7 Strange Things You Might Not Know About Me

Seven Strange Things You Might Not Know About Me

Gia from Science of Energy Healing has tagged me ! She wrote this about the tag...

In the land of blogs there is a tag game known as a meme. You write about something that someone has suggested (see the title above) and tag the person who tagged you and several more. It’s about building a bigger awareness for the blog through link love.

While I was putting this together, Poppy tagged me too! Here goes...

Hmmm...where to begin?

1. I was a competitive soccer player most of my life. I started playing soccer when I was seven and played pretty much non-stop through college. Living in Tucson, the warm weather was suited for year-round leagues, so there were only about 2 weeks every year that I wasn't involved with a team. I loved it!! My family was incredibly supportive, as our family vacations were often to soccer tournaments (there was plenty of mountain camping, Disneyland and San Diego beaches mixed in there too!). My dad was very active in this part of life, always finding me the best team to play on, helping with team administration, driving me to practice in Phoenix twice a week my senior year in high school after nearly my entire team graduated and went away to college and arranging recruiting trips for me to check out colleges. I was captain of my high school Varsity team. My club team was the 4th best in the nation in 1992. I played Division I NCAA soccer at Pepperdine University. I became captain of that team and had the most minutes played until I injured my knee the spring of my senior year. So, soccer has been a huge part of my life. Then, after college, I was ready to explore my time in other ways like hiking the mountains of Montana. I didn't play soccer for 3 years after college (partially because of my knee and partially due to other interests). Then, I played in the women's league here for a few years and had a blast. I had to re-train myself, coming from competitive collegiate soccer, that it wasn't cool to slide tackle teammates at practice!! Now, it has been several years again without playing regularly and that is fine with me-it seems to ebb and flow with joy!

2. I was married previously. My college honey bunches (Carl Lithander) and I got married the fall after I graduated from college up here in Whitefish. We went into the Peace Corps together that next spring. We divorced after 21/2 years and he died a year later (breaking his neck riding his bicycle). Life is such a trip! You just never know what twists and turns may be sent your way. I have a strong feeling that we will be journeying again together in another lifetime, or some other form of reality. We have communicated in the dream world, but it has been a long time.

3. I am fluent in Pidgin English. I was in the Peace Corps in Papua New Guinea for a year, where I learned the language. Carl and I went to the remote village of Uiaku to live with the Maisin people. We worked with Green Peace and Conservation Melanesia in an alternative income-generation project. We helped them sell their traditional clothing (tapa cloth) as artwork instead of selling their land to mining and logging companies. We lived in a bush hut, washed our clothes and dishes in the river (sand makes a good substitute for steel wool), and played a lot of cribbage! I went (as the only woman) with Carl and about 20 native PNG men deep into the bush on a bio-diversity survey. It is very likely that this was and will be the furthest away from civilization I will have ever been. A helicopter dropped us off in the middle of a dry river bed and after the last drop off, we all stared at one another and someone asked, "Now, where are we?" in Pidgin as he pulled out a map. It was amazing! We saw lots of wild orchids, a tree kangaroo, the world's largest moth (aptly named Goliath) and tried to keep the leeches from eating us alive. We arrived in our coastal village at the same time another village was being wiped out by a huge tsunami. We, of course, had heard nothing of it until we called my parents from the solar powered telephone and they were grateful we were alive!

4. I have seen both MC Hammer and Millie Vanilli in concert!!! Do you still respect me? (not to mention Wierd Al Yankovich, Rob Bass, Young MC (Bust a Groove...), Tone Loc, Huey Lewis...)

5. I really used to think I was going to marry Adam Yauch from the Beastie Boys even though I had never met him. I have seen them in concert 5 times , once in a small club in London!

6. I changed my name to Kitty for a few weeks once while I took a road trip down the west coast. My amiga went by the name of River!

7. My husband is a hunter. So, along with berries, pears and bee pollen, our freezer is also full of moose and venison!

I'll have to catch up on tagging others on my next post!! xoxo, Kelly O