The Memes Stop Here

Have you noticed that this blog is where memes go to die?

It's nothing personal, of course - I'm always pleased to be tagged. But even when there is nothing blogworthy going on in my life, I can't seem to get around to completing what amounts to a cyber homework assignment.

I believe the term is, "lazy."

But the memes, they haunt and taunt me from the musty confines of my drafts folder. And so I am going to knock one out right here, right now - the "Six or Seven Random Facts About Me" meme, for which I was tagged by Melissa, Michele, and Candy sometime in the last century.

Three birds, one stone, people. Let's roll.

1. As a sixth grader, I won the "President's Physical Fitness Award" for, among other spectacular feats, hanging from the monkey bars in chin-up position for fifteen minutes. I still remember my entire class forming a half-circle around me and chanting, "Go Rima! Go Rima! Go Rima!"as I dangled nonchalantly above a pile of wood chips and mulch for what seemed like hours on end. It was a proud moment for Ronald Reagan and the United States of America.
   
   
2. I can pick out any basic melody on the piano without sheet music, and do so at every opportunity. As you might imagine, this makes me a most welcome Christmas party guest. While I'm up at the baby grand, picking out "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" with one hand, I will also be sure to plunk out "Chopsticks," the first few measures of "Fur Elise," one measure of "Sonata in C," as well as that spectacularly annoying ditty whereby one rolls one's fist loudly and repeatedly up and down on the black piano keys ad nauseum.
   
   
3. I cheated on my pregnancy glucose tolerance test by extending the time in which I imbibed the orange sugar beverage to seven minutes (instead of the recommended five), dumping exactly one ounce of unfinished liquid in my kitchen sink, then raising my heart rate by vacuuming the entire house in ten minutes flat before reporting to the clinic for my blood draw. I am the ultimate rebel and proof that the honor system does not work.
   
   
4. In retaliation for her staged hanging of my teddy bear, Puputis, from our dorm room's curtain rod (as well as other various offenses), I anonymously sent my freshman year college roommate/nemesis toenail clippings through campus mail, along with a menacing ransom style note.
   
   
5. I have never read anything by Jane Austen.
   
   
6. I competed in my state's spelling bee as an eight grader and lost on the word, "license." To this day, I cannot read or hear this word without mourning my missed opportunity to score a color TV and Encyclopedia Britannica set.
   
   
7. I am the number one Internet authoritay on "nostril skin tags." Go ahead and google it, my peeps.
   

I love reading random facts about my bloggy friends, so if you read this, consider yourself tagged.

Artsy Fartsy Thursday Thirteen

It's a wonder I haven't done Thursday Thirteen before because I love me a list. I make To Do lists every day, complete with a check box next to each item.

When a task has been completed, I put a check in the corresponding box and then I rewrite the list, minus the completed item. This is called a neurosis.

Today's list is brought to you by Stuff Hanging On My Walls:

1. Owl Girl


The P-Dawg gave me this print for my birthday last year. It's by a Japanese printmaker named Akiyama. It is my understanding that owls give a lot of people the heebie-jeebies, but I love them, at least when they are only one dimensional. The owls in this print are supposed to be protecting the girl with a single red earring.

2. Crate and Barrel Tea Light Holders



3. Guy With Blue Hat


This is a Japanese print the P-Dawg gifted to himself.

4. Flowers


My parents gave us this painting as a wedding gift. It was done by a relative of mine, whose name is Rimas. You read correctly! A bit of trivia: You can make almost any Lithuanian girl's name into a boy's name by adding an "s" at the end. You are most welcome.

5. February


Art for the month of February on my kitchen calendar. If you suspect that each day has been crossed out up to the 21st, you guessed correctly.

6. Frank Lloyd Wright Chair


A framed poster from my old office. Ugly.

7. The Moon in the V-Meister's Room


An eerily real looking moon that can go through all of the lunar phases with the click of a remote control button. Leaving the remote controller in your pre-schooler's room overnight is not recommended.

8. Curious George Triptych



9. Yet Another Japanese Print


10. Flea Market Find


11. Wedding Day


12. The One and Only Cross-Stitch I Have Ever Done


I did this when I was ten or so. By force.

13. Pots and Pans


Why did I think it would be fun to post thirteen photos that take ONE LIFETIME to upload to Blogger? The V-meister is now ready to begin completing college applications and all I have to show for it is a Thursday Thirteen meme of stuff from my hut. Huh.

Tou-shay

The P-Dawg and I got on the subject of memes tonight.

P-Dawg: "I think you're pronouncing it wrong. I think it's pronounced, 'Me!Me!'"

Me: "I always thought it was pronounced "mem," like the French word that means "same."

P-Dawg: "I don't think the French even know how to get on the Internet." (You must understand that, back in our dating days, I broke up with the P-Dawg to go live in France for a year. But I don't think he's ever been a fan.)

According to the research I conducted on the world's foremost authority on everything, the word is pronounced "meem" and originates from the Greek, "mimeme" (something imitated).

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My 100th post came and went last week, and it was about puke.

But Miss tagged me for this blogging meme today, which seemed easy and fitting enough in light of my 100 post landmark for me to give it a stab.

How long have you been blogging? Not quite six months.

What inspired you to start a blog and who are your mentors? I discovered that any fool could get a free blog on Blogger, and that was enough to inspire me to foist my thotz upon the world at large. But once I started writing, I realized that I very much enjoyed painting what I see as my quotidian existence in a humorous light. One of the first "journal" type blogs I discovered was, of course, Dooce, soon followed by Suburban Bliss and Oh, the Joys. Of the three, I'm sure it comes as no surprise that OTJ was/is a mentor figure.

Are you trying to make money, or blogging just for fun? Just for fun, but I've entertained the thought of trying to earn a monetary reward. My husband thinks I'm crazy for not slapping up an ad or two. I tell him I could probably find more change in the couch cushions than I could ever make from blogging, but we'll see.

What three things do you love about blogging?

1. Before starting to blog, I was a very private citizen of the Internet, lurking on a few pregnancy and parenting message boards, but never jumping in. I thought I was too private a person to do that. I didn't realize that I would end up feeling so connected to my bloggy friends, and that has been the most rewarding part about it.
2. Stuff I write looks pretty in "published" form.
3. There are people out there who read my posts and leave comments! This makes me infinitely happy.
   

What three things do you struggle with?

1. Feeling as though I "can't keep up."
2. Feelings of inadequacy for posting mainly cotton candy in the face of so much thought provoking and gorgeous prose in the blogging circles I frequent.
3. The occasional fleeting sense that I am back in high school. And I'm wearing headgear.

I think I'll tag MamaGeek for this one. And, of course, anyone else who's interested - this meme is yours for the taking.

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Yes, I've been playing with my banner again. I can't help myself. However, I think this one might be a keeper, at least for awhile.

The J-dog is now healthy and no one else has fallen prey to the puking illness. (I am fully aware that I have just jinxed myself. What is the statute of limitations on this bug's incubation period, anyway?)

Making a Post Out of Nothing at All

Works for Mom tagged me for this meme in which I am commanded to disclose seven things about myself. I'm not sure how I feel about memes, in general, but I surely cannot resist replacing my usual Rima-centric blather with blogger sanctioned Rima-centric blather:

1. I speak fluent Lithuanian. (Vee are smoll Eastern European country, size of the Virginia. Vee have the Baltic amber. Very pretty, you like? Take! Take!) Never ask a Lithuanian if the language is anything like Russian. She will kick you in the shins and run away faster than you can say "Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact."
   
   
2. On my twenty-third birthday, which fell on the twenty-third of the month, a seagull crapped on my head. I decided to take it as a good omen.
   
   
3. The only movie I openly cried at in the theater was E.T. I loved that little guy.
   
   
4. If you want to embarrass me, ask me to count back change. Can. Not. Do it.
   
   
5. I cannot fall asleep without my white noise machine. It must be set to "spring rain", never mind the torrential downpour outside.
   
   
6. I played with Barbies until I was about fourteen. I remember listening to U2's Joshua Tree album while decorating my special Barbie cakes (made out of wadded up pieces of wet toilet paper I would allow to dry in a plastic mold before coloring them with marker) one day and thinking, "Perhaps the time had come to retire the dolls?"
   
   
7. All through my alternakid days, I loved Air Supply and would secretly blast "Making Love Out of Nothing At All" on the stereo while burning incense and smoking Camel Lights whenever my roommate was out.

And now, in an act that goes against every fiber of my rule-following being , I am not going to tag anyone specifically for this meme, but rather leave it open for the taking. (If you do the meme and want to follow the rules, you must tag seven bloggers and leave a comment on their site letting them know they've been tagged.)

An Icebreaker

The lovely Painted Maypole has tagged me for the “Four Things” meme.

MeMeMeMeMeMeMe!

[Attempts a cartwheel, falls down, returns with wrist packed in ice]

So I present to you now entirely too many details about my life that I hope will forever endear me to you. Feel free to gloss right over them, but just know that in doing so, you are missing the opportunity to decipher the secret location of the Ark of the Covenant.

Four Jobs I Have Had In My Life:

• The girl who screwed up your drive-thru order at Taco Bell during the summer of 1992 (Food Service Associate)
• The girl who screwed up your car insurance claim for nine excruciating months in 1996 (Auto Claims Adjustor)
• The girl who caused your factory automation process to malfunction in the late nineties (Technical Writer)
• The girl who wrote the loathsome online training course your company makes you take every other week (Corporate Performance Analyst and Curriculum Designer)

Four Movies I Would Watch Over and Over:

• Harold and Maude
• The Sound of Music
  
• The Gods Must Be Crazy
• Baraka
  

Four Places I Have Lived:

• Dee-troit
• My grandparents’ house
• An attic in France
• The deep south

Four TV Shows I Watch:

• Lost
• Colbert Report
• The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
• The Office

Four Places I Have Been:

• Trakai castle (Lithuania)
• Anne Frank’s House (Amsterdam)
• The top of Saint Paul’s Cathedral (London)
• The Cave of Lascaux (France)

Four of My Favorite Foods:

• Pad Thai with Tofu
• Cold Beet Soup with Home Fries
• Kugelis
• Sushi with Salmon Roe

Four Sites I Visit Daily:

• My Google homepage
• All of the blogs in cyberspace
• CNN
• The Weather Channel website

Four Places I Would Rather Be Right Now:

• Camp Dainava
• Vegas
• Reading on a front porch in Chautauqua
  
• Wherever they filmed “The Talented Mr. Ripley”

Four Bloggers I Tag:

• Princess Nebraska
  
• Amy
  
• Miss
  
• Chantelle