Tag!

I've been tagged by Deb to give you eight random facts about me...
I have to post these rules before I give you the facts.
Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog. But much like Sarah, the people I know who Deb tagged constitute the majority of the other people I know who blog. So…if you see this and are overwhelmed with the urge to share, go for it.

Random Fact #1:
My family lived in Pakistan when I was a child. When I was 29 years old, I went back to Karachi, Pakistan for work and ended up living less than two blocks from my old house.

Random Fact #2:
I can say “hello” and “thank you” in French, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, German, Vietnamese, Urdu, and Arabic.

Random Fact #3:
I am really happy about growing things in our garden, even if it’s just a bunch of herbs and some vegetables. I think that people (including me) too easily forget about where our food really comes from, and that’s a big loss – actually more dangerous than most people probably realize.

Random Fact #4:
I was vegetarian for a long time. Not vegan, but a lacto-ovo vegetarian (I ate eggs and dairy). And if you eat fish, seafood, chicken, or any other kind of animal – YOU ARE NOT VEGETARIAN. Not even kind of a vegetarian. That was my biggest freaking pet peeve. I’m not vegetarian anymore, but I still enjoy lots of vegetarian stuff. I just also enjoy steak.

Random Fact #5:
I used to ride horses when I was a kid and still love it, although I haven’t gone in quite a while. The last time I went was not a good experience (it was with an ex-, and when I got thrown off my not-fully-trained horse, narrowly missing a tree, he didn’t even try to ride over to see if I was okay, much less get off his horse.)

Random Fact #6:
I like to knit when I feel like I have the time, or when I think about it. It tends to take me a long time to finish anything because I generally don’t have the concentration to just sit down and do it, even though it's really relaxing, and I can work quickly.

Random Fact #7:
I talk in my sleep. In fact, I talk in my sleep with my eyes open, so the only clue that I’m not really conscious is the total nonsense coming out of my mouth. A couple of roommates and friends and (most recently) my husband have seen this, and it never fails to weird people out. It weirds me out, but mostly conceptually, because I’ve never witnessed it.

Random Fact #8:
Even though I am a very outgoing and talkative person, I recharge through silence. Spending time alone (or now, with Special K), just puttering around the house, reading a book, or something else that involves not talking. My favorite days in grad school were Sundays when I had no plans, because I would get up early to go grocery shopping, come back and clean my apartment from top to bottom, take a nap, make myself a nice dinner, and maybe watch a movie. All without saying more to anyone all day than “thank you” to the cashier at the grocery store. On a related note, I feel a sense of peace and contentment when the house is clean, the dishes are done, and the laundry has been washed and put away. I sleep my best when all those things are done, and it makes me happy.

Okay – in case any of you folks are reading this, I will tag:

Stef

Amy

Max

Jenny

Jen A.

Mmm, mmm

A good friend of mine, with whom I happen to work, and I took the opportunity to spend some time together today. We’re both working on the same project, which will be developed downtown and since we are writing a section that deals with the socioeconomic impacts of the project, we figured that we needed to actually go and see what’s around there, since we can. It’s fine to hypothesize a little more when you’re living in New York and writing about something in Florida or something like that – gather your data through phone calls and the web, etc.

But when you live right there, it’s just laziness that will prevent you from going. So we went.

It was actually very helpful from a project standpoint – we were able to draw some conclusions about local businesses and things like that. Plus, we spent a few hours out walking, which is always good (I just wish I’d worn better shoes), and we got to talk and spend time together, which we don’t get to do as much anymore. (We used to share an office. It was great. Not that I don’t like my current officemates, however – I’ve lucked out most times.)

We had wanted to go to Red Sage for lunch as a treat – it’s a Tex-Mex style restaurant near Metro Center and the Mall – very tasty, and not a place we get to go very often. And very not open right now. Not sure if it’s closed/closing or renovating or something else. But that was a disappointment. But luckily, Ceiba was on the next block. Ceiba is a Caribbean/Latin fusion restaurant, and hurrah for fusion. We sat down to some crispy baked flatbreads with a pumpkin seed puree that is supposed to be analogous to a Caribbean-style hummus. Whatever it was, it was good. I then ordered a pumpkin seed-crusted tilapia, served on a bed of roasted red pepper and sweet plantain puree, with a roasted corn relish. That did not suck at all. My lovely partner in crime had some pumpkin ravioli with sage and brown butter that was also very, very delicious. So we were two happy campers by the time we hit the streets again to head back to work.

I really want to go back. I think Special K would like the place, and I think I might like a cocktail next time – so we’ll have to see about that.

So yeah – Ceiba – lurve it.

Almost

There’s a word that we always do a find-and-replace search for in my office before we send out a document. It’s a good idea to do on general principles, but particularly with the type of work I do, and the type of things we discuss, it’s a very common typo that we’d prefer not to make. And I almost did it today:

EPCRA contains provisions for emergency planning as well as pubic education

Well, that would have been awkward, wouldn’t it?

Although, we did send a document out and after it was reviewed by many, many people, I was the only one who caught the EPA being defined as the Environmental Procreation Agency. (Fortunately, we cleaned it up before the client saw it for the second time.)

So really, I think that as long as most of the letters are correct, people’s brains will skip over those things without meaning to. But you hate to be the author when they don’t.

Say What?

So, in order to make my day a little more surreal, I was procrastinating a bit (that’s not the surreal part – that happens all the time), and perusing Special K’s and my wedding pictures online, deciding which ones were my favorites so that we could tell our photographer what we’d like to have put in an album.

Then, when I hit the “Next” button to continue to page through pictures from our reception, the page became something entirely different.

It was some kind of bizarre, militant Islamic site with a picture of a woman, veiled and waving a green martyr flag, with lots of Arabic writing and just enough English writing to get part of the point across.

Like you do.

I closed out of Firefox and was once again brought to “Team Jeen HaCKer”’s website when I went to the “Mandy and Keith” page that our photographer created for me.

So perhaps it’s just some loser hackers who have nothing better to do than mess with our wedding pictures (and why that should be a priority is beyond me). Or maybe this is just God’s quirky way of reminding me that I probably shouldn’t be procrastinating.

Love when he’s got a sense of humor…