NJM 20 - A survey because I don't like today's prompts in Each Day

Do you put ketchup on hot dogs?
Sometimes it’s ketchup mustard and relish. Sometimes it’s ketchup mustard and mayo. If I’m feeling real fancy its ketchup mustard cheese and pickles. It all depends on what kind of day my brain-mouth relationship is having.

Choice of soda?
At a drive through, diet coke (or diet pepsi if I have to). At A&W it’s always root beer. At home it’s usually ginger ale.

Do you put salt on your watermelon?
No, but I’ve heard mustard is good. I meant to try it this summer but totally forgot.

Can you swim?
Like a fish. I grew up on a lake and the water is my happy place. I’m also a water sign, so it seems fitting.

Hot dogs or burgers?
I’m not going to choose and you can’t make me.

Favourite type of food?
The one that I choose to eat the most is probably Italian because pizza and pasta. But I love Thai and Indian so so much.

Do you believe in ghosts?
Not the halloween kind of ghosts, no, but I do believe the energy of the dead can affect the world of the living. I’ve experienced some phenomena, and I choose to believe it’s the people represented therein.

What do you drink in the morning?
Water. I don’t usually have a coffee until my morning break (or that approximate time now that I don’t have a scheduled morning break.

Can you do 100 push ups?
Not a chance in hell. This afternoon I tried to do 10. I did 7.

Favourite season?
It has always been fall for me. Maybe when I was a child I liked the summer, I know when I was a student I enjoyed the freedom, but the temperatures, the smell, the weather of fall just give me so much peace and coziness.

Your favourite animal?
This is another one that is cruel to make people choose, so I am going to say the family Felidae. ALL THE CATS.

Tattoos?
I JUST GOT A NEW ONE. I have pictish script up the back of both of my lower calves, two different bird tattoos on both upper arms, a religious tattoo on my left forearm, a work wife tattoo on my right arm below the elbow, and a bear paw on the left side of my chest for my dad.
Funny story, I said to Bastet in our group chat (with M) that this latest one was my second last tattoo, and when I said I had a life wife tattoo planned with Red, M sent me a private text saying maybe we should get a tattoo together. Excusemewhat? The way he’s changed in the last year still floors me and fills me with such deep affection for who he was and who he’s grown to be. When I prodded him about it later he said he thought it would be nice, “but I don’t want to wear matching coats”. That’s a throwback reference, to a conversation when we started dating, about making fun of couples who wear matching clothes (i.e his brother and his now-ex wives).

Do you wear glasses?
No. I’m sure I will eventually so I don’t wish to hasten this by saying the following, but I’ve always wanted glasses. I’ve also always loved people in glasses. When M and I met he had glasses and he hated them with a scary intensity. I was sad when he got lasik in 2007, but he was so happy.

Do you have a phobia?
Many. The Dark. Falling (i.e heights). Basements (probably because of The Dark, but even when the lights are on). While I don’t feel like this is a phobia I have a fearful reaction to happening upon dead things. Yes, I have happened upon dead things enough in my life to establish that I scream, shudder and /or run away at any encounter.

Do you have a nickname?
I do, and I love it. It’s pretty exclusive to a small group of people, really only my sister and The Odd Lady call me it. It started as a pejorative based on my first name that my sister gave me, then shortened to a single word with affection. It is a common object, and a few years ago The Odd Lady added it to a tattoo, which I think is the sweetest.

First car?
First car I drove was my sister’s Buick Century. She said I was terrible hahah. The first car that the registration was in my name was my dad’s 1996 Honda Accord EX-R. We called it The Midlife Crisis Mobile. It was beautiful.
The day that car blew up on the side of the highway, M told me he referred to me as his girlfriend, and we started the “dating” phase of our relationship. He wanted something good to come out of that evening.

Favourite movie?
Oh man. Too many to count. So the first ones to come to mind:
The Dark Crystal
Labyrinth
Nightmare Before Christmas
Bridget Jones’s Diary
Love Actually
Stranger Than Fiction
Cabin in the Woods
Crazy Stupid Love
How to Train your Dragon
The Craft: Legacy (which unceremoniously usurped The Craft)

Rain or Snow?
If I’m driving, snow, 100%. I detest driving in the rain.
But I love both snow and rain in their appropriate seasons. None of this raining in January or snowing in June shit thank you.

Can you change a tyre?
Can I, yes. Do I? No, that’s what I pay road side assistance for. (It was very funny last year when I blew a tire on my way to work and sat, while in my uniform, waiting for the tow truck guy to come save me. I even joked about it. It was already like 25°C at 0630 and I did not want to have to spend my day in my sweaty uniform.)

Favourite flower?
The little pink flowers that grow in the cracks of the pavement at work. Their mere existence is a wonder to me and I feel so proud of them for thriving in such adversity. It might be mossy rockfoil, but it could be something else too. Doesn’t really matter, anyway.

Can you drive a stick?
Fuck Yes. A fact I’m more proud of these days than when I learned. Gonna be so sad when I go electric.

Ever go sky diving?
No.

Favourite colour?
I have discovered I have different favourite colours for different applications. For atmosphere (so like, wall colour) green. To wear, bright pink (regularly alternates with red and purple, too). For comfort, feeling like myself, black.

Favourite restaurant?
There’s a restaurant in my hometown that I go to every single time I return. I think it’s still my favourite because nostalgia. I spent AGES there as a teen/young adult. If I were to choose a place here, I’d be hard pressed to decide.

Can you whistle?
Yes. but not that ear-splitting dad way. But I can whistle a tune almost as good as I can sing.

Where were you born?
Canada

Surgeries?
Hernia surgery at 6 months. Tonsils and Adenoids at 5. Dental surgeries (implants) at 18 and 37.

Favourite vacation?
Thailand 2009. It was a magical time that M and I still feel wistful about. Very close runner up was South Africa and Zimbabwe in 1995, when I finally met my African family.

Shower or bath?
Bath, but it has to be a better tub than the one in our house.

Last song you heard?
Currently this one

Broken bones?
Shockingly no, despite my hilariously terrible proprioception.

How many TV’s in you house?
One currently plugged in, but there’s two upstairs and one downstairs that haven’t been used in ages.

Worst pain?
Heat stroke after the Canadian MX Championship race many years ago now. My head hurt so much that I couldn’t speak, I had to text M what was going on. He packed me with ice packs and got me water and gatorade and drugs. He’d dealt with heat exhaustion/stroke a lot in his mountain biking days.

Do you like to sing?
I fucking LOVE it. I do it all the time. And I’m finally happy enough with my voice that I will actually do it around strangers.

Are your parents still alive?
Not both of them.

Do you like to go camping?
I did once upon a time. It’s too much logistics for my scattered brain these days. And M can’t stand to do it anymore after his stint in the Army.

What do you binge watch?
I don’t binge watch when M is around. When I was in Winnipeg I binged Chernobyl, and The Good Place. When I was recovering from the latest implant I binged Jenna Marbles’ and Shane Dawson’s entire channels (just before or kind of during his de-evolution into a piece of shit, though arguably he was one the whole time).

Pumpkin or Pecan Pie?
Mine? Pumpkin. Someone else’s, Pecan.

A photo of yourself?
How about a photo of a drawing of me? As a cat :)