I received an award

I received an award from Heather the other day.  Its the first award anyone's given me and I was caught off guard.  I appreciate it, but still I stared at it for awhile.  And thought about it for awhile longer. This is what I do, even if it does not come out in whatever I write.  I tend to think about things.  Not important things so much, just things.

So anyway, if I understand correctly (a big if), I'm supposed to list 7 things about myself and pass it on.  I don't know about passing it on - I mean who am I to give someone an award?  Most blogs I read are a lot more involved & require a lot more work & insight than mine does.   I don't feel qualified, so I may pass on that part of it.   (Pass on passing it on.  I was reading this over and that struck me as humorous).

But anyway - here's 7 things about me anyone who reads this may or may not know.

1)  I am 6 feet 2 1/2 inches tall, more or less.  For the rest of the world that's 1.88 meters, give or take, I reckon.  I'm going on what a conversion program tells me, I'm not fluent in metric.  I have basic conversational abilities in metric, I could go into a metric restaurant & get something to eat, find my way around a metric town without too much problem, buy some metric groceries perhaps, but I'd have problems with metric dialects or regionalisms.  I know miles per gallon pretty well, but kilometers per liter just freaks me out.   At any rate,  I'm  taller than average, but not freakishly so....1.88 meters sounds small to me, but I'm sure that's just my provincialism showing through.

2) I spent 7 interesting years in the US Army.  Looking back on it, I had a complete disconnect between what my job was, and the extreme amount of danger the tactical portion of it could have placed me in, given the right conditions.  Being young & inexperienced probably had something to do with that.

3) I'm conflicted about whether I'm a dog person or a cat person.  I have one of each.  And even though Pickles the Dog gets more words in this blog than does Snowchief the Cat, Snowchief has been around for about 17 years now, and is much more affectionate than Pickles.   Pickles is more "needy" than Snowchief, but that's only because Snowchief couldn't give a flying you know what about what you think about anything.  He's a cat.

4) In 1990 I bought an entry level Saab 900 3-door hatchback, and proceeded to put over 250,000 miles on it during the next ten years.   I miss that ol' Saab.

5)  I have a sense of humor, sometimes it shows.

6)  My favorite book is "Life: A User's Manual" by Georges Perec.  Its translated from French into English, and I feel a bit lesser for the fact that I cannot speak or read French.  I hate depending on translators, 'cause you have to depend on them for all the nuances & cultural references and stuff.   I have tons of trouble with Kafka, more than any other author on earth just about.  I just have trouble following his stories and logic, and I've always blamed myself, my own limitations.  But what if its the translator, not me?  Yeah, that's the ticket.   Dumb ol' translators.

7)  I'm married to Patti Anne, sometimes referred to as Miss Patti.