I was tagged by Sharon Hurlbut to fill out the 10 Interesting Things Meme. Here are mine:
1. I took turns interviewing rock bands for both my high school and a local newspaper. I was fifteen when Foghat's Tony Stevens sent me home with a fifth of Courvoisier cognac for my father. That was my last interview...
2. I was proactive in establishing rights for women. I tried out for my high school AAA wrestling team and made it, then walked away; my only interest was in demonstrating that a girl should be allowed to compete if she were worthy. I was one of the first women in the United States Postal Service to work on the loading docks. The physical test included dead-lifting a 40-pound mailsack, standing up with it and walking twenty feet. I nearly blew my knee out lifting my test sack but I persisted and passed the test. Later I learned 120 pounds had been put in my test sack to ensure my failure.
3. I am the oldest of four children born within a five-year span. When I was eight, my mom started working 3-11 p.m. shift and I was responsible for the care of my three younger siblings plus our parents' cattery.
4. My parents ran a cattery (like a dog kennel, only with cats). They showed, bred, and raised primarily Siamese, with some Abyssinian and Persian thrown in for fun. We had as many as 250 cats at a time -- all in cages. Each cat had to be fed twice a day. They had litter boxes with un-scoopable litter. I smelled like "cat" every day of my life until after I moved away from home at age 18.
5. When I was twelve, my parents handed the cat's breeding program design over to me based on my affinity for genetics. Mi-Si-Am was a premiere cattery of its time. We churned out one grand champion after another and produced several world grand champions during my tenure as breeding director.
6. I lost my virginity when I was date-raped at sixteen. Months later my dad, best friend and I dressed in all-black clothes and snuck over to the guy's house. He had a car that he worshipped, a Dodge SuperBee. I put six frozen whole fish inside the SuperBee -- under the front seat where the heat vent blew, in the glovebox, etc. One week later, the driver's window was open two inches. Two weeks later, all windows were open a few inches. A month later, the windows were rolled completely down.
My best friend ran into the guy a year later. "Why don't drive the SuperBee any more?"
"Some son-of-a-bitch put rotten fish in it and ruined it."
Stupid man. They weren't rotten when I put 'em there...
7. I delivered each of my children expeditiously but James was the hands-down winner: twenty-five minutes after my first labor pain. His head delivered while I was in the car on the way to the birth center. It was so obvious to me that I assumed the midwife knew. She insisted I step up a ten-inch step into the birth center. "I can't!" "You have to!" "I can't, Laura!" "You have to, Ginger!" So I did.
Once inside the birthing room, she removed my baggy slacks and gasped, "Oh my god, how did you walk up that step?" I looked at her like she was nuts and said, "You told me that I had to, so I did."
Grandma always did say you could do anything you had to do. I believed her...
8. I used to augment my nursing salary at times by doing private duty. A local Mafia boss's family needed a private nurse to sit with him until morning, allowing no police or anyone else to enter his room. He had supposedly dropped his shotgun; it had discharged, shooting him in the knee. I cared for him through the night and eventually convinced him even *I* didn't believe his story. Grateful, in the morning he invited me to visit his restaurant for a slice of his wife's blueberry pie.
I took a raincheck.
9. I hate people to hold my wrist. During my younger, wilder days, I knocked out two guys who grabbed me and wouldn't let go. The Italian bouncer in one local dance club said, "Ginger, please come to me for help. It doesn't look good when the girls knock out the men..."
10. An hour after returning to my hospital room following extensive surgery for "terminal cancer," I swung my winter coat around my shoulders and wheeled my morphine pump/IV pole outside to smoke a cigarette. That was 1999. I still smoke; the cancer's gone.
I tagged Richard Cooper over at Satori Kick. Be sure to check out his 10 Interesting Things meme! ~~GHC
