THINGS YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT KATHY

(Linda with President Obama)

 

My friend Linda thinks I am a “character” and thought it would be interesting for me to disclose some of the quirks that a bio does not reveal.  So this blog is for Linda.

DVR 

The other day I received a notice that RCN, my cable provider, wanted me to upgrade my DVR box.  You can imagine the technological panic I went into.  I currently know how to use my DVR remote now and a new piece of equipment would mean I would have to learn a whole new set of protocols.  I called RCN and told them that I refused to upgrade.  I discovered that I will have to pay $15/month NOT to take the more advanced system because the company wants to phase out the old boxes.  The $15 monthly fee is my “punishment” for not accepting the new equipment. 

Knowing that someday soon, I will have to swap boxes, I realized that all of the shows I have set on “series record” would go away.  I hired my friend Patti to come to my home and type a list of all the shows I like to watch.  It was an astounding 139 titles!  Since many of those shows are cable productions that only air 13 weeks, they come and go.  But on any day, I am probably recording 10 shows.  Since I cannot watch ten shows each evening (I never watch TV during the day), I realize now that I don’t even get to most of them.  I speed through those I do watch at lightning speed.  I not only fast forward through the commercials, but through most of the show itself.  I watch the hour-long “Extreme Make Over - Weight Loss Edition” in about nine minutes.  I care about who the person is, a few minutes of their journey and then the final result.

WRITING CHECKS

I do not not like writing a check for an odd amount of money with cents in it.  So while my electric bill might be $123.47, I send ComEd a check for $125.  It does not cost me anything because the extra $1.53 just gets credited to the next month’s bill.  I do that with all my bills.  I am a member of Mensa, so it is not that I do not know how to add and subtract, I just like all my checks to be an even amount. It’s also fun because I know the clerk receiving the check has to do the extra work of applying the credit.

BREAD AND CHEESE 

Close friends know that I do not eat bread or cheese.  I gave them up four years ago because I had a bread and cheese addiction problem.  I would eat a whole basket of bread smothered with cheese while waiting for a meal at a restaurant.  So I eat neither anymore.  On my list of foods for my last meal before the electric chair, I have toasted bagel with cream cheese, French toast and my favorite sandwich of all time -- bologna on toasted raisin bread with mayonnaise, mustard, pickles, cheese and lettuce.  The sandwich is then heated in the microwave so the bologna and cheese get hot.  I will have to move to another state because Illinois has outlawed the death penalty, so the chances of my going to the electric chair are nil.

AMAZON.COM 

I shop on Amazon.com every day.  I have a membership called “Prime” where I get free two day shipping on anything.  So even if I just need a few pens, I buy them on Amazon.com.  Why bother going to the store?

TEXT MESSAGES

 

The two people who text message me by far—I means 100’s more compared to my other friends --are radio personality Mancow Muller and former Illinois Gubernatorial candidate Scott Lee Cohen.  I make the joke that if I collapsed and a stranger looked at my text messages to figure out who to contact they would be surprised.

RANGE OF FRIENDS

I have a wide range of friends.  Two are pictured here.

INDOOR TEMPERATURE

I have six HVAC zones in my home and I keep the air conditioning going 24 hours a day in the summer. My apartment is so cold that I have to use an electric blanket at night -- even when it is 106 degrees outside.  If friends come over in the summer, they always have to borrow a sweater.

I make up for my excessive electricity use in the summer, by doing the opposite in the winter.  I have never turned on the heat in my home.  Because I live on a high floor, everybody else’s heat leaks into my unit.

SOME FACTOIDS

I have never taken a vacation.  I do not use soap on my face.  I never wear sneakers or go barefoot.  I only read hardcover non-fiction books-- I usually finish a book in one night.  I almost never go to the movies-maybe once a year.  I don’t drink coffee or alcohol.  I was once Number 11 in the lottery.




SUPERMARKET

I do not go to the supermarket because I only keep Diet Coke (okay I admit to drinking it again), Lean Cuisine and "bag o salad" in my refrigerator.  I just order from Peapod.

CONCLUSION

I am nuts.  Which, by the way I don’t eat.