Invited to Dinner & Tagged

The lovely Orangeblossoms has invited me to dinner. I am honored to be invited among such prestigious guests. Now about those airplane tickets... In addition to the dinner invitation, she tagged me - the first time this has happened to me in blogland. Here are the results.

Breakfast Items That Are Critical To My Happiness: On weekdays Grapenuts cereal with blueberries & skim milk warmed up. On weekends it varies but I like to have a big breakfast every now and then with either pancakes, eggs, and bacon or a breakfast burrito.

People I Would Most Like to Share a Table With (okay, I am limiting this to people not in blogland nor with whom I have shared a table before or the list would go on and on):
George Shaller (a biologist who actually went to grad school with a close friend & mentor of mine)
Marie Currie (a fabulous chemist)
Jimmy Carter (who created most of the National Parks in Alaska)
Teddy Roosevelt (who came up with the National Park system)
Ada Blackjack (an amazing Inupiat, i.e. Eskimo woman who was a lone survivor on a far northern island)
Georg Steller (the naturalist for whom many things have been named - he might be a bit cantankerous but let's hope he'll have stories to tell)
Wangari Maathai (Kenyan activist & the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize)
Monica Turner (a spatial biologist in Wisconsin)
Danny Wright (a composer & musician)
Brian Andreas of Story People (I didn't cheat! It's not a blog)

Rudest Thing Said To Me This Week: Ummm...you know, I can't think of anything this week... but a week before I was volunteering at a marathon and I was trying to keep the RV's off the sidewalk and the race trail. There were several who were patiently waiting but this one guy pulled in the wrong lane and yelled at me that he wouldn't be in the wrong lane if I would just let him into the RV lot despite the fact that there were all these people running past him who would be gone in about 2 minutes. The ironic thing was that there was no space in the lot and he was going to have turn around and leave almost as soon as he came (which he did). And that guy was on vacation! Couldn't spare a minute!

Rudest Thing Done To Me This Week: Drag racing in front of my house (a 15mph zone) while my dog was outside! Oooo - that made me angry.

Jobs That Have Made Me Go, "Huh?" hmmm....amazingly I can't think of it. Usually it's the bosses that have made me go "huh?". Nothing gets under my skin like supervisors who don't look out for their people or who are unable to delegate.

Jobs I Have Had That Concerned and/or Confused My Mother: I think every job I've ever had concerns my parents because they tend to be potentially dangerous, but they are still pleased I do them. As for that though, nobody in my family ever expected me to study and become a scientist...they all thought I'd study English. It was a big surprise to them, which in turn surprised me.

Favorite Curse Words That I Can Use In Front of Children Without Too Much Fear of Repercussion: "You son of a seal pup!" which I got from my father who uses it when he is extremely upset (like having hit his thumb with a hammer). The amusing thing about it is that now, sometimes when I use this curse, it is at actual sons of sea pups...seals and sea lions. Oh, and sometimes I say "Bloody shistomiasis" which is really something to curse about, it being a dreadful water borne disease that affects much of the world. (Nerdy of me, but somehow it's stuck)

Curse Word That I Use Most Frequently After Leaving the Children: Bullshit. I use this mostly when I feel someone is well, bullshitting me, or themselves. Since grad school I have a low bullshit tolerance. I don't usually use it in a mean way, just a statement. However, I'm not much of a curser...if someone offends me I'm likely to get all super polite and sickly sweet but if I stumble very hard into something I might just say "bloody hell" which is, for some reason, very satisfying.

Most Honest Bumper Sticker I've Ever Seen: "I club baby seals" with a club picture for the word. Granted, I didn't exactly appreciate the sentiment but it was honest.
Changes I Would Make If Money Were No Object: To what? To my life or to the world? This is a very large question....hmmm....but I think, if we are just referring to my life, I would run my own research and forget about grant writing and I would probably travel more, and I would donate more money to my pet causes because really, there's not that much I would change.

Favorite Piece of Technology: Well, everything is technology these days right? I'm awfully fond of running hot & cold water (showers & washing machines) but I suppose you meant some sort of electronic gadget ... but I've lived without all of them and I have to say the one that gets me the most excited when I rejoin civilization is the showers.

Oh, and, tagging? If you want to do it, consider yourself tagged. If you do please write that you are in the comment line so we can follow you.