10 by 10, Part the Fourth

This is a cheap way to get ten facts about me for the day, but following Scrivener's lead, I present, complete with interlinear commentary,

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Crunchy Granola!

1. Crunchy Granola is 984 feet tall!

Well, not quite, although I am likely to forever be the tallest person in my immediate family.




2. Three seagulls flying overhead are a warning that Crunchy Granola is near!

Perhaps in some part of my subconcious (see points 5 and 6 in the first installment of ten). I do like three--it's fun to say, my wedding ring has three interlocking bands, prime numbers are cool. And I like seagulls. One of the sound/smell combinations that can take me back to childhood is the smell of rotting fish, the kind you smell at a marina, and the sound of gulls calling. My grandfather, who died when I was 8 or 9, used to take me to the marina in town and buy me Yoo Hoo sometimes. I still like Yoo Hoo because it reminds me of him. He was otherwise a pretty stern-looking man and I don't remember him playing much with us. But I loved being with him on the dock, drinking Yoo Hoo. And listening to the gulls.




3. If you don't get out of bed on the same side you got in, you will have Crunchy Granola for the rest of the day!

I do, I admit, have some odd personal rituals perfectly sensible habits of the sort this fact suggests. Like I get into bed the same way every night, pulling the covers up to a particular point on my pjs, moving my feet around just so. Like I pick my socks and underwear out before I pick any other part of my outfit. Socks and underwear make me happy, and I pick them to suit my mood (or encourage my mood, as the case may be. If I'm having a hard day, I pick a perky pattern or bright color.). My socks don't always match my outfits as a consequence, although Politica has excercised a salutary effect on my color matching. And I am secretly pleased (although how secret is something I write about here?) that Curious Girl picks her underwear first in the morning, too.




4. The porpoise is second to Crunchy Granola as the most intelligent animal on the planet.

Obviously wrong. Porpoises have the great good sense to live in more geographically desireable places than I do (with apologies to gentle readers with more of a love for the heartland than I possess).




5. During severe windstorms, Crunchy Granola may sway several feet to either side!

It is true, I am a fairly flexible, adaptable person. It's one of the things I like about myself. I have a good capacity to look at things from others' points of view. It makes me a good teacher and a good mother.




6. Baskin Robbins once made Crunchy Granola flavoured ice cream!

But it wasn't nearly as good as vanilla. Granola really goes better with yogurt. And I'm very happy we have an organic dairy nearby producing amazing yogurt. And two neighbors keeping chickens. Not bad for city life, eh?




7. Crunchy Granola can't drink - she absorbs water from her surroundings by osmosis!

I have gone through periods of my life where I have become a teetotaler for no particular reason (on and off in college it was another one of those philosophical criteria I seemed to need to create around me. Control issues? Not me, ha.) I regret that during one of those period I was in France for a semester.




8. Crunchy Granola can smell some things up to six miles away.

Some things, yes. I am not the person in the family with allergies, and thus it is up to me to determine when the cats are not using their litter boxes. More metaphorically, I am often pretty darn trusting and not apt to detect deceit very quickly. But I can tell at a distance when CG is trying to sneak my jewelry off my bureau.




9. Crunchy Granola has a memory span of three seconds.

Again, not entirely true, although I make a lot of memories via writing. I keep a weekly journal about Curious Girl (every Sunday, for the most part, I write a single page about what we've been doing in the past week with a focus on her activities/accomplishments/moods etc.) As I look back through it, I'm amazed at the daily things I've already forgotten. I also keep copious travel journals and have been working on-and-off on various family scrapbooks. So I do a lot to keep memories of various sorts alive. I am also very good at remembering students' names. If I do say so myself, I usually manage to impress my students with how quickly I remember their names (even if I spend much of the first class muttering names under my breath as I move about the room to achieve said feat).




10. It is bad luck to walk under Crunchy Granola.

And also bad luck to walk under Scrivener. English professors are not to be walked under, get it?

If you want to play yourself, visit:

I am interested in - do tell me about
herhimitthem