Internet, I talk too much about myself. It’s a bad habit that I’d like to break. Everyone else is so interesting. So, I’m going to be switching things up every Friday for a while. I’m going to take a hiatus from Flashback Fridays, or perhaps move them to another day. To hell with alliteration! Fridays are all about you, internet.
Back in my 20′s, when I was working in an office, I used to send out a quiz of random questions every Friday to a big group of my friends. And then everyone would hit reply all and answer the questions. Reading everyone’s answers was a fun way to pass some time on those bleary Friday afternoons when the weekend felt so close, yet so far away. The circle of friends that I included on these lists would grow and evolve, and the people were from random corners of my life, so they often didn’t know each other at all.
I miss those quizzes. So, I’m bringing them back.
I hope you’ll participate in the comments section. You can answer all the questions. Or just one. Or just read. Or, you know, whatever. It’s loose. It’s breezy. It’s fun. Tra la la la la.
And away we go with the weekly Random Friday Quiz.
1. Everybody had some sort of snuggle when they were little, right? A blanket, a stuffed animal, etc. Tell us a story about your snuggle. Do you still have it?
My snuggle’s name was Pup Pup. And it was a dog. Obviously. He was very long and flat (that’s what she said). And he was white with a big black spot on his back and some brown patches on his ears and tail and feet. My most vivid memory of Pup Pup was the time I was on vacation and my sister grabbed him by his tail and swung him around like a helicopter above her head. Pup Pup disengaged from his tail and flew across the hotel room and I freaked the eff out. My mom sewed the tail back on eventually. And you bet your ass I still have Pup Pup. He’s in a box in my parents’ attic.
2. First kiss. Go.
It was in the audio/visual room in my high school. I don’t know what that tells you about me, but it has to be something. I was on the speech team and the boy was on the debate team. It was on my birthday. I was wholly unprepared for how wet it would be. I was very excited to be kissed. And I was very excited when it stopped. That poor boy. He was so romantic, and I am so not. I remember, later that week, he came to my house to take me on a walk and we were both so cold and he tried to have me put my hand in his coat pocket to keep it warm/stay close, and I thought that was so entirely weird and over the top that I decided then and there to end it. Oh the misery I put so many gentlemen through. I must have confused so many nice boys when they paid me a compliment and I immediately broke up with them.
3. What is something brave you did this week?
I don’t think I have an answer for this one. Oh dear. Must rectify that immediately.
4. Five smells that you like.
Clothes that have been bleached, just out of the washer. Lilacs. Gasoline. Freshly mown grass. My kids after a bath.
5. Tell us a story about a time you went to the beach.
I have a bazillion beach stories. Oh Lord have mercy, do I love the beach! Just one? How cruel. Here’s a favorite beach memory. One time I ditched work on a beautiful day and rode my bike to the beach and laid on a towel and read The Lovely Bones from start to finish. I got a terrible sunburn on the backs of my legs. It was one of my favorite afternoons of solitude, and I think of it often.
Happy Friday, my lovelies. I hope everyone has a good 4th of July. Don’t explode any of your fingers.
I like this game. Let’s see if I can actually answer all of them…
1. My benji dog stuffed animal. I would even walk around outside with it and visit my neighbor. He had a real “benji” dog. The dogs would sit and play together.
2. Is it bad that I can’t think of my first kiss? It would have been in junior high with a girl named Michelle. She would go on to drop out of high school because she got pregnant. I really knew how to pick them then.
3. Bravery? Sheesh, I don’t think I have done anything brave in quite some time. You have really given me something to think about and work on. Bravery.
3. I love the smell of a freshly painted room, freshly cut grass, homemade tomato sauce cooking on a stove, the smell in the air when walking by a laundry room, pipe smoke.
5. November, 2009 – off the shore of St. Thomas with my cousins the day before my cousin’s cruise ship wedding. We just sat in the water, chatting and playing with the sand. It was so relaxing and comfortable.
Gen, this was fun. Thanks.
Oh, how I’ve missed the Friday Quiz!!!!!
1. Lassie was a dog/bear (I have no idea what he really is) that I got when I was two. His eyelashes were “loved” off and I used to chew on his nose so that’s raggedy. He’s now on the rocking chair in my son’s room.
2. My first kiss was under the streetlamp between his house and my friend Char’s house in August 1989. There was a full moon and I was ecstatic that Brian P. finally kissed me. It was way nice. I think I drew pictures of how dreamy it was for weeks after.
3. I bravely walked into the liquor store today to get some cider for Ryan even though I’m obviously pregnant. I was worried about getting looks, but I did it anyway. I didn’t get any looks.
4. I love all your favorite smells! Now I have to really think to be original: Real Christmas trees, that fab baby smell, cut cucumber, firewood burning, and lilies of the valley.
5. Last summer my family went out to Mille Lacs lake up north (MN)and Logan was a little 3 year old fish all day long. My younger brother (33 years old) jumped onto the lounger Logan was standing next to and dunked the poor kid under the raft. He came up spluttering and laughed and went right back to playing in the water. That’s the way, kid. Your uncle is a putz…
Thanks, Gen!!!!!
1. I had a yellow blanket with a silky border that I liked to hold and rub on my face.
2. 4th grade, his name was michael, he kissed me in a corner of the play ground and then ran away. So, until about 7th grade I thought that running away was a part of the kissing process.
3. I made a turkey noodle soup at work instead on chicken. finicky old lady customers be damned.
4. I love pretty much all cooking smells, bon fires, the salty smell of the ocean that gets in your clothes, that library smell, its old books I quess, and oranges when you peel them.
5. I went to the beach yesterday with my friend kevin, it was a goofy relaxing time, but my favorite beach memory is sitting on the beach at tybee island in GA, with my mom and my then 8 year old niece Kaitlin. We all sat at the edge of the ocean and let the waves crash onto us and we laughed and laughed. That moment and thier glorious expressions is more than a menory, its a piece of my heart.
1. My snuggle was a Cabbage Patch named “Madela Matrika.” That was the name on her official birth certificate from the Cabbage Patch Kids company. She’s in Z’s room right now :). She’s pretty much awesome, and she still smells good.
2. Oh man, it was during a truth or dare game in like, 6th grade. And it was in a closet. It was one of those truth of dare parties where you KNEW that the whole purpose of the party was to get people to kiss each other. His name was Nick, and at school after the party, we’d sneak in the band room, and give each other a peck whenever possible. He’s shorter than me now, so that would never have worked out.
3. I started my new job, and am figuring out how to do that, while still being a good wife, mama, daughter, friend and me.
4. My baby’s breath (oh my goodness, it’s the best), mango body wash, peaches, big fat sharpie markers, matches…
5. When I was 7, I went to the beach with my brother, mom and dad. My brother is now super cool, a lawyer, was a college football player, in a fraternity, etc. But that time that we went to the beach, he was 4, and he swallowed salt water, and threw up… and cried, “Mommy! I throwed up in the pool!” I think of that whenever I go to a beach now, or whenever he’s extra cool.
1) I think I had a blanket but don’t remember too vividly. My mom reads this blog and could probably help answer this one. I think I must not have been too attached to it, no? I also had a cabbage patch named Luther Beau. Weirdest name ever.
2) When I was a junior in high school I was swept off my feet by a girl in 8th grade who had a crush on me. The whole scene was a bit like
Marty McFly parked in the car with his Mom before the Enchantment Under the Sea dance, except she wasn’t my Mom and I willingly accepted her advances. After that night, I (rightfully) got weirded out that she was in 8th grade and we did not go out again. Needless to say, I was never much of a first move maker.
3) I removed the oil from my lawnmower using the instructions and almost blew myself up only once.
4) campfire, cooking garlic, 4th of July (fireworks and food), white out, new car (non-synthetic)
5) a campfire on a private beach in Maine, after midnight, perfect buzz, perfect weather, and perfect company, including cousin Joel.
1) I had Silky, a tan-colored horse with dangling legs and velvet-covered nose, ears, and hooves. Before that, I had Funnyman, which was a stuffed hobo, complete with one of those bags tied to a stick, and patched clothes, and five o’clock shadow and dirt marks. I later went on to work at the Coalition for the Homeless – thereby fulfilling the Funnyman prophecy. I don’t have these things. I don’t know where they are, either. For a long time, Silky was at my parents’ house in a closet, but I think they threw it out, along with a lot of other stuff I left there. I wish I knew where Silky was.
2) I wasn’t kissed until I was 16. And then it was because I decided to set out on a campaign to improve my social life and I achieved my goals very, very quickly. Like Joey above, my first kiss person later went on to drop out of high school.
3) Carried on at work despite an infestation of mice, trapped one in a bowl and set it free in the park. Also, asked for what I needed from the board chairperson related to my second/consultant job. I’m glad I did that one; it was necessary and I felt hopeful afterward.
4) Gasoline, markers, lilacs, freshly washed dog, sun-warmed skin, pasta sugo cooking. I notice most of my favorite smells are either: a) things you can huff, or b)sort of wet things that have been warmed. That seems odd.
5) All my best memories are beach memories. My best one, at least so far, was at the Indiana Dunes, when the waves were very high on Lake Michigan. I was there with a big group of friends, and the waves were sparkling like a jewel with a million ever-changing facets, and the air was warm but not too hot and the lake cold but not chilling, and we leaped and dove while the waves pushed us, laughing.
1. Vick, the teddy bear, was a gift from my uncle on my fourth birthday. I named him after the pharmacist at the neighborhood drugstore. Who knows. Um, I kept Vick on my bed for about 20 years, until the fateful day when my dog got into my room and ate him with a side of red gel ink pen.
2. Well, I’m not going to count the first kiss attempt, because it was at the end of a very bad date and consisted of this poor guy slobbering in the general direction of my ear as I failed to leap out of the car fast enough. The first time my own lips were involved was total teen movie cheese. We were walking in a posh neighborhood neither of us actually lived in, admiring the fancy houses; he paused under a streetlamp to pick a little flower and tuck it behind my ear, and then kissed me. And then I’m pretty sure little cartoon birds circled around my head chirping excitedly until we got back to his room, and he showed off his giant bong. That’s not a euphemism. He was a serious pothead.
3. Commuted to work this morning during rush hour via two CTA trains and a bus with a 9-month-old in a stroller and carrying four bags of varying sizes.
4. My daughter’s baby shampoo, the sunblock-sand-salt combination on your skin upon returning from the beach, laundry exhaust piping out of an apartment building, my mom’s roast chicken, and any other dinner that is being prepared by someone besides me.
5. While hanging out with my friend on an almost deserted and therefore rather idyllic beach in Barcelona, I turned around to catch a pickpocket with his hand in my backpack. He ran away, and I chased him down the beach yelling that he had stolen my wallet. No one else on the beach even remotely care. He was polite enough to stop and yell back at me that I was “crazy” and needed to learn Spanish. Eventually, we both realized we weren’t getting anywhere with this conversation, and we parted ways. I went and reported my wallet stolen. Right after canceling my debit card, I found my wallet in a side pocket of my bag and realized what he’d actually taken was my camera. Sigh.