Tuesday, July 17, 2007

I've Been Tagged

Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Melinda, baker par excellence, blogster, and faithful reader, tagged me to list seven things you might not know about me. Honestly, there are many things that people might not know about me, but they are all supremely uninteresting. Melinda said she hoped that I would have some secret like maybe teaching belly dancing while I was in law school. Afraid not. My list would be more interesting if Melinda had just made up seven things about me.

1. I had a pet lamb when I was a little girl. The lamb recognized me by sniffing knees. When she came to my knees, she got very excited, and bounded around. No one else has ever been excited by my knees.

2. When I was in high school, I won the “best actress” award, for playing Miss Pidgie McDougall, an old maid (back in the day when no one objected to the term “old maid”), in a very bad play called “Off the Tracks.” Guaranteed laugh line: “My name is Pidgie McDougall. I’m in men’s underwear.”

3. I love grilled bologna sandwiches. These sandwiches have absolutely no culinary redemptive value, and I should be ashamed of myself for eating them, much less admitting to it.

4. I won the patriotic essay contest sponsored by the American Legion two years in a row, in 7th and 8th grade. My masterwork was entitled “What America Means to Me.”

5. Bats terrify me. I wish they didn’t exist. On several occasions, bats have gotten in our house, and awakened me by swooping around our bedroom in the middle of the night. This is the drill: I scream and cover my face with the sheets. Jim wakes up and realizes there’s a bat in the room (because I’m screaming, “There’s a bat!”). He gets up and chases after the bat. He finally catches it and releases it outside. We argue about whether he should have killed the awful thing. He goes back to sleep. I don’t.

6. I have always wanted to sing torch songs in a piano bar.

7. When my office had a case that went to the United States Supreme Court, I worked on the brief and sat at counsel table. I was given a souvenir quill pen, which I have never used. I learned that Justice Scalia likes to tell jokes during oral argument and seems miffed if no one laughs. I also learned that no one on the Court thinks it’s amusing if one of the lawyers tells a joke.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Loved this. You are a hoot! I knew you had some dandy information to tell.
It is unfortunate to have 'several' times bats in your bedroom. (should be belfry, right?) How did they get in? Poor Jim (bat avenger)...waking to screams.
I always suspected the supreme court had no sense of humour.
There is still time to take take up torch singing. You'd be delightful I'm sure.
Thanks for taking the tag challenge.

jini said...

when you decide to take up torch singing, let us know the name of the bar and i'll be in the audience cheering you on! :)

evil cake lady said...

a bat once got into this old house i used to live in, and my cat, being a cat, attacked it. it was 6 am, there a bitten bat lying face up in my hallway shrieking, my cat had blood on her face (RABIES!!) and i was yelling at my cat to "GET AWAY FROM THE BAT"

it was a very exciting morning.

luckily, she didn't seem to exhibit any rabies-like tendencies, so i guess we're all okay now....

Jim said...

Marie is wrong about no one getting excited about her knees....

Anonymous said...

Spit it out Jim. Do Marie's knees still make yours go weak?
You old softie, sweetie dog! Ahhhh.

Chubbypanda said...

#7 is freaking awesome. Scalia is a bit of an odd duck in more than one way.

Jim said...

I get weak in the knees quite often.

Marie said...

Melinda,
We have had FOUR bat occasions, and one of those times there were two bats. I told Jim he had no idea how traumatized he was by those bats, and he said he thought he had a pretty good idea.

Jini,
I think the only way I would get hired at a bar is if I bought it myself. I wonder if people under 30 even know what a "torch singer" is.


ECL,
What a terrible story! That's even worse than mine, although yours at least ends with a dead bat.

Jim,
Oh please.

Chubbypanda,
Yes, it was amazing. We sat so close we could see the justices' pores. Scalia only pretends to be jolly.

Anonymous said...

" Marie is wrong about no one getting excited about her knees...."

Um, Dad, you do know that at least one of your children reads this on a semi-regular basis, right?

Anonymous said...

I was visiting my grandparents' farm when I was a kid. My sister and I were alone upstairs, and I was reading "Treasure Island" to her before bed. Suddenly, something swooped into the room. We went flying downstairs to tell the adults. My mom came up and found the bat hanging under the bed from the springs.

I don't care for bats either.

Oh, and a childhood faveorite was the fried bologna sandwich. But I've been vegetarian for over two decades now.

Marie said...

Sarah,
Take it up with your father.

Anon.,
Now I'll have to check under the bed at night--not to see if a man is hiding under the bed, but if there are bats!