Booby Prize?

Kass did it to me. That's just the kind of chiquita she is. She awarded me (With others, of course. I am not singularly special!) and now I'm on the hook, which makes me grin. I like information-sharing, round-robin posts. Truly, I thank her. She wouldn't give it to me for any other than truly honest reasons. Love you, too, Kassie. I can't name you as one of my choices, or I would.

Here's how it goes:

• Thank and link back to the blogger who awarded you.
• Share 7 things about yourself.
• Award up to 15 deserving blogs.
• Contact those bloggers and let them know about the award.

So, my 7 things:

• I have type A- blood. I like to give small amounts of it (and/or my plasma) for the use of others who need it whenever I am allowed, which is not very frequently. Join me in this? Your community likely has a blood bank, too! Ditto organ donations. The gift of life is not only given through the childbirth process.

• I am mulishly stubborn about the way I think some things should be. I own a 19" TV which sits atop my VCR. Yes, it's color, no rabbit ears. People who see these items look at me pityingly. What? I own a larger TV and a DVD player, as well. But I keep the dinosaurs upon which to watch old VHS movies I'll be unlikely to ever replace. When the VCR or the TV dies, it all goes out the door. Until then, why should it make others snicker at me if I like these things? I'm not required to buy new inventions because the manufacturers create them when I've taken good care of my old stuff. Shut up! I was also tetchy after my kid took good care of her PlayStation and Sony conspired to render her outmoded so we'd spend more money.

• I detest the words "I can't". I try to always say either "So far I haven't been able to ___"or "I can't without some help."

• I can and have piloted a 125' ocean-going sport-fishing vessel for hundreds of nautical miles in pitch dark with no crew. (They were all asleep, we were on semi-autopilot and there wasn't anything I could do to harm us unless a spaceship landed in the water directly in front of us. I did wear a skipper's cap and practice pirate talk. Arrrrgh!) Do not look for me to begin chartering day trips.

• I am a bargain hunter extraordinaire. Oh,yes, I want the good goods and I don't intend to pay full retail. I wear a pair of red Coach loafers I got on eBay for $3 and they're now a little worn, but I love to walk around in them and tell the story when someone comments, "Nice kicks!"

• I am beginning to sprout a few gray hairs in my sideburns. I do not care for this and I managed to avoid it for a good long time. This has begun over the past few difficult months. Oh, I do have that spot on the top of my head (about the circumference of a pencil eraser) that is completely white. I whacked my head on a cabinet door in my 20s and the hairs lost all color. But these new ones are old-age gray. And my personal version of "gray" is shocking, silvery, shining white. They reflect light. They could blind a person who looked at me in sunshine. I have been plying the tweezers liberally, but that seems a short-term solution.

• Everyone has some shorthand references to life phases or events that they share with people they know well. A chapter in my life has been referred to as the period when the trolls waited under the bridge to snatch me. I'm feeling pretty frisky today (generally today, not just the next 24 hours). I'm thinking maybe the trolls might want to beware of me waiting to nab them from under the bridge. That could happen! I'm just sayin'.
  
  

And now, having considered what I've heard from all the bloggers most recently, from a funeral to attend, press of work, writer's block, invasion of the Vikings, etc., I shall bestow the award upon the following for no other reason than "I just decided to do so."

One of my longest blogger friends looked me up when I commented to his comment on a blog, "Kirk Jusko is dead-on!" It was politics. He has a fabulous grasp on politics and world affairs. He's the most generous of correspondents. And f-u-n-n-y. Quick as a snake. I want to see what his face looks like. Come on, Cowboy, show yourself!

I don't know why a woman displaced from the northern U.K. to Auckland, N.Z., younger than I, talented in all the ways I am not, highly busy - as in still chasing after two young children, published, resonates with me and I with her, but that's how it it. Rachel Fenton is a blogger one wants to know more about. Tag, Girl - you're up!

Something that charmed me in a twisted way: I made a trip to the library. I'm sorry to say it has been a long time since I visited the public library and I admit to being a little rusty. The two shreds of information I have retained about the Dewey Decimal System are no longer of use to me, particularly. All was not lost upon me, however. I cannot be dropped in among thousands of books and fail to come up with something. I hadn't gone after anything in particular, so anything I found of interest would be OK. And I came away with four good finds. It came time to check out with my new library card on the automated system. Now look,folks. I'm self-deprecating, but I'm not stupid. And if there are pictures posted, I'm pretty remarkable. There were pictures posted. I followed the process as shown. On several different work stations. Nothing.

A young woman about 17 (not an employee) walked over to me. "Are you following the pictures?" I said I was. "You can't follow the pictures, they're all messed up. Here, I'll show you how." She did. It's easy. It doesn't match the pictured process at all. I thanked her and she went off with (probably) her mother. Walking out of the library, I started to grin and then blush. Have I become so un-hip, slick and cool that I broadcast my distress even in a large, crowded public building? Maybe. And I imagine, if she spoke of her kind act later, she stated she'd helped out an old lady at the library.