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Traits
Dec 10, 2009 16:03:40 GMT
Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2009 16:03:40 GMT
Hate this word. Anyway,am looking by force,at all these inherited traits I've accumulated. Some quite nice and some maddening. The very things my mother used to do that drove me up the wall I am doing.Little things.Something as seemingly innocuous as humming.Yes,I hum, and I remember she would, and drive me crazy. So,these are the things that are part of our make up,our personalities. I can remember worse ones too,but will save for now. Does this drive anyone else crazy?
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Traits
Dec 10, 2009 22:45:39 GMT
Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2009 22:45:39 GMT
I have seen many people adopt traits that they complained about in the past. Obviously, it is most common for children to suddenly turn into their parents. I have not yet reached that point, but I did see my mother turn into my grandmother, particularly the things she always complained about my grandmother doing.
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Traits
Dec 10, 2009 23:41:47 GMT
Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2009 23:41:47 GMT
I had a sister in law and she used to give me all these self help books. She was one of those. I'm sure she meant well but I would have rather she gave me just about anything but that. Anyway,she gave me that book,My Mother,My Self. I almost hummed it at her. And my mother was there. She was laughing her head off.(they were not exactly fond of one another). It was a moment.
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Traits
Dec 25, 2009 9:51:09 GMT
Post by Kimby on Dec 25, 2009 9:51:09 GMT
I'm a whistler, as is my mother. (This is leading to "smoker's wrinkles" around my lips - damn!)
And like my mother, I tend to pick at bumps on my skin, which means my no-see-um bites and fire ant stings from Florida have turned into some pretty spectacular welts.
Mom picks on Dad's bumps, too, which I sure wish she wouldn't do in public. Reminds me of a National Geographic special on chimpanzees.
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Traits
Dec 25, 2009 14:12:25 GMT
Post by Deleted on Dec 25, 2009 14:12:25 GMT
I tend to break out in song. I think my family are used to it now though.
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Traits
Dec 25, 2009 15:57:50 GMT
Post by Deleted on Dec 25, 2009 15:57:50 GMT
I have a trait (not inherited from anybody that I know of) of making no sound whatsoever when I walk around. It causes quite a bit of jumping and/or shrieking when I am suddenly right next to somebody who imagined they were alone.
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Traits
Dec 26, 2009 3:18:08 GMT
Post by hwinpp on Dec 26, 2009 3:18:08 GMT
Walking like a cat we'd say here, it's unnerving...
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Traits
Dec 26, 2009 3:25:13 GMT
Post by Deleted on Dec 26, 2009 3:25:13 GMT
Walking like a cat we'd say here, it's unnerving... I do it too.
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Traits
Dec 26, 2009 15:44:10 GMT
Post by spindrift on Dec 26, 2009 15:44:10 GMT
Me too.
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Traits
Jan 1, 2010 16:42:40 GMT
Post by bixaorellana on Jan 1, 2010 16:42:40 GMT
I come from a family who think sneaking up and startling is amusing, also hiding & jumping out. I whistle and sing and am always charmed when I hear other people do it. (& I came by my smoker's wrinkles honestly -- by smoking, although some of them are bitch marks)
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Traits
Jan 2, 2010 15:58:29 GMT
Post by lola on Jan 2, 2010 15:58:29 GMT
I love to hear people sing and whistle, too, bixa. Maybe we're related.
Once I visited an elderly couple who'd lived next door to my father's parents when they were a young married couple, and was chatting with the woman when her husband came in. Hearing my voice, he thought I was my grandmother.
My father's father's side tends to share a certain kind of sense of humor, and it's fun when we all get together.
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Traits
Jan 3, 2010 2:44:04 GMT
Post by bixaorellana on Jan 3, 2010 2:44:04 GMT
Isn't that something, Lola! It's not only interesting that you'd sound like your grandmother, but that upon hearing you, his ears immediately announced the "logical" conclusion to him.
My sister C. & I always identify ourselves to other family members on the phone because we sound so much alike. Christmas day I took a video of the family sprawled about after dinner. Of course I was also yakking while videoing. When I played it back, I was amazed that I sounded so much like my sister M.
My dad loved to laugh and to joke, but my mother's sharper, drier sense of humor got passed down to their offspring.
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Traits
Jan 3, 2010 11:34:42 GMT
Post by Deleted on Jan 3, 2010 11:34:42 GMT
Singing and whistling is one thing,humming is another, as mentioned in an earlier post.And yet, I have caught myself doing it more and more. The other trait that I constantly fight off is my mother's ability to cast doom and gloom upon the sunniest of occasions.My husband and I got to the point where we could predict what she was going to say with regards to what we would tell her we were doing that day. If we said we were going on a hike in the woods she would say,"you know those particular woods are full of deer ticks".So,if we said we were going to another place she would then say,"Oh,that's where so and so got shot accidentally mistaken for a deer,and it is hunting season". My trait is nowhere near this caliber but I do have an ability to catastrophize things in my head that is just simply not healthy.
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Traits
Jan 11, 2010 18:15:20 GMT
Post by Kimby on Jan 11, 2010 18:15:20 GMT
Yes, I also tend to anticipate the worst, though only to be prepared with a reaction if the worst should happen.
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Traits
Jan 14, 2010 11:53:32 GMT
Post by Deleted on Jan 14, 2010 11:53:32 GMT
Another, is bordering on the neurotic as well ,but I don't mind too much. It's my husband and brother that it drives crazy. I am extremely punctual,generally like to get somewhere well beforehand,particularly when it comes to travel.(when I was younger however,I used to have to lie to my mother about flight times as she would wake me up four hours f'n early and would have just got home from partying ).
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Traits
Jan 14, 2010 13:34:16 GMT
Post by livaco on Jan 14, 2010 13:34:16 GMT
A trait that we have in my family is that we will debate topics at length, generally around the dinner table or while playing cards etc. Many of the people who have married into our family had a hard time getting used to it. They think we are "arguing". I guess technically we are, but I'm used to it so I don't see it.
The way I see it we are discussing things at length so that we can understand all sides of an issue. Many times we will play "devil's advocate" and bring out points on the other side of an issue, just to have them heard and discussed (debated? argued?).
Now my husband will go often into another room with my brother-in-law and they will drink beer and laugh at the rest of us.
When I meet new people I will certainly not shy away from giving my thoughts about statements they have made. No, I take that back, it embarasses my husband; often I will just shut up and let them talk. But he doesn't see it that way; he thinks I always have to argue my point. I do not say things to rile people up, though. I only respond when they have said something in the first place.
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Traits
Jan 14, 2010 15:56:31 GMT
Post by Kimby on Jan 14, 2010 15:56:31 GMT
Our family is like livaco's, and often our discussion/argument is about the most efficient or best way to do something. The length of the discussion, of course, added to the time the activity in question takes, means that the whole process is terribly inefficient, but we all have to get our suggestions in anyway. Drives the sons-in-law nuts...
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Traits
Jan 17, 2010 17:09:17 GMT
Post by bixaorellana on Jan 17, 2010 17:09:17 GMT
I guess conversations in my family are efficient, since everyone talks at the same time. Gets it over with faster.
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Jan 21, 2010 22:32:31 GMT
Post by suzanneschuelke on Jan 21, 2010 22:32:31 GMT
That argue/discussion thing isn't just between families. My parents have been married 64 years and adore each other. BUT - my Dad (like me) loves to argue. My mother, who had a difficult childhood, has horrible problems with it. More than once my Dad and I have been arguing politics, disagreeing, but enjoying ourselves, when my mom will start to cry sure that we are fighting. I try not to do it anymore; but it used to get a MOM!! and VIRGINIA!! in exactly the same tone and at exactly the same time.
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Traits
Jan 26, 2010 17:23:52 GMT
Post by Kimby on Jan 26, 2010 17:23:52 GMT
I'm reading a book about coming to terms with your inner child. It makes me think that these different styles and comfort levels with arguments/discussions are completely related to unfinished business from your childhood.
I'll have to give it further thought, but perhaps this could be a breakthrough in the stalemate between me and Mr. Kimby about what is a "reason" and what is an "excuse" and why he always thinks I'm blaming him when I explain why I did something.
Not exactly an inborn trait but an environmentally ingrained response might be what's going on here. And in livaco's and suzanne's families...
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Traits
Jan 27, 2010 17:46:59 GMT
Post by bixaorellana on Jan 27, 2010 17:46:59 GMT
Thinking about traits as "environmentally ingrained responses" ........... some of those responses must be unconscious mimicry. My mother says I walk like my father, with my head cocked to one side. I don't think I have the parental expressions, but I've certainly seen those expressions on the faces of my brothers & sisters.
Glasses, plates, anything too close to the edge of surface makes me real crazy -- undoubtedly a response to growing up with younger siblings & seeing a fair amount of spilled milk.
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Traits
Jan 27, 2010 18:45:30 GMT
Post by Kimby on Jan 27, 2010 18:45:30 GMT
My mother says I walk like my father, with my head cocked to one side. Perhaps it's an inherited orthopedic condition?
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Traits
Jan 27, 2010 20:24:54 GMT
Post by bixaorellana on Jan 27, 2010 20:24:54 GMT
Could be, although I have a perfect spine and my mother's knocked knees.
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Traits
Jan 27, 2010 20:27:22 GMT
Post by Kimby on Jan 27, 2010 20:27:22 GMT
Maybe you're always looking over your shoulder?
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Traits
Jan 27, 2010 20:32:18 GMT
Post by bixaorellana on Jan 27, 2010 20:32:18 GMT
Hush, Kimby!
I don't want The Others to know about that head-spinning, peasoupvomit thing.
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Traits
Jan 27, 2010 20:34:28 GMT
Post by Kimby on Jan 27, 2010 20:34:28 GMT
Maybe you should hunt down an owl for your latest avatar, since you're a head-spinner...
(BTW, how do you manage to have multiple avatars and use them all without changing previous posts' avatars?)
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Traits
Jan 27, 2010 20:49:19 GMT
Post by bixaorellana on Jan 27, 2010 20:49:19 GMT
The same way Imec & Casimira do, and the way you can in another 823 posts.
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Traits
Jan 27, 2010 22:25:59 GMT
Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2010 22:25:59 GMT
I was fascinated to learn although,I had a fair inkling from my friend's visits to our home,my hostess in Miami and I have so many shared traits that we could have grown up in the same household,it is that uncanny. It was more evident to us both as I was on her "home turf "this time that we were together. Fascinating and a little frightening I might add.Our backgrounds are so dissimilar.
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Traits
Jan 27, 2010 22:59:52 GMT
Post by Kimby on Jan 27, 2010 22:59:52 GMT
Perhaps the skeleton in her closet is that she gave you up for adoption many years ago....
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Traits
Jan 28, 2010 12:38:14 GMT
Post by Deleted on Jan 28, 2010 12:38:14 GMT
Perhaps the skeleton in her closet is that she gave you up for adoption many years ago.... That would be unlikely, given the fact that she is ten years my junior... The other way around would be a version of the "Immaculate Conception"
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