Meme

Since Uncle Mad suggested deep-sixing the TV, I've been finding other things to do with my leisure time this past week....like reading all the blogs on my own list and following up interesting-looking ones on other bloggers' lists.

The lively Old Old Lady of the Hills has an interesting meme. You're supposed to name five things in your life now that you never dreamed would be in your future when you were 25 years old. Then you tag five other people who, hopefully, will do the same and report back to you, etc. OOLOTH (that would a cool name all by itself, non?...kinda Celtic) also said "And anyone else who feels like doing this....please do, and let me know when it is posted....." OK. Here goes, and gee whiz, where to begin???

1. First has to be my children. On my 25th birthday, I was 3 months married and two and a half months pregnant with my first child. So I knew I'd have at least one, but then I had three more. If I couldn't imagine life with a bunch of kids then, I can't imagine not having them now. And I could never have predicted at age 25 that 45 years later, #1 would be scuba diving off Egypt over Christmas vacation while #2 would be attending the New York Film Critics Award dinner, #3 would be painting murals for a living, and #4 would be the goodest of the good old boys and, after a tour in the Navy, still working for the supermarket that gave him his first job after school when he was 14.

2. Second, as one day follows the next, is my beautiful grandchildren--seven of 'em. #1 got married to a beautiful woman summer before last, and they are two of my best friends. #2 is finishing school in Edinburgh and managing a bar on the side and hoping to marry another beautiful woman. #3 started writing little books (his "Spaceman Scott" novels) when he was about 8, and #4 wrote one in Spanish when he was in elementary school. #5 went scuba diving in Egypt with his parents and can order his breakfast in Arabic. #6 is a fashionista, cooler than cool, who also reads something like 5 or 6 books a week and plays soccer and lacrosse (#4 also LOVES lacrosse--a game I had never heard of at age 25). #7 is two and a half with lovely brown hair and eyes--thanks to her Lebanese dad. The two oldest ones are half African American. If anyone had told the bucolic white chick from North Dakota (State Motto: "Cleaner and Greener, Whiter and Brighter") who had never seen a black person until she was 13 years old, that not all of her grandchildren would be blonds or redheads, she would have been astonished.

3. Number three, I could never in a million years imagine having a cochlear implant--or the need for one--when I was twenty-five. I lost my hearing the next year, when I was 26 (thanks to a prescription for tetracycline when I came down with pneumonia), and at that time, one doctor finally told me that the only thing that could possibly restore my hearing would be an artificial inner ear that had not yet been invented. He said I probably would know about it before he did because I would read about it in the Readers Digest, which he had no time to read. Well, now they've been invented and I have one. Bliss!

4. If you had asked me when I was 25 where I would live when I reached retirement age, Washington, D.C., would have been at or near the very bottom of the list. I had zero desire to visit Washington or see the monuments and the public buildings, and I had no desire to live anywhere that was so flaming hot. But here I am, and I love it. I love its beauty and the wonderful people--AND the heat. Hot and sweaty is better than frostbitten and chapped. Also, when I knew I was moving to where they actually HAVE public transportation, I sold my car. And it was one of the happiest events of my life, far better than buying my first car, which was a piece of crap. Goodbye to car insurance, repairs, gas & oil, and hitchhiking by the side of the road in high heels, nylons, and one of those weenie bidness suits when the damn thing broke down. Hello Smartrip cards and bike racks on the buses! And blessed taxis!! Everywhere you look!

5. The corollary to #4 is you could have knocked me over with a feather when I was 25 if you told me I would live not just in Washington in my twilight years, but in Georgetown, and in a modest little condo that nevertheless was worth more than my father earned in his entire lifetime. In fact, I sometimes amuse myself by thinking what my dad's reaction would be if he learned my annual salary. It's very small potatoes, but he never came close to it.

Well, there it is. Only one of my kids is a blogger, so I can't stick all of them with a tag.

Therefore, I hereby tag

1. Mad Cabbie
2. Lazy Gardener
3. A Little Red Hen
4. Kay's Thinking Cap
5. Ex-Shammie over at Rook's Nest

And anyone else who would like to try this, please do...and please send it to me. I'm sending this back to OOLOTH, per her request. Thanks!