I can't be "IT"

I have a confession to make . . . I tagged myself.
How?
I was doing Frank's post (I usually do his posts though he writes them first) to save him some time and I was scrambling for blogs to tag.
In a pinch, I tagged this blog.
Unfortunately, now it is on record and so I have to play along (with myself . . . how pathetic).
So I will post 8 random facts/ habits about me, not because they will be of interest to anyone nor will they be witty, but just in the spirit of fairplay.

• How does this work? Well in theory, it goes like this:

What is it to be tagged? Well, according to HRH (who tagged Frank)
"Tagging is a game played in the blogging community whereby one blogger writes up his or her own list on a certain topic and then "tags" a certain number of other bloggers to respond with their own lists on the same topic."The first rule of the game, however, is to post the rules of the game. Here they are:

1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
3. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
4. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.

• In reality, however, I am not going to tag anyone else because, as I said above, I am all tagged out.

8 Random Facts about Me

#1 I was married for the first and only time at the age of 45 or 46, I can't exactly recall because I can't actually recall my exact age.

#2 I taught in a public school in British Columbia for 15 years before moving to Indiana. And no, I don't miss it. Not for a moment. However, I could write a book called, "Kids Say the Darnedest Things and Reveal Many Private Secrets of which their Parents Hope to Never See the Light of Day."

#3 I met my husband-to-be online by freak coincidence. My husband will say "there is no such thing as coincidence--there is only providence," whatever . . . it is still incomprehensible to me that a. I am married (was a confirmed spinster) and b. that I married the greatest guy alive on the face of the earth.

#4 I rescue thrown-away pets. It has become an obsession for me. I feel called upon to do as much as I can to help these creatures and unfortunately, here in Indiana, I have had far too many opportunities. In consquence we have 7 cats; good thing my husband is a cat-lover and that we live in a large house. Sad thing is: try as I may to be in charge, I have become a slave to all seven.

#5 I speak Spanish well enough to get by nicely as a tourist. I understand Spanish poorly enough to be a ripe target for cons. Hey, I thought if there was a tag on the chains that said 18K gold, that under law, they had to be 18K gold. How was I to know! And this was the con that cost me the least.

#6 I once took a trip to San Diego with three men. Okay, it was a computer educational conference and yes, we had separate rooms, but still, technically I took a trip with 3 men (and not one of them protested when I bought the above 18K gold jewelery though all laughed about it as soon as we got back to the hotel).

#7 I can't stand mess and clutter around me; I find it difficult to focus on the tasks at hand. I am a messy and clutter-prone person and have a desk that looks like Neo's at the beginning of The Matrix (my dear husband pointed out one evening).

#8 I grew up on a dairy farm in British Columbia's Fraser Valley (my parents still live there) and learned to drive a tractor when I was three, can milk cows by hand or with machinery, could lift 100lb bales of hay and when I was 15 stayed home alone to run the farm while my parents and sister drove to Alaska (where they were caught in a National Geographic film though they didn't realize it until we were watching a video tape 12 years later). When I was about 13, I overturned an entire hay wagon of . . . hay by driving over a large bump. I enjoy the sensation of walking barefoot through cow pies in the summertime (not warm ones though).

So there!

--cyn