Five Things…

OK, so it’s a bit 2006, but Carol Ross tagged me a month ago with this blogger’s meme going around, and I’ve been slow on the draw to give you 5 things you probably didn’t know about me.  So, here it goes:

1) I’ve been driven to make a difference since I was a kid.  As a child, I planned that my grown-up job would be to reclaim strip mines.  I wanted to drive a VW minibus around filled with grass seed, bunnies and deer.  Not exactly sure where that idea came from – but I did spend much of the first 8 years of my life in rural Pennsylvania.

2) I’m used to rabble rousing.  At 11 years old, I made my first protest t-shirt – against Safeway supermarket.  They’d locked their dumpsters to deflect a dumpster-diving family friend.  The masses – however – were not induced to rioting.

3) I have a birthmark on my face.  Without the benefit of cosmetic alteration, half of the hairs on my right eyebrow and eyelashes are so light that it appears that I have only 1/2 an eyebrow.  You might be able to make it out in my photo over on the left.  But not to worry if you don’t:  my best childhood friend didn’t notice this about me for the first 15 years of our friendship.

4) I’m related to someone moderately famous.  A great uncle of mine invented the laminate ski.

5) I have a great memory for meals eaten, vacations taken, people’s birthdays, and other past events, but I’m not so great with the names of people I’ve just met.  The whirlwind of introductions and connecting in with someone new – sensory overload? – can take over and I lose the name.  So, if I blow it when I meet you, have pity on me, and tell me again, please!

I think every blogger I know or could tag has been tagged, so I’ll just stop the madness here!

How about you?  What’s something you’d share that most people don’t know?