ah. I’ve been tagged by SouthernGirlMusings (quilter, seamstress, homeschooler, thinker extraordinaire) for the 8 Random things meme (strange word, that). Having no idea how these things work, I started by going through the directions there at SouthernGirlMusings and read through her nice complete list of 8 random things. And then I thought: ooo. I played field hockey & ran track. I love football too (GB Packers, married into it before I even liked it). I’m trying to crochet (the Posie ripple blanket or the granny afghan thing, whichever I can figure out first. I’m leaning towards the granny squares because of the portability), but I certainly couldn’t learn to do it in one weekend! So… I spent the holiday weekend trying to think of 8 interesting random things. I came up with zilch.
A meme is, by definition, an evolving force. So I took a few liberties. Here goes probably the longest list of 8 not-so random things ever:
1) My sweet husband and I met on a blind date. Where we ate chocolate covered grasshoppers at a food festival in Santa Monica. We married almost exactly 1 year later. (Again, not so random. I think 17 out of the 18 readers of this blog know this already. 
)
2) I spent my first year of law school at the now infamous Regent Law School in Virginia. Which wouldn’t be so random, except that the also infamous Monica Goodling – aide to the (still) current Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez – was in my class that year and I cannot for the life of me remember her! Maybe she transferred in the year I left? Even more random: after nearly 10 years, I heard from a sweet old Regent Law friend a few weeks ago who drove all the way from Alabama to California last week & visited with my family for 4 days. When it rains…
I am not a Regent alum (finished up at Pepperdine, close to family), however I must mention two things in her defense (since the press is trying to strip her of all credibility merely by labeling it “Pat Robertson’s school”):
a) my first year there was many times more challenging (academically) than my last two years at Pepperdine, (a much higher ranked school). They really are trying to prove something out there. They actively weed out the 1st year class to keep the top students. And I only saw Pat Robertson once. When I visited the building where his show is filmed.
b) the 10 minute “devotions” so often referred to in the press these days is misleading a bit: this first 10 minute “inspirational” period was in addition to the 50 minute class the ABA requires at every other school. Every class was 60 minutes long. Also, not every student considered themselves a protestant Christian. There was a very interesting mix of people there when I attended, and political debates were heated and frequent. The only common denominator worth commenting on is the code of ethics. Every student had to sign a contract with the school. This meant mostly that you weren’t allowed to drink. At all. Ever. Until you graduated. That wasn’t why I left, really.
That said, I did find it difficult to understand why such a large proportion of Regent graduates ended up in the Bush administration. That is until I remembered how nearly every body gets a job in any administration: they know someone. Obviously someone from Regent was connected. Not that uncommon, except that this time it was from a very conservative school. Oh, and for some reason this piddly little law school is producing some stellar moot court competitors that are beating the ivy league schools right and left. Every single one of them.
Whew. I feel much better having cleared that up. For the two readers who care about such things.
3) I used to resent environmentalists. In all forms. “I believed in stewardship”, I would say, “but people come before plants.” Shocking I know. And I’m embarrassed to admit it. But I’m being pulled into all that is green.
I still think we should drill in the barren Alaskan wilderness (actually think it might help the struggling economy in that party of the country).
So I’m still not an environmentalist by any stretch of the imagination. But I am going green. Very, very slowly. I want to limit the amount of paper towels/plates/consumables we use in our house. I want to recycle (very 1990 I know, but for me a huge step). I want to use green cleaning products or make my own. I want to limit pesticide use and buy a Prius someday. I even want a composting bin in our backyard. My husband won’t allow that last one yet, but he’s on board for everything else.
And all these little baby steps towards green-ness? A direct result of the blogs I’ve read this year. Many of them liberal, all of them well-intentioned, but mostly, this one: That’s Swell. She has some super simple ideas for living more thoughtfully. And she lives in Wisconsin. I kind of laughed at the suggestion that I wait until our dishwasher and washing machine are full before we run them. I wish I had that problem. It seems they are both full to overflowing 3 times a day in our family. But I think that’s okay. It just means I’m trying to cut back on the paper towels and plates.
4) I’m painfully shy in large groups of people. Parties are pure torture for me, unless they are really really small and I know everyone.
5) I love the mountains. If we didn’t have family in Wisconsin, I think Telluride, Colorado would be our favorite spot. I sure wish I could figure out the snowboarding thing. I’ve been a dozen times or more and still come back with a sore bum every time. Which leads me to my next one…
6) Last month I ran into Shaun White’s mom. At Target. And talked to her for 15 minutes about how wonderful it is to have a surprise redheaded child. She didn’t mention until the very end of our conversation that her redheaded child just happened to be a gold medal snowboarder! Now that was totally random.
7) All I’m dreaming about lately is this:
and this:
Our annual Wisconsin summer trip is only 4 weeks away… and we can’t wait.
We are all ready for the beach here in California, but the weather isn’t quite right yet… they call it May Gray or June Gloom down here. I’m all for cloudy, moody kind of weather… just not this time of year. That’s okay. I guess that gives me a few more weeks to shape up with my yoga booty ballet dvds.
I have my first monkey baby. Lauren is climbing up on everything. This is her lowest perch at the moment:
And here’s the hard part. Who to tag? It seems all the blogs I frequent have already been tagged in some way in the past week or two… so if you’re a blogger, consider yourself tagged! (And leave your url in the comments so I can come and visit you!)
Another picture of our princess just because… I want to display our lovely air conditioner.
