101 Things About Valency

Sorry - this is long. You don't have to read it if you don't want to...


1. Valency is my real name.


2. Elise is my middle name.


3. My husband, family and good friends call me neither Valency nor Elise. The call me Pookie (from the movie “The Sterile Cuckoo.”)


4. I weighed 12 pounds, 1 ½ ounces when I was born. I was 2 weeks early. My mom squeezed me out ‘the natural way.’ GO MOM!


5. I have 2 older sisters. I was supposed to be a boy. My baby shower was blue-themed and my mom got all boy presents. GOD, she must have been disappointed.


6. I was born in Portland, Oregon.


7. My dad was a dentist. He died just before my 2nd birthday. He had cancer. He was 33 years old.


8. My mom remarried a Yugoslav when I was 4 years old. Their marriage lasted 13 years. They had a nasty divorce my senior year of high school.


9. I’ve been married almost 16 years to my high school sweetheart. No, it hasn’t been a perfect marriage. Yes, I still love him more than anything, (well, along with my kids...).


10. I have a younger half-sister and half-brother. Out of all of my siblings, I am only on speaking terms with my younger half-brother and one of my older sisters. Not by my choice. 2 of my sisters are skilled at holding grudges.


11. My family all lives in Seattle, except for my younger half-sister, who hooked onto one of my husband’s friends and married him, and now she lives in the same city in New Mexico that I do. I haven’t talked to her in over 4 years.


12. I have issues.


13. I have ADD. I treat it with meds.


14. I have OCD. I use it to my advantage.


15. I have 4 cats.


16. I am allergic to cats. I take allergy meds morning and night.


17. I also have 2 dogs (rat terriers), 4 turtles, and one guinea pig named Monica (Stone named it).


18. I have 2 sons (Stone and Tully).


19. Stone weighed almost 10 lbs. when he was born. Thank god he didn’t weigh as much as me!


20. Tully only weighed 8 lbs 5 oz at birth, so he shot out pretty quick.


21. I love horror movies, but only if there is a good explanation for the mayhem integrated into the movie. And I can only watch them at home, because I need a blanket to hide under during the especially tense moments.


22. I am also a sucker for old romantic period-piece movies. I lust after ball-gowns and bustiers and bustles.


23. As a child, when someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I always said a fireman. I still adore firemen.


24. I was a volunteer firefighter for 2 years, and an EMT working for an ambulance company in Spokane. I even got to fight wildland fires in Leavenworth, WA.


25. I was 6 weeks pregnant with my first son when I was fighting forest fires. I was really tired but I thought it was just from all of the hard work.


26. I am a licensed hairdresser. But I only keep my license now so I can buy stuff cheap at beauty supply stores and do my friends’ hair sometimes…


27. I have an un-natural fetish for motorcycle cops.


28. I think it is connected to my boot fetish.


29. Which is definitely connected to my shoe fetish.


30. Which would probably explain my obsessive love of clothes.


31. All of my sisters were entered into beauty pageants by my mom. I never was. Go figure.


32. I lived in England from 2000 to 2004 in a town called Newmarket. I adore England and miss it painfully.


33. I have flown on a US Air Force KC-135, a CV-22, and a few MH-53s (4 times). Being an Air Force wife has a few pretty rad perks…


34. I love sushi, hummus, and pretty much all food.


35. I do NOT like raw tomatoes. I have tried to learn to love raw tomatoes, but it just hasn’t worked. BUT I do like fresh salsa, bruschetta, ketchup, tomato sauce, and all other things tomato.


36. I love pistachio ice cream. I ADORE real Italian Gelato; my favorite mix is lemon, strawberry and a creamy amaretto, scooped into one cup. My favorite US ice cream shop is Procopio’s Gelateria, located just below The Pike Place Market in Seattle.


37. My mom used to feed my sisters and I raw balls of hamburger meat sprinkled with garlic salt. My mad-cow-addled-brain now craves this taste constantly. But I refrain…


38. I have 2 uvulas. It is technically called a bifurcated uvula.


39. I can fit my whole fist in my mouth.


40. I have no gall bladder, after having it removed last winter. It was because of a bout of pancreatitis. Pancreatitis was pretty much the most painful thing I have experienced in my life (reference the 10 lb baby!).


41. I had a nose job when I was 16. I still hate my nose.


42. I cannot tolerate people whistling. If you are whistling in my house, I will ask you to stop. If you are whistling in my presence in public, I will glare angrily at you.


43. I am a Pisces. I share my birthday with Liza Minelli. Also Jack Kerouac – I was born 50 years to the day after he was.


44. I have 2 tattoos. One on each ass-CHEEK. Not a lower back tramp stamp. We’re talking center cheek here.


45. I can uncannily memorize color. I can match thing exactly, and I know when a hue is identical to something I’ve seen before or not. It might seem easy but I’ve never met anyone as good as I am at it.


46. I love children’s book illustrators. It is my favorite kind of art. My favorites are Steven Kellogg, Mercer Mayer, Maurice Sendak, Peter Lippman, Shel Silverstein, Tomie de Paola, Dr. Seuss, and loads more…


47. I own almost every book that Steven Kellogg ever illustrated (over 100).
    
48. I love science fiction books.


49. I attended 12 years of Catholic school, the last 4 years at an all-girl high school. I am not Catholic. I really irritated the nuns, especially Sister Mary Annette.


50. I took a couple of years of piano when I was pretty young. My teacher was Sister Theresa who wore thick glasses, was balding and had really bad breath. She used a knitting needle to correct us when we weren’t posturing our hands correctly. Knitting needles on the knuckles HURT.


51. I grew up in a 5-story house on Queen Anne Hill in Seattle that was built at the turn of the century. (It is 3-story from the front, and 5-story on the back, since it was built on the steep South Slope of Queen Anne.) The house is about 6 blocks from the Seattle Center, where the Space Needle is located.


52. My dad, my uncle, my grandpa, and my husband were/are all US Air Force men. I’m working on one of my sons to go into the Air Force, as they would be FOURTH GENERATION Air Force and that is pretty damn fabulous.


53. Another one of my uncles is an astronaut. He commanded the Space Shuttle mission to repair the Hubble Telescope. He was the oldest man in space til that bastard John Glenn decided to go back up...


54. My mom and my younger sister are both ‘full-time’ artists. One of my older sisters is an extremely well-paid external affairs chick at Microsoft on their Redmond campus. My other sister has her own preschool on Queen Anne. She is also making bank. My brother is a professional chef. He is fabulous but aimless right now. He borrows money from my mom constantly, whetner he is making bank or not. (He is 28 and still has his cell phone in my mom’s name.)(EDIT: He finally has his own cell phone and I'm pretty sure he stopped asking for moolah! Go Bear!)


55. I love SUVs. They are my favorite sensible cars. (I’d love a little 2-seater convertible, but that is not sensible right now…)


56. My husband and I would love to own a ‘hobby farm’ someday.


57. I am extremely intelligent and have a scarily high IQ that I passed on to my younger son.


58. It drives my teachers crazy that I want to be an art teacher. I see myself as a modern-day, female Leonardo… smart and artistic is FANTASTIC!


59. My body is pear-shaped, so there is no love lost between me and my thighs.


60. I love acting but I have horrible stage-fright.


61. I had my first ‘real’ kiss, smoked my first cigarette and smoked my first joint in the 5th grade. I was 10 years old. ARGH.


62. I had my first drink when I was 4. My Yugoslav step-grandparents ALWAYS made us kids drink watered-down white wine with lunch. I HATED it.


63. I kept my virginity til I was 16. Then I decided IT WAS TIME.


64. I prefer Pepsi to Coke, but I prefer Diet Coke over Diet Pepsi.


65. My father’s side of the family is Swedish, my mother’s side is Cajun (we’re spicy!).


66. I was married in Reno, Nevada. I’ve never been to Las Vegas. I really want to go to Vegas!


67. I am an excellent cook and an excellent baker.


68. I don’t like getting massages. I haven’t learned how to relax enough to enjoy a stranger rubbing my butt.


69. My resume includes working as a firefighter, and EMT, a hairdresser, a receptionist, a baker in a bakery, I’ve worked retail in women’s clothes, I’ve dabbled in being a make-up artist for big named companies, I’ve had a home daycare, and NOW I want to be an art teacher for big kids.


70. I have my right ear pierced once, my left ear pierced 4 times, my upper lip pierced, and my bellybutton pierced, but there is nothing in my bellybutton pierce right now because I had to take it out for my gall bladder surgery (see #40)


71. I love my Netflix. It took a long time to be won over to the dark side, but now I’m hooked. (I can add you to my ‘friends’ if you have Netflix and we can spy on each other…)


72. I want a Chihuahua. I want to name her Tallulah Bankhead. Or Bunny.


73. I want a pygmy goat.


74. I want a house duck or goose. (I’ve read the book “Duck! There’s a Goose In The House!” from cover to cover… just ask me about duck diapers!)


75. I’ve worked with turtle rescue and I know TONS about turtles and tortoises now (native and non-native, aquatic and non-aquatic)… I used to have foster turtles. I quit the rescue group because they fought too much (seriously. People got in MAJOR arguments with the club).


76. I succeed in pretty much everything I try. I’m damn good. I have straight A’s in college right now, and I’m pretty much top of the class in all of my classes. Don't hate.


77. My house is sparkling clean, but my garage is cluttered. Not horribly so, but it bugs me.


78. I really want more windows in my house.


79. I’d LOVE a sunroom built onto the back of my house.


80. I NEVER take showers, if it can be helped. I only like baths.


81. I really don’t like hot tubs, though. I think they’re neat, but I don’t want to hang out in one.


82. Italy is my favorite country I’ve ever visited.


83. I really want to go to India, but I need to find an Indian person to go with me.


84. I really want breast implants. My boobs are wrecked from breastfeeding 2 kids.


85. I have lots of moles but almost no freckles.


86. I love to ski. I’ve never been snowboarding, and I don’t think I want to.


87. The most I’ve ever weighed was 215, which I hit 3 years after my last kid was born (It wasn’t ‘baby weight.’).


88. I can wiggle my ears and roll my tongue and put both legs behind my head.


89. I’ve had braces twice, and I still have the permanent retainer on my bottom teeth that was installed when I was 13. That’s some damn good glue!


90. I’m 5’8” and wear a size 10 (womens US) shoe.


91. When I was a kid I was the first person in my school to have a Swatch watch.


92. I really want a scooter, like a mint-colored vespa… but I live too close to a major highway and I would be too worried I’d get killed on it.


93. I always talk my way out of trouble when I get pulled over by a cop. I never get tickets. The only ones I’ve received were from nasty speed cameras in England. (Now that I wrote this, I’m totally gonna get a ticket.)


94. I love cockatiels but I’m too scared to get one now that I own cats.


95. I love organizing and I’ll organize the hell outta anything. Even if it’s not mine.
    
96. I’ve taken 4 years of French, 1 year of Spanish, and I also had Yugoslav lessons when I was a kid. I can understand British accents really well after living there for 4 years (It's harder than it seems when you really try and understand every word…)


97. I am a Power Shopper. I know how to find the best stuff for the best prices at the fastest speeds.


98. I flashed a tit at a group of Gondoliers in Venice, Italy. My Italian girlfriend from Vincenza was so shocked that she screamed. I laughed for about an hour straight. I also walked down the street in Vincenza with my sundress tucked into my bright red panties… I enjoyed driving Manuela nuts. And what happens in Italy, stays in Italy (unless you write about it on your blog...)


99. I like eating cottage cheese, but only if I have Cool Ranch Doritos to scoop it up with.


100. I currently own a Super Nintendo, 2 Nintendo 64s, a Gamecube, a Wii, a Playstation, a Playstation 2, a Dreamcast, a Sega Genesis, a Sega Game Gear, a Gameboy, a Gameboy Color, a Game Boy Advance, a Gameboy SP, and 2 DS Lites. Oh, and I have a fuckload of games for all of the systems. I would own an Atari and a NES if I could find one in good working order for not a lot of $$). Did I mention I LOVE video games? Oh, and I was able to score a Wii last Christmas by shamelessly flirting with the young guys at Gamestop. It pays to be a Hot Mom.


101. My mom wouldn’t let me have an Atari when I was a kid and I was HEARTBROKEN. She finally got me a Commodore 64 when I was in Jr. High and I was IN LOVE.


102. My favorite toy as a kid was my Baby Alive. I loved the fact that it would eat and drink and poop and pee. I always wanted an Easy Bake Oven but my mom said NO because she said I would burn the house down. I don’t think she realized it was a LIGHT BULB that cooked the food… I also really wanted a ventriloquist dummy. I always circled the Charlie McCarthy one EVERY YEAR in the Sears Catalog Wishbook.