My Identity Crisis (embarrassing)
 

Hi, fellow Fodorites!

I hope you wonderful people will bear with me while I clear up a misconception. This is rather embarrassing to me, because I feel kind of like the new kid being introduced to the class. Also, I thought the word "embarrassing" would get more people to read my post. :)

Anyway, it has become apparent to me, after replying to a number of posts, that several people think I am their friend "Dan". Actually, my name is Donna. (I think I only included it in one post.) Obviously, there is another poster with many friends on this forum, with a screen name similar to mine. I'm sure "Dan" would not want some of my "gibberish" attributed to him, so I thought it was time I cleared this up.

I am a middle-aged single mom with four kids (2 boys and 2 girls), ages 17, 19, 24 and 25 -- and 2 adorable granddaughters. I live in central Texas (near Waco), about 30 miles from the "western White House."

Most of my travel experiences were accumulated during a 10-year period, in which I "showed" cats, eventually traveling to 27 states (some on a yearly basis), Mexico (several times) and Canada. As often as I could, I dragged the kids along with me, sightseeing at every opportunity. Since the cats have all "retired", and the kids are older, we have had some even better travel experiences, venturing to Cancun, and returning to some favorite destinations. So far, I haven't done too much international travel, but there's always "next year." (I passed up a trip to England with a friend this year, so the kids and I could spend a week-plus in Seattle and Vancouver. Also, my art-student daughter is pushing to go to France or Japan. Maybe someday!)

I posted my first message on Fodor's about 6 weeks ago, and have greatly enjoyed reading the multitude of inquiries and replies posted on the forum. Many of you have been immensely helpful in answering my questions.

I look forward to continuing to share travel experiences with all of you, and also apologize to "Dan" for any of my questions or answers, that may have mistakenly been attributed to you.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and have a nice day! -- Donna

P.S. -- If any of you care to share information about yourself, I would love to know "who" I am talking to! :)

Hi Donna,

I think the reference to Dan is because your sign on name is very close to Dan's His is Dan_woodlief.

I've been referred to as a male but I'm a little old granny too ;)

Utahtea

Hey, I'm another Dan! :-) I live in New Orleans and originally hail from South Florida. Getting married next weekend, too! Yee-ha! Honeymoon in Barcelona!

Hey Dan,, congrats! I hope you enjoy Spain.

dwoodliff: I have gotten you confused with "dwoodon" (or dwooddon)-- the dwood- prefix is the same and it just looks so similar, that sometimes I think you are him/her. Then I catch myself. But that is only because I know Dwoodon from previous posts, where (god belss her/him) I have gotten good advice and help from that person...
Don't know what else you can do beyond your post, except change your log-in name. Perhaps better to do that now rather than later if you end up having to do that to stop the confusion, which is apparently bothering you already.

Oh Lordy, d...you have gotten me all mixed up too :)
I sort of kind of know two other Dan posters, one of whom I must have caused to think I was stalking the dear man, as I said that I knew him, didn't he remember me LOL...
So now you add your little ole self to the mix just to keep me confused ~
Pleased to meet you Donna, what kind of cats did you show?
My son lives in Japan, teaching English:) We love Paris, your daughter has some hard choice there!
Don't worry about identity crises here! There is one every hour or so, I believe :D

Scarlett, you are so right, there is some broohaha all the time on here about who is who, or who isn't who. But I know who I am, and I do want others to know it is me-- so much so that I have "emd" as my fodors name on my home computer and "emd1" on another work-related computer at a differnet venue. But even that confuses some people, who post and ask me if emd and emd1 are different people.

You will always be just emd to me :)

Congratulations, Dan!
dwoodliff (Donna)--nice to meet you! I know Waco, went 2 years to Baylor. i've shown cats, too! However, not to the extent you have! Mine were both in the household pet category. I love how beautifully the cages are sometimes decorated at the shows.

Hi Donna,

It can get confusing. I've been "hanging" around here for about 4 years and this is my third screen name. For the first couple of years I was "Sal". This was pre-registration and the flaming and trolls seemed to outnumber the legit posts and I lost interest for a while. Plus my dear mother passed away during that time and we weren't traveling much. When I came back about a year ago to start planning a trip to Europe registration was required. There were a couple of other Sal-somethings so I registered as Boston Lucy (for my Boston Terrier) but OF COURSE everyone thought I was from Boston. Soooo, what the heck I just signed on using my "real" name and DOB. I'm from central FL on the gulf coast.

Now that you know how old I am! I'll add that I have three kids (17, 15 and 11), have been married to the same dear man for twenty years. You'll like this--we have eight cats (strays seem to find us), three dogs, a bunny and assorted fish and thankfully a big family home and yard. I LOVE to travel, but HATE to fly so I whine alot about that. We've traveled extensively in the US and have been to Europe a couple of times. I lost my nerve and cancelled our trip to Italy and we're flying over the other ocean to HI instead this summer.

It's fun to get to "know" those who post here. For instance I never would have guessed Utahtea was a granny!

Hope we hear from others--new and regulars.

Scarlett, I wish we could do gene transplantation of your "sweet" genes to some other people on here (and really to more people in the world). I have always wanted to ask you-- have you ever visited your son in Japan or do you plan to? I am taking my 13 yr old son there next spring.

Hi Donna...your name is really close to Dan's so it's good you mentioned the similarity. Occasionally we get into a clothing question, skirt lengths or whatever and if you spoke up...there really could be some confusion. You may be living very near the town our son got married in last year...Gatesville is in that vicinity too. Pretty area on the edge of the Hill Country.

Jayne...speaking of names...is there another Jayne here with some numbers after her name or are you the only one? AND...is your b'day 1-11 or 11-1. Just curious...our son is 11-1.

emd...agree on the gene transportation with Scarlett's sweetness. She is a spark of happiness here, isn't she...! She needs to give lessons!

Oliveoyl: Scarlett is the "Mercedes-Benz" of niceness. Actually, I should say the Rolls Royce. She makes my day frequently, esp. on Freaky Fridays.

OMG! Stop it!! LOL~
I will be impossible to live with and someone on Fodors will surely come after me with a vengeance :)

It is only natural to be nice to someone who is also nice, so I guess it reaps it's own rewards.
The Yankee says I have a "smiley face"..so although I must admit I have my sulking times, smiling eventually wins out..it is just too hard to stay glum & grouchy.
So thank you soooo much for the compliments, you are pretty Sweet yourselves ((F))

*ps*
I do like the bit about the Rolls Royce :D

Oops Donna! I called you Dan because I thought you were Dan_woodlief. Sorry! I do have that memory disease (CRS) and I just thought I remembered it right!

I also live in Texas, San Antonio, and have 2 boys and 2 girls. 21, 21, 9 & 7. It's nice to meet you.

What a nice conversation on a Sunday morning! And I have to chime in with my appreciation of Scarlett's pleasant and upbeat approach here.
You folks have made my day - or you would have if it weren't raining and cold up here in Toronto. :)

Meesthare, Bless your heart,you are too kind!
We are having an 86 degree day here but I hear rumblings of thunder coming our way..
dwoodliff...what kind of cats????

Olive-
It's me, aka Sal/Boston Lucy. I think you're right--there is another "Jayne" with numbers. Oh well, maybe she'll see this and share enough info to tell us apart. Maybe I should re-register as JayneG11159--what do you think?

I'm 1-11--too bad, that would have made me almost a year younger.

Wasn't today a perfect FL day? I spent morning with my dad and boys fishing on the Skyway Pier--my youngest caught six mackerel! I'm off to fry 'em up and put aloe on everyone!

Scarlett,

I meant to tell you that I have this mental image of you as, of course, a lovely southern woman with dark hair and beautiful green eyes! Am I close?

Ahhh, Jayne, that is a more lovely Scarlett than I could be. I am just the opposite..but thank you anyway~

Just the opposite? You mean you have beautiful green hair and dark eyes?
Sorry, couldn't resist. :)

Ha! Good one :)

I am what one could describe as light and fluffy LOL or blonde and blue eyed.

Jayne, did you get some big storms this evening? We got some serious rain and flooding in the streets. I don't know if this is typical for Fl or just the weather lately.

It's been as dry as a bone all day. I'm hoping for some rain tomorrow so I don't have to water.

It rained cats and dogs overnight. My dad who lives two miles away didn't get a drop. But then I've seen in rain in my front yard but not my back!

dwoodliff - Thanks for starting a good post. Several months ago, there was a long, long thread where many of us introduced ourselves to each other. I'll try and find it and top it for you.

Emd: Thanks for the kind words. I am a he, not a she, and have been missing from this forum for awhile visiting my kids and grandkids in southern Utah.

The other post I referred to has been topped. It is titled: ATTN: Big_Daddy, J. Correa, Kal, Utahtea, OliveOyl.

Hi Dwooddon! I've benn hoping you'd come back. You were the one who sent me to Zion and Bryce when I posted last winter, when I thought I wanted to fly into Salt Lake City and hike around there in March (I knew zilch about Utah). I ended up taking your advice and booking the time in March to go to Zion but my hiking buddy cancelled due to work commitments (I can't complain much as she is also my client and I am self-employed, and we were working on the same project). We rebooked for mid-May, but I just cancelled that too. However, I have decided that come hell or high water I am going on that trip in fall, either alone or with her or with my husband. You gave me just the right answer at the right time, and it turned into a real desire to hike that area, and now I have the books, the hikearizona.com website, I follow Utahtea's posts, and it has opened up a whole new area to me for hiking. How lucky you are to have kids and grandkids to visit there!
(BTW, the post you topped is the one where I followed the old nose and learned about Utahtea's pet moose,among other fascinating things.)

Hi emd...I used hikearizona.com for the Sedona hikes we did last fall. Great resource!

You will LOVE Zion and Bryce. Go go go. Of our group was torn between which was our favorite. They are so different, but both absolutely wonderful. Zion had more diversified hikes, but those hoodoos in Bryce...gosh. Wall Street...gosh. Be sure to do a trip report! Oh, I've got a fair number of pictures in my website of both areas. Link is in the thread dwooddon topped.

Hi all... It's fun reading all these posts.
Such nice people hang out here :)
I'm 40 with a boy in Iraq, one headed to Waseda University in Japan for the 2nd year and a girl headed to Community College here in Collin County, Tx!
I live in Sachse, which is NE of Dallas!
Spectacular weather today. 75 degrees and beautiful, perfect sunshine!

I, too enjoy the information gathered in this forum.
Have a great evening!

Hi donna, nice to meet you! :)

I too, did a double take when i first saw your name, thinking you were dwoodon. He helped me alot last summer when i planned the 'paradise on the pacific' part of our out west road trip (orange county, palm springs, anaheim).

This is a wonderful group of 'TRAVEL JUNKIES' ;) and i'm always inspired by everyone's travel experiences. Have fun!

This is pretty funny to read on a Friday morning. I noticed the similarity of our screen names a couple of weeks ago. Actually, I think some of my ancestors spelled their last name the same as your's. I haven't had as much time for Fodors lately, so I don't know what "gibberish" people have been attributing to me. You don't sound like a person with whom I would mind being confused. There is enough room for all of us DWs on here, so welcome aboard.