I've Been Tagged

Mari tagged me to share 6 random fun facts about myself. I really didn't think it was going to be this long. Alright, get your mug of coffee/tea/soy milk (hi, Rebecca!) and get comfortable.

1. I'm not a very good housewife. When it comes to cleaning, the only thing I'm religious about is vacuuming. With two hairy dogs in a tiny apartment and a baby who puts EVERYTHING in her mouth, I get every penny's worth out of our Dyson Animal. I cook, keep the kitchen clean, and love to scrub the tub, but that's about it. When Wil's home, I rarely do laundry. I hate to dust and I don't make the bed EVER. My parents taught me way better than that but I'm just lazy. If Wil comes home to the perfectly polished furniture and all the laundry has been put away, he knows to bolt because the only time I put my energy to a good house work is when I'm super pissed about something.
2. I had a piece of 1/4"-long splinter embedded in my right big toe for almost two decades. I think I was about 6 or 7 and at my grandparents' house when it happened. I was running around barefoot playing with my siblings, and somehow this small piece of wood just lodged itself in there. I yanked out what I could grab, managed to shove the remaining bit up so far and deep beyond a care of a child, and just left it there to lay peacefully without getting infected. During a particularly rigorous exfoliating session in my senior year of college, I somehow unearthed the thing. It just sort of came off with the other ten layers of dead dry skin that I just scraped off my body. I carried it around on a tiny piece of tissue paper for a few minutes after the shower and had a moment of silence remembering all the good times we saw together over the years before flushing it down the toilet. It just didn't seem right to throw it away in the trash, so it got the same treatment as my childhood goldfish. And yes, I briefly thought about keeping it as souvenir. Just very very briefly.
3. I was petrified of dogs until Conner came along. When I was in the first or second grade, I was nearly attacked by a pack of roaming strays. It was about 6 o'clock in the morning and I was getting ready for school. I remembered that I needed something in the car, which was parked on the street by our house (we lived in a townhouse then), then went out to retrieve it. As I was getting out of the car, I saw a mean looking stray approaching me. Then I realized that it was one of many. Like ten, maybe. It all happened very quickly and the next thing I knew I had my back against the side of my house with the dogs closing in on me. They were loudly barking and baring teeth and I was screaming my little head off for my dad. I was sure I was going to be mauled, when I heard someone yelling at the dogs and a distinct sound of something solid hitting something that was not. I opened my eyes to see one of my neighbors towering over me in my fetal position. He was holding a broomstick, which he so skillfully used to fend off the dogs. Up until that point, I never really spoke to him. He was an older gentleman who lived a couple of houses down. I think he was retired. We always traded polite smiles and waves, but that was all the contact I had with him. I just started bawling my eyes out when I saw my dad running toward me. The rest of that day was a blur. I know dad called the animal control people and they brought a few trucks to take away the strays the following day. Ironically dad's action of ensuring that nothing like this would ever happen again to anyone in our neighborhood made him fairly unpopular with some other neighbors because they were feeding the strays and enjoying their companies. Until this day, I would get completely freaked out and have a mini panic attack when I'm startled. Wil now knows to loudly announce himself home as soon as he comes through the door.
4. I got mad at Wil when I was pushing Chase out. I was at it for nearly three hours already and found Wil's giggle unbearably infuriating. I was already screaming at everyone, so he just didn't realize that I was actually directing "STOP IT!!!" at him. He later told me that he got so uncontrollably giddy when I was pushing because he could see the top of her head that was covered in dark hair trying to poke out. When I stopped pushing, she would slide right back. So on and on it went, him giggling every time I was pushing (and getting more mad) and stopping when I had to catch my breath and try to remember to use my frustration to bare down and not choke my husband.
5. If you read my "Fun with Papa" post and the comments, you might remember that my sister Kwan said that Chase inherited my stubborn chin. I had no idea what a stubborn chin might be, so I wrote her an email asking what in the world it was. This is her reply: "the chin and face that you do when you are about to be really stubborn. Mom has the same one too." Good to know.
6. I met Wil through an old roommate, Kay, who was actually trying to set me up with another friend of hers, who turned out to be gay. Together, they all were in the play "The Laramie Project," which was produced by a fabulous community theater group Gilbert Theater in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Those days, I was working 12 hours+ and had been up since about 4:30 A.M. when I went to see the show later that night. I'm a little ashamed to say that I was nodding off a bit (really, it wasn't the play, I was just really tired). Then Wil came on stage and I was awake. We kept eyeing each other after the play was over but never had the chance to speak. We met again the following week when the group of Gilbert folks went out to support the friend that Kay was trying to set me up with, who happened to be in another play at another theater. I was sick, had a temperature of 102, but got dolled up to go out with them anyway because I was hoping that Wil would be there. We sat on the opposite sides of the aisle in the theater and kept playing peek-a-boo through out the whole play. Sorry, Matt, I was a bit distracted. You were very good though. Anyway, we went out to a bar afterward and I thought he was taken because this girl was all over him. So I sort of gave up and just had a friendly conversation with him for a little while until I had to leave because of a fever spike. Fast forward to another week and another theater party, where he assured me that he was very much single and interested. I had to leave the party early again because I had to work the following day. He walked me to my car, which I never got in because I didn't really want to leave, so we took advantage of a beautiful night and walked to my apartment, which was about 10 minutes away. I didn't go inside once we got there because I didn't want the night to end, so we sat in the park by my house and talked until almost 4 A.M. Then we stayed on the phone until the sun came up and I went to work. I came home from work, he came over, and we took Conner out to the park. He came over that day and never left. Con loved and approved of him immediately and I knew Wil was a keeper when he didn't even blink when dirty Conner hopped into his shiny 3-day-old truck. And that's how we became a family. Now all together, AWWWWWWWWW.

So, now I'm going to tag Carol, Meghan, and Eurolush. I'm curious to learn new things about you girls.