friday night at the surveys

I haven’t done a survey in ages, so why not? Especially since I have nothing that’s the slightest bit interesting to discuss. Well, other than getting a phone call from my brother tonight. It scared the bejesus out of me since neither of us are phoners and he rarely calls me unless someone’s dead or in the hospital. And I was ignoring the phone since we were just starting to watch last night’s Lost (*insert COOLEST SHOW EVER here, and how WILL they keep this amazingly bizarre weirdness UP?!!!*) and I heard my cell ring but figured it was Kim who I do want to talk to but not for the hour or so that it always takes to talk to her, and especially not when it’s just as we’re starting to watch last night’s Lost (which I saw last night but Baker B couldn’t stay up for and it’s always good for a second viewing. Or third, or fourth). So then the landline rings and I still don’t answer it because I still think it’s Kim and I still don’t want to spend an hour talking to her when I want to watch Lost. But nobody leaves a message.. and then the landline starts ringing again and I think maybe I better answer it because it’s starting to sound like someone’s dead or in the hospital.

So it turns out to be my brother calling a third time to leave a message since he for some reason hadn’t left a message the previous two calls. But for once, it’s a good message. My SIL has a friend who is a nurse, and the friend had offered her nursing services to come to my parents’ house and see if she might be able to, as a medical person, coax my mother into taking a shower. Which my mother has been resisting doing for quite some time now, and although I’ve talked her into taking one in the past and my SIL has also talked her into it in the past, neither of us has had any luck in a long time. Way longer than anybody ought to be going without a shower, for sure. So we thought maybe if the SIL’s nurse friend comes over dressed in her nurse garb and says Mama’s doctor has sent her, she might make a little more progress than we’re making lately.

Well, she sure made more progress than us. My mother took a shower without batting an eye at having a stranger in a nurse’s uniform show up at the door to make her do it. Which is just about as bizarre as the current episodes of Lost have been. The nurse also does light housekeeping, although now Daddy is saying he and I can keep doing that. Well, whatever. If he wants to live in a sea of cathair, fine – at least the shower issue appears to be solved.

Now that I’ve gone on for the length of a normal entry after declaring that I have nothing to say, I’ll move along to the survey. If you escape now, I won’t blame you a bit.

Since I’ve got ten bazillion surveys saved,  of course I’m doing one I just stole tonight from KatLady. How can you resist these questions?

1] Can you use chopsticks?  I can. In fact, I was able to use chopsticks with great success the first time I ever picked a pair of them up. Obviously I spent some time as an Asian person in a previous life.  

2] Were you a hyper or mellow kid?   I was a silent watchful kid who hid out in my room reading and avoiding social situations involving people as much as possible.

3] Last time you were drunk?   A very long time, but I have to say I’m kind of knocking back the Shariz tonight. What?? It’s healthy! No, no, I’m switching to seltzer water and cranberry juice now. I’ve got to work at graduation tomorrow and sure don’t need a hangover.

4] Ever been to the Statue of Liberty?   I haven’t been in it, but I’ve been near it.  Way way back during the 80s and my first marriage. My first husband’s sisters lived in New York, and we went up there when the oldest one got married. We stayed a couple of days and one day we rode the ferry that went around the Statue of Liberty. The Circle Line? I can’t believe I still remember the name of the ferry.
  
5] How many e-mail addresses do you have? More than I need, that’s for sure. Oddly enough I just signed up for TWO MORE today, too. Apparently our college is switching over to gmail at some point, and the tech guys offered to send us an invitation to sign up for an account so we can check it out, since it’s easier to sign up if you’re invited. So I signed up for an account with my real name, and then I signed up for an Edna Million account. Because I use Yahoo as my personal email, but I’m kind of over Yahoo lately. I hate their new fancy smanchy set up that takes ten clicks to actually get to your email, and I’m real sick of all the ads. So I may just switch over to gmail.

But to answer the question, I have a work address, my yahoo address, and now two gmail addresses. I used to have an Open Diary email address, but it got so overrun with spam that I quit using it. And we did have a bunch of Earthlink  addresses we never used before we got rid of dialup. I also had another Yahoo address at one time that I just used to sign up for stuff to try to cut down on spam, but I don’t even remember what that one was now. So, really, I have four. And two are brand new. Maybe that’s not so many.
 

oops, I just cut out #6. Well, in the interest of time, that’s probably for the best. If more numbers vanish, you’ll know what happened.
 
7] Do you like Oreos? Sure.

8] Can you ice skate? I’ve only been once – and that was also when I was living in DC during the early 80s. I went ice skating with Cousin E’s sister, at a rink somewhere near the Mall. To my astonishment, I had no trouble iceskating. Kind of like using chopsticks. And I really enjoyed it. And I haven’t been back since.
  
9] Do you like to grocery shop?  I do, actually.

11] Do you go tanning? No. I used to lay out in the sun all day long, but not anymore. Not since I started getting all spotchy and freckly and winkled. I’ve never been to a tanning bed.

13 Last CD you played?  Oh, here’s another long story! We watched The Darjeeling Limited a few months ago, and Baker B was quite taken with some of the music. During the credits, we realized that several songs we both really liked were The Kinks. Of all things. Baker B is quite the Kinks fan, and he kind of owes it to me and that Hewlitt-Packard commercial where the guy is displaying photographs while they’re playing "Picture Book". I kept saying I loved that song, and turned out he had the CD, but never listed to it – The Village Green Preservation Society. So we both kind of got hooked on that album, and then branched out to other Kinks stuff too. For some reason they never made a huge impression on me back during the 70s.

What was the question again?? Oh-  anyhow, he found out those Kinks songs from Darjeeling Limited were both on LolaVerses Powerman and The Moneygoround. Along with Lola, which I do recall from years ago and always liked. So we bought that.album. And it’s been in the CD player in the car forEVER. It’s a great album. If you like the Kinks, you need to go get it right now.

15]What do you do when you pass graveyards? Take pictures! I love graveyards.

17]What was the last movie you watched at home? Wow…. I’m drawing a big blank. Surely it wasn’t Darjeeling Limited — oh, I think it was Bottle Rocket. Another Wes Anderson. It was pretty good. Didn’t like Rushmore at all. We’ve been watching Deadwood and neglecting movies lately.

23]When was the last time you swung on a swing? I think it was in Charleston last summer. Now I don’t recall why we were in this playground on East Bay Street – I think we were just tired and sat on the swings for a few minutes. I can’t swing at all – I get queasy REALLY fast.   

43]Do you buy soundtracks?  Sometimes. I … oh, we’ll just answer that in the next question!
 
44]If so, what soundtracks do you own?   Until The End of The World, The Full Monty… ummmmm… I have an IFC soundtrack CD from several movies….. Oh, Mullholland Drive and Twin Peaks – Oh Brother Where Art Thou.. Big Fish…. It seems like I have a lot more than that, though. OH, and both Six Feet Under soundtracks. I’m sure I’m leaving a bunch out.

Well, I think that better be it. I’ve probably gone over my ten million character limit.

***************
Or not. Apparently this seemed much longer than it actually was because I accidentally cut and pasted half of it in twice. Back when Question 6 vanished. Oh, well.