Monday, June 23, 2008

Two Monday Memes and a Whole Lotta Fives

(Please excuse all the bizarre formatting. Blogger despises cut and pasted posts.)

Meme #1:

I’ve done five things and seven things and eight things, I think, but now Charlotte’s put a new twist on the Five Thing Meme by adding “Fluffy,” which has made it great fun, and I couldn't get around the fact that I'd been (very creatively) tagged for this one, so here we go again.

Five Fluffy Things About Me:

  1. I don’t know which I like more: gummy bears or Swedish fish. They both have their distinctive pluses and minuses and are both probably the reason I had so many cavities as a child. And I now live in an area where all the local shops tempt me with bags of them at their registers.
  2. I love roller coasters. The bigger, the higher, the scarier, the better. I’ll ride any, but I prefer the good old-fashioned, wooden, rickety kind. I still think Coney Island’s Cyclone is the best I’ve ever ridden.
  3. I love pink. It isn’t my favorite color (green is), but I definitely love it all the same.
  4. I get more excited over a brand new package of magic markers than most kids. I especially love the kind that smell like different candy flavors.
  5. I wish someone would deliver a bouquet of fresh-cut flowers to me everyday the way they do for the reception desks of many businesses. No day could possibly be bad if it starts off with a delivery of flowers (even if I can’t identify all the flowers).

Copying Charlotte, rather than tagging five people, you are to consider yourself tagged if any one of these pertains:

  1. You’ve eaten at least one gummy bear or Swedish fish sometime in the past year
  2. You’d rather ride a roller coaster than a carousel
  3. You wish pink would get more respect
  4. The pen and marker aisle in office supply stores has a certain pull for you
  5. You don’t feel you get flower deliveries nearly often enough

Meme #2:

Then, Ms. Make Tea went and sort of tagged me for this one, with lots more fives (or multiples of fives, I guess).

What was I doing 10 years ago?

I was approaching my third wedding anniversary. I was working as an acquisitions editor for a reference publishing company and had a boss who was a micro-manager to the nth degree. Bob was also working for that company at the time (in the marketing and sales department), and he and I would soon be adopting a wonderful two-year-old sheltie named Lady with whom we would enjoy 9 years together.

Five snacks I enjoy in a perfect, non weight-gaining world:

(I'm changing this to a perfect, MSG-and-trans-fat-free world)

1. Doritoes
2. Cheese Doodles
3. Pepperidge Farm coconut cake (I'm waiting for them to get rid of the trans-fats, which reminds me, it's been a while since I checked that)
4. Things like ready-made onion and crab dips
5. Hotdogs (luckily, I can still manage to eat up to two at a time with no ill effects as long as I am very, very vigilant about my MSG intake for about three days afterwards, but they are worth it)


Five snacks I enjoy in the real world:

1. Chips and guacamole
2. Any kind of cheese and cracker
3. Any kind of nuts
4. Fresh fruit
5. Greek-style yogurt

Five things I would do if I were a billionaire:

1. Quit working
2. Give away lots and lots of money
3. Buy a small house on the water near Acadia, ME and an apartment in New York on Riverside Dr. with a view of the Hudson River
4. Start a quarterly print magazine composed of original book reviews written by book bloggers (who are a much better lot than most of those reviewing books in most of the print media I read)
5. Have a fresh-cut bouquet of flowers delivered to me every day

Five jobs that I have had:

1. Grocery store cashier
2. Nurse's aide in a nursing home
3. Language therapist for dyslexic kids
4. Library assistant
5 . Editor


Three of my habits:

(Why 3 and not 5? I think I’ll do 5, even though we all know a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.)

1. Drinking coffee every morning
2. Reading in bed before I turn out the light every night (even if only one page)
3. Obsessively checking email
4. Turning on the radio the second I get in the car when I'm driving alone
5. Keeping track of books I read and my thoughts on them in a book journal


Five places I have lived:

1. Winston-Salem, NC
2. Kent, England
3. Charlottesville, VA
4. Fairfield Country, CT
5. Lancaster County, PA

Five people I want to get to know better:

Besides Ms. Make Tea, of course, and I’m going to try to tag those she didn’t tag to spread this meme a little farther: Mandarine, Pete, Eva, Susan, and Sarah.

10 comments:

Eva said...

I love pink too!! And I've done the second one since you tagged me for it: it's still in drafts, but I'll publish it this week. :)

Anonymous said...

Hi Emily, thanks for the tag and am busy doing the second one today. Interesting to see how our lives have developed over ten years.

Emily Barton said...

Eva, yes, I've always admired the fact that you're wearing pink in your picture. Also, I've never told you this, but from your picture, you and I could easily be confused as sisters.

Pete, you're welcome,and I'll look forward to reading your answers.

Anonymous said...

My answers will be published there tomorrow.

Rebecca H. said...

I share a number of your habits, including the coffee (even if it is decaf), the reading, the email, the radio, and keeping track of books, although I don't have a book journal -- but there's the blog of course!

Anonymous said...

Our billionaire responses are very similar. I'd probably buy in Vermont instead of Maine, but Riverside Drive sounds good. I'd also fund a bike club for kids who can't afford bikes and have a garage full of my own bikes.

I'm so predictable.

Emily Barton said...

Hobs, oooo, we could be neighbors again (only in Manhattan this time). I like your idea of funding bikes for kids. I'd like to fund snorkeling and scuba diving for kids.

Susan said...

Me too for pink! and green is my favorite color! Someday when we meet we'll have to call ahead and make sure we are NOT color co-ordinated!!!thanks for tagging me - I'll do it shortly (tonight? or tomorrow, it's midnight already....)- and the fresh flowers? I bought them all the time when I lived in England, I loved them, and everyone does it there, but over here my cat eats anything green I bring into the house and broke a vase trying to eat fresh flowers, so I've sadly given up and pour my energy into my garden instead. But I miss fresh flowers and I often look longingly at them in the stores!!!

Susan said...

I did it! the meme! Here it is(and thanks for tagging me): http://susanflynn.blogspot.com/2008/07/fluffy-meme-and-five-meme.html

Emily Barton said...

Susan, I just realized I forgot to respond to your original comment here. Ahh, another green and pink fan! One of these days, when I pass the Amish farm that sells fresh flowers, I'm going to have to stop and buy some, don't you think?