An Easy Way to Post

Dear, amazing, fantastic Susan over at e-i-e-i-omg! posted about it being 12/12/12 today.  In celebration of twelves, she listed "twelve things about me that you didn't know you were dying to find out".  And, since *I* haven't posted in FOR-EV-AH, I figured it would be a fun, easy way for me to let y'all know that I'm still truckin'.  Or maybe tug-boatin' would be more apt.  Slow and steady.  Chugga, chugga, chugga.  "I think I can, I think I can . . . ."


Anyway, the text in grey is Susan's.  The rest of the text is my "finish this sentence".

1. I was born in Harvard, Illinois.  In grade school, I used to try to impress my classmates by telling them that "I was born at Harvard".  They didn't get it.
2. I taught myself to play the piano this past year.  But, just pecking so far.  As far as a song goes.  I can do some pretty-sounding scales with both hands, tho!  I've always wanted a piano and finally got one after the divorce.  But, I think it's one of the (physical) things I'm going to have to leave behind.  It's just too hard to move.  Especially in the winter.  Especially since I'd have to move it into an un-heated storage unit for . . . how long?  But, there will be other pianos, I know.  But I also know this was a really, really good one.  :(
3. I speak a tiny bit of Spanish.  Un poco.  Muy un poco.  And an even tinier bit of French.  In Spanish, I figure I'm good if I can order a beer (una cerveza, por favor) and find the bathroom (donde esta el bano?)  It's amazing how quickly you can pick up a language through immersion, tho.  The ex and I were in a smaller village outside Calais, France once and the pleases and thank yous flowed quite easily after only a day.  It was suggested to us that the French would be much more tolerant if we TRIED to speak French rather than English, and it was SO true!  Although, I do remember one old bat from whom I was trying to buy dark chocolate nonpariels for Papa Pea (his favorite candy).  She wanted to sell me milk chocolate (yuck!), and I left empty-handed . . . but I have a strong suspicion that her manner was her modus operandi!  (And, see, I can even write a little Latin!  Ha!) 
4. I had a pet . . . barely-born rabbit once.  I found it at a farm where I was picking up chicken feed (the owners were gone).  It hardly had hair yet.  To keep it warm, I stuffed it into my bra and drove to the nearest feed store for milk and a syringe.  It made it to Swamp River Ridge and lived just a couple days.  I couldn't believe how sad I was when it died.  On my birthday.
5. I used to be married to a marathon runner.  Ultra-marathoner.  Triathlete.  He finished in the top 100 of the Ironman.  It's an addiction.  (Marathon running, that is - NOT being married to one!  I hope.)
6. One year, I made a lot of my spending money . . . hmmmm.  Making Christmas wreaths.  Hand-tying fishing nets.  And actually, that was for seven years.  (Same company for both skills.)
7. I am terrified of nothing, honestly.  (Except a particular atrocity that can happen to a woman.)  But, I really, REALLY don't like spiders.  Really.  The big ones.  Really.  My dear cousin in California just called and invited me to come live with her for a year in Temecula.  The first thing I thought of?  The spiders.  Yeah, won't be happenin'.
   
8. I almost drowned in a river once.  The mom down the road had dropped her twins and myself off for an afternoon of swimming & playing.  If that had been done in this day and age, I suppose she would have been arrested for child endangerment.  Anyway, we were walking alongside the river when I slipped on a moss-covered rock and went in.  It wasn't deep at all (probably only a foot), but the current was strong and pulled me away from the older two.  I wasn't very old - maybe 7?  I remember trying to grasp and hang onto the slippery rocks on the bottom as I was pulled out to the Big Lake, feet first and belly down.  I probably only went about 25 yards before the brother of the fraternal twins was able to splash in and grab me as I clung to a large rock.
9. I am fascinated by ha!  Too many things!  Certain periods in history.  Ancestry.  People who can do amazing things with their hands - painters, coopers, you name it.  Snow.  Tracks in the snow.
10. I wanted to be a nurse or OTR trucker.  Quite the dichotomy, eh?
11. I can type 113 wpm, the last time I was tested.  That was with errors, tho.
12. I collect too much, I'm sure.  But, specifically?  Hmmm.  Well, I do have a mish-mosh collection of chickens.  As art, I mean.  Kitsch.  Not the actual thing.  Although I do have those, too.  After all, I *am* Chicken Mama!