5 things redux

The lovely Jennifer Warwick at The New Charm School has tagged me for the "5 Things You Should Know About Me" meme.  I'm sure I've done this meme before (more than once?)  As I told Jennifer, with all the crap I've posted here, I'm not sure I even have five things left to tell. 

1.  I have a bit of OCD.  I will sometimes go back and check that doors are locked or an iron is turned off several times.  Even while yelling at myself in my head that I'VE ALREADY CHECKED IT and know that it's (locked, off, whatever).

2.  When I was a kid, our family didn't take vacations, so imagine the thrill I felt when my Dad would say on a Sunday afternoon, "Let's go for a drive."  We lived in a small town (it was even smaller then), so it's not like we were going to see anything we hadn't already seen a thousand times.  We'd almost always end up driving along the beach, and one of my favorite parts of that drive was driving out to Pt. St. George. It's the northernmost point on the California coast, and it can get incredibly windy out there.  When we were kids, my Dad never let us get out of the car on those drives.  So I'd sometimes get drowsy sitting in the backseat of our 1964 Ford Fairlane Sports Coup (ours was white) with the sun beating in--forgetting that if we'd stepped outside, the wind would have nearly blown us over.  J and I have some photos of us looking windblown on a sunny day there.  It really is a spectacular spot.  There's a parking lot at the end of the road and a wide trail down to the beach.  You can stand on the California coast and look across at the Oregon one.  Kind of like here, except my stepsister's house is in Smith River, north of Pt. St. George:  

Remember that night in '97 when Comet Hale-Bopp appeared in the sky on the same night as a lunar eclipse?  We lived in Portland then and happened to be visiting my folks.  My parents didn't want to go, but we drove out to Pt. St. George and joined a lot of other folks in the parking lot there.  We didn't have a telescope, but a nearby family offered to share theirs.  It was a great place to experience the sky that night.  There's a building at the point out there.  I don't know what it is now (for awhile a doctor had his office there), but when I was young, it housed apartments.  The English teacher my (teacher) Dad dated when I was a sophomore lived out there.  I adored the English teacher.  She was very nice to me, and she had a little red MG convertible that she'd let me drive (with my permit...and with her).  I thought she was the bomb, and the fact that she lived at Pt. St. George solidified that in my mind.  (I was crushed when my father refused to marry her and she moved back to the East Coast.)  See this photo?  When I was a kid, wooden telephone poles lined that section of road, and as we'd pass each one in the Ford Fairlane, I'd clench my thigh really hard as we got right next to each pole.  It was some sort of freaky isometrics game I'd play.  I think there was counting involved, too.  See, told ya...OCD.  The lighthouse off the coast of Pt. St. George is a pretty incredible place.  Just look at it and think about what it took to build it several miles offshore.  When I was young, the thought of even being out there would make me quake with fear, which wasn't helped by the fact that you could never see it except on the absolutely clearest days.  It became this sort of spooky, imaginary place lost in the fog.  As you'll see on that site, several years ago some people started giving helicopter tours out there.  And if you're ever in the area, and feel so inspired, check it out.  Although it's the kind of thing that when we're home for a visit, we sit at dinner and laugh about the crazy stuff tourists will do, "Can you IMAGINE?!  Going out to the lighthouse in a HELICOPTER?!"  (See windblown above.)  But, you know, I'm sure it's cool.  ;)  The most exciting news is that when I went to that site today, I saw that the lighthouse is going to be immortalized on a 2007 postage stamp!  Now that's cool.  But, people, this is not the Pt. St. George lighthouse--it's Battery Point Lighthouse.  I oughta know--I grew up not far from it.  Battery Point Lighthouse was once immortalized in a Tim McGraw video.  (Hey, we take our fame where we can get it.)  (And can I just say that #2 came to mind only because of the weird thigh isometrics a la OCD...see what happens?)

3. Speaking of Flickr (having linked to it in the last item), this is embarrassing (and sad news for any of you who have me as a Flickr contact) but I can go months without even remembering that I have a Flickr account.  And then when I remember, I feel like an idiot...like, jeez, I could have been posting photos all along.

4. I hate French toast that's not cooked in the middle.

5. When I was a kid visiting my cousins, they'd often get ice cream after dinner.  It was usually Neapolitan.  They'd take their spoons and stir it up their ice cream until it looked like a weirdly-colored soup.  It almost makes me gag just thinking about it.  I, of course (being Miss OCD), would eat mine all neat and nice, keeping each flavor within its stripe boundaries.  But I don't think I've ever had Neapolitan since--I can't eat it without thinking about that gagging ice cream soup.

Comments

[mari]

I'm happy that the lighthouse will be a stamp but it says on the site it will be commemorated as a 41-cent stamp. Postage rates are going up, again? oy.

[Jennifer]

Beautiful story about the lasting power of Sunday drives with Dad - even with "nowhere" to go :-) Thanks so much for sharing it.

[la vie en rose]

do you know when i last updated my flickr account??? yeah, me either...

i need to get on it and get my photos on there but i'm scared...i'm scared i need at least 2 days of doing nothing else to get it done...ugh!

[violetismycolor]

Oh, two things...my dad was a great believer in the Sunday Drive, too. I loved those mini-adventures, too. AND we also had Neopolitan ice cream as kids and I thought it was like a present...3 kinds of ice cream at once...woohoo...

[tinker]

Loved Sunday drives with my mom, as a kid.
I can empathize on the OCD thing - I I still have to check door locks, ovens, etc., many times before I can leave (all while telling myself that they're off already!), and I used to play odd counting games while riding in the car or walking down the street, so I do wonder if they could be connected.
Enjoyed reading your meme - and somehow, even if you repeated something you'd already told us, I have a feeling we wouldn't even realize, you'd re-tell it in such an interesting way.

[samantha]

I go through stages with my flickr - but I love it so much, as it lets me post big pictures on my blog!

I've never been one for Neapolitan - I don't like strawberry ice cream. Everyone seems to serve to kids, and of course I would request (or hope) that I wouldn't get the pink area. Ice cream soup? No thanks. I prefer scoop after scoop of delicious chocolate, or coffee, in my adult guise!

That lighthouse is awesome. How did they ever do it?

[lynn]

yes, marilyn, but which of the three flavours did you eat first, and which did you save for last?
:-)
neapolitan ice-cream was an exercise in decision-making. flickr is an excercise in self-discipline, and one i can't seem to master. my site is enough work as it is..