Saturday, March 29, 2008

Ten things I've Done You Probably Haven't

I found this at Frank's blog and he got it from here.

If there are others out there (especially by people I know some or kinda), please leave links in the comments.

I could do ten within an SCA context, or I could leave the SCA out entirely, but I guess I'll just mix them and not be so compartmentalized. Mental. Huh. They're not in chronological order, nor any logical order, but the order I'm thinking of them.

1. I graduated from college when I was 20, BA in English.
(I'm going to add links to some of these that don't have any now, so if you read this and it doesn't gag you, come back again later for improved version.)

2. I was David Bowie's first American fan. I was fourteen. Look.

3. Twice I've been the top officer of the SCA, Inc. early 1980's I was Steward (which was corporate president) and years later (1993?) after a reorganization, in an overnight coup (well, 48 hour buildup to sudden coup) an outsider was let go and I was made CEO. I asked for $15 an hour. I found out later he had been making $40 an hour, but NO WAY could the corporation afford that, and he wasn't in the SCA anyway. There's been another reorganization, and neither of my former offices exists anymore. It keeps getting more and more convoluted, but that's the way such things often go.

4. I was the first Queen of the Outlands. The proper response to that is "Oooooh!" if you're in the SCA and "What!?!" if you're not. No problem. I was pregnant with Kirby. Keith won the first Crown Tournaments when the Outlands went from Principality to Kingdom status in the SCA. He had been the first prince of the principality, too, which is very cool.

5. I never had a broken bone before the age of 30. I've since broken my right leg twice. YUCK!

6. This is for the other mothers out there: I have twice been dilated to 10 cm, been in labor for a long time (24 hours, 40 hours) AND had two cesareans. Those two. I hope I'm the only one who's ever done that, and no one else should aspire to it. #3 was cesarean too, but I bypassed the long labor and full dilation. I went in in labor, though; didn't schedule a c-sec.

7. I have three children who were unschooled exclusively for all of their "school years." They're now 16, 19 and 21.

8. The very first Earth Day, 1970, I persuaded the principal of our high school to let some of us leave school to go to Santa Fe (25 miles away). The gathering was on the Santa Fe Plaza. I don't have photos but I still have the green armband. There were speeches, there was singing.

9. I can't remember numbers but I can remember words I went out of Spelling Bees with. Didn't capitalize Saturday (5th grade). Committee, 6th grade, but I came in second so I got to go to district, where I missed wooly by spelling it woolly which turns out to have been a British spelling I had learned from a deck of cards called Animal Rummy: Woolly Lamb. After that I decided spelling bees were stupid. My mom bought me a chocolate milkshake at Mr. Burger as a consolation prize, on the way home. Robert Torrez (Bubba T) was the other one from our school. He went out on "lightning." He was later the bass player for a band in which my boyfriend was lead guitar. I visited Robert in the hospital before he died, a few years ago, in a much-delayed response to radiation treatments he got for leukemia in high school. He was a really good bass player, and a very sweet person.

10. I've spoken at 31 homeschooling conferences. (I looked it up Thursday night because I was being interviewed for a paper an unschooler was writing for an online class.) SandraDodd.com/speaking

10 comments:

Deanne said...

My labor and delivery history was pretty much the same as yours! Except for the fact, I scheduled the c-section for the third one. ;)

Cap'n Franko said...

Yes! Cool list. Wasn't that one fun?

Sandra Dodd said...

Yeah, that was fun. Deanne, I'm really sorry I wasn't the only one! But we have three kids each and that's cool.

Erica said...

So did you write David Bowie again and tell him more about yourself?

Sandra Dodd said...

I did, but didn't hear back. I wish I had copies of my letters!

Not long after that, he was in New Mexico filming "The Man who Fell to Earth," and my friends kept saying "Go meet him!" but I thought that was a bad idea. I was just a beginning driver, and he was in Santa Fe, Madrid, Albuquerque--YES, now I think, very close--but I just had no idea how to do that, and didn't figure I'd have anything to say when and if I got there.

Mary Ann said...

David Bowie! Now I'm seriously impressed!!! I always knew you were special, but didn't know why.

We're in Texas these days, heading to Arkansas and Oklahoma next.

While we were on the gulf coast, we were too early for sea turtle nesting time. When the water warms up in a few weeks, they need volunteers walking the 60 miles of coastline looking for tell-tale sea turtle markings to record the nesting sites.

It made me think of you -- I'm not sure it would make the top ten -- but it would be a life experience!

Meghan said...

The David Bowie thing is really cool!

We don't know each other, but I read your blog a lot and love reading your posts on the AlwaysLearning list. You've (unknowingly) done a lot to help me become the kind of mom I want to be.

I did my own "10 Things" post at my blog, here: http://planetpawlowski.blogspot.com/2008/03/10-things-ive-done-you-probably-havent.html.

Sandra Dodd said...

Thank you!
And here's a clickable link to Meghan's:
http://planetpawlowski.blogspot.com/2008/03/10-things-ive-done-you-probably-havent.html

Rachel Elizabeth said...

That whole David Bowie thing is sort of awesome.

Sandra Dodd said...

Thank you, thank you!