Monday, December 5, 2011

25 pieces of trivia

While trolling around a blog earlier this week, I came across a list of "25 pieces of trivia" about the blogger. I don't know this blogger from Adam but it was kind of nifty reading all the trivia about her.

So, since I'm not feeling very creative today, I decided to imitate the idea. Without further ado, here's 25 pieces of trivia about me.
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• I’m left-handed but use scissors with my right hand (they didn’t have left-handed scissors when I was in kindergarten). My husband is also left-handed (including scissors), yet somehow between us we managed to hatch two right-handed kids. Go figure.

• I played the flute for many many years. Was quite good at it too.

• I used to dance ballet with a passion. Many years and many pounds ago.

• When I was ten years old, my parents moved from New York State to California. Oh my gosh, I hated it there. I never did adapt to California. But living in California did give me one wonderful thing: my husband.

• I hate to cook but love to bake.

• I hate to sew but love to can.

• I hate anything to do with crafts. No patience, I guess.

• I honestly don’t mind mucking out manure.

• I can’t set a mousetrap to save my life. I’m good at emptying them, though.

• I get seasick.

• When I was 16, I had an honest-go-goodness (and real freaky) out-of-body experience. I hope to God I never have one of those again.

• My favorite fruit is peaches. I like to joke that I’d sell my birthright for peaches.

• I didn’t get my ears pierced until I was 20.

• I weigh too much. Working on it.

• Without my glasses or contact lenses, I am blind as a bat – my vision is about 20/450.

• I adore writing (obviously) but I’m absolutely dismal at grammar. Any grasp of grammar is purely instinctive.

• I have a phobia of zero gravity. You know, the sensation you get on roller coasters and other horrors. My idea of “entertainment from hell” would be to go bungee jumping or skydiving.

• When I was 16 I decided I wanted to become a field biologist after reading (about 250 times) Jane Goodall’s In the Shadow of Man. I still passionately admire Dr. Goodall. My dad took me to hear one of her lectures back in 1979 and she signed my copy of her book. I majored in Zoology in college and Environment Education in grad school and worked as a field biologist for many years.

• One summer, while working as a field biologist, I stepped on two yellow jacket nests a week apart and was stung a total of 15 times. For awhile I had a phobia of stinging insects. It’s calmed down some, but sadly I don’t know if I could ever become a beekeeper.

• I loathe tuna more than almost any other foodstuff on the planet. I don’t care for celery either, largely because of its association with tuna.

• I adore broccoli.

• I have never touched drugs in any size, shape, or form (except prescription). Never smoked. I drink only wine (never red) in modest quantities. Got drunk twice in my life (the first time on red wine, hence the aversion) and decided never again.

• My ancestry is half Polish, half French. My paternal grandparents immigrated to this country around the turn of the (last) century. My mother’s people are Cajun French, descendants of the Acadians who were kicked out of Canada and eventually found their way to the bayous of Louisiana. My mother didn’t speak English until she was five and went to school.

• My husband and I tend to be obsessed with books. We own well over 5000 of them.

• I love classical music with a passion and seldom listen to anything else, to my daughters’ collective dismay.

23 comments:

  1. this is a great and interesting read, Patrice! but it is "Acadian"...not "Arcadian"...having been born and raised in the province that kicked them out (Nova Scotia)...and having finally moved back here to a homestead, i felt the need to point that error out...but all in good jest!

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  2. That was fun!

    About that bee thing - I started beekeeping to get over my fear of yellow jackets (also from stepping on a nest when I was 7). Now I despise yellow jackets even more since they prey on my honeybees. Such is life.

    Xa Lynn

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  3. Very interesting list, Patrice! I have some touch points with you on the no drugs/smoking, manure mucking, flute playing, classical music listening, and book loving. :)

    I think you mean "Acadians". :)

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  4. Great list! These trivia posts are fun. It's nice to get to know a little more about fellow bloggers.

    I also am left-handed and use scissors with my right hand. They did have left-handed scissors when I was in school, but it just felt more natural to use my right hand.

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  5. Start of pep talk-

    I have a phobia of all flying insects except honey bees. I grew up around honey bees, got stung ONCE - when I put my arm down on a dying bee in the grass.

    Honey bees are nice creatures - you would think they were more closely related to butterflies than wasps once you really get to know them.

    I freeze at wasps and yellow jackets. I go right up to honeybee hives while my son is doing work on his bees.

    Bees make a good kid project!

    End of pep talk :)

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  6. Thank you for the correction on Arcadian/Acadian! Sometimes I type too fast...

    - Patrice

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  7. Bungee jumping and ski-diving...these are considered "entertainment?" Since when? By whom?

    ("Who?" "Whom?" Who knows. Never could figure out that one either.)

    I'm so with you on that one!

    Just Me

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  8. Oh my goodness, no wonder I am so attracted to your blog. Except for left handed, you could have been writing about me. You and Enola, I would love to share tea with someday. So nice of you to share so much of yourself through this post and day to day life.

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  9. Hey, just a question about...the F word.. ..Faith! Haha. I don't use bad language! What about that on the trivia questions? Maybe it is too divisive, just wondering.
    --K in OK <><

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  10. Cool! I'm also left handed but use scissors with my right, and I'm a flutist! I also don't like stinging insects. When I was little, my poor little sister got stung by two yellow jackets while playing on Grannie's swing set. The sound she made scared the living daylights out of me! One other thing I wish we had in common was ballet. I've adored it for many years but never got to learn. So sad. Oh, and I love wine too but not red.

    ~Lily~

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  11. How about expanding a bit on the out-of-body-experience?

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  12. Flute? You must try this

    http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/lXKDu6cdXLI?rel=0

    Terry
    Florida

    French horn, and I wasn't very good. Tin ear.

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  13. Sure feels weird to have to specify which century you're talking about when you say "turn of the century." It's showing my age!

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  14. lol, i am right handed, and did not notice until my mother mentioned it that i open jars left handed....

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  15. I agree with you when it comes to tuna, especially if it is warm like tuna casserole. YUCK, and all the prepper sites say store lots of it. Not me, I'll stick with spam and Vienna sausages!HA

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  16. May I recommend the software Book Collector by Collectorz.com? You may find it helpful to catalog those 5000 books!

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  17. Very interesting Patrice. Puts a little more meat on your virtual bones. :o) We share quite a few things in common as well.

    Terry in Florida! I thank you very much for the biggest smile I've had all day. Quite possibly the cutest cows listening to live jazz I've ever seen! lol Thanks for posting that.

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  18. I think freefall would be fun-I'd love to visit the International Space Station..better yet, be on the first faster than light ship out to somewhere else.
    Setting a mousetrap is easy.
    O.K. so someone else has never drank/smoked/used drugs. Maybe I'm not so weird. I never quite figured out why such things never appealed to me. Other than my parents, most of the rest of my relatives would stay drunk if they could.
    Broccoli is O.K. as long as it's mixed in with something else.
    Somebody else has as many books as I do.
    Tuna smells too much like cheap canned cat food.
    I got seasick on the end of a pier as a teenager. Never cared to get on a boat since.

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  19. Hubby and I are lefties, but both kids are righties. Sure made teaching tying shoes interesting. I use right handed scissors but with my left hand. I found that every pair of laft handed scissors were horrible. They would not cut anything, even the expensive cloth scissors my grandmother bought me for sewing classes in school.
    Paintedmoose

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  20. Parachuted for years and LOVED it.

    Patrice,

    My vision used to be what yours is now. A few years back I had LASIK done, and got to 20/20 in ten minutes. It was like a miracle. And it really is a pro-survival step to take. Heck, I had trouble finding my glasses when I didn't have them on. I had to pick up the alarm clock and hold it inches from my face to see what time it was -- now I can jump out of bed in the middle of the night, grab my gun, and chase that dang bobcat who threatens my chickens. The surgery was expensive but worth saving up for.

    It was also the scariest thing I've ever done. I was literally trembling with fear through the ordeal, even after the valium they gave me. They wanted to know what I was afraid of -- after all, I jumped out of perfectly good airplanes on a regular basis! To each their own!

    -Your progressive reader (I'm sure there are several of us.)

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  21. Kim in OK, the reason I didn't mention faith in this list of trivia is because it's not trivial, LOL.

    - Patrice

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  22. Anon 6:34, the reason I haven't considered Lasik surgery (besides the cost, of course!) is because I have unbelievably wonderful close-up vision when I take off my glasses (or take out my contacts). It's astounding how well I can see tiny details, like minute splinters in a finger, with my otherwise bad vision. I wouldn't want to risk messing that up, as it could potentially have important uses someday...

    - Patrice

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  23. Yup, the loss of close-up vision DOES happen. The doc thought since I was in my 40s that I'd need reading glasses right off the bat. I didn't; not until I hit 50. But I did lose my close-up X-ray vision! But reading glasses do help for that kind of thing. I think I'll get a super-strong pair for the first aid kit -- thanks for for getting me to think about it. -Anon 6:34

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