Sunday, September 28, 2008

6 Random Things

As a rule, I don't do those blog tag things where a friend tags you and you have to answer questions on your blog. I'm just a party pooper in that respect. However, my friend Shauna tagged me about a million years ago, and this time the tag was just to write 6 random things about yourself on your blog. Seeing as all I do is blog random things, I figured it would be a good way for me to post the little random things that don't really fit in a full post. It has taken me several months to get around to writing the post, but here it is. I'm still pooping on the party in that I'm not actually following the rules of the tag. If you care, you'll have to check her blog to see what the rules actually were... :) In any case, here are 6 random things about me, in no particular order:

No Popsicles for This Girl
It's not that I don't like popsicles. It's that I cannot stand the wooden stick that they're on being in my mouth! I also can't stand licking a wooden spoon. Ugh. Even the very thought of putting anything wooden in my mouth literally makes me shudder, like fingernails on a chalkboard. I am, in fact, kind of freaking out by typing this, so let's move on.

Pet Names for Elias
The two most common endearments I use for Elias are Darlin' and Punkin (often lengthened to Punkinhead). Others that I use frequently are Sweetie Boy, Cutie, Baby Man, Precious, and Baby Fella. I will often string them together to make one long name for him, like "Mommy's Little Sweetie Precious Darlin' Baby Punkinheaded Boy." He likes it! Whenever he's fussy, he's Dr. Crankenstein, Cranky McCrankerson, or Mr. Fussypants. He doesn't like that as much.

Turkey, Ham, or Carrots?
When I was pregnant, I wrote a post about how my food tastes had changed during pregnancy. This is common and not at all unexpected. What I didn't expect, however, was for them to keep changing after he was born. Unfortunately, I no longer crave carrots and I still can't stand to eat fish (except salmon and canned tuna). But the strange thing is that I now like lunchmeat, which I never did before Elias was born. I would eat it if there was nothing else, but there was certainly no love lost when I couldn't eat it during pregnancy. But now I really like lunchmeat sandwiches! Turkey on whole wheat with cheddar cheese, mayo, mustard, and pickles... Mmmmmmmm.

Pronunciation Peeve
One of my biggest pet peeves is when people consistently mispronouce common words in the English language. The ones that come immediately to mind are nuclear, mischievous, and often. The vast majority of the population mispronounces these words, and that drives me crazy! Especially the first two, which you would pronounce correctly if you just said them the way they are spelled! Who started mispronouncing them in the first place, and how did it get to be so widespread? I have no idea.

Poor Simón
This kind of fits in with the previous point, but I think it's different enough that it deserves a point of its own. The town I live in is Bolivar, Missouri. It was named after Simón Bolivar, a South American liberator in the 1800s. There is a statue of him on our main strip (See photo at right.), and the mascot at the high school is the Liberators in his honor. And yet, the name of our town is not pronounced boh-lee-var, the way his name is. It's pronounced bah-lih-ver, like Oliver with a B. No one I have asked has been able to explain this to me. But I feel like it's a pretty poor way to honor someone by saying "We want to name our town after you, but we don't like the way it's pronounced, so we're going to pronounce it our own way." I don't get it.

Bugs and Dogs

I don't know if it has to do with getting older or with becoming a parent, but I have in the past year or two developed a real fear of bugs and dogs. Well, I'm not so much afraid of bugs as I just can't stand them in my house or on me. The house we live in now sat empty for a while before we moved in, and it had quite a colony of spiders that I think we have finally killed most of now that we've lived here over two months. But I just cannot stand them in my stuff, and I just get furious when I find them in the baby's room. I will not stand for some nasty spider crawling on and potentially biting my son! The fear of dogs is an actual fear, which I think began over a year ago when we were still living in Waco and I was chased by loose dogs while riding my bike. I don't think I ever blogged about that, but it was really scary and I don't think I've quite recovered. I guess my fear is actually loose dogs, not all dogs. I don't have any kind of problem with a pet dog in someone's home, but I definitely have a fight-or-flight reaction anytime I see a dog loose on the street, even if it does have a collar on.

So anyways, I guess that's enough randomness for one day! I hope you learned something of interest about me.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Americans seem to have trouble with those pesky foreign language words. In Kentucky I'm reminded of Versailles and Athens. I also always wonder why the Boston Celtics are pronounced with a soft C instead of a hard C like when we say Celtic, as in the actual culture. Maybe I think about things too much :)

JTapp said...

During the Hurricane Ike media coverage I heard that an island near Galveston is also called Bolivar pronounced "Oliver" with a "B".

My guess is it's because people decided to name the towns that when they only had printed news stories about Simon Bolivar. They didn't know how the Spanish pronounce it.

Same would apply to Athens or Versailles.

Jan said...

I have the same reaction to wooden products in my mouth....and unwaxed paper cups! I just can't handle them! Could this be genetic?

A side note...as I was walking through the stock room at Wal-Mart I noticed a box from a silk flower company and the address on it was Bolivar, MO! I don't remember the name of the company, but I stopped in my tracks to take a look at it and see what was in the box. And I remember thinking that most people who see the box wouldn't know the proper pronunciation for the city! :-)

Ashlee said...

Liz has already covered some of the mispronounced names of towns here in KY... but I have to say I'm so with you on the Popsicles! I will eat them sometimes but I throw it away when there's the first sighting of the wood (and not that it's actually showing but that you can tell it's under there!). And I still don't like lunchmeat. I wish I did b/c that would sure make fixing lunch easier. And I'm also with you on the dogs and bugs thing! Do you like chocolate? I don't like it unless it's w/ Peanut butter, in cookie dough or an oreo. That's another one of my weird things so I wondered if you shared that too since you seem to have some other similar eccentricities.