6 degrees of meme

So, Rob Lee of Unconventional Wisdom blog has seen fit in his eponymous redundancy (yeah, I like big words...what of it...) to tag me with the "6 random things about me" meme.

I feel like Phylis Dyler in a hippie costume on Laugh-In....totally not right for a hip kind of show. Hmmm, I guess the modern equivalent would be for McCain to appear on Saturday Night Live blinged to the tits in a satin track suit performing a gangsta rap about getting repeatedly dusted at the Hanoi Hilton. yo-yo-yo y'all

Anyway, I have been tagged by Rob (may your beans increase) Lee and, after I list the 6 random things about me, I am to link to his blog and then tag six others so that they may do this too and there are some other details - rules to follow.

1. At the age of 53 I have started taking singing lessons.
2. I was born at the same location where my mother was born, in Edmonton. Her mother went to a "lying in" hospital (more like a small hotel with mid-wives included in the room service) located on the same property where, years later, the sprawling Royal Alex was built.
3. I don't like pickles or anything else preserved with vinegar except for sauerkraut.
4. I once cooked lunch for Peter Tosh and his retinue including band and back-up singers.
5. I don't drink but I swim like a fish that does.
6. I am one of probably 3 Canadians over the age of 6 who is unable to play Cribbage. Despite many tries, I can't remember the rules - every time someone tries to teach me it sounds like they're making it up as they go along: "15-2, 15-4, and a queen gives me 6 points - let's see, you have, um 15-2, 15-4 and, oh look, a red jack means you go back 10"...after a few hands I usually throw the cards in the air and yell "FIZZBIN" but no one else gets the Star Trek reference and I'm sent to room until I'm ready to play nice.

At this point I'm supposed to tag 6 people but I don't really know that many folk with blogs/pods AND Rob seems to have already tagged them.... Also, having been through a few years of talk therapy and told repeatedly by qualified professional (could tell she was a good shrink 'cause she was way more neurotic than most of her patients) to never participate in anything resembling a chain letter or I'd blow up in a cloud of tics and insecurities.

But because I've agreed to this thing my overdeveloped sense of obligation insists I tag at least two people. So I here-in-after name firstly someone I'd like to find out more about (and who, being a fellow Catholic, I know he is obliged to forgive me for this trespass...) and secondly the one other person I know hasn't already been tagged...



1. Sean McGaughey, aka the Duct Tape Guy and musician extraordinaire with his For the Sake of the Song podcast and his latest most excellent venture Catholic New Media Roundup.

2. Mark Blaseckie, at his brand new see[sic] blog the technical genius of my life and original resident at Babas Beach (who plays by the rules and thinks I should tag 4 more people but I'll leave him with that challenge...)

And now, the rules that this is played by - suspiciously like Fizzbin, methinks...

• Link to the person who tagged you.
• Post the rules on the blog.
• Write six random things about yourself.
• Tag six people at the end of your post.
• Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
• Let the tagger know when your entry is up.