Friday, January 20, 2006

7 Meme and winter blahs

I think I've had the mindwinter doldrums the last few days, because I haven't felt like doing much except reading (Rita books mostly) and watching pointless movies. And that doesn't add up to much exciting blogging! But I've been meaning to answer a post Kelli made on her blog waaaay back on December 30 (wow--have I been in the doldrums THAT long?). The 7 Meme. So here goes.

7 things to do before I die:
1) Go to Tahiti (actually, most of these ended up being travel-related. This will stand in for all of them)
2) Learn at least the basics of a musical instrument (my disastrous elementary school experience with the piano doesn't count)
3) Learn some Italian (besides what you hear in the ladies' room at Macaroni Grill)
4) Remember to breathe!
5) Take surfing lessons (hopefully with some blond god on Tahiti)
6) One of those audited classes at Oxford (no, not Oxford, TX!)
7) Orlando!

7 things I cannot do:
1) Like Kelli, I can't watch the president on TV. Or listen to him on the radio. Just can't.
2) Get my grandmother to use her $4000 hearing aid, so she can actually hear us (no one can. Impossible)
3) Sing. Much as I would like to. My cats start howling at me when I try.
4) Fly a plane. Or sail a boat.
5) Cook a chocolate souffle
6) Pet a snake. Ew.
7) Watch most reality TV (except for Dancing With the Stars. Or Project Runway)

7 things that attract me to my best friends/significant others:
1) Intelligence
2) Curiosity
3) Acceptance
4) Caring-ness (is that a word?)
5) Compassion
6) Humor (a biggie--they need a sense of humor to put up with me!)
7) Their appreciation of Guiness

7 things I say most often:
1) "So, anyway..."
2) "If you would just do what I say..."
3) "**** computer!"
4) "OK then. Chapter One. Really this time"
5) "***slow driver!" (Note--I usually only curse when alone. But I do hate slow drivers)
6) "You're listening to the choice for classical music..." (at work)
7) "Abigail, stop it!" (I think that the dog must believe her name actually is "Abigailstopit")

7 books I love:
1) Gone With the Wind
2) Persuasion
3) Pride and Prejudice
4) Middlemarch
5) Laura Kinsale's For My Lady's Heart
6) Confederacy of Dunces
7) Killer Angels

7 movies I watch over and over:
1) Shakespeare in Love
2) Breakfast at Tiffany's
3) Romeo and Juliet (the Zeffirelli version)
4) Emma (Gwyneth Paltrow version--it's just so darn cute)
5) Phantom of the Opera (since I got the DVD for Christmas! OK, so the music sometimes gets on my nerves, but it does have #2 boyfriend...)
6) Gone With the Wind
7) Roman Holiday

People I want to join in (not 7--Kelli snatched most of them! If you don't have a blog, just list 'em here):
Kay and/or Bill
Megan
Cara
Betty

7 comments:

Cara King said...

Well, I don't have a blog, so I guess I'll list them here! Off the top of my head, so maybe not definitive: :-)

7 things to do before I die:
1) Go to Venice again.
2) Take my niece to England and show her why it's so cool!
3) read Tom Jones
4) become satisfied with my writing career
5) get in shape
6) learn to tap dance
7) get a really great Shakespearian role (e.g. Lady Macbeth)

7 things I cannot do:
1) stop falling down, apparently!
2) sing well
3) give up eating cheese
4) become happy with "alright", "alot", "comprise" used the modern American way, or "livid" as a synonym for angry. :-)
5) cease fearing bugs
6) spend lots of money on clothes
7) stop buying books

7 things that attract me to my best friends/significant others:
1) Intelligence. (Even when I was a child, my mother would say "Cara has no tolerance for stupidity." I know it's not a virtue, but unfortunately I think it's permanent!)
2) Sense of humor. (Including a certain tolerance for dark humor!)
3) They like me. :-)
4) They're not perfect.
5) They have similar interests.
6) They respect popular culture, but don't hate "high" culture.
7) They're caring people (or, as Amanda would say, "caringness.")

7 things I say most often:
1) "What was I saying?"
2) "He TOTALLY didn't have right-of-way."
3) "Totally," "as if," "majorly," or "WAY." (Sorry. You can take the girl out of the Valley, but...oh, you get the idea.)
4) "Good heavens, Gwendolen!"
5) "Why do they DO that?"
6) "The waiter's never going to refill my water, is he?"
7) "We never clean this place. We should clean it more often. We should clean it now. You wanna watch Battlestar Galactica?"

7 books I love:
1) Pride and Prejudice (Austen)
2) Black Sheep (Heyer)
3) Sweet and Twenty (Joan Smith)
4) Little Women (Alcott)
5) Charmed Life (Diana Wynne Jones)
6) Drowned Ammet (Diana Wynne Jones)
7) Half Magic (Edward Eager)

7 movies I watch over and over:
1) Shakespeare in Love
2) Persuasion (Amanda Root & Ciaran Hinds)
3) Grosse Pointe Blank
4) Singing in the Rain
5) Newsies
6) Fellowship of the Ring
7) Nightmare Before Christmas

Cara

Amanda McCabe/Amanda Carmack/Laurel McKee said...

LOL! "No tolerance for stupidity"? What I really hate is willful stupidity. Or people who are proud to be ignorant (like certain members of my extended family). Don't understand that at all.

And how could I forget "Persuasion"! I think I've seen that about 60 times...

Megan Frampton said...

I did this meme already--http://meganframpton.com/2005/12/i-was-tagged-by-amy-thanks-amy-so-here.html

although I would probably change my answers now. And I really don't have the travel bug--I think I like Brooklyn too much. Or I'm a big scaredy cat about being in foreign lands.

Amanda McCabe/Amanda Carmack/Laurel McKee said...

What do you think you would change, Megan?

Kelli McBride said...

Mandy,
You can't DO ORLANDO! Unless you are talking about Florida. Now, I'm putting my foot down (Oops, sorry Orly, you can kiss the other one now). It is a NEW YEAR, so Orly is mine again. You can DO Gerard Butler (though I agree - no singing).

Megan Frampton said...

I think my favorite books change from day-to-day. Today, for example, I would pick:

Loretta Chase, Lord of Scoundrels
Raymond Chandler, The Maltese Falcon
Jane Austen, Persuasion
Mary Balogh, Notorious Rake
Andrew Lang, Fairy Tales
Edith Wharton, House of Mirth
Charles Willeford, Cockfighter

I think I'd lose the Viehl and Stephenson books, at least today.

Betty S said...

The 7 Meme

Seven Things to Do Before I Die:
1 Write my books
2 Start a business
3 Read all the books I want
(It's my list. It doesn't have to be realistic!)
4 Travel More
5 Grow a successful veggie garden
(I have the blackest thumb in America. If I were a Pilgrim I would have starved to death the first year after I landed.)
6 Lose weight
7 Spend time with my grandchildren
(as yet unconceived)

Seven Things I Cannot Do:
1 Intentionally hurt people
2 Grow younger
3 Laugh enough or Love enough
4 Spend enough time with my family and friends
5 Have enough time to read
6 Spend enough time writing
7 Have a clean house
(You could move me into a mansion and I would quickly find a way to make it look like a storage closet)

Seven Things that Attract Me to My Best Friends (or significant other, etc.)
1 Sense of humor
2 Honesty
3 Tolerance
4 La joie de vivre
5 Compassion
6 Creative thinking
7 Dedication and Reasoned Loyalty

Seven Things I Say (or write!) Most Often
1 I love you
2 Shit
3 It's an adventure
4 How did that happen?
5 Is the internet down?
6 Write it on the grocery list.
(Or the variation, Was it on the grocery list?)
7 Let's go

Seven Books I Love
(There is no way humanly possible I can limit this without driving myself insane. I love them all equally so I will just list catagories.)
1 Romance (OKRWA Outlaws especially)
2 Science Fiction (Robert Heinlein "Stranger in a Strange Land". Also, Bradbury, Asimov, Arthur C. Clark, HG Wells, George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Kurt Vonnegut, )
3 Science (archeology, anthropology, astronomy, biology, psychology. Just about anything, really.
4 Poetry (From just about any period)
5 Spirituality, Philosophy, Self Improvement
6 Biography (My favorite form of fiction)
7 Current Events

Seven Movies I Would Watch Over and Over Again
(Okay I cheated. These are by 7 vague personally defined catagories instead of 7 movies. It is the tip of the iceberg and nowhere near complete)
1 Somewhere In Time (many couples have a song, my dh & I also have a movie)
2 Bull Durham, Dances with Wolves, Turner and Hootch, Jumpin' Jack Flash,
3 Pretty Woman, Sleepless in Seattle, You've got Mail, French Kiss, Out of Africa, Her Alibi, Runaway Bride,
4 An Affair to Remember, The King and I, Citizen Cane,
5 ET, Logan's Run, Mrs. Doubtfire, Tootsie, Close Encounters, From the Earth to the Moon Series, the 5th element, True Lies, Guarding Tess, The Banger Sisters,
6 Princess Cariboo, Oh Brother Where Art Thou ("I thought you was a toad!"), Second Hand Lions, Local Hero, Cats
7 Anything with Tommy Lee Jones, Robert Redford, Brad Pitt, James Garner, Richard Geer, Sean Connery, Kevin Bacon, Julia Roberts,