8 Random Facts

Tom has tagged me with my very first blogging meme. I'm kind of excited about being noticed enough to be tagged with a meme, but that might be the same fleeting-type of excitement run into when first added to somebody's email forward list, only to rue the experience later. However, I do appreciate the gesture.

Here are 8 random facts about me:

1) I have played the piano since I was 5, and have sung in numerous choirs and a cappella groups since the 4th grade. Although these loves have not been pursued much since graduate school, I once dreamed of singing on Broadway when I was in high school.
2) I once drove Michael Stipe's red Volvo 240 station wagon (oxidizing paint and all) - for those who are curious, it smelled like the flower section of a craft store. And, for reasons listed in #3, I was significantly less nervous about driving Stipe's car than I might have been otherwise.
3) My family has always driven Volvos. I currently drive a Volvo 240 sedan, my mother drives a 240 station wagon, and my father drives a 740. I expect the trend to stop soon, since cars are now much safer than they once were (my father used to be an emergency physician, and had good reasons for keeping us in bullet-proof tanks).
4) After college, I drove across the country a couple times (in my Volvo). Once, I stayed in a "hostel" in Memphis. This hostel was actually one bedroom of a duplex, run by a man named Patch, a burly fellow with a long blond ponytail and (you guessed it), an eye patch. There is much more that could be said about that experience, but we'll leave it at this for now.
5) If stranded with only one meal selection for the rest of my life, the menu would read: steamed artichokes, crusty sourdough french bread, Fontina cheese, an excellent bottle of Chardonnay, and Swiss chocolates. Mmmm.....
6) I was just given the most amazing late anniversary present! - a planter box filled with potting soil, two types of flowers and a strawberry plant. I'm about to go out and plant the following: basil, oregano, rosemary, parsley, a jalapeno pepper plant, and tomatoes. We'll see if I can achieve 10% of the green thumb my mother has.
7) My hair is a mystery color. Sometimes it is classified as blonde, sometimes as brown, sometimes as red. I just think it changes with the lighting and my outfit. The sun also contributes from time to time - in the summer it's usually much blonder than usual.
8) If I could be anything I wanted to be right now, I'd go to work for National Geographic as a photographer.

That's it! I'm supposed to tag 8 people. I'll tag half that many, and leave it to the more established bloggers to tag more: TDEC, Beth, Slag, and Drek.