Top Five

Usually I don't do memes, but there was an interesting one going around.

"Write down the five items you own which you think are the most interesting, together with any needed descriptions or explanations, as well as who tagged you. Then tag five others to do the same thing."

Well, we'll forgo the tagging since that works better in LiveJournal land. But here's my top five:

1. Claude the Roomba - I hate vacuuming. I hate it more than any other household chore. So that's why I got a Roomba to do it for me. Basically the Roomba is a little circular robot about the size of a small pizza. You set it in the middle of the room and press a button, and it drives around until it's vacuumed everything up. I named mine Claude. Now my least favorite household chore is washing dishes.

2. Nativity in a walnut - My maternal grandparents are uber-Catholic. In 2000 they went to Italy to visit Rome and the surrounding areas. They brought home souveniers for all the grandkids...t-shirts for the boys, and little silver statues for the girls. The statue is a nativity scene, and it's housed in this rounded thing that's the same shape and texture as a walnut shell. I doubt that's what it's supposed to be, but that's what it looks like. I'll have to post a picture sometime. I'm very attached to it.

3. Dental reflector - As a speech pathologist, I don't get much special equipment. The occupational and physical therapists get all kinds of elaborate, weird equipment and all I usually get is flashcards. That's why I love my dental reflector. It looks sort of like a spoon that was run over by a truck and kind of bent funny, and it's the only job-related equipment I have that would make someone go, "What the hell is that?"

4. Robot with a daisy - Mike has recently gotten interested in making little figures out of polymer clay. A few weeks ago he made me a little clay robot, his favorite thing to make, holding a daisy, my favorite flower. I keep it by my computer.

5. Church bulletin - Sunday evenings are usually mildly depressing times. The weekend is over and I have to wake up early to get to work tomorrow. Most of my friends are spending time with their husbands or running last-minute weekend errands, and there's nothing on TV. Recently, too, it's been sad because I haven't been able to see Mike during the weeknights, only on weekends, so Sunday night marks the longest possible time before I see him again. It's quite lonely. Since I can't go anywhere (I like to spend Sunday nights in with the cats to make up for being gone all weekend) I have to find something in my apartment to distract me. Enter the church bulletin. It's a pretty standard Catholic parish bulletin, with a letter from the pastor and notices and advertisments on the back. But it gives me a sense of being a part of a community. I like to read it and think about what I'll get involved in once I move to Milwaukee, and the letter from the pastor usually provides some food for thought. I don't save them - when I'm done reading it I toss it out - but since it's Sunday night I have one, so I guess I can count it among my possessions.

Let's see what you've got!