1) I am (slowly) decorating my new bedroom around the color PINK. Pink isn't exactly my color. That might be an understatement. But, before my new bedroom was my new bedroom, it was Grandma's sewing room. Before it was Grandma's sewing room, Grandma's sewing hutch was in the corner of the kitchen. The kitchen is pink. Therefore, the sewing hutch is pink. The sewing hutch isn't going anywhere. So, my options are (A) Repaint it (too much work, and it feels like a violation of the sewing hutch's intrinsic character), (B) Ignore it, or (C) Work with it. I'm enjoying the process of working with that piece of furniture as a "given" and creating a space that is my own around it. It feels appropriate for a new season of my life.

2) Overexposure to the color orange makes me cranky. While we're talking about colors ... If the sewing hutch were orange, it would be another story. I have some sort of psychological sensitivity to the colors orange and yellow. This was diagnosed by my art teacher when I was eight years old or so and became unaccountably agitated while working on an autumn landscape that called for masses of orange and brown leaves. The good lady did not dismiss my irrational distress and demand I calm myself, but graciously removed me to an adjoining room decorated in cool whites and blues so that I could regain my composure. She explained to my mother when she came to pick me up that I was "not an orange girl; she's a blue girl." (I was able to complete the painting in subsequent lessons; it hangs in my parents' living room today.)

This does not mean that I don't find orange beautiful. October is my favorite month due in large part to the beauty of changing leaves (sigh -- there had to be a downside to moving to southern California), and I can think of few things more stunning than a gloriously colored sunset painting the sky aflame in orange. Yet there's something in my make-up that responds negatively to large amounts of orange taken in isolation.

3) I have committed more vehicular infractions in my first five weeks as a California resident than in the rest of my life combined. Or, um, I have been caught committing more vehicular infractions in California. As long as you don't count the incident when I was 17 that no one but PeTeR knows about when I got off with a warning. And yet, I qualified for the "California safe driver" discount on my car insurance, because at the time I filed my change of address, I had an entirely clean record in the state of California. That's easy to achieve when you've hardly ever driven in California.

4) I sometimes talk -- loudly! -- in my sleep. Emily knows this because we roomed together at the women's retreat. I even wake myself up from time to time. Current theory is that I have latent anger issues that my subconscious is trying to work out in my dreams. I worry that it can be disconcerting to share a bedroom with me, but those who have done so have been kind about my occasional outbursts.

5) I am a dollar store junkie. I suppose this is a natural corollary to being a thrift store junkie. I try to be a savvy dollar store shopper, because not everything is a great deal just because it's only a dollar. But I still tend to come out $5-$10 poorer than I went in, even when they don't have the item I specifically went in to look for. My new downfall is that the 99 Cents Only Stores in Ventura County carry GROCERIES. Really, how can you say no to a three-pack of fresh yellow or orange peppers or a pound of fresh ginger for only 99 cents?

6) I am not entirely sure that audiobooks are such a great thing. Most people I know who listen to as many audiobooks as I do think that they are the second coming of mass literacy and recommend the format to all and sundry. I love audiobooks, and have "read" many fascinating books that I never would have gotten around to reading in the ink-on-paper editions, but I recognize that there is a danger of too much of a good thing. It is not always a good thing to multitask, and I listen to less MUSIC than I used to. I probably should have given up audiobooks (and podcasts) for Lent, but since Lent is already half over, I'll just try to be more conscious of my listening choices.

7) I have a Great Grand Aunt Helen. The random part about this information is that I didn't even know I had a Great Grand Aunt Helen until my Great Aunt Sylvia called a few weeks ago to alert us that Aunt Helen (that would be Sylvia's Aunt Helen, she had to explain to me) had broken her hip. Helen is the sister of my late grandmother's late father, whom I never met. (The great-grandfather, that is. I may well have met Helen at some point and not remembered it.) And here I thought I had a pretty good grasp on my family tree. But, it turns out, when my grandparents settled in Oxnard, on the northwest side of Los Angeles, 61 years ago, they fell a little bit out of the loop of both extended families, who live on the east and south sides of Los Angeles. "Too far away" is a relative thing.

Fortunately, Great Aunt Sylvia (who does not have children of her own) is very interested in the lives of her big sister's six kids and their twelve kids and two-and-counting grandkids, so she keeps us connected to the rest of the brood on the other side of the city.

There. Seven random-ish things. Now, I tag: , Sarah, Emily, Laura, Graham (with help from his parents), Alwen, and AlpineFlower. Play if you want and have the time; do not feel any compulsion to be as verbose as I have been.