a little of this, a little of that

Since I can’t seem to drag any interesting subjects out of my own head, why don’t I do one of the skazillion or so surveys I’ve saved? This one is so old I don’t remember who I stole it from.

Phone calls –

1. Do you have an answering machine/voice mail? I sure do. And I do screen calls. Not that I get that many calls. Actually, I get so few calls that we’re debating over whether to just get rid of the land line completely. Except we have dial up. So we’d have to do something about getting a proper internet connection. And that would mean taking some sort of, oh, action. We also don’t have a lot of choices here in the boonies. And no, none of this has a thing to do with the question.

2.  Did you record the message yourself? All by myself, I certainly did.

3. Is it funny? Sadly, no. It’s not funny at all. I’ve always wanted a funny message. I still laugh about a message one of my cousins had some fifteen years ago. She and a friend recorded the message in their best, dead-on Southern Belle voices, and went on and on about how Mz J just couldn’t come to the phone right now due to being otherwise engaged. It was very funny. Too bad I can’t recreate it here.  

4. Are you happy or sad when the phone rings? Well, that’s a very odd choice of emotions. Since we get so few calls and all our relatives are elderly and in various states of decay, I’m usually just filled with dread when the phone rings. And that, oh, god, what NOW???? feeling.

5. What color is your phone? Ummmmm….. silver? Maybe?? I think it’s silver and black. How sad is it that I’m not real sure? And how obvious is it that the phone doesn’t play a central role in my life?

 Waves –   *waves back!*

1. Do you wave at the neighbors? I do. We have a very friendly neighborhood.

2. Whole hand or one finger? Whole hand. I’m always tempted to do that slow, benevolent wave the Queen does in parades, too.  

3. Do you acknowledge waves? Of course I do. See #1. This is a very wave-likely town, actually. My first husband and I lived in Atlanta for awhile, and then in DC, and when we moved back here we were constantly being startled by having perfect strangers wave at us. And make eye contact. It was very unsettling.

4. Ever surfed? Ummmm…. what?? Well, no, I haven’t. I do remember being at the beach when I was about four, and becoming VERY annoyed at my father because he wouldn’t rent a surfboard for me. I just could not understand why he thought I was too young to go surfing. It looked really easy.

5. Do you like the east or the west coast better? *waving madly for the survey to come back*  So far, I’ve never been to the west coast. I do love the east coast. The coastal part.

Notes (and other communication) on the refrigerator –

1. Do you have more than twenty items on your refrigerator door? Waaaaaay more. I’m sure I have more than 20 magnets, and then there’s all that magnetic poetry. That I never play with and should take off.

2. Do you remove outdated items regularly? Only if I move. Or buy a new refrigerator.

3. How many thicknesses of paper will your strongest magnet hold? That’s a test I’ve never done. I have no idea. I don’t even know which magnet is my strongest.

4. Any recent postcards? I don’t have any postcards that are actually FROM someone. Those go on the cork board. I do have a very amusing postcard that’s a New Yorker cartoon, though. It’s a house with a bunch of refrigerators flying through the sky towards it. The caption says, "Obviously they had too many refrigerator magnets."

5. How many graduation invites are there?  Any weddings? For some reason I never put those on the fridge either. They usually go into a stack of random papers so I can forget all about them till I’ve completely missed the RSVP dates.

Don’t you want to know what the weirdest thing on my fridge is? That would have to be the picture of a picture that was on the previous fridge. Years ago Baker B tore out a picture from something like Parade magazine, where they advertise those strange, often creepy dolls and "collectibles". This one was called Baby Biker Bobby. Baby Biker Bobby is, of course, a baby in a biker outfit. Baker B tore out Baby Biker Bobby’s picture, put it on the fridge, and topped it off with a selection of magnetic poetry. At some point – I have no idea when, or, more importantly, why – one of us took a photo of the picture on the fridge. And now what’s on the fridge is the photo of the picture. With the magnetic words and the old avocado green fridge as a background. And a postcard at the bottom of the picture of the kids from Southpark with Santa and Jesus.

Tattoos –

1. Have any? Not to date.

2. Want any? Not really.

3. Do you generally find them attractive?  I’ve seen some subtle small ones that were nice. I don’t find the huge sprawling ones very attractive.

4. How much would you pay for Mt. Rushmore on a strategic location? I can’t even pretend to know what you’re talking about. Is this some kind of code??? I have to say, though, the Mt. Rushmore I’m aware of would make a pretty darned amusing tattoo. In ANY location.

5.  Does you mom know about them? Well, yeah. I’m pretty sure she’s even been to Mt. Rushmore.

OD –

1. Do you use the spell checker? I use Word for my spell checker. I have never been able to figure the OD one out.

2. Have you met any  ODers in real life?  I have – Smile and Sidler last year. It was lots of fun! So far, they are the only ones. Well, except Cousin E of course, who I have not only met but have known my entire life.

3. Are you happy here? Sure. The neighbors are a little noisy sometimes, and we don’t always get our milk delivered on time – but over all it’s a great place!

4. Did you buy a lifetime membership?  If so what was your reason for doing so? I didn’t, but I think it’s a great deal. I just don’t have an extra $100 floating around. I actually just renewed and thought it would make more sense to get a lifetime one — but no, just did a year. It’s way easier to come up with $24.

5. How often do you change the appearance of your diary?  Tell us why?  How? etc. I change it less often than I’d expect I would change it. Mostly because one little change always results in hours of fiddling around trying to get something I like.

TV –

1. Channels?  Hours?  Numbers please. Again… what???  I get waaaaay too many channels, we have a dish so even thebasic gets us about ten million channels, and I don’t think I’ve even turned it on in two weeks. There’s nothing on I want to see. No Lost till February, no Queer Eye till who knows when, I always forget the Colbert Report, and there never seems to be a thing on. We just rent stuff from Netflix.

Oh, I FINALLY watched House the other day, after having the DVD lying around for a month. Or, rather, I tried to watch it. Sadly House is full of… DUH… medical stuff. And Ms. Squeamish just can not stand to watch medical stuff. I spent most of the episode going "EWWW!!!!! EWWWWW!!!! GROSS!!!! ICKKKK!!!!" and trying to watch it without actually looking at the TV. I’m sure it’s an excellent program and I adore Hugh Laurie, but it’s just not going to be possible. Baker B was shocked that I was even going to try – he said, "It’s MEDICAL stuff – you hate medical stuff!" and I replied that I did in fact love St. Elsewhere way back in the 80s, and Emergency was one of my very favorite shows when I was a kid, thank you very much, and I can too watch medical stuff.  But you know, medical shows didn’t used to have people being chopped right up on camera with blood flying everywhere. EWWWWWW.

It was also very predictable and I didn’t care for all the overly-pretty doctors. Except, of course, for Hugh Laurie. But that was just the pilot, so I’m sure the quality improved.  

2. Favorite kids show? That would have to be Spongebob. I think Spongebob is hysterical. You know, I wonder what ever happened to Bananas in Pyjamas? That was a strange kid’s show.  Two human sized bananas wearing prison-like striped pyjamas, and a rat in a hat.

3. Favorite soap? The only soap I ever watched was Dark Shadows. Oh, and Soap. Which I really liked as a teenager, but when I’ve caught the odd episode in recent years, I found it kind of depressing. OH, and Mary Hartman! Whatever happened to Mary Hartman Mary Hartman??

4. Favorite western?  From the old days. The old days? I guess that means when I was a kid and the earth’s crust was still cooling and dinosaurs roamed free. My favorite western was High Chaparral, which I loved beyond all reason. Ten or so years ago, the Family Channel started showing it, and I was very happy to discover that I STILL like it. It was actually a really well-done show. I also used to love Wild Wild West. And Alias Smith and Jones.

5. Do you watch news? Very very very rarely. Generally just if I’m at my parents. And they’ve fallen into the VERY disturbing habit of watching Fox News. Thanks to my conservative brother and SIL, who steered them to Fox after they got a dish a couple of years ago so could pick up more than the three channels they got with the antenna. So now not only do I have to endure the news when I’m visiting, I have to endure FOX news. An even bigger EWWWWWW!!!! than the blood and visceral organs flying about in House.

 Newspapers – It’s the Survey That Has No End!!

1. Do you read a daily paper? I usually read the Charlotte Observer. Since it’s the closest thing to a real newspaper we can get. Our town’s paper is thrice-weekly and not worth the bother when it does come out.

2. What do you read in it? Just about everything. Except sports. And I only glance at the front page of the business section.

3. Are the funnies funny? They certainly are. And they’re mostly why I read the paper. Baker B usually gets USA Today, which I find completely pointless as it has no comics.

4. Do you write letters to the editor?  What about?  Do they get published? I don’t, although I often feel like it.

5. What do you do with your newspapers after you’ve read them? i don’t know – add some mushrooms and olives and make a nice stir fry???  I stick them in the recycling bin. What do most people do with them??

Oh, look, I’m finally done!