Friday, March 09, 2007

Friday Five: Matters of Taste

This week's RevGalBlogPals challenge: Name five things you like a lot that some close relative or significant other did/does not like. This could be food, movies, hobbies, music, sports or whatever springs to mind.

1. Chocolate. I love it, and consider it a food group. Fellow Traveler hates it. So when she gives me a gift of chocolate -- like my Valentine's Day custom-printed M&M's -- I consider it something of an act of sacrifice as well as of love; sort of like when I gave my rabidly conservative late father a -- shudder -- Rush Limbaugh book one Christmas.

2. Janis Joplin. I like her music; Fellow Traveler hates it.

3. Cartoons. My parents used to be absolutely mystified by my adult enjoyment of cartoons -- whether favorites from my childhood like Bullwinkle ("Come, Natasha -- vee get moose und sqvirrel") or "adult" cartoons like The Simpsons. In their minds, cartoons were for kids -- period. I remember trying to exegete an episode of The Simpsons for my parents, pointing out the sly allusions to popular culture and such, and having them look at me as if I were mentally impaired. "You really can't grow up, can you?"

4. Recreational cooking. My mother sometimes had a difficult time understanding how I could find cooking relaxing, or why I would happily launch into a recipe with 20 ingredients and ten steps when I could just buy an instant mix that made a reasonable (to her) facsimile instead. She also used to shake her head at my tendency to get odd culinary urges in the evening -- bringing out the cookie-making ingredients at 9 p.m., for instance.

5. Recreational shopping. While I am the dispositional opposite of a mall rat, there are times when I can spend a whole day in a big-box store just seeing what's there -- I'll have some "need" items on my list, but then I'll find myself wandering around just to sight-see the merchandise. (For those of you familiar with Meijer's stores -- those are my favorite stalking grounds when I get in this mood.) For Fellow Traveler, this is the equivalent of pounding bamboo splinters under her fingernails. This is one of those "May there be spaces in your togetherness" things, I think.

7 comments:

David said...

Sounds like a great week....all except for the shopping any way.

toujoursdan said...

I share the cartoon love.

The old Bugs, Bullwinkle and Dudley Do Right are some of my faves and I make a point to tune into Spongebob, Fairly Oddparents (which is about as campy as it comes), the Simpson, Futurama and Family Guy. People think I am nuts.

Jody Harrington said...

I must say that I don't know anyone who hates chocolate. Just a few who aren't the chocoholic I am and one good friend who developed an allergy to it. She says that she used to eat it so much she must have used up her lifetime allocation!

lutheranmom said...

I'm with you on the cartoons and on the recreational cooking. My mom doesn't understand that you can get enjoyment from the process of cooking something.

leah said...

Oh, I love recreational shopping, too!

QuakerPastor said...

I'm with ya on the cartoons and chocolate. You however can keep the cooking and the shopping..peace out QP

Anonymous said...

Cartoons and chocolate (very dark, no dairy) for me as well!