1. I was in labor for two months with my 3rd child (which probably explains why I don’t have a 4th). I went into premature labor at 24 weeks on August 4, 1986. My due date was November 28. The doctors didn’t hold out much hope, and despite using every tactic in their arsenals they never could stop the contractions completely. They did, however, manage to slow the progress of my labor for 8 long weeks, which gave Rusty time to get big enough to survive. (If you medical sorts are ever curious about what it feels like to spend a month on IV magnesium sulfate, drop me a line. It’s been a while, but it’s not something one tends to forget!)
2. In my 48 years I’ve had 29 different addresses in 8 US states and 2 countries. The longest I’ve ever lived in one residence is 5 years. For much of my childhood I lived in a tiny Japanese farming village and roamed the countryside with my Japanese playmates watching the tea, rice, pig, and silkworm farmers, weavers, and carpenters work at their crafts. As a result of my gypsy lifestyle and exposure to a variety of settings and cultures, I can fit in just about anywhere and am quite comfortable with change. I get bored if things stay the same for too long, rarely plan my life very far ahead, and tend to be somewhat spontaneous, such as going to the animal shelter to put up a “lost cat” notice and coming home with a great Dane. But that would be another “thing,” and I’ve already got the requisite seven, so I’ll just move on.
3. I’ve had a movie made about me. It all started when my husband Jeff found something something very cathartic and personal that I had written in private and decided, without my knowledge, to share it with the entire world. This resulted in it being published in the newspaper, where the movie-maker found it. It eventually became a short film called A Simple Smile. For the whole story, see my post The Accidental Op-Ed. (Fortunately, I love my husband very much and was therefore able to refrain from killing him on the spot.)
4. Physical oddities: At 6’2″, I am quite tall for a woman, but I’m by far the shortest of our 4 siblings (photo evidence). Both of my talo-calcaneal joints are congenitally fused. With all my fingers extended, I can bend my pinkies without moving my other fingers. (My dad & brothers can all do this with their left hands, but not their right. My mom can’t do it at all.)
5. I built the world’s first website about sugar gliders in 1994, mostly to teach myself HTML. (Its final iteration has been archived at http://www.sugarglider.com/archives/ruth/). In its second year it earned a Yahoo! “Cool Site of the Day” award. Of course, since there were only about 27 websites back then, that wasn’t nearly as impressive an achievement as it would be today.
6. I played volleyball my senior year in high school, but having never been a terribly athletic sort, I mostly sat on the bench. My shining moment of the season was when an opposing team’s coach complained that our court was missing a regulation line 6 feet behind the serving line, and, as no tape measure was handy, I was summoned to lie on the floor in front of a gymnasium full of spectators to measure for placement of a temporary line.
7. I once won a trophy in an archery tournament that I attended as a spectator. At least, I had intended to be a spectator. A member of the Texas A&M women’s archery team became ill at the last moment, and without a replacement they didn’t have enough players to compete. I was hurriedly outfitted with borrowed equipment and, with much one-on-one personal coaching, managed to shoot well enough (for two long days and with screaming muscles unaccustomed to such uses) to supplement the scores of the 4 real team members so they could keep their first place spot. I was on the team by default after that. I won several more trophies, due more to the excellence of my teammates than any stellar ability of my own. When my nock locater slipped at one subsequent (outdoor) tournament, however, I did become the only member of the team to ever “Robin Hood” in the dirt. My first arrow flew over the target and landed in the field some 30 yards beyond it. My second arrow also flew over the target, and neatly split the first one in two.

Official “7 Things” Meme Rules:

1. Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share seven facts about yourself in the post — some random, some weird.
3. Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.

Tagged By:

Thinking I was about to be tagged for this meme, and knowing that after this weekend I wouldn’t have time to blog for at least the next month, I dutifully prepared my entry ahead of time. As it turned out, the friend I thought was going to tag me was merciful and chose 7 others. But by then I’d already gone to all the trouble of writing the post, and I’d hate to think I wasted a perfectly good free afternoon this close to the beginning of the semester. So I’ve decided to publish my post anyway, and credit Felicity with the tag, in hopes the meme gods will be merciful to her for flaunting their rules and not tagging anyone.

Tag, You’re It:

• Jeff
• Etmorpi
• ByGolly
• Greystork
• Weasel
• Rasama
• Enrico