I have been tagged, so here are my seven random things about me in no particular order:

1. Pet peeve at the office: the keyboard number pad and the telephone number pad are reversed, causing me on a busy day to transpose numbers.

2. Favorite summertime foods: Pasta salad, baby summer squash and onions, BLTs, and sweet tea (yes, I realize it is a drink, but calorie-wise, it might as well be a food.)

3. As a child and young adult, I was fascinated with horses, and though I rode for hours and hours and took English-style riding lessons for several years, I had an inexplicably high accident rate, many of which proved the value of the mandatory riding helmet rule. I was run over and almost trampled (and kicked in the head as a child, although was wearing a helmet); I was kicked in the chest by a jealous pony (no, I wasn't walking behind it); I was dumped and landed jaw first, chipping several teeth; I was bucked off, but managed to hold on to the reins as I was flying over the horse’s head (bad idea as they were leather and sliced the skin nicely; and most recently rode a horse who hated to get his feet wet, so the horse thought if he took me femur first into full grown trees repeatedly, the trees would move and he could keep his feet dry (the trees won, and I ended up with the war wounds to prove it.)

4. My most famous last words last year: My grandmother and I were going to take a trip together (planned prior to her cancer diagnosis). Grandmother wanted to go to South Asia and I vetoed the idea because I had an enormous project at work and couldn’t risk getting sick due to clean food/water issues. When I took the trip to England instead last fall, I ended up very sick and had to be hospitalized due to severe food poisoning.

5. I am from the Deep South. While I am really “from” Georgia, I was actually born just across the state line in Alabama. I have an accent to match but have been living North of the Mason-Dixon line for long enough that I only turn it on when talking to fellow Southerners.

6. I am a descendent of both Loyalists and Patriots, but most prominent American ancestors were the Byrds of Virginia. The Byrds were very staunch supporters of the King and active in colonial politics prior to the Revolutionary War, and are probably revolving in their graves over my choice of a college named for a young upstart.

7. If I could pass any law, it might well relate to humane treatment for chickens on chicken trucks. Just before my junior year in college, we were on vacation, and my (other) grandmother suddenly died. Since I had planned to go to THE right after vacation, my car was crammed with stuff for school, so I had to drive several hours to THE to unload, before turning around to drive to Alabama for the funeral. I ended up stuck behind a chicken truck for miles on I-81N as wind ripped feathers out of the chickens and spattered the road and my windshield with their feathers, many of which were bloody. Granted I wasn’t in the best state of mind to begin with, but I still cringe when I see chickens crowded into wire cages on their way to the slaughter house.