Seven Random Facts

I usually don't pay much attention to memes and awards.  But this one was from Ginnie (here) and I love Ginnie so here goes...

Instructions are to 1)  link to the blogger (done); 2) List seven random facts about yourself (coming right up); and 3)  Nominate seven other bloggers (Nope, but grab the award and join in if you wish. All my readers are beautiful bloggers).

Here Goes:
1.  As a young Registered Nurse, I was the Head Nurse of the Dickson Heart Unit of Charlotte Memorial Hospital.  I loved this high-intensity atmosphere and left only because I married and moved away.
The following photographs will demonstrate:  1.) how long it's been since I worked there; or 2.) how very fast health care facilities have grown; or 3.) both.

A postal card of Charlotte Memorial Hospital circa the time I worked there

An aerial view of the hospital now as part of Carolinas Medical Center Charlotte

(If you look closely, you can see the original hospital directly above the very center of the photograph, about half the distance from the center to the top)

2.  I love to drive.  I loved driving when I got my first driver's license and I love it just as much now.  Last year my husband nagged and nagged me to get a new car.  (I figured that just because my car was ten years old didn't mean it wasn't still the perfect car for me.)  Eventually I gave in to his logic.  I got a bright red BMW with all the bells and whistles.  Had to wait for it but it was well worth the wait.  The interior is black leather with bright red stitching. Classy indeed.  But more importantly, the engine has three turbo speeds in addition to the regular "comfort" setting.  The turbo speeds should be called fast, faster, and watch out.  I thought my old car loved the mountain roads, but this one hugs these mountain curves like a lover.  It's the first BMW I've owned and I'll drive it until I can no longer drive.  Who would have thought a heated steering wheel would be so great?  Special thanks to my husband for being persistent.  I'm totally in love with this car.  But I still won't let it parallel park itself.  Too many disclaimers in the owner's manual about ending up on the sidewalk or hitting pedestrians.

3.  I do a lot of knitting but I did not learn how until 2009 when I joined a neighborhood knitting group called the "knitwits."  I was told it didn't matter if I didn't knit, that I should come just for the company.  I decided that if I were going to join a knitting group then I would learn to knit.  So I taught myself to knit with the help of a book and our local yarn store.  My mother did not knit, crochet, or sew and did little cooking.  Martha Stewart she was not.  So I learned those skills on my own.

Red alpaca shawl
The first tricky thing I made.

4.  I listen to music pretty much all the time.  I have three iPods and use each one every day.  I still have the first generation iPod like the one pictured below.  It no longer holds a charge and I don't even have the iTunes library that programmed it.  (That was about four laptops ago.)  It came with a disc for installing and does not connect to WiFi.  The music is digital, but it is cumbersome to navigate except for the playlists.  It still works just fine and has great music and playlists on it. I keep it on the Bose dock and the beautiful sound fills the air, softly in the background when we have guests and booming when I'm here alone.  It was my first iPod and I got a bit carried away with making playlists for all occasions and activities.  You should hear my playlist for housecleaning.  It will keep you moving for certain.

My second iPod is a much more recent version of the iPod Touch which is rather like an iPhone except that it has no camera or phone.  My car has a dandy USB port in the center console, so I keep this one tucked in there and play it through my car sound system.  The third is the latest generation iPod Touch which does have a camera and takes a fairly good photograph or video.  I listen to podcasts, music, and audible books and exchange messages with friends.  (We don't get cellular phone service here at the house.)

5.  I am a voracious reader and have at least three books in process at any given time.  Right now I am reading "M Train" by Patti Smith, Diane Rehm's new memoir "On My Own," Stephen King's "Finders Keepers," a sequel to "Mr. Mercedes," and for book club Timothy Egan's "The Worst Hard Time" about the Dust Bowl.  I recently finished Elizabeth Strout's "My Name is Lucy Barton" and was terribly disappointed.  I loved her other books so perhaps my expectations were a bit too high.  But  after all, she is a Pulitzer Prize winner for "Olive Kitteridge" and this one didn't seem to have been written by the same person.  By the way:  one of the books was a Christmas gift and I bought the others from our local bookstore.  None are on a Kindle.

6.  I really love books.  I love holding them in my hands and flipping the pages back and forth.  But I also love electronics, so it should come as no surprise that I have three Kindles and use all three.  I use the really old one for reading in the den.  I like it because you can click to "turn" pages forward or backward from either side.  It is so old it does not connect with the Amazon Cloud but the books load directly on the Kindle itself.  I use a Paperwhite for reading upstairs and outdoors.  And I use the Kindle Fire to watch movies or play games.  Despite having three e-readers as well as the Kindle App on two of my iPods, I read far more "real" books than e books.  My Kindles are loaded with poetry collections, short stories, anthologies, etc. as well as some books that would be huge and heavy in print.  (Think "Don Quixote,"  "Autobiography of Mark Twain," Ken Follet tomes, complete works of Shakespeare, etc.)

7.  While I love electronics,  I'm not so easily impressed by new gadgets or apps anymore.  Seems as if there is an app for almost anything.  But I must admit that even after all this time, Siri continues to amaze me.  She can find me answers to almost anything although I don't like it when she gives me sports scores and tells me my team got "clobbered."  She could be a bit more diplomatic.  One of the best things about Siri is her ability to recognize music.  On several occasions, I have been watching a recorded show (we rarely watch anything live anymore) and heard a song I liked in the background.  So I can ask Siri to tell me the name of the song.  Immediately she says in a rather joyful voice, "Oh, I know that one."  Then she not only gives me the name of the song and artist, she flashes the album cover on my iPod and tells me to click on the icon to listen to the entire song and learn more about the album.  If I want to buy the song or album I can click and make a purchase.  In seconds the song (I rarely purchase the entire album) is there for me to listen to for 99 cents.  And the next time I sync my iPod, it is loaded in my iTunes library and I can download it to my car iPod or the Kindle Fire.  Now, how cool is that?  I think Siri will give me a lot of comfort when I am old and senile.  I can envision my elderly self sitting there and talking with Siri.  Or perhaps she will be incorporated into a little companion robot.  Who knows?  But with audible books and Siri, I'm sure I will be happy.

So there you have seven fairly innocuous things you might not know about me.  If you're so inclined, grab the award and use it to tell us more about yourself.