Thursday, May 03, 2007

Tag! I'm It!

I've been tagged by Pam to come up with ten interesting habits or facts about myself in a friendly game of "Chinese Freeze Tag."

I'll start with Number...

10. Because of over crowding, I went to three kindergartens when I was five.

9. I have to have all the closet doors in my bedroom (there are six) neatly shut before I can go to sleep. If Tom opens and doesn't close any of them while I'm still even slightly awake he'll hear a slurred, "Please close the closet doors. Thank you......." What a pain I am! Is this a leftover Boogy Man phobia?

8. When I was six I was nearly drowned in an irrigation ditch on a farm; my feet were being sucked into an underground culvert by an electric pump. My older brother held my hand and kept my head above water, screaming for help, until my dad and uncle rushed to help him save me. I held onto my dolly with one arm the entire time, though my brother commanded I let her go. Afterwards, Dad hung her upside down, by her pajama foot, on the clothesline where she dried in the summer sun. (He and mom toweled me off, instead of hanging me by my socks, for which I am grateful.)

7. I can flip my lower lip in and out so quickly that it's a blur - Tom, my siblings, and my kids call it Flipper Lip. I've met only one other person in my entire life who can also do this amazing feat, and he can only do it at half my speed.

6. I love water - I love being in the presence of water, I love to be IN water, any water. Rain, under waterfalls, in rivers, lakes, oceans, ponds, mountain lakes, pools, bathtubs you name it - I can spend hours on end swimming and playing in the water. I think I am an otter underneath it all.

5. I'm just finishing my 20th year of home tutoring my kids. Still have at least five to go!

4. I hate olives. Tom hates olives. Whenever I get jammed up and think I married the wrong guy, I remember our common olive-repulsion. A match made in heaven! (All four of our kids, Ben's girlfriend, AND our beagle hate olives, too! We're thinking of starting our own state.)

3. I was born with the hearing of an 80 year old man. (Come to think of it, I was also bald, toothless, and soon wearing a diaper....hmmm.)

2. From my forehead to the nape of my neck I frequently run my fingers through my hair. Without thinking about it. One palm, two palms, it doesn't matter. It makes me smarter.

And the Number One Kinda Interesting Thing About Me is:

1. When I was nineteen, I pushed my father's nearly brand new red Chevy pickup over a steep hill, where it rolled a ways as if in slow motion, until it finally crashed with a loud, sickening, crunching, thud into a mighty oak tree, which stopped it from taking out the chicken coop. It was an accident. He has forgiven me...... I think. :-)

And that, dear readers, is my quick list of sorta interesting stuff about a rather ordinary woman.

I'm supposed to tag ten other people, but I'm not going to do that today. I'm going to go play tag with some other children instead.

14 comments:

Pam said...

A great list, Cherie! I must see the flipper lip the next time I see you!!! I will have a jar of olives in my purse that I will use to terrorize you if you refuse...

Cherie said...

You've got a date - but leave the olives on your taco pizza!!!!

Anonymous said...

You are anything but ORDINARY Cherie!! I want to hear more about number one, pushing a pickup over a hill. You are funny. And interesting. Thanks for sharing some of your self.

Anonymous said...

I love number seven!

Cherie said...

Request noted, Annie. Maybe I'll recount the day I pushed Dad's truck. There really WAS a good reason, and it has some hair-raising danger in it. :-)

Desiree - hey, thanks for stopping by! I have contemplated doing a YouTube of Flipper Lip, but I'm not ready for such fame..........

:-D

deanna said...

I'm glad you escaped the irrigation ditch, and here you go on loving water anyway.

You're still my friend, even though we can't share olives (Tim's not fond of them, either).

I should list my 10 tagged people before you snatch a lot of them. We'll see who gets there first! ;o)

Cherie said...

I think my fascination with water is what caused me to lean so far over the ditch that I fell in the first place, Deanna. Funny, huh!

Tim is invited to join our state.

You go ahead and tag away - I think I'm going to sit this game of tag out, now that I've listed my list. I'm eager to read yours!

:-D

tshsmom said...

Mountain lakes?! BRRRRR!
You're definitely an interesting character Cherie!
I'd be interested in that truck story too. I don't think MY Dad would have forgiven me yet. ;)

Cherie said...

Oh, come on. They're not THAT cold. In summer. On a sunny day. They are the best!

Yeah, the truck story........it's a good one.

Anonymous said...

Almost drowning must have been very scary, very tragic.

Flipper lip is too funny, what's even funnier is visualizing you practicing to get good at it. You may just hold the world record; ever try looking in the Guinness World Records Book?

Thanks for sharing Cherie, this was as good as I thought it would be.

Cherie said...

Sandy, it was a scary thing.....though I was more concerned about my doll. :-) My brother knew better what my fate would have been had he lost his grip. I didn't understand until I went back to that same place and looked at the situation as an adult. THEN I appreciated my brother's firm grip on little me. And I have ever since been grateful for the life I've lived since.

Flipper Lip, believe it or not, took no practice, but was an intrinsic talent from the get-go. It was discovered quite by chance when my brother, little sister, and I were acting out a little skit for fun. I was supposed to look like a quivering-lipped woman who was feeling sorry for herself. I started quivering that lower lip, and for dramatic/comedic effect, went full-speed ahead! I thought everyone could do it! When my siblings leaned in, fascinated, eyes wide, asking, "How do you DO that?" I realized, that it was unusual. They dragged me to my other sister, my mom, my dad, and evermore to everyone who may enter our home, put me on display saying, "Do Flipper Lip for them!!" OOOO's and AHHH's have followed me ever since.

It's so silly - and funny.

cecily said...

The funniest thing is that the evening after I read this, I headed to bed and Frank (who knows nothing of your list)said "Before you come to bed could you please close that cupboard properly?" It was about 1cm open, couldn't even see inside, just a bit chocked out. In the end I had to open the cupboard, rearrange its contents and carefully close it before we both slept soundly!

Cherie said...

Ha, Cecily, Frank knows his stuff! :-D

That is so funny!

Those closet doors - they are soooo demanding!!!

Thanks for sharing that. It made me laugh out loud!

Anonymous said...

You are funny.