OH QUIRKY ME

Gemma of "Wild Woman in a Desert Garden" has tagged me to list six quirky things about myself. I've done this before and can't think of six more. I guess I'm a pretty tame lady. I tend to hide my quirkiness under a bushel. basket. Like Luke Wilson tells Sarah Jessica Parker in "The Family Stone": "You have a freak flag - you just don't fly it very often."

But I was a quirky kid, so I'll list six quirky things about me back then:

1. When I ate, I had to eat one food entirely before starting another. For example, I would have to eat my all peas first, then my potatoes, then my meat. My stepfather didn't like this. He would always say, "They're going to get mixed up in your stomach anyway." Oh, pretty picture, dad. (At least I didn't care if my foods touched each other.)

He was also the guy who made me sit for hours to finish some kind of food I didn't like. Once it was a slice of tomato, once it was a fried egg. I don't remember if I ever gave up and ate them, but I do remember him telling me how his mother would take her child's uneaten food, put it in the cupboard and then bring it out for the next meal until it was gone. And this was in the days before refrigeration! I never met her but I certainly hated the lady.

By the way, I like sliced tomatoes now, but I have not eaten and will never eat a fried egg. So there!

2. Before I went to sleep, I would stick my finger into a corner of my blanket, and then I would stick my finger in my ear.

3. I liked to read lying on the floor with my feet up on the easy chair. Or sprawled sideways across the chair.

4. I assigned male or female properties to colors, and to silverware. (Maybe everyone does this?) Forks and spoons are female, knives are male. The female colors are pink, orange, red, yellow, and white. The male colors are blue, green, black, gray, brown, purple.

5. One day I was late for school and heard the bell ringing when I was only half way there. I stopped slogging through the snow and knocked at the Early house (everyone knew everyone else in my village). They invited me in, gave me hot cocoa, took off my boots and propped my wet feet on the warm oven door.

6. When I was in fifth grade, we had a Valentine's party at my one-room schoolhouse. We were allowed to invite our siblings who weren't in school. My little sis came in a pretty pink dress, with a pair of pants underneath for the trip. (This was often done in North Dakota, because it gets freakin' cold here in the winter.)

At the school, my sister wouldn't take her pants off. The teacher said, "Oh that's alright, let her be." I replied, "No, she's my sister and she'll do what I tell her!" Then I stormed off and hid behind the freestanding stove and cried for the rest of the party. I didn't speak to the teacher unless spoken to for the next year and a half, until I went to school in town.