Five things about me
During the election campaign we invited candidates to share five things about themselves that the voters may not know.
We posted their responses on our website. We learned NDP candidate David Olie hasn’t owned a TV in more than 30 years and writes for Wikipedia in his spare time.
We learned Green Party candidate Jim Lavarie, who loves to travel, also collects old garden gnomes and restores them.
And we learned that Liberal candidate Zach Churchill is a bit of a daredevil . . . or not.
“I’ve done the highest bridge bungee jump in the world . . . and lived to commit to myself to never do it again,” he shared.
It got me to thinking about what five things I would share about myself if asked. Nobody has asked, but here goes anyway.
1) In my youth I was pretty darn good when it came to marching formations and twirling a figure eight with a baton. I was outstanding Sailorette majorette and twirler four years in a row. It hasn’t really been of much use to me in my presentday life, but one never knows when you may be forced into an impromptu talent contest.
2) I rescue bugs. Yes, on many occasions I have scoped up centipedes on a piece of paper, or carried a listless housefly in the palm of my hands, and released them outdoors. Just last week I noticed this little bug on my floor that was on its back and struggling to right itself. I scoped it up and brought it outdoors.
“I wonder if bugs survive when you drop them,” my Digby coworker Sara asked.
“I don’t throw them outside,” I told her. “I set them down on the ground.”
Now if they get run over by a car in our driveway, or chopped up by the lawnmower, that’s their problem, not mine.
3) I have never eaten a peanut butter and jam sandwich. I have eaten peanut butter sandwiches. I have eaten jam sandwiches. But the thought of pressing the two together between two slices of bread grosses me out.
4) When I was a teenager I always wanted to have beads as a bedroom door, as opposed to a door itself. One of the characters on the family sitcom Eight is Enough had them hanging on her door and I was always envious. I think my hesitation in getting them was the whole lack of privacy thing, or the absence of dramatic effect if I wanted to slam my door, as I’d only be able to shuffle the strings of beads back and forth with my arms. Or maybe my parents recognized it for what it was – a stupid idea.
5) I cry, a lot. I’m a sucker for punishment and usually watch movies that make me sob and sob. Thursday nights are Grey’s Anatomy nights and I cry through those episodes. Sometimes I’ll cry reading a book. Sometimes watching the news. Once or twice even during a commercial. When my cat Nicky died when I was in Grade 4, though, I went way over the top. The movie Grease was popular and so I’d sit on the floor, playing the song Sandy but changing to lyrics to this: “Nicky, can’t you see, I’m in misery . . . All alone, I sit and wonder, why yi-yi-yi… why, you left me, oh Nicky!”
I’m not sure what my parents thought when they repeatedly walked past and I was singing in agony louder than John Travolta.
Again, maybe that’s why I never had a door made of hanging beads. Perhaps they felt soundproofing was the better option.