8 Random Things, a meme

Playing along with this meme from BiV and JourneyGal:

1) I have difficulty with auditory discrimination. Meaning that if I have several incoming sounds my brain can't prioritize the sounds very well and I don't end up hearing much of anything. So chatting in crowded restaurants is tough and I usually sit at the front of classrooms. It also means that I have a really hard time "hearing" the words of songs or movie dialog. If I like a song I search out the words and I watch movies with the subtitles on.

2) I rarely wear nail polish although I like the idea of wearing it. My favorite color of polish is pale pink. I have strong fingernails that I can easily grow out very long.

3) Like most other people in my family, my second toe is longer than my big toe.

4) Until about 5 years ago I hated cats. I thought they were whiny, annoying, and they made me sick (quite literally, because of severe allergies). I resented my friends (and my sister) who liked cats. Now I am a zealous cat lover and the allergies are gone. Nearly every day I cuddle my kitties, sing them songs, and feed them their favorite treats. I find them an endless source of joy and delight.

5) Until about 5 years ago I hated chocolate. I liked chocolate-flavored things like cake, but hated the taste and texture of chocolate itself (PayDay was my fav candy bar because of its lack of chocolate). Yet at some point I got some very fine dark chocolate and fell head over heels. Now I don't do milk chocolate and I only eat fine (as in 73% or above) organic dark chocolate. I almost always have a bar in my cupboard and nibble away at a few squares of chocolate per week.

6) I can touch my tongue to the tip of my nose. And I can do "the wave" with my eyebrows. I can also wiggle my ears--even one at a time.

7) Vanilla is one of my favorite smells. I am particularly fond of The Body Shop's vanilla body spray and of Yankee Candle's French Vanilla scent.

8) In the spirit of BiV's "famous-people" list, I'll add a few of my own. I've already written about my relationships with the Broncos. During my cancer treatments I had a few other brushes with famous folks, including Kenny Loggins. At a summer camp for cancer patients I took a drama class from an actress on the then-popular show "Hill Street Blues." When I was a college student I dated a Japanese Chippendales dancer a few times (my roommate was dating his best buddy so we frequently went out together or hung out at our apartment). That was an 'interesting' experience--the hubris of someone who carried 8x10 glossies of his (mostly naked) self at all times. Yah.