Aaack! I’ve been tagged!

I know this is a writing blog and, for the most part, not a personal blog. But what can I do? I’ve been TAGGED by my daughter Karah!

So if you want to learn a few random things about me, read on! And if you don’t, that’s cool. Just come back another day to read more about writing.

Here are the rules :

And here are seven trivial facts about me. Are you ready?

1. I lived in Mexico City till I was six.

My family moved there when I was two because my dad and my uncle opened a chain of Tastee-Freez restaurants. Spanish was my second language; wish it had stuck better.

2. I’m a grammar geek.

I don’t mean to be. I don’t read church overheads or websites or signs in windows with the intention of picking apart the spelling, grammar, or punctuation. Honestly. But sometimes it’s like a neon light that glows against a black sky, and I can’t help but notice.

So I finally created an outlet for this distraction of mine: Twice a month I blog about bad signage for Wordless Wednesday. Serious fun.

And along those same lines…

3. I’m a word geek.

Scrabble, Scramble, Boggle, crossword puzzles, anagrams—I love word games! Though my husband does enjoy crossword puzzles, and he’s a big Sudoku fan, he isn’t especially fond of word games, so sometimes it’s hard to find someone to play along. I have Boggle installed on my computer. A 3-minute game used to provide a perfect little break in the middle of some tedious task. But a couple of months ago, along came Facebook. Aaack! It opened up a whole new world of word games, not to mention friends to play with. I tell you, it takes real discipline to “just say no”!

4. I had cataract surgery at 15.

Cataracts run in my family—not the typical old-age cataracts that people get in their 70s. Nope. These show up during adolescence. As an added bonus, I passed ’em down to two of my kids. What can I say? We’re special.

5. I’m scared of heights…but selectively.

Yes, I would definitely say I’m afraid of heights. Even so, I’m not always freaked out about being in a high place. There’s actually a fairly clean line between what wigs me out and what doesn’t. For instance, I’m OK standing at the window of a very tall building. I actually like looking down and seeing cars and people in miniature! I’m also OK sitting at the top of a Ferris wheel or ski lift or standing at the rail of a scenic canyon vista. And I have absolutely no problem with airplanes. Give me a window seat any day—I love looking down on the world from 40,000 feet!

For some illogical reason, heights don’t bother me when I’m sitting. But what gives me the willies is looking between my feet through the gaps in a bridge and seeing the water so far below. The bottoms of my feet tingle and my stomach flip-flops in a most alarming fashion. Another super-scary thing is to walk on a metal floor grid where I can look waaaay far down. I just don’t do well when I can see through floorboards or mesh. And forget standing at the edge of a high place when there’s no railing. I’m outta there!

6. Once I locked myself out of the house while cleaning windows.

No big deal, right? Except that I was on the roof of our two-story house. Now put this together with No. 5 and, well, you’ve got a winning combination!

7. I was a huge Monkees fan during junior high.

• Nothing could tear me away from the TV screen when their show was on.

• I got to go to a Monkees concert at the Hollywood Bowl. I don’t remember hearing much of the music, though. Why listen to the songs when we paid good money to jump up and down and scream?

• In 8th grade, I went to an auto show at the Anaheim Convention Center. And certainly not because I cared a whit about cars in general. It’s just that one particular car would be on display—Mike Nesmith’s own personal vehicle—which is probably, when you think about it, the only way to get a 13-year-old girl to an auto show in the first place.

• I still have a few of my Tiger Beat and Monkees Spec magazines from 1967. Yeah, I’m a dork.

OK, wasn’t that fun?

I’d love to learn something new about you!