tagged again

I was misguided. The last list meme I participated in was "20 random facts". This one is any number of quirky facts. (Thanks a lot, Chitty.) Last time I tried to do 20 quirky (or quasi-quirky) facts. No wonder it was so hard. And now I have to do it all again?! Just kill me now and save me the embarrassment.

1. I have a cowlick, and for most of my life have worn a toque after washing my hair to try and tame it.

2. Whenever I'm under stress I throw things out.

3. When I was in labour with my second son I didn't trust my mother-in-law to drive me to the hospital -- so I drove (and I insisted on having him in a hospital way across town).

4. Whenever I travel around Europe, everyone speaks German to me (I have that Teutonic look I guess). When living in Greece, the butcher where I used to shop insisted on speaking to me in German (for a whole year!) while I tried my pathetic and extremely limited Greek on him. We did not make much progress in our relationship, and ended up trying some very unusual cuts of meat...

5. I am a natural blond down to my eyelashes, and though I've never worn much makeup, I have not left the house without mascara since I was 14.

6. I was christened with two middle names, the second being Twynam. My grandfather's family's surname was originally Twynam-Leggatt, but they dropped the Twynam ... and I got it.

7. When I was a flat-chested 14 year old and my brother was a chubby 11 year old, he'd insult me by saying "My boobs are bigger than yours," and I'd counter it with "Your boobs are bigger than mine." (Fortunately we both outgrew our afflictions -- temporarily anyway -- but not our fondness for swapping insults.)

8. I speak very quickly -- but worked for several years as an ESL teacher. (Apparently I have an additional "teacher voice".)

9. I was given the nickname Didrooglie because I would sometimes fall asleep at parties (I'm a morning person, ok?!?) so Dale lifted the line "Didrooglie don't crash here" from David Bowie's Suffragette City. None of us knew at the time that the line is actually "ah! droogie don't crash here."

10. I am abnormally, even pathologically, attached to a pair of cheap "Fagin" gloves that I bought in London's Oxford Street too many years ago now to divulge (look up). I wear them throughout the winter, even in the house on chilly evenings. The bottoms/palms are all unravelling, my kids think it's funny to steal them and hide them on me, and I'm already panicking over the fact that they'll have to go to that great haberdashery in the sky one day.

I owe Carla one, though she must be listed out by now! I will also hand the reins over to Caroline, L'Oiseau, Calvin, and Tom ... and then run away with no forwarding address...