Awards and Interesting Things...

The lovely Debbie over at SINGLE Mom in a Complicated World gave me the Kreativ Blogger Award the other day! I do love me some awards, so thank you, sweetness! I love Debbie’s blog and the way she writes, and from one single mom in a complicated world to another, I think you’re doing an amazing job with your kids and your life, Deb!!!

The conditions of the award stipulate that I have to tell you seven interesting things about me. Well, crap. I’ve done this sort of post a bunch of times before and I think I’ve just about exhausted my supply of ‘Interesting Things’. I’ll dig deep, though, and see if I can simply come up with 'Seven Things I Haven't Told You Guys Before' (and ‘interesting’ is relative, isn’t it? I’m just going to hope you don’t fall asleep).

1. When I was in my early 20’s, I had a dream about a former boyfriend dying in a car accident. It was so real and so frightening that I called him at 4:00 in the morning to make sure he was OK. He was (though he was not happy at being yanked from a sound sleep by a nearly-hysterical ex-girlfriend). Less than a week later, though, it was my turn to be roused from sleep by the telephone. He was calling to tell me he had just narrowly avoided an accident and had my dream not been on his mind, causing him to slow down on a mountain road on which he normally drove like a maniac, he likely would have been killed. It was the only time anything like that ever happened to me.

2. I still have dreams about being in school and showing up for a class I haven’t been to all semester, only to find out there’s a test that day and I know absolutely nothing on it. I also have one, fairly regularly, where I’m sitting on the toilet in a big room and people are just walking in and out. I’m stuck there, as I won’t... ahem... finish... or stand up ‘til the room’s empty and it never empties out. I know… I need therapy.

3. I learned to say ‘I love you’ when I got my first dog. My family is not terribly demonstrative in the affection department (unless you count teasing, sarcasm, and ridicule as affection… which we do) and I can count on my fingers the number of times I’ve heard ‘I love you’ from my parents, my siblings, or my aunts and uncles. But when I got my first dog (when I was 10), the words just rolled off my tongue. I can say it easily now (if I feel it, of course) to the people who have entered my life since I became an adult, but it’s still very, very difficult for me to say to almost anyone in my family.

4. When I was little, my aunt told me that if you use the toilet on a plane and the plane hits an air pocket at the same time, you’ll be vacuum-sealed to the toilet (remember what I said about teasing and ridicule?). Well, I believed her and it wasn’t until, oh, last year or so that I finally broke down and peed mid-flight.

5. I’ve suffered bouts of occasional insomnia since I was young. The longest I ever went without sleep, years and years ago, was 3 days. When I finally fell asleep, I was lying on the couch watching a movie, with my head on my friend Ron’s lap. He was so worried that I’d wake up if he moved, he stayed completely still and slept in an upright position for seven hours. I’ve always had the best friends.

6. I once got drunk and fell out of a raised first-floor window. I didn’t break anything but I fell in a sticker bush and received about 10,000 punctures and a case of blood poisoning.

7. About two weeks after my dad died, when we were all back home for Christmas, I heard him call my mother’s name. It was in the afternoon, I was wide awake, and there was a lot of chatter in the house. I got up to let the dog in and when I opened the door, I heard my dad call out, “Hey Cathie!” as plain as day, just like he would do when she didn’t hear him (or was ignoring him). I honestly believe it was him and not my imagination. It never happened again, though I wished for it often. But when she was between the ages of 2 and 3, Ryan told me several times about a man in a yellow shirt who would come visit her in her (second-floor) bedroom at night with a little black dog (who looked sort of like our cocker spaniel). My dad always wore an old yellow chamois shirt when he was puttering around the house and our old family dog, who died years before he did, was a black spaniel-mix. Weird, huh?

OK, I'm supposed to tag seven of you but I'm going to break the rules and simply tag anyone who wants to do this! XOXO