thisiswhatyoushalldo

1. What was the best compliment you ever received?
I recently returned from a college reunion and everyone said I looked great – I’ll take it.

2. What are your five best talents?
I am a great left-hander
I can usually craft a pretty quick witty punchline
I make great homemade bread,
I don’t get lost
I write pretty good introductions to stories – no real story but intros, I got those nailed. I once said that my dream job would have been to write that opening scene at the beginning “Law and Order” where random strangers usually find a dead body and then Lenny shows up and delivers a zinger and then the the opening sequence rolls.

3. What do you wish most people knew about you, and why?
I am clumsy and yet quite nimble.

4. What has been your biggest accomplishment so far, and why does it mean so much to you?
I have many I am proud of. Graduating college, completing my army service and being a first runner-up in the Miss Sweden contest.

5. If you could achieve anything in your life, what would it be?
Solve global climate change and environmental warming. It would be cool to make the earth cool-er.

I’m off to my alma mater to hang with old college radio friends.

1. What’s your favorite song from the 90s?
“Walk on the Ocean” by Toad the Wet Sprocket

2. What’s your favorite song from the 80s?
“Burning Down the House” by Talking Heads

3. What’s your favorite song from the 00s?
“The Rising” by Bruce Springsteen

4. What song can you listen to over and over?
“Jersey Girl” by Bruce Springsteen, via Tom Waits

5. What song needs to just go away forever?
“Macarena” by Los Del Rio

1. It’s the end of banned book week. What banned book have you read?
“Lolita” Don’t let the skeevy premise of the book make you avoid it. This is one tome of the cannon of “Great American Novels,” an allegory for the pursuit of the great American dream bounced against the improbable hint of evil beyond every horizon. And the sentences are fantastically crafted. Nabokov is an exceptional writer.

2. What famous book do you think is overrated?
The easy answer is the bible but I am going to go with “The Hunger Games” Sure it’s an ok movie but I tried to read the drivel until I realized: “Hey, I’m not a 12-year-old girl, and put it down. Not a well-written book.

3. What is your ultimate must-read book?
Never ask a literature major to name just one book! Not fair. I will go with a book I have read several times and still enjoy – “The Stand” by Stephen King.

4. What would a famous book be called if their titles were just summaries of their plots?
“Huckleberry Finn”
-or-
“The Boy Who Went Down The River And Met A Runaway Slave.”

5. What should I read next?
I am re-reading “Moby-Dick” for the third or so time and still enjoying it and taking something new away from it. I highly recommend.

1. Today is the Autumnal Equinox, the end of summer and the beginning of fall. How was your summer?
Slow paced, kind of hot, especially July and oddly hot for September.  It went by quickly.

2. What’s the best movie to watch if you want to get into Halloween mood/autumn mood?
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (#1)

3. What’s your favorite thing about autumn?
I like the colors of the leaves, the cooler days and the cast of the glow of the sun falling in the evening. (It’s the hidden poet in me?)

4. Do you have any autumn traditions?
Not really. I will probably bake more bread and craft up a big ol’ pot of french onion soup.

5. What smell brings you back to your youth?
The smell of onions and green peppers sauteing in the skillet – the base of most of my mother’s meals.

This Friday Five is brought to you by Hurricane Florence:

1. Have you ever experienced a hurricane firsthand?
Nope. Safely ensconced in the landlocked and high altitudes of Denver.

2. Have you ever experienced outside heat over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celcius)?
This summer we had a few days where it hit 103 or so. I grew up in a mountainous desert and there are parts of the county where it is so hot and arid in the summer that you just never go there.

3. When and where was the coldest temperature you have ever experienced?
60 degrees below zero in Craig one particularly nasty winter. The town, however, didn’t shut down, although I do believe they did close school because the water and sewer pipes froze.

4. Is your household prepared for a possible power outage of two to seven days?
No, not really. I probably have enough food and have some gas stoves and grills so I can cook stuff but I don’t have water reserves on hand.

5. Do you have a go bag?
No. I guess it is because I live in a very temperant and urban environment.