All your eggs

I'd say that I've had my laundry basket for as long as I can remember, except I remember getting it. It's green, about ten years old, and very boxy without any of those newfangled curves designed to fit around your hip. One Easter we found that instead of our usual baskets, our mom had bought each of us a laundry basket for the folding table in the laundry room. She sent us on a treasure hunt around the house and yard that ended in the basement where our new laundry baskets were waiting for us.

My candy didn't look like much when it was spread over the bottom of such a huge container. And with these baskets came the news that our mom now expected us to be in charge of our own laundry. At least the folding and sorting of it. And if she was doing laundry, having these baskets would help her to get the right clothes to the right people. There were a few problems with the system, one being that it was hard to know whose clothes were whose. At one point we all had dots on the tags of our clothes. Being the fifth child, I had five dots on mine, and so on and so forth. But another problem was that some people had too many clothes to fit in their basket. H's clothes were always spilling over into F's basket and he didn't much care for that. And there were too many of us for us to all have differently colored baskets. Mine is green, as was Bony M's, so baskets occasionally got mixed up.

And then there was the extra basket that stayed on the floor next to the washer where the wet clothes were emptied into if there was a wait for the dryer. Mine ended up in that spot in place of the regular basket for a period of time before I managed to rescue it. The basket that had been there three baskets ago had a most unfortunate fate; it was used to carry pieces of wood in from the backyard and I found it one day behind the playhouse, nothing but splinters of plastic, decomposing into the Earth. I wasn't about to let that happen to my basket. I never let it away from me after that realization, that if you don't take care of your basket there are serious consequences.

So I was more than a little miffed when I found a small crack in my basket recently. Right in the top corner where there's a great chance of it expanding into something more serious. I've had this laundry basket for a long time and was planning on having it for many years to come, and then this happened. I don't want another basket, no matter what people are always saying about having more than one basket to put your eggs in. You know what? This laundry basket has been a big part of my life, and it's seen me through a lot of poor fashion decisions. In sickness and in health right? Ten more years laundry basket, you and me!

Ever so goosy, goosy, goosy, goosy.

Also, it's one month until I get married. There will be snacks there will.

Come again? Beg pardon?

Saturday night a group of us were watching Casino Royale, which Uffish had picked up at the grocery store for a fairly good price, and at one point during the movie she informed us that her Dad had built movie sets in the past. We were all pretty impressed, and Mr. Jimbles asked, "Is there anything your dad hasn't been?" Thinking I was funny (how very wrong I was) I responded with "A woman!" This was met with some unpleasant exclamations that let me know I had gone too far this time. I was confused, because to my knowledge Uffish's dad never had been a woman. What had I said that was so offensive? Maybe jokes about gender aren't funny? Apparently I had misheard Mr. Jimbles' question, and he had said "Is there anything your dad hasn't done", instead of "anything your dad hasn't been." Crap. I inadvertently slandered Uffish's Dad, her Mom, and Uffish herself. Stupid ears of mine. I really ought to get some new ones.

American Graffiti

Audrey tagged me to tell six things about myself, so here goes nothing. I'm also supposed to tag 6 other people, but I couldn't think of who to tag, so if you're reading this and want to be tagged, go for it.

(1) I like to clean, but I rarely clean my own house or dust my belongings, because I prefer to clean other peoples' houses. I can spend hours scrubbing a bathtub, and I have no problem cleaning up vomit. Tell your friends if you think they can afford me. Also, I hate it when telephones get covered in ear grease. Seriously, have you looked at your phone recently? It's covered in your face.

(2) I own maybe 10 skirts, but I only wear the plainest of them - the brown, navy, grey, and black ones. For example, I bought a magenta purplish skirt and I've never worn it anywhere. This is the fate of a lot of my clothes, that they go unworn.

(3) Along those same lines, I have a hard time throwing things away. Cardboard food boxes, school papers, "keep this coupon" tickets, receipts, old bits of string - you name it, I tuck it away somewhere. At home I have all sorts of stuff in the attic, including our old doorbell, and the head of a drinking fountain from the park down the street. I recently went through the stuff in my room and threw away a mountain of papers and boxes and all sorts of crap, because it's getting to be ridiculous, the amount of stuff I have, and I certainly don't use any of it. Except I did find some birthday money in some old cards - 15 dollars worth. Makes me wonder if I threw away something I oughtn't, but what's done is done. Also, I love dumps and thrift stores, but I should probably avoid them both, for obvious reasons.

(4) I'm scared of pregnant people. And wrists. And shots/needles/seeing those needles in people. I was eating at the hospital cafe the other week and I caught sight of some pregnant woman walking around with a million IV things stuck in her wrists and arms and it disturbed me quite a bit. She really freaked me out, and I had to look away, because seeing people like that overwhelms me -I start thinking about disease, childbirth, spinal disorders, bone density, hospital gowns, skin cancer, arteriosclerosis, kidney cancer, and contact lenses until I think I'm going to die.

(5) I used to want to be a hermit. I think most children think about being astronauts or ballerinas when they grow up. I mean, I thought about being other normal stuff too, like an author or something, but I also wanted to be a hermit. I used to be something of a Luddite - I put off getting a cell phone for as long as I could, I refused to get braces, and I own a typewriter. My lack of technological know how combined with my general dislike of other people led me to think that I'd be happiest living alone in a cottage somewhere with a rotary phone, writing letters out by hand . I still kind of want to be a hermit.

(6) I'm incapable of using cameras. I can't load or unload film, despite having been told how to do so several times now. Digital cameras confuse me with their memory flashcard thinguses, autofocus autoflashes, and red eye reduction capabilities. I only use those Kodak disposable type cameras and I always hesitate when anybody asks me to take a picture for them.

The King of the Sun

Part I: In which I quote a movie

My memory is a funny thing. Thursday as I was getting into the car with H and M-Lite something somebody said reminded me of a movie quote, so I spouted off what James said in James and the Giant Peach, which was something like

James: You saved us from a giant shark, single-handedly

The Earthworm: No-handedly, thank you

James: Exactly. You're a hero!

It's not the exact quote, but I imdb-ed it later and it's pretty close. H looked at me kind of funny and asked how long it had been since I'd seen that movie. I figured it must have been about eight years since I saw it last, why do you ask? Because apparently it's weird that I can see or hear something and remember it later. I forget things about myself a lot of the time - important things, important memories, details that should stay with me, but I remember all sorts of things that aren't useful at all.

Part II: AP European History and how I second guess myself

Krebscout got some paint that she'd ordered and we were talking about brands. Hers was Utrecht, and I said I liked that brand of paint, because in my mind it was the best. She asked me why I thought so, and I said that I liked it because Utrecht was famous. She and Optimistic. said they didn't recall the word Utrecht being of any importance whatsoever. I said that there was a treaty of Utrecht, or a pact, or something, but under their discerning eyes I wavered a bit. At least I thought there was a treaty. Now that they had questioned it I started to doubt. Optimistic. was a history major, and if it didn't ring any bells with him, maybe I was wrong.

We looked it up, and there definitely was a Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 that helped to end the War of Spanish Succession. I knew there had been a treaty, even if I didn't know at the time what it did. I just don't know why that fact from History class stuck with me when so many others did not.

Another thing is that I can memorize long sequences of numbers or letters. I can spell supercalifragilisticexpialidocious forwards as well as backwards (suoicodilaipxecitsiligarfilacrepus) all in one go in under 15 seconds. I also used to know pi to a hundred digits. So when I was a senior in High School and my AP Euro teacher gave us a list of events from the French Revolution to memorize in order, I started by memorizing the first letter of each event on the list. I still know the first 7 letters of that list - CTSGEDP. Why I still know that sequence almost three years after the fact is beyond me.

Part III: We fill the tires

Optimistic. noticed that our car tires were getting too low, so we made plans to spend Thursday morning getting them filled, as well as doing general maintenance work on the car -you know, cleaning it out and checking the fluid levels and such. I'd even bought a tire pressure gauge a couple of days earlier, so we were all set. When confronted with how much to fill the tires, I said that the gauge should read 30, because that's the number I've always associated with tire pressure. I hear "tire pressure" and I think 30. Optimistic. reasoned that it would be much higher, so we consulted the manual, and it said that the rear tires should be at 29 and the front tires should be at 32. So around 30 then. Why did I even know that? I heard my Dad try to explain to Bony M how to use a tire pressure gauge once. He didn't have one on hand, so his explanation consisted of "You press on it and a little dipstick pops out" and it confused her quite a bit. Let's say that they had this conversation (which I wasn't even apart of) when Bony M got her license, which was probably when she was 16 or 17 years old, which would have been 7 or 8 years ago.

I don't know -maybe everyone remembers things like that and it's just H who doesn't. Maybe it is just me. Maybe I've talked too long about this already. It makes no sense to me, but the point of all this is that I'm trying to not second guess myself as much, because it turns out I'm usually right. I just need some confidence. I need to say "Listen to me! I know what I'm talking about!"

(Also, this is the first time I've linked anything ever, and I'm immensely proud of myself, just in case this post couldn't get any more pompous. Look at me, I have a memory. Ooooh.)