What Feeds the Fire

Two weeks ago I received an award. Actually I received the same award from 2 different bloggers! I’ve gotten awards before and though I really do appreciate them,  a long time ago I declared this an award-free blog. Because it’s kind of a “blogger thing” and I write primarily for people who aren’t.  But since I got 2 last week, I decided to (sort of) play just because it might be fun.

The awards came from Lee over at Traveling Sardine Class and Renee at Writingfeemail. Please check out both of their sites. Lee and I have been blog friends for quite some time. Renee and I are new friends and I so much enjoy being a part of their lives. Thank you Renee and Lee.

I was the proud recipient of the Blog On Fire Award. All this means is that other writers like my work and that could not make me more proud. After receiving the award, I’m supposed to write 7 things about myself that you might not know. Geez, my life has become a bit of an open book in the last year and a half so what would anyone want to know? This ain’t easy. But here goes.

1. From the time I was a young child until I was a teenager, I had a reoccurring dream that involved a very large wolf who walked on two legs and splendidly dressed in a green Robin Hood style outfit. I spent the dreams running away from him, up and down and throughout a grand cathedral.  He looked an awful lot like this fellow, except he was enormous, and mean, and not a cartoon. The weird thing is, this Disney film came out long after the dream started and when I was 4 I had never even seen a Cathedral…so what the heck does that mean?

2. I think snakes are evil…and I often have dreams about falling into a deep, dark pit of writhing serpents. No more about dreams. Somebody may be able to interpret them and then I might have to accept some very harsh facts about myself. By the way, I have good dreams too. I just can't remember them.

3. When I was younger I was sure I was going to be hit by a truck (yeah, I know...a truck?) by the time I was 25. This didn’t consume me…it was just “a fact”. But I made a bucket list of all the things I wanted to do before this tragic moment…and did almost all of them. Except parachuting and hang gliding (although I did make my first jump at 49). On my 26^th birthday, my friend Mary turned to me and said, "congratulations".  “For what?”  “You’re not dead!”  Oh, yeah…that’s right.

4. When I was 18, I quit college and went to work for a big game outfitter in northern British Columbia as a trail cook. I didn't know what a big game outfitter was...I just wanted to live in the Rockies (one of the things on that list). I was deposited in the middle of the mountains, with a horse,  a bunch of cowboys and hunters, and no electricity or running water. At my interview I had told the boss that I knew how to cook. Of course, I had no idea. NONE! I learned very quickly (because the cowboys were hungry) how to bake bread in a tin, fire-heated oven, stuff moose heart, how to kill and skin a rabbit…or an elk, and that I do NOT LIKE brains and eggs or rocky mountain oysters. I also learned to make do with one bath every 2 months and do the laundry in a giant tub of water from the river, heated over the stove.  Oh yes, and to always take a pitcher of water to the outhouse in the summer. Life is more pleasant if you pour it down the hole first so as to clear out the blowflies. A blowfly-bombarded bottom is really an icky thing. These are things everyone should know, don’t you think?

5. I used to be 50 pounds heavier. But I'm not ready to talk about that.

6. I did go back to college and earned a degree in television journalism. Not because I wanted to be a journalist, but because I’d been there so damned long and all the credits I had already taken fit into the degree. I worked as a television reporter for a couple years. Until (among other things) I just could no longer stand sticking a camera in the faces of people in the midst of tragedy and ask them the stupid question, “how do you feel right now?” And writing to a 5^th grade level. And other assorted nonsense. But it was great training. For what, I don't know, but still... great training.

7. When I grow up I want to write a book…and be a singer. I can’t sing, but oh, wouldn’t it just feel so good to belt one out once in awhile? I might be able to write. But I just don’t know how to start the book. 

Now that I've filled you in on some of the inane details of my life, I'm supposed to pass this on to other bloggers. Which I'm not going to do (remember I said I was sort of playing). Not because I'm lazy, but because I can't pick. All the bloggers on my blogroll are there because like 'em.  As far as I'm concerned, they're all "on fire" and I hope that you will take the time to check them out. Yep...over there to the right....under "Places I snoop regularly".

Here's to a great week everyone!