- in which I flip to several random passages and read, in order to see whether or not a book grabs me (it works very, very well). Every passage was consistently funny and I had trouble stopping myself from reading further, each time I flipped. Always an excellent sign!

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  21. "thick, melty Mexican dishes (without meat)"

    Me too, me too! I totally love this description.

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  22. Tara,

    Hmmm, got any great recipes? :)

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  23. how about cheese and caramelized onion enchiladas? These are fab.

    http://books.google.com/books?id=8Ro5HQNOaNYC&pg=PA334&lpg=PA334&dq=cheese+caramelized+onion+enchiladas&source=web&ots=wkou6sOdEI&sig=fSuY4KJCT6zU8wK-6ZNj8ZaQuGE&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result

    My meat loving husband thinks they're great.

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  24. Tara,

    That looks delicious! Thanks for the link!!

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