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."