It's All About Meme

Leon, at The Ancient One, Blessed Be He, has tagged me for the "Six Quirky Things About Me" meme. This, of course, means that he will have to be looking over his shoulder from now on, waiting for me to tag him. When you least expect it, Leon, expect it.

Here goes:

1. I always wake up on my right side. I can't go to sleep on my left side, but I have to start out that way, or I can't go to sleep at all. It's a nightly ritual. First, on the left side, then, flip over to the right. Flip back and forth a time or two more and, finally, off to sleep. I don't call myself an old dog for nuthin!

2. I have lots of conspiracy theories, starting with the Kennedy assassination. (Oswald wasn't alone. There was another guy on the grassy knoll.) I had a theory about Deep Throat, too, and wasn't finding out who he actually was a big letdown?

3. I have phobias. I don't like to get out of the house. I can do it, I just don't want to. I can't bring myself to drive on the highway alone, but love to travel. I don't like crowds. I had an anxiety attack in the "Tube" in London. That was lots of fun for my daughter and our other companions.

4. I'm shy. Over the years, I've learned to cover it somewhat. But, I can talk to strangers more easily than mere acquaintances.

5. My sun sign is Aries and my ascendant is Libra, which makes me a mass of contradictions. I almost believe this Astrology stuff.

6. I'm psychic and my grandmother was moreso. Premonitions usually come to me in dreams, as they did hers. For instance, while she lived in Florida and I was in Little Rock, 16 years old, we both had dreams predicting my father's death - on the same night, we later discovered. The prediction played out exactly the way my dream predicted. Also, once, I shook hands with a friend I hadn't seen in a long time, and got the feeling that he was dying. Later that day, his wife confided that he had acute Leukemia and only had a few months to live. I have had lots of more innocuous dreams, but those are the most scary ones I've had. People who know about this trait always get around to telling me I'd better not be dreaming about them!

There you go, Leon. I'm not tagging anyone, but if anyone wants to do this meme, feel free to do it and blame me.

Grave Sight

Since I have missed so many naps this week, due to blogging, reading, watching movies, etc., I guess I just had to catch up this morning. Right after I had my coffee and worked a couple of crossword puzzles (I do the ones in the Democrat-Gazette and the Washington Post), I just couldn't keep my eyes open another minute, so I had a nice morning nap from about 10:45 till noon. Then, I had lunch and finished reading my latest cozy.

"Grave Sight", by Charlaine Harris, is the first in a new series. There's no telling how many series' this woman writes. I only know of three, one with a main character who is a vampire. I've never read the Vampire series, but I think I'll try it, since I enjoy the other two so much.

In "Grave Sight", the main characters are Parker and her stepbrother, Tolliver. Parker finds dead people. Wait! Wait! Don't leave! This is a GOOD BOOK! Have a little tolerance.

Seems Parker was hit by lightning when she was a child, and it left her with the capacity to locate people who have disappeared, but only if they are dead, and only if they haven't been kidnapped and taken out of their local areas.

Do you remember playing that game where someone hides something and you have to find it, and they let you know how close or far away you are by screaming, "You're getting hot!" or "You're getting cold!"? Well, this is like that only different.

She has to be close enough to the corpse to pick up vibes from it. They can't call to her from the next county or the opposite coast or from say, France, you know. So, she's pretty limited in the cases she can take, and has to advertise by word of mouth, of course. I mean, really, what would YOU think if you picked up the newspaper and saw, "Is your crazy old aunt missing from the home? Well, if you can tell me when she wandered off from the home and where she might have gone, I can find her, but only if she's dead."

Naturally, she has to travel a lot, so her stepbrother goes everywhere with her and kind of takes care of her and the business details. She's pretty sensitive and quirky, and wouldn't you be? She's afraid of storms because she has a feeling that one day lightning will hit her again and take away her "gift", and there goes her career.

It's not easy being her, because even though people beg her to find their loved ones, they always end up being all freaked out and turn on her, and so do the local law enforcement people. Many times, they come around to the notion that she is in league with the Devil, so they decide not to pay her. Other times, her clients just decide she's too weird, and try to stiff her. She picked up on those deadbeat excuses early in the game, though, and like the lawyer who gets his fee in advance of the possibility that his client will end up in the pokey, she always gets her pay up front, and Tolliver hot-foots it to the bank and cashes it before she starts her search. And, they always have to leave town in a hurry, apparently.

This was a fun read, and I'll add this series to my "must read" list.

What with all this writing, her husband, three children, three dogs and a duck, I'll bet ol' Charlaine never gets a nap.