Truths, Lies, and a Big Winner!

The guesses have stopped trickling in, so I guess it’s about time to reveal to you what I was and was not lying about.

I was on television within mere hours of being born. – True! I don’t know the circumstances exactly (I was only a few hours old, how am I supposed to remember?), but some local news crew was at the hospital doing a report of some sort on babies being born and I just so happened to be the most recently-born baby at the time. So, less than half a day into my life, my dad held me up to scream my little head off in front of bright lights and tv cameras. Something about all the screaming I did tells me I didn’t fully appreciate my fifteen minutes of fame.

I have always wanted to move out of Colorado — preferably to a coastal city — but now can hardly imagine ever moving away from the mountains. — True! It’s strange, isn’t it, how your life goals evolve as you grow older? Growing up, I swore I’d never spend my whole life in Colorado because, like, come on, how boring would that be? Who knows what the future holds, but for now Tim and I are pretty content to settle in here at the base of the Rockies and raise our future children around lots of extended family. I don’t know when that idea started to hold more appeal than the beach, but it did, and I’m feeling pretty good about it.

I was always a picky eater growing up, and refused to so much as try most vegetables. These days I am more tolerant of veggies, eggplant being one of my favorites. — Lie! Actually, most of this statement is true — I spent many evenings as a kid sitting alone at the kitchen table staring at and finally choking down a much-hated carrot that I was told to eat before joining the family to watch TV — but there is one detail that makes it a big fat lie. One time, Tim made me some eggplant parmesean, which I was eager to try in my quest to find more veggies that I like. I took one bite, gagged at the taste, and proceeded to feel nauseous for the rest of the evening. Eggplant is nasty.

I have eaten rabbit, and I enjoyed it. — True! When I was in Spain, my señora made some grilled rabbit and rice for lunch one day. She told me what it was — in Spanish, of course, as she didn’t speak any English — as she served it, and I, temporarily forgetting what conejo meant but knowing that Anna had yet to serve me a meal I didn’t like, just smiled and took a few bites. It was delicious. Tasted like really well-seasoned chicken, cliche as that may sound. After those first few bites, my high school Spanish vocab started to come back to me and, holding my hands like rabbit ears on my head, I asked Anna, “Is conejo the little animal with the two ears, like this?” She held up two fingers and replied “Boo-nee? Sí.”I shrugged and kept on eating because, let’s face it, it was delicious. Wouldn’t you know, later that day when I was out with mis amigas we happened to walk by a pet store kiosk in the street selling baby bunnies. Adorable ones. I looked at them and said, “Sorry for eating your cousin earlier!” And then I devoured my rabbit and rice the next time Anna made it for dinner.

I won a diversity-themed poetry contest in the seventh grade. My prize was to read my poem at the city’s MLK Day celebration and then join the mayor in leading a march from the Colorado State University campus to city hall. — Lie! It’s actually another partial truth because apparently that’s the only way I know how to lie. I won this poetry contest in 8th grade, not 7th. I got to read my poem and march with the Mayor, but I don’t think we marched to city hall . . . I don’t really remember where we ended up, probably Old Town Square, but I do know we started at the CSU Oval — a part of campus that, based on what non-students hear about the school, you would think was a major part of every student’s day-to-day life, and yet I only ever set foot in the Oval once or twice for the entire three and a half years I attended CSU.

Growing up, I was one of those kids who insisted we have funerals for every family pet that died. This resulted in a dog funeral, a rabbit funeral, a gerbil funeral, and many, many fish funerals. — Lie! Lie, lie, lie. No partial truth about it. When our first dog died, we buried her ashes out in the back yard, but there wasn’t any funeral-type service associated. We just buried her under the rocks because even though she was constantly in search of a soft place to sleep inside, in her yard the rock bed was her favorite napping spot. I did see a rabbit, a gerbil, and many, many fish of mine die, but I don’t remember doing anything special for any of them.

I love to sing karaoke every chance I get. My favorite songs to sing are “Wide Open Spaces” and “You Were Mine” by the Dixie Chicks. — Lie! I am really shy and thus not a big fan of karaoke. With enough drinks in me and some gal pals to sing along with, though, I could likely be persuaded to channel my inner passionate car singer, get up on stage, and belt out some Dixie Chicks songs.

When I was in elementary school, my Brownie Troupe choreographed a dance to “Ice, Ice, Baby” and performed it in a school talent show.– Lie! We did choreograph the dance, but at the very last minute — we’re talking the morning of the talent show, folks — some goodie two shoes reported that there was a bad word in the song that somehow in all our rehearsing we had failed to notice. The adults had a listen, agreed that there was, indeed, a bad word, and decided we’d better not perform lest we all get in trouble. I was really disappointed that we wouldn’t get to show off all of our hard work. (Hard work which, if I remember correctly, included a lot of us standing in a circle and doing hokey-pokey-style movements. But, hey, that was damn good for seven-year-olds!)

So, now that you know the truth, are you dying to know who the Big Winner is? The Big Winner is . . . My Mom!!!

I know, I know. You’d think she wouldn’t be allowed to win since she raised me and was, in fact, present for many of these events and thus should know the facts. But even she was stumped and only guessed one out of three truths correctly on her first try. So I gave her a second chance (as I did for many of you), and she accomplished what nobody else did — she got all three truths! So since she was (1) stumped at first and (2) the only person to guess correctly, My Mom is the Big Winner! She now has the exclusive right to brag to the world that she knows me better than the Internet. Congratulations, Mom!

February 26, 2008 | Filed Under Family, Nostalgia, Random, Spain 

comments

6 Responses to “Truths, Lies, and a Big Winner!”

  1. Erin on February 26th, 2008

    Go SangriaMom!

  2. Heather on February 26th, 2008

    Go mom! I really sucked it up at those! : )

  3. Gary on February 27th, 2008

    The only one really threw me for a loop was the MLK one, cause i have very foggy memories of middle school.

  4. Laurel on February 27th, 2008

    I think it’s awesome that your mom won!

    There is still time to perform the Ice Ice Baby number with some girl scouts, you know.

  5. the real real jessie but secretly kat on February 27th, 2008

    your mom totally kicked my ass. how embarassing.

    i think the mlk day one was cheating. i still remember bits, black tiles and white tiles, piano keys…

  6. SJ on March 2nd, 2008

    I’ve been out of the blogging loop for a few weeks now so I’m totally bummed that I missed out on this! I learned a lot about you though, so in the end it was still fun! Congrats to your Mom.

Leave a Reply