That "10 Unique Things" meme

[gnomi]

So, this meme has been everywhere on my friends list for a couple of days now, but I've been having a real problem coming up with 10 things I've done that others might not have (especially since so many things I've done have been in the presence of at least one of you on my friends list). But I've decided to take a stab at it:

1. Said to a good friend, "Sorry, I've got to go -- I've got Connie Willis on the other line."

2. Blown my knee out walking down a flight of stairs, followed by spending the next 3.5 months on crutches

3. Locked myself in my dorm room

4. Visited the sukkah of a guy who has made a set of vestments for the Kohen Gadol

5. Watched a highly-trained bomb squad do a controlled explosion of a bag of bread

6. Put on my roller skates and took a samoyed for a walk (OK, more of a run. Or, more of a drag.)

7. Learned to ride a bicycle using training feet

8. Met Joan D. Vinge for the first time while in the hot tub

9. Worked with Chinese artisans at the Boston Museum of Science

10. Lost a pair of eyeglasses at the bottom of the Charles River

...and an extra that I think I share only with beckyfeld ('cause she and I did this together)

11. Walked up a down escalator in the World Trade Center in the company of a blind man

Comments

[tsuki-no-bara.livejournal.com]

...training FEET? o.O

>>Said to a good friend, "Sorry, I've got to go -- I've got Connie Willis on the other line."<<

we're not worthy! we're not worthy! (obviously never met her in person, but her writing is FANTASTIC. i have love for her and jealousy for you. :p )

[tsuki-no-bara.livejournal.com]

ps i lost my glasses AND my sunglasses at the bottom of the mad river....

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Glasses and sunglasses simultanously? Or in 2 separate incidents?

[tsuki-no-bara.livejournal.com]

they were little clip-on sunglasses, so when my glasses went, my sunglasses did too. i was PISSED. not to mention kind of blind. my sister had to drive us home (in my car).

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Ah, that makes sense.

And yeah -- when I lost my glasses to the river, I had to call home and have my mom drive into Boston (from Burlington) to pick me up. No way was I going to try to negotiate the T without being able to see 4 inches in front of my face.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Re: training feet: When beckyfeld learned to ride a bike, she had actual training wheels. But by the time I was learning, the training wheels were either broken or missing. Becky convinced my parents that she would teach me how to ride a bike without training wheels. So she sat on the back wheel of the bike while I figured out the whole balancing thing. And then, one day, as I was riding along with her on the back wheel, she stood up. It wasn't until she called to me from about 100 feet behind me (instead of right behind me) that I realized she was missing. So I fell over. :-)

As for Connie Willis, mabfan spent two years as the Secretary of SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America). We got many interesting people calling and/or leaving messages.

they were my feet

[chaos-wrangler.livejournal.com]

My older brother & I learned to ride on a bike bought for our younger (and, at the time, noticeably smaller) brother. The two of us were tall enough that we could put our feet on the ground while sitting on the bike, which we did if we felt we were loosing our balance. (All three of us also started out with mom helping hold the bike upright for the first few tries.)

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

4. Visited the sukkah of a guy who has made a set of vestments for the Kohen Gadol

Okay, my curiosity is piqued. :-) Which kohen gadol would that be, exactly? Were they ever used? And if so, where?? -- Or was this strictly a historical re-creation costuming project?

(Last week's parsha contains one of my very favorite verses in the Torah: Pa'amon zahav v'rimon, pa'amon zahav v'rimon, al shulei ha-me'il saviv. [Exodus 28:34])

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

This guy was making the b'gadim for the actual Kohen Gadol, the one who will be doing the avodah in the Third Temple. He was making them in anticipation of the coming of mashiach, because he believed that mashiach can't come until the b'gadim exist. Among other stuff. But he focused on the b'gadim. When I was on Year Course, they took us around Jerusalem on Sukkot to meet all sorts of interesting folks. One day, they took us to his sukkah, and we were shown the b'gadim that he had made.

(that same day, I met Teddy Kollek. But a lot more people have done that.)

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

I have to say, that is neat. Freaky, but in a way that appeals to me.

But do they have a way to establish who, IY"H, will be the K"G? :-) Or is Mashiach just expected to pick him out visually from among the cohanim when the time comes?

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I honestly have no clue how he and his group think they're going to figure out who the K"G is. There's probably a lot of kaballah and hand-waving involved.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

I've watched a highly trained bomb squad painstakingly dismantle somebody's lunch, and I've put on roller skates and taken a Shepherd cross for a walk/run/drag...

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Hee! Shepherds are a lot like Samoyeds that way -- run and drag is the standard setting for movement.

And they dismantled the lunch? Was it a bagged lunch, or a suspicious-looking sandwich?

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

It was in a bag, left underneath a seat in the gate area of the El Al terminal at JFK. They actually halted the plane on the runway, found the guy who had left his lunch there, took him off the plane and chewed him out before sending the flight off.

[donovanstitch.livejournal.com]

So, we're eleven comments into this thread and no one has asked about leading the blind man the wrong way on the WTC escalator. Eh?

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

My mother took beckyfeld and me to NYC in 1980 to visit a couple of family friends. The husband of the couple was blind, and when we went to the WTC, he decided that he wanted to try going up the down escalator, mostly just to see if he could get away with it. Naturally, he wanted Becky and me to join him in this adventure (seeing as I was 9 and Becky was 13, we saw this as much fun). So off we went. I still remember my mom and the wife of the couple standing at the bottom of the escalator watching us with bemusement and the WTC security guards having no clue whether they should stop us or let us be.

(by the way, we got your phone message, but I've lost my voice so I'm trying to limit the amount of calling I'm doing until my voice comes back.)

finally

[lucretia-borgia.livejournal.com]

I've been reading down the list of friends' postings, and already seen two lists of "10 things unique to me" where I had several overlaps with the lister. (Did that make any sense? It's late.) Your stuff is actually unique, I think. Bravo.