Dec 09 2006
I’ve been tagged!
Until my friend and blogger Verna Wilder tagged me, I had no idea what this game was. It’s a take on the old children’s game, except that instead of standing there and counting when you’re ‘it’, you have to reveal five things about yourself then tag five other people you know, like, love, and/or admire.
About me:
- I didn’t speak English until I was twenty-one. I had studied it at university and knew enough to order a meal or talk about the weather when I was transferred to Halifax, Nova Scotia and put in charge of fifteen, non-French-speaking staff. I had to learn, and real fast.
- I met my husband when I was twenty-one. We met on a 13th of May and by 13 August (of the same summer) we were living together. We were married a year later and have been a couple for 28 years. If you want to know my age, do the math.
- I’m the laziest person I know. I’ve developed a technique where I do everything really efficiently so I have more time for my favorite sport, relaxing.
- I don’t watch TV. Hate it. Find it a total waste of time. I use the internet for news from around the world. Will watch DVDs, though.
- I’m fluent in three languages, and functional in two others. Fluent in French, English, Spanish. Can get by in Portuguese and Italian. I’m currently studying Italian more in depth. Next language for me: Mandarin Chinese.
Now that I’ve suffered through these revelations, here they are. (Darn, a lot of people I would’ve loved to tag don’t have blogs)
The Tagged:
- Cheryl Swanson. Cheryl’s a one-person whirlwind with more energy than I have. She recently started a blog to promote her fellow authors from Zumaya and she writes incredible reviews. She also lives in Hawaii (one of the islands) and is known as Surfing Cheryl.
- Eva Kende. Eva is a Hungarian-Canadian who has lived an incredible life, both in Hungary and in Canada. She recently published her childhood memoirs in Snapshots: Growing up Behind the Iron Curtain.
- Erin O’Brien. Erin likes to run around the internet… naked, talk about sex, and make hilarious comments on life in general.
- Edward Willett. Ed is a multi-published author who is rare: he writes both fiction and non-fiction. He’s also the diligent and hard-working (I know how much work that takes) webmaster for the SF Canada site.
- Christopher Stires. Another fellow author, Chris always has fun pieces on his blog. Chris lives in Southern California. Right now, with -11C and snow, neither Cheryl nor Chris are popular with me. I’m swiftly turning green.
15 responses so far
I hate to poop the party, but I just did a similar meme. As usual, you will see that I have a terrible time following the rules.
Here’s my six weird things.
About me:
1)Born and raised in California. The farthest place I’ve ever traveled to is Playa del Carmen, Mexico, which is south of Cancun. In the US, I’ve never been east of the Mississippi River. I have been to Hawaii. Twice.
2)English is my only language and I have trouble with it. After being in the food service industry most of my life, my kitchen Spanish is fair.
3)When I was younger, I worked as a carpenter for six months. The area I was the best in was loading and unloading the truck and lunch. I am the world’s worst carpenter.
4)I don’t see any of my friends from high school any longer but five friends I made at my first job in high school I still get together with. Four of them were in my wedding eight years ago. (BTW, Nixon was President when I was in high school.)
5)When I grow old I want to look like Sean Connery. Ain’t going to happen I can hope.
Now I have to find five other folks. (Dom — I a slow read lately. Jack has just discovered that Annie had the telecarb first and warned the aliens that men are bastards.”
About me:
* I am Hungarian, opinionated and temperamental.
* I usually have more ideas than time and energy to do them. This time of the year it means baking more than necessary and generally finding too many things that must be done before Christmas.
* I have been busy promoting my new book Snapshots…Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain. I get interesting comments from my readers. Some of them tell me of their special experiences during that era. I find this very gratifying.
* As to the laziness Dom referred to, I too am very lazy, but cover it up with hard work and efficiency, to make time for the things I really want to do. However, I usually think of just one more thing I should do before I can get to “me time.”
* My grandsons, Noah and Anthony, are the light of my life. For them I will drop everything.
The tagged:
* Alastair Rosie - Author, poet, reviewer, webmaster and more.
* Lea Tassie - Author, poet and cat fancier.
* Rita Toews - Author, master marketer and Hungarian by osmosis.
* Elisabeth Delisi - Author, editor and 50% Hungarian.
* Deanna - A lady with an ambitious project, which I hope she will explain to all these writer types
About me:
* I have two grandchildren, and a nephew younger than my grandchildren with another on the way. That’s what comes of my husband being the oldest in a large family!
* My husband and I built an inkle loom that I occasionally weave on. We made it with no pattern, just going on pictures of similar looms. We also built a huge stereo cabinet that we designed ourselves, not even pictures.
* As Eva says, I’m half Hungarian. I took Hungarian language courses…four of ‘em…and still can’t speak a word. (sigh) Somehow it just didn’t stick.
* But I’m an expert at making a dobos torte, the world’s best dessert, and Hungarian, naturally!
* One branch of the family on my mother’s side can be traced back to the Norman conquest, and had a castle. Darn it all, not in the family anymore, and I’ve recently learned it was demolished in the 70s or 80s.
The tagged:
* Maureen McMahon, author in Australia, teacher, wife and mother, and friend
* Carla Arpin, publicist, wife and mother, reader, and friend
* Ruth D. Kerce, romance writer, DOOL fan, and friend
* Alexis Fleming, author (who’s really not as old as her blog says she is), runs a motel in Australia, friend
* Linnea Sinclair, RITA-award-winning author, cat owner, Star Trek fan, and friend
Liz
About me:
• I’m 54 married to a wonderful man, and have two children, a daughter 21 and a son 25. And for those who care, menopause sucks. Don’t listen to anyone who says it’s a piece of cake.
• I moved from Michigan to Australia in 1982 for a year and am still in Australia.
• I once played guitar or piano and sang in bars for a living, as well as read palms and tarot.
• I firmly believe our house is haunted. Stove burners turn on and off by themselves. We can smell pipe tobacco at 5pm on the dot in our living room some nights. Once the power went off in one of our rooms. The electrician couldn’t explain it as the power to that room couldn’t go off by itself without other areas being affected. It came back on just as suddenly. (These are just a few of the ghostly occurrences.)
• My mother was born in Australia and met my dad (a U.S. serviceman) during WWII. She travelled by freighter to the U.S. to be married. It took six months on the sea with no ballast. She weight 90 lbs when she was married (she’s 5’4”). She didn’t get news of her mother’s death for 6 months after the occurrence due to the long distance mail service at that time.
The Tagged:
• Judith (Jude) Pittman, Canada. An excellent author, co-partner in BooksWeLove.net, legal administrator, mother, grandmother and friend.
• Jan Springer, Canada. An excellent author, co-owner of Mel Gibson, Antonio Banderas and Russel Crowe (you’ve got to be there), goofy hermit, friend.
• Marguerite Howard, Arizona. Insurance administrator, fantastic mother, grandmother and my friend since grade-school
• KatyAnne McMahon, Australia. Recent university graduate in elementary education, empathetic listener, loving daughter and all-around fantastic friend.
• Jenny Brandon, Colorado. New mom to cute little Reagan, loving partner to Ton, distance runner, recent university graduate, fantastic niece and friend.
I was born in northern British Columbia on a homestead. Now I live in Victoria, on the west coast, and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.
I’m vegetarian, except for salmon or tuna now and then. And chocolate is a vegetable, right?
I’m an avid bridge player.
I speak two languages, English and Cat. I don’t have any trouble with English, but am a klutz with Cat, especially when I meet new cats. Still, it’s helped me write two funny novels about my fur-covered friends.
I don’t believe in Santa Claus.
http://www.leatassie.com
Currently living in Utah, not Arizona. My heart still lives in Michigan, my home state. My physical presense was in Ohio for the last 18 years, minus the four months I have lived in UT.
I have never traveled outside of the U.S. except a couple of brief drives into Canada.
I can only speak English because I am a slug and after 4 years of high school French, retained very little.
I detest having to work on a computer and know very little about it all. Love email tho.
I DO believe in Santa Claus and dother extra-terrestrials.
Tagged:
Renna Geitz - friend, new resident of SC,please don’t kill me for this
Heidi Garrett - friend, business owner
Cody Boone - newlywed, aspiring actress/broadcaster/movie critic
Corey Kenney - college enrollee, friend, mother of my grandchildren
Beth Leonard - Mon Ami - probably won’t answer this but I don’t know too many folks’ email addresses (sorry)
About Me:
- I recently received a wonderful Christmas gift…my co-authored novel The Centurion is in the finals for The EPPIE awards. The Centurion brings the historical Herod, Pontius Pilate and Claudia Procula to life, and explores the political circumstances in Rome and Judea during the time of the crucifixion.
- I write with an 85 year old Hungarian who remains as sharp as a tack … Alex Domokos. He was captured by the Russians at the end of WWII and remained a prisoner for a further six years and used as slave labour to rebuild the shattered country.
- Our novel, Body Traffic, which deals (in part) with human trafficking, was short-listed for the Margaret Laurence Book Award.
- I also speak Cat, but then I think most writers are owned by the mysterious creatures. In my case it’s a Cornish Rex who looks, and acts, like a space alien. Anyone unfamiliar with the breed may want to know that they NO NOT SHED.
- I also write children’s books. My anti-bully book for children is being used in schools throughout Canada and the United States.
You can visit my websites at:
http://www.domokos.com
http://www.thebullybook.com
The Tagged:
- Patricia White. Pat has an award named after her (The Patricia Lucas White award) for her untiring efforts on behalf of electronic publishing.
- Mary Trimble. Mary writes incredible young adult novels and still finds time to work with the Red Cross.
- Priscilla Maine. Priscilla lives in Oklahoma and writes historical fiction set in the old west.
- Jo Popek. Jo lives in that mysterious town of Roswell, New Mexico. Anything can, and does happen in her equally mysterious mind. Fairy Tales With a Freudian Flair anyone??
- Carol Kilgore. Carol writes mysteries and is also my critique partner.
MD Benoit tagged me a week or so ago. The only thing I remember about that day was that it ended with me in the hospital emergency room. (Nah, not because of MD…it was this lousy flesh-eating bacteria we have here in Kauai. Read the sequel to Death Game, my thriller, for the gruesome details.)
Anyhows…I’m back in the loop and almost walking again. I have nothing that can compete with MD, so she should be thankful I’m even trying.
1) I raise orchids in my spare time. I have about a hundred orchids (30 or so different varities) on my property in Kauai. Orchids mostly raise themselves here on the North Shore, so it is a simple hobby. I tie them on trees, let the rain fall on them, cut them for blooms and regrafting.
2) My husband and I have completely renovated three homes. It takes us about seven years, and when we’re done we sell them and move to the next one.
3) I started a medical software company with two programmers in the early 80’s. I bailed after two years, they sold it ten years later for…I don’t even want to go there.
4) My four-year-old daughter and I surf together. She gets on the front of board, I get on the back. Surfing on the North Shore of Kauai ranges from extremely easy in the summer (when I surf) to 25 foot waves in the winter. (Hey dude! Knarly.) The waves crash so hard in the winter the beach shakes.
5) My husband’s brother was just knighted in the Netherlands. He’s a teacher. If only we appreciated our teachers in the United States like that.
Time for me to tag someone and they gotta have a blog. Okay, I do know a few bloggers, but they are all technical/scientific nerds and they’d hate me if I tagged them. Is it worth it? Hmmmm.
About me:
1 I grew up as a skinny country kid in Outback Australia. One of the first things I remember learning how to do was to deal with a snake bite. Standard dress for going out to play was a hat, closed in shoes and a snake bite kit.
2 I once worked in a restaurant where we had to dress up as serving wenches. I got fired after a week for not being free enough with the customers after I dumped a bowl of soup in a guy’s lap when he went the grope.
3 I run a large seaside motel and any guest who annoys the hell out of me with their demands ends up, in one shape or other, in one of my books, usually as the villain.
4 I once went water skiing on the Brisbane River and took a bad tumble. When I surfaced I realized I’d lost the bottom half of my bikini. Hmm, never did find that sucker.
5 Anyone who really knows me will tell you I am totally anal about organization. Lol I drive my family crazy at times.
And now for my tags.
1. Daisy Dexter Dobbs because she has the quirkiest sense of humor of anyone I’ve ever known. I wanna be Daisy when I grow up. lol
2.Michelle Pillow because she strikes me as a lady who’ll always have the answers. I wish I were a little more like her.
3. Brenda Williamson. A very savvy lady and an unbelievable storyteller.
4. Meg Allison – another lady with a fabulous sense of humor. Lol I’m seeing a pattern here.
5. Lyn Cash aka Bobbie Cole ~ a fantastic friend, amazing critique partner and a fun blogger.
Gee, thanks, Alexis. You know, I was really hoping to find something extra to do when it’s just a few days before Christmas. LOL
1. I love to belt out Broadway show tunes (Curtains up, light the lights, we’ve got nothing to hit but the heights! . . .) and tap dance on the kitchen’s tile floor when no one is home. Okay, so it’s not what anyone else would call tap dancing. Let’s just call it . . . improvisational. And I have to make up a lot of the words to the songs because I don’t know them. But it makes me happy. (I suppose it also makes me simple-minded, but we won’t go there right now.)
2. My husband is Mr. Clean and I’m not. We’re like Felix and Oscar. When he unloads the dishwasher he stacks the freshly clean plates under the others to rotate them. He restacks food in the freezer and pantry the same way–newest on the bottom or in the back. Same with the underwear in his drawer–freshly laundered on the bottom. Yes, I know it’s logical, but it drives me crazy, so when my husband goes to work I undo all of his methodical orderliness and then giggle like hell.
3. I’m the world’s biggest ham. When I see a plunger I just want to grab it up and play microphone with it. I do a mean Jerry Lewis impression and lots of others. I do them all the time when I’m at home alone and sometimes for my family and friends. I also used to play ventriloquist with my daughter when she was a baby. She was the…well, I was the ventriloquist. What? You haven’t tried that yet? Wake your baby or grandbaby up from its nap right now and give it a whirl. (Note to self: Keep adult daughter from reading this comment.)
4. I talk to myself incessantly. (You do? Yes, I do. Huh, well that’s pretty odd. What do you mean, odd? Nothing, I just . . .) When I’m at home alone, or at my computer or in the car, I do it out loud–and I use different voices. The rest of the time I’m doing the same thing silently in my head. It’s not as crazy as it sounds . . . well, okay, maybe it is, but there’s a method to my madness. You see, most of the time I’m plotting out storylines and doing the roles of the characters (with different voices) to see if I like the way everything flows.
5. I have people living inside my head–a thriving community of fiction characters who wake me up in the middle of the night about 3 a.m. God help me if I have to get up and pee about that time ‘cause if I do they’ll never let me get back to sleep. They talk about me behind my back saying things like, “Oh, Daisy shouldn’t have had you act that way in the last scene. It goes against your character. What was she thinking? You’d better lay down the law and insist she change things so they’re more suitable to your personality.” And then they start to nag and pester me until I drag myself downstairs to the computer and fix things to their satisfaction.
Um . . . if I added a sixth thing about me it would definitely be that I’m wordy. LOL
Tagging these five wonderful authors and sensational women:
–Anya Bast
–Samantha Winston/Jennifer Macaire
–Cheyenne McCray
–Cassandra Kane
–Rebecca Aires
Gee, Alexis, and I didn’t get you anything for Christmas.
Five things about me:
1. I once wanted to be a supermodel — but didn’t get quite tall enough to pursue that career. Stupid genes.
2. I remember all five of my childrens’ names…I just often call them by the wrong ones. Luckily, they all have a great sense of humor. Except when I mistakenly called the “baby” Blue — that’s the name of our black labrador.
3. I am scared to death of heights.
4. I blush at the drop of a hat — really, it’s quite irritating.
5. Supernatural abilities run in my family, but we keep those things a bit private for obvious reasons. And no, I’m not talking about the people living in my head, telling me stories. That would be my muse…she’s harmless. Mostly.
Now tagging: Phyllis Campbell; Amelia Elias; Sara Reinke; Rebecca Goings; and Denise Patrick … all great authors.
I was tagged by my friend Meg Allison to do this, so here goes…
1.) I sing. But not professionally or even in the church choir. No, I sing whenever I hear music. Do I sing well? Hmm.. I think so. **yeah right** So when I’m doing housework or fixing dinner, I usually have the stereo on, and I’m singing. I’ve been known to be belting out some high notes when DH comes home from work. He’s learned to live with it. LOL I also sing in the car with the kids, and now, I believe I’ve ingrained them so much with my singing, that now they are starting to do it themselves.
2.) I’m extremely shy. I don’t like to talk to people I don’t know, and certainly not on the phone. I couldn’t stand the job I had where I actually had to “call” people to set up appointments and such. And God forbid I have to call to order a pizza. Ugh. I never like to talk about myself, either, so I never tell people about my writing unless they specifically ask what I do or how it’s going.
3.) However, I’m surrounded by family and friends who DON’T READ. Isn’t that the biggest irony in an author’s life?? My family only reads my print books (but I think I’ve shocked my sister with some of the content LOL) and none of my friends have read any of them. And yet they still ask how my writing is going. Well, it would be better if you actually read one of my books so we could talk about that!!
No, I’m not bitter. Not at all. What makes you think that????
4.) I met my DH on Prodigy, a precursor to the Internet in 1992. I was looking for a snail mail pen pal and posted a request on an online bulletin board. He wrote me back, then wrote me via snail mail, then called me, and finally moved 500 miles to be with me. We were married when he was 19 and I was 20. We’ve been married for almost 12 years now.
5.) I love to crochet. I don’t have much time to do it now because of my writing and promotion and such, but I think I’ve made almost everyone in my family their own afghan, and I used to collect odd and out of print skeins of variegated yarn. I still have hundreds of skeins. I taught myself how to crochet in 1999 (seems longer than that) and I took off with my hook. Learned how to make crocheted stuffed animals, and even opened a hand-made teddy bear business. But I folded it after two years, because it only made enough money to pay for itself. With the amount of time and effort that went into each bear, it wasn’t worth it. But it was a great experience, because I made a few bears for charity, as well as for a hospital in Long Island. I even had a store on eBay!
~~Becka
Meg Allison tagged me, too, so here goes!
1. My husband and I met at a wedding. His best friend married mine. He was the best man, and I was the maid of honor. I thought I looked fat and ridiculous in my bridesmaid’s dress, and that he was so handsome, I had no chance in the world with him. So I was utterly and completely myself — goofy sense of humor and all. And wouldn’t you know it? He liked me anyway.
2. I would rather eat a cheeseburger than a steak. To clarify, I’d rather eat a GOOD cheeseburger than a steak. I sort of have this secret ambition in life to find the world’s most perfect cheeseburger.
3. I am shy when it comes to getting up in front of a group of people I don’t know. I’m Little Miss Sunshine Social on the internet, and I used to be in plays and musicals in my youth — had no stage fright at all. Just the opposite, really — I loved performing. But performing was the key. When it comes to just being me, I wilt. I think other people are far more interesting. Which is why I create them in my writing.
4. My brother-in-law owns a restaurant, The Burger Lounge, in Lake Tahoe, California. Convenient for me, considering #2.
5. My car’s radiator leaked all over Karen Robards’ drive way. Yes, Karen Robards, the NY Times best-selling author. My radiator didn’t just leak a little bit. It leaked EVERYWHERE, the veritable Biblical flood of antifreeze all over her blacktop. (And she is the most gracious person in the world to tell me it was no big deal.)
This was fun! Thanks for the opportunity, Meg!
Sara
How’s this for coming late to the party? (Bonus thing about me–I’m chronically late. As you might’ve noticed.)
1) Personality-wise, I’m such a guy. I love playing the xbox (the sword-and-sorcery games mostly, where I can kill lots of stuff), action movies with explosions, hate girly chick-flicks, love hiking and camping, love ice hockey, never really outgrew being a tomboy… yeah, sometimes it’s like my parents have a really funny-looking second son.
2) Yet I also dearly love getting all dressed-up and prettified. Love having my hair done, love doing the special “evening makeup,” love wearing fancy dresses, sparkly jewelry, and pretty shoes. As long as I only have to do it a couple times a year, I get a big kick out of it.
3) I am the absolute WORST at decorating my house. For instance, right now? I have no art or photos on my walls at all. I do, however, have a huge fabric bat over my computer with EEK! painted across its chest. (Blame Laura Hamby, she gave it to me.) The only other thing hanging on my walls is a clock, and it’s not exactly where I want it but there was already a nail in the other place, so I just stuck it there… Martha Stewart, I ain’t.
4) I am very political and really have to bite my tongue sometimes to keep it off online forums so I don’t offend anyone. The thing I miss most about my recent move across the state is that I can no longer listen to my favorite public radio station and get all the news. *sniffle*
5) I would lie, cheat, steal or kill to go into space. Man, I’d love to go into space! Can you imagine anything cooler than that? Weightlessness! Wish they’d hurry up and make it affordable (ha) for us regular people, cuz I wanna go SO bad.
So, there’s 5 things about me! Thanks for tagging me, Meg, only next time maybe tell me you did it, you sneaky bat, you! *snicker*