Tag, You’re It

The talented Christine Kane has “tagged” me as one of the next links in a cyber-chain, sort of like a chain letter but more fun. To keep the chain going, I have to share five things you probably don’t know about me and then I get to tag a few folks. Ok, here are five things you don’t know and may, in a few minutes, wish you still didn’t know!

1. For a whole lot of years as a kid, starting when I was about seven, I planned to get my doctorate in archaeology, then go to Olduvai Gorge and dig for bones like Mary and Richard Leakey. I used to practice my technique in rock piles behind my house, using old toothbrushes and nail files. It’s just as well that one wore out as my primary dream…I’d never have had that kind of detailed patience. I still read the archaeology stories first in National Geographic, though.
2. I used to be a pretty serious Scottish Highland dancer. After years of ballet, I switched to the more athletic Highland dancing in my pre-teen years and danced competitively around the U.S. and Canada until after college. You know, Highland Fling, sword dance, that sort of thing. You’d never assume it from a name like Lenski, but my mum was a MacDonald.
3. I am seriously directionally challenged. I’ve always blamed it on being a lefty, saying the entire world works backwards…door knobs turn the wrong way, serrated knives are serrated on the wrong side, scissors made me crazy in grade school. But the reality is I really don’t know my right from my left. My husband’s favorite trick, after which he never fails to laugh uproariously, is to be driving along with me and say, “Quick, look over to the left!” Inevitably, I look the opposite way from whatever he’s instructed. Odds would suggest I should get it right at least some of the time. I never get it right. Needless to say, Rod rarely asks me to navigate when we’re driving somewhere new.
4. I am afraid of very little but am crazy-afraid of spiders. I once found an extraordinarily large spider on my shoulder (it arrived in a box of oranges from Florida…big big big and hairy) while I was on the phone having a preliminary job interview. I screamed loudly, started beating my shoulder with the phone, then threw the phone after the spider when it scuttled off me and behind a bookshelf. Then I hung up on my prospective employer, grabbed the vacuum, sucked up the spider, and threw the whole vacuum out in the snow. I’m darn sure the original cause was the movie, The Incredible Shrinking Man, which I saw when I was a child. If you’ve seen it, then you know the basement scene and I need say no more.
5. I once played the lead in a Spanish-speaking version of Dracula, Dracula Responde a sus Criticos. As a female Dracula, I got to walk around on stage and say, “Me voy a sucar la sangre” a lot. There was one scene where I was supposed to see a rat under a table and leap quickly onto the table in fear (what can I tell you, it was experimental black box theater in college). I could never make the leap either convincingly or fast enough. So here it was, opening night. My roommate, Idabelle, was the stage manager. I looked under the table to pretend-see the rat that wasn’t there. No, there was no rat there. But there was a 5-inch wide black hairy spider. Never has humankind seen a person leap so quickly and shriek so loudly. In my fear, I forgot my lines. As I was trying to remember them, I glanced off stage and saw Idabelle doubled over with laughter. I got her back a week later, after we went to see Psycho. I hid in the dorm shower just before she came in to brush her teeth.

   Ok, my turn to tag a few people. I tag the smart Yvonne DiVita and amazingly knowledgeable TechZ. And, because his blog always teaches me something and I’ve finally seen the light and become a Mac user, I tag Guy Kawasaki.

   
   Copyright © 2006 by Tammy Lenski. All rights reserved.