Ming the Merciless

First of all, can I just say to Mother Nature, Are you frickin’ kidding me? Thursday it will be May. We’ve had more snow this year in a decade. So why, on the twenty-eighth day of April, am I driving through a blinding snowstorm? And also, the weatherman promised me we wouldn’t have to shovel. So why is it piling up in my driveway? I am totally disgusted. But don’t think for one minute that this will keep me from complaining bitterly about the heat in a few weeks.

I will set aside my disgust long enough to accommodate Mr. Unfocused’s request that I complete the following meme.

Here are the rules:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules.
3. Write six things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
5. Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their sites.
6. Let your tagger know when your entry is up.

After all my years of blogging, I’m not sure that there are six things about me that you do not already know, but I’m willing to give it a shot. There will be a pop quiz later.

1. If I had been a boy, my parents were going to name me Steven.

2. I didn’t date any one person more than a few times until graduate school. Some have called me a late bloomer. I merely think that graduate school showed me for the first time that there are things even more miserable than dating, and thus dating seemed less onerous by comparison. No offense intended toward any of my former dates.

3. As a child (roughly age 6-8), my favorite television shows were Family Affair (I was desperate for my own Mrs. Beasley, even though I thought she was totally creepy), Flash Gordon (the old one from the 1930s with Buster Crabbe and Dale Arden, which aired on Saturday mornings on one of our local TV stations), Emergency! (source of my first celebrity crushes on John and Roy) and the cartoon Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse.

4. From the same time period, my favorite records were a recording of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerti (featuring a then-unknown and extremely young Jean-Pierre Rampal), Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake (Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra), Jimmy Cliff’s The Harder They Come, the Beatles’ Revolver, and Mary Martin singing Peter Pan.

5. The huge yellow billboard featuring a segment of broken wall with a face labeled “Mr. Happy Crack” saying “A dry crack is a happy crack!” that I drive by at least six times a week never fails to make me snicker. Sometimes I actually go out of my way to drive by it.

6. It is still snowing outside, but the driveway is starting to melt.

Hmm. Who to tag? I’ll pick some of you I know less well or who haven’t been posting enough lately. I’m commissioned for six tags, but anyone else who wishes to should feel free to jump on the bandwagon.

1. Jeanne

2. peppypilotgirl (who may need a little help getting back to blogging, since she has a BRAND NEW BABY GIRL! Congratulations again, PPG!)

3. Lemming

4. bethb

5. Zuzu

6. Smed

And finally, if you have not yet checked out the fabulous poetry in the comments a couple of posts back, do so immediately! And thanks to all who’ve contributed!