I have been challenged to come up with a list of a dozen things that you may not know about me and post them here. This is difficult for me as half of my readers are probably related to me… but I’m going to try. So here you have twelve mostly useless things to know.

1. I like fairy doors. I have one in my house and have been looking them up online recently and have decided that my new hobby is going to be making them. I’m not sure what I’ll do with them (sell them, maybe?), but I want to make some. I have also been known (as an adult, no less) to make “fairy houses” in parks and then leave them there with no explanation, hoping someone will find them. I suppose this is “art.”

a fairy house J and I made in 2008

2. I really like daisies and tulips better than other flowers. Roses have too much cultural significance and lilies make me sneeze.

3. The more time I spend around animals, the more difficult I have choosing a “favorite animal.” It used to be tigers, and I still love big cats the best, but really I just love animals in general. Except for spiders. And primates are fascinating, but they’re at the bottom of the list for me.

4. I like to paint. I’m not great at it and I don’t have much outlet for it at the moment, but I can sit and paint for hours.

5. I’ve been on one roller coaster in my life. I had a panic attack halfway through the ride. There have been none since then and now J believes that I’m not exaggerating when I say, “No, really, I’m very VERY afraid of roller coasters.”

6. I use my hairbrush on Caspian. You might think this is weird, but he sits patiently on the counter when I get out of the shower and am brushing my hair so that he can be brushed, too. He’s got OCD, I know.

7. I suspect that I was a little OCD myself as a child, as I had a real need to count everything out in even increments, usually of ten. I also had to mirror everything I did with one hand or foot with the other and would repeatedly do the same behavior until I got them to match exactly and then I would freeze and have to hold perfectly still (including holding my breath) for ten seconds before I could stop. If I froze successfully, then I could move about normally, but if I didn’t make it, I would have to start over at the beginning. I also have no idea where that behavior started.*

8. I am allergic to rats. I’ve never had trouble with mice or gerbils or anything like that, but domestic rats make my skin break out and my eyes swell and itch, and I get congested. We discovered this at a previous job where rats were one of the education animals and I kept having allergic reactions in the van on the way to programs.

9. I document most animals that I rescue with photos. I could probably show more of them than you’d care to see, but over the years there have been birds, snakes, lizards, squirrels, kittens, and a few other things.

baby squirrel in 2007

10. I tend to poke my chin with either one of my fingers or with a pen when I’m taking notes (in a meeting or something), or if I’m just thinking really hard.

11. The two TV channels I watch the most are BBC America and SyFy… and my guilty TV habit is that I really do like those shows where people go in search of mythological things like the Loch Ness Monster or the yeti or even ghosts. I don’t take them seriously by any means, but the shows themselves (and the people who look for those things) fascinate me.

12. I leave little business-card size notes for people (especially servers and cashiers) telling them that they’ve done a great job or that I appreciate their help. I try to leave it on the way out the door so it’s a surprise after I’m gone, and so far I’ve been good about being anonymous. People need anonymous pick-me-ups, I think.

So there are some random things about me. Did you know them all? ^_^

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*I should probably specify right here and right now that I no longer do this. I don’t recall when it stopped, but I have a vague memory of freezing for a really long time at some point and then just being done with the whole thing.