Thursday Three - How weird

Weird is my specialty, so I really ought to play. And it's even still Thursday!

1) Do you have any peculiar rules about the foods you eat? Not stuff like religious dietary restrictions, but stuff like having to have the crusts cut off your PB&J sandwiches, not having the peas touching the carrots, having to eat foods in a particular order--stuff like that.

I'm glad you clarified - my life is full of religious dietary restrictions. I wasn't even going to play today until Sarah's post mentioned mushrooms. Which reminds me that I posted a while back that I may be the only person on the planet who loves mushroom barley soup, but won't eat the mushrooms. Tomatoes remain the devil's fruit as far as I'm concerned, though I eat more tomato products than I used to.

2) What about your personal grooming? Do you have a particular way of brushing your teeth? Do you have to always put on your left sock and shoe, then the right? Tell us please!

There is actually a Jewish way of putting on shoes which I've forgotten - something about right foot first, then left, then tie the left, then tie the right. I don't follow it personally, so I may have it wrong. On the grooming end, for whatever reason I always shave my neck first, then chin, then right side, then left. I don't know if it's weird, but it is my routine.

3) Have you ever embarrassed yourself with the public display of any of your peculiar habits? Details appreciated, of course!

Not that I can think of. I have made a spectacle of myself during shaving on a few occasions. There are a few periods of mourning for Jews (including the Three Weeks I have talked about before) when men don't shave if possible. Work rules mean I do shave now during them, but in ages past when I had no job I would let my facial hair grow. At the end of those periods, I used to shave different sorts of ways and go show my mother (and at least one girlfriend, as I recall) the results. Mutton Chops, goatees, one half of my face at a time. I found it amusing to demonstrate my temporary facial coiffures, but I don't know if they did.

UPDATE: And I just remembered - I cannot stand the feel of frosted glass. A number of people I know have these little cups they serve out the kiddush wine in on shabbos that are made from frosted glass. Just the thought of it gives me the heeby-jeebies, like fingernails on a blackboard. Matter of fact, just last week at lunch I switched drinking glasses with one of the kids because I had gotten one that was frosted. Nobody said anything, so either they just let it pass or I snuck it in under their notice.