I'm Versatile!

Thank you thank you thank you to Niamh at Various Cushions for this fabulous Versatile Blogger Award. Just when you think that blog awards are lame, you get one and that changes everything. Yea! It really is cool to be recognized, right out of the blue, by people who are not even related to you.

So according to Niamh, I'm to tell you some things about myself, and then pass the award on to other blogging greats.
Some things about me that you’re not going to read anywhere else:
Umm. Hmm.
1. I’m terrible with orchids. I can keep the plants alive, more or less, for years. But I’ve never had one put out flowers for me.

2. I didn’t pluck my eyebrows until I was 39. Looked in the mirror one day and saw that something should be done. We’re a bushy eyebrow family. I mocked my dad once, a little, (sorry Dad), about having his eyebrows trimmed, when really, it’s better to keep them under control.

3. Either I can’t count after all, or I’ve forgotten a cat. At the beginning of Cat of the Month, I figured I had 24 months of cats. Well, I’m up to Natalie now, and there seem to be just 23. 24 with the guest appearance of my parents’ cat Kisha, but only 23 of my own. Sure, there were some cats in the house when I was little that didn’t stay for long, but I do think I got them all. Guess I can’t count.

4. I don’t like tomato guts. The fleshy part of the tomato, okay, but the squishy part between the seeds, no.

5. I did a really horrible thing in college. Over the summer once I signed up to be a volunteer to take care of a handicapped teenager at her home while her parents went on an anniversary vacation. The girl was 15 and had cerebral palsy; she needed help cooking and moving around, nothing complicated. I visited the family about a month before their trip, and proceeded to go on with my summer, working at a printers and going out with my boyfriend. And I just kept on with my summer life. The week the family needed me, I totally spaced it. Completely forgot. By the time I remembered, they would have been back already. To make matters worse, I was far too ashamed to call them and apologize. What on earth would I say? Sorry to have screwed your whole vacation, but I just forgot? Instead I pretended the whole thing never happened, and I still feel badly about it.

And now for my nominations. Hmmm, so many neat blogs out there. Some of my favorites get nominated for awards all the time, others not so much. In alphabetical order (not because I’m an orderliness nut or anything, I’m just using the list as a brain annex) a handful of my current favorites:

Coffee Helps. I adore well-written blogs about picking up sticks and moving to an entirely different culture.

Mad Aunt Bernard. A screaming crackup! Please blog more!

Millenium Housewife. I don’t think I would ever have that sort of conversation with anybody.

Tooting Squared. Sharp observation, great presentation.

Us and Them. Captain Dumbass has as much fun as his kids.

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Oh, it's seven things to share about me.
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6. Why do I have to be able to count? I have machines to do that for me. This is what I say to myself whenever any sort of math comes up. Though actually I'm not too bad at math.
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7. I like to eat breakfast cereal, dry, for dinner. And I eat Nutella out of the jar. In fact, I was working on my now-empty Nutella jar this morning so that it will be available as a prop in this afternoon's Pink Rabbit Abroad story.
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