8 random things about me...

I apologize for yet another post that falls under the category of ME, ME, ME! Tagged again by Jen at The Mama Wannabe to come up with eight random things about myself:

• I have an ear for foreign languages. I whizzed through French in high school with straight A's, and always received compliments on my accent. The summer between my junior and senior years of high school, I spent a month in Germany, and learned a shitload of German. My senior year, I enrolled in First Year German (which was directly across the hall from my Fourth Year French class). During the second month of school, my German teacher came down with laryngitis. I ended up teaching the next month's worth of classes for her, in German. For several years after that, I thought I wanted to be a foreign language teacher when I grew up. I majored in German in college because all my German classes were easy and required the least amount of effort on my part. If I had it to do all over again, I would have gotten a business degree. I've never once spoken anything other than English in any job I've ever held.

• I made a lot of extra money in college by translating German "business writing samples" for a guy who worked for a major stockbroker in downtown Richmond, VA. I now suspect the "writing samples" I translated were the work product of either colleagues or competitors that he somehow stole. He always paid me in cash.

• I'm the girliest girly-girl you'll ever want to meet - I won't go to the mailbox without makeup on. I wash/blowdry/curl my hair every morning. I feel absolutely naked and uncomfortable and anxious if I leave the house and forget to put on perfume, jewelry, or lipstick. It takes me a minimum of 1 hour to get ready to leave the house in the morning. (much to R's dismay, since we usually carpool most of the way into work together.)

• *I grew up in a family of hunting men. I am the only daughter and only female grandchild on my Dad's side of the family, which is a farm-living, horse-raising, salt-of-the-earth, southern Virginia hospitality-having, God-fearing family. The men of this family, including my Dad, his uncles, his brother, his many male cousins, etc. grew up hunting quail and dove in the marshy ever-encroached upon fields and farmland of southeastern VA. When I was born, my father took one look at me and told my mother to prepare herself, for her daughter was going to take to the woods with her Daddy, if he had anything to say about it. On the much heralded occasion of my 12th birthday, my paternal grandfather presented me with a 12-gauge shotgun. I've never been more honored by any birthday gift, before or since. The times I recall out walking in the woods with my father, my grandfather and our bird dogs (you haven't seen anything until you've seen an English Springer Spaniel or a Brittany Spaniel standing stock still, tail rigid as a board, pointing a covey of quail - it gives me goosebumps thinking about it) are some of my most precious and treasured memories of my father, who passed away when I was only 17 years old. I wouldn't trade those times for anything in this world.

• My maternal grandfather was an identical twin. When I was younger (and oooooh so naive) I always fantasized that this would ensure side by side bassinets, dual strollers, and double trouble for me when it came time to have children. Now I worry that my chances of doing double midnight feedings are great, but for entirely different reasons.

• I have an incredible ear for recognizing famous voices. I'm constantly harrassing R with this question, every time we happen to see a TV commercial (which is not that often, since we have DVR now, which - hearken, friends and neighbors - Changes.Your.Life!): "Who's voice is that, honey? Huh, huh? Do you know? Do you want me to tell you??" My favorite are those cartoon movies with laundry lists of famous people for me to discern - like, Over the Hedge, or Happy Feet, or Monsters, Inc. (that's my favorite!!) I try not to listen to any of the previews so that I won't have any unfair information before the movie comes on. If I hear a voice that I recognize, but can't place, it feels like a puzzle I'm solving. If I can't get it at first, usually I'll think of the voice in my head, and I'll "hear" another phrase that has been spoken by that voice which has somehow stuck in my brain. From the context of that recalled phrase, I can almost always figure out who belongs to the voice. If I could somehow make a living using this skill, I would quit my project management job in a heartbeat.

• Ever since I was little, I've always been able to remember lots of song lyrics, and I can remember them for a loooong time. I got satellite radio in my car (my Christmas gift from R, two years ago) and sometimes I'll catch a song from the 80's that I haven't heard in 10 years, and I can still sing every word. My best friend Monica still makes fun of me because of this dorky ability.

• If I could come back in another life as someone else, I'd want to be a female vocalist. And I don't mean a pop star. I mean like a traffic-stopping, a capella-capable, Barbra Streisand kind of vocalist who can hold a high C for 5 minutes and bring tears to your eyes. I LOVE, love, love to sing, and can't think of anything better than doing it for a living. (On alternate days I think I'd like to come back as the female lead singer of a rock band who can actually sing. I'd have to come back in a previous decade though, a la Heart, or even Pat Benatar. That would be a lot of fun too. But in a different way.)

Similar to my invitation at the end of the "I Am" post - this has been all around the world and back again, so rather than naming anyone in particular, I will just say, if you haven't been tagged yet - consider this your formal invitation to participate!

*I realize I will alienate some readers with this tidbit about hunting. All I can tell you is that my Dad's family has never hunted for pure sport; I grew up eating Sunday "bird dinners" prepared by my grandmother, which were great feasts of dove and quail, breaded and fried and delectable, served with collard greens, butter beans, and fried cornbread. I believe God made those birds delicious for a reason. But, I'm conflicted, because I'm also a huge animal lover, and could NEVER, EVER kill anything that I thought was cute - not deer, not rabbits, not even squirrels. Birds and fish I have no problems with, probably because I don't have even the slightest desire to cuddle them. And, bc they taste so good.