Deja Vu: More about me

4 things you might not know about me (but probably do)

1. I have almost nightly nightmares about toilets. I don't know why, can't think of anything traumatic that happened to me on a toilet (besides the obvious). Almost every dream I have ends up with me in a bathroom or locker room, going down rows and rows of stalls, searching for a clean toilet. But there is ALWAYS something wrong with them all. Either the stall is too small, so the door won't close, the toilet is overflowing or won't flush, or worst of all, there's no water in the toilet at all. (shudder, twitch). I have yet to come up with the reason behind these nightmares. Ideas?

2. I have a very hard time drinking water. I either drip it down my chin or miss my mouth completely (unfortunately, the latter is usually the case). Just today, actually, at work, it went right past my mouth, down my shirt and under my garments (so it didn't soak through my regular shirt--phew. No one could tell).

3. I was in a bad car accident when I was 16 that totaled the car. The girl in the car with me (Vicki) went through the windshield. She sued the guy that hit us, who then counter sued me. I had to testify in court. They used pictures I had taken of the blood and car for my scrapbook (and had given copies of to Vicki) and blown them up and used them as "Exhibits." Ha. Vicki was trying to make the case that her life was really horrible after the accident, and this is the worst she could come up with, "I had to wear bangs!" 'Gasp.' We weren't very good friends to begin with (if you couldn't tell) and we stopped talking within a couple months after the accident.

4. (WARNING: Not for the faint of heart or easily disgusted) I had a pilonidal cyst on the base of my tailbone on my mission (in my third month in Hong Kong). It was a huge red bump that started bleeding and oozing all over the place in the middle of a discussion. My companion didn't want to "waste" time by going to the doctor because I was getting a new comp at the end of the week, so I had to limp around with an oozing back/bum. It was one of the most painful things I've ever experienced. My new companion took me to the doctor right away (too bad for her) and they made her stay in the room with me as the doctor "examined" me. His wife distracted my comp by asking, "So...where are you from?" as I cried in agony as he cut me open to drain it. It got a lot worse...but I have a feeling I should not go on... it's really pretty funny looking back...my companion and I got to know each other well in a hurry.

4 Jobs I've had

1. Paper route. Though, this one should be on a list of jobs my MOM has had. She got up at the crack of dawn every weekend for years to make sure us kids kept that job. I have really bad memories (and scary pictures--maybe I can find

(It takes a lot of guts to post this picture--just so you know.)

one) of me being weighed down by loads of newspapers, tromping through massive drifts of snow (up to my waist...it was slow-going) in the winter, slipping and smashing my head in on the ice in people's driveways, sweating buckets in the Nebraska humidity, running from dogs, getting caught and gnarled by dogs, peeling invisible spider webs off my face and extremities, and feeling extremely self-conscious every time I saw someone from school. You get the idea. I could go on and on.

2. Inbound telemarketing jobs. Pick one. I had a few. They were all about the same. I answer and hear this over and over until I go crazy: "I want that thang." "What thing?" (we took calls for thousands of companies). "That THANG on tv." "We take calls for more than one thang, m'am." Then the frustration builds (for us both), "I WANT THAT THANG ON TV." "M'AM. If you can't tell me the name of the thing, then just keep watching TV and wait for the commercial to come on again. Call back when you know the name." Click.

When there was a big queue (lots of calls waiting), I was ever the dutiful employee in clearing up that queue. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. There. No more queue. The thing is, when you hate a job that much, you beg to be fired--but it never comes.

3. I worked at a place called "PMSI." I thought that was so funny. The funniest part was that PMSI didn't actually stand for anything. Why in the world would you name your company that? I answered a switchboard and more than once forgot to say the "I"--it was awful. And of course, ironically, my boss has the worst case of PMS I've ever seen. She was MEAN.

4. I worked as a temp before my mission. I had many an interesting job that way. It was great--the company would call up in the morning with a job, tell you what it was, how much it was, and how long it would be, and you could just turn it down. Or you could start, not like it, and tell them to find you something else. For one of them, I worked at this hospital for maybe two months (I can't recall now), but I had no clue what I was supposed to be doing. There was another girl there temping and I finally realized she also had NO clue what she was supposed to be doing. People would bring stacks of things for us to do, and we would just pretend to work on it. We both did try to figure it out, but whatever we were supposedly doing--it didn't seem to matter. I eventually told the temp agency to find me something else.

4 Movies I can watch repeatedly:

1. Cast Away
2. Miracle
3. About a Boy
4. Hope Floats

4 Favorite TV Shows (we currently don't have TV, so this list is old)

1. Seinfeld
2. Simpsons
3. 24
4. Star Trek: The Next Generation (my brothers will never believe this)

4 Places I've lived

1. Omaha, NE
2. Hong Kong, China
3. Houston, TX
4. San Francisco, CA


4 Favorite Foods

1. Lasagna
2. Shrimp (I have a compulsion to buy it at almost every restaurant--seafood restaurant or otherwise--even though, it's usually a mistake.)
3. Salmon
4. Chocolate

4 Websites I check daily

1. Blogs
2. Google
3. Bank account
4. ?

4 Places I've been on vacation

1. Southern Utah: Moab, Snow Canyon, Kodachrome
2. Europe: Paris, Denmark, Norway, England
3. Nauvoo
4. Yosemite National Park

4 Nicknames

1. Jenny Penny
2. Taai Taai (means wife)
3. "Jennette, the Best a Man Can Get"--a kid in grade school did actually say this once--I'm not making it up! (you know the Gillette jingle, right?)
4. Jender

I like what my cousin said on her blog: "I don't know who's been tagged so if you've read this and haven't been tagged you are now tagged. ;)"