1. When my parents used to go to the gym almost every evening, and I was supposed to be asleep, me and Jen (my sister) would get up to eat Dad's Ginger Snaps, candy, and other off-limit foods, and watch movies - namely Marx Brothers flicks, The Three Stooges, Airplane, Monty Python's Holy Grail, Jurassic Park, and a couple others. We'd time ourselves for about how long we figured they'd be gone, and if they got home early, I don't think we ever moved so fast! -Take the VHS out and turn off the VCR... -Grab all the candy wrappers and hide them somewhere... -Make their bed look as if nobody had sat on it... -High-tail it to our own bedrooms before they got the key in the lock and got inside! All this took place within fifteen seconds. If I couldn't make it to my room, I'd run in the bathroom instead and emerge after a couple minutes saying how great it felt to have peed!

2. Me and my cousin, Kelly, used to "spy" on people. We'd sneak up on people and watch them, and write down their every movement in a small notebook. We even spied on the cat.... Anyway. Soon, our "spying" turned into getting as close as we could to somebody without them seeing us. We'd sneak up on the boys while they were down the road skateboarding or playing road hockey. We'd run from place to place, taking cover behind cars, trees, and fences. At one point, we had to cross the road because there was no cover left on the side we were on, so we laid down and rolled across the street. I have no idea why we thought it would lessen our chances of being seen... My camoflauged hat fell off and I had to run back across to get it anyway.

3. I used to get grounded. A LOT. Sometimes it was for the pettiest things too - I was convinced my mom was against me and out to ruin my life and keep me from my friends. It was like she was on constant PMS mode sometimes. I remember the worst time I was grounded... My cousins had just been to Party Supermarket, and they had seen a Jurassic Park dinosaur mask - it was a Dilophosaurus head, made of rubber, and covered your whole head and neck! Well I had nothing to wear for Halloween, so I went and stole $20 from my sister and gave it to my aunt and cousins. I gave them the money and told them to get the Dilophosaur head for me the next time they went there, because "Jen gave me the money to buy it as an early Christmas gift!!!" My plan succeeded for a short time - they went and got me the mask sure enough, but I forgot that my parents might wonder where I got it and with what money. I can't really remember, but I might've told them it was a gift from my cousins. I led everybody on. But they finally strangled the truth out of me, and I was grounded for a month. I know I deserved it, but aren't parents supposed to worry if their kids "don't get out much"?? Yeah.

4. First time I fired a shotgun. I was standing up, totally forgot that it might have a kick, didn't lean into it, and darn near almost got knocked over backwards. Our friend Brian got it all on film too, how lovely! BUT, I redeemed myself when I fired a .50 caliber sniper rifle (this was also the first day I'd fired a weapon on the range, before that it was only BB guns). The guy had owned the .50 for months, and his son, who must've been about 18 (I was 15 or 16 at the time) hadn't fired it yet because he was afraid of it. Heh. Now, I didn't know this. I just plopped right down, "Lemme at it!", BAM, "AWESOME." Perfect bull's eye, and I wanted more. My dad saw the guy's son (whose nickname was "Spike") getting all peeved, then he heard him say "Well if a girl can do it, I can do it!" Then he sat down behind the gun and said, "Dad....I'm scared!" Spike, eh? Wuss. He used to brag that he wanted to be such a great sniper some day, but listen buddy, you can't be a sniper if you're scared of your own weapon...!!

5. My first bicycle was this ugly, pink and white girly thing. Mom or Jennifer must've picked it out... It had training wheels, but we took those off when I finally learned how to keep my balance. I remember when I first got it, Dad rode it down the street and back. It wasn't a tiny kids' bike, maybe about three feet tall, but seeing a 6'3", 250lb guy on a little bike like that was the funniest thing. He looked like a circus gorilla! I tried to take a picture, but it didn't turn out. He was moving too fast, so I only got a blurry shot of the road and a back tire. No way in heck would you be able to get me to buy a pink bike again... What were they thinkin'??

6. When I was between 7 and 10, one of my favorite movies was Patton, with George C. Scott. I'd watch it with my Dad almost every other weekend it seemed. I even had the soundtrack (I still do, but on CD, not LP). Me and Dad used to crack out a huge box of little plastic Army men, tanks, sandbag bunkers, and the like, and reenact the battles of Kasserine Pass, Anzio, and The Bulge. Sometimes we'd even bring out my model dinosaurs and pitch the dinosaurs against the tanks. I had one T-Rex with a hollow throat and stomach; I bet he could eat at least ten Army men at a time!!! Of course, he was Godzilla-sized compared to the tiny soldiers.

7. Used to sit out back and put together model airplanes. Always had my portable CD player with me, and would usually listen to John Williams, or an old war movie soundtrack. Patton, Tora! Tora! Tora!, Battle of Britain, and The Great Escape were my favorites. Since they were war movie soundtracks, they really got me psyched to build the airplanes. Come to think of it, this wasn't all that long ago... Maybe about 4 or 5 years. Still have all them airplanes too. Most of them turned out pretty good, but I'm not the most patient person, so I had a few mishaps too. I tried to build a bi-plane flying boat once... I had the fuselage all done nice, but then I got to the wings. A bi-plane has two sets of wings together, and I couldn't get them glued straight for anything. Everything had to be fitted together just the right way at just the right place. Then you had to hold it together until the glue dried. WTF? WHO could do something like that?? You'd need like, eight hands! I even tried holding certain pieces together with masking tape while I glued another piece, but no dice. I ended up making a fist out of the wings and pitching it all back in the box. I think it's still in the top of my closest, unless I madly threw it away. It really is too bad... I think that fuselage was the best paint job I had ever done, it was perfect! I think I still have a Stuka in my closet that's not yet been built... Eh. Some day.

8. Another thing I used to collect were those little satin, sand-filled animals. I had lizards, snakes, frogs, mice, turtles, fish, you name it. Kelly and I both had "sand-lizard houses". I mean... we had almost our entire closets done up like miniature houses. We were quite inventive... I'd take our little homes over a Barbie house any time! We made little beds, sinks, tubs, chairs, even appliances, all hand-made. Clear hairspray caps were used as trash cans. I even had a marble floor in my "bathroom"! Dad had some extras tiles left over from a job and cut a piece for me. Then we'd put the animals in a little toy car, tie a string to it, and "drive" to each others houses to let our little sand creatures visit each other. What was really sad about all this... we were probably 13 or older. At least we had fun... One time, the wooden pole in my closet (the one with ALL MY CLOTHES hanging from it) somehow fell, right on top of my little sand-lizard home. I was... upset. Took me all day to clean it up and get it back to normal! I think my cardboard refridgerator broke...

9. Kelly and I once wrote "BLUBBER" in the middle of the street with chalk. It took up the whole width of the road, and was about ten feet long, maybe more. We used at least seven full sticks of chalk too, and took us over half an hour. Then, it rained that night and it was gone in the morning. But I wonder who saw it and what they were thinking...

10. After a rain storm, Jen and I would go "fishing". We'd tie string to a long stick, tie a paper clip to the end, and try to "catch" the leaves that were floating in the puddles by the street. I looked like one of the Gordon fishermen in my little yellow rain coat and boots!

11. Kelly and I for some reason decided to dress up one day. No reason. We were like 14... We put on dresses and makeup and did our hair up nice (it wasn't like playing "dressup", we actually did look reasonably normal). Then we thought we'd better walk down to her house (three houses down the street) to show her mom (my aunt). It started to rain right before we left, so I went out to the car to grab our umbrella from the back seat. There were a few kids in the yard across the street, chattin' it up and thinking they were SO cool. Mind you, I was in this floral, no-neck, cut-above-the-knees dress with panty hose and sandals on, and while I was leaning into the back seat of the car, one of the boys yelled, "HEY BABY!" then turned around real quick as if nothing had happened. I didn't know who it was, and ran inside real quick trying not to laugh. But Kelly had seen the whole thing from my window, and we were cracking up like idiots for at least ten minutes! It was even funnier because the kid who had yelled was probably about 12 years old!

12. I had a pair of walkie-talkies that me and Kelly used for when we went "spying" on people. One time, I was sitting in my kitchen playing with the wiring in one of them which had broken, when I suddenly heard people talking. I was somehow picking up a telephon conversation - the person must've been on a cordless or mobile phone. I told Kelly, and we ran outside with the walkie-talkies stood on the fence, putting their antennaes against the lowest phone wire, waiting to hear something. We didn't get much, but one day I picked up a phone conversation between a woman and a doctors' secretary - her son had strep throat or something, if I remember correctly. I only heard bits and pieces anyway. Now, I realize how stupid it was for us to do that, no matter how cool it was, we were invading peoples' privacy! Thank the Lord we didn't pick up somebody talking on one of those 1-800-talk-dirty numbers! That would be pretty funny now though, come to think of it... heh.

13. Me and Kelly (most of my memories are about her and Jen. Kelly was my best friend growing up) used to collect plate advertisements. You know, the ads for painted collector plates you find in magazines and the coupon section of the weekend paper? Yeah. We'd clip them out and glue or tape them in a GIANT scrapbook. Who was cooler depended on who had the most, and whose looked the best. I usually completely covered mine in that thick clear tape, then smoothed the tape down with the scissors handle. We had hundreds of those things... Another complete waste of time that made us feel like we'd done something significant! We later graduated to keeping giant scrapbooks of the things we were interested in. Mine was Jurassic Park and dinosaurs (I later had one for WWII articles and airplanes), hers was the band Hanson. (bleh).

14. I caught a drill. This was only four years ago, as my Mom was still alive. We keep the cat in the outside utility room at nights, or when she has to go to the bathroom (the litterbox is out there and she whines at the front door when she has to go). Well I went out to get her one day, and she was waaaaaaaay up on top of a cabinet. She was against of one of Dad's cordless drills, and when she moved to stand up, she pushed the drill off and STUPID ME tried to catch it. I don't know why, it was a split-second decision and I thought I'd be in big trouble if it got broke. Well the drill bit went smack-dab into the middle of my hand. I didn't feel it at first, and dropped it anyway because it was heavy, and YOU try to catch a drill with one hand! Anyway, I felt a dull ache and looked down to see a hole in my palm. It wasn't that big, but it was deep enough that I could see the white edge of a tendon. It didn't bleed a whole lot either. I actually started to laugh, mainly at my stupidity. I then cursed the cat and the dang drill and ran inside. "Hey Mom! I just put a hole in my hand!!" "WHAT?!" Poor woman was peacefully making dinner and I freaked her out... She made me put it under running water for about five minutes, then started dumping Betadine onto it. Since the drill bit had a little bit of rust on it, she called the hospital right away. A day or two later, I went with her to the hospital while she had her chemo treatment to get a tetanus shot. I. Hate. Needles. But I knew the woman that gave it to me - she handled most of Mom's chemo, so it wasn't that bad. My hand didn't hurt as much as you think it would have - the wound itself hardly hurt, there was just a dull but painful ache deep inside my hand. I couldn't fully extend my fingers for weeks until it healed, since the hole was between two tendons. So I wore a crapload of gauze and a glove until it was reasonably healed. Still have that scar, I kinda like it... I'm not sadistic, it's just fun to look at, in the middle of a normal, boring hand. Yeah.

15. I tried to draw a wolf once. It didn't ...work.

16. Jennifer used to work at a little German bakery just outside the 'hood. At that time, I wasn't allowed to ride my bike more than a block or two from home (understandable, in this area), but I'd sometimes sneak out with a little bit of pocket change and ride over to visit Jen. She usually gave me free cookies and I'd buy a drink. (GIMME A SHOT! ...I'm kidding. A Coke or a Sprite). I don't like the people who owned that place, they didn't treat Jen right, but I miss those days, going to visit her at work. And the cookies were awesome!!!

17. I had a major crush on Michael Flatley. I was in love with him for over a year. I know I'm gonna get a lot of flak from that, LOL, but I was obsessed with Riverdance and Lord of the Dance. That's what got me so hooked on Celtic music! I still have the soundtracks to Riverdance (and Bill Whelan's previous work), Lord of the Dance, and Feet of Flames. Looking at Flatley now... I was don't know what the crap I was thinkin'. Nothing about him appeals to me now, he's way too skinny and he's... really weird. I don't dislike him, I just wonder why I did like him so much.

18. When Mama was in hospice (39 days), I started collecting the caps to Snapple bottles. I have nooooo idea why. I liked to hold then and click them to annoy Dad, heh. That was when I first started drinking tea; my favorites were the peach or raspberry flavored regular tea, and the lime green tea. I had at least three a day, and continued saving them for long after Mom died. I soon had so many that I had no where to put them, but I finally found the perfect place: inside a 105mm artillery shell! It soon over-flowed though, so I got rid of them, but kept a couple of my favorites (ones that were colored differently from the rest).

19. Kelly and I made THE worst Christmas cookies ever. EV. AR. We made the dough good enough, and after eating half of it, finally started putting it on the cookie sheet. Flour was all over the place. We had the afternoon local news on, and it said a space shuttle was taking off (from Cape Canaveral, you can see it ALL the way down here - a little silver speck and a long trail of thick smoke), so we ran outside. Kelly was wearing dark brown flared jeans, and in the sunlight she saw a billion white hand prints on her brand new pants from the flour. I was laughing like an idiot, she was holding her hands in the air and shaking her head, and kids walking by on the way home from school thought we were NUTS. All the while we're staring in awe at the shuttle, pointing at it and going, "WHOOOOOAH." I'm sure it was a sight to behold...

20. We chased a bear. A black BEAR. What were we THINKING?? Me, Dad, and Mom were on a trail in the Smoky Mountains, when Dad pointed ahead and shouted "OMG A BEAR!". He did it so dramatically that Mom and I initially thought he was leading us on (he's done it before), but sure enough, there was a medium-sized black bear running up the trail, one or two hundred yards ahead of us. It disappeared into the forest towards the river, and Dad went running after it, so me and Mom followed. It must've been scared half to death and ran across the river because we didn't see it again. As we continued down the trail, we thought aloud, What the HECK did we just do that for? That was reeeeeeally smart, chasing a BEAR.



...WELLLLL, I think this post has gotten a bit... out of hand, so I'll stop here. I had a lot of fun writing this though! Stuff just kept coming to me...

My dad, Mark, has a lot of nicknames. These include "Prancing Patrick", "Glow", "Big Man", "Mr. Incredible", and "Oven Mitts". Well I've come up with a new one: "Dodgson".

You see, Dad's eyes are pretty bad. His sunglasses are prescription (distance), so when he doesn't have his clear ones with him, he just wears the sunglasses everywhere, even indoors. And these are those big, dark aviator glasses, so you can't see his eyes. I've always thought it was funny, but I really started laughing at it for the first time a couple nights ago, when he came home from the gym.

He had his hair all sprayed and slicked back, with the glasses on. Not only was this at night, he'd been home for a good ten minutes and still had them on. I blew up into a five-minute laughing fit because he looked like a secret agent, and the James Bond theme and Secret Agent Man were playing over and over in my mind as I looked at him (whilst pointing and laughing).

This then reminded me of one of my favorite scenes in Jurassic Park, when Dennis Nedry (Wayne Knight) is having lunch in Puerto Rico with the representative of a company who is paying Nedry to steal dinosaur embryos. The guy shows up in a Panama hat, with those same aviator glasses on.

Nedry: "Oh! Dodgson!"
Dodgson: "You shouldn't use my name."
Nedry: ".......Dodgson. Dodgson! WE'VE GOT DODGSON HERE! ...See? Nobody cares....Nice hat. What are you trying to look like, a secret agent?"