Okay, Bryan, I’ll play along with your meme!

1.   My best vacation EVAR was the two weeks we spent touring New England during the summer of 1982, mostly camping here and there.  I have lots of fond memories of that trip: from leaving the tent in total darkness at a campgrounds in Rhode Island to take a pee and being spooked by heavy breathing in the woods (it turned out it was the couple at the next campsite having sex) to buying and cooking a whole lobster in Maine and eating it at our campsite picnic table.  Good memories!

2.  I own cars until they fall apart.  My first car was a 1973 VW Super Beetle bought new that summer.  I drove it until the summer of 1986.  I have no idea how many miles it had on it at the time.  The odometer broke at approximately mile 58,598 in 1978 and was never repaired.  At the time I finally bought a new car in 1986, the heater on the Bug didn’t work so well, the rear-window defroster didn’t work, and the windshield washer was busted.  The Mazda 626 I bought in 1986 was part of the family for ten years. 

3.  I got married when I was 17.  When I got my leaner’s permit renewed just after we got married (I got married before I had a driver’s license), I needed someone to cosign for me since I was under 18.  This guy standing next to me at the application desk said, “I’ll sign for her.” 

The clerk stared at him.  “Who are you?” she demanded.

“Her husband.”

“And how old are YOU?”

“Twenty-three.”

She shoved the paper at him, although I still think she was suspicious about the whole arrangement.  I was really glad when I turned 18 a few weeks later and didn’t have to have my husband cosign anything for me because I wasn’t old enough to do it myself!

4.  My marriage contains some role-reversals.  My husband does 99% of the cooking and grocery shopping.  He makes the coffee in the morning and packs my lunch.  I do not know how to program my electric oven to turn on at a given time and have the casserole baked by 5:30 when we get home from work (he uses this function all the time)  and I’ve never used the Kitchen Aide mixer that HE bought last year.  I, on the other hand, manage all the finances.  I’ve taken care of applying for mortgages and home equity loans with him just showing up to sign the paperwork.  I just filed our taxes this evening.  I make sure all the bills are paid.  He doesn’t really know exactly how much money he makes and where it all goes to the penney like I do.  He just knows that it all happens without mishap.

Unlike most men, he would just as soon that I drive when the two of us go somewhere together.  Most of the time, I do.

5.   I took five years of tap-dancing lessons as a child and just loved it!  Too bad that there is absolutely no market anymore for people who can tap-dance.

6.  I was born nine weeks early back in 1955 and weighed in at 3 pounds and 1 ounce.  The doctors didn’t think I’d live because premature babies back then often didn’t.  However, every time my mother went to the nursery to stare at her little runt of a baby in the incubator, I’d be flailing and screaming.  I was a fighter, and all the hollering probably improved my lung function.  I went home from the hospital at one month of age when I reached the required weight of five pounds.

7.  I’ve had a passport for 18 years that has only been used once: when I arrived in the city of Vancouver, British Columbia in 1998 for our 25th wedding anniversary celebration.  But hey!  You never know when you might need to leave the country in a hurry!

8.  If you put me in a room that contains a human toddler and a dog, I’ll feel more at ease with the dog.  Sorry, I was standing in the wrong line when the maternal instincts were being assigned, but my cats are the most spoiled creatures on the planet!