Thursday, October 4, 2007

I was tagged.

My friend Melissa "tagged" me the other day, my first one ever. It made me feel special. So, here's a few "interesting" things about me:

1. About ten years ago, I met Santa in Finland. He was scraping some off ice his windshield and let me take a photo with him.
2. My sister and I played a game as kids called "devil in the ditch." I thought it was a common game until I made a few references to it with adult friends and had them look at me like I was crazy. Also, when our rooms would get so messy that we'd lose a barbie, we'd pretend that she had been kidnapped. We'd then mail ransom notes to our house and have a big reunion party when we finally cleaned our room and "rescued" her.


3. I can explain what it means and teach you to say the following sentence, my favorite Slovak tongue twister: Strc prst skrz krk.

4. I have a cousin whose job it was on the Charlie's Angels movie to fix the acne on Cameron Diaz's face, thanks to his talent with digital tinkering. This same cousin's face is projected onto one of the pirate's heads in the new high-tech Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland.

5. Despite what my mother may try to tell you, I was not a pretty baby: The cute one is my adorable big sister, hoping to get away as soon as possible from the troll on her right.

6. Maybe it's just that we're both Southern girls, but I'm genuinely concerned for Britney and hope she gets things worked out soon.

7. When I was a teacher in Slovakia, I promised every class that on the first snow day, we'd go out and make snowmen, as long as they tried to make them look like their English teachers. We only got in trouble for it once, when the groundskeeper opened the window and started yelling at my students, saying they were going to "kill the bushes" by walking in them. I found David, the tallest kid, and stood behind him during the yelling. I was only 23; that's my excuse.

8. When I was 10, I became obsessed with wearing what I liked to call "George Jefferson hats." My parents bought me a purple, corduroy one at Disneyworld, and it appears with me in most photos in that era.

9. I made this girl, a friend and former student, cry for a full ten minutes when we surprised her with tickets to see The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Snoop Dogg. We sang along to "Gin and Juice" and got to hear "Dani California" live (her name is Dani, and we saw them at the Greek Theater in California...freaky).

10. The hardest I have laughed in the last ten years has been because of the way my friend Chris says, "Pardon me, Madam, but would you like to have your scissors sharpened?" and how my friend Noby says, "Grampaw, there was a rat caught in the trap."

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Reading your blog makes me smile. I love it. And I love learning more about you.

Oh, I was thinking of you last night. I would like to ask, "What made you choose Ethiopia to adopt from?" Why not any other place? Were you just drawn to there?

Just curious. :)
Have a great day.
Steph

Anonymous said...

Lori: How do you play "devil in the ditch"? Cannot wait to be taught how to pronounce whatever that saying is (which I am quite curious to know.) Where is the photo of you in the purple hat? My best friends and I used to play Charlie's Angels plus one, I still have the drawings of our "mission plans".

Pattie VZ

Lori said...

ok, Pattie, I'll teach you to say 'strc prst skrz krk' next time I see you (when do you want to come up to Oregon?). We can wrangle Ted and maybe a couple of neighbors into a game of 'devil in the ditch' too. Charlie's Angels, huh? We played a lot of 'The Dukes of Hazzard' at my after-school program in Mississippi. Everybody fought over who got to be Daisy, of course.

Rusty Spell said...

How I long to be the guy who cleans Cameron Diaz's acne.

erin said...

We used to have Barbie kidnapped, too! GI Joe was usually the culprit.

Having fun reading your blog! good luck on the wait -- any idea how long?

erin from holdingstill

Anonymous said...

I had soemthing called 'Action Man' - a GI Joe - type doll (with moveable 'eagle eyes'and gripping hands too!) which I used to leave outdoors for prolonged periods "camping" and eventually,having refined my playtime habits,having him "go missing" by leaving him further afield than the back garden.The excitement of going retrieve him wondering if he'd still be there! With some of my other action figure toys I would hold mock trials and dish out 'sentences' that included prolonged incarceration in the garden and once again,refining this,even introduced the death penalty,which was mainly burning at the stake.Shouldn't be telling all this I ssupect,but what the hell : /

I'm glad the 'scissors' routine was a hit : )

Drew Carey Show said...

I'm not sure if I should be embarrassed to admit that I'm also concerned for the tragic Britney Spears. How's the waiting coming along (other than it being a nice opportunity for whimsical introspection???) P.S. let me know if you're coming down to LA for any reason. Amy's flying down for my baby shower, Sunday, 10/21... XOXO Carey

Drew Carey Show said...

I'm not sure if I should be embarrassed to admit that I'm also concerned for the tragic Britney Spears. How's the waiting coming along (other than it being a nice opportunity for whimsical introspection???) P.S. let me know if you're coming down to LA for any reason. Amy's flying down for my baby shower, Sunday, 10/21... XOXO Carey

Anonymous said...

Lori, is your mom holding your mouth shut in the picture!?!? I've seen this one and never noticed that! HA!!

Didn't know your cuz was in the POC ride!!! I would have looked closer! I think he's listed in the "secrets" list of that ride!!
Cindy