lurb story

Four years, three weeks and four days ago, I drove to Hatch, running late as usual. It was a Monday, our first day back after the New Year holiday. Five new interns were starting that day, and we'd scheduled a training session for the morning. The new blood consisted of four girls and a boy. Two of the girls were from Harpeth Hall, a January tradition, the other two from different colleges up north. The boy was more of a mystery. In classic Hatch nepotism, which I both regularly protested and participated in, one day in the fall Jim had called up to the front of the shop, "One of my friends from high school is sending his kid down to intern with us sometime this winter!" I picked this as an opportune time to be a pain in the ass, and objected. "What do we know about him? Have we seen a resume or a portfolio? Do we even know his start date?" Jim, to his credit, at least obtained that last vital bit of information for me. There was a post-it left on my desk with the words, "Austin Gray. Salina. Jan 5."

The training session was already in full swing by the time I got into the shop. I made name tags when I got to my desk, and tried to distribute them by instinct, instead of asking who each new intern was. Austin was easy enough to pick out, the only new boy, so I slapped a name tag on his chest and thought, "Oh, he looks fine."

A week later, I had determined that he was, in fact, more than fine. He was funny. I was organizing some intern/staff bonding, and asked him what his plans were for the evening. He responded by saying he was probably going to wank it a few times, in this incredibly casual way that made me laugh before I even realized he was joking. I recruited him for a sushi and board game night, where we played a game called Kokology, from a book of quizzes I'd received for Christmas. Our quiz responses were supposed to give us insight into our psychology. The quiz we all took was about an imaginary amusement park, how we pictured our own experiences there. One of the questions was how long we expected to stand in line before getting on a roller coaster. My optimistic sisters, who obviously haven't spent time at Cedar Point, said there would be no line, no wait, just walk right up to the ride. Edan said, "Maybe five minutes?" I pragmatically predicted 45 minutes. Austin's response: "EONS." At the end of the quiz, it was revealed that our responses were supposed to be indicative of our attitudes toward sex, and specifically, our wait time for the roller coaster represented foreplay. Much giggling ensued...

Another week passed. Everyone at Hatch made plans to attend the Guilty Pleasures show at 12th and Porter, and I was frothing at the mouth with excitement. Austin left the show after the second song, and I was troubled by how mad this made me. Why should it matter? I knew he had a girlfriend at home in Kansas, although he occasionally exhibited an apathy about that situation that gave me a mean flare of happiness that I didn't want to examine. I was in a long-distance Thing with San Francisco. I wasn't supposed to care.

By the next week, Austin and I were either talking on the phone every night after work, or making plans together. Mostly still group activities, dinner, movie nights. He came to Jenny's birthday dinner with my sisters and their (now) husbands, but it Wasn't a Date. The next week he helped me make my famous chocolate and almond tart, and was joking around with the whisk, which was covered with ganache. He had chocolate all over his face and in his beard, and I remember thinking, for just one second, that I wanted to kiss it off his face. Uh oh.

January 30th was a Friday night. We had talked about going to the opening at Cheekwood with Casey and Trent, but it was too cold. We met a visiting friend of Austin's for a beer at Bosco's, and a couple of times I didn't move my leg away when it rested next to his under the bar. We took the friend back to his hotel and then picked up sushi from Ken's. We watched The Italian Job at my house while we ate. I had a blanket spread out over both of our knees. At one point I realized that his hand was on top of the blanket, on my knee, which was under the blanket, and I wasn't sure if he realized it, but didn't want to move my knee so as to not make a point out of it. Trent was in the living room talking to us, and Austin didn't move his hand. We were sort of snuggling without really discussing it. We sat on that couch and talked late into the night after the movie. We were reading Calvin and Hobbes books out loud to each other by the time the snuggling had become more overt, and then, eventually, turned into kissing.

And, I suppose, you know the rest. Or, to skim over the next two months, Austin went home to Kansas with the intent of returning to Nashville as soon as he found an apartment and a job. I visited and then sort of lost touch with San Francisco. Austin and I talked on the phone and IMed every day he was gone. I was becoming addicted to the sound of his voice. He came back the first weekend of March to sign a lease on an apartment, and we went out in public as a couple, and I got to meet most of the Jenkins family, with whom Austin had grown up and also stayed with during his internship. I suppose the clincher was the middle of March, when I went to Texas for South by Southwest with Jenny and Shannon. This trip also coincided with my birthday. I spent the entire trip either on the phone with Austin or seeing things that reminded me of him and I wanted to tell him about. I stayed back from a shopping excursion to talk to him for two hours. He had made me a beautiful birthday card and sent an incredibly thoughtful box of gifts. He was winning.

He moved to Nashville the last week of March and we have, literally, never looked back. Four years of inside jokes and amassing an embarrassingly large zoo of spoiled pets. Four years of ridiculous dances in the kitchen, and planting tomatoes, and holding hands thistight on airplanes. Four years of baseball games and guilty cheeseburgers and washing dishes. Four years of always having something to talk about, but also not always having to say anything. Four years of sharing family and history, and saying, "Sweet dreams," before we fall asleep, and slowly building this future that I'm so honored to be a part of.

Happy anniversary, my Boo. I love you the most of all.

blog of shame

It's the same reason I get so far behind on my friendly correspondence. The longer you go without saying anything, the more there is to say! John C. Reilly at the Mercy Lounge! Book club Christmas party! Scary travel to snow-covered Kansas! Christmas! Four days in a cabin with my family! New Year's Eve! Louis XIV at the Wildhorse!

The truth is, I laid low in December. Real low. I almost completely cut off communication with anyone I am not related to (or, you know, sleep next to at night) and just took some time off from Social. My niceness was wearing thin. So while everybody else was moaning about how Busy December is, how many Presents they had to buy, how many Parties they had to go to... I didn't do that this year. I stayed home, and cooked a lot of dinners au deux, and didn't buy a single gift. I was off the hook.

But the thing I really wanted to tell you about was Kansas. We got to the airport over 2 hours early for our flight to Kansas City on the 22nd. I wonder if I ever told you about the Time Austin and I Almost Broke Up because I made us late for a flight. It was really bad. So now, we err towards early. It works. Except this time, when our flight was delayed for four hours because of a half an inch of ice and then four subsequent inches of snow in Kansas City. Four hours of sitting on the floor, trying to focus on my guilty Scottish historical novel or forcing Austin to play Paper Rock Scissors. I'm not good at waiting, particularly where it involves traveling. I am a Nervous Traveler. I started calling Brian in KC, saying, What is the weather like there, what is happening? He comes back with horror stories of 40 car pileups on the very same interstate that we should have been traversing at that EXACT MOMENT if our flight hadn't been delayed. First person reports of brand new Audi wagons careening backwards into stationary fire engines. Scary stuff.

So then we had to get on a plane. Here is where Antsy Nervous Traveler turns into Basketcase Nervous Traveler. It is a short flight from Nashville to Kansas City, usually pretty painless. This time, our plane had to circle around the city for an interminable amount of time (in retelling, it has become hours, but Austin the Calm and Patient Realist usually corrects me and says it was about 30 minutes). There was no open landing strip for us to put the plane down on; they were all too icy. Note to all pilots and air personnel out there: DON'T TELL US WHEN IT'S TOO ICY AND WE'RE GOING TO LAND ANYWAY! Jeez. Finally a runway opens up, and we begin the most terrifying descent I've ever experienced. Plane tilted at crazy angles, where all we can see out the window is white, white ground. The wind causing us to jump and bump in the air. The engines kicking into reverse to slow our downward spiral. The passengers were silent, and the man seated to my right was doing origami in his lap. I kept getting distracted from my panic by watching his hands, the soothing motions of folding, pressing, turning squares of milky vellum that he kept extracting from his coat pocket.

On a perfectly normal, predictable flight, I still kind of freak out at the landing. I make Austin hold my hand and squeeze my eyes shut and don't open them again until the plane has come to a stop. On this particular landing, I had been squeezing his hand since the circling started, and I'm surprised he has any bones left. When the plane finally skidded to a halt on the ice-covered runway (nearly sideways), I leaned over, put my head between his back and the seat, and burst into tears.

Then we sat. No gates could open up because the trucks that push the airplanes backwards out of the gate couldn't drive on the ice. The wind was blowing the snow across the ground in waves. When I looked out the window and pretended everything that was white was actually water, it was easy to pretend we were stranded in the middle of the ocean.

Finally we pulled into a gate, crawled off the plane, headed towards baggage. Which was a mob scene, as we were among six or seven flights that had all been granted entrance to the airport at once. And the overhead announcement system was broken, so one poor schmo was leaping back and forth between the (two) baggage carousels, bellowing, "SALT LAKE CITY! BAGGAGE CLAIM ONE" I went and sat on the floor in a corner, and met a nice dog who had been locked up in her cage under the plane for 5 hours. Her owner let me pet her while I decompressed and Austin went baggage hunting.

Originally the plan had been (when our flight was supposed to land at at 6:30) that we would pick up our rental car and drive straight through to Hays, home of Austin's brother and maternal grandparents. This was scrapped by the time we left Nashville, and rather than even attempting to get out of Kansas City, we just called the first hotel listed on the big screen at the airport and luckily got a room. I would say it was 5 miles from the airport? Maybe less. It took us forty-five minutes to get there, forty-five painstaking minutes of creeping along on roads that were so snowbound that you couldn't tell where the asphalt stopped and the shoulder started. The Courtyard by Marriott finally appeared, shining like a beacon of king-sized beds and mediocre hot breakfasts.

We took our time getting out of KC the next morning, giving the road crews time to get everything clear. By the time we crossed over into Kansas proper, it was smooth sailing and sunny skies for the drive to Hays, and we made great time. I saw 27 hawks, which is my own superstitious way of passing the time in the midwest. They make me feel lucky.

I think that is going to be Part 1 of my Holiday Recap. Sorry for being so wordy, after being so absent. I have the office to myself this week, coworkers are all at a conference, so hopefully I'll have some more time for catching up over the next three days. Happy 2008, even if I'm the last person to tell you.

best. time waster. ever.

And I do mean ever. ever.

This is going to make you feel soooo dumb. I promise. Unless your name is Austin Gray, and then you will think that perhaps this whole game was invented just for you to show off your mad level of geography genius. Honestly.

double switch

I was going to blast out of NaBloPoMo with the Other 50, but that is going to have to wait. I have had A Day.

7:40 am Oversleep a tiny bit, which is novel, construction workers running late and only start milling around outside close to 8. Okay with that. Throw on slob clothes. Wrestle with conscience and decide that must go to work today and will be fine to leave the dogs in the backyard with workers, with whom they are now good friends. Workers say this is fine, they will be careful about opening and closing the gate.

8:45 am Meet Austin at Berry Hill Animal Hospital to pick up Precious Baby Mischa. Die a little inside when they hand us papers that say 10 day house arrest (for a puppy?! what are they thinking?) and a receipt for $255 (WHAT?!). Want to cry when they bring the Little Girl out and her belly is shaved and she's so happy to see us that she is wiggling and whimpering. Load her up in car and head to work. While starting car, think, "Why does it take so long for my car to start when I turn the key? I'll have to get that looked at next week."

10: 16 am Make exciting double date with Favorite Sarah and Ben that may or may not involve the new Pizza Hut Double Deep Pizza and our couch. Admit that if Sarah and Austin sat too close to each other on the couch, I would totally be okay with it if they ended up making out. Don't think Ben will really want to make out with me, though.

11:12 am Miss three consecutive calls from Dallas, the very very young foreman on the house construction (son of construction company owner). His message is panicked, announcing that the "brown dog" (Bridgette) escaped from the yard and they have her cornered in an alley. Says she is growling and snapping at them when they try to reach for her. Rush home to help them coax her back, leaving Pitiful Sleeping Mischa in care of coworkers. Well, rush home as soon as my car finally starts.

11:33 am Arrive home, run inside to grab the leash and a collar, and discover that Workers have no idea where Bridge is, and she is in fact not so much cornered as loose in Shelby Bottoms park.

12:01 pm Call off Workers from searching and send them back to work. Go into Rick's Market (Coldest Beer in Town) to give them my phone # and ask them to call me if anyone comes in saying there is a yellow dog in their carport, snarling at all overtures of friendship. Crazy Tanned Neighborhood Crack Lady is in Rick's chatting with Whitehaired Lady behind counter. Whitehaired lady is understanding, approves of me coming to her, agrees that people are always coming into the store saying, "There's a dog out here." Indicates Crazy Tanned Neighborhood Crack Lady, "She's always walking around. She'll keep an eye out for you." Crazy Tanned Neighborhood Crack Lady smiles and nods encouragingly.

12:12 pm Decide to give up the ghost and head back to work, with the hope that Bridge will eventually return home to be with her Best Friend Ingrid. While driving out of the park, spy brown blur crashing through brush next to road. Stop the car, call out in an excited voice, "Bridgey! Bridgey, it's you!" Bridge comes running out of the woods, excited, straight to me, tail wagging. She puts her nose in the palm of my hand. I veeeeerrryyy subtly reach my hand around to grip her shoulder (and haul her like a sack of potatoes into the car, if necessary) and she bolts. Back into the woods, I can just see her through the trees and I know I can't go after her or she'll keep running. Call Dallas and have him come sit (silently) on the side of the road to monitor Bridge's movements and drive home to load up the car with the Biggest Ingrid.

12:25 pm Sit on side of road with Ingrid until eventually Bridge starts to approach. Very calmly get up and turn around to walk home. Ingrid is having a blast. Bridge doesn't mind walking with us if she thinks I'm not going to grab her. Call Workers and have them leave the gate open and clear out of backyard. Walk both dogs into yard and slam gate shut behind us. Want to cry from relief. Refrain from taking aggression out on Bridge. Workers are very relieved. Dallas says, "God, I was so nervous about the butt chewing I was going to get from my Dad tonight." Leave dogs locked inside for the rest of the afternoon.

12:46 pm Call Dad and tell him whole Dog Saga. He's amused and gracious when I blame him and call Bridge "His Dog." He cheerfully acknowledges that he would have been no help in catching her even if he had been within 30 miles of the situation.

1:12 pm Arrive back at work and process checks that arrived in today's mail. Put together today's deposit, hurrying to get everything together and to the bank before 2. Getting hungry. Want to give Kristin big hug when she offers to bring me a sandwich.

1:39 pm Run out to car with Mischa to take deposit to bank. More blank clicking noises when key is turned in ignition. Then smoke wafting out from under hood of the car. And smell of burning plastic. Look at Mischa and say, "This is what it looks like when I'm about to have a freakout." She tilts her head. Go back in office, slam keys down, complain to anyone who will listen, wander around office in huff.

2:10 pm Finally gather thoughts enough to call CarMax and have car towed to their service department. Call extended service plan company and argue about rental car reimbursement policy. Extended Service Plan Company Man is both reasonable and correct. Give up fantasies of driving hot rental car for weekend.

3:40 pm Tow truck picks up car. Realize am now stranded at work with pitiful puppy with shaved tummy, and big messy grownup dogs locked in house.

4:02 pm Have remarkably reasonable and productive negotiation with sister re: Family Christmas Vacation and Dogs, and whether or not those topics can coincide peacefully. Also discuss hypothetical sister tattoo ideas. Does not go over as well.

4:48 pm Arrange ride home with Brandes, guardian angel of desperate rides home with post-surgery puppies.

4:52 pm Spray air freshener in bathroom to be polite. Spend next fifteen minutes listening to Weird Computer Coworker complain about how bad the air freshener smells. Loud. Without stopping. Complaints. Want to point out worse alternatives.

5:12 pm Spend last twenty minutes in the office scrolling through I Can Has Cheezburger slide shows. Feel much better. Laugh out loud.

5:23 pm Have text message exchange with Chris Crofton about possibility of organizing Evel Knievel Memorial Poetry Reading.

5:33 pm Picked up by Brandes. Realize trying to carry too much stuff. Including puppy.

6:31 pm On couch surfing YouTube with puppy on my ankles and kitty on my lap. Realize it's all going to be okay. Eventually evict puppy and kitten to go into kitchen and start chopping vegetables for Favorite Sicilian Pasta. To which we add sliced sauteed andouille sausage tonight, just to be gross and delicious.

7:43 pm Settle down with dinner, Boo, many pets, first season of 30 Rock from Netflix. The day drains out of me as I'm filled with laughter, joy, comfort, home.

curse of the mute

One day left in NaBloPoMo, and I can't make myself even finish my 100 things from Tuesday. I don't have anything to say. Another day stuck at home with lazy dogs and hammers and classic rock on the radio outside the back door. Carpenters arrived at 6:45 this morning and left after 4. With no painting even started inside, and still two sides of the house left to finish.

Really, I just miss my little black pup. We can pick her up at 8:30 and Austin suggested we get there at 8:29.

Happy Birthday, Best Badness!

house update

This week started like the last five: without a word from contractors. No gutters, damaged siding and cracked plaster in the blue room, still. Then yesterday morning I got a call: they had finally stopped trying to find siding to match the pale blue (faded from baby blue, my guess) of our house. So we got to pick out a new color for our house, with very little notice. While waiting to meet a guy at the house with some color samples to choose from, we drove around the neighborhood and looked at houses we like, and decided to go with a darker color, since we already have white trim. And lose the black shutters.

We picked a sage green. Then a few hours later they call and say that green would take 6 to 10 days to get in stock, and they'd rather start the work immediately. More samples delivered to our house at 7:30 am today, and the final choice was only slightly lighter/more gray than the original option. They started ripping siding off the front of the house immediately. I left them working on the front and side and went to work for a few hours, then had to head home in the afternoon to bring the dogs in so they could start on the back of the house.

The front is done and looks great. There is still part of the east-facing side of the house to finish, and the back and then the west side will be done tomorrow. They're also bringing blue paint (Royal Breeze by Behr) to finally fix the blue room. I warned them that it took us three coats. So I'll be working from home again tomorrow, getting caught up on contracts that have been neglected for a month, while there are workers climbing all over the house and hopefully finishing up by the end of the day.

Here is the sad part: Mischa goes in for her lady parts operation early in the morning... and they keep her over night. I have to pick her up Friday morning and I'm taking her to work with me so she can rest and not rough house. This all makes me want to cry. I don't want to be home all day tomorrow without her, and I can't stand to think that she's going to be weak and pitiful when I see her again. I keep hugging her too tight when I think about it, and she squirms and looks at me like I'm crazy.

And Dad is picking up Big Ingrid tomorrow and taking her back out to his house. Bridgitte is going to stay and we'll see how the little girls do, just the two of them, for a while. I think they're going to have a good time, but if any of the bad behavior starts, or if Ingrid seems unhappy out at Dad's by herself, we'll reassess. Just having the two small(er) dogs will make our lives easier over xmas, when we're gone for over a week, first to Kansas and then to a cabin at Center Hill Lake with the sisties/husbands/Mom/Kam. We have a tentative housesitter lined up while we're gone, and I can't TELL you what a relief this is. The thought of scheduling 8 days of petcare with friends, or sending the dogs elsewhere, or even kenneling, was too much to even deal with.

Now if only I can figure out a New Year's Eve plan that somehow makes everybody happy AND get the Book Club Christmas Party details nailed down, maybe I'll be able to take a deep breath and possibly pick up the next guilty Scottish historical romance that is collecting dust on my bedside table.

100 Things (part 1 of 2)

Nobody has tagged me for a meme yet. Ahem. So I'm just going to do one that I've seen. And maybe tag some folks at the end and you have to make it all the way through to know! Or, you know, scroll down.

1. I was born in Los Gatos, CA, which means "the cats" in Spanish. I feel that this obviously influenced my future as a pet obsessive.
2. My middle name (Mae) came from my father's mother (Hazel Mae) and my aunt on my mom's side (Dorothea Mae)
3. If I hadn't been named Delaney, I was going to be Jessi.
4. When I was a kid I named all my stuffed animals after fabrics. Grosgrain, Velour, Cashmere, Gingham...
5. I also had a unicorn named Una, a flat brown dog named Walden, and my favorite dolls were Rosie and Dolly.
6. I worked at Sonic as a cook my senior year of high school.
7. While working at Sonic, my favorite thing to eat was a chili pie with a limeade.
8. I invented a chicken salad while working at Sonic, by frying and chopping a chicken breast and making a plate of lettuce with the honey mustard sauce as a dressing.
9. And occasionally I would fill a cup with the chopped Heath bars (for Blasts) and eat it with a spoon.
10. I worked there because the boy I liked worked there. The best days were when he and I were assigned to make onion rings together. It was really sexy.
11. The only movie I ever walked out of: Blade.
12. The first movie I remember seeing as a child: Mary Poppins. It was coming on the Disney Sunday Movie, and before the movie I snuck into Casey's bedroom and climbed up into her crib and took the Triaminic orange liquid medicine and took a swig. I thought it was candy. Thus began my lifelong habit of inappropriate treats (and high levels of them) during movies.
13. During my freshman year of college, I had been waiting with excitement for weeks for Interview with a Vampire to play at the double screen movie theatre in town. Opening night I went and stood in line with all the hip kids (well, both of them, and I was too scared to talk to them) and when it came time to buy the ticket, I opened my mouth and said, "One for The Santa Clause please." To this day I don't know why I said that. But I stuck with my gut and went in and watched The Santa Clause with an auditorium full of chattering kids and I admit I really enjoyed it. I saw Interview later that weekend with my boyfriend.
14. I made Casey tell me the ending to The Sixth Sense because I never plan on seeing it but want to know why everybody talks about how shocking the ending is.
15. I also made my friend Dani tell me the scariest parts and ending to I Know What You Did Last Summer, so I could watch it for the Ryan Phillipe eye candy without freaking myself out.
16. In my entire life, I think I have mowed the lawn twice. I hate it. I have always managed to negotiate or bribe my way out of it. When we were kids, I would trade one of my sisters an entire week's worth of chores in exchange for a single lawn mowing.
17. On the other hand, my favorite chore growing up was unloading the dishwasher.
18. I think that is tied in to the fact that I love unpacking after traveling. I do it as soon as we come home. Putting everything away in its place = gratifying.
19. When I clean the bathroom, I sing a song about Scrubbing Bubbles being my best friend.
20. We didn't get an allowance when we were kids. We got paid for chores. 10 cents for unloading the dishwasher. Fifty cents for vacuuming the house. A quarter for cleaning the catbox. My friend Margaret used to mock this system. In fact, she still mocks it. She can't believe 10 cents was any kind of motivator. But for me, 10 cents was a box of Red Hots. Totally worth it.
21. In 2nd grade, we had a fundraiser for school where we sold chocolate bars. I ate all the chocolate bars and hid the box and the order forms in my stuffed animal cart. I eventually got in big trouble.
22. We would give our neighbor Johnny money to buy cigarettes if he would also buy candy for us at Lovett's Market. We weren't allowed to go up there so he would take one of our bicycles and our very specific orders for Lik-M-Aid and banana Now-N-Laters.
23. One of the first times our parents left us alone at the house, Jenny and I snuck and rode our bikes up to Lovett's (to buy candy). When we were getting off our bikes, we saw a filthy tiny orange kitten coming towards us across the parking lot of the gas station. We squealed and then a car ran over it. We turned around and rode straight home and cried the whole time and didn't say a word. I remember sitting in my bedroom with a fan on my face and I couldn't stop crying, and I couldn't even tell my parents what happened because we weren't supposed to be at Lovett's in the first place.
24. My parents used M & Ms to bribe me during potty training.
25. I don't like peppermint candies. I never have, but my father's habit of leaving them, half-sucked, in random places around the house did not further them in my affections.
26. My sisters and I played a very random wrestling game when we were kids. Two of us would stand at opposite corners of the room (always the upstairs living room) and the third would be the referee and pretend to ring the bell and then we'd wussily pin each other to the floor and giggle a lot.
27. Once Jenny and I got in a food fight that involved flour and, eventually, lotion.
28. We liked to pretend to be bartenders and slide beverages or food down the table to each other like Sam on Cheers. Once I slid a plastic cup of yogurt too fast, and it hit the wall and exploded.
29. We played a game called Shadow Pictures in the summer. We would use dried red mud as chalk and trace our shadows from the streetlights onto the asphalt.
30. Our family had a tradition of doing jigsaw puzzles on New Year's Eve.
31. I saw John Wasdin pitch a perfect game for the Nashville Sounds in April of 2003. I went to the game after a really lame day at work, by myself. After 5 perfect innings, I called my dad and told him what was happening, and checked in with him after every inning. At one point he asked if we were all at the game, and when I told him I was there alone, I thought he was possibly going to cry from sheer pride. I kept score at that game, and have always meant to have Wasdin sign that scorecard (last year he was with the Oklahoma Redhawks).
32. I've seen games at 10 major league parks and three minor league parks, as well as at least three spring training games.
33. I learned to keep score to keep myself busy during Brandes' hardball league games. Left On Base is my favorite statistic.
34. I prefer to sit on the first base side, midway up the stands, just past the first base coach (Section G Row 11).
35. I think intelligent, well-researched heckling is possibly the best thing about baseball, and therefore the best thing about sports, period.
36. I am more likely to choose to eat at Red Lobster than fine dining on my birthday.
37. My future mother-in-law once complimented me on my ability to efficiently disassemble crab legs. It might have been the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.
38. I stole a red plastic crab tool from the Red Lobster in Jackson. It had a sawing blade on one end and a scraping scoop on the other.
39. I brought the crab tool with me to another Red Lobster, years later, and forgot to remove it from the plate when they cleared the table. I am still in mourning for this remarkable tool, but I like to think about how mystified the dishwasher was that night.
40. Turns out I don't need the crab tool anyway. I can eliminate a pound of snow crab legs with just a fork and my bare hands. And a big vat of clarified butter, of course.
41. My favorite ice cream when I was a kid was Purity Strawberry.
42. Once I tried mixing Purity Strawberry ice cream and cream cheese. I don't remember why I did this. It was not good. I think that is when that stopped being my favorite flavor.
43. My favorite flavor now is Movie Star at the Pied Piper Creamery on South 11th St. It's a lemon ginger custard and is so good it will make you roll your eyes back in your head.
44. I wore a pair of ice cream cone shaped earrings to the Basement last night and got compliments from two people.
45. I recently threw away an unopened gallon of Breyer's Peanut Butter Twix Ice Cream that had been in my freezer since my 29th birthday party (sorry Ali).
46. We had to go to bed after The Cosby Show, but my parents would let me lay on the top stair and listen to the theme song from Cheers before I had to go in my room and close the door.
47. The only time my Grandma Jansen ever spanked me was when she caught me watching Gilligan's Island in her bedroom after she had forbidden me to watch any more tv.
48. My family bought our first VCR in 1984. It was a Betamax and my dad took it back and exchanged it for a VHS after he realized that you couldn't find any tapes to fit the Betamax.
49. I ate dinner with my friend Cynthia and her family when I was in 2nd grade, and I was appalled that they kept the tv on in the living room (during Dallas) while they ate in the dining room. This was not how it was done in my house (and still isn't to this day).
50. When Garth Brooks did the live concert broadcast in approximately 1992, I screamed myself hoarse. Watching it on television.

I guess since I'm going with this pattern of five facts about each subject, I could use suggestions for the next 10 subjects so I can finish...

And I'm not really going to tag anybody. I'm the only person on the planet who genuinely enjoys stuff like this.