Mama Christy tagged me for an 8 Random Things about me meme (I can refuse her nothing).
Here are the rules.
- Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
- People who are tagged need to write a post on their own blog (about their eight things) and post these rules.
- At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
- Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
OK, on to the eight random things about VirusHead:
- I harbor a secret hope that sometime in my lifetime we will see a Pope named Hilarius II. Little things like that keep me going.
- I still don’t salute the flag, even though I haven’t been a Jehovah’s Witness for many, many years. It’s a creepy nationalistic ritual, and I think things are always very bad when flags become too important.
- I despise ants. When I was five, I climbed a fire-ant hill in Houston Texas and was swarmed. My wise mother bought me special ant-stomping shoes. They worked very, very well. Nowadays, I pick them up between my fingers and squish them until they die. I am now so sensitive to the toxin that I have a little sphere-shaped hole in my toe from when I was bitten in graduate school.
- I adore Chocolate Malted Ovaltine - hot or cold. When I was pregnant with Ben, it was the only real craving that I had. I drank quite a lot of it. Really. A lot of it. About a gallon a day.
- That reminds me.. I don’t eat or drink “diet” anything. I use butter and sugar and whole milk. If I can’t have whole milk, I’d rather just have something else than mess around with skim or even 2%. I don’t eat a lot, but what I eat has a minimum of chemicals (you know, unless I’ve just got to have some Funyons: moderation in all things). I am very suspicious of fat-free dairy products, sugar free cookies, diet soda, and so on. I’ve never seen anybody lose weight by eating or drinking any of this stuff.
- I can no longer hit E above C when I sing, unless it is in a Bee Gees falsetto. Wah.
- I’m not a joiner. I’m not a team player. I’m not with the program. I’m not progressing our goals. It would never occur to me to take prisoners in the first place. And I really detest sloppy, euphemistic language, no matter how guilty I might be of using it myself.
- I really, really wish that we had a good climbable maple tree in our yard, but we don’t. It’s oaks and more oaks, with old dry pines and one fig tree. I miss having a good perch in the trees.
Anyone that wants to participate is hereby invited. Here are some people that might have fun doing this, but no worries if you don’t feel like participating.
- Dante’s Virgil
- Grateful Bear
- Makanani
- Meditations on an Eyeball
- Postcards from Hell’s Kitchen
- Prose and Thorn
- Telling it Like it Is
- The Raven’s Retreat
Roberta Genini on 
7:42 pm on December 8th, 2007 1
Amen on the Ant Hatred. I have been waging war on Fire Ants since I moved to Houston. I detest the little buggers and I kil them with glee.
9:56 pm on December 8th, 2007 2
I’m totally geeked out you were so willing to do this; especially because we have a so much in common. There’s a little joiner in you, even if you didn’t know it
Number 2: me neither and me too! It’s not even a gubbermint document yet it’s assigned a rather strange and uncomfortable importance, especially in children’s events. It is NOT that I don’t love my country either. I simply believe that any pledge which is compulsory is usually poorly understood and therefore isn’t sincere in the first place. If I get the urge to pledge my allegiance to anything, I’m going to do better than a canned speech.
On the subject of joining: I HATE the group project, the team effort, the rah rahs, if you’re good citizen, employee, person, friend, you’ll feel this way and do this thing. I’m with you, but I’m with you in my own way, as an individual who has looked at the pros and cons and decided your organization fits a niche in my needs. I’m not a blind follower, I have to be free to have my own ideas and opinions. It’s why I probably will never be part of ‘real’ organized religion again.
I am not as well spoken as you are or as active on the politics front but it makes me glad someone is saying what I would say if I ever got off my ass to say it.
Enough of the thirteen thousand word comments! Thanks again, Heidi
10:59 pm on December 8th, 2007 3
I grew up in Central Illinois - surrounded by carpenter ants (Camponotus pennsylvanicus). While they didn’t often attack, they could bite pretty hard.
While spending several months in Saudi Arabia hanging out in the desert (Gulf War), there were quite a few varieties of ant around - the worst were black, resembling carpenter ants - except with larger bodies and hideous, enormous mandibles. I was bit a few times, but not often. Nasty things with painful, itchy bites.
While doing a lot of nothing one afternoon, awaiting the start of the ground war, one of the idiots in my platoon caught a scorpion and a few of the nasty ants. He put the scorpion and two of those ants in a shoebox and let them fight it out.
The ants won. Not the outcome I expected. The scorpion kept stinging them, but the ants methodically severed legs, created deep gashes in the scorpion and relentlessly continued to attack until it retreated into a corner and stopped fighting back.
It was both disturbing and fascinating at the same time.
9:53 am on December 9th, 2007 4
I posted my 8 Random Facts back in May:
http://wildfaith.blogspot.com/search?q=8+random+facts
- and I tagged you at that time, Heidi! I can’t be re-tagged! I have immunity! :o)
10:01 am on December 9th, 2007 5
Do you mean to say I did this one less than a year ago, and already I’ve forgotten?
Oh, man…. that’s depressing.
Yup, here it is:
http://www.virushead.net/vhrandom/2007/06/01/virushead-random-8
Not much overlap - maybe I should call this “Random 16.”
2:14 pm on December 9th, 2007 6
I liked yours…
And I’ll give it some thought myself!
Meanwhile… Happy Pre-Holidays, Vi!