Random Ramblings - 8 Things Meme

Thanks to Diane, I was tagged for the Eight Random Facts meme that's been going around like the common cold at a preschool. First I have to post the rules, then dig right in to eight things you never wanted to know about good ol' me. :)

1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.

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

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

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

Here goes:

1. I lived in the same house until I graduated college. Shortly after I was married, my parents divorced and consequently sold the house. One Saturday, Dad told me I had to go up to the attic and sort through the relics of my entire childhood: children's books, my schoolwork through the years, stuffed animals, pictures, old projects, toys, clothing, you name it. I got up there and felt totally overwhelmed. I selected a Rubics Cube (which I think technically was my brother's) and Monopoly. I gave up everything else that was there. Stupid. Every now and then, before drifting off to sleep, I walk through the entire house again in my imagination, trying to remember as many details as I possibly can.

2. I was in San Francisco for the very first time one week after the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989. While there, I bought a copy of Martin Buber's I and Thou in a used book store on Haight Street.

3. I took the train across country when I was a junior in college. Jim got on the train in Minneapolis/St Paul and sat next to me. He was fifty years old and had been riding his bicycle across country. He was on his return trip when he got word that a friend had died, so he cut his trip short and was taking the train the rest of the way back to Sacramento, California. In Portland, Oregon, we had a five-hour layover. He bought me lunch and we spent a couple hours in Powells, a massive used bookstore in the years before Borders or Barnes and Noble. He lit my cigarette with a Zippo lighter despite the blustery wind as we walked back to the train station. I got off the train at Klamath Falls, Oregon. I turned and waved. I never saw him again. I guess if he's still alive now, he would be over 70 years old. Wow. That just occurred to me at this moment.

4. At the end of fourth grade we picked the instruments we wanted to learn to play the following year in band. I chose the tuba. My parents didn't let me play it because, they said, "Only boys play tubas." So I ended up playing the clarinet which was, I suppose, sufficiently girly. The other day Monk came home and told me he chose the instrument he wants to learn to play next year: the flute. I was astounded to find myself thinking: "Only girls play flute." I can't believe I thought it. Awful. I promise I'll never say it to him. Truth is, now that I'm an adult, I think my parents weren't so concerned about me playing the tuba because I was a girl as they were worried that the tuba was so very big, and I was so very small--it surely would have crushed me!

5. I lived at the beach with some girlfriends for a summer in college. Every morning my best friend and I would eat Cheerios and drink orange juice for breakfast. No matter what brand of orange juice we would get, I would have a complaint: "This orange juice is too sweet," or "This orange juice is too tart," or even something as vague as "This orange juice just doesn't taste right." Around the beginning of August, my friend turned to me and said very gently and lovingly, "I don't think you like orange juice." We laughed until our bellies hurt. She was absolutely right.

6. In high school I was enthralled with Shirley MacLaine and Richard Bach. After giving things some serious thought, I decided at the time that in a previous life I had been Lady Jane Grey, the nine-day queen.

7. When my hair is long, I dance like Snoopy. I don't know how to dance when my hair is short.

8. My parents bought a piano for us when I was little. I think it was a square grand piano--very, very old. And extremely rare. An ancient man used to come and tune it once a year. When the house was sold, the piano went with it. The picture below is the closest one I could find that looked like our old piano.

Wow. Funny how many of these random things are from a long time ago. Let's see. I tag: my brother, Amy, SpiritMist, Canticles, RevEm, RevMaria, and you if you want to play!