I think I've been tagged....

And this is a new experience for me. Thanks to Swapna for expanding my world a bit and making me stop and think about uh.. what is it again? Oh yes - five of my quirky habits. Here we go:

I can't sleep in a bed that hasn't been made. No matter how exhausted I am - I must completely make the bed -- tuck in all the sheets... fluff the pillows... add throw pillows and make sure the bedskirt is straight... THEN I can take it apart and get into bed. If I try to skip any detail I will toss and turn all night like that princess with the pea-under-the-mattress problem.

I obsessively make lists. (Hey! This is a list I am making now, isn't it? That's right up my alley.) I make lists of things to do.. things I have done... things I own.. things I would never own... Anything I can put into list form - I'm gonna list. And if that's not quirky enough for you -- I don't actually refer to these lists for anything. Most of the time they are discarded before the ink even dries.

I spend long periods of time talking to telemarketers and door-to-door salespeople - but never buy anything. I think they hate me. I am probably black-listed by now. I don't do this out of spite or anything, it's just that I really like talking to people... And I quite enjoy a good sales pitch. I'm always impressed with the ones who can actually field my questions without batting an eye -- but, ironically, their slickness alone would be enough to keep me from ever buying a product from them. But I always make a point to congratulate them on a job well done! "Wow, Bob! You really know your stuff!! I bet you will actually sell some of this today! Good luck!"

I never finish the last gulp of soda from a can. Never. I refer to these last drops of beverage as 'swill' and find it horribly icky. Yeah - so it's my 'swill' but that doesn't make it any better. Dave hasn't figured this out yet and still follows me around the kitchen with mostly empty Pepsi cans saying "Honey, why don't you ever finish your drinks?" Bah.

Finally, I cannot stand overhead light fixtures -- when they're turned on. If someone haphazardly walks into one of my rooms and flips the wall switch I will shriek at them to turn it off before thinking. I don't mind recessed lighting or fixtures on a dimmer switch... As long as I can tone down the light a bit - it's not so bad.. But glaring overhead lights just make my skin crawl.

So those are my top-five quirky habits.. or uh.. just plain quirky things about me. Now I shall tag Mom and see what she comes up with. :) Tag, Mom. You're it!

Post-Hurricane Katrina: Anita's newest quirks

Since Swapna suggested it in comments and I think it's a great idea... I shall now add five of my new Katrina quirks in keeping with the blog theme:

1) I now have a very, very hard time placing anything directly on the floor or on the bottom shelves of cabinets and closets. The bottom drawers in my kitchen are empty. Yes, this is partially because I have not been able to replace what was destroyed in those drawers -- but I also am purposely shying away from using them at all. If you take a quick survey of my home as it is this morning you will find that most of our possessions are piled in stacks above an imaginary water-line.

2) I no longer use the term 'garbage' - 'trash' - or 'waste' and refer to all such things simply as 'debris'. For instance, if Yvonne breaks a toy I say to her, "Okay honey - you have to be more careful with your toys... It's debris now and we have to throw it out."

3) I refuse to eat any food that comes directly out of a can and even the sight of a peanut butter cracker turns my stomach.

4) Before the storm, I was the ultimate packrat. I suppose it would have had to have been one of my pre-Katrina 'quirks'. I saved absolutely everything with the certainty that it would be useful one day -- or if I could find no use for it I could at least save it for sentimental reasons. I had pictures and letters and scraps of paper. I kept rusty screws and nails because they had belonged to my father. I kept broken furniture and small appliances that no longer worked. Post-Katrina I have become the extreme opposite of 'packrat'. If I do not use a given item daily - I have no use for it... It is immediately put out at the curb (as 'debris') or given away. If whatever I'm getting rid of is still functional I will put it out with a handwritten sign that says 'still works' in the hopes that someone will stop and get it if they need it... It's something of a streamlining process. In the back of my mind (and sometimes in the front) I keep thinking about the hours and days it took to shovel up all of that useless stuff and dump it in front of the house when it was destroyed.

5) I cannot emotionally handle the concept of recycling aluminum soda cans. I saw a recycling bin the other day and I started to feel sweaty and nervous. I get angry when I see the recycling symbol on the back of the cans. Just the thought of it is making me want to cry... I'll explain: During the year before Katrina struck (I believe it was during Lent) - Dave and I decided that we would make a small sacrifice of time and convenience -- sort of an act of penance -- and save the hundreds of soda cans our household went through in a month for recycling. Our goal was to bring them to the recycling center as often as our can was filled and then donate the money to our church. For the first couple months we struggled to keep up with the cans - and found that getting them to the recycling center was a huge pain as they never seemed to be open no matter what the hours on the sign said. When we did finally haul the enormous can to the place we'd come away with not much more than $1.50 for all of our efforts. Then we decided in June to do this thing right. We bought a 50 gallon garbage can and I cut the little circle out of the top of the lid. Dave took on the task of adequately crushing cans before they were put into the can. By August 27th the can was brimming over with crushed aluminum cans and we were starting on another nearby can. The problem had been that several of the previous weekends we had had either tropical storms or hurricanes threatening and the recycling center had been closed each time we tried to go.

August 29th (and a couple cases of Pepsi later) - our garage filled with well over five feet of water. The two giant garbage cans were tossed about and eventually spilled their contents into the flood water. Not insignicant to this story is the very, very large and recently well-used litterbox which we had left in the garage for Katrina and her newborn kittens before we brought them in for safety... Also not insignificant to this story are the two 40 pound bags of cow manure we had stacked in the garage for my fall garden preparation. When the water receded that afternoon... The garage was coated in an oily greasy film of cat litter and cow manure mixed with sewage from the neighborhood and fish-smelling salt water... and a two-foot deep layer of crushed soda cans which were also dripping with the stinky mixture.

I spent two days... TWO DAYS shoveling toxic soda cans to the curb with a snow shovel (I have no idea where I got a snow shovel ... packrat, remember?) My days of recycling have ended.