A fifth of meme

Filched from Raising WEG, a meme of fives:

What were you doing five years ago?

We had just found out that I was pregnant with Simon, and were getting ready to move into this house. I had only been back at work after my maternity leave with Tristan for about five months, and had come back to an entirely new job, my first real “communications” job. I was in way over my head in trying to manage some aspects of our departmental communications about SARS — and trying not to be freaked out about it. It really was a transitional point in our lives, one of those hinges that divides everything into “before” and “after”.

What are five things on your to-do list for today?
(Five? Only five? I could probably give you fifty.)

• laundry. and more laundry. then some laundry. and some more laundry.
• scour the kitchen to try to combat the ant infestation and look into some baby and pet friendly chemical solutions.
• get out to Home Depot to get a new hose and an extender-thingee to get our faucet to a more convenient and reachable location that is not buried deep in behind the shrubberies.
• hang the baby swing for Lucas I picked up on UsedOttawa.com for $5.
• do some online research about our multi-generational family trip to Lake Placid next month.

(Sigh, I don’t think I’ll get to all five.)

What are five snacks you enjoy?

• BBQ chips – just like Geddy Lee on BNL’s Snacktime CD!
• Oatmeal choco-chip cookies that have been nuked to make the chips melty.
• Tostitos ‘hint of jalapeno’ bite-sized rounds with Jack’s Garden salsa.
• Fundips.
• Oriental rice crackers.

What five things would you do if you were a billionaire?

• How about I just say “everything” and be done with it?

What are five of your bad habits?

• Eating out of boredom or stress.
• Dropping things wherever I lose interest in them, instead of taking ten seconds to actually put things away.
• Reading e-mail and then forgetting to reply.
• Procrastinating.
• Stopping by the Tim’s drive-thru for coffee every time I have an errand to run.

What are five places where you have lived?

I’ve only lived in two cities (London, ON and Ottawa), but here are five different living arrangements I’ve had:

• Renting a room in a house, which I lost when they kicked me out because a friend had lost her apartment and needed a place to live.
• My own tiny apartment in a sixplex in old Ottawa South.
• Renting a room in a seven-bedrooom student slum, even though I was a full-time worker and only going to school part-time.
• Renting a couple of rooms with a friend in the attic of a mansion in Sandy Hill, from a man we later found out was under observation by CSIS for suspicion of running guns to Iraq.
• Sharing ownership of a triplex in the Glebe with my ex-husband, his parents, his aunt and uncle, and his cousin. Yes, all SEVEN of us were on the deed.

What are five jobs you’ve had?

• communications advisor
• video store clerk
• assessing and correcting income tax returns
• ice-cream scooper
• computer systems tester

I’m supposed to tag five people. (I hate tagging people. I want to tag everyone, because I love to be tagged, but then I forget to do the meme and I feel guilty and I don’t want to add to anyone’s stress levels. I know, I just have to get over myself sometimes.) Um, okay, I know Theresa has a new blog, so she might like to be tagged. And Alison and Miche are always up for a meme, right? And Chantal might like to play along. And I’ll leave the fifth space open for anybody else who wants to give it a go.