Talk Thursday (on Saturday): Ten Weird Things

Okay, so I'm late with another column.  So sue me.  I've been running around like a headless chicken getting a new roof put on this house.  Thankfully it is done, it looks all pretty and it rained yesterday and there were no gushings of water from the place above the hot water heater where it's been leaking.  Now all I have to do is come up with another $3 grand before the roofer comes by this morning to pick up his check.  I'd better do it, too.  He said something about kneecaps.

No, seriously, the roofing company has been great.  That's O'Briant Roofing, They did the roof in an afternoon (and said that they could do three houses my size in a day, if they had to).  I came by at noon to see how things were progressing and discovered that my house was a major construction site.  But when I came back after work, there was no sign the roofers had even been there, apart from the new roof.  They were very careful and thorough about cleaning up.  There's still work to be done, like rain gutters and the closet where the water heater was, but those are small things.  The roof was the big thing.

Amusing anecdote: While I was home at noontime, the roofing crew asked me to let them in so they could do something or other to the pipe that goes up out of the hot water heater.  (That water heater's really had the sheep kicked out of it lately.  It's going into retirement soon, though.)  While I was in the house, I looked for cats, all of whom were missing.  Something about all that banging and clanging and carrying on made for unhappy felines, as you might imagine.  Figuring they might be under my bed, I got down on one knee to take a look, forgetting that's where we store some of the Halloween stuff.  The first thing I saw was a plastic severed arm and I just about scared the bejabbers out of myself.  Seriously, I thought I was going to have to change pants.  Placidly sitting on the other side of the severed arm were three cats.  Oh, go ahead and laugh.  Like that's never happened to you.

Anyway:  This week's topic was to take an Internet meme and run with it.  The problem with that, I wrote back to the topic-o-meister, is that I haven't a clue what a meme is.  I asked Joan and she tried to explain, using as her example "The cake is a lie."  I didn't get it.  All cake is inherently a lie; it looks like a harmless pastry when it's really crack cocaine.  I have proof.  (And doughnuts.  Doughnuts are a gateway drug.  How many young people are we losing every year, one doughnut at a time?)  Finally the topico-meister suggested I just go with Ten Weird Things About Me.  So here they are, in no particular order.

#10.  Am convinced I have at least twice visited a past incarnation of mine, a Dutch nobleman who lived sometime in the late1700s and loved to dance.  He also liked Mozart.  But hey, who didn't?

#9. Am also convinced that Buddhists have the whole idea of reincarnation just slightly wrong, and my own theory of reincarnation would completely negate my having visited a past incarnation of mine, never mind his being a Dutch nobleman who likes to dance.  Oh well.

#8.  I have this thing about my eyebrows.  Namely, I love my eyebrows.  They're big and bushy and in your face, and I Will. Not. Have. Them. Plucked.  When my bangs start brushing against my eyebrows, it's time for a haircut.  I can't stand it when I can't see my eyebrows.

#7.  I scratch the roof of my car when I run a yellow light.  Well, Joan thinks that is weird, anyway.

#6.  For about 11 years, I was in a bagpipe band.  Yes, I play the bagpipes.  Well, I used to.  I think I could probably still manage a couple of tunes.

#5.  On St. Patrick's Day, I get really really proud to be Icelandic and start demanding to know why people don't wear dark blue on June 17.

#4.  I hate, loathe and despise shopping for clothes.  (I think that revokes my woman card.  Oh well, they can have it.)  If it weren't for the Roamans catalog and The Woman Within I'd be naked. And Junonia.  They make fine bathing suits, however pricey they may be.

#3.  I sunburn ridiculously easily.  Like in less than ten minutes.  My sister's got this worse than I do, but both of us go to great lengths to stay out of the sun.  She wears fake sleeves and gloves when she drives her car.  I don't go that far, but I do have a Muslim woman's bathing suit that I wear when my swim team starts swimming outside in the summertime.  (Alas, I don't look that good in it.)

#2.  I don't really look the part, but I do have a purple belt in karate.  That's just below brown belt, which is just below black belt.  At one point they actually let me teach a couple of classes.  That should scare you.  It definitely scared me.

And finally (drum roll, please) the #1 weird thing about me:

Before I became a high-powered paralegal, I worked in a (gasp!) library.  Like, for over ten years.  I mean, can you imagine somebody as loud as I am in a library?  And I was louder back then.  But hey, it's where I met my lovely wife Joan.  And I was good at it.  So watch it.  Don't make me shush your ass.