Seven Random Things

I was tagged by the wonderful lady behind My Ice Cream Diary to do a Seven Random Things About Me thingee. And since I'm all kinds of random and welcome any opportunity to brain barf when I can (Hi Sarah!) I thought it'd be fun. :-)

1. Lucid dreams are a total rip-off. I very seldom have a dream wherein I don't know I'm asleep and dreaming. I hate that. It'd be soooo much more fun to dream about being L.L. Cool J's favorite girlfriend ever if I thought it was really happening. Although regular dreams have their drawbacks too. Whenever I get to have a regular dream I always wake up thinking I need to quit smoking all over again. (See Number 4.)

2. I collect enamelware. Love! enamelware. I love this and this, and especially this! Aren't they beautiful? I actually have a refrigerator box like that second item, but it's the same green color of the third one. I matched that green for the paint in my bathroom. I have dish pans, bread pans, bowls, platters, buckets. Love it. Enamelware just fits right in with my farmhouse theme I'm trying on. Of course, I try not to buy a piece I won't use. Try.

3. In 1980 I began training to be a member of the 1984 Olympic swimming team, but in 1981 my mother made me quit. My brother, Markie, had drowned in our back yard pool that Summer just a few weeks shy of his 2nd birthday and she couldn't handle being around pools.

4. I used to smoke a pack of cigarettes a day. Camel in a box, please. None of those girly-man cigs for me. I quit almost 10 years ago and I've never looked back. But oddly enough I'm a smoker in every. single. dream. I've had since quitting.

5. I had a stalker (his name is a matter of public record so I'll share it here) named James Schneider in 1995 and 96. His luck ran out when he tried to climb in my shower with me at 5:30 a.m. on September 16, 1996. Of course, I screamed bloody murder. And of course, he was caught. He took the Alford plea (too much evidence against me so there's no way I could defend myself - which means I did it but I refuse to plead guilty) but the judge threw the book at him because of two things: a) he scared Ashley (4 yrs. at the time) beyond repair and that offended the judge's grandfatherly sensibilities; and b) the dude's wife was using my vacuum that he'd stolen when the police arrived to arrest him. He served 18 months of a 2-year sentence for burglary. We couldn't prove he'd been the one coming into my home at night while I slept and doing God knows what besides stealing my stuff. We could only prove that he'd been there once and that he had my stuff. I still see his name in the paper now and again.

Number 5 leads into Number 6.

6. After my story hit the AP wire (for what earthly reason, I'll never know - who cares about a girl in Washington catching a burglar?) I was contacted by quite a few people. One of them was my grandmother in Oregon wondering why she had to read about me in the paper instead of hear it from The Horse's Mouth. (Sorry Gram!) Another was Belinda Jackson, producer of the Leeza Gibbons Show. Yes, they wanted me to come and participate in a show they were doing about avoiding being the victim of a crime. Soooooo, I did it. I flew to LA in January of 1997, taped the show, and felt the entire time that I didn't belong there. The other people on the panel had been tied up and raped, stabbed, or their children stolen and murdered. "Helloooooo. Ummm, I caught a burglar? One of these things is not like the others!" They assured me it was alright, so I stayed. The show aired on May 29th of that year. I only know that because it was my mother's birthday.

7. I would sell your first born child for a big old platter of piping hot fresh-from-the-oven tater tots. They're my biggest enemy when I'm trying to lose weight. I just can't resist! If they're in the freezer I have to eat them. And really, what's not to love? Mmmmmm. Tots. Nice and crispy outside, soft and mushy inside. Seasoning salt. Fry sauce or ranch for dipping. Yuh-huh-hum! Just thinking about God's Favorite Processed Potato Product makes my tummy talk.

Dude, I'm hungry.