Five things

Yep, I've been tagged. It's been a bit of a crazy week, so I'm a little late in the game to actually post my five things. For those non housebloggers out there that read the blog (are there non housebloggers who read the blog?), five things is something that is going around all the houseblogs. One houseblogger lists five things that others might not know about them, then tags five more housebloggers to tell five things. I was tagged by Jocelyn over at Chicago 2-Flat. (a great houseblog to check out, if you haven't already. Chicago 2-Flat was the first blog that I read (that Glenn actually pointed out to me) and the rest is history).

Anyway, my five things:

1. I have a bird phobia. I discovered this initially when I was in London during high school. (it's the nasty rodents with wings, pigeons, that really upset me). The ironic thing is birds seem to gravitate towards me as a result. When I was 5 one flew down the chimney flue. One flew into my house in high school. And now, we have a bird condo thing going on our back porch (not intentionally!). It's party central back there. With no exaggeration, there will be at least 10 birds hanging out at any given time. (until i furiously bang on the wall) .

It's also a real popular place to nest. (for those who think "oh, how cute" nesting over a staircase is pretty inconvenient). This is where we take our trash out. When birds are learning to fly, they need to take huge breathers on the stairs-that really complicates things.

2. I was an election lawyer in Wisconsin for the last presidential election. (oh, and with that, I'm also a lawyer). I went up that way to insure that all individuals legally entitled to vote were allowed to vote. (Wisconsin has some really open election laws allowing residents to register the day of). It was an extremely long day which was also sort of invigorating. (nothing like insuring that constitutional rights are protected). I furiously had to argue at the end of the night that some ballots be counted (including appealing to the head election judge of the State). Sort of funny because the one ballot I argued vociferously for was for the other guy. Oh, well. I'd like to be involved with cleaning up Chicago politics but don't know where to begin.

3. I walked down the red carpet at the Grammy's and fans screamed my name. They screamed Christina, to be exact. No, not actually screaming for me, but Christina Aguilera, who chose the same time to walk in. It was the first Latin Grammy awards. I won an all expense paid trip to go to the show in Los Angeles from a contest at a Latin club in downtown Chicago. My number was called, and I was promptly interviewed on a Spanish radio station. (I don't speak Spanish). The station was obviously upset that I won, but rules are rules-and they couldn't exactly discriminate against me. All and all the trip was fun-and really, how many others have people screaming their name when they walk down a red carpet.

4. I can make gourmet meals, but have a lot of problems with pancakes. (though supposedly I'm improving). We make some pretty good meals around here when we have a chance. (ie. Christmas Eve we had herb roasted beef tenderloin, cauliflower soup, scalloped potatoes, broccoli puree, homemade rolls and 8 kinds of Christmas cookies, all made from scratch, and perfectly timed so everything was served hot.) Now pancakes, made from a mix, I can't pour on and flip without some disastorous results. Case in point- the last pancake I made:

5. As Glenn says, my family is a banyon tree and his family tree is actually more like a small shrub. This created a fair amount of stress when we planned the wedding. See, Glenn's total family, cousins, aunts/uncles, not including himself or me, is 9 people. My mom, on the other hand, is one of nine. Glenn really wanted a small wedding-he suggested 50 (and I explained that would mean that he wouldn't be able to invite anyone). We settled on 100. It was agonizing to decide on my side that certain second cousins would not be invited. There was just a lot of stress around that (and really, Glenn wasn't the problem).

I'm going to have to get back to you about who to tag (and requests?) At this stage, I'm not quite sure who was missed...