Four Things To Know About Me — A Meme

Last night, Ginny, with her miserable cold stopping up her nose, tried to eat the chili I’d cooked for supper. She had trouble eating and breathing at the same time and said, “My Mother told me not to, but I’ve got to eat with my mouth”.

She meant, of course, chewing with her mouth open.

I just about fell over laughing and teasing her all evening about eating with her mouth.

I’m such a comfort in her affliction..

After supper we enjoyed a long discussion about the meaning of the word succor.

Yesterday my e-friend Amrita in India gave me a nice compliment on her blog; it follows a cartoon about how to become a famous blogger. She once told me that reading my blog inspired her to start her own; now her postings are consistently much better than mine. That makes me feel good.

Yesterday also , my middle son, John, who lives in Maryland, asked that I fill out this Meme:

A – Some Jobs I’ve had in my life:

• I’ve been a freelance writer for 30+ years
• Janitor
• Gravedigger
• Over-the-road truck driver
• Installed huge plate glass storefront windows.
• Home healthcare giver to difficult terminal patients
• For several years I grew mosquitoes (for test purposes)
• Editorial Assistant at newspaper
• Caregiver at an old folks home
• Night watchman at a city dump (best job I ever had)
• Tour guide and deck attendant at Library of Congress
• Worker in a plant that made chicken feed (worst job I ever had)
• Burger cook on the 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift in all-night restaurant

B – Four movies I would watch over and over:

• National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
• I, Claudius (13-part series with Derek Jacobi)
• Griffin & Phoenix
• Adventures In Babysitting
• The Day The Earth Stood Still

C – Four places I have lived:

• Jacksonville, Florida
• Maryland
• In a truck, driving all over the U.S.
• In my mind

D – Four tv shows I like to watch:

• Monk
• Evening News
• West Wing
• The Benny Hill Show

E — Books I read again and again

• The Bible
• Bram Stoker’s Dracula (the book that started me keeping a daily journal)
• The Chronicles of Narnia (7 volumes by C.S. Lewis)
• Stephen King’s Desperation (and most of his other books)
• H.Rider Haggard’s She
• Poems of Robert Service
• Donald Westlake’s Dortmunder novels (Hot Rock, Drowned Hopes, etc.)
• Brother Lawrence’s The Practice of the Presence of God

F – Four places I’ve been on vacation:

• St. Augustine, Florida
• Port St Joe State Park (see blog entry for November 21, 2005)
• Fernandina Beach (see Blog for November 17-21, 2006)
• Lake Seminole State Park, Ga. (See blog for November 19-25, 2007)

G – Four of my favorite foods:

• Fried post chops (If it ain’t fried, it ain’t food!)
• Fired shrimp I’ve netted myself
• Egg Foo Young or any Chinese food
• Fig Newtons

H – Four places I would like to be right now:

• There’s no place I’d rather be than where I am right now.

I — My Favorite Bible Verse:

• “I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, They are plans for good and not for evil, to give you a hope and a future” — Jeremiah 29:11