100 Things About Me, Part Two

51. When I was 3, I was kicked out of Sunday School for calling my teacher a bitch. In my defense, I was the daughter of a sailor. I knew what to say when I was mad at someone!

52. Along the same lines, when I'm angry, the first words out of my mouth are usually "dammit sonuvabitch!"

53. If I'm really angry or am having a truly heinous day, the preceding phrase will be repeated ad infinitum.

54. Like today, when the police came to see me at work making accusations of a hit and run accident in my work parking lot. Today I said "dammit sonuvabitch" about 20 times. And cried a lot.

55. Fortunately, it was proven that the accident could not have been caused by me, so I feel better.

56. I love Reese's peanut butter cups, peanut butter Hershey kisses, and peanut butter. Oh, yeah, and did I mention peanut butter?

57. I also love Starbucks caramel steamers.

58. I hate it when people pronounce "caramel" as "carmel." Aarrgh!

59. I like typing aarrgh!

60. When I was doing in-vitro fertilization, the day of the embryo transfer I was instructed to arrive at the doctor's office with a full bladder. I drank two bottles of water before getting there. They then had me drink another 3 bottles of water, before my doctor finally decided my bladder couldn't get any more full. After the embryo transfer, I had to wait 10 minutes before I could pee. That was a long 10 minutes.

61. My mother's original due date, when she was pregnant with me, was October 8th, 1963.

62. I was born on December 8th, 1963.

63. I might have been born on December 7th, 1963, but my mother was praying that I wouldn't be born on Pearl Harbor Day. I think my mother's crazy. After two extra months, I think she'd have done anything to get me out of there!

64. My car's name is Buffy. Yes, after that Buffy. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is blonde and kicks major booty. My car is white (blonde) and kicks major booty. But my car does not do hit-and-run accidents in the parking lot, or anywhere else.

65. My next car will be named Spike if it's white or Angel if it's black. I don't know what its name will be if it's a different color.

66. Joss Whedon is my master now.

67. I tried to do the Basic Training DVD last night from Billy's Boot Camp (Billy Blanks, of Tae-Bo fame). I made it 15 minutes, which basically got me through the warm-up.

68. Today my hamstrings are tender. So are my abs.

69. Whenever I see a grammatical, spelling, or punctuation error on signs, it is agonizingly difficult for me not to correct it.

70. Sometimes I don't succeed, and fix the error.

71. I don't understand why people can't understand the difference between its and it's. It's not that hard!

72. I once wrote "wash me" in the dust on a white Jaguar. That was fun!

73. One night after a play, I had a hot fudge sundae for dinner. That night I deservedly got a very bad case of heartburn, and woke my husband up while I was searching for the Tums. The next morning he told me he dreamed that I told him I had heartburn because I ate a hot fudge sundae for dinner. I told him that it wasn't a dream, and apologized for waking him up.

74. I think the most beautiful name in the English language is Sylvia.

75. When I was doing the in-vitro, I told my best friend's daughter that if I had 4 sons, I would name them John, Paul, George and Ringo. I told her if I had 3 sons, I would name them Larry, Moe, and Curly. She believed me.

76. I wouldn't have named them Larry, Moe, and Curly, but I might well have named them John, Paul, George, and Ringo.

77. My best friend loves me so much that during one portion of the IVF, when I had to have a daily shot in the butt, she came over to my house every day to give me the shot. And she even washed my dishes for me!

78. The worst meal to take someone recovering from surgery is sausage pizza. I appreciated the thought, but couldn't eat it. My husband enjoyed it, though.

79. The best meal for someone recovering from surgery is this yummy concoction a former friend made. She made some rice; a mild white sauce with shredded Swiss cheese; chicken breast; and mixed vegetables. It was easy on the stomach and tasted great. So now when I take a meal to someone recovering from surgery, that's what I always take.

80. Before my breast reduction surgery, I wore a DDD cup.

81. When I woke up in the recovery room after the breast reduction surgery, I told the nurse that it oughta be illegal for anything to hurt that badly. She gave me some more morphine, and I was out in seconds flat.

82. Now I wear a C cup.

83. During the first few months with my new perky little (for me) boobs, I used to flash my sister at work because I was so excited to have perky little (for me) boobs.

84. The caramel steamer at QT gas stations is cheaper than the caramel steamer at Starbucks, and it tastes better.

85. When I go grocery shopping, I dance to the music in the store and don't notice I'm doing it until someone gives me a strange look or else comments on it.

86. When my sister Liz goes to the movies with me, she prefers to have an empty seat between us because I fidget like crazy during the movie. If there's not room for an empty seat between us, she grabs my leg to make me stop fidgeting.

87. When she grabs my leg, it makes me fidget more.

88. I have a Picasso print hanging in my bathroom.

89. I have a Dali print in my hall.

90. I want a Kandinsky print for my home office.

91. My vision is at the point that I have to wear bifocals. But I have an astigmatism in each eye, which means I have to wear toric contact lenses. They don't make bifocal toric contacts. So when I wear glasses, I wear bifocals. When I wear contacts, I have to use reading glasses to see up close.

92. That makes me feel old.

93. I love Irish folk music. In my dream the night before last, I was singing "Cruiskeen Lawn" at the top of my lungs. I don't recall why, although it seemed perfectly logical in the dream.

94. Whatever song I hear when I first wake up, or the last song I sing/hear in my dreams, will stay in my head all morning. I type in rhythm to the song. That means that yesterday morning, I mentally sang "Cruiskeen Lawn" for 3 or 4 hours.

95. My favorite Irish folk song is "Shule Aroon." I don't know why I wasn't singing it instead of "Cruiskeen Lawn" in my dream.

96. I have the coolest sister in the world. She was born 8 years and 3 days after I was, and we have been the best of friends since she was born. Hey, Liz!

97. When I was 11 or 12, I hated washing dishes. And we didn't have an electric dishwasher, so I had to wash a lot of dishes. One day I got the bright idea to shove the particularly dirty dishes under the couch. Little by little I kept stuffing dishes under the couch. One night my father was playing with the cat, and flung his hand back and whacked it against something. He pulled out a dirty crusty saucepan from under the couch. Puzzled, he lifted up the flap and pulled out a few more dishes. I tried to creep out of the room, but it was too late. He moved the sofa, and revealed virtually every dish in the house in its unwashed, moldy, nasty, disgusting glory. I got my butt warmed thoroughly, and was then forced to wash every one of those damn dishes!

98. When I was in the process of being pottie trained, we had a Siamese cat named John-John. John-John knew how to use the toilet. My parents didn't know that, and thought it was I who was leaving little presents in the toilet. After a few spankings, I began running into the house and flushing the toilet. My parents couldn't figure that out until one morning my mother was home alone. She was in the bathroom brushing her teeth and heard someone going to the bathroom. Knowing that she was alone, she was very puzzled until she looked over to see John-John using the toilet.

99. My dad thinks that story is so funny that he tells it frequently.

100. I love puns. My all-time favorite joke has this for the punchline: "Well, dear, I hated to pith in it, but you know how you hate dry grapefruit." I tried to tell that joke a million times during my teen years, but could never get the punchline out without laughing so hard that I couldn't breathe. When my family finally heard the punchline, they agreed in unison that it wasn't nearly as funny as my hysterical laughter.