Sunday, July 19, 2020

20 questions, all the better to know you

what am I?
From Sunday Stealing blog

1. What's your favorite movie from your childhood and why?
A: Wizard of Oz... the imagination the music, the colors and the sense of characters finding people to belong with... I always wanted that. And sparkly red shoes.

2. What is home to you?

A: comfort. A place to hold items you love. A place that reflects your personality.

3. Do you get emotionally invested in stories? (I'm asking about movies, books, tv shows, whatever medium you like your stories in.)

A: I have a good imagination, so yes. I go deep. I get so into books being read to me on disc that I will stay in studio longer than needed to hear the end of a chapter. I speak like I'm Scottish after reading an Outlander book, I have trouble going to regular life after reading a few chapters in some novels.

4. What is the most physical damage you've ever received without needing medical intervention (so no stitches or splints or anything)?

A: I don't even want to think about it

5. How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

A: another senseless lifetime of annoyance from being given a bad name!

6. Do you have any obsessions? Like Tv shows, or cats or something. Not addictions.

A: I collect things... flamingos, poodles, cows, Betty Boop. I collect blank notebooks, colored pens, fabric, beads. I will hold on to old clothes out of style and don't fit, because I loved wearing them once. I seldom get rid of something if it could be used again somehow.

7. What question or question would you like God to answer?

A: what do you want me to do? why do I have so much pain? How do I reach people who choose to hurt others?

8. Do you bite your nails?

A: I did til a beloved high school English teacher walked by my desk one morning, picked up my hand while a student was reading their part in MacBeth out loud, and whispered, stop that!. I never went back to it. In one moment a lifetime bad habit stopped.

9. What do you like about the place you live, I mean your housing, apt, house, mobile home, etc

A: I like that our current home is large, with tall ceilings, neutrally painted, open floor plan. 

10. What do you like about the city or town where you live?

A: nothing really. It's mostly a collection of 'hoods. I miss Annapolis so much. 

11. Is there one place you have visited that you wish you could live there?

A: Santa Barbara or San Luis Obispo, Old Wethersfield, CT, or Lake Placid NY, and I'd like to try living in NZ for a while but I've not been there in person.

12. What's your favorite cookie to snack on?

shortbread

13. Are you a Apple person or PC type person and why?

A: I'd like to be an Apple person with my computer, I like my IPAD, but for cost I use a PC.
It is so very annoying...apple products are safer but don't interact with software I use. I had a mac for a while and liked it.
perspective

14. What's your favorite things about the Zoo?

A: everything. I could stand and watch animals for hours. I could be one of those people who watch and take notes all day. I like to see how they move, I like zoos that have better natural seeming areas. I love to see animals I've not seen, the Denver zoo is pretty good. I like being outside all day there. I like taking photos at a zoo, and I like the giftshops!!!

15. Did you grow up in the country, city or small town and what did you like about it (or hate about it if you didn’t like it?)

A: I grew up in Tampa, it was a quiet town then. An easy town to go into for hair cuts, lunches and shopping. People were very nice, it was safe. I rode my bike to the library, the pool, walked to my schools all thru high school. The kind of place where your mom pushed you out the door on Sat. and said come back before dark. As I grew up I liked the closeness to beaches. 

16. What kinds of things were you into and do when you were growing up?

A: always puzzles, Sat. cartoons, old movies, new movies, playing outside, bikes and skateboards, dolls including a lot of Barbies and friends, imagination... I could take a box of costume jewelry and give each one a personality and build a city for them to interact in. I loved TV and crafts and books.

 I played clarinet in band, I wrote stories, excelled in schoolwork but felt alienated from kids because of bullying. I kept 3 best friends and was loyal. I liked going to fairs and riding rides, going to NC for summers on vacations. I hated baths and getting my fine straight hair brushed. 

As a teen I belonged to interest groups, was in a small group of 5 kids in advanced classes plus band plus French 2 so we were special scheduling kids who went together to classes. I worried about what to do in college, started and ended at the local U of S FL. In between I went to a church college for one year and learned I didn't belong there but learned a lot about myself.
 I had been adopted and was abused by them, and was shy of people but longed to be a performer/actor. The two sisters, natural kids to them, married and left by the time I was 5 so I spent a lot of time alone. 
At any given time, I was the youngest, the only kid, and then when the sisters had kids when I was 6, I was the oldest as they were often at our house.


17 .Do you enjoy receiving letters or postcards more, and why?

A: Letters... long handwritten letters feel special. I used to write so many and get so many, then we went to email and it feels impersonal to me. Good to be immediate but sad that I can't touch the letter sent to me, with sealing wax  or smudges, that a friend touched too. 

18. Do or did you know any of your great-grandparents? Tell me about them. No


19. Do you like to be outdoors? What is your favorite thing to do there?

A: I LOVE to be outdoors, at a lovely park, or walking around Mirror lake at Lake Placid, walking around historic Williamsburg, going to a craft show outside, sitting on a safe patio or deck watching the critters going about their lives. I love to sit outside to read, write or paint. I like to go outside with a glass of wine, and chat to my husband at the end of the day. I like seeing the light near sunset when it comes in from an angle and is golden. I loved waking up in Lake Placid, getting a coffee and sitting on the balcony overlooking a misty lake and hearing the loons call, hearing the soft sound of boat paddles dipping into the water as a one person boat slid by my sight, smelling the first suntan lotion being applied, hearing the murmur of soft voices as people woke and came out.

20. Have you ever broken a bone or been badly injured?

A: a cousin pushed a heavy rock off the top of a bench I was playing under when I was 6, and it fell onto my little hand and broke it. I remember having to go to first grade unable to write because of the cast. As a high schooler, I was playing basketball by my self, jammed my finger dribbling, and broke it, requiring a splint for weeks. Breaking a little toe is awfully painful too. 
I have a lifetime injury from a car accident, to my spine causing nerve pain. It happened when I was about 25. 


What a question to end on... well I am just playing along with these, to get to know people better. Isn't it interesting to hear things from other people that they wouldn't normally remember to share with you? It is to me. It's like conversations you'd have with friends on retreats, sitting together at the end of the evening, watching a fire, or  just talking to avoid having to break the connection and go to bed...

12 comments:

Bev Sykes said...

I loved learning so much about you. Thanks for being so open!

Santa Barbara is a great place. My son and my sister-in-law live there so we visit often, though we probably couldn't afford to live there.

Lori said...

You have been through a lot. I am sure that has molded you into the person you are today. I am so sorry you had to experience abuse (#16). Loved your answers! Have a nice day!

https://lorisbusylife.blogspot.com/

Sara said...

I grew up in a small town in Minnesota back when we could ride our bikes anywhere. Knew to head home when the street lights came on. Couldn’t wait to move away. Never moved back and have no desire to. As a kid I broke my nose. Have broken a foot twice as an adult.

songbird's crazy world said...

Historic Williamsburg, I love that place.

CountryDew said...

I collect empty notebooks too. I have boxes of them. I do not know why but I feel better having them. As for video games - I tend to prefer single player games. The only multiplayer game I've ever played is Elvenar, which is a city-building game. I am playing it right now. My favorite game is Skyrim.

Stacy said...

I have soooo many notebooks, journals, colored pens, stickers, etc.! I might need a 12-step program to stop buying them!

I'm so sorry your adopted parents were abusive. You asked about my story of meeting my biological father on my blog...I knew from the time I was 10 that my adopted father was just that, but my mom refused all my life to tell me about my father, who he was, anything at all. Not even once my adopted dad died and my daughter got very pushy about asking. Nothing. I had actually resigned myself to never knowing.

Then in the fall of 2018 my son did an Ancestry.com DNA test. It matched him up with the names of a couple of members it said were his genetic first cousins, which only happens if you share at least one grandparent. He asked me if I knew the names. I didn't, but asked my mother.

It pretty much stunned her, but she said she guessed it didn't have to be a secret after 54 years and proceeded to tell me that while she didn't know the names, they had the same last name as my biological father. She told me what she knew of him and his family (very little) and that was that.

My son asked me if I wanted him to contact the people. I asked him not to. I didn't know what they did or didn't know and didn't want to stir something up in their family. I told him that I'd decide what to do if they contacted him.

Well, time passed and then at the beginning of last August my mom got a letter from my half-sister. It seems that the Ancestry thing didn't tip them off, but somewhere in the last 5 years they had become aware their father had another child. The oldest brother is a bit of a computer whiz and into genealogy so he started working with the info he had and he finally tracked down my mom. They decided to contact her...because they didn't know what I knew or didn't know and didn't want to stir up things if I didn't know. My sister included her phone # and Mom and I called her on our birthday in August. She and I began calling, texting, and writing after that and we met in person last October. She gave my father my contact information after that and I received a letter from him in December...along with a rather large check. I wrote back and tried to refuse the check and he sent another larger one. Said he'd given similar gifts to all of his children. Anyway, we continued to write every couple of weeks all through the winter and spring (he winters in Texas and summers in PA). As soon as the stay at home restrictions lifted I began to make plans to meet him and about 3 weeks ago my husband and I drove to his place and stayed the weekend with him and his wife. Then last week the oldest brother was coming to visit our father so I drove up again taking my daughter and her children along. We had a wonderful day with them.

There is one more brother, but he's sort of semi-estranged from all of them so no one really knows how he feels about me and it's possible I won't get to meet him...at least until there is a funeral. So sad.

So, that's my story. I am still so thrilled because I really believed I'd never even know my father's name, let alone suddenly have a father and a brother and sister who all want me as part of their family.

Plastic Mancunian said...

#6 - Mrs PM hates me being a hoarder. I collect a few things (mainly CDs) but she constanlty moans about the space they take up.

#15 Believe it or not, I've been to Tampa.

#19 - I've been to Williamsburg too. That was fun.

Great answers.

:o)

Cheers

PM

Ann said...

I still like Wizard of Oz - even the scary parts. I'm sorry you don't like Colorado but hope your opinion will improve with time. Parks are great for me, too, and the Botanic gardens and Butterfly pavilions in Denver are favorites.
The weather in CA is glorious and almost makes me wish I could live there forever.

grammajudyb said...

It's good to get to know you better. We share some things...collecting notebooks, pens etc.Getting invested in books. Playing clarinet in the band.

Some things are different: I haven't been abused, but I have been heartbroken. I've never lived in a big city. The Wizard of Oz scared the dickens out of me, until I was an older adult.

Thank you for sharing yourself. It's hard to do, to be so honest and open. See you on I LIKE Thursday.

ViolaFury said...

Your blog is beautiful to the eyes and restful to the soul! I wanted to tell you thank you so much for the visit to "Homeless Chronicles-Lost in the Carolinas". I don't blog as much as I used to; I get lost in my viola or spend most of my day yelling at my cats; "Don't eat that, it's plastic!"

Anyway, thank you for the lovely comment; you too, are my kind of person, LeeAnna! <3 VF aka Mary

Mary in Peoria Handmade said...

This has been so interesting to read this afternoon so I thought I’d share my answers with you. I haven’t really stopped and thought about these subjects in years.
childhood movie= OZ. We didn’t watch tv much but I liked Sky King. We didn’t go to movie theaters either. My first one was for Sound of Music.
home= safety from the outside since the pandemic. Before it was fun to decorate and look at pretty things-quilts, art, memories.
Emotionally invested = absolutely at the theater- live or movies. Sometimes I wouldn’t know what time or day it was when I walked out. Like seeing Les Mis for the first time- OMG. The musical still gives me chills. Or balling like a baby after a Barbara Streisand movie. Wishing I could have a Close Encounter. Wanting snow after seeing White Christmas for the umpteenth time.
Obsessions-not really.
Question for God- why do you let children be hurt by ones they love .
Bite my nails-no. I always wanted pretty hands but they’re not.
Do I like the place I live-resounding no for the area. Eh for the rental house-it’s cheap and quiet. It’s dead here. I want to live where it’s cold, green, smells good, I’ve lived here in the valley over 68 years and would never leave without my family.
That’s a cool photo of the glass of water- sometimes it’s half full and sometimes it’s half empty.
Cookie= Christmas sugar cookies- I’ve literally made myself sick from too many. Sad.
Apple or PC= Apple iPad since Christmas. I was too cheap to install Windows 10 on my PC! I like my IPad but Windows is so much easier to use.
Zoo=no. Never understood why they do that to animals. I only went for kids and grandkids. I do however like aquariums.
City girl unfortunately. Prefer the country. I grew up playing “jacks” obsessively, paper dolls, football in the street with my brothers (only girl in the 4 kids and I’m the oldest). I was always reading books too. Even the Encyclopedia Britannica! I Loved School. I was teacher’s m pet more than once- don’t judge. Was in elementary and high school a cappella choirs, some musicals, archery and tennis. I was raised a strict Catholic but was allowed to go to CYO dances and fell in love with dancing.
I couldn’t wait and graduated, got a job as telephone operator, bought a car and moved out on my own immediately from high school.
Mail- wow - I wrote letters to several guys in the Vietnam War. Haven’t thought about that in a long time.
Grandparents-none ( they were all gone)
OUTDOORS-love the sounds , smells, fresh air, fishing, walking or doing nothing.
Broken bones-no thank God
Taxes= I’ve done many corporate, payroll and personal tax returns over the years. None since retirement! Lol
Well-that’s a peek into my life. I sure enjoyed reading your answer. Except the heart breaking ones. You are a strong woman.

Angie said...

LA - these are fun questions; stuff we would probably never write about in a "normal" blog post. I am a HUGE fan of the Wizard of Oz. Have you seen the musical "Wicked"? I really liked that, too. I get emotionally involved in a book - I have been known to jump when someone talks to me after a suspenseful chapter! One of my favorite childhood memories is about a toy "Wooden Shoe" that I had; it had wheels and I could put dolls and other toys inside. We would go "camping" in the back yard, and I would make clover crowns for my favorite doll. Those were the days!