If anyone is doing any sort of fundraiser or anything for the Gulf Coast, let me know. It's strange--I remember everyone's sorrow after Sept. 11, but nobody has even mentioned this today. Help out, if you can.

Okay, I know this is a cheat entry, but. Too bad. This is my blog. Not yours.

A Marie sort of thing
1) Reply with your name and I'll respond with something random about you.
2) I'll tell you what song/movie reminds me of you.
3) I'll pick a flavor/color of jello to wrestle with you in. (Maybe.)
4) I'll say something that only makes sense to you and me.
5) I'll tell you my first memory of you.
6) I'll tell you what animal you remind me of.
7) I'll ask you something that I've always wondered about you.
8) If I do this for you, you must post this on your journal. You MUST. It is written.

So, go ahead.  I dare you.

M., for my birthday, how about I come to the Mountain and we drink gift whiskey and smoke American Spirits in the yellow pack and get so drunk that we fall up the stairs and break our coffee mugs and wake up with terrible headaches?  Where are you, anyway?

Well, the garden has gotten to be something else. It's definitely at the point where, if I skip a day, the squashes are too big, the tomatoes overripe (is that possible, you ask?) and the green beans are trying to go to seed. And the okra. I have enough okra to choke a Cajun. The blossoms are beautiful. It's related to hibiscus, you know. Do you like okra? I sometimes wonder if I'm the only one. It's one of those things that I love, but I can understand how people don't like it. Likewise, I don't like olives that much, but I can understand why people do. The dogs love the green beans. They make a great, healthy snack for them, canned or frozen. Just make sure, if you give them, that they aren't big enough to have strings or that they've been uh...de-strung. Mine sit around and beg while I snap, which I need to go do. Did everyone check out Bakerina in the 2005 Blogathon?  She was fabulous and raised a bunch of money.  Everybody be's good.  More later, perhaps.

At work, about two weeks ago, a coworker made a statement that was so candid and honest that I just can't help but be proud of how brave it was of her.

Driving across the compound to an offsite meeting, Don said (in regard to a preacher that hadn't realized his daughter was in the backseat of his car and left her--she died while he was giving his sermon) that "people who leave their kids in hot cars should just be taken out and shot."  I hate blanket statements like this, myself, but I wasn't really in a position to say anything.  Not that he wanted any feedback, *shrug*  Colleen spoke up and said, "I think it's really sad, is all.  It isn't that hard to do.  There have been plenty of mornings when I've gotten halfway down the interstate on my way to work and realized I'd never dropped the kids off at daycare.  They're babies.  They don't know to say, 'Hey, Mom!  Where are you going?'  It could have and still could happen to me anytime."
 
I just think that her point should be so well taken.  Bad things happen.  There isn't a lot we can do about it.  And don't be proud.  Don't say, "That could never happen to me."

Not exciting folks, but notable nonetheless.

Yesterday.  Yesterday I went to get a new tire at the Super WalMart.  Friday night, there was a three hour wait.  She assured me (when I could get her to stop screwing around and yelling across the bay at some guy) that if I showed up Saturday at 7, they'd take me right away.  By 7 there were 4 cars in front of me and a 4 hour wait.  Joy.  Bliss.  Rapture.  Strangulation.
 
The attendant in the morning was cool, though, and recently bathed, so I couldn't complain.  She jokingly gave me a cheerful, "Enjoy your stay at WalMart" as I turned over the keys.  I wandered until my eyes were about to bug out of my head and until the other stores in the strip mall began to open. 

So, I head over to PetSmart, where they are setting up for their weekly adoption event.  Now, I already have enough dogs, but I had to go look.  The animal control truck pulls up and I swear to God, there must have been 35 puppies in that truck.  None more than 8 weeks old.  Now there really was joy and bliss.   Because, let's face it:  Is there *anything* sweeter than a pink puppy belly?  The answer is that there is not. (The other answer is absolutely not.  None of them came home with me.)  Any puppy you ever imagined, they had.  And they were going like crazy.  People lined up to adopt.  <whispers> Please God, make sure those were all good homes </whisper>

I wandered over to the table to read about the organization, maybe make a small donation and see this:
 
       $10.00 will feed me for one month.
       $20.00 will cover my shots and deworming.
       $50.00 will cover my spay or neuter.
       $20.00 will get me my own bed.
       $  5.00 will get my my own food bowel.
       $  5.00 will get my my own water bowel.
 
Yes, you read that right!  Now, here is that feat of biological engineering for which we have all been waiting.  Puppies with no bowels!  Do you grasp, fully, what that means?  No surprises by the bed when you wake up in the morning!  No wet spots behind the living room chair!  No rushing home from work to let the dog out!  Ah, typos.  No wonder those puppies were going so fast.  <shameless plug> Still, if you're wanting a puppy of your own, check out the glorious Petfinder.  They have kitties too. </shameless plug>

1.       I have three cats and three dogs.  They have webpages.

2.      I had my cats for four years before I ever left them alone over night.

3.      I have five nieces and two nephews.

4.      I got off work early today.

5.      I decided to do this on my way home from work.

6.      I wish I could write and drive, because that's when I do my very best thinking.

7.      I probably won't keep up with this blog.

8.      I miss M so bad that when I think about her, I ache.

9.      Bridge over Troubled Water makes me cry.  I typed that as Bride over Troubled Water at first. Freudian slip?

10.  I'm obsessive compulsive.

11.  I bite my fingernails.

12.  I spend too much time online.

13.  I rarely watch television.

14.  I'm a good writer, but I don't enjoy it very much. I'm too much of a perfectionist and it stresses me out.

15.  I'm already nervous about how this is going to format when I 'send' it. If it's wrong, I will go in and change it, though. So don't you worry.

16.  I have a garden. It has tomatoes, corn, beans, squash, peppers and okra. Something is killing my tomatoes. I haven't figured out what it is yet.

17.  I was considering starting some sort of “jam journal” when I stumbled across Bakerina.  I am utterly addicted to it.

18.  I hate people who worry a lot. I worry a lot.

19.  I worry mostly about my mom. I've started to panic a bit about her getting older.

20.  My mom is cool as shit.  I didn’t always realize this.

21.  My dad is a recovering alcoholic.  I probably won't write too much about him here, because it will just go on and on. And I’m tired of thinking about it.

22.  I don’t drink very much, but when I do, I like a Manhattan, neat.  I’m also a big fan of Bloody Mary’s.

23.  I love to cook, but I don't do it for myself often enough. Usually, if I spend a lot of time cooking, I'm not hungry when I'm done.

24.  My favorite font is Perpetua.  I use it almost exclusively.

25.  I’m really broke right now.  I’ve been pretty stupid with money.  I’m working on it.  This is another big source of worry for me.

26.  I work for a Fortune 10 company.  Before this, I always waited tables and tended bar.

27.  I had to drop out of school and take this job.  I have a hard time not resenting it.  This is mostly because it’s my own fault.

28.  My IQ is 153.  My GPA is 3.9.  I get paid about $12 an hour to alphabetize shit.

29.  My degree is in linguistics.  It doesn’t mean that I’m learning a whole lot of different languages.

30.  I speak English and Spanish fairly well.  I’ve studied a little German, Latin, French, Vietnamese, Japanese and Azeri.

31.  I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.

32.  I might homeschool my kids.

33.  I’m an atheist.  You can argue with me that I’m not, and you might be right.

34.  I don’t return books to the library on time.  So I usually just buy them and save myself a lot of hassle.

35.  I’ve met people in person whom I’ve met online and mostly had good experiences.  Some of them have become really close friends.

36.  I’m easily annoyed.

37.  People think that I’m a solitary bird, but in fact, I’m often lonely.  Quite lonely.

38.  I can’t stand to not be taking care of someone.  I don’t always take the best care of myself, though.

39.  I work well under pressure.

40.  I don’t mind doing dirty work.

41.  I love the summer.  I could care less about the winter.  I want sun.

42.  There are over two gallons of blackberries in my freezer.

43.  I’m learning how to make jelly and pickles, and how to can stuff.

44.  I’m terrified of heights.  Even reaching up over my head and trying to grab something (like the clothesline) gives me vertigo.

45.  I like to fly.

46.  I don’t like deep water if I can’t see the bottom.  The ocean and big lakes are not my friend for swimming.  Jacque Cousteau practically gives me nightmares.

47.  I like to canoe.  I would like to try kayaking, though only on a lake or river.  Never in the ocean.

48.  I used to smoke.  I quit 7 months ago.  I still miss it sometimes.

49.  I am good at keeping in touch with friends who move away. 

50.  I’m surprised at how involved this is, but determined not to look anywhere for ideas.

51.  Once I’ve met you, I won’t forget your name.

52.  You couldn’t make my bed to suit me.  Nor put away my groceries.  I wouldn’t hold it against you though.  I’d wait until you weren’t looking and fix it.

53.  I want a bunch of kids and a big old farmhouse.

54.  I want a farm.  Maybe a farm store.

55.  I would love to raise chickens, but I would have to hire someone to kill them for me.  I couldn’t do it.

56.  I’m a liberal.  I voted for John Kerry, but would have preferred to vote for Howard Dean.

57.  I’m pro-choice, which means pro-responsibility.

58.  I’m not strictly anti-gun, which means pro-responsibility.

59.  I like public speaking. 

60.  I’m not afraid of dying, either.  Not that I’m in any big hurry.

61.  My biggest fear is that I will harm someone in some irrevocable way.  I’m not sure that I could live with that.

62.  My biggest regret is spending so much time regretting.  All you can do is move forward, anyway.  Not saying I can quite live up to that, but I try to keep it in sight.

63.  Most of my work experience has been waiting tables.  I’m good at it.  Sometimes I even miss it.

64.  I got fired from my last waitressing job.  I wasn’t there very long and I’m still not sure what the real reason was for it.  I had the job before that for six years.

65.  The title of the blog comes from the Lewis Carroll quote, “I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”  I live with three dogs and three cats.  I know this much is true.

66.  It is past my bedtime and I won’t get this finished until sometime tomorrow.

67.  I know how to milk a cow.  Or a goat.  Well, maybe “and a goat” is better. 

68.  I have a funny story about some goats.

69.  I’ve visited 23 states.

70.  I’ve never been outside of the US.  I’d very much like to.

71.  I love to drive.  I love road trips.

72.  I drive a 94 Isuzu Rodeo.  It has 188,000 miles on it.  I love it.

73.  I’m tall and I wear size 10 shoes.

74.  I wouldn’t mind losing some weight, but all in all, I’m comfortable with my body.

75.  I realize that if a guy were making this list, he would probably never consider commenting on his weight.  I’m okay with that, mostly.

76.  It is 10:29 and I am e-mailing this to my work account so that I can upload it during lunch.  Is that fascinating, or what?

77.  It’s 6:19.  I got up a little early so that I can just go ahead and finish this.  I feel like these Big Ben updates are cheating.

78.  I live in a trailer that I rent from my dad.  I actually quite like it.  And there’s a lot of outside room and a big fenced yard for the dogs.  Plus, I love living in the country.

79.  I talk to myself.  Especially when I drive.  Not a conversation so much as a sort of stream of conscience.  I talk to my animals a lot too.  But don’t worry.  They don’t talk back.  Yet.

80.  This blog will eventually be about my dogs, my garden and about cooking.  My next entry should be about the jam I’ve put up so far.  I can make labels at work today.  Shh.

81.  I’m going to the Farmer’s Market on Saturday.  I’m incredibly geeked.  I’m thinking of getting this old green house frame and then maybe selling some stuff there next year, early in the spring through the summer.

82.  I’ve only told one person about this blog.  I never tell people about them because I rarely keep up with stuff like this for very long.  Maybe if I told people, I would write more.

83.  I want to put this list in a better order, but I’m going to make myself not do it.  Although, I already have.   A little.  MS Word is telling me that “A” as in, “A little” is spelled wrong.  How in the hell?

84.  I don’t really read any webcomics, but I look at Get Fuzzy and Mutts everyday.  My desktop image usually comes from Mutts.  It’s so cute that I can’t stand it.

85.  I may take a babysitting job on the weekends.  I ought to call the woman today.  I keep putting it off for some reason, but I think I would enjoy it.  The ages of the kids are great.

86.  I’m extremely allergic to mold and mildew.  This is another reason why I hate the winter.  My stuff got really mildewed at my last apartment, and then sat in storage all of last summer.  When I unpacked it, I ended up in the hospital.

87.  I live outside of Richmond, Virginia.  I’m surprised at how much more I like it than I liked Charlottesville (which is admittedly swankier and far more hip).

88.  I’m amazed by how different the climate is here, just 150 miles or so from where I grew up.  Far more southern, with lots of magnolias and crepe myrtles.  Lovely things.

89.  I like being a southerner.  I embrace the good things about living in the south.  There are so not so good things, but I try not to let it get me down.  I can’t control other people anyway, no matter where I live. 

90.  I hate bigots. 

91.  I hate violence.

92.  I’m proud to be an American, but I’m worried about us.

93.  I talk a lot.  I can be annoying, I think.

94.  I love to entertain.  I should have people over more often.

95.  My mom’s birthday is next weekend and she’s coming down.  We’re going to tour the city and eat lots of good things out of my garden.  I want to make her a pink birthday cake.  She says her mother used to make them when she was little.

96.  I don’t like fancy coffee.  Just my morning Maxwell House, with milk and sugar is just fine.

97.  I’ve never baked bread.  I’m going to try it soon, though.

98.  I have dehydrated tomatoes, but they turned into little rocks.  I almost forgot them.  I’m going to try that again, though.

99.  I abhor black olives.

100.                      I hate how this last line indented itself strangely, although I understand what’s at work.  It can’t help itself, I suppose.

Not feeling so hot today. Some sort of migraine or something. I really need to organize my work room so that I might actually do some work in it. But I don't think it's going to happen today.

Hah! I'll be back.